BON ANNIVERSAIRE, ERICA!

A pineapple opal for a pineapple opal kind of girl:



(i'm completely incapacitated today. erica, i started celebrating your birthday early and it hurts;)

amusez-vous bien ce soir, mes opals!

happy holidaze

Hmmm....

Your Christmas Song Is

Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer Grandma got run over by a reindeer Walking home from our house Christmas eve. You can say there's no such thing as Santa, But as for me and Grandpa, we believe. You're not looking to the family holiday thing... Unless someone gets run over by a reindeer!

What Christmas Carol Are You?

Your 2005 Song Is

Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz "Love forever love is free. Let's turn forever you and me." In 2005, you were loving life and feeling no pain.

What Hit Song of 2005 Are You?

Whither Clark Griswold?

There should be a brand new Family Guy on right now AND the first network showing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation this year, but instead, I must watch W drawl his way through a national address, trying to tell me that the war in Iraq must go on. Hearing him speak makes me want to break up Christmas ornaments and shove the glass shards in my ears. I just want to watch some holiday programming, but must instead listen to this bullshit. Joy to the world and peace on earth and goodwill toward men, my ass.

It's that time of year!

I know that, like me, many of you o-pals are watching The OC right now, and so I just wanted to extend a little holiday cheer.

Happy Chrismakkuh, everyone!
(And a Festivus for the rest of us.)

I don't get it...

How can time move so fast and so slow all at the same time? I can't wait to be done with finals, but I don't have enough time to get anything done! On top of that-- Christmas is next week!

So, since I don't have much time to post, here's my addition:

Go here to download a free podcast of A Christmas Carol. It's free from Penguin Classics, and they're doling it out in installments. You can subscribe directly in iTunes, and it's still free. Get your holiday spirit on the go!

xoxo, Erica

Party party party party party

Okay, I am definitely having a New Year's Eve par-TAY. And yes, it will be a par-TAY. So, come one, come all. You are obviously excused if you live overseas or in a cooler city than DC. I found a ton of champagne flutes at IKEA last weekend, so this shin-dig will have class. And I have lots and lots of space for people to mill around and generally have a good time. Do come, all Opals. It might even turn into a dance party.

funny... i think

Ok- I didn't rewatch it, but this weekend Mikey & I lost our shit watching Dane Cook's 9 minute opening monologue on SNL. We may have been, well, let's say more-inclined-to-laugh at the time. Still worth watching. See it here.

I am a victim of crime...

because I was mugged on my way to sing at church on Sunday. Literally 1/2 block away from the front door of Immaculate Conception on 8th and N, a teenager grabbed me, said, "Give up your purse, bitch," hit me in the neck, and ran away. Not only did he get my bag, palm pilot, Aveda Lip Saver, and wallet, but he knocked my fresh Gingerbread Latte out of my hand. My only consolation is that he only got $1 after publicly assaulting me...A passerby tried to chase him down in his jeep, but the young man who relieved me of my possessions ducked into an alley somewhere. And honestly, what sort of legitimate criminal is out and about at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? All joking aside, it is very upsetting that this kid was a kid, and that he felt the need to call me a bitch and hit me to get my bag. I was actually looking up to say hello to him before he attacked me, so filled am I with the holiday spirit. Son of a bitch.
But on a different note, I just saw a story on the news about an aspiring model who hired a hitman to kill four men who she thought were cocaine dealers with a huge stash (she wanted to sell the coke herself to make money for modeling school). Turns out, the hitman was an undercover cop, and the coke stash was a block of cheese. Yes, cheese.

BONNE NOUVELLE

STAYING UNTIL JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!


so fucking happy.

irregardless

It rained last night…

…and I realized that my jacket isn’t completely water-proof. It was raining as I waited for 15 minutes to get into a cab at U Street. The cabs were unwilling to pick up new passengers. Using my drunken logic, I decided to move to a new location.

Soaked and freezing, I eventually got a cab at Thomas Circle. As the cabby started driving, he talked about how it sucked that he had to go all the way to my out-of-the-way neighborhood. He’d rather be driving home to be with his family. He stopped at a red light; I asked him with the lazy tone of Paris Hilton, "Why are you trying to make me feel bad about this?" I got out of the cab without paying.

After more struggle with unwilling cab drivers, I got a new cab. The driver was a lanky, dark-skinned man who had scraggly hair and a graying beard. He put the cab into gear, turned the radio up and sang along to Bob Marley. In the back seat of his warm cab, I swept the water off my jacket and sat listening to him singing, with a smile across my face.

Big Ad

I think this might be my new favorite beer just because of this commercial:
http://www.bigad.com.au/
Brilliant!

now it's on

all of yous that are prancing around in 50+ weather, you are not normal. it is décembre...and it is definitely right around 0°C every parisian day. and that is not normal either, but sometimes i wish that all opals (not just caropal) had to wear winter coats.
i won't post that tasty turkey picture because i think it disturbed far too many people. luckily, most of them saw it after thanksgiving, which was not the case for me. nevertheless i convinced a french team of chefs to rent another resto's oven and cook 16 turkeys last thursday. i've acquired some SKILLS...or maybe just a really cute accent. the resto even put small jars of peanut butter on each table, which i thought was completely endearing but everyone else thought was just plain odd. and quite a few students-with too many bottles of bad table wine on their table-claimed some sort of subversion as the cause, whereas it was really just sweet frenchies sticking to their american culinary stereotypes. thus went my thanksgiving.
keeping with the recent holiday twist of e-opaldom, i bought a christmas tree, bags of gummy candy and lots of arts&crafts material yesterday and threw it all in the "salon" of our maison particulière (NYU). the tree salesman said "joyeux noël" to me as i walked away with the stumpy tree, truly giving meaning to this cold cold time of year. it sparked something, and even though i had only 3 hours of sleep the night before (or maybe because of), i was prancing around all day turning up the frenchie xmas tunes and encouraging the artsy kidz to get more creative with construction paper.
oh yes. watch this little short and fall in love with it: http://www.cube-creative.fr/site/html/nt/nt_lc/akoa_hd.html (how do i add a link?) à quoi ça sert l'amour = what's the use in love? the clip explains it all: amusement. hope y'all are amused.
xoxo
care