Feeling good!

And looking the part too!

It's Friday. Time for a drink

Grandma status update

As most of you know Grandma went in for surgery on her knee today. She's already out and in recovery. The doctor said it went well but that he had to repair more ligaments than he did with her other knee so this recovery may take longer or be somewhat more painful :(

Please send her good vibes and positive thoughts of health and healing while she starts the recovery process. 

So lovely. 

And I almost forgot! There may be a little visitor in town from the South West region! I'll give you a hint. It may be one of these two....

I'd go with the more innocent looking of the pair

Why the stink face, ma? 

Cat Facts. Part Deux

The week after our successful cat-fact episode with Oryan we racked our brains for our next unsuspecting cat-fact victim. 

There were many failed attempts. I don't know how people automatically assume this is me....??

We were wondering if we would ever again pull off another successful cat-fact! But then, when in doubt just cat-fact a parent.

I texted Becca to see if Eric was at home and told her what I was about to do so she could monitor his reactions....

I like how he responded with 'cancel' just in case you had to follow the cat-fact rules precisely....

During this time I was asking Becca what he was doing. She said she could see him texting but he wasn't saying anything to anyone. 

Still not saying anything to anyone about getting cat-fact messages on his phone. 

He really did miss an "s". My Mom asked him who he was texting and he said it was some dumb robot sending him cat facts. LOL

At this point I can imagine he was about ready to throw his phone across the room. And I wasn't really expecting a text back so we both went to bed. And then 5 minutes later Christina came running into my room with the last message from him!

I assured her that he didn't really call Verizon and even if he had Verizon WOULDN'T CANCEL A CELL PHONE FOR SENDING CAT FACTS.... they would simply tell the person to block the sender. "Jokes on us" almost. But still a good try :) 

Then it was Dad's turn at playing cat-fact victim. I had planned it a week in advance knowing that Becca was going out to eat with him on Thursday night. 

I sent him the standard "welcome to cat facts" messages and then started in with a myriad of facts.

1. Every year, nearly four million cats are eaten in Asia. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
2. Approximately 24 cat skins can make a coat. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
3. According to Hebrew legend, Noah prayed to God for help protecting all the food he stored on the ark from being eaten by rats. In reply, God made the lion sneeze, and out popped a cat. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
4. On average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a nine year old cat has been awake for only three years of its life. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
5. Unlike dogs, cats do not have a sweet tooth. Scientists believe this is due to a mutation in a key taste receptor. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
6. The technical term for a cat's hairball is "bezoar." <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
7. A group of cats is called a "clowder." <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
8. Female cats tend to be right pawed, while male cats are more often left pawed. Interestingly, while 90% of humans are right handed, the remaining 10% of lefties also tend to be male. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>
9. A cat cannot climb head first down a tree because its claws are curved the wrong way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down. <To cancel Daily Cat Facts reply, 'cancel'>

He never responded directly to the messages but the play-by-play we were getting from Becca was priceless.

 Becca asked Dad if he wanted her to text cancel to see if they would stop and he said yes, so she did. And he really wasn't into responding but after a while he sure got to liking all the unique and interesting facts about cats!!

 At one point Becca saw him start scrolling through all the messages and he goes "HEY, who said "cancel"???? And Becca said - I did, Dad. you asked me to. He said NOOOO I want to see what they're going to keep sending me!!

I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard.

He still doesn't know it was us. I sent him another random cat fact on Friday but no response. Guess we'll keep em coming. 

Cat facts. Part One

There is a new phenomenon taking over the inter-webs....FACTS ABOUT CATS.

When you think about it, you can never know too much about cats. Who doesn't talk about cats at least 32-37 times a day? In a given conversation I usually reference at least 4-5 cat facts, whether relevant to the topic of conversation, or not.

In all seriousness these cat fact texts are quite FUNNY. And so are the reactions of the receiving individual (aka "cat-fact-victim").

It all started one boring afternoon while Christina and I were looking for something to do. Out of the blue she received a text from one of her humorous friends and relayed our boredom to him. He asked if she had ever heard of "cat facts" and the rest was history. The first victim was Oryan because he was in close proximity and he didn't have the phone number of the texting cat fact friend.

Here is how it started:

whaaaaaat......me?????

The hysterical part about all of this was the fact that Oryan didn't say anything to us for quite a while. He silently kept texting cat facts back telling it to stop, thinking that he did in fact accidentally sign up for such a silly service. Until he showed Christina and said "is this Rachel?" "of course it's not Rachel. She's right here and her phone is over there."

So on cat facts went, texting poor, unsuspecting, Oryan. As soon as we got in the car, Christina asked her friend to start sending more facts so we could see him actually check his phone! But cat fact friend was actually starting to run out of cat facts! He said most people threaten to call the cops by now! Oryan is too patient!

And so we had to start plotting our next cat-fact-victims...

Stay tuned tomorrow for Cat Facts Part Deux, where things really get funny! And Dad, if you're reading this. I'm sorry. 

Or am I?

Something is in his water....Please remove it.

Spectacular Saturday and Sunday Spent in Sun-quenched Sag Harbor (alliteration style)

We somehow got invited to an amazing house in Sag Harbor this past weekend.

