Why, Oh Why?

So, I read the Twilight books on the recommendation of many people, including my wonderful blog friend, Vegas Princess. She loved the movie. I...did not.

For anyone out there who hasn't seen the movie or read the books, be forewarned, I will be talking about characters and scenes that I hated!!

Two colleagues (one a Twilight fan, the other just likes vampires) and I made a day out of going to see the movie on Saturday. We bought our VIP tickets, went to lunch, had a drink, did a wee bit of shopping, went to the movie. After the movie, the Twilight Fan (TF) and I were so disturbed we had to have another drink.

First and most importantly: WTF was wrong with the actor they picked for Jasper??? His eyes, his hair, his every odd movement and action...oh Lord. TF and I immediately turned to one another and started laughing.

Every time he came on screen, we could barely control ourselves - seriously, what was wrong with?? Someone needs to tell hair and makeup that the Cullens are the good vampires, including Jasper. I only hope he loses some crazy in the next three movies!

Secondly, we hated the choice for Carlisle. I had heard that Peter Facinelli was portraying him, and I actually thought it would be okay. I like PF, I've seen him in a few movies, and I thought it would be fine. It was not. He had horribly dyed blond hair and looked nothing like my mental pic of Carlisle. TF agreed with me, but my other co-worker, the non-Twilight fan (NTF) actually really liked him.

I was okay with most of the casting selections. I really liked Bella and Edward (although TF and NTF both hated the choice for Edward), which really is the most important thing. I also liked Charlie and Jacob. I did not like Billy - he had a funny, crazy eye thing going there for a scene or two, also.

TF and I are both people who MUST read the book prior to seeing the movie, and then never like the movie very much as a result, because Hollywood never stays true enough to the book. We always go on opening night to the newest Harry Potter movies, and then rip them apart afterwards, but this was worse than that.

Back to Twilight - the other things that I hated had to do with the content. First, it drives me CRAZY when they do things out of order for no particular reason. They did this a lot with the sequence of Bella & Edward's relationship. I hated that they cut parts out of the "meadow" scene from the book (and that it wasn't really in a meadow) and I think if they had left it verbatim, viewers who hadn't read the book would have had a better idea of why Edward and Bella were so drawn to one another. This is my favorite part of the book, and they totally ruined it in the movie.

Also, I hated the scene when Bella was supposed to be leaving Charlie. Where was the passion? The tears? The slamming of doors? Instead, she calmly slams one door, moves back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom, and doesn't really give Charlie a reason for leaving. She doesn't even cry!! How are we supposed to know how broken up she is about leaving if she can't even shed a tear? Grrr....

Okay, I need to stop before I pick apart the entire movie! The sad thing is that I know I'll go see the next 3 when they come out! Hopefully I like them better :)

Oh Lord...

Please tell me this is not what I'm in for as a future English teacher!!

A One-Two Punch Of Knowledge Knocks Marcy Out
Girl #1: Oh my god! Romeo and Juliet is a book!
Girl #2: It's like, Shakespeare.
Girl #1: Oh my god, who?

Borders Bookstore
Commack, New York

www.overheardeverywhere.com

Winery Tour

So, one of the many things that happened over my busy past few days is the annual winery tour that I organized. Three years ago, two of my friends and I spent a beautiful fall weekend at my parents' cottage, on Pymatuning Lake about 1.5 hours north of Pittsburgh.

We decided to go to two local wineries, and then ventured over the border into Ohio and visited a ton there. We wound up going to 10 wineries that day. I was driving, so I stopped drinking - I only took a sip here or there if my friends thought I'd like it. We had a blast, my friends were very tipsy, and we bought tons of wine.

After we came home, everyone we told about our weekend wanted to do something similar. So, last year, we got a group together and did the same thing. We wound up with about 16 people, we booked a (short) school bus, and were on our way. We had mimosas on the bus, lots of snacks, and visited five wineries in Northeast, PA (just north of Erie). It was a blast!

I know this pic is not the best, but it really gives you a beatiful glimpse of the short bus :)

After the school bus, more and more people wanted to join our fun. I mean, who wouldn't? What is there not to love about family and friends chugging around wineries on a short bus?

