Rainy Days on Sundays...

ummm...don't actually get me down. And yes, I know that I'm taking liberties with the actual song.

If you didn't understand that about the song, you're prolly not my age or around my age or just sort of near my age-ish, and that's ok but I'm not going to 'splain.

My decksters will know.

Whewwwww....so busy again! But I'm POSTing right? After all it is 2010, as I was reminded earlier :).

Went to visit my mom for her 87th birthday last weekend and she's pretty sparky and perky especially for her age so that gives me hope for my longevity. But she doesn't drink so I have to figure something out there....

My NewYear's weekend with MFT and other friends was funfilled, plumjammy-packed with hilarity and adult bevvies so I've needed to have a big rolling pin mashed down my middle to squeeze it all out so I can go back to work and be all corporatey.

So.

There it is.

The early January details.

You're welcome.

Cowboy Girls

So myfriendTeri (who's still on her flight here) always wanted to be a cowboygirl when she grew up. Not a cowgirl......a cowboy girl. She thought 'cowboy' was non-gender specific, like president or teacher or doctor or stripper or porn star or blogger. Whatev.

And I always wanted red cowboy boots - beautiful! Second only to the midcalf, white baton twirler boots with the tassle. Neither of which I ever got for Christmas......hence my grinchee attitude.

Anyway - what better sign that we were meant to be BFF?

So - while the theme - because we all know how I feel about party themes - for our NYE get-together is 'Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,' the subtheme is 'Suck it, Pleasantville Housewives - the Cowboy Girl Bitches will Ride tonight!!'*

*shouted many times while ingesting adult bevvies...talk about addies!!

MFT's birthday is tomorrow - more details to come!

Head CBGB Lulu

Happy New...whatever.

Yeah. Happy happy cheery boo yahhhhhhh!.

More to follow - myfriendTeri will be here tonight for a rockin' Eve!

Holy Crapenzee....People are Nice to Me!!

I went to bed last night at the top of Grinch mountain, and woke up in freakin' Whoville!! And me...such a Grinchee! (But finally - a healthy Grinchee, thanks for the caring comments from my fives and tens...who are probably down to twos and twopointfives, but still - you're here for me and I really appreciate it.)

I'm not the best cheery, holidayish kind of gal. I'm mostly the stalking-through-the-mall-after-work-in-heels kind of non-christmassy doing the supermarket sweep slapping down the credit card grumbling churlish girl, and this year is no exception.

After traveling a full eight weeks from Oct. 17 - Dec. 11 for work....after going through the heels on two sets of black shoes.....after going through 14 pairs of tights and pantyhose (yes I still wear p.h., don't judge - my mind is 24 but my legs are...well...not..)....after unpacking and repacking in two countries, 13 states, 16 cities and just as many hotel rooms....after H1N1 and a respiratory infection....after planning and providing a 5-yr-old birthday party, an Oktoberfest fete, 5 national sales meetings, 2 international meetings and the holiday party for my entire staff at my house........I'm back, and trying to get caught up.

Without complaining, right karma gods? :)

And flat-out exhausted. And don't really want to be holiday girl. I want to be 20 pounds thinner (notice the travel handles under my red suit there ) spend the next 14 days basking in the sun somewhere - somewhere I don't have to pack! - reading books don't care where girl.

But noooooo... the holidays get here whether we want them to or not, and so there I was this morning, maneuvering through Target and Best Buy and Barnes and Noble...and darn it! People were being nice to each other - all "no, you first"ing, and "please, after you"ing, and cheerfully "excuse me"ing all over the place. I saw two people from a fender bender hug for goodness' sake. And all the smiling smiling smilingsmiling..sheesh!

Stop it people! Don't you know that we're in a recession and a war with no healthcare reform yet? Haven't you seen the news?? Can't you tell that we're supposed to be mindlessly buying up merchandise and overspending and overleveraging?? What's with all the nicey, retro, comfy food, watch your money, get to know your families and neighbors stuff?

What happened while I was breathing all that stuffy airplane air?

Please, someone - quick, say something snarky.

Signed,

Confused in Carolina

PS - I missed you too, my friends - I'll be commenting like mad on all your bloggies soon!

Ummmmm......HI!

