Cheater, Cheater, Steroid Eater

Lance Armstrong's fame was predicated on his successes. Now that he's admitted to Oprah that he used performance enhancing drugs - or methods, or whatever - he has succeeded at NOTHING.

Stop talking about him. Get his ugly, lying, cheating mug off of the screen. Let him langiush on the sidelines of history as the biggest cheater and loser sports have seen. 

Shine the spotlight on someone who's playing by the rules to win.

Gasperilla 2012

Jen, Andrea & Annie

Oddly enough, I grew up in Seminole, FL, just across the bay from Tampa where the annual Gasperilla festivities take place, but never went to the party. Late last year, Andrea and I were talking about me coming down for a visit. Gasperilla weekend seemed like the perfect excuse. So, in early January, I booked a flight and we were on! I arrived late Friday afternoon and before you knew it, we had a table in the bar at a great tapas restaurant, called Ceviche. The bar was packed! There was a great band playing a blend of Caribbean and jazz music, people everywhere having a great time with their friends. We ordered a bottle of Martin Codax albirino - a delicious Spanish white that we've been drinking for years - and a variety of tapas, we were starving! Before you knew it, we were catching up, laughing ands having a great time. After dinner, we headed back for more wine ands conversation on the patio. It was such a nice change of pace to be outside! Its been crazy cold in DC lately - it is January, after all - none the less, it was great to be sitting outside, relaxing and talking. Saturday was the actual Gasperilla festivities. We got going a little late, need I remind you of the aforementioned wine? We mixed up cocktails to go and called a cab. Gasperilla was fun, full of crazy crowds, costumes...everything you'd expect and some that you wouldn't. We saw more than one person being carried by their friends at two in the afternoon, amateurs. We ended the night at a dance club followed by pizza delivery, just like the old days!! Good times.

The more things change...

Am I destined NOT to take a fabulous trip around the world, or around the US? Everytime I try to make the plans, something goes awry. This time, Andrea and I both had job changes that impacted our ability to travel this summer. Since neither of us are independently weathly, we had to answer The Man's call.

The upside is that my new job opportunity is allowing me to travel.  On my most recent trip, I was able to spend some time at Joshua Tree National Park, which has always been on my list - - at least since I fell in love with U2's "Joshua Tree" album!  Corny reason to visit a national park, but it worked for me.  The park is gorgeous.  Such different terrain than I am used to on the East Coast.  Joshua trees are fascinating.  They thrive in very harsh conditions and, after the first few years, are pretty slow growers.  Seeing them towering over the desert made me wonder just how long some of them had existed and about all of the changes they have witnessed.

My next trip will be to Cincinnati - - other than watching WKRP growing up, I don't know much about it and never considered visiting.  I'll do some research to see what's cool to check out while I'm there.  Recently I learned that I have family (extended) there as well, so hopefully, I'll be able to see/meet them.

The other nice thing about traveling for work is that work picks up the tab! For the business related activites, not my adventures - those are on my own dime.

Invitations!

The invitations have already started to roll in!
Nicole, actually, her Mom, Savonne has invited us all to the beach! I'm not sure which beach - hey, who is going to question a free vacation at the beach? It is in North or South Carolina. We'll stay for four days and I'll be back in Raliegh in time for the wedding on Saturday.

Fundraising and Meeting Famous Authors

Today I attended Classroom Central's annual fund & awareness raising lunch, as a guest of a client and as a supporter of the organization. It was a double whammy for me.  One, because I think it's a great cause and two, because I got to meet Janice Booth, their Executive Director and published author.

Here are some really crappy statistics about poverty & the CMS school system:

• 100,000 kids live in poverty in the Charlotte region
• Everyday, 93 children drop out of school in NC because they lack BASIC school supplies.
• It would take $20 Millon dollars to provide for every underprivlieged child
• 27,000 NC inmates are HS dropouts and the state spends $635 Millon dollars to incarcerate them
• It only costs $200 to provide basic supplies for a student
• One class goes through 200-300 pencils in a MONTH

Now for the great statistics about Classroom Central:

• will provide $5 Millon dollars in school supplies this year
• turns every $1 donated into $7+ in school supplies (wish I could do that with my dollars!)
• gives out 39,000+ pens, 32,000 pencils & 7,200 one subject notebooks each week

As Mick Mixon said, there is enough money to fund these children's needs...it's just in your pocket! 

