Posted on

And Now I Love TV

What I loved about TV in the 70’s and 80’s was that it was abig fucking deal.  TV was an event back then.  People planned their whole week around their favorite shows.  Season enders where actual cliffhangers and then you had to wait all summer long until you found out what happened.  Make some popcorn and gather around the TV, kids. Let’s find out who shot J.R.

Dallas was one ofmy favorite shows.  Pamela Ewing was my idol.  Her black 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera is still one of my favorite cars.  When she pulled into that long driveway in her sportscar you knew something was about to happen.  By the way, I have been to that house in Dallas, and it’s the size of a postage stamp in real life. 

I was also a fan of Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and Hart to Hart.  The streetlights came on, and we were all home for the night, just in time to watch all these really grown-up shows that my daughter would be bored out of her mind watching today.

Not only did I have a love of the nighttime soaps, but I loved the daytime ones as well.  I was an avid Days of our Lives watcher from the time I was 10 years-old all the way through college.  I actually wore a dress to school the day Luke and Laura got married on General Hospital.  It was a big fucking deal.

There were no VCR’s or DVD’s or streaming, so if you wanted to watch a movie that at one point showed in a theatre, you had to wait until it was on TV.  I remember watching The Shining with my family and I think about how awesome it was that all the worst parts were cut out so a 9-year-old could enjoy it.  I kind of wish they still did this so me as a 40-something could enjoy it as well because I’m too scared to watch it now.

And Now I Love TV

Sometimes I think back, and I think we watched a lot of inappropriate shit as kids.  Our neighbors weren’t allowed to watch The Dukes of Hazzard because Daisy’s shorts were too short.  It probably never even occurred to me until they said that, and then I thought how stupid it was that they couldn’t watch a show because of a pair of shorts. 

What my daughter has available at her fingertips on a daily basis is a thousand times worse.  She’s an avid YouTube watcher and as a parent, it’s hard to monitor.  I know what her favorite channels are, but she can be searching for something innocent, and 15 search results will show up for things her eyes shouldn’t see just yet.

I wish we had appointment television again.  However, I would’ve missed out on my current obsession, Parks and Recreation.  Now I can binge watch it to my heart’s content.  But the stress I feel to get through 7 seasons!  It’s real.  I’m also about the jump on the Game of Thrones train and I can’t even think about the amount of shows I need to watch without having heart palpitations.  One episode at a time…                 

Posted on

Pass the Remote!

I straight up don’t understand people who don’t watch television.  TV is fabulous. Every week, or nowadays for a rainy Saturday binge, you get to escape to another world with people who’ve become friends.   Sometimes they are going through the same things you are – and that’s why you are drawn to them. Sometimes they are nothing like you and it’s a welcome escape.  Sometimes you check in on Chuck Todd just to make sure the week’s latest political news hasn’t caused his head to explode. (Yes, I check in every Sunday morning).

I’m of the Must See TV, TGIF generation.  We started with TV early – Sesame Street and the Electric Company were our earliest friends.  In fact, they were my friends so much that my parents thought Barkley was my imaginary friend – it took a long time to convince them he was on Sesame Street.  They just didn’t believe me. In middle school we graduated to “Family Matters” and “Full House,” and then Nickelodeon was born and we were blessed with “Salute Your Shorts” and “Hey Dude.”

“Clarissa Explained It All” to me, long before she was the original Sabrina.  By high school it was “Friends” that took the top spot. There’s no question, I’m a Monica, but I really wanted to be a Rachel. And I’ll always be team Chandler – making dad jokes hip long before it was cool.

And, then I went to college and the greatest chapter of my television love affair began, the WB (now The CW) was born, that frog danced into my life and brought along with him all of my teenage angst in the form of four kids from fictional Capeside, MA (just a short drive from my actual, in reality, home).  I was hooked from the first second. And full disclosure, I’ve watched it about 15 times end to end – minus the halloween episodes.