This year the trip was later due to everyone's busy schedules. My parents wound up not being able to come with us (b/c my dad doesn't pay attention when I tell him things) and a lot of people who committed early on wound up dropping out for one reason or another. At any rate, we wound up with a large school bus this year, and 15 friends. Once again, we had a blast!

There were a few stress & drama-filled moments for me that had me swearing up and down I would never organize another trip, but overall, it turned out great. We had originally asked for a large bus b/c we had so many people, and I tried the day of the trip to get us into a smaller bus to save some cash, but it turns out only the full sized buses can go out of state. Weird, huh?

We returned to the site of our original winery tour, chugging around Madison and Geneva, Ohio. We were on this wine trail, and we were on the section that forms a little "s" on the bottom left. There are 10 wineries in that area, but we only made it to six of them.

The bus was gigantic. Our driver Leigh was phenomenal until she got a little touchy at the end - not all of the parking lots were "bus friendly" and it started to snow as well.

My favorite wine came from St. Joseph's Vineyard. That's their logo (cute, huh?) to the right. I personally prefer dry and semi-dry wines, and I think I liked all of their wines that fall into those categories. In addition, the wife of the owner was the person who poured our samples, and she was amazing! Per Ohio wine, the vineyards are supposed to charge you for samples. She gave us all of our samples for free, and she knocked $5 off of the price of each bottle of wine we bought. That's good for business - we will definitely be back!

Another favorite location was Harpersfield Winery. They had a fire going that smelled out of this world good, and their tasting room was small but very cozy. A few of my friends ordered food, and that was delicious. Plus, their wine was delish! The atmosphere was so fantastic I had to remind myself to mention the wine, but it was a great place. Very chateau-esqe! That's the outside of the winery to the left, and the yummy fireplace to the right. Actually, I think the pic to the left is going to have a room or two available as a bed and breakfast in the spring. Great idea!

There was another winery where I really liked the wine, but the employees were not fantastic. I called every winery to make sure they were cool with us coming in with a busload of people (even though it wasn't full). If I didn't talk to a person, I left a voicemail. Everyone I spoke with was super friendly and happy for us to come.

The South River Vineyard was the exception. We had specifically remembered their winery b/c it is housed in an old church and is very unique. Plus, they have beautiful grounds, including a pavilion with a fireplace and adirondack chairs.

So, we arrive and march up the steps into the winery. We were particularly excited about this winery b/c we planned to take our snacks off of the bus and sit for awhile, eat, drink wine, etc.

The woman working the counter looked at us and said, "Wow. No one told us there was a bus coming." My friend said we could leave if they didn't want our business.

I don't think the employee heard her, but I told her that I had called to let them know we were coming, and if it was inconvenient, we would leave (there were not a lot of people in the winery, I don't know what they were worried about). At this point she back-pedaled and said it was fine. We tasted a few and bought some bottles. One of my friends bought an entire case for holiday presents.

I asked if we could unload our snacks and eat outside or inside at the tables. She said it wasn't a problem at all. So we went outside to start unloading and one of my friends overheard another exchange. A couple was walking into the winery and the guy said to the employee something about the bus. The woman told him we were leaving.

What? You just told us we could eat here, and now we're not allowed to stay?

We left. We probably would have anyway, since the weather was getting iffy and it was too windy to sit outside, but talk about unaccommodating. Why would treat a group who gave you significant business in such an unfriendly way? I guess I just don't understand. It's a shame, I'll probably never go back and their wine really is good. Oh well!

We didn't let it bother us. We visited another winery, Debonne, and were able to get in and taste right away. They even had a mini brewery for my cousin's boyfriend to enjoy, along with live music. Two of my friends immediately got on the tiny dance floor and made friends with the band, and the rest of us just hung out. We really had a great last winery. We drank a bottle of their yummy red wine with the best name: Cab/Cab (that entertained us for awhile) and then piled back on the bus to head back to the cottage.