Now, back to the second reason I was glad to go to the lunch.  I was able to chat with Janice Booth who wrote "Only Pack What You Can Carry: My Path to Inner Strength, Confidence and True Self-Knowledge".  Janice spoke on Charlotte Talks recently and I throughly enjoyed her interview! It was very timely considering the trip I am embarking on next month.  While I will have a co-pilot on this trip, she reminded me of the adventures I've had travelling on my own, rekindling and fanning the flame of independent travel! Janice was incredibly warm and personable today, taking the time to share a story about having dinner with a Prince in Rome; an opportunity that only presented itself because she was alone.  I really appreciated the time she took to chat with me, even more so, because she had just finished one of the biggest events of the year on her business calendar!

The beginning of a beautiful friendship...and our first road trip!

Sixteen years ago Andrea and I took our first road trip to Florida and stayed at the super fancy Sunset View Motel Apartments on Indian Rocks beach.


Here's what I wrote in my diary when we got back. March 13, 1995, "Andrea and I had a great break! Neither one of us has had such a great trip - ever! We got along really, really well. A few tense moments, but that was when we were exhausted, so we just went to sleep. I have a feeling we are going to be very good friends."
















I can't believe how right I was!

That was our first major road trip but not our last. Over the next few weeks, I'll share some of the more entertaining bits to prep you for this June's road trip.

Thanks Sis!

Look what Kathy dropped off this afternoon!

Can't wait to see what great ideas it has for the road trip.

Today's Funny

Most of you know I am thinking about relocating to Portland at the end of my sabbatical, here's a cartoon one of my Portlandia friends sent!  HA!

Change...Its the only thing that stays the same...

At the end of May, I am planning to move for the first time in 13 years! I came to Charlotte five months after graduation without much of a plan, but I had a job and a roomate. My friend, Courtney had decided not to take a job here and recommended I apply for it. I did and I got it. We swapped roomates, she moved in with Andrea and I moved in with Nicole in the Queen City - all four of us were friends in college.

For years, I've been reading about gap years and sabbitcals. After reading Eat, Pray, Love, I almost chucked everything and hit the road.  I wanted to, and had plans with my best friend Andrea to do just that. I even started selling my furniture! But a few things changed and for many reasons, the timing wasn't quite right for me to make a big change.

Andrea did. She went to India for a few months and got certified to teach Yoga, then spent time in Spain before relocating to Florida. I was envious of her and proud of her for chasing a dream and making a change. It seems as though I have finally gotten to the place in my life where I'm ready.  I am researching gap years, reading, tweeting, talking and making plans.

God's Gift to the Single Girl

Rotisserie chicken. So simple, yet so easily overlooked.

Rotisserie chicken is god's gift to the single girl.  For a mere $6.99 ($5.99 if you find it on sale) you have a delicious, well cooked bird.  You can heat up some frozen veggies, toss them in a little butter and garlic add some potatoes (Bob Evans does a mean heat & serve version) and you've got a great "homemade" nutritionally balanced meal - go easy on the butter, we're just trying to add flavor here, not a heart attack.

The next day, take the second breast for lunch. Add a piece of fruit, yogurt and a bottle of water - DONE!

Dinner the night after...you can shred it into a salad.  You can dice it up and toss it into a pasta dish.  You can stand up in your kitchen and pick the bird clean with your fingers.

So many options!! How do YOU like your rotisserie chicken?!

My Favorite Moment in a Relationship

Is when its over.

It’s that crystal clear moment when I realize the person I’ve been dating has nothing to do with the person I thought I had been dating.

They look the same.
They speak the same.

But they are different.

It’s the moment when you realize everything you thought and hoped and wished for is naught. Ain’t there. Doesn’t exist. They are not who you thought they were.

After 34 years of dating, ok, not quite 34 years. More like 18 years of dating, I’d like to think I’d catch on sooner. That I would be able to spot the crazy. The lunatic. The nut job...a little bit sooner.

This one only took 46 days.

Could have been worse.

New Swallowtail!!

I left home with a chrysalis on the counter and came home to...

Butterfly Garden - List of Plants - Zone 7

Here is a list of the plants currently in my butterfly garden:

• Butterfly bush (white)
• Bee balm
• Aster
• Salvia (variety)
• Marigolds
• Cosmos
• Hyssop
• Flat leaf parsley
• Dill
• Yarrow (yellow & peach)
• Confederate jasmine
• Lantana
• Verbena (tall leggy & purple)
• Coreopsis
• Climbing hydrangea (not doing well)
• Unknown shrubs (2)

I have noticed this year that the butterflies spend a lot of time in the tops of my photinia's and white pine. I think they like the dense canopy.

Butterfly's in the Garden!

I am so excited about and proud of my butterfly garden!  Here are a few of the visitors I've managed to capture on film this year.

Monarch on Buddlea (Butterfly Bush)

Horace's Duskywing Skipper on Salvia leaf

Lola & the Swallowtail (perched on cosmos)

Grey Hairstreak on purple Verbena

Green Lynx Spider at home on a Cosmo plant

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Butterfly Bush

The Madness of Oak leaf Hydrangea's!

