HD stands for what again?

What I'm Listening To: Skanky Panky by Kid Koala

We watch A LOT of television at Casa Reagan, because just admit it, there's really nothing better to do after work. (oh, besides go to the gym, which we absolutely luuuuuuurve. Kidding!) I almost feel a sensual connection to that box that connects us with the doings of the outside world. The Reagan apres-work ritual includes walking in the door, changing out of our work clothes, debating whether we're gonna go work out or not (usually we go, sigh!) and then coming home and eating dinner in front of the TV, scanning through the programs we've DVR'd from previous days. Jealous yet?

Yeah, it's the life, alright. Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that we're the only ones supporting the Nielsens television rating statistics -- no one else seems to watch TV any more. When we go out with other couples, I'm all like, "Wow, did you see what Nico and Wendy did last night on Lipstick Jungle?" or "God, Chuck Bass is so evil. Tying up Dan Humphreys at Yale was totally TM! What did you think?" and they just give me these pitying looks like I'm some kind of nutbag that lives in a refrigerator box over by the railroad tracks. "Television?" they sigh. "Who has time for television? And when we do have the time to watch, we only watch educational shows. You know, for our children's sake." Yeah, that's when I start frantically signalling the server for a double vodka tonic and maybe some earplugs so I don't have to listen to their sanctimonious birdseed.

That's fine. Don't watch TV. See if we have anything to talk about then! Now there's more Chuck Bass and his sexy whisper for me! Yay.

Anywhoo, with this devotion to TV in mind, Jim and I decided that since the economy sucks ass we might as well do our part and spend some cash on a LARGE APPLIANCE, because, hey, that's what a new TV really is, people. So after 5 years with a plain 27" screen television that was the size of Kentucky and heavier than a wet elephant, we decided to upgrade to a 46" flat-panel HD -- insert bunch of technical gobbledygook here that only Jim really understands-type -- television. I let Jim do all the shopping and reviewing and comparing and etc etc because let's be honest here, I know he likes that techie stuff more than lil ol' me, the girl that was in the bathroom when God was handing out patience.

First we picked up the new television at Best Buy over by Southridge on Wednesday, right before Thanksgiving. Yeah, we timed it so when Jim's brother and his family came to town for the holiday they could drool... oh, right, and enjoy the loveliness of a large-screen television with us for the first time. Whatevs.

Then on Saturday the Directv installation guy showed up, and in three measly hours we had HD TV, with a DVR and a new remote! Whoohooo. Unfortunately, the installation guy couldn't put the new HD satellite dish on our rug porch where the original dish had been, so he had to install a pole in the backyard to stick the new dish in a location where it could find the signals. Who cares? Just one more place that Jim had to trim the grass by hand...he'll manage!

So as of Saturday at 6 PM we have had HD TV. And can I just tell you, it is AMAZING! I have been blind but now I can see! Okay, I can see now almost too well. (You didn't think we were going to get through this blog posting without a complaint, did you? Come on, now!)

I dug up an old recording of Chuckie babe, just to see if the hotness translated okay to HDTV. Uh, it did. You know when you're watching soap operas and the way the filming is lit seems a little different than most other television shows, like a little TOO real? With HD, the details are so crisp, and the lighting is so perfect, it's like Chuck is in the room with me.

This level of television detail, okay, I'll admit it, kinda FREAKS ME OUT. I mean, before, when the television didn't have that much detail to purvey, these television actors were just actors, people in another time and place, people who I didn't really believe existed, people in another dimension, almost. You know what I mean, fantasy! NOW, with HD, it's like these people are REAL. They look REAL. It's freaky, for sure. I feel like I could almost touch them, and frankly, I don't want to. Okay, I'll stop now, but I just wanna say, crazy stuff here. Next thing you know, we'll have hologram TV's that get projected from some chip behind our eyeballs, and that concept just makes me shudder. By the time they roll that out, I'm kinda hoping I will be made into soylent green or something.

You out there in TV Land with HD -- what do you think? Is it live, or is it hi-def? Or hey, should I just turn the damn thing off already and read a book?

Turkey Day Tribulations

What I'm Listening To: The Creeps by Camille Jones (yay, Fedde le Grand!)

