spoiled rotten!

These two adorable faces will be spending their day at doggie daycare tomorrow. How unbelievable spoiled is that? We usually leave for work around 6:45am and we're both leaving work early tomorrow to head down to Richmond for the Paramore (!) show. We felt bad leaving them at home alone all day so they'll be at doggie daycare while we're at work... and sleeping at home while we're at the show. It's an even trade. They'll be nice and worn out by the time I pick them up in the afternoon. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. I won't deny that we're embarassingly obsessed with our dogs. For the time being, they're the closest thing we have to having our own [human] children. I often find myself talking to them while I'm cooking. Luke whimpers if I'm taking a shower because he loves the water so much so... I'll admit that I let him jump in occasionally. When I woke up this morning, Lila was warming my feet like the furball she is. Sometimes when she's sitting by herself in a room I'll ask her "what's wrong, Lila Belle?" or say "you're such a tired boy, aren't you?" to a sleeping Lukey on the couch. Then I answer for them. That's how I know I'm just a little bit crazy when it comes to these two. Just a little bit.

oh, the places you'll go

Paris. I would venture to say that I’d be willing to move anywhere in Europe (any modern city, at least) but if I had to pick one… I choose Paris. I love Rome, Florence, London… but Paris has an energy that is unlike anywhere else. It can feel romantic and powerful at the same time, has delicious food, beautiful architecture and style, style, style. Parisians (et Parisiennes) are inexplicably stylish. They’re all gorgeous (much like the Italians) and wear beautiful shoes. After six years of struggling in French class I truly think I could get a handle on the language if I was fully immersed in it. France may very well be the only country where I could learn the language – I don’t have years of experience reading Italian or Spanish. French is my only shot! 35 hour work weeks? Sign me up. Chocolate croissants? My favorite. Universal health care? I’ll take it. In fact, one studious semester of comparative politics in college taught me that I would fit right into the French Socialist Party (although I could still follow the UMP marital drama of Nicolas Sarkozy and his “wife” just as much as I do my US Weekly). Paris it is.

Canada. Don’t misinterpret this by assuming I’m not proud to be an American… I just love Canada. Case in point – I love snow, maple syrup, the French language, Ryan Gosling, skiing (especially Mont Tremblant), the Chez Cora chain of breakfast restaurants, “eh?!?”, the list goes on and on. I love Montreal and although I’ve never been to Vancouver I think I’d like it as well. I’ve certainly been close enough while visiting the Puget Sound/Seattle (see below). I heard on the radio this morning that the UN ranked Canada the fourth best place to live in the world. Wow. The proximity to all the wonderful things the US offers is a benefit, too. You’re a fairly easy plane or car trip (depending on where you are) to NYC, Chicago, the beach… Canadians are easy to please when it comes to the beach. They don’t need to go to the Bahamas to escape for a week. Southern Florida is pretty exotic to them, all things considered. Plus, don’t Canadians always seem so happy?

Seattle. If Seattle weren’t so far from my family, we would be living there already. I love the Emerald City. I love the open air markets, the Puget Sound, the proximity to my love Canada (see above), the healthy feel of the city… I could even be a Seahawks fan (although my heart will always be with the Chiefs, of course). Qwest Stadium is a good-looking stadium compared to Arrowhead or even Fed Ex. They followed the same great plan as KC and put the Seahawks directly next to the Mariners, for all your sports-hungry visits downtown. I would say, hey of course I love Seattle because I love Starbucks, but that’s not even necessary. Even though I did make the trip to the OG Starbucks near Pike’s Place Market, the number of other privately-owned (specifically, not Starbucks) coffee houses in Seattle is amazing. We also have family across the Sound from the city, so in the same weekend I could visit my cousins and go skiing on Mount Hood (amazing!). Lets just say Mount Hood makes Ski Liberty look like… well, look invisible. Like nothing. What hill? There was a hill there?


Denver. The Mile-High City. I feel the same way about Denver as I do about Seattle. If it weren’t so far away from our families, we’d be there already. I miss the Midwest (not sure if those in Denver consider themselves Midwestern, but I sure do). The mountain views from the city can’t be beat and the fact that you can be skiing in the Rockies in one hour or less is magical to me. We could drive to see Sara in one day (not two!), my family in Oklahoma in one day (not two!) and even drive to Yellowstone in one day. The perks are endless: I think it may be the smallest city in the country with all four major sports teams, the median housing cost is around $220,000 yet the pay is similar to where we’re at now, the sun shines 300 days a year and there’s over 850 miles of paved off-road biking trails. Which brings me to my next point… as much as we would love to ride our bikes, it’s difficult to take off on a bike ride in northern Virginia. Denver is so healthy.