Hi all. Y'all. All y'all. Haven't seen you in a while. Well, actually, I've never really seen any of you, except in pictures. But I haven't read blogs or posted anything myself and uhhh.....I'm sorry. Sort of.

Because these are the reasons - Work and Illness. Cough Cough Coughity cough - can't shake it - had to get a chest X-ray - two types of inhalers - prescription cough medicine - type of illness. And it's a little scary due to all of the swine flu media attention. And work has really picked up, as I have some new global responsibilities, so that's good, right? Having work is good.

Unfortunately, I haven't done anything for me except work, cough, come home and watch Tivo.

So - I hope that everyone is doing well - I'm off to check you out, and then I need to get a christening gift and then I need to do some holiday stuff and then I need to order new rugs for my house......sighhhhh.

Or maybe I'll just click through Tivo for a while.

Hack, Coughhhh...Hackity Coughcoughcough...

Yikes - I'm back, for just one very quick post - and of course, wonder grandson has H1N1 and we were all exposed to him on Halloween.....now I'm sick, and have to attend JUST ONE MORE MEETING for the Huge....and then I'll be baaaaaack!

I need to get caught up on all y'all, and then maybe I'll regale you with tales of my super work roadtrip - I've been home just 2 days since Oct. 16. With one suitcase!

See you soon -

Lulu (sniffs)

ARRGHGHGHGHGHGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!! MORE quotes!

Yarrr, it's time for the pirate birthday party! The giant inflatable pirate ship bouncy house, the millions of cheap plastic pirate / Halloween toys for the treasure chest, the yummy cupcakes and pirate ship cake.....and of course, adult bevvies for the pirate worker bees after the festivities.

(slurps Starbucks pumpkin spice latte with 2% and no whip).

We're ready, so stop the rain any damn time, weather gods!! Can't you see this party is for the fifth birthday of wonder grandson??? Sheesh.

So anyway, speaking of talking like a pirate, my friend Aziza has sent me some quotes from the MORE Reinvention Convention, so I want to post some of my favorites over the next few days and weeks.

Yes, I KNOW it's kind of a cop out to 'best practice share' someone else's thoughts in my blog, shut up. In case you haven't read my other whines and wines, I'm a little busy right now.

So here's the first:

At Monday's More Reinvention Convention at Pier 60, Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski led a lunchtime discussion with Nora and Delia Ephron, writers of the new play "Love, Loss and What I Wore," and More Editor in Chief Lesley Jane Seymour. Highlights from the uproarious talk include:

About Nora's worst clothing mistake: "My worst mistake was my wedding dress at my best wedding -- my third wedding. I had a permanent and I looked a little bit like a dalmation. It's heartbreaking because it was such a happy day."

And Delia's: "One out of every three things I buy is a mistake. Along with all of my tax files."

And Mika's: "They used to call me fabulous at CBS because of the shoes I wore. One day, I had on my heel and my tight skirt and a top. I was sitting, and everyone was commenting on how fabulous my shoes were. I strutted over to the bathroom and noticed that my skirt had split in the back all the way up. My butt looked like two hams. I did get fired from that job."

I loved this! I too have strutted my way across the office with such righteous pride in my appearance....and then had a split or a tear or a trip and fall or toilet paper stuck to my shoe....so funny.

Mika is great on "Morning Joe" - check it out!

Recovery Day 11

No, this isn't a twelve step blog. (slurps wine)....

The title is just my way of acknowledging that I haven't been here in 8 days. Yes, I'm slacking...no, wait - bloglacking. Yup. Not been here.

Ok - so let me catch you up. Recovered from Oktoberfest. Had 15-yr-old daughter of friends as houseguest over the weekend. Marveled at her texting speed. Went back to twitter. Still don't get it. Sold some stuff, bought some stuff. Traveled. Corporated. Sewed some stuff. Packed, flew, worked, unpacked.

Watched (in no particular order) Top Chef, Biggest Loser, DWTS, college football, Amazing Race, Project Runway, Castle, the news, the Today show, Say Yes to the Dress.

Read some books and did some puzzles to get sluggish brain moving again.

Yup. That's about it. Did I mention the slacking?

I'm off to catch up on all y'all -

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.