It's gonna be Thanksgiving in like 20 minutes, people. What are the lovely Reagans doing for this delicious holiday, you may ask? Well, gee, let me tell you!

First of all, we are having company over to Casa Reagan. Jim's brother, wife and two children will be traveling all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to join us for Thursday's feast. My teenage niece and nephew-in-laws are a real treat. We call them Tweek (the niece) and Turtle (the nephew) respectively. Tweek is a 18-year-old ADD-afflicted 12-sided-dice microchip, and Turtle is just the cutest 16-year-old sloth you've ever seen. We heart them to death! Pat and Sue are fine, for grown-ups. At least they won't bitch when Turtle wants to play another round of Call of Duty 27 and Tweek is talking a mile a minute about her love of Tolkien, Hello Kitty and the Beatles, and oh wait, do you want to go run around the block again? So we're just gonna sit back and be entertained.

Speaking of entertaining, we aren't really going out of our way for Pat and crew. As you may know, I can't cook. Well, it's not really that I can't cook. It's that I hate cooking. My lack of patience makes a lot of tasks pretty difficult, but cooking's one of the worst. I mean, waiting for something to bake is torture!! I can't stand it! So forget it. Seriously!

Anyway, we decided that instead of killing ourselves cooking a turkey and the all the requisite sides we are going to have Rupena's do it for us. Yes folks, a catered Thanksgiving. For a very appealing price tag, you can get a whole turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetable, rolls, gravy, cranberry sauce and a nice pumpkin pie, all without lifting a finger! Oh, you can just shut your disapproving mouth right now. I am so sick of being chastised about taking the easy way out here. Here's how that went. We're on the bus, right, and I said to Jim, "You're gonna call Rupena's today about the turkey later?" and he agrees. Now, I didn't really want to get into why I wasn't cooking with my bus friends, but then we had to explain what I mean about Rupena's, and three seconds later it's a chorus of, "oh, a home-cooked meal is what Thanksgiving is all about. You really should cook your own turkey. It's so eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeassssy!"

Yeah, right. It's so easy. I was talking to a friend at work who was describing her Thankgiving ritual. "Okay, so first I'll need defrost the turkey for TWO DAYS (emphasis mine), then soak it in brine (WTF is brine, people? Isn't that like pickle juice or something?), then I'm gonna...." and after that I just tuned her out. That sounds like the worst gastronomic torture ever. Brine? Two days of defrosting? And then there's the delicate choreography of making sure all the sides come out of the oven at the right time so that you can put everything on the table together and be all Martha Steward about it. And don't forget the decorations! Sheesh, I'd rather perform drunk Lasik surgery on my own eyeballs than make a freakin turkey dinner. I can see it now -- mix one turkey dinner, multiple timing issues, my hair-trigger temper and the fact that I have the patience level of a Veruca Salt. Shake until combustion occurs. Result: One really pathetic holiday meal, and everybody's hungry and pissed off as a result. Yay!

So we're not cooking, just serving. I don't care what anyone says anymore. And you know what? I think we'll use paper plates, too, just to keep it all casual and Stallis-style. We might even serve Schlitz, but that's still under debate.

Be advised, I am warning you right now: on Monday 12/1 I don't want to hear about your deep-friend Cajun turkey with cornbread stuffing and how Paula Dean came over and make her famous sweet potatoes and how you can't believe we gave up so easily and ordered in. Whatever. I'm just thankful that we won't have any dishes to wash afterwards...unlike the pile of filthy porcelain that some sorry-asses will be stuck with!!! HA!

Happy Thanksgiving, haters! :)

Eating is fundamental, but so is a happy weight!

What I'm Listening To: Idealistic by Digitalism

I've struggled with my weight all my life. You should read my high school journal -- every other page was "I have to lose 20 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or I'm gonna scream!!!!!!!!!!", no lie. Then every other page was me proclaiming my undying affection for some dorkasaurus ass in one of my classes, and how he never looked at me, how I was just gonna die if he didn't answer my note, blah blah blah. Did I tell you about the time someone....oh, right, my weight. Sorry about that. (oh, don't worry Layla, I'll bring my senior picture to work...soon. I promise!)