Overall, it really was a good time. Everyone who went was fun and I think had fun. I think I'll probably do another year, although I may leave the planning up to my sister! My parents are sad that they missed it, so I think we'll have to do a repeat.

Waiting

Sorry I have been MIA lately...I was traveling for work Wednesday-Friday and the laptop I took with me would not connect to the Internet...then I was out of town and away from computers for the weekend as well. I've been trying to catch up on everyone's blogs and make comments but have not made it all the way through yet. But I'll read them, I swear!

So, I checked my e-mail once during the past five days, and I had received an e-mail from a classmate saying she received her student teaching assignment and where it was. So I raced home from Harrisburg to check my mail in the 3 hours I was in Pittsburgh before leaving again. Nothing.

Last night I came home from the Steelers game and glomped down to the mailbox again, still in all of my game gear (which was soaking wet from the rain and snow). Nada.

When is it coming? I don't like not knowing where the next four months of my life is going to be spent. I need to prepare myself as much as I can; I'm already nervous about teaching in general. I need to leave work in the next five minutes to go to class, so it'll be a few more hours before I can check the mail tonight. My schedule is crazy all week again, I have job fairs and will be in and out of the office every day this week (except for Wednesday when I'm not in at all). I can't bear the wait.

I was okay until I knew my classmate received her assignment. Now, it's torturous. Sigh.

Cranky People

I have a really hard time with people who just can't manage to be civil to others for no particular reason. I am the type of person who will be annoyingly friendly and upbeat 95% of the time, regardless of how angry you're making me. When you catch me during that other 5%, I'm usually just short or snippy, very rarely am I downright rude.

Of course, when I am on the phone with someone who is not understanding what I'm telling them or asking ridiculously stupid questions, I will vent when I'm off the phone. But I'm usually not rude to the caller.

So, it's particularly irritating when someone is unnecessarily rude to me. I'm leaving tomorrow for Harrisburg for a 3-day job fair - it's the only big one I go to every year, and I always look forward to taking the small trip. We have a corporate "executive assistant" (EA) who registers us as a system for all recruitment events, orders all giveaways, etc. She asked me to stop by to pick up the materials I'll need for this particular event, despite the fact that she has couriered all of the other materials I've used all year over to me (our offices are not far from each other, but are not in the same building or complex).

I planned to go yesterday, but wound up running out of time on the way to yesterday's recruitment event. So I figured I'd get them today when I leave - EA typically works 8-5, so I could just stay late, make sure everything's under control for my back-up, and pick them up on my way home.

EA left me a voicemail saying that she didn't know when I was picking up the supplies, but that she had to leave today at 2:00 PM and I needed to pick them up no later than 1:30 PM. She left this message at about 11:30 AM, leaving me a small window of time to do so. Now I would have to validate my parking, drive to pick up the supplies, re-park, and have to validate my parking again when I leave. Not a huge deal, but it makes me feel bad having to validate my parking twice in the same day.

Optimistic me decides to look on the bright side. I ask a few co-workers if they want to come along for the ride and then we can all go to lunch at a local German restaurant. I send an e-mail to EA (approximately 15 minutes after she left the voicemail) and tell her I'll be there in about half an hour, and that I'll call when I'm on my way.

I start calling from the parking garage. Her phone is forwarded to her voicemail. I continue to call for the 5 minutes it takes to get to her building. She never answers. I try to track down another person in her office so that she can tell the EA I'm on my way. The other person also doesn't answer.

So we arrive and my 3 colleagues go into the building to try to find the EA. They arrive and find EA eating her carrot sticks for lunch. She is extremely huffy, saying that I was supposed to pick the stuff up yesterday, she didn't get my e-mail b/c she was eating, and her phone was forwarded b/c she's at lunch. She grabs the boxes and starts slamming them around for my co-workers. As she gathers the materials, she tells them to make sure I know to return her cart as soon as I return from my trip.

My colleagues have to use the loading dock to exit the building b/c they can't go out the front door for some reason. The lift is broken, and they have to carry all of the boxes and the cart down a flight of stairs. The EA's cart has her name taped to the handle. After lunch, I have an e-mail from EA telling me that my co-workers didn't seem happy and reminding me to drop off the cart when I return.