I would be remiss not to mention my intense love for “The West Wing” – to date, I still not so secretly wish I could be C.J. Cregg.  

Today, with all the streaming platforms and binge-able opportunities, I can hardly keep up. And I’m in all my glory.   We’ll be talking about TV again, I’m sure.

Posted on

And Now I Love Pinterest Quotes

I’m in love with pinning life quotes from Pinterest right now.  I love it when you come across a quote that just resonates in your soul.  Like, yay!  I’m not the only loser out there who feels this way, or needs this advice, or needs this kick in the ass.  

I have to admit, though, it’s kind of embarrassing and I’ve thought that if you follow me on Pinterest and see all my lame quotes showing up in your feed, you probably think I’m a hot mess.  Some days I’m so embarrassed by my quote over-pinning that I pin some of them to a secret board.

I even had to create two Pinterest boards on quotes because I had so many, I had to split them up between life advice and love advice.  When I’m feeling blue about my love life, I just remember:

Sometimes it’s hard being the coffee instead of the Two Buck Chuck Cabernet, but this quote reminds me that I would rather be black coffee than Two Buck Chuck any day.

Or what about this one?

I’m a crier in general, so I wear waterproof mascara.  But yes please, mess up my lipstick, not my mascara!  Messy lipstick is so much more attractive than messy mascara…

This one really resonated with me when I thought of all of my past relationships and realized that with every single one, this quote was absolutely true.  Why hadn’t I thought of this myself?

Don’t ignore the red flags. There are also white flags, black flags and green flags, so while you may want to solely pay attention to them, the red flags are the ones that need the most action.

Then there’s this one (see above, I cry at everything)

One time, I was sitting in my boss’s office crying uncontrollably because he told me I dropped the ball on something.  He didn’t even know what to do with me at that point, so he sent me home.  I can tell you without a doubt it feels like crap when all you want to do is stop crying and it just makes you cry harder. 

How about this reminder to live your life:

Such a good reminder that you should do all of the above and enjoy life and continue to grow as a person along the way. 

I’m a worrier and I’m smart and cute, so I loved this one:

Umm, how about this one on growing older and being a good person from Gary Janetti (follow him on Insta if you don’t already):

Gary Janetti is one of my favorite people to follow onInstagram.  He is married to Brad Gorskiof celebrity stylist fame.  He’s hilarious.  And as you can tell, he’s blunt.  I love this one because, well, it’s true, but don’t be an ahole.  Just be a nice person.

There are a ton of depression and anxiety quotes on Pinterest.  This one is especially true:

It is hell having both. But then, you can just look at this quote and remember it will all work out just fine:

And this is my quote of the year.  It spoke so loudly to me.  One of my good friends even sent me a text when she saw that I had pinned it, and said “I love this.”  Me, too.

Posted on

You Can Quote Me On That!

Everything you need to know in life can be learned from a Pinterest Quote.  Okay, maybe not, but I do love that just when I need to hear (or see it, as the case may be) Pinterest seems to know.  This kind of Big Brother I can live with.

Here are a few of my favorites…

“Everything Happens for a Reason, and Everything Happens for the Best.”

As an adult my mother has said this to me repeatedly,  I feel like this has been a general family motto.  It’s often hard to swallow, especially when you are in the thick of what’s happening. And, it kinda makes you want to punch every friend who says this to you in the face, when you are in the happening.  But when you find yourself on the other side looking back, I’ll be damned if it’s not always correct.

“Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys”

This has been the hardest lesson to learn.  When I get involved in a project, in any aspect of my life, I get deeply in the weeds. I can’t help it. I dive into the deep end, I’m not a wade into the shallow end first kinda girl.  I used to believe that being involved meant being involved in everything, caring about every aspect, listening to every gripe, until I realized it was dragging me down, and turning me into a version of myself that I didn’t really like.   I’m still not a zen master, but I’ll be damned if I let those monkeys get the best of me.

“Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe.”

