Making Spirits Bright

I went Christmas shopping last night and I hated it just as much as I remember. Everything about it irritates me: the crowds, the lines, all the annoying Christmas music and the vapid look on my face as I try to figure out what to buy. At one point I may have even started crying. It was rough, especially for someone who abhores shopping in the first place. So how do I make it better? Good beer. Usually I drink domestic beer at home, but last night I stopped and bought a six-pack of Warsteiner beer to make it all better, and the next time I go shopping, I will probably do the same. I think this may be why Christmastime is so expensive.

Wedding Party Professional

Last week it became official: My sister asked me to serve as her "best man" for her ceremony in June when she marries her girlfriend of nine years. This is such an honor, and I am so proud to have been chosen. On top of that, I don't know of anyone else who has gotten to serve as both a maid of honor and best man in the span of eighteen months. If you want to go back ever further, I was a flower girl twenty-five years ago for my aunt's wedding. If you, or anyone you know have gaps in your wedding party, I can obviously fill almost any of them.

This Whole Non-Smoking Thing Is Killing Me...

...or at least it was. Apparently word has not reached many fine establishments that there is a smoking ban in order. Last week I suffered through the ban in the bitter cold, which is best exemplified with a quote from a friend: "I felt worse after smoking four cigarettes outside than had I smoked a whole pack inside." It was rough going until last night when I frequented more than one bar, including one which uses cups as ashtrays, where I was able to smoke inside. So if you want to find me, you will have to go a little farther west (See: Lakewood). I am like the Carmen San Diego of Smoking in Cleveland.

In other news, the fantasy football gods slapped us a hard dose of irony last night. Last year we won our championship when Thomas Jones came through with a big game against Green Bay and gave us enough points to win our game. This year we were knocked out of the playoffs because Thomas Jones had another big game. This season however he played for our opponent and was not on our team. Alas the season is over.

(Insert moment of silence for fantasy football season here)

Black (Lung) Thursday

Bright Side Of The Smoking Ban

There really is a bright side to the smoking ban. My co-worker just opened my eyes to one of the few perks. The first major perk, which I already knew about, will be the amount of money I am going to save by not going out as much. I know that seems crazy, but it's true. I am going to go out a lot less, because, well I don't like to drink and not smoke. Also it gets cold in Ohio and I don't see myself standing outside of bars all winter. This brings me to the point my co-worker brought up. As many of you know, I am not prone to turning up my heat. I have been keeping my apartment at a balmy 52 degrees, and I am ok with this, but it does get a little chilly at night (see picture). My smart co-worker told me to think about how much warmer your apartment is going to be at the same temperature if you are standing outside smoking at night. This is true. I may even be able to lose the stocking hat.

Holiday Greetings From The Annex

Posted on msnbc.com this week:
“Are you really spreading holiday cheer with the annual letters?”

Then it got me thinking…

Holiday (censored) Letter From The Annex

Holiday Greetings from the Annex! It has been quite a year for us! In January we will be celebrating one year of existence, so I guess you could say it has been our best year yet.

Mark moved in at the beginning of January and things have been entertaining ever since. From xxxxxxxxxxxx to xxxxxxxxxxx, things have been a little wild at times, but we have all grown from our experiences. There were the times this year when xxxxxxxx happened, but thankfully everyone is still in one piece. It wouldn’t be a holiday letter if I didn’t mention xxxxxxxxxxx, so for those of you that remember that evening, thanks for the memories. Nonetheless, we have had a great time and we have grown a lot in the past year. We just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season.

Happy Holidays,
The Annex

Smoking Tour '06...Where Were You?

What a week...what a weekend! This past week was fabulous, minus the fact that my fantasty football team took a turn for the worse, but you can't win 'em all.

Apparently I am on my very own Smoking Tour '06. With only four days left, I have tried to stop and have a cigarette in as many establishments in Cleveland as possible. Actually this wasn't done on purpose, but by Saturday I realized that I have made stops over the past couple days at: The Winking Lizard, The Old Angle, Bounce, McNamara's, Touch Supper Club and Melted and I still have four more days. Four more days. Ugh. Ok, enough about the smoking ban.

This weekend I got to go see the live version of Rocky Horror Picture Show at Cleveland Public Theatre compliments of Mindy. I am not the biggest fan of the movie, but the play was done really well as everyone in the show actually stole the show. Afterwards there were drinks and yummy food from Halite with the cast. Saturday was an adventure as I went to my favorite annual party in Cleveland. This year was crazier than ever with what seemed like hundreds of people showing up to get down. The host goes all out by hiring a DJ and poker dealers while inviting a very funny diverse crowd. I always feel like I am in a movie when I attend because of all the interersting characters I encounter. Sunday was peaceful. The annex cooked steak and eggs due to the fact that The Old Angle wasn't open yet and then I fell asleep after the Browns scored their first touchdown and woke up in time to catch them win in overtime. It was perfect. I should do that more often.

