Ode to Olyphant

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways

I love that you're kind of sleazy

But yet, you make me want to root for you

Yes, in The Girl Next Door (and Go, and Scream 2), you stole the show

You were the bad guy, but I didn't care

I can't help falling in love with you even when you're playing gay (The Broken Hearts Club)

And I, too, would have found you irresistible in the Banana Republic dressing room, just like Carrie Bradshaw

So what if you use toilet paper as a coffee filter?

Because of you, I'm probably going to have to purchase "Catch and Release"

Just so I can look at you in those soft looking t-shirts and rugged jeans

I get butterflies just thinking about it . . .

Now That's Customer Service

Since we're on a flashback-follow up kick with some of our previous postings, I decided to share with you a follow-up to one of my more recent postings about how eyeshadow scares me:

http://morningcupcake.blogspot.com/2007/10/eyeshadow-my-frienemy.html

I received a lovely note, on Nordstrom stationary (how can I get some of that?), from the Clarins woman that helped me with my MAC purchase a couple of weeks ago. She wrote me a very nice note saying that she hoped all my products were working for me and that I have fun in London for the wedding - she had just gone to London in the summer and I told her I was just there too in May and we were comparing our experiences and pretty much just gushing about our trips - and I had shared with her that I was going back over Thanksgiving for a friend's wedding....that's why I needed new eyeshadow.

But in her note, she had mentioned that she's available for me whenever I need more makeup help and she could schedule a nice mini-facial and consultation when I'm available. Of course, it's probably a ploy to try and get me to purchase more products and maybe switch over to Clarins but I still appreciated the gesture.

This is why I LOVE LOVE LOVE Nordstrom - cause this is not the first 'Thank You' note I have received from them. I received a 'Thank You' note from the hosiery department last year when I was stocking up on long socks (HUE makes great knee high cotton socks). I thought that was nice. I would have to imagine that they write out these 'Thank You' notes during their down time at the store which I think is a nice touch.

It's just good customer service - they thank me for shopping with them and I thank them by continuing to purchase from their store.

It Never Hurts To Ask

I am starting to feel like my posts this past summer were little wishes I wrote down and threw into a wishing well. Earlier this week, it was the Darcy Buffalini situation. He probably still thinks I'm psycho, but hey - he did add me to his network. I thought that was a lost cause after more than three months without a response.

But wait . . . there's more!!

Remember my post "Call Me Irresponsible?" Here it is, if you want to take a gander:
http://morningcupcake.blogspot.com/2007/07/lost-and-found-except-for-found-part.html

Well, you may not believe this, but TODAY I got an e-mail from the Purdue yearbook staff in response to my question about leftover copies of the 1996 "Debris." And guess what? They DO have extra copies and can sell me one for the bargain price of $65. Unbelievable. They are still able to sell me an 11 year old yearbook. I am so impressed! I mean, thinking of losing that yearbook made me a little sick. Especially since I was in one of the featured pictures for my sorority's page - a full size barn dance picture of my friend Christy and me. Perhaps this makes me vain, but really - when you got your high school yearbooks, weren't you excited to see where you were featured? Then again, maybe I'm a little bit of a camera whore. But don't worry - I don't frame pictures of just myself and hang them in my house or anything.

I can't wait to see what else shows up. Don't these things come in threes?

Cutting Class

For the first time in the nine months that we have been attending dance class, Amanda and I cut our first class this past Monday. It had nothing to do with the fact that we are learning our recital routine and we couldn't take it - nope, far from it. I, personally, look forward to Monday night dance class - because it's a great workout and a lot of fun. But this past week, we both got to class early and started chatting. There's a class of young ladies before us that Miss Angelica teaches - and it's always fun to hear what they're dancing to (a few weeks ago, it was 'Beat It') - but this time around, a distinctive male voice cut into our conversation that made me pause and look at Amanda in a queer way.

It was him....she knew it, I knew it. It was the substitute!