Admittedly, this quote is a bit more hippy dippy than the impression most people get when they first meet me, but I believe this whole-heartedly.   And my tribe is the raddest, weirdest, most ridiculous group of humans ever assembled. Seriously, don’t know where I’d be without them. If I thanked them all by name, this blog post might never end, but I’m confident they know who they are.  

“You’ve Always Had the Power My Dear, You Just Had to Learn it for Yourself.” – The Wizard of Oz

Because Glinda knows all, and apparently has a really bomb shoe collection!

Posted on

And Now I Love Honky Tonks

Honky Tonks

A few weeks ago, Tarrah and I took a trip with another friend to Nashville.  I had never been, but the other two had.  It’s always been on my list of places to visit and ironically, I have traveled extensively through Tennessee, I just never made it to Nashville.  I’m not a huge country fan, but I can appreciate it, and come on, fried chicken is one of my favorite things.

My favorite part of the Nashville experience was Broadway.  A street filled with bars, aka honky tonks, playing live music morning, noon and night is my kind of place.  There was even live music being played in the airport when I landed at 9:30 a.m.

Broadway reminded me a lot of Vegas.  It’s a street filled with bars, neon lights and a bunch of drunk people.  While talking to two other women who were also on a girl’s weekend, they pointed out that it was almost worse than Vegas because Nashville is much more condensed.  True dat.

The great thing about visiting a honky tonk is that you don’t have to be a country music fan.  Yes, they play country music, but they also played a lot of cover songs from a lot of different bands.  Basically, if you leave money in their tip jar, you can request whatever song you like.

Honky Tonks

Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge is one of the more popular bars, and while we were there, I thought I was going to die.  It was so super crowded, and I don’t typically do well in crowds.  But I hung tight and eventually we settled into a spot where I didn’t feel like I was going to get trampled.  Until a girl and her boyfriend walked by and she said, “This is so unsafe.  What if something happens?”  I squelched the rising panic by drinking more beer.

Tootsie’s has three levels, with a band playing on each one.  My favorite honky tonk was Nudie’s, with Layla’s being a close second.  One thing we noticed was that they don’t serve draft beer, everything is out of a bottle.  Not so great for the environment, and not so great for the bar backs.  A bartender told us the bars are so old it’s not cost effective to put in tap lines and for the volume of beer they sell, it’s more efficient to pops caps off bottles than wait for a tap to fill a glass.

Our first night in town, we strictly hung out on Broadway.  This was the night of the longest World Series game ever, with a Boston Red Sox fan in our midst, we watched the game starting at dinner, and finishing three honky tonks later at 2:00 a.m.

The second night, we ventured out to East Nashville, but ended our night on Broadway where we endured being stalked by a strange Italian guy, spilled beers, and some pretty drunk peeps.  Good people watching.

I loved Nashville and had a super fun weekend with super fun ladies who like to drink beer and listen to live music.  Yay for Nashville, yay for honky tonks, and yay for Broadway!

Posted on

Call me Imelda!

Seventy.  I own seventy pairs of shoes… and I don’t see a damn thing wrong with that.  I have always loved shoes. Frankly, 70 pairs is probably the least pairs of shoes I’ve owned since the time I was able to pick out my own shoes.  

I Love SHOES.  All kinds. All colors.  All price ranges.

Shoes are beautiful.  They are art. They are magic.  Hell, they are practically unicorns for your feet.

When my pants don’t fit – my shoes still fit.

When I’m not loving an outfit – my shoes can take it up to 11.

When I’m not feeling well – my shoes comfort me.  Well, my slippers, but you get the point.

Some people have power suits… I’ve got power shoes.  I stand a little taller, walk a little sassier and kick a little higher.  Good luck to the person that decides to cross me when I’m wearing my power shoes! (And no, I’m not going to reveal which pair that is!)

My alter ego lives in black dresses on red carpets – my shoes still live somewhere over the rainbow!  Those yellow Calvin Klein’s with the bow! Ooooh… and those teal, tie-up Seychelles!