Catch me if you can at your favorite smoking establishment this week.

Let The Smoking Memories Begin

As I walked into The Winking Lizard last night, I saw the saddest sign posted all over my favorite smoking establishment. Effective December 8, The Lizard will be smoke-free. While I know almost every bar/restaurant in Ohio is going in this direction, this one hurts the most. There was always something so special about the smoking section there. This is where you could watch 20 differenct large screen televisions, sit at the bar and ask about all the different draft beers, play pool, arcade bowl or play darts. In the non-smoking room, if you didn't get the right seat, you would have to squint to catch the game on the small mounted televsions in each corner. It was always so quiet in that weird little non-smoking room--like you were in a library or at someone's wake. The Winking Lizard made it cool to be a smoker and they made it a lot more fun as well. It was almost as if they were telling their customers: "Sure you can sit in non-smoking but you aren't going to have any fun."

As Liz and I sat there last night, we talked about how this was our favorite place to go and have a beer and cigarette. We even had a funny memory to illustrate the significance. When she and I came back from Massachusetts last year, after a vacation in a non-smoking state, the first thing we did after we got back from the airport was head to the Lizard for a beer and a smoke. While most people are exhausted from traveling or would rather go to their neighborhood bar, we missed smoking inside and we missed smoking inside at the Lizard. I can only imagine how I am going to feel after December 8. RIP best smoking section in Cleveland.

*The writer of this blog does not condone smoking

The Gasman Always Rings Once

As I was getting ready for work this morning, my doorbell rang. This almost never happens . In order to get to the door, I have to find my keys because I can't open my door without them, and then I have to run down the backsteps to the door. By the time I got down there, the person who rang the bell was gone. After I finished getting ready for work and walked out the door, there was that damn note from the gas company which said they missed me. I always miss this person and I think it is done on purpose. The gasman is my nemesis (think Jerry Seinfeld and Newman). After they rang the doorbell, they must have ran away because they didn't even wait one minute for me to come down the stairs. This is most concerning to me because I haven't turned my heat on, so I don't want them estimating based on past years. Yeah, I know. I am crazy on so many levels. Most of you know my issues with the gas company. Now I have one more.

My Hero

My brother is my hero. While he may not have rescued a kitten out of tree or saved small children from a burning building, he did do the following this weekend: Started partying in Columbus at 8 am and made it all the way through the game and then got up at 7:45 yesterday morning to drive back to Cleveland so he could start tailgating at 10:30 am and then came home and hung out with me after the game. Maybe he isn't your typical hero but he definitely deserves a shout-out for the work he did this weekend. The picture is a little fuzzy because the photographer had a lack of focus at the time.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

I have done some maintenance on the old blog and added some fun new features. If you scroll down on the right side of the page you will see a new category called "labels". I have categorized all of my entries so that you can look through particular categories. This is really more for my benefit, but I thought I would let you know.

On to the weekend...
Tomorrow is the Ohio State-Michigan game. It is the one day of the year when everyone in Ohio thinks they graduated from Ohio State and it cracks me up. My brother is going to Columbus for the game and I think he is crazy for doing that. You could not pay me enough to be south of Mansfield this weekend. On top of that I am looking forward to a fun weekend with family and friends and parties with both.

I Graduated!

I finally cashed in on my last birthday present and it was worth the wait! Last night I went to beer school at the Great Lakes Brewing Company. It was the coolest thing I think I have done in a long time and I recommend it to anyone in the Cleveland area. For the price of $15, you get to go on a tour of the brewing company, learn the history of the building and surrounding buildings, learn how beer is made, learn how they name their beers, taste their five main beers and then they give you a souveneir glass and an awesome t-shirt that lets everyone know you graduated from beer school. It might be one of my proudest moments and I am sure my parents are equally as proud.

One thing to keep in mind if you do the tour is that you should eat first. I was given this advice by someone who did it before me, so plans were made to go to the Flying Fig. Ironically, and this has never happened at the Fig before, it took our food too long to come out and we weren't able to eat. I am a beer drinker, so I didn't think it would be that big of a deal except for the fact that the beer tasting was more like a drinking contest. While they talk about their five main beers you are drinking each one in a plastic cup (imagine every keg party you have attended but with expensive, good beer). It only takes them about 20 minutes to talk about all the beers, so you have slammed five cups of strong beer in that short time. Hmmm...I wonder if that was why I liked it so much.

Reality Schmality

What a great weekend! The CAVS came back from 20 points down, the Browns beat a playoff contender, we had the second lowest points and we still won our fantasy football game and I won my first week of fantasy basketball. Yes, I came to the realization that fantasy football will not last forever and I will need something to take me through the summer. Therefore, I have decided to join a fantasy basketball league with co-workers (reason #213 why I love my job). Pretty soon everything in my life will just be one big fantasy and I will wake up in my fantasy apartment and go to my fantasy job and then go to fantasy Old Angle for fantasy drinks. Reality is overrated anyway.