Richmondo. RVA. Finally… Richmond. Where we lived before we moved back here. Don’t even ask. We created a lot of reasons to leave in our minds (careers, missing our families, etc…) which we could have dealt with and been perfectly happy had we stayed. Now we’re here. We’re working. We’re homeowners. We’re stuck for a bit… but everything we hate about northern Virginia makes us realize it was that much better down in Richmond. We miss Belle Isle and hanging out at the river, Carytown, our delicious restaurant haunts (Sticky Rice, Hill Café, Nacho Mamas, Akida, Starlite, Strawberry Street…), going to the movies at Westhampton, having great places to walk the dogs, Byrd Park and Swan Lake, the Fan during the holidays, the dog park, sweet tea, Sarah Bell at Hair Theatre, all of it. The people, the slower pace of life, the faster commute… Now, every time we visit we leave with a sad face. Furthermore, Steve’s exact words were “this feels like home to me” last month when we were there. That’s a good feeling to have. Some people go their whole lives without feeling at home.

Honorable mentions:
· San Diego (the availability of good Mexican food – can we say delicious?)
· Chicago (not a big fan of deep dish, but I do love Wicker Park and the lake)
· New York City (if only we could own a patch of grass for Luke and Lila)
· Cinque Terre, Italia (this would be our summer home… of course)

great success!

After 10 hours of waiting in 40 degree weather outside of the Best Buy in Gainesville, this finally belongs to my brother. I wasn't out there with them all night as planned - but I was a good daughter/sister and paid them a visit from about 10pm-1am. The best part of the whole ordeal is learning that our little incident last year has become a Black Friday urban legend. The Best Buys were all abuzz with the story of "the woman who got a beer bottle thrown at her". Although we overheard a few slightly exaggerated versions where she bled from her head, there was multiple casualties, etc... but it was still amusing. Apparently it changed the whole Black Friday campout for good - police were stationed at all locations from midnight on. Niiiiiiice.

P.S.... and they were fourtieth in line and they still got it. Boo yah.

why is it called black friday?

First I must point out that I was lucky enough to bear witness to, not one, not two, but three NOVA back-ins last night as I was trying to park at Shoppers. All I wanted was that small 16-slices-per-package Kraft american cheese and I was stuck in the parking lot. I turned into one aisle and a giant truck full of illegal immigrants (I'm not being facetious, the truck was giant and I'm pretty positive none of them were US citizens) decides to take the time to back into the tiniest parking spot available. As soon as I see the smallest amount of space open up in front of their truck I angrily sped around them (had to make my point, you see). What happens next? A woman in a black Focus steals my spot and - yep, she backs in. After waiting for this moron to make her four attempts at backing in (still crooked, I might add), I speed off and turn into the next aisle... oh wait, I can't turn into the next aisle. Why not? Because some idiot in a Suburban is making a twelve-point turn to pull into his spot... backwards. At 5:30 pm on a Tuesday night when Lord only knows all I want is to make a nice hot grilled cheese when I get home, people in this area think it is of the utmost importance to back into spots. Is this to save time when they leave? Because it certainly cost them more time to back in than if they had just done it the NORMAL WAY... I can't possibly get into the ridiculousness that is the self-checkout line in this entry. If I had a pet peeve list, it would be in my top five.

....but my grilled cheese was delicious, no thanks to anyone in the Centreville Shoppers Food parking lot.

Last year my mom and I did the whole Black Friday thing. We went to Best Buy at 2am and realized that we were more than 100 heads back in line and proceeded to actually wait there until they opened.... as if we would actually get anything (we didn't). A drunk mexican (my theme today is illegal immigration, obviously) also threw a beer bottle at her when he thought she was cutting in line. It wasn't funny at the time, but we laugh about it now because he called her a "beech", as in "get back in line, you beeeeech". He said this while making the "suck it" motion with his hands. Come on now, that's funny. Even better, he was arrested shortly after his brazen attempt at crowd control. We also had her convinced that she should sue Best Buy for lack of security during such a crazy event... but once we started saying "if you win, there's this great sectional at Crate and Barrel you could get us", she felt she would be crossing her virtual ethical line. Oh well, to each his own.

