Regrets and Resolutions

Well I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. Mine was just fabulous thank you and I have been sittin around on my ever-expanding ass ever since. You know, a couple days of eating butter-laden foods and drinking alcohol-infused beverages is just fine, but I'm going on a solid week of stuffing my face without so much as a glance at the treadmill and I have to be honest with y'all...I think it may be time to get to steppin.

Now y'all know I don't advocate strict dieting or strenuous exercise, but good Lord my waistline's disappearing faster than Britney Spears' shot at a comeback. Of course, the week between Christmas and New Years is the foundation for 90% of the new gym memberships purchased on January 1. I suppose I should enjoy this last stint of gluttony before 2007 guilts me into shape. You see, the problem with January is that there's not a damn thing to do but bundle up and regret everything you ate last year.

Not that I make New Year's resolutions, but if I were gonna, they'd be:

1) Find job that pays more money than it costs to live every month

2) Use excess money to make any sort of dent in credit card debt

3) Write witty, insightful reference guide to Life, Love and the Pursuit of Carbohydrates

4) Convince someone to publish said book

and the ever popular...
5) Attempt to remain in the same size pants as the year before.

Everyone always wants to lose weight, but let's face it folks, weight loss in adulthood is more difficult than teaching a Y-chromosome how to operate a vacuum cleaner. The goal at some point is simply to stop expanding, unless of course your pants are of the elastic waistband persuasion, in which case you gotta develop a whole new plan. Shrinking is nice in theory, but in practice, deprivation is sooo less-than-pleasant.

So for 2007, y'all go on an make whatever resolutions you need to for your own life, but remember to be realistic and that getting all the buttons fastened counts as an accomplishment;-)

Merry Christmas

SO this is it lovies, the last workday of holiday madness before the weekend of requisite family visiting and face stuffing. Last chance to pick up stocking stuffers and baking supplies. I mean I guess you could venture out Saturday or Sunday, but I think that's totally insane and you won't find me among the hysterical masses for love nor money...but maybe if I run outta booze. Let's just face it folks, there is but one way to survive a week of eating and chatting and present wrapping and that's a mimosa. I find that mimosas, once again, are the perfect beverage for large social occasions. They give you an all-day fuzz to take the edges off the crowded house, and they are easily disguised as juice so no one has to know that you're smiling out of a drunken stupor and not from their very funny and interesting account of how they bargained the Christmas tree vendor down from $45 to $37. Of course you must be a bit vigilant if there are children around, lest the toddlers toddle themselves into a wall with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit.

And before y'all get all moral on me, no, I am not really drunk through the entire holiday, I merely dabble during the more stressful parts.

I am certainly looking forward to some R & R, after my travels to hell and back (also known as the West Coast), I feel I deserve a little time off. I know I've been a little lax of late with my posts, but I've been outta Internet range for a good bit of that time. 2007 promises to be a big year for your old pal Q, so stay tuned for updates on the life and times of Manhattan's sassiest Southerner. Thank you for your loyal readership and may you have a very happy healthy holiday!

Here's to getting what you want and wanting what you get...Cheers!

Tis the Season

Whew! Can you believe it's the week before Christmas and I've been so busy traveling that I haven't even had time for shameless self-promotion? Yes, I have spent that past week in Kansas, which is just about the flattest damn place you ever did see, and I have neglected my duties in the way of holiday baking.

But tonight I will begin churning out the sweet treats. And what treats might those be? Well the ones found in Queenan's Cocktails and Carbohydrates Cookbook of course! Y'all remember last year I added a holiday section with some of my favorite desserts and booze-laden beverages. To be sure, they are not for the faint of heart.

Now I want y'all to remember that we are still in pumpkin season. Folks tend to forget about our orange orb friends after Thanksgiving, but Christmas is still a perfectly good occasion for pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll and pumpkin bread, plus they make easy little gifts in case you get dragged over to some long-lost relative's house and don't wanna turn up empty handed. That really is the best thing about holiday baking, at no other time of the year does a cookie serve as a completely acceptable gift. And y'all know this year I am just about gifted out, what with the wedding and all, so I'd really appreciate a few gifts that don't need a shelf in my already overflowing cabinets. (Granted my ass won't appreciate them, but then we'll deal with that in January)

Oh and speaking of asses, y'all remember that the holidays are not the time to worry with silly things like diet and exercise. January and February are long cold months with no holidays, no parties and nothing better to do than go to the gym and re-heat soup. So just don your cutest elastic waistband pants, eat yourself silly, and worry about the consequences next month. Absolving yourself of your holiday binges is what New Year's Resolutions are for!

Update

My Mother has called to tell me to watch my language.

DAMN!

Whatever

There are those posts where I tell you how generous and un-New Yorkerlike my fellow Manhattanites can be...this is not one of them. I mean to tell you I nearly stabbed at least 3 folks in the eye this morning, and I've only been at work for 5 minutes!

First of all, I am trying to get to work with a rolling suitcase (full of work stuff), a huge gym bag (because my ass is starting to over-take my pants), a purse and I have just purchased a cup of coffee. As I'm leaving the coffee shop this woman who is not dressed for work and has no where to go, holds the door slightly for me to catch, and then while I'm struggling to wheel my bag over the threshold, gets tired of waiting 5 more seconds and says, "I can't just keep holding this, I can't do everything for you," and drops the door on me. Can you even believe that! After I fight my way out the door, I pass her ambling down the street with nowhere to go, nothing to do, just being a bitch for the hell of it.