We came bearing gifts...

I've decided that this is how I shall drink all my morning cups of coffee...

Amazing sunsets 

little Ed took his first "accidental" dip in a pool....as you can see his mother was very concerned

Michaela and I spent the day walking around town

I guess eventually we had to leave. 

Ed driving us back into the city. He's a bit of a distracted driver, with a side of road-rage. We made it though. 

Rachel, Rebecca and Ramin

So...you all remember when my lovely sister, Becca, came to visit me in NYC right? Well she had the brilliant idea to hit up Les Mis again, since we've only seen it 100 times each. It turns out that this little idea of hers, was in fact, quite brilliant after all.

Because of this man....

After the first act, Becca and I started frantically searching the playbills. We looked at each other wondering what each of us was so desperately searching for?? Until we found his name. The name of the actor that was currently playing Jean Valjean. Ramin Karimloo. Hmmmmmmppf. I wonder how you pronounce that.

I, of course, pronounced it like any other redneck hill-billy would. The same way you pronounce Ramen noodles.

Becca looked at me like I was a freak and said it was obviously "Rameeeeen." Being the speech language pathologist-extraordinaire that she is, of course she was right. So the second act carried on and at the conclusion of this remarkable performance by this unknown star we both were a little dizzy, dazed and confused. Where did he come from? How is he so incredibly talented? Is that voice real? Is this real life? We sat there in a daze until we were graciously escorted from the theatre by an angry and sweaty usher. We went back to the hotel that night and did what any rational, sober, clear-minded young ladies would do in this situation. We googled/facebooked and twittered the crap out of him until we knew more about him than his own mother.

HI, SON

In an unfortunate turn of events it turns out he's Canadian. And that is where the story ends, folks. Haha, just kidding. Anyway, he was born in Iran and moved to Canada with his family at a young age. He's mostly known for his performance as the "phatom" in the Phatom of the Opera in London.

OH MY GOD

Becca and I were actually some of the first people to see Ramin as Jean Valjean because we went during the show's few weeks in previews. The buzz about his phenomenal rendition as prisoner 24601 was just starting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/theater/ramin-karimloo-brings-brawn-to-broadways-les-miserables.html?_r=0

After a fun-filled week in NYC Becca left for home and I got back on with life. Although we carried on about Ramen Noodles for a good month and a half to anyone who would listen about how they NEEDED to go see Les Mis and this amazing talent who played Valjean. And then last Sunday something spectacular happened.




This.

I walked into a restaurant in the theatre district and saw RAMEEEEEEEN. He was sitting in a booth by the door and I walked right past him and then turned and looked again and realized who it was. When I sat down at our table I immediately grabbed my phone.

And this conversation ensued.

Oh man, I was sooooo nervous to approach him. But I knew I had to do it. I made sure Michaela had her phone in hand to take some action shots. And I walked right up to his booth. My heart was pounding so hard and I realized at that moment that I must not have been breathing because there was no breath in my lungs when I opened my mouth to talk. I have no actual memory of what I said. Something like: ooooble doooooshow sooooow sAHHHHHHmazing shoooooo ahhhhhmazzzzing cobbledooo. yep. At one point I think turned and pointed to my friends behind me but I'm not real sure. But this is when he stood up and Michaela grabbed a quick pic. And then I said something like: ohhhh mai sooooo shoooorry for entrooooping. Thaaaaaank youuuuuu. bye bye. And then bolted.

One of the most popular and beautiful songs to come out of Les Mis, and sung by Valjean, is  "bring him home." Naturally, when I called my mother later that night she needed to know "did I 'bring him home'"?


-----------------------------
***ADDENDUM****

I have to make a quick update to this post.

This last week my company's entire executive team and shareholders were in New York for the board meeting. On Monday night we had a town hall meeting and dinner with everyone from the New York office. As I was chatting with some of the people from out of town, I asked if anyone was doing anything fun while they were in the City. The global head of HR said she came in early with her daughter and they went shopping and saw some shows. Naturally, I asked "WHICH SHOWS DID YOU SEE"?? In a way too overly-excited tone.

Her eyes brightened and she got this huge grin on her face and said, "Oh man, we saw the best performance of Les Mis the other night!"

No. Way.

No way, no way, no way, no way, no way. I hurriedly rushed over to her. Clearly by the look on my face she could tell this was major news. As I could tell by the look on hers that she was in desperate need of telling me why the musical was so fabulous. I'm about 100% certain we now had the attention of the entire executive team and all the shareholders in the room. Not because we were jumping up and down. But because we were shrieking "Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin." They all probably wanted to know why we were so excited about ramen noodles, and wondering if this joint was really serving that for dinner tonight.

And then I remembered. The. Freaking. Picture.

I said "wait. OHMYGODYOURGONNADIE" and then left to go retrieve my phone. I found the picture and said "this is what happened last Sunday." The look on her face was priceless. She kept looking at the phone and then back at me and then at the phone. And said - um, can you please text me that picture? My daughter is going to die.

Pretty sure all of our colleagues now think we're crazy. The next morning I get an email from her saying "so fun visiting with you last night. Can you send me the picture again? I didn't go through"

LOL.