The good, the bad, and...well you know

Yes, yes, yes it has been a crazy week that has vacillated between being super cool and fun and driving me to drink copious amount of alcohol and toying with the idea of chucking it all and running away with the circus. And the best part is, it’s only Wednesday. So what’s a girl to do? Bitch on her blog it seems. But let’s start with the good.

On Saturday we went to a dinner party (which is turns out adults do a lot and, depending on the people you eat with, much more fun they I ever thought there would be) and we met some new super cool people. And we all drunkenly decided that we needed to have a karaoke party, since I, for some reason have two karaoke machines. How does a girl with absolutely no musical skills have two karaoke machines? Well because I like to sing, even though I am awful at it, Jeff bought me a stand alone machine last year, which I plug in and play when Jeff’s not home. And then in Philli over Christmas break Jennie told me about this cool game you can play on the X-Box, Karaoke Revolution which comes with its own mic and you get points and stuff for singing on key, and you can go head to head with someone else in competition. This is the best because you just have to hit the right note, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like. And Jeff is happy with it because it is the only X-Box game I will play. But I digress. The decision was that I would bring the machines, Jeff would make perogies and we would have a fun party.

Then on Tuesday we had a speaker at school for the Black history month convocation. It was Alfre Woodard, an actress that you may recognize from Scrooged or her new gig Desperate Housewives. Now I will admit that I was not too excited about rearranging my syllabus to take my class to a speech by some actress. I mean if it had been academic or something no problem, but an actress? But I did it and I actually really enjoyed her speech. I think that she really surprised people who thought she was just going to give a nice little speech. Instead she railed against the war in Iraq and the way in which this administration is ignoring the poor and disenfranchised in this country to make a train wreck out of another. And she appealed to the students to make their mark, to stand up for those who can not because they are the future. She ended by reciting a Langston Hughes poem which she did beautifully (duh she us an actress). It was great fun, but I think she surprised people with such an overtly political speech. And the students enjoyed it, which was really the point.

And the bad side? Well I won’t get into it now, and I wouldn’t discuss some of it on this blog. Let’s just say that it starts with the pile of stuff on my desk at work that needs to be graded and end with me banging my head against a door because people are driving me crazy, but again I won’t name names, that would be a bit dangerous. But let’s suffice it say that I will just sit here with my cocktail and try to forget today every happened with a couple of mindless hours of American Idol.

Moving on...

And that is what I am doing, the Bears lost the Super Bowl, but we have next year and only a few more months before Cubbie spring training. So we will move on…..

I thought that it has been over a month since our trip to Philli and I never posted pics! I would like to point out before the viewing that the night before we left J and I fell sick with the babyflu. Truly I do not know who got me sick, but there were three babies and no students so someone needed to take the blame. This means that we had a 14 hour drive with two sick people downing strange blue cold-buster. Actually the drive wasn’t that bad, but I did have a scary day when I realized that my voice was going, going gone. I blame the flu, but it also might have had something to do with the late night of drinking the first night we got there! But I gave my paper, it was well received, met up with some friends that I have not seen in a while, had some drinks and saw some stuff.

When we got to Philli I had luncheon to go to, but after that we walked around the city a bit. One of the first things I decided we need to see what Betsy Ross’s house, and I made Jeff take the audio tour, yes he was happy with that. I liked this kitty fountain that was in the courtyard, but I honestly don’t know how Betsey would feel about the Starbuck’s across the street. That night we went to dinner with L. We walked around until we found someplace that looked good, but once inside Fork we realized that this was one of those hippier than cool, everyone wearing black place. I bet that they served little food too, and everyone knows how I feel about little food. So we went one block over and eat at this great Italian place. There was wine and fun had by all, and after dinner we went back to the hotel bar and more friends.

The next day we had another round of things to see, but before that we had to get our picture taken with this guy. Turns out we were too late to see Independence Hall, so we headed over to the Constitution museum, which is very cool. It’s fun for kids, or people like me who really just like taking pictures with bronzed statues. My favorite part of the museum was the screens through history to tell you who could vote, J says he could vote from the get go if he counted the car as property.

The next day I gave my presentation and then we saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. I have to say that after the long line and the security the Liberty Bell looked, well how should I say this, kind of fake. I mean it looked like the bronze was sprayed on or dipped in plastic. Independence hall though was more fun. We saw the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed, which was pretty cool. And then we walked around to point out all the places that Nicholas Cage stood in National Treasure. And we were not the only ones doing so, which makes me wonder exactly what kind of dork we are! But in all the drink was fun and if you make the trip here is an interesting tip, every road stop on the PA turnpike has a Starbucks, enjoy.