RANDOM MUSINGS

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Originally uploaded by Jilly2113.

Awesome. 2007 is freakin awesome so far. Good times with friends, and I have met my fave Astro! Saturday night Summer, Crystal, Elodie, Gino and I tried out Rocbar for the first time. Pictures are up in the Photo section…Rocbar is where Bar Houston used to be. It was a lot of fun. It hasn’t been open very long, so it is still good and crowded…the inside is really nice and the music is really good. Crystal may never go anywhere else again! Ha. As much fun as I had, I could have seriously called it a night after meeting Brandon Backe. I was completely, nerdily excited. The good thing was that all three of us got to meet him, even though Summer missed out the first time. I am not ashamed to say that before we left I did tell him how hot he is in a baseball uniform, and that it is a shame we won’t get to see it until 2008. I mean, it is not like I will ever see him again, so I figured why not??! Haha. He is a really good sport, and was completely nice about taking his picture with us. So that was cool. I was so pumped I could not even sleep when I got home last night!! I don’t even care how nerdy that makes me! I would rather meet a Houston Astro than most other celebrities…especially my FAVE Astro. Although I did not mention that I refer to him as my husband.

Obviously I have had a pretty good weekend. Which is a good thing because it has distracted me from Monday. I doubt I sleep at all tonight…will be panicking about all the things I may or may not have forgotten. State of the City is supposedly my event. So I am responsible if any balls get dropped!! Man. I am really really worried about the numbers. Monday events traditionally get a ton of walk–ins. I may be sending the staff down to the restaurant! We didn’t order boxed lunches this time, because we did not want to waste an order just because I have a gut feeling. We shall see. Maybe we will be okay! Who knows…we may have 5 empty tables for all I know. But I would rather have some corner tables empty than run out of seats and have pissed off people.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

So movies and netflix are kind of the same thing. Anyway…I have had a few fun and festive girl’s nights lately. Man. Wish I could have kept the alliteration going in that sentence. Oh well. Right after the New Year I got to spend time with my cousins from California that had come into town. Two girl’s nights right in a row…one with my 13-year old cousin and one with my 7-year old cousin. I had a BLAST. They both have such awesome personalities, and I have a lot in common with the 13-year old one….mainly SHOES!! We are both obsessed. I have never really gotten much of a chance to hang out with the 7-year old one, so just getting to know her a bit more was awesome. She introduced me to that Libby Lu(?) store…that place is crazy with the pink and purple everywhere. They needed something like that when I was a little girl! Not that I would have put down my Legos and matchbox cars long enough to play with any of that stuff. Ha.

Then I had the more grownup girl’s night at my house. Which was completely festive. Movie night with Summer, Elodie, Jenny and Crystal. The theme was dance movies…although after Footloose and Flashdance, Saturday Night Fever was a tad disturbing. More so than Summer and I remembered. But lots of fun! The presence of alcohol and lots and lots of cheese dip helped.

Oh yeah…and last weekend Crystal invited me to go to Shadow for her friend’s birthday party. I had not been there in a LONG time. I had not been dancing in a while, either. It was a lot of fun. I managed to forget the battery for my camera, so there are no pictures. At least not until Crystal dumps her camera and gives me some.

Anyway…back to the title. Movie night with the girls inspired me to join Netflix. I used to have blockbuster’s mail movie service a while ago, but cancelled it. There are just so many movies I want to see! There are also some TV shows I want to watch from the beginning but don’t want to spend the money to purchase, and I hate when I got to blockbuster’s stores to rent the next dvd and they are out. Boo! Anyway…so I am nerdily excited about seeing movies that I have missed out on! Things that will NOT be making their way to my mailbox: anything scary…the Goonies…hmm…anything that is supposed to be a true story but is also trying to teach you some lesson about humanity. Yuck. Ha.

That is all for today!

Dude…I understand that when you have 1400 people coming to an event, you are going to get many many many phone calls. But I cannot stand some of the questions I get over and over and over. For instance, every other call is asking for my email address to send me their table guest names. The problem with that is, the form that they sent me to register for the table has my damn email address right there on it…and they are usually reading the form to get my phone # to call me! So the email address is right there! Can you not read an entire sentence at a time?? Or, they have the table submission form right in front of them that specifically says “Please fax to #.” And they still call to ask where to send it to. What the hell. I also love the ones that call and just say they want to RSVP…then I offer to send them the registration form and they say “Oh, I have that already.” Well, if you have it, turn it in!!! Man. How difficult is that to figure out? Or the ones that call and start speaking to me without declaring who they are or what company they are from, and I am supposed to magically know which registration they are referring to. As if they are the only people in Houston attending any events. Ooh…and I have a couple of people that are notorious for calling me and then putting me on HOLD. Don’t even play. That is so damn rude.

