Lulu Held Hostage

...by salt and German food and Oktoberfest beer....Day 3.

So, I worked all Friday night prepping, and all day Saturday decorating and cooking and prepping and all Saturday night partying.

And now....I'm spending all day Sunday recovering. Not hung over - somehow I kept losing my drinks - just so so soooo exhausted. And needing to wring myself out from the salty food stuff...

Must. Lie. On. Couch.....and watch Tivo of Project Runway shows to catch up. And recover.

Beer hats and Dirndls and Spaetzle....EIN PROSIT!

I do love a theme. Give me a motif, some crafty supplies, food and bevvies, and I'm off!

Just ask my friends and the Pleasantville neighbors - our parties are starting to be popular...if not.....welllllll....maybe a touch legendary. Just a touch.

Cinco de Mayo two years in a row? They were standing around the kitchen island fighting over the mini burritos and the homemade salsa. The kids were in the garage using golf clubs to beat the heck out of the pinatas, after which we gave them a bucket of filled water balloons and a balloon launcher...The adults stayed so long and enjoyed the adult bevvies so much, we had to send two of them off to their own homes to fetch more tequila. Which didn't really matter in the end, because after THAT was gone, we started putting leftover alcohol into the blender with fruit and calling it a margarita. Which was really like a purple jesus party but that's a theme better off left in the '80's...

New Year's Eve? The black and white, flipflops/tuxedos party....again, standing around the kitchen island chowing, while we killed six bottles of champagne, wore plastic beer goggle glasses and topped off the night with a sappy, slurry version of "Stand by your Man" sung a capella by myfriendMK.

Memorial Day - fireworks in the backyard, pointed at the vampire neighbors (honest-to-god-dyin-if-I'm-lyin' - we never ever see any lights on in their house. So we think they're vampires. Only not the good young sexy kind - the older creepy kind. But aren't they all old.....really really old? Hmm...Digressing). Encouraging the kids to have a food fight with the melty s'mores cooked on the outdoor fire, which - combined with fireworks - made the firemen across the field 'take notice.' Hey - it's all fun until someone starts their little brother on fire....

The neighborhood block party? Everyone else brought a dish to pass...we rented the cotton candy machine and put all the kids into diabetic comas...

Yeah. I think they're all 'getting babysitters' and 'having to drop off the kids at the parents' and 'locking them in the house to keep them away from us and our sugar' for the next party....

So - I'm currently painting pumpkins in Oktoberfest colors, getting ready for our big shindig on Saturday!

Yup - decorated beer tent if it's nice, beer cellar if it rains.

We have beer, wine, spareribs and sauerkraut.

Bierrocks, spaetzle and hot German potato salad.

REAL bratwurst, shipped in from our favorite little butcher store in the midwest, where all of my German and Polish relatives live.

Lots of bacon to cook with and top with and wrap food with...and I ordered a new gallbladder with a side of fresh arteries for post-party....

Beads with Oktoberfest medallions, a giant fuzzy stuffed beer hat for Mr. Lulu and a tight dirndl t-shirt for me - couldn't quite bring myself to get the full serving girl outfit....did I mention beer?

OHHH and vintage German beer coasters - how deck is that?

Zicke zacke zicke zacke Hoi Hoi Hoi!!!

Your invitations are in the mail - regrets only.

HA HA Lulu's Blog will create Benefits and Provide Humor and drive Controversy for you won't it? - this is an Important and Witty Post Title

CRAFTING AN IMPORTANT AND WITTY BLOG TITLE is really key to getting people to my blog, I know! Because otherwise, I'm only found through readers googling baby psychic. Or shankapottamus. For a while it was Single Ladies Dance. The Travel Rules still brings 'em in a bit. Phlegm garnered a few hits. And then there were a few for baby phlegm.

Ick.

Phlegm.

I'm back - I had to dump a bottle of Purell on my keyboard. My fives and tens know how I feel about that sticky phlegmmy stuff....ewwwww...

But anyway - apparently there are 226,000 opportunities to get help for 'crafting' a blog title. (In the corporate world at the Huge, we say that it costs more to 'craft' something instead of simply writing it. Good to know if I was getting paid for blogging. So ummm. Back to my point....and I do have one).