I fully admit… I judge people based on their shoes.  I judge and I’m comfortable with it. There’s a big difference between “I wear ugly shoes and I don’t care” and “I hate it but I need to wear these ugly shoes.”  Its real.

Once, I decided not to move in with a guy (just a roommate) because I had serious questions about his shoes.

I’ve definitely said “No, thanks” to more than a few guys at the bar because of sub-par footwear.  

While money can buy you some really, REALLY nice shoes, I don’t believe that the magic a shoe possesses can be equated to its price.  I mean, sure, I don’t own a pair of Manolos (yet!) but I’ve paid more than my fair share to the shoe gods and still gotten blisters. And, by the same account, I’ve bought some “house favorites” at Target, and they have provided more memories than I can count.

I’m an equal opportunity shoe lover!

And, let’s be real…  if some guy legitimately walked up to me in a bar and opened with “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”  Let’s be clear… I’d think about it. What shoes am I wearing right now? How good is his taste? How ironic do I think he’s being?

Ciao!
Tarrah

Posted on

Angela Loves Shoes

Angela Loves Shoes

I love shoes as much as Ron Burgundy loves Scotch.  My love of shoes started early.  The bolder, the better.  My sister had a pair of patent leather, red clogs in the late 70’s, which I inherited in the early 80’s.  Don’t they sound amazing?!  I wore them every chance I got.

There’s a picture of me and my cousins from 1980.  We had just returned from a week of camping and after everyone had showered and gotten ready, we were all going to Pizza Hut for dinner.  There are all the kids in tank tops, shorts and tennis shoes.  Then there’s me, in a pink dress with red flowers on it, socks up to my knees, and my red clogs.

Things didn’t change into adulthood.  In college during the 90’s I was a devout Mary Jane, Doc Martin, and high heeled, lug soled loafer wearer.  I still love a good Mary Jane.  I even had a hideous pair of shiny, red platform stripper heels that looked better suited for Pamela Anderson than me.  I owned them because they reminded me of my red clogs.  And I hate to say it, but I actually wore them on several occasions.  Hey, I lived in Las Vegas.

Recently, I have used shoes as retail therapy.  I went through a rough two years with a separation and a divorce, then a move to another state.  Hideous, shiny and red are no longer on the wish list.  My taste has changed and my shoes can be expensive.

I typically buy them from consignment or ebay and most of them I resell after a year or so.  In two years, I acquired a pair of espadrilles purchased on vacation in Hawaii at a TJ Maxx when I realized my marriage may be past the point of saving.  From there, I bought a brand-new pair of Diane Von Furstenberg tall, black, high heeled boots.  They’re hard to walk in, but they’re gorgeous, and what cost fashion?

Then, I needed to counter those with a tall brown, leather, high heeled Ugg boot that I LOVE because they remind me of the 70’s.  Easy to walk in and oh so comfortable with the shearling lined toe bed.  Next, a pair of Gucci slides which reminded me of Miami in the 1980’s because, why not?!

Stuart Weitzman wedges ala Duchess Kate, a pair of Lanvin block heeled sandals just like a pair my mom had in the 70’s.  Another block heeled sandal by Charles Jourdan because they reminded me of Studio 54, and a purple, lizard, strappy Yves Saint Laurent platform sandal because they reminded me of a classier version of the shiny, red platform.  Finally, a pair of simple black Prada pumps.  And just because flats should be represented, a pair of Loeffler Randall burgundy, suede, ankle tied flats.

Angela Loves Shoes

There are probably six more pairs, but I’ve already sold them.  As you can tell, I’m pretty nostalgic, and I like shoes that remind me of the things I love.   But, I’m also looking to the future.

All this for the amazing, tall boyfriend I’m going to get and the fabulous fucking life I’m going to lead 😉 Dream big, friends, dream big.  And love shoes, because they make you happy.