Oak leaf hydrangea's, Maple, cast iron plants

My big Labor Day 2010 project was to plant 3 Oak leaf hydrangea's.  Under a 60 year old Maple tree of unknown variety.  Hence, the "madness!"

I knew it was going to be a tough dig.  What I didn't know was that it wasn't going to be so much of a dig as a hack at the teeny spaces between the giant roots, curse, take a deep breathe, remember that I love gardening, hack...repeat.  Eventually, I found three decent spots under the tree which were not anywhere near where my landscape plan showed planting the oak leafs, but that's ok.  They are in and I think they look fantastic.

I also dug up and divided some cast iron plants and pocket planted them amongst the hydrangea's and along the slope behind the Maple.  I relocated a coral bell and painted fern that were not happy elsewhere in the garden.  After watering everything in, I sat down with a big glass of ice cold water and enjoyed the view.

Mushroom Pomodoro

or, at least that's what I'm going to call it!

Ingredients: sea shell pasta, mushrooms, tomatos, garlic, green onion, red pepper flakes, olive oil, basil, parmesan cheese, salt & pepper.  Adjust ingredients based on how many servings you'd like to make.

Boil pasta, drain, reserve some pasta water
sauté mushrooms & garlic in olive oil (quite possibly the BEST smell on this planet!)
add diced fresh tomato
add pat of butter
little more olive oil
chiffonade basil, add to heated mixture right before you toss with pasta - - give it just a second or two on the heat.
Combine all ingredients.
Add pasta water as necessary - if it's dry.
Grate fresh parm on top, serve immediately.

Delicious!!  Very tasty post yoga vegetarian dinner.  Enjoy!
If you try it out, let me know what you think in the comments.

Something's in the air

We’re experiencing a major heat wave, which is miserable. I am having the BEST day, just wanted to share.

Car Repair updates & a delicious dish!

Betcha were worried, you hadn't heard from me in awhile!  Well, the SAAB A-C recharge went just fine.  This post is about the most yummy linguini primavera!

I am trying very hard to eat a little more healthily, locally and creatively.  Here's the result!

Ingredient List: linguini, fresh red and green peppers, white onion, broccoli, diced tomatoes, porcini mushrooms, zucchini, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, chicken broth.  I also had a chance to use some fresh herbs from my garden - basil, curly parsley and dill.

Today's Crazy Idea

I am going to attempt to recharge my a/c system in my Saab 9-3 convertible. Now, why recharge the system when you have a convertible? Why not just lower the top?

Well. You’d have to have a functioning top. That’s another post for another day.

Armed with an R-12 to R-134a adapter, some sort of valve do-ma-jiggy, a can of freon and about 30 minutes of online research (with no pictures mind you!) I am off to try to find the low side line.

Apparently, once I find this line, I am supposed to attached this pressurized can (which, if you attach to the wrong line will blow up, the kind man at Advance Auto Zone said while encouraging me to take it to my car repair place) and, if all goes well it will magically blow cold air again.

Totally sounds like I know what I’m doing, right?

May the force be with me.

And Mom, I am going to wear my safety glasses!

Ok, I'm pissed.

Recently, I ended a long term romantic relationship. My friends have been very supportive and almost all of them reacted with anger - - directed towards the Venezuelan. Part of that reaction is that they are my friends and don’t like it when I get hurt. (They rock.) The other part was incredulity at the fact that over a year into the relationship, when backed into a corner, he explains that he doesn’t ever see himself with a family or married. Whether this is true or whether he lacked the balls to say that he didn’t see that future with me, I won’t know until I get his wedding invitation.

I thanked all of my friends for their reactions but told them not to be angry with him. There were lots of good things about the relationship and the ending was rather uneventful. After reading a blog post (by one of my favorite bloggers! Check her out here: Chez Rougie) about online dating - - she is also recently single, I am pissed.

HELLO!! WHY WERE WE DATING?? WTF?

It’s not like I struggle for things to do on the weekends, well, any day of the week. Between networking, fabulous friends and family, I have kinda a full schedule.

Now I have to start dating again and I AM PISSED.

I am pissed because I have to go out there again.
I am pissed because I have to reactivate my match dot com membership.
I am pissed because I’ll have to go to Alive After 5 and hang out with the 20 somethings and the 30+ somethings who are single 'cause they are weird, just getting divorced or old dudes.
I am pissed because I have to go out there again. (Repetition duly noted.)

Welcome to Stage 3 of the grieving process - Anger & Bargaining.

Oh, and the Tar Heels made it to the Final Four of the NIT. Do they call it a Final Four in the NIT? I mean, they were Not Invited to the Tournament.

Oh, and...I am pissed.