I know this because I googled 'blog post titles.' I saw some good tips! Be humorous, create controversy, don't go past 65 characters, provide value, ask questions and personalize it with 'You.'

So I tried to work it all into one title. I can't wait to see how high I am on the google blog title meter!

And oh yeah, I'm still here and it's not November yet (right?) - I was speaking metaphorically or allegorically or sarcasticagorically - take your pick - in my last post. Thanks for potentially missing me! I'll still check in and out during the October road tour - most of my posts won't make sense though, so should provide some BENEFICIAL, HUMOROUS AND CONTROVERSIAL moments - or titles, anyway...

Cleanup on Life Aisle Two

Life is messy and I love it that way - always so much better to be out-of-control busy...but still....

So - at work, I'm co-leading the planning and production of 5 national meetings for over 1500 employees at the Huge, all to take place between October 17 - November 7. And my team is going through some transitions as well - all good, but still requires much care and feeding. And I have to travel for work every week between now and November 7. Besides the meetings.

Livin' the dream. (requisite "I don't mind the travel, corporate work gods so don't think I'm whining okaaaay???!!)

At home, I'm throwing an Oktoberfest party for multiple friends, neighbors and generations in late September, doing all of the crafting (sewing pirate bean bags for tossin,' girl and boy pirate bandannas, painting buckets for pirate loot, etc...) for a special Pirate birthday party in early October, having the daughter of friends stay with us for another early October weekend and trying to keep up with the etsy store, my blog, two email accounts and of course, remote Mom.

My mosaic farookas is gone.....for now. (ominous music)

My hard-fought 5 lb loss....is not gone. (even more ominous music)

The fitness center is sending me overdue weight loss messages. (wa wa waaaaaaaaa)

I have stabbed myself fourteen times with the needle on my sewing machine. (laugh track)

My new worry from Dr. Google is that if my husband were to spring an Alzheimer's test on me I would not be able to name more than 5 four-legged animals (zebra always comes to mind...over and over. Can't remember farm animals) so I've got a new Nintendo DS and I'm working Brain Age and Professor Layton puzzles before I go to bed.

Hot flashes wake me up between 4 and 6 am like clockwork ( and everyone KNOWS that women need a solid eight hours...according to MORE magazine.)

Shwew. That's the update. That's all I've got. See you in aisle ten......like, in November some time!

Mosaic Farookas

Exchange with my very nice, extremely smart doctor:

Dr. Smarty: "Huh. Yup, you have kind of a rash there, on your elbow."

Lulu: "Yeah, and it really feels like I was bitten-"

Dr. Smarty: "Nope."

Lulu: "Yes, I felt a stingi-"

Dr. Smarty: "Nope."

Lulu: "But I felt like a stinging and I slapped my arm and then-"

Dr. Starting to be Irritating Smarty: "Uhhhh no."

Lu Starting to be Irritated Lu: "STOP with the noping!!! I'm still pretty new to the SOUTH and I KNOW there are brown recluse spiders and this friend of mine got bitten in Maryland one time and he didn't notice it right awaaaaaay! And his wife had to takehimtotheERandhealmost DIEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

*Breathing hard, still holding elbow up for inspection, starting to sweat (although that could just be a hot flash, different doctor need altogether) and glaring at Dr. Irritating McSmartyPants*

Dr IMSP: "It's not spider bites."

Panicking Lulu: (gasp gasp) "What?"

Voice starting to echo in my head: "It's its not not not spider bites bites..."

Panic rising Lulu: "Is it a TICK?? DO I HAVE LYME DISEASE!!?? Do I have malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese B encephalitis, filariasis, leishmaniasis, chagas disease(caused by ASSASIN BUGS!) typhus or the PLAGUE???????!!!!"

Voice of James Earl Jones coming from overhead: "Luuuuuuulu. I'm not your faaaaathuh and you DO NOT have ANY BUG BITE DISEASE AT ALL!! Stop reading WebMD!"

Lulu: "Oh."

Red-faced Lulu: (mumbling). "Then ahhh. It's just a rash, right? No big deal? (nervous chuckle) Just - it'll go away, right?"