Election Events

Here are my quick (and erratic) thoughts from the past couple of days:

The absentee scanning was interesting but relatively uneventful, though the accuracy worries me a little...actually it worries me a lot. I think we are still not quite where we should be in electronic voting. How is it possible we now have cars that parallel park themselves, yet we can't get electronic voting down? Did the computer engineering flunkies all get stuck with election duty?

I was thrilled Tuesday night with all the results and overall it was a great evening. I was, however, saddened Wednesday morning with election news from a close friend, so it was rather bittersweet. It was definitely stupid to not take the day after the election off, as I was up past 3 am trying to catch all the results. As far as the issues go…I wonder how much the passage of issue five (no smoking) is going to hurt issue 18 where cigarette taxes will go to the arts. Also, and I hope everyone saw this on the ballot for issue three, where they broke down the math for the gambling and it went like this: 55% back to the casinos and 35% back to education. Where does the other 10% go? This math made it a little fishy to me.

Overall I am excited about the blue political coup in this state and I hope it can last until the next big election in ’08. Barack Obama, anyone?

A Week Late, But Still Funny

Last week I found a great story about my alma mater on-line from Sports Illustrated. If you know anything about Ohio University, you know it hardly gets written about in major sports publications. However at my former school, Halloween was the biggest sport on campus. While most people think I went to Ohio University for this reason, it was really the former reason. As most students who graduated from Ohio University could tell you, we don't remember very many sporting events, but we could probably tell you about a very memorable Halloween we had there or the first time we got arrested which is usually one in the same.

I Just Voted And You Should Too!

In case you aren't aware of the voting procedures this fall, you have up until Saturday to go to your local board of elections to cast an early ballot. I just did it at lunch and it only took me ten minutes. What a relief it was to get that over with and not have to wait in line on election day.

The League of Women Voters actually has a great website with insight on all the candidates and issues. I found it to be a lot more functional than other sights I went to. My biggest fear about voting early was that I wouldn't get a sticker, but I was so damn excited to be casting my ballot, they actually gave me two.

Busy Busy Election Elf

I won't have much time to blog over the next week as I will be housesitting starting tomorrow. I have decided to take most of those days off of work because I hate commuting from the suburbs--it is pure torture! Even with the time off work, I will still be working as a dogsitter, catsitter, housesitter, fishsitter and next Monday night I am going to be a self-proclaimed "election elf."

Starting at 11:30 pm next Monday night until noon on election day I will be at the county board of elections scanning absentee ballots. That's right, I am going to be a part of the process! I had training last night and it is interesting to be behind the scenes to see how a bi-partisan America actually works. In this sense, a Democrat (that's me by the way) is teamed up with a Republican to scan ballots together. I will be sitting across from somebody I have completely conflicting views with for 12 hours trying to make small talk. Essentially it is the opposite of speed dating.

My Favorite Television Clip Of All Time

When I found this clip, I was ecstatic. My sister got me hooked on Laverne and Shirley when we used to own this clip on video cassette. I took it to college where I lost it, assuming it was never to be found again. Now I can own it forever thanks to YouTube.

Halloween Blog

It's odd that the more pressure you put on a holiday, the more stressful it is in the end. Take for example every New Years Eve I have ever had. However when you put no pressure on a holiday, it always turns out to be so much fun. Take for example Halloween this past weekend. A last minute costume with last minute plans turned out to be fabulous.

On Friday we stayed in and watched scary movies with Tim where laughter and funny quotes were rampant. On Saturday we found costumes at the last minute (that were quite cheap as well) and then accessorized as Lou and Lucy Lucipher (see photo). We traveled around and went to a fun party near Kamm's Corners and then made our way back to the near west side for Liz's party before heading off to the Garage Bar to hang out with good friends I hadn't seen in months. Daylight Savings Time kicked in and we stayed out later than expected that night. Though that isn't saying much considering we were actually thinking about staying in. See? No pressure=more fun.

Birthday Blog

This was one of the best birthdays ever. I have included some pics from my birthday weekend, which included: a crazy memory-filled Friday night with my parents and their friends at Pickwick and Frolic followed by after-dinner drinks at the Marriott; Staying up until the wee hours of the morning with my brother and Liz after seeing Joan Jett which was an incredible show; Partying with Mindy on Sunday with incredible seats at the Indigo Girls concert followed by drinks at the Old Angle. My friends and family are so incredible and I had such a blast over the past couple days. Pictured below: me with my cake first thing Sunday morning, Mindy and I Sunday before the show, Liz and I Saturday after the show, Joan Jett rocking out and sharing a birthday drink with my parents' friend at Pickwick and Frolic.