Gabby's Love

In the previous post, I mentioned a big family dinner we had this weekend at Michaelangelo's in Newark.

My grandmother (my mom's mom) died in the early 70s and, to be honest, I don't recall my mom and her sibs talking about her all that much. But the first time we went to Michaelangelo's a few years ago, my mom and her sibs had the Veal and Peppers and the Sunday Gravy and reveled that both tasted "just like Mommy's." As a consequence, this is now my favorite place for us to go for family dinners.

The reason we went to Michaelangelo's in the first place was that my hubby's mom was in an a cappella group at the time and they were performing there. Sadly, the group no longer performs, so this weekend when we were at Michaelangelo's, they had DaVido instead.

How to describe DaVido? Well, for those in the tristate area news-viewing district, my cuz described him as the 1976 Ernie Anastos. He's got a pompadour. And wears alot of makeup. And sings accompanied by a karaoke machine complete with teleprompter-ed lyrics. And my darling, 6-year-old goddaughter fell completely in love. Got his autograph and everything.

Now, here's the kicker. I googled him because I wanted to provide a link to a picture of him for this post. Did I find his website? No. But I did find THESE:
Lounge Singer Gives Starbucks The Jitters
Singer Thrown Out of Over 200 Starbucks

And, of course, his own self-promotional site: JavaJitters

And here is his YouTube video:


The song is apparently also available on iTunes.

There really isn't anything else I can say. Enjoy

Doing the Happy Dance!

Had my weigh-in today and really expected it to be minimal (<1 lb) to no weight loss due to:
- dinner at Michaelangelo's Saturday night
- dinner at Brasserie 52 Friday night
I didn't actually use all my bonus points, but I certainly used a lot more than last week...

But, happily, I still lost 2.4 lbs, which equals:



Yay!

Despite Evidence to the Contrary...

I am actually normal. Or, at least, my bone density is.

One of the possible side (I guess "after" would be more accurate) effects of chemo is loss of bone density.

I had a scan earlier this week and the results came back A-OK. Yay.

I Joined the Cult!

Inspired by the success of fellow bloggers ktbuffy and Laughing at the Pieces, as well as my non-blogging (!) friend K., I decided to take the plunge and join WeightWatchers.

It's been 1 week and so today was my first did-I-lose-any-weight weigh-in. And I did. 2.8 pounds, which is the equivalent of 2 Scrabble game sets*:




*A nod to Laughing at the Pieces for the "my weight loss in images" idea, which I have freely stolen.

Watch This!

I promise, it will be 20 minutes well spent. Annie Leonard explains the need for sustainable approaches simply, elegantly and compellingly.

Dial a Fish!

Or, more specifically, Text a Fish!

As you may or may not know, some fish and shellfish are more sustainably harvested than others. And, because of all the pollution in the environment, some fish are less healthy for us to eat than others.

But how to keep track?

For years, I've carried around one of these little cards (like this or this) in my wallet. But I never actually developed the habit of pulling it out at restaurants.

Now, you can text 30644 with the message "FISH [name of fish]" and in return you'll get Blue Ocean's sustainability info in return.

For more info, check out Blue Ocean's Fishphone page.

[Note: I got this from "Ideal Bite," which I've now added to my blog via a widget--look to the right side of the page.]

Virtual Bubblewrap

Consider this my atonement for my most recent (boring) post.

Pop away!

Star Sighting (Sort of)

First off, apologies for being a lame blogger lately. It appears to be one of the side effects of being away from a computer for days at a time.

Part of the reason I've been away from the computer is that last week I was in Chapel Hill, NC at a conference.

The first night I was having dinner at the hotel bar when I noticed someone who looked "familiar" at the next table. Being "out of context," I couldn't decide if he was a) a fellow agency employee attending the conference or b) a character actor. I was pretty sure it was b, but since I couldn't at the moment come up with a single movie I'd seen him in or his name, I decided not to approach him. Instead, my tactic was to look for him at the conference the next day. If he was there, then obviously he was an agency employee; if not, back to theory b.

To be perfectly honest I forgot all about it until the next night when I was sitting at the hotel bar having drinks with some colleagues (no, I didn't get out much during this conference) and in he walked with two young women who were clearly not bureaucrats. Suddenly, the name "Joe Grifasi" popped into my head, but the only movie I know for sure that Joe Grifasi was in was Moonstruck where he was a decidedly dark-haired, very Italian-looking waiter at the Grand Ticino. The guy I was looking at was silver-haired. Granted Moonstruck was released in 1987. Still, I decided not to approach him. I did, however, IMDB him and it was, indeed, Joe Grifasi.

Ok, so I know what you're thinking: "She hasn't posted in weeks and this is what she chooses to write about?" Um. Yeah. At least for today.

In Lieu of our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Why aren't I posting?

We got back from London on Wed eve.
I have 2 days at work to prepare for a one-day workshop I'm giving at a conference next week.
And I have to do laundry in order to pack to go to said conference Monday morning.

So, in the meantime, here's some Dave Barry to keep you amused. (Thanks to ktbuffy for reminding about his year-end round-up!)

Happy New Year!!!!!

Just got back from across the pond last night and am currently digging myself out from under an e-mail backlog, but will post soon!