Is this situation ridiculous to anyone else, or just us? I know if I were leaving for the day at 2:00 PM, if I even ate lunch, I would do so while answering my phone and keeping up with my e-mails. I'm determined to open a mini moving company just so I can use the cart over and over again and never return it. I'm not sure why she needs it - maybe she wheels paperwork down the hallway?

Halloween

These are just a few pictures from my fun weekend. My friend had a party on Friday night and we had a blast!

These are two of my friends, dressed as Twister and Bam Bam. How cute is that Twister dress?? She had the spinner on a little hat but didn't really wear it b/c it wasn't comfortable.

My friend Speechy and I were hipsters on Friday night. We created and rehearsed our definition for anyone who didn't know what a hipster was: "They think everything is ironic. They only watch Indie movies and listen to Indie music. And they're taking over our neighborhoods!" We wore clothes that didn't match, tights, glasses, scarves, and had face tattoos. And of course we drank PBR all night (Pabst Blue Ribbon)! My hair is particularly messy in this picture. Hipsters don't bathe for long periods of time - we weren't willing to go that far, but I put tons of hairspray in my hair and tried to make it as messy as possible. At one point it was in a "hipster pouf" but it didn't stay up for very long. My hair is definitely not aerodynamic!

This is my co-worker and her hubby (the same ones who were in the other LBS at the Steelers game). They were dressed as Bill and Sookie from the new HBO show True Blood. Sookie was up all night making her outfit - she even created True Blood bottles and a waitress tray. You can't tell from this picture, but her t-shirt does have a little "Merlotte's" logo on it. How cute is that? I don't have HBO so I haven't seen the show, but I've read all of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books. I have issues with the differences between books and movies, but that's for another day!

We were in the basement for a large portion of the party playing flip cup. It was boys against girls and one of the guys was dressed as the cowbell guy from the SNL skit (another guy was the Christopher Walken character, but he wasn't playing with us). We were all obsessed with the cowbell, as you can kind of see from this picture - he would play it and we would clap and chant for everything ("Flip cup, flip cup;" "Bathroom break, bathroom break;" "PBR, PBR"). It was out of control but SO fun!

The Luxury Box Suite

Okay, I started writing this forever ago and have just been waiting for my sister to upload my pictures so I could post it. She still hasn't done that, but one of my friends who was with us did, and I've included some of hers instead :)

So my friend (I'll call her Speechy) and I were taking a walk last Wednesday and I asked her what her plans were for the weekend. She had a few goals: drink a pumpkin beer, buy her Halloween costume, and win Luxury Box Suite (LBS) tickets for Sunday's Steelers game. She had entered a raffle at her workplace and they only sold 50 tickets, so she had pretty good odds. I really hoped she would win too, since I haven't missed a home game since I moved back to Pittsburgh, but I didn't have the cash flow to buy a ticket (I naturally assumed she would invite me if she won!). I woke up on Thursday and watched the news, as I do every morning while I'm getting ready for work. The weather forecast said it would be unseasonably cold on Sunday. I thought," Wow, that stinks b/c it's a night game. Oh well, we won't feel it b/c we'll be in the box." And then immediately tried to un-think it - I didn't want to jinx her chances of winning!!!

As I'm sure you guessed, Speechy's ticket was pulled, and she won the raffle. She called me after work and I screamed when she told me. It was the most exciting thing ever - I had never been in a LBS, I was going to get to go the game, and really, winning anything is exciting! Of course, these tickets were the best prize ever. Speechy won 4 tickets, so she invited me and two of our other friends.

I knew Sunday was going to be the best day of my life. I couldn't wait to tailgate with my family and the whole tailgate crew. My dad has had season tickets for about 35 years now, so we're old hats. We're in the same location for every game, we grill yummy food and drink lots of beer. When the weather gets colder, we have a fire barrel to keep us toasty, and the home game that's closest to Christmas we celebrate the holiday with lots of singing and a tree that we hang beer cans on. Anyway, the tailgate was fun, as always. Speechy came down early to play, and we rounded up people to play flip cup around the world's smallest table. We also had my sister's lethal jello shots.