Anywhoo, as life went on I just kept putting on the pounds. I won't bore you with my stories of how I tried to lose the weight, how I went on Atkins, how I tried every other Cosmo and Glamour magazine diet they published, how I flirted with skipping meals (which also introduced me to the wonderful yet cranky world of low blood sugar), how I exercised like a nutbag and still nothing. I've tried to inspire myself by reading every heroic fiction book about the fat girl who loses all the weight and then SURPRISE! everyone loves her, all her bad habits disappear, she gets a boyfriend and everything turns out okay -- yeah, maybe the fictional heroine lost the weight in the end, but I was still a chunk eating her second bag of red licorice Nibs.

Okay, I'm getting off track here, but basically this was how my dieting odyssey went until about 2006 when I hit my heaviest. Jim and I were really overweight. Uh, have you seen my wedding photos? There's a reason you don't wear satin when you're fat, people.

So there was this weight loss program at work, and what happened is employees paid $10 a month to participate, but you got a ton of money back if you lost weight. I thought it sounded super dumb, just a repeat of all the diet rules I already knew, but finally I gave in and asked Jim if he'd join with me. I mean, the money was a real incentive, seriously. And oh, let me let you in on a secret - we lost weight.

It was kinda funny dieting with my husband. He was like completely oblivious to any diet guidelines, rules that every woman knows like the back of her hand. Trust me, I have never questioned these rules. I mean, if someone told me that eating dirt would make you lose weight, I would be out there making mud pies with cinnamon in them, no kidding. So when Jim would ask silly questions like if he could still have Doritos (uh, they're corn, and that's a vegetable...right?) or what was so bad about Culver's (don't go there!) it made me laugh out loud. Here was a total diet virgin and I was there to break his cherry. So I taught him about baked vs. fried, veggies vs. processed foods, and next thing you know, he's shaking his head at me when I'm putting mayo on my veggie burger. Sheesh!

Every week we weighed ourselves on these program scales and then we got the checks if we lost weight. To make a long story short, Jim lost 100 lbs and I lost 30 lbs by the power of teamwork and making some really easy changes in our lives and our eating habits.

How did we do it? It was no more double meat gyros with extra sauce, no more Chinese food every Sunday, no more supreme pizzas at 2 AM. I mean, you're talking to a couple who used to eat a dozen eggs, bagels thick with cream cheese and half a package of bacon for their Sunday brunch at home. Basically, whatever we could stuff in our maws was fair game! Now it's smaller meals, veggie burgers and steamed vegetables for dinner, exercising 3 times a week, and an occasional meal out. We have maintained our new weights now for about a year!

When I started this blog tonight, I really wanted to talk about our nightly snacks, and how much I adore pretzels, but I couldn't tell you about the end of our dieting journey without telling you how we got there. So maybe next time I'll tell you about my love affair with cheesy poohs (otherwise known as cheese-flavored Quakes, those little rice cakes) and how I'll never turn down a fudgie (yeah, it's a Skinny Cow frozen fudge bar, so get your mind out of the gutter!).

I applaud you if you're trying to lose some weight, and if you're not, well, as my mom always told me, everybody could lose 1o lbs. Happy eating!

Our 4th Anniversary -- can you believe it?

What I'm Listening To: My Favorite Book by Stars

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary. I just want to tell you how happy I am that I met my husband Jim and that he decided that hey, he had nothing better to do, he might as well take a chance and marry my sorry self. Oh, yeah, he loves me too! Today at work he sent me a bouquet of a dozen white roses, my favorite.

There are so many reasons that I love my husband. He is my best friend, the other half of Team Reagan. He makes me laugh every day, sometimes so hard that I tinkle a little. We finish each other's sentences because we are so in synch. He understands me completely. The best part of my workday is seeing his smiling face coming down the escalator at work (we work together) so we can go catch the 4:10 PM bus to Westallica.

So much has changed since we got married four years ago in our living room by a justice of the peace, and so much has stayed the same. Same, Jim is still my heart of hearts. Changed, we've lost a total of 130 lbs since we got married! Same, we still live in Stallis in our little place. Changed, we have a new kitchen! What more can we say? :) I'll keep you posted here as things get even better!

