Tell Me If You Think This is Funny

Before we went out on New Year's Eve, we went to a nice restaurant for a prix fixe three course menu. Although I've been to many a fancy dinner, I never feel at ease. With my klutziness, I know that disaster lurks at every turn.

So we sit down for dinner, and it's just as New York chi chi as I envisioned. I had my slightly trashy dress on with Snookie-style hair poof and I tried to talk myself down as I perused the menu. "Ok, Adele, you're doing fine, just don't screw this up now," I thought.

It was decided that we would have cocktails, and I just glanced at the menu. "I would like the Stigmata," I told the waiter.

"The cocktail is called the Stigma," he said.

Oh no, I just ordered up the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ.Now you've done it!The more I thought about this, I could not compose myself. Debie and I kept laughing, probably making a scene.

When the waiter came back with my drink, he set it down and said - with a completely deadpan expression - "Here's your cocktail. Hammer and nails are in the back room."

NYE 2010

First things first: check out this bottle of wine my friend bought. Another llama-branded item I must buy.

My friend Kate told everyone she like giraffes, and sure enough, she got giraffe-related gifts for every birthday and Christmas ad nauseum. I'm hoping something similar will happen for me if I keep talking about llamas regularly.

Now to the real business - first blog post of 2011! Settle in for a little photodiary of my trip to NYC for NYE.

Still a lot of snow on the ground when we arrive. This dog surveyed the scene. "Finally!" he thought.

Joe snapped this oh-so-"Nighthawks" Hipstamatic shot. I've never looked so mysterious!

Decoration outside a house in Williamsburg. Sounds like a plan.

We went to Pies 'n' Thighs, where they serve fried chicken and pies, of course. Joe kept calling it Legs 'n' Thighs. "That's a strip club," Debie said.

And yes, pictured above is a gluttonous helping of butter on that biscuit.

More butter. Yum...

Fried chicken in one hand, chicken biscuit in the other.

All food prepared by short-order hipster cooks.

At dim sum, where we ate an incredible array of food for a mere $15. A waiter graciously brought me a fork, perhaps after they saw me wrestling with chopsticks and the ensuing dumpling droppage.

Did a little shopping in Soho, but the crowds made me realize that I almost prefer online shopping. These are toddler-size combat boots at the new All Saints store. I found a Rachel Zoe-style furry gray vest on a sale rack. I held it up. "Please, no," Joe said. He was a trooper to put up with the cape, but every man has his breaking point.

He lucked out because the gray fur vest was still $800 - even on sale.

Speaking of online shopping, I bought this Rachel Roy dress on super sale back in November, but when it arrived, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to put it on. It looked straightforward enough on the website, but in real life there were all sorts of fabric flaps and what looked like extra-arm holes. After 25 minutes of puzzling, I finally figured it out. There should've been an Ikea-style directions booklet.

Tada! Rocking the Snookie poof. 2010 was the year of Snookie, wasn't it?

To celebrate New Year's Eve, we went to a "Secret Loft Party" that our friend, the fabulous Lani Love, dj'ed at. Secret loft party = the apogee of cool for 2010. Lani wrote about the party here!

Ringing in the New Year.... Beyonce style... Notice the fancy gold finger nail ring.

Holly Jolly Llama

Hope those who celebrated had a very merry Christmas! As for my Christmas at home - I could regale you with charming stories about our 15-year-old dog almost pooping in the house. But no. No, not today.

Photo Credit: Debie

Here's the dog wearing his denim doggie diaper. Oh, Hunter. The cruelties of age. You are still hanging in there, though! Doing great! Except for the sleep pooping.

Christmas is llama season for Banana Republic advertising, and as a llama/alpaca fan, that makes me happy.

Snapped a picture of a Banana Republic store window. This particular llama looks a tad bit evil. That eye...

I feel like I should like this scarf, just because it has llamas on it.

My Photoshopskillz... So what if the llama looks giant compared to the girls in my Peru vacation clique.

The West Wing

I was fortunate enough to visit the West Wing of the White House this month. Never done that before, even though I grew up in the DC metro area. It kind of reminded me of when I studied in London and asked British students whether they'd been to Buckingham Palace. "Now why would we do that?" they said.

But the White House is awe-inspiring. Even though, as our gracious tour guide said, the tour features a lot of closed doors.

We got to visit the press briefing room.

You look nervous, said my friend Serena after she snapped this picture.

Words with Friends and Enemies

I'm currently playing 4 simultaneous Words With Friends games on my iPhone and I'm losing all of them.

This is not good for my self esteem.

The worst part: I am an English major! In my defense, I never took Scrabble 101.

Words With Friends is better than Scrabble, because there is no need to pull out a dictionary to check if words are real. You can just arrange letters on the board and click submit until the computer accepts the word.

These are "words" - and i use that term loosely - that have been played in our WWF games.

  • sib
  • wert
  • xu
  • wodge
  • poots

Poots? Really? Poots.

I tend to argue about the truthiness of these words.

me: debie, wodge is barely aword

Debie: haha

2:16 PM i keep thinking of wodge and laughing

i was trying for anything, clearly.

Debie: hahaha apparently wert is aword!

and so is xu

what does poots mean??

2:13 PM other words i've used and don't know what they mean: poh, rime, dreg

But I can't even think of made-up words, let alone real words.

s

11:19 AM Joseph: i'm on fire

you might as well resign this game

me: i know - it's not looking good for me

11:20 AM i'm getting desperate

turns out "zorgs"