Finally, it was time to head into the game. Our anticipation was out of control - the four of us were so excited, we kept taking ridiculous pictures of us: with our tickets, walking to the stadium, etc. We got to go in a special entrance, which was amazing. Waiting to get into the stadium always takes forever and is a mad crush, so it was really nice to be in a quicker line! Then we were in a little lobby and took elevators up to the box level. The walkway where the suites were located had lots of Steelers pictures (past and present). We immediately saw tons of service people, waiters/waitresses, etc. who were very friendly and took kindly to the fact that I stopped every three steps to take pictures. This picture below is from the balcony/walkway overlooking the private box suite bar/restuarant.

Then - we arrived at the box. We pushed open the door and it was beautiful! First (and most importantly) we had our very own bathroom!! Anyone who's ever waited in the ridiculously long lines at any type of sporting event can appreciate how exciting that was! There was a small lounge area (a few chairs and table) and a buffet set up in the kitchen area. The rest of the people were already in the box, and they welcomed us and told us to help ourselves to food and drinks. Eek! We were so excited. We grabbed seats and I was awestruck by the view, by the boxes surrounding us, by the entire thing, really. We went through the buffet, got drinks and just sort of took it all in. We were pretty overwhelmed.

Since we were the last people in the box, we couldn't get four seats in a row, but we had two in front and two in back. My original seat was nice, but I couldn't see the entire field (I could actually only see a tiny sliver). They have glass on either wall so that you can see through the boxes on each side and to the field, but the glass had some sunglare on it, so it wasn't super easy to see out of. I watched the view on the scoreboard for awhile, and then one of the men in the box told us we could move over to the other side and we would see better from there. So we did, and it was MUCH better! This picture gives you an idea of what we could see from our new seats. Regardless, the view was amazing! I'm lucky enough to be spoiled b/c I sit so frequently in my Dad's seats, but the view was still pretty good. The weather was actually beautiful, but I can only imagine how nice it must be to sit indoors in the boxes during the freezing cold weather games!

The next exciting event was a visit from the Steelers mascot, Steely McBeam!! Yes, the mascot is super lame. The Steelers went 75 years without a mascot and then felt the need to create one for the anniversary celebrations. Like I said, lame. But, it was still exciting to see Steely's big yellow head in the LBS next door and try to coax him into visiting us afterwards! He did, and it was hilarious. Steely is super tall, very squishy, and carries a foam steel bar. We took pics of all of us with Steely, of each group of people in the box with him, etc. I'm just including a picture from when he entered the box so as not to be too repetitive!

During halftime we went to visit one of my colleagues who was in another LBS. Her hubby gets tickets to some games, and they wound up having last-minute seats for this one. His boss's wife was super nice, making us drinks (they had a wider variety of food/etc. than we did) and chatting with us. We stayed longer than we planned - they were on the exact opposite side of the stadium. On the way back from their LBS, we stopped at one of the many, glorious dessert carts in the hallways. They were unbelievable, stocked with the most lucious treats ever! One of my friends treated us to dessert and a yummy shot, and then we finally made it back to our own box.

We watched the rest of the game, and unfortunately, the Steelers lost to the Giants :( We could have played better and won, but I'm not dwelling on that, I swear! Overall, it was an amazing experience and I'm so grateful to my friend for inviting me. I will definitely never forget it.

The only other thing I have to say is that I don't think I would want to watch every game from the LBS. There's just something about being in the stands with all of the rest of the fans, surrounded by like-minded people, waving my terrible towel, and screaming my lungs out that can't be beat. All of that is kind of muffled in the LBS, and a lot of the other people in our box did not seem like they were huge fans. I think a lot of wheeling and dealing probably happens there, but beyond that it doesn't really have the energy of the rest of the stadium. And I definitely think my friends and I were most appreciative of the opportunity to be in the box - we were thrilled to be there, and the others seemed to take it in stride.