Sunday, July 19, 2015

Favorite Things of the Week

Okay, so.

My goal was to have a weekly post of my 5 favorite things of the week, where a week is Monday through Sunday. Of course, when I schemed up this idea ("inspired" by many other bloggers who do similar things, of course), I didn't consider the fact that maybe I just don't do that much on a normal week because I have to workkkkkk and watch TVVVVV or because my social group isn't large enough to keep me busy every day. Unless you consider my cat part of my social group. Which I do. Okay moving on.

Additionally, because I'm not a real blogger, I'm just not good at taking pictures of everything I do. Don't get me wrong, I instagram pretty constantly and I can be fairly annoying about taking pictures of every drink or cheese plate I order, and yet...I found myself at a bit of a loss for 5 things I could display this week.

Without further explaination into my thought process (and ado), here are my favorite things for the week of July 13 - July 19:

Trivia night! I love my trivia team, Darryl's Lesbian Haircut, more than almost anything. Despite the fact that our wins are few and far between, this is always a highlight of my week. The bar we play the most at panders to our mystery shot (no tequila, please!) requests, gives us a discount for being regulars, and always seems to enjoy us, even at our drunkest. 

We've also branched out from weekly trivia to participate in a few special trivia night AND a scavenger hunt during which they all humored me and wore the matching t-shirts I made us.

In conclusion, I love these girls and I love this night.

 
 

Taking JP for a walk. She's on steroids to hopefully help control a disease that's making her unable to absorb any proteins so she basically has to pee every 5 seconds. I ran over to take her out while Jill and Kathy were out. You guys, I just love her so much.


This kite flying lady on the coast. I took a solo drive down the coast today and one of the first places I stopped, I saw this lady just chilling on a hill flying her kite. It was freezing cold and crazy windy and it just made me ridiculously happy that she saw these conditions and was like "better get out there with my kite!" Also I think she was barefoot.

Oops, done at 3. Three favorite things of the week!!

Next week I'll try harder guys, I promise.
 






Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Love of My Life: Lifetime Original Movies


I’m planning to write about Pride weekend before the month is over, but something incredibly important needs to take priority on this little baby blog. It simply couldn’t wait another second. That's right, I need to talk about Lifetime Movies.

No, this isn’t a post about the A Deadly Adoption, the newest Lifetime Original Movie staring Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell, but it is what prompted me to want to wax poetic about Lifetime Movies, so let’s start there.



This past weekend I excitedly recorded A Deadly Adoption to my terrible DVR box and after hitting up our new restaurant of the month (18 months running!), Kathy, Jill and I settled in to watch it.

It was perfect and there were a lot of literal laughing out loud moments and one particular moment that may perfectly display my personality – when I asked out loud if Lifetime knew that this was a joke. You know, because I didn’t want Lifetime to have hurt feelings.

You guys, here’s the thing. It might have been two famous comedic actors starring in this movie, but it’s not really a joke. Everything in it was exactly how a Lifetime movie works. And I LOVE Lifetime movies.

Seriously. During the viewing of this one I saw ads for two more that I want to watch and when I discovered that it was too early to add them to my DVR, I simply noted them in my phone. A Perfect High and The Full House Story? I’m coming for you.

Though A Deadly Adoption really drove home the dangers of ketoacidosis and taught me that simply falling in a lake can cause you to miscarry, it was not one of my favorite Lifetime Movies. Thus, I bring you Manda’s Incredibly Important List of Top Three Lifetime Original Movies.

#3 – Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life


Cyber Seduction is the story of how Peter Pan gets addicted to internet porn. He discovers that porn exists when he’s 16 (which seems old to me, but he’s pretty sheltered.) There’s porn played at parties! He gets caught by his mother looking at porn websites! He downloads porn to his girlfriend’s PDA so he can keep looking at it during swim practice! HER PDA, GUYS!!

Eventually he tries to hook up with his classmate who happens to star in porn (16. They’re 16.) and he gets beat up and then tries to drown himself. Don’t worry – he doesn’t and his addition is gone. Phew, was worried there that this Lifetime movie wouldn’t have the required happy ending.

#2 – She’s Too Young


Everybody’s favorite Lifetime movie! She’s Too Young is the story of a sheltered teen virgin. She’s kind of nerdy and smart but a popular boy at school ends up paying attention to her! He’s a well known man-whore (they’re children!) and she hesitates to hook up with him. Of course, she hooks up with him BUT GUESS WHAT? Everyone at this school is just having sex parties all the time and there’s clearly no sex-ed, much like most of the country today, so everyone fucking gets syphilis. Including this sweet little nerdy girl.