The song that I'm listening to as I write tonight's blog entry, My Favorite Book by Stars, is our song. It makes me tear up just listening to it, because I love my husband that much. Have you ever looked at your loved one and just felt so much love in your heart that it was almost painful? That's how much I love my husband. I just can't stop smiling when I think of him. Okay, I'll stop the sappy crap now.

At lunch today we were talking about the question of "at what point in your relationship did you know that you could totally be yourself with your spouse?" and both Jim and I were like, when you poop your pants. Because I will totally admit it, I have pooped my pants more than once. One time, when I was on Atkins, I ate all these sugar-free chocolate bars. Uh, don't do it, I'm warning you. Then we went out for sushi that night, and next thing you know, I was in a public restroom swabbing the decks because I'd let the cat out of my bag, so to speak. It wasn't like I meant to do it, people. Really. But I had to slink back to the table, and be like "Get me OUT of here!" to Jim, who had to create some excuse so we could make a clean (okay, kinda shitty, ha ha!) getaway.

Jim has done lost his drawer control, too, but lucky for him it's been at home. But I think that was the moment when we knew that we needed to stick together. Ha ha! Needless to say, when you hear your spouse yell down the stairs "uh, honey, need some help here! Oh, and bring a plastic bag and some lysol!" you're not expecting to clean up after them. But honestly, I think that stuff just brings us closer!

So I wanted to share with you that it's our anniversary, I heart my husband, and I hope that everyone can find the kind of loving relationship with someone in their lives that I have with my huzzie. Happy Reagan Day! Oh, and please keep the crap in your pants, people!

Our Little Place -- The Kitchen Remodel

What I'm Listening To: Overkill by Men at Work

For those of you following along at home, Jim and I recently renovated our severely outdated kitchen. How about a little background, first, huh?

So, the gay guy who lived in our house before us (yes, the "Shirtless Men Cruise Line" brochures and gay porn catalogs that continued to be delivered to our mailbox long after he left confirmed our suspicions on our previous homeowners sexual leanings) was a great woodworker and handyman (he even wired the whole house in Cat 5e data cabling and installed a sound system in the living room walls - super cool!) but he had some horrible tastes in colors. So we had red cabinets on one side of the kitchen, the white ORIGINAL cabinets from when the house was built in the 1940s on the other side, and the aforementioned green counters. Teensy pantry that stored nothing. Then he painted the kitchen in a light yellowish green, with PEACH trim. UGH! The only redeeming factor about the whole room were the nice hardwood floors.

For FOUR YEARS we lived with that kitchen. I mean, we had a lot of other stuff to do on the house that took priority, and money, of course. Replace the cement front steps (we called our place "Crumbleporch Manor" for a while, there), replace the roof (ask me what a pain it was to actually find roofing contractors who return phone calls), and then replace the severely rotted wooden fencing and install a retaining wall and new 6' high fencing in the backyard (best money we ever spent, no kidding! I couldn't look at our neighbors one more second!!). I love crossing things off our homeowner "to do" list!

I have to say, waiting so long for a new kitchen wasn't that bad -- it just made us appreciate the new kitchen even more when it was done. The old kitchen was functional, but it just was ugly. We had a really old dishwasher which we never used because it's just me and Jim, and we use paper plates. because we hate washing dishes. Uh, while it may not be really environmentally friendly, it's super logical for us. Oh, that, and I don't think I could eat my nightly snacks out of anything but a Dora the Explorer paper bowl. Shut up, if you saw them you'd understand that no one, and I mean no one, says no to the Dora bowl's plaintive printed requests of "Count all the red stars you see!" And the old sink had a soap dispenser -- that was pretty cool, I must say. And a water filter built in, with its own faucet. Whooohoo! So we were living okay.

This year we finally saved enough money to get our new kitchen. We were psyched. We decided to go to the NARI show at the State Fair grounds to find us a kitchen contractor. Yeah, that was fun. Everyone we went to looked at us like we were insane for thinking that we could remodel our kitchen for less than $30,000. I don't know about you, but I am not going into hock for more money than our car is worth for a room that we barely use because we are the laziest cooks ever. And then, every time we mentioned that we lived in Stallis, the eyebrows went up even further. We heard "Oh, we don't work in West Allis because the city inspectors are super strict!" over and over from about 4 different contractors. It was a nightmare.

