Happy Birthday, Matt!

Last night, Melissa organized a little surprise 29th birthday dinner for Matt at Lui Lui! It was a good time. The owner gave us a free platter of Open Mouth Laughs, aka Crab Rangoons, aka fried wontons with cream cheese inside, aka HEAVEN! I had salmon for dinner, and for dessert Melissa ordered a Reese's Peanut Butter ice cream cake from Coldstone Creamery. It was RICH. After a couple of bites I noticed that my fork was MESSED up. Check it out! The chef wrote "Happy B-Day" on Matt's plate in carrots. It was super cute!

Cookies!

This has been a great week so far for cookies! Today, I had a haircut. I love my hairdresser so much. Pat. She's the BEST. She always gives me treats as I get my hair cut. The past couple of times she's given me Pepperidge Farms Milano cookies. She always loads up on snacks when she flies, and then saves them to bring into work. March is her birthday month, so she has worn a big tiara every single day. I got to see it today. She leaves on Thursday for a Jimmy Buffet Parrothead cruise. She's great. Anyway so those cookies were delicious.

Then, last night I went down the street and hung out with Joey and Kaleb for a bit. We did a little photoshoot that will eventually be used on the Athens Bicycle site to advertise frame repair. Anyway, blowtorches. Fire. COOL. After that, my sister invited us up for fresh cookies. BUTTERSCOTCH OATMEAL ones. Needless to say, I was up there ASAP. When we got there, we could see Pete napping through the porch window. Hee! Pete naps sitting up a lot. Mer says he still attempts to have conversations with her during these naps sometimes and that's it's hilarious. Of course we snuck a spy picture of him.

Happy Easter!

Easter sure is a great holiday, because of all of the bunnies! This year, the Easter Bunny brought me the cutest little ceramic bunny, a bunny potholder, and tons of delicious treats. A couple of other great things happened today too.

First of all, I went to Kroger's to go grocery shopping. I had heard a rumor from mom that the Athens Kroger's had started carrying the Edy's Grand Light Limited Edition Girl Scout Cookie Samoas Ice Cream, and the rumor was TRUE. I went down the ice cream aisle and was nearly blinded by the fabulous glow coming from the Edy's ice cream case. There it was. In my own town. Needless to say, I bought a half gallon.





Then, tonight, my sister invited the family over for CHEESEBURGERS. Seriously, could Easter get any better? Cheeseburgers are my favorite. She also made baked sweet potatoes and broccoli. And for dessert, what else but Edy's Grand Light Limited Edition Girl Scout Cookie Samoas Ice Cream!! Yes, it's true. It was delicious.

Yesterday was a pretty slow day. It almost didn't count as a day. I never fully recovered from the Mustache Party until today. Yesterday, I woke up after only five crappy hours of sleep. Then I went uptown with Mer and Summer and got bagels. Then Mer and I worked on the Mustache Party pictures for a couple of hours and went to Taco John's! Not a bad day, but boy was I tired. On our way to Taco John's, Mer and I checked out this stencil by SEAM, on a house uptown. Cool stuff:

Mustache Party

Last night was the 2005 Casa Cantina Mustache Party. The Mustache Party is an annual Casa event, and this year they offered to donate all proceeds to Kaleb, going along with the Mustaches for McCutcheon movement, making it a benefit!

I made a sweet donation box to display at the party. It had mustache fur and JEWELS! Between the donation box, cover charge, and a generous offer to double all proceeds of the night, the final total raised during the party was $1300!







Throughout the night, movies full of mustaches, such as Cannonball Run, were projected onto the walls of the bar. There was also plenty of rocking music, and a live performance by the Speed Knobs.

Another fun feature of the night was a DELICIOUS new beer that Casa had on tap: Marietta Brewing Company Paw Paw Wheat. It's fruity and smooth and delicious and NINE PERCENT ALCOHOL!

So the mustache party was a great success. I made tank tops with the mustache man from Dude Mountain (Anne's house) on them for Mer and I to wear. We also got to sport our mustache bands. We were surrounded by a SEA of mustaches!

As if that all wasn't enough fun, we hit the Mustache After Hours Party. Craig and Moss, who came dressed as mexican wrestlers, were quite the entertainment of the night. Pretty much as soon as we got there, they suggested we see how many people could fit into a hula hoop. Who could say no to that? So Mer, Craig, Moss, Pete, Summer, Chris and I got in. We walked around throughout the party until someone decided we ought to go upstairs. That was a CHALLENGE. It took sort of forever, but it was hilariously fun. When we got to the top, we all felt triumphant.

That's when Moss and Craig made up their little spanish song. It went kind of to the tune of "Hallelujah," and the only words were "Ohhhh, montaña! Ohhhh, cerveza!" Hahah. I had it stuck in my head all day today. They sang it for the rest of the night. Summer, Mer, Pete and I headed out at about 3:45 and walked home, where Summer and I had some delicious frozen pizza and watched some Felicity.



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Our flier:

Gravel Rouser Grab & Git

Last night was the 2005 Gravel Rouser Classic Grab& Git City Scramble. In this event, racers were given maps of Athens, with markers indicating secret checkpoints that they have to seek out. At the checkpoints they were given items which they present upon arrival at the finish line. At the finish line, there was a giant party!



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Saint Patrick's Day Bike Store Business After Hours

For Saint Patrick's Day, Athens Bicycle had a Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours. There was a keg of Killian's, Shamrock Sugar Cookies, prizes and networking!



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Mustache Wristband!

Yay! Today I got my mustache wristband! Kelly knit these amazing wristbands so that the girls could show solidarity along with the Mustaches for McCutcheon movement, since girls can't grow mustaches. What a great idea. I love my wristband. Thank you, Kelly!