I don't know if we've ever spoke about the substitute before but I REALLY don't enjoy his classes. I'm sure he doesn't get much notice that he's going to sub so that gives him less time to prepare - but when he does teach the class, it's a lot more JAZZ than hip hop. And he doesn't seem to have a great grasp of the English language - I'm guessing he's Russian. Other thoughts in the class lean towards Spaniard. But regardless, he does less explaining and more "grunting."
The substitute makes up these random routines - oftentimes they involve a half somersault at the end. He goes ridiculously fast and then doesn't even stop to explain the step-by-step process. His explanation usually comes out as "it's an uh - and then an uh - and uh uh uh." Seriously. I don't know about you but I don't respond well to grunting. (It's hard to understand.)

I will say one positive thing about the sub's class - he has a good ab workout routine he does to Missy Elliott's "Lose Control" that I still do at the gym when I'm there. See - a positive.

So after taking a peek inside the class (he saw me, and knows that I didn't show up to class) to confirm our worst fears, Amanda and I sat there to weigh our options - hit the gym? I don't have my sneakers. Go home? Then I'll feel like a pig since I was looking forward to the class. In the meantime, another one of our classmates took zero time to ponder and she's like, 'I'm outta here - I'm going to the gym. See you next week.'

Final decision: Let's go grab coffee - Amanda got a decaf, I got a tea. And we caught up on life and our past weekend's trip to PSU - it was fun. However, we had to pass on the Slurpees since we didn't earn them this week.

Finding Your Niche

There are many multi-talented people out there....there are those celebrities that can act and sing or sing and act and sometimes you will find that those actors or singers branch out into other things like clothing lines, hair extensions, perfumes, home products, etc. Let's take a look at some of those multi-talented celebrities and maybe pick out a niche for them - because isn't it all about finding your niche and sticking with it?

Jennifer Lopez (aka - J.Lo) - Fly Girl turned actor turned singer turned entrepreneur:
Was she a good dancer? Sure.
Is she a good actor? Not really. C'mon - are you telling me that she can really pass for Italian in the Wedding Planner? Nuh-uh.
Is she a good singer? Mediocre - her current album sales are kind of flopping but she does have some catchy tunes (from the past).
Glow by J.Lo? Haven't smelled it.
J.Lo clothing? Haven't bought any but it's not really my style.
Final Take: sure her fashions and perfume are doing well - but maybe she should stick to one thing she does really well - dancing...don't turn your back on your Fly Girl roots!

Jessica Simpson (aka - 36DD) - Holy Roller turned singer turned actress turned entrepreneur:
Does she believe? Of course - her Dad was a preacher after all, before he sold his soul to the devil.
Singing abilities? She can belt out a ballad - but so can most people - those are the easiest songs to sing. But she has never reached the star power of Britney or Christina in the pop realm. I mean, she claims that Dolly Parton is her idol and when asked to honor her at the Kennedy Center by singing '9-to-5,' she messes up in the actual performance, tries to re-tape it afterwards in front of no audience and then ends up getting the whole thing cut out of the TV episode.
Acting abilities? None to speak of. I refuse to watch 'Dukes of Hazzards,' I hear that her 'Blonde Ambition' movie went straight to DVD and she had to hawk them on QVC herself because no one wanted to distribute them and her upcoming movie, 'Major Movie Star' is a modern-day Private Benjamin...but Goldie Hawn, she is not.
Retail Therapy: She has a shoe line that I'm told (first hand) makes your feet and knees hurt and makes you want to take the heel and stab it right into her jugular. She also has a hair extension line with her BFF Ken Paves. I'd like to see the sales figures on those....this is an area that I'm unfamiliar with.
Final Take: Find someone else to marry and be dumb with. None of your chosen professions are working for you.

Britney Spears (aka - the Train Wreck) - Singer turned actor turned entrepreneur:
Singing abilities? Singing is quite a stretch - let's just call her a great entertainer that puts out some catchy dance tunes and worse ballads.
The Big Screen? She tried it once ('Crossroads'), it stunk, and she really hasn't done movies since. Now this is a girl that knows what to avoid.
Smell me? Yeah, she has a few perfumes out on the market - and yes, I'm a fan of one of them...let's review them, shall we?
Curious - her first one, feeling it out - curious to see how sales will go
Fantasy - expanding the line - I like this one...and the bottle looks like a little lychee
In Control - no, you're not
Believe - yes, we believe you're certifiably crazy
Final Take - stick to the entertaining -it's what you do best.