Finally, we made some appointments with some maverick contractors (ha!), had our meetings, picked our dude, scheduled a date, and next thing you knew, we had a new kitchen and it was within our original budget. YAY!!! Our contractor -- Creative Cabinets, btw -- was great. He showed up when he said he would, installed it the way we asked, helped us find other subcontractors to do the stuff he didn't do, finished the job in the timeframe agreed upon, and charged us the price he originally quoted at the start of the job. It was a very pleasurable experience, and we got the kitchen we wanted.

We got new cabinets in a light oak mission style -- one of the cabinets has glass doors, too -- with brushed copper fixtures and pulls which just look so perfect, it's not even funny. The counters are light silestone, and the sink has a nozzle which detaches to use as a sprayer. He replaced our tiny pantry with a lovely cupboard with rolling shelves. We painted the walls light blue and the windows and doors trim white. Gorgeous!!!! It is our dream kitchen.

Okay, we didn't get a new dishwasher installed because as I mentioned before, we hate washing dishes. I cannot tell you how many people said to me "You didn't get a dishwasher? You're gonna have a hard time when you try to sell your house." Jesus, people, like you never washed a dish in your lives? Toughen up, bitches!! And the new sink is a little smaller than I thought it was going to be, and I miss using our crappy dishwasher as a drying rack (because running that dinosaur wasted more water than the Hoover Dam, and it took 2 hours to do a load, no lie!), but we did get a new stove (which we used twice since we bought it in September, no kidding) and the paint colors we used look fabulous against the silestone countertops! All in all, we're very happy.

So if you're lucky enough to get invited to our house, please make a lot of happy noises about our kitchen, because we are very very proud parents. Next up, the bathroom. Don't get me started on the ugly tiling colors and the leaky showerhead...arrrgggh! :) And then I get new bath towels! Yay!

Yay! A new president! What's next?

What I'm Listening To: Let's just listen to the silence for once, 'kay? Thanks!

I just wanted to let you know that I voted for Obama. And yes, I live in Westallica (thanks Otto!), land of the mullets, corner bars, the blue-collar man, and yes, a bunch of really depressed McCain supporters.

We got to our polling place at Jefferson Elementary School on Becher at like 6:45 AM, because usually we leave for the bus stop at like 6:35 AM, so we just wanted to go and vote before going to work. Figured there'd be a smaller line, hey? Well, no. We got there, and we were like 30th in line, no kidding. And as we stood there for 15 minutes, I swear about 35 more people showed up and lined up outside.

Taking a gander at my neighbors, I saw that pretty much every age group and generation was represented, from the first-time kiddie voters who were probably skipping class just to get in line, to a couple ladies who I think first cast their stone ballots with a chisel on an episode of the Flintstones. KIDDING! It was awesome! I heart Stallis! But I'm thinking all these people are hard-core Republicans -- I mean, Stallis doesn't have a bar on every corner because we're a happy positive group of individuals, okay?

So that got me thinking (get out of the way, it has thoughts!). If I lived in an area of Milwaukee that was more, uh, in line with my kinda lefty political beliefs, where would that be? Well, maybe not Stallis. Every day on our way home from the park n' ride there were like 5 huge McCain/Palin signs that gave me the creeps, I won't lie. Bay View seems to be the right direction, but really, just too granola and almost too leftist I think. Oh, and I look super gross in birks and tie-dye, no kidding. Tosa? Ugh. That little village thing they have going is just pathetic -- puhleeeeze stop trying so hard to be cutesy AND cool at the same time because it's totally NOT working. So I guess we'll just stay in Stallis and keep laughing at the McCain signs until they get taken down...hopefully soon, people. HINT!

So it took us like 15 minutes to get through the line and vote. Yay! I heard the lines were ridiculous in other places, but we had a very pleasant experience, even if I did try to tell the polling volunteer how to do his job. Hey, I was just trying to help, buddy! Ya ass!

I think it is so cool that so many people came out to vote for this election. I tried to find some numbers, like the population of the United States is X and X number of those citizens voted, but no dice. If anyone has the percentages, please send me a link. I'd like to see them! Jim says that the reason everyone came out to vote on Tuesday was because of the tanking economy, but I think it was because we're just sick of the same old song and dance from the Republican politicians. "Hey, Joe America. You are a dummy!" was basically what they were telling us all along, and we just sucked it down because we didn't know there was anything else to eat. And this time, McCain/Palin tried on the old suit of birdseed again and tried to feed it to us, and on November 4th we spit it in their faces. Thanks Saturday Night Live, and a special thanks to Tina Fey!! That was so great!