My point is, after that incident of drunk mexicans and coming home empty-handed, we swore up and down we would never attempt another Black Friday again. What bright idea did we come up with last weekend? Lets do Black Friday this week. My brother needs a laptop and she can get one for $399. It's for him, so he's staying out there. She doesn't want him to stay alone so she's staying out there. I feel bad that they're going by themselves so now I feel guilted into staying out there (consequently, Steve will be dragged out there). The worst part is that they've decided the best plan of action would be to go immediately after Thanksgiving dinner. My mom wants to make sure she's first in line - Kennedy, we have to be first or else we'll never get anything! Then your brother won't get his laptop... then he can't do his Microsoft certification on WiFi at Caribou Coffee... then he can't get a job in IT... then his career goes down the drain... then life is pretty much over... and for what? Because we were fourtieth in line! That's what. So camping out at Best Buy it is. A word of advice: stick to the Best Buy in Fair Lakes or Gainesville. The Manassas Best Buy gets a little rowdy after 2am.

is it turkey day yet?

Our systems are working painfully slow today at work, which is forcing me to spend this time on a much more productive project... job hunting. I wouldn't say I am actively searching for a new job, but I do scour Craig's List, Washington Post jobs and SHRM.org every few days to see if anything catches my eye. The problem I seem to have with job hunting is that I am extremely picky when it comes to this "new job" I'm on the hunt for. Right now I drive between 45 minutes to an hour to and from work each day. This enigmatic job I'm on a perpetual search for is pretty limited where the commute is concerned... I either want to drive much less to work (no more than 30 minutes) or be able to take the train straight to work (and not have to switch and ride the metro, as well). I'm also somewhat spoiled as far as pay goes because my current company certainly pays well... so this other job has to think I'm worth as much, if not more, than I am making now.

Suffice it to say, the results of my job search over the past couple of months have been minimal. I did get a little excited today, though. I found a pretty great job with a great organization right near the train station in Alexandria. If I got this, I would be able to walk (or take a 30 second drive) to the VRE station near our condo, hop on, snooze or read the paper and be at the King Street station in 35 minutes. They also have a transportation allowance that would take a hefty chunk out of my monthly train ticket. Lets cross our fingers!

Last night I wrote out a few more Christmas cards... there's something about the annual mailing of the Christmas cards (or holiday cards, for my non-Christian friends who will be receiving them) that makes me feel a little bit domestic. I fail miserably on the domesticity scale when it comes to cooking (we love the microwave), laundry (I do my laundry but take forever to put it away) and cleaning (scratch that, I'm a clean freak - but I do hate taking out the trash). It's the least I can do this season to prove that yes, I am a wife and damnit I can act like one! At least I didn't put Santa hats on the dogs and send out a photo card... because I certainly thought about it.

I did buy two different kinds of holiday cards this year, though. I have a thing for snowmen/snowflakes so that's normally what I buy... but this year I went a little further and shelled out a good amount of money on these adorable letterpressed cards from Papyrus. I have decided that these will go to my immediate family and then to my married friends (including Kate and Greg, my pseudo-married friends). The other recipients will still receive a snowman card but it is from Target and the card stock isn't quite as thick... equally as cute, just not as satisfying to the fingertips. Now I just need some cute stamps... maybe some that look like this:

day one and counting

So I've been maintaining my mobile blog (http://kennedyrosey.blogspot.com) for a few months now... it was a silly idea when I started it. I like to take a lot of strange photos with my phone and I really wanted a place where I could keep them all. It was entirely for my own amusement, since I highly doubt more than three or four people other than myself have ever looked at it. Occasionally, I'd be scrolling through and have an urge to write a post... but I thought it might throw off the whole "look" of the blog, it being a photos-only site. So here I am.

I've attempted to blog long long ago... I'm hoping this lasts longer than my previous attempts. I feel like I had a longer attention span in high school when I used to secretly blog, but I'm giving it another shot. The previous blog/diary also taught me an important virtual lesson - never blog about anything you wouldn't want to tell an audience. Although you may think old blog posts are in the past, even at 25 years old some people still behave like high schoolers and revisit the past... but I've already put too much energy into that topic.

At the front of my mind, every Monday through Friday from about 6am until 6pm, all I think about is how much I hate my job. I think that starts this blog off on the right foot, considering the title I chose (yes, I am totally gay and picked a Paramore song title but I thought it suited my personality quite well). A lot of the time I guess I have a cynical tone in response to certain things around me... my job, certain people, where we're currently living, our next door neighbors to name a few. On the inside, I'm much more optimistic. I bitch about my job but on the inside I know there's more out there for me. I bitch about where we live but I know we'll be out of here someday soon. I bitch about our neighbors, but on the bright side, they have quieted down. I'll live. I'll even keep my eyes and ears open for a less pessimistic (and less lengthy) title.