The best part of She’s Too Young isn’t the syphilis. It isn’t the weird social media slut shaming that happens to baby-face-McGee. It’s her mother. She tries to tell all the other parents about the syphilis outbreak and most don’t care (geez mom, how embarrassing). She shows up at parties to find her STD-ridden daughter (ugh mom, you’re humiliating me). In the end everyone is sad about the indiscriminate sex and cries a lot followed by your requisite “wait to have sex” PSA.

#1 – When Friendship Kills


This one is my longstanding favorite. Me and this movie are BFFs forever. It came out when I was in highschool and it is incredibly After School Special. In fact, I likely watched it after school, so there you go.

This is the story of a girl at a new school who makes a friend at volleyball tryouts. The coach suggests she drop a few pounds and the two decide to diet together which sets the scene for….you guessed it! Anorexia. The actress who plays the main character seriously commits, because she looks like she’s about to drop dead for a lot of this movie.

There’s some drama between the two friends when the new girl goes to treatment for her eating disorder and her mom snitches that the other girl also has one. (God, moms just ruin everything.) One of them DIES; I won’t spoil which one; but the other one sees her smiling spirit while she plays volleyball in the end. Another happy ending!

It's just all too good.

In conclusion, Lifetime movies may very well be the best genre of movie out there, and trust me, it is DEFINITELY it’s own genre. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to go make sure the next great masterpiece is ready and waiting to record.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Rose Festival = Start of Summer

Oh, hello tiny abandoned blog. I made a new years resolution to write more and blog more and it's June now so...doing great! Anyway, I'm here now and let's never speak of this again.

Now, I know that the official start of summer is June 21st but, to me, it feels like it's beginning coincides with Portland's Rose Festival. The timing of this years Rose Festival, coupled with the oppressive heat we had last weekend (yup, the New Englander in me has totally acclimated and I now consider low 90s oppressive) and I'm officially declaring it summer.

There are a multitude of events that happen around the city and this past weekend Kathy, Jill, and I partook in two: CityFest and the Dragonboat Races.


On Friday night after work, we headed down to the waterfront for CityFest which is basically a carnival with the requisite rides, games, fried foods, and perhaps a musical act thrown in. (Slaughter was playing in the concert area on this night. I know, right?) 

So, listen. A carnival is one of my favorite things. I was PUMPED and READY. Jill got in for free because it happened to be some kind of floral night and she was wearing a dress with flowers but Kathy and I were not quite so fancy and had to pay the 7$. Guess what else I was pumped and ready for? To spend a lot of money.

I remember carnivals as a kid - you paid an entrance fee and then you get to ride all the rides as much as you want for free. Well, we're in the big city now, guys, and each ride cost 5$.  The three of us rode the ferris wheel which was amazing and afforded us some beautiful views of the river and city.

Jill and I are somewhere in this picture, living the dream. Kathy took this from the safety of the ground.

Jill and I rode a couple other rides and we all hit up some games. We truly came at the perfect time before it got too crowded when we'd have to compete against children with way more skills than us and we all ended up walking away with a prize in the end. Don't tell anyone, but we also witnessed a worker giving a child a prize despite him not actually winning it and my grinch heart grew 10 sizes that day.

I realized this day that my skee-ball skills have gotten rusty. I thew so many zero point balls!? Younger me would be totally ashamed of older me.

But, what is maybe the best part of a carnival?


Fried food! Delicious in the moment and, now that I'm not 15 with an iron stomach, a tiny bit regrettable in the end. But who cares about the end - gimmie that elephant ear and sweet apple pie fries and get out of my face. Not pictured is the corn dog I also ate.  I know, I know. Stop looking at me.

The next morning, we headed downtown to the waterfront again to watch some lady Dragonboat races.


It was hot! But we piled on the sunscreen, toted our camping chairs to the grass, and cheered those ladies on. While there were many amazing things that happened, the highlights for me were a Planned Parenthood team that did a bunch of exercises in a circle near us while their assumed captain was dressed as a giant penis. Kathy heard them doing chants about birth control in the staging area to get pumped before their race. AND their flag catcher was dressed up like Ariel. God, can it get any better than that?



Second highlight (realize I may have blown my highlight load with how good the first one was) was a dad who clearly had a daughter on the St. Mary's team. He had a horn that he blew literally every time the announcer said the words "St. Mary's." Not to miss a single horn blowing opportunity, he had a stand in blow it for him when he had to tie his shoes or something of the sort. Perfect.

These strong, badass, rowing women were super inspiring and I honestly could have sat and watched these races all day, but the power of the sun and heat kicked in we all packed up our chairs and headed out. 

This weekend could have lasted forever for all I'm concerned, but I'm not too bummed that it's all over because the rest of the summer holds a lot more fun to come and besides, I live in this amazing city and get to do it all again next year.