Those are just a few of the multi-talented celebrities that are making headlines out there. We haven't even touched upon the Olsen Twins and their mega-empire of KMart fashion, high end fashion and poor acting abilities....Didn't 'NY Minute' totally tank?

Anyways - I think it's important to find your niche and go with it - but if you try and do too much and expose all your talents (Jessica Simpson) you might be in for a unkind surprise - that you're really not that good at anything you do.

How Did I Get Here - Part III

Hello faithful readers. I have an update. Yes, an update. If any of you were reading our blog last summer, you may recall a post I wrote called "How Did I Get Here Part II." The full post can be found at: http://morningcupcake.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-did-i-get-here-part-ii.html. But to save you the trouble, here's a quick recap. I am amazed at how far a tangent can take me. While my bizarre web of tangents usually begins with imdb.com, sometimes it is more personal. Sometimes, it starts with classmates.com. Whatever happened to . . . . ? In one desperate, stalker-ish move, one such search ended with a LinkedIn invitation to one Darcy Buffalini, the boy I was friends with in the 1st Grade.

I am happy to report that Darcy must not think I am too psycho (perhaps just a little), because he accepted my LinkedIn request. Yes - that's right - I am now in Darcy's "network." Unfortunately for me, Darcy did not send any message with the aforementioned acceptance. It could be that the Darcy in my network is another Darcy Buffalini - a Darcy Buffalini who was not born in 1974, was not a Spencer Road Runner, and never had some board game involving a pizzeria that he played after school. Without an actual message, one never knows.

But I guess a connection is a connection.

Dial It Down....

This weekend, a bus-load of us went to the Purdue vs. Penn State game in Happy Valley. It was a fun time - the bus was probably the best part - because Purdue lost. But we still managed to have a lot of fun. And as with every group, you always get a select few that probably would've been better off watching the game from home or just dialing it down a few notches in case you couldn't read the annoyed faces/glances that were coming your way.

Here are just some things those select few did that would've made my trip just a tad better than it already was:
Select Few #1 - not a Purdue alum - a friend of an alum...just along for the ride. No ties to Purdue, no ties to Penn State. Thinks his friend looks like Chad Pennington, QB of the NY Jets. All through the game, starts yelling, 'J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.' Um, yeah, you're in the middle of PA and if you're going to have any NFL fans around, it's going to be the Steelers or the Eagles, my friend. So let's just quit with the J-E-T-S chant....you're making us look bad.

Select Few #2 - Purdue alum - only part of the club for a couple of years. Becomes loud and constantly looks like she's having a seizure when drinking and watching football. Can't seem to sit still and jumps around and paces when bad plays occur - which is quite often with Purdue. During the game, stands the whole time and yells....yells a lot. Has no sense of Rhythm because during the "We Are - Penn State" chant, she manages to yell, "We Are - Boilermakers." Do you see the problem? Penn State (clap, clap) - two syllables. Boi-ler-ma-kers (clap, clap, clap, clap) - four syllables. But guess what? Purdue people do that chant too and it goes, 'We Are - PUR-DUE." Hey look - Purd-due (clap, clap)...two syllables. I think that would be a better choice for the counter chant, don't you?! But it wasn't only the yelling and the lack of rhythm that set me off, it was when it was a quiet moment in the stadium she decides to yell, 'Joe Pa sucks!' that I had to turn around, only to see her huddled into her seat and hiding because...oh my goodness, could it be she yelled without thinking? I finally just had to say, 'You are going to get killed and none of us are going to jump in and save you.' And that was that.

There were other select members on the bus that I could've done without but the above two were probably the ones that took the cake. I'm not even going to start in about how we all sat together in the stands and left the stadium at the same time and guess who manages to get lost and can't find her way to the bus - that's right...Select Few #2. The search party was called out and she was the last person on the bus....oh yeah....that was fun.

Overall - it was a fun trip...I just don't understand why some people have to be so loud and make a scene while at a football game....we know you love football (it's why we're all there, isn't it?), we know you love Purdue (it's why we're all there, isn't it?) and yes, we want our team to win (it's why we're there, isn't it?) but do you have to make us look bad? Just dial it down and maybe, just maybe, someone will walk back to the bus with you.