Then I lug all my stuff on the train and am hauling the suitcase up a huge flight of stairs, when a woman decides that though there are 3 empty staircases, she must descend on the same one I'm ascending, regardless of the fact that she is unencumbered and I am heavily laden.

And then, I have to fight the elevator open twice in the process of getting on, while 3 stupid twits stand inside NOT pushing the door open button. So by the time I arrive at my office, I'm late, sweating, stressed out, and ready to throttle the next person who walks in the door. Of course y'all know my office is a shit show and only breeds more anxiety.

So for today, my dears Merry F*%#ing Christmas. (and Mother, do not call me and comment on my language, I hate putting family on my short list, but I'm not above it today!)

Where's Queenie?

Here are your clues...

While visiting this city I have:
1) seen 1 B-list current celeb with an older yet ageless wife, 1 has-been making a comeback with a very good plastic surgeon, and 1 recent divorcee whose split made him more famous than his now non-existent acting career.

2) eaten an endless lunch listening to a publicist in serious need of an eye lift drop names like Gretel with a bag of breadcrumbs

3) spent an entire evening trying to shake some drunk 22-year-old PR assistant whose limbs could have doubled for toothpicks.

Where was I.....Los Angeles, CA of course! This one was really too easy right? I mean, there is not another city in the world as simultaneously soul-less and superficial, where every third person is in "public relations," and not a one of them could relate to the public if their life depended on it. I mean you'd think the sun rose and set on a handful of stylists and life as we know it might cease to exist if a guestlist isn't properly alphabetized. Smoozing is the only skill required, though I think a few of the little assistants got "smoozing" confused with "boozing," cause by the end of the night I wasn't clear if they were forming complete sentences. Of course, it probably only took one glass of wine to have them good and shnockered seeing as how they all weighed about 90lbs. soaking wet. As the hors d'oeuvres tray passed and I grabbed yet another and the stick-figure declined yet again, she actually had the nerve to look at me with disappointment on her face and claim she was "allergic" to so many things she had to pass up the goodies. Honey, I hate to break it to ya, but being "allergic" to everything is called anorexia in all other parts of the world.

Not here in LA though. You would be shocked by the state of these folks. Every damn person who walked through the door had hot pink hair and at least one piece of leather clothing. Not that I give a shit, cause crazy folks spend money too, but I just don't understand why you'd put so much effort into lookin like a fool. They have all the latest fashions in studded collars and skull jewelry, and would be quite trendy if they were just a bit less scary. And at the prices they're paying for their lace-up attire, now that's what I call tragically hip.

It is truly another world out there, and one in which I hope to never spend more than 36 hours. Any place where half the people are employed to buy overpriced clothes for the other half just lacks too much morality for Queenie. I mean these "stylists" are basically girls and gay men who never outgrew their all-day mall stints from adolescence, and have decided to fashion a living out of bribes and gift bags.

Other than being sunny and 65 degrees, there wasn't a redeemable thing about LA, and I'm quite sure California would fair much better were the city to sink in the Pacific.

*** Key for #1: Ashton Kutcher, Bo Derek, Chad Lowe

Football Fan?

By now I'm sure y'all know my feelings on sporting events and the insanity of sports fanatics, so it might surprise you to learn that yesterday I attended a real, live NFL game and hell didn't even freeze over!!

Now don't be alarmed that your ol pal Queenie has gone and gotten herself into football, cause you know I was last pick for the ticket. And here I thought being the bottom of the barrel for 7th grade dodgeball was bad, my own husband called every damn man he knew, and when none of them could go he figured a warm body was better than a wasted ticket. Alas, I was not even offended.

I did however, discover the most fabulous occurrence in the parking lot of the stadium...the tailgate! I have heard telling of these kinds of eating frenzies, but since they've always occurred just prior to games I certainly wouldn't be attending, I've never really had the pleasure of participating. I mean to tell you, right out there on the asphalt, folks are grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, steak, pork tenderloin, you name it. The stuff is just delicious and the beverages are flowing like a fountain, but you can tell it's run by Y-chromosomes. All they've got is meat and beer. You can't find a side dish for love nor money. You know if women were in charge there'd be chips, baked beans, brownies even, but not with the Y's in charge. Hell, you couldn't find a bite of potato salad to save your life.

I tell you what though, sporting events are really quite nice in a few respects. First of all, they are the only places where the women's restrooms have no lines and secondly, you always look good compared to your compatriots. I mean to tell you, sports fans are rough-lookin, and they're all so damn drunk and disorderly they can't hardly make it into the stadium without fallin all over themselves. Sweetpotato is of course the exception to this rule, because you know my Potato don't act like a fool in public (an occasional holiday party not withstanding;-)

Win or Lose, the tailgate is reason enough to truck it out to the arena, cause by the time you get into the game, hell you're just about ready to cheer for anybody...spoken like the true non-fan I am, I'll probably never get invited again. At least until the next time all the boys are busy!