Don't Allow No Talkin' Trash About West Virginia

When Jason, Amanda and I were going through my old video tapes this past weekend, I ran across a little gem that I have never forgotten. This West Virginia anti-littering PSA was on TV almost a decade ago, and when mom and I saw it for the first time, we laughed until we cried. I hadn't seen it in years until this weekend, yet I was still able to sing the entire jingle word for word! Now I have captured it with my digital camera, and will immortalize it here on my web site! Check it out. With line-dancing highway workers, tight leather, and a foreboding police officer, how could you not love it?

A Visit from Amanda

Amanda came to Athens for a visit this weekend! She's been in Africa for two years, and I only got to see her once during that time, when she came back to the states for a little visit. We were pen pals the whole time, though!



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We started the weekend off with lunch at O'Betty's, which was delicious. Best hot dogs ever! Then we went to the Front Room for coffee. After awhile, we headed back to my house and watched movies that we made in high school. We were cracking up! It was fun. Then Adam dropped us off at Purple Chopstix for dinner. After dinner, we walked uptown and it was beautiful, because it started to snow. We had drinks at Casa and The Union, then headed home. The next morning we had brunch at Casa, then came back to my house to hang out before Amanda had to go back home.

We decided to cut open this toy of mine. It's one of those squirmy liquid filled toys that you can dangle off your finger and fling around and squeeze. This one had been squeezed so much though, that it was starting to get thin in places and I was afraid my cats would bite it open so I figured we should CUT IT OPEN! Wheee! Then throw it out. It turns out it was filled with a shimmery, watery textured liquid.

People That Steal Are JERKS.

m in charge of the office lotto pool at work. Each week, most of my coworkers put a dollar in the "lotto fund," which is an envelope that I leave on my windowsill. Now, I realize that the windowsill is not the safest place to leave the lotto fund, but it had worked for MONTHS! I really enjoyed the fact that I could just trust people NOT to steal shit. But last night, somebody stole it. JERKS. It was probably one of the maintenance people, since they're the only people that really have access to the office after hours. The envelope had $21 in it. A few of my coworkers donated to the lotto relief fund, but I paid most of it back myself, which I was fine with, but I wouldn't have had to if some JERKS hadn't stolen the money in the first place. JERKS.

The night was made better when Summer joined me for a Season Four Felicity Fest. We celebrated the release of the fourth and final season of Felicity in our usual manner, with a Trader Joe's frozen gorgonzola pear pizza, spinach with feta, and some beers. It was marvelous! Felicity would never steal money from me.

Birthday Fun, Round II, and also Ice Cream!

This weekend, Summer and I celebrated her birthday a little more with a trip uptown to play games! First we ate some Pita Pit, and had free wings and 75 cent drafts at Red Brick. Then we hit Tony's for several rounds of darts! We hung out with some physics professors. Then we went to Courtside Pizza to play foosball! We ended the night at the Union, with Irish Car Bombs and card games. Then we picked up some Burrito Buggy, and ran home to eat that, have chocolate cupcakes, and play Pictionary. Quite a fun night!



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Saturday, I went to Parkersburg with Mom ("went to Parkersburg with Mom" is my middle name). When I arrived at mom's house, there was the cutest snowman in the yard!! Mom made a snowman that morning! He was very handsome.



In Parkersburg, we went to lunch at the Third Street Deli on the way, in Belpre. It was awesome! We each had a cup of cabbage soup, and then we split a gyro and a feta sandwich. Then we split a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. Then, we headed to this Walmart, in search of this certain ice cream.

Let me tell you about this ice cream. Every year, Edy's comes out with some Limited Edition Grand Light Girl Scout Cookie ice creams. This year, there were only two light flavors: Thin Mint, and Samoas. I read a ton of great reviews of the Samoas ice cream online, so naturally, I wanted to try it. I went to every ice-cream selling store in town, and nobody had it! I bought Thin Mint, and it was delicious, but I still wanted to try Samoas. Mom did a search online of stores that carry that particular flavor, and it said that Walmart in Parkersburg, WV sold it. So we went there and they DIDN'T HAVE ANY. I almost cried. It was still a fun day, though.



Sunday I decided to drive to Lancaster, since the web site also said that the Meijer in Lancaster carried this ice cream. I packed my cooler and off I went. I also wanted to check out the workout shorts at Target. I bought four pairs of shorts at Target, and one at Value City, then I went to Meijer. Would you believe they HAD IT? I almost cried. They had only two cartons, so I bought them both. One for me, and one for mom. This stuff is DELICIOUS. Definitely worth the hunt!

Oh yeah, Saturday was Jared's birthday, so he and Jessica came to Athens. We ordered Indian takeout for dinner, and then saw the School of Dance's Winter Concert, which was really cool! We went to the cast party afterward and watched some Beer Pong.

Happy Birthday, Summer!

Yesterday was Summer's birthday, so Summer, Yumi, Suzanne and I went to the Blue Gator to celebrate! We had beers and dinner, and fun present time! It was a super fun night, and also delicious. The Blue Gator has the BEST rolls.



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Tomorrow night, Summer and I are going to celebrate her birthday a bit more by heading uptown to play games of all sorts! Darts, foosball, who knows what else! Perhaps if we're lucky, the night will end with a little Pictionary.

Tonight I made cupcakes for tomorrow's March Birthday celebration at work. Last time I made cupcakes, I ate so much of the batter that I got food poisoning and was on the toilet all night long. So of course, this time, I didn't eat ANY batter. You believe me, right?