I know this is overly bitchy. But I have been taking these same calls every single day, 8 hours a day, since we got back from the holidays. First for the luncheon last week, and now for the one on Monday. I just want people to learn how to read!! Or at least not be so lazy and research a little bit before you call me with the stupid questions!! Whew. I am done. For now!  

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Originally uploaded by Jilly2113.

That is what we are working in at the moment. Annual Meeting is FINALLY over…whoo-hoo…but we have leftover cookies that were the giveaways EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of cellophane wrapped cookies. They are yummy, but not even I can eat this many cookies! Whew. Back to the point….Annual Meeting went very very well….from our end at least. When you are running around concerning yourself with logistics you don’t really notice/listen to the actual “show” that is going on. So I just have to assume that things were smooth on that end…or that if they weren’t the audience did not notice. That makes a big difference. As long as the general audience does notice the things you are freaking out about in the back, mission accomplished. I did have someone drop a table of 10 on us. The new practice we have of throwing a couple of “Reserved” signs on random tables really works. That way we always have a table of 10 completely open until the open seating starts to fill up and we can pull the sign. I may be in the minority here, but I really thought the food was good yesterday, too. We actually had beef…which is amazing in itself. Of course, Summer and I ate so quickly that we did not taste the food completely….which may be why I thought it was so good. Ha. The best part about yesterday was not having to go back to work! It was beautiful outside and Summer, Elodie and I went to Rice Village and walked around. A great way to end an insane day is with beer at Two Rows. Yum!

Of course, State of the City is in one week. Quick turn around to do it all over again! Now that Annual Meeting is over I can actually start thinking about City. Thank you to everyone who helped out this week!

   

IMG_9759.JPGOriginally uploaded by Jilly2113.

I finally got to go to New Orleans. Whoo-hoo. Crystal invited me to go with some of her friends, and it was just too good an opportunity to pass up! Left Saturday and came back Monday. It really was a blast. I did miss being with my 3 best girls on New Year’s, though. I put all my pictures up….although I plan on stealing Crystal’s at some point. Especially since I am a goofball and forgot to charge my camera before going out to Bourbon St for New Year’s…brilliant, right??

Highlights of the trip…

1. The best biscuits EVER at Mother’s. (You knew the first one was going to be about food, right?)
2. Being in a car with 6 other people + luggage. Festive!
3. Finally getting to go to the WWII Museum.
4. Wonderful cafe au lait at Cafe Du Monde.
5. Getting beads without having to do something I would regret when I have grandchildren.
6. Drunkin Smurfs!
7. Walking around Bourbon St with a red feather boa.
8. Almost shoving down a dirty old man who decided to grab my ass.
9. Crystal proving that she really does not know the name of her fave Astro…Willy Vedder? Seriously? Haha. J/K! :-)
10. Having someone recognize the Threadless T-shirt I had on and calling it by name.
11. Pat O’Brien’s Hurricanes. YUM.
12. The restrooms at Ripley’s.
13. The crazy bouncer at Jester’s manhandling the under-21 kids that were trying to use the restroom and throwing them out on the street.
14. Crystal and I being some crazy-fast walkers. Leaving everybody in the dust! Ha.
15. My phone freaking out and not working for some reason. If you txt-msged me Happy New Year, I promise I answered you! But almost nothing would go through. Boo on my Razr!
16. Hand Grenades!
17. Crystal’s cousin singing “SexyBack”….GREAT imitation.
18. The guy running around Bourbon St in his boxers.
19. Crystal being just the right height to get a faceful of boobs. Man. That was gross!
20. Bourbon St in general.
21. Jalapeno mac-&-cheese
22. Getting home and getting in my own shower!!

23. Addition…the letter “K” that caused Crystal to talk to herself without realizing it…trying to figure out the band that corresponded with that letter. She was a woman obsessed!                                                                                                  

I am sure I will add more as I think of them…Annual Meeting is combining with State of the City to kill most of my brain cells.

Have a good week!