Dr. McSmartyPants: "Yeah, it's fine. YOU'll be fine. It will go away."

Dr. Smirking McSmartyPants: "Unless it's mosaic farookas."

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

(Yeah, bet he'll need some 'topical ointment' now too - for that stab wound I gave him with the tongue depressor....)

Enjoy a bug-free weekend!!

Mom Called...

...and told me that she enjoyed her lunch on Tuesday. :)

She also told me to get my fanny - Mom never uses the word ass. She also doesn't like 'pea' as in 'I have to...' - she told me to get my fanny off the couch and get back to blogging.

Riiiiiiiight. Mom and the internet age? Not so much....I haven't told Mom yet that I didn't send a written thank you note to a friend for an event last month...shhhh. Don't upset her any further by telling her that I sent an email instead.

Hey, one thing that did get me moving out o' the house was the Kenny Chesney concert on Sunday night - well woooo hoooooooooo!!

I have always considered myself to be a rocker chick, but concerts like that could seriously change my mind. It was really cool - at an outdoor amphitheater and the weather was great, acoustics and background videos were cool. Also fronting for him is Lady Antebellum, which I helped book for a meeting for the Huge a few years ago when they were relatively unknown and didn't even have a record label yet- omigosh!

When I waved at them from my lawn seat?

They waved back!! I'm sure they remembered me!

But anyway. It was fun and the music was good and everybody sang along. So I've got that going for me.

Hey, check out the new MORE link over there - it's about trying to take ownership of the title 'cougar.' And....I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

But - Jo from The Fifty Factor is PUBLISHED AT MORE.COM!!!!! Go check her out.

Shwew....I'm exhausted.....back to AGT.

TaTa for now, as Tigger would say. Or Save the TaTa's, as we used to say in the mammography department.

Wow. I think I just took a wrong turn in Digressionville again.....

Don't MAKE me call your mom!!!

This is the phrase that myfriendTeri and I use when we haven't spoken in a week or so. As in..."I haven't heard from you and I don't know where you are in the world right now - don't make me call your mom to find out because then she'll worry and then I'll worry and it will all go really really bad."

So please don't call my mom because you haven't heard from me - although she would love to hear from my fives and tens! - because then I'll be in trouble. Prolly get grounded, and I have a baseball game and Kenny Chesney to see this weekend!

Apologies to my regulars for not posting and for not getting caught up on all y'all - it's been a lackadaisical week for me....last weekend we visited the cutest grandchild ever, and then this week I've come home from work every day, I've sunk into the couch and just....clicked through the channels. Over and over. Deep in thought..........

ok, deep into reality shows really.

Which requires no thought, except to gasp, "WHO is VOTING for gawd's sake??!!" when Ishaara got voted off AGT and "Ish!" when one of the new male chefs on Top Chef makes a sexist comment, and "What is THAT??!!" for the halter diaper on Project Runway.

No cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, no blogging, no crafting.....just vegetating and mourning the end of summer.

So I'm back, and I'll try to check in all week. I promise. As long as you don't tell my mom that the dust in the house is two inches deep....

(BTW - I tried to find a cute clipart jpg of a mom shaking her finger? The number of perv sites that come up around the word 'mom' is mind-numbing.....)

Mad Lulu

OK. So the appliances are fixed, for the time being - but they could turn on us again at any moment. I don't get it! It's not like I overwork them or anything......especially the oven.

This post was supposed to be about Woodstock. But that's so last.....Sunday.

And then it was supposed to be about the two great awards that I got - one from Diane and one from Green-Eyed Momster. Diane's award is a Super Comments Award, and GEM's award is Your Blog Rocks my Face Off!. And I so appreciate these awards, but as I've said before, I'm still technically challenged - although I'm getting better! - and do you think I can get the awards onto my blog? Oh hell no. Or heck no, if you're still observing your "I'm going to clean up my language" New Year's resolution. Me, I'm living in a 'resolution-free' zone.

But as usual, I digress.

This post is about a cool hipster site on AMC TV to MadMen your deck self. If you're a fan of the show, you'll like this. And even if you're not, it will waste a few minutes while you're waiting for the next act on AGT.