Great, but not so great, you know? It's a new president, but honestly, what's really going to happen in the next four years? We've been hearing the same promises from politicians our whole lives, and what's changed? We still have poor people. We still have super rich people who can get away with whatever. We still rely on foreign oil. We still have a substandard education system. Our taxes still rise every year. I'm not expecting miracles, but I am expecting something...anything but what we've just went through with the last 8 years! PLEASE!

PS: Even I'm getting sick of the serious blogging. Stay tuned for something funny, I promise!

Movie Review: Sex and the City

What I'm Listening To: Never Even Told Me Her Name by Air Traffic

Remember like six months ago, when everyone (okay, I mean women) flocked to the theaters to see the Sex and the City movie? Yeah, uh, that wasn't me. But hey, I made a point to put it on my Netflix want list, it showed up, Jim's in the basement playing on his compy, so I took this opportunity to watch the movie, and, of course, share my findings with you. Enjoy!

How can you be female and admit that you hadn't seen some episode of the Sex and the City tv series? (For a while, though, I thought it was called Sex IN the City, which totally makes more sense, right?) I'm pretty sure I've seen all the seasons, but I could be wrong. Back in the olden days, when I lived alone on Humboldt in this teensy, dark and sad little apartment (oh, and I think I was clinically depressed too -- hey, you be the judge!), my pretty regular weekend ritual was to go to the Cousins around the corner from my house, order two 6" Italian subs with no tomato (oh, they're for my friend, she's waiting at home. Yeah, riiiiight!) and then go to the Blockbuster and get a couple episodes of Sex and the City, and spend the rest of my waking weekend hours lying on the couch and stuffing my gaping maw. FUN!

Glued to the screen, I actually believed that Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha were kinda my FRIENDS. (On a side note, why couldn't these women have regular names, like Jenny, Cindy, Jo Anne and Michelle? Not glam enough, I guess) I mean, the characters all sorta got on my nerves, and the outlandish outfits and label mania just seemed really ridiculous, but it was comforting to know that even hotsie-totsie New York women (read: seriously attractive and rich women with little to do all day but have long lunches and wear get-ups that even Cloris Leachman would turn up her nose at) got the short end of the stick on the dating scene just like I did. So when I struck out at the bars (oh, like that happened! Ha!) I could go home and commiserate with Carrie and Company, because even though my shoes were from Payless and I liked a nice vodka tonic a lot better than any cosmo, we were all waiting at the Lonely Hearts bus stop for the Love Shuttle. Ha!

I was kinda scared to watch the movie because I thought I might like it, but it turned out okay. From a technical standpoint, it was a nicely assembled piece of work. Straightforward storyline, helpful background review, fun music, and all the accoutrements of the show. So fine, there you go, a happy little movie.

But you know I'm never satisfied! I wish this movie had gone to ridiculous and fantastic lengths to end the whole franchise with a real bang, if you know what I mean. In my version, Miranda takes Brady to Central Park to shoot Uzi's at male tourists, Samantha starts her own porno film studio, Charlotte immerses herself in her new religious life and moves to Israel, and Carrie is so broke from spending all her money on clothes and purses that she ends up working at Famous Footwear.

But no. In a nutshell, the story stayed true to form. BORING. Carrie finds true love with Big. Carrie loses true love. Carrie finds true love again and yay! love rules the day. The other characters had their own story lines as well (can't forget about nympho Samantha, career-obsessed Miranda or hopelessly-removed-from-reality Charlotte), but they were so insipid and so incredibly far removed from what I had experienced from the television show that it was almost painful to watch them in these watered-down cliche scenarios. By the end of the film, I had to look away in disgust. Sad.

I think the only good thing about this film was the emphasis on the importance of friends in our lives. So give your friends a hug and tell them the next drink's on you! :) Oh, and skip this movie, if you have any respect for women at all. We're not all enraptured by a pair of Manolos or a Louis Vuitton purse...seriously!