Here's me, doing a Mad Lulu presentation for work this week. Except I don't do advertising for the Huge. Or show pictures of women in underwear. Although that would make the staff meetings soooo much more interesting - as it is, the men always complain when we want to talk about anything not work-related. It's all "Mathity-math graph ical..mumble blah results. ...yadda...plan....compile the profiteese pipeline havarti cheese." And we just want to talk shoes, really.

It's all about the shoes. And the havarti cheese, sometimes.

The Appliances are Fighting Back

The refrigerator refuses to fridge OR re-fridge and the freezer refuses to freeze. (Why does the REfridgerator have to re-. Why isn't it just the frigerator? Isn't the food cool to begin with, giving it a chance to spoil and poison me, and that's why you have to put it into the fridge? Why does the right side have to keep REdoing what it does, while the left side just does it once and maintains?)

Either way, the friggin' box isn't cooling or freezing. For a while there, it was a bit schizo, with the freezer thawing and the fridge freezing. But now, it's just decided to crap out altogether.

And do you think that we can find the stupid receipt for the extended warranty? Of course not. The ONE TIME that we do purchase the extended warranty, we cannot find it.

I have grocery receipts for 2001. I have tax records going back 10 years, 3 years over the recommended saving limit, I have 20-year-old counted cross-stitch patterns, I have my husband's old high school yearbooks AND his shotglass from his college fraternity (I Felta Thigh, I think it was called). I have my third-grade report card, my daughter's third-grade Mother's Day macaroni necklace, 12 separate sets of mortgage refinancing documents, notes from high school BFFs, copies of checks going back to 1994, my size 2 pants from the 30 seconds that I fit into them back in 2002.

I have receipts for 5 separate toasters, none of which I still have. I might even still have the top from my wedding cake, 24 years later. In fact, with the amount of stuff I have saved, I almost qualify for my own TLC show on hoarding.

But no warranty receipt for the now-non-refrigerator.

Mr. Lulu is downstairs, alternately swearing at the phone where he's been on hold and ignore for the last 15 minutes with a major U.S. appliance company whose big shiny box is currently NOT bringing any good things to life in our kitchen except for the giant ants behind it (yup, we're having a late summer insect infestion as the topper to our day) and trying to vacuum behind the nonrefrigerator.

Me? I ran upstairs to blog about it, of course.

Going back to school.....

I can't believe that it's time for school to start! Of course, we have year-round schools here, so the traditional start of the school year is very complex around my neighborhood. Still, everyone seems to be starting next week - sheesh! When I was growing up, we didn't start until Labor Day and although I complained with the best of them, I was always ready to go back.

New books, new school clothes, new boyfriends, football season, fall colors......what's not to love?

But still....

Memorial Day - and my LuluandmyfriendTeri trip was just yesterday....wasn't it? And what happened to Independence Day? I haven't gotten into bikini shape....ok, two-piece bathing suit sh-....ummmmm.....swimsuit..

Aw hell.

I've got no shape. What happened to all those spring workouts that were going to give me the taut arms? (actually, I know - I stopped at my neighbor's house Sunday and apparently she got all the workouts in - shoot. And I like her, so I can't hate on her because she's got great arms, she's all nice and what have you.....siggghhhh. Where was I? Oh yeah....time getting away from me. HElloo....irony knocking....ANYWAY!)

The real point of my post?

Going back to school time makes me think about all the angsty, greasy, twitchedy, hormoney high school years. I'm feeling your pain, parents of teenagers!!!

But here's my confession. I liked my kids' teenager years. I really enjoy the teenagers in the neighborhood - and NOT in a creepy way, shut up. I like to talk to them and find out what's new in their world, the latest texting stats, who's zooming who, and counting how many times someone can use the word 'like' in one sentence - because it's like, you know, I was really like so, it was like really cool when we talked about music and like I was like you know so like I was all clappy and stuff.

Clappy. I 'best-practiced' that word from Miss Y. Corporate geeks - you know what that means!

So I'm off to the Huge tomorrow - see you Thursday!

Oh and btdubs - although I took the AGT video section away, it doesn't mean that you're absolved from watching the show - there will like, be a quiz, like...sometime. Whatever. Peace out.