Because my local WESH news casters are in my house every day, preaching at me from my television, I feel like I know them. And, I’ve met some of them — Jim Payne during a race, Michelle Meredith at Tea Parties, Raul Martinez when I gave blood (and, of course, Wendi Chioji, who is no longer a WESH person, at my very first 5k) — and, let’s face it, I’m not exactly shy when I have something to say. A few months back, Jim Payne made some sarcastic joke during the news, and I immediately went online to email him about what a groaner it was. Verily, I was amused when he replied to my email with sarcasm. The point is, I interact with my local news people because I can. It’s not a frequent thing, but it is something I do.

Rewind to last Friday, when I sent this email to chief meteorologist, Tony Mainolfi:

Tony, Please please please move off screen when you show the 7 day forecast. You always block tomorrow, and rarely let me see what tomorrow’s forecast is. I ride a scooter to work, and prefer knowing what tomorrow’s weather is. But because you always block tomorrow as you ramble on about 6 days from now, I end up going to bed at 1120p not knowing what to expect on my morning commute. You are the worst offender of the WESH weather team. Please, move off screen or over to the other end of the 7 day so I can see tomorrow’s weather.

When I opened my email a few minutes ago, I had this reply:

I am very Sorry for the map blocking. I promise to go from the WORST offender to the BEST. Thanks for your imput and stay on me and keep me posted on my progress. Thanks for watching and have a wonderful evening.
Sincerely,
Tony Mainolfi

As luck had it, just as I was checking my email, Tony came onto my tv to do the weather, and… the seven day came up, and he booked off the screen! My husband and I erupted into applause, and I sent Tony a thank you email!

It’s interactive tv!

wRitErsbLock

Contributors (2)

Can you believe we’ve been friends for almost 17 years? That means I’m old. But he had a cashier ask him “you’re over 40, right?” when he bought wine today! LMAO!

He had to change his flight, so he’s flying home tonight instead of tomorrow night. And so, he came for dinner before his flight. I admired his princess bling, and coveted it. He gave me his princess shirt, as he’s not feeling very princessy for some reason!

If not before then, I’ll see him in California in September.

wRitErsbLock

Add your 2¢

I asked for helmet pig tails, I saw the charge in the bank account, and finally received them from RTY today!

I’m so cool!

wRitErsbLock

Contributors (3)

Our gas grill, having died a horrible death last year, has been working as a charcoal grill for those days when we must grill. And, here’s the buffalo:

Grilled buffalo, grilled asparagus with butter melting, and a lovely cabernet sauvignon:

With spinach on the side:

There was much rejoicing amongst the taste buds! And then, my MIL came over bearing tres leches cake, and the taste buds rejoiced again!

Happy birthday indeed!

Twenty roses from my love.

wRitErsbLock

Contributor (1)

Pereiraville Poetry Slam #14 from wRitErsbLock on Vimeo.

Happy birthday to my BIL, Tony. But especially, Happy birthday to me! And many more! With colorful adult beverages from Pat O’Briens.

wRitErsbLock

Contributors (4)

Apparently, after a couple adult beverages at Outback, we get blurry.

But before the meal, there was no blur.

Weird. Might be the sweet tea vodka-based tasty adult beverage I was consuming, or their margaritas. Or, my husband just can’t work my camera. One or the other!

It was so great to see my friend! He’s running the disney princess half marathon in the morning, as he’s secure in his manhood enough to run a princess race! He just needs this race to qualify for the coast-to-coast so he and I can run together in California in September. I qualified with my half in January. The things we do for bling!

I hope he comes back on Monday, as we need to re-do the blurry picture.

wRitErsbLock

Contributor (1)

For my birthday dinner tomorrow, my husband is going to grill these beauties:

They’re cut-to-order Buffalo rib eyes. Buffalo steak! Sweet! We’ve only had ground buffalo to date, but tomorrow, we feast on buffalo steak!

We drove out to Petty’s Meats last weekend only to discover they’re apparently closed on Sundays. Bummer, because it’s a bit of a drive. So, we headed out that way today and were thrilled to see a hand written sign encouraging us to ask about their Kobe and Buffalo. I didn’t think I could afford to even ask about Kobe, but I did ask for the prices for buffalo, and we waited patiently while they cut our steaks to the 3/4″ thickness we requested, fingers crossed that we could afford it, as it was something like $24/pound, and we had no clue how big the meat would be, other than thickness.

We’re very much looking forward to our buffalo tomorrow!

And, for perspective, if we went to a steak house, we’d spend close to that amount per entree, so bringing home two gorgeous steaks for right around that price is acceptable for a special occasion. Next time, I’m asking about the Kobe.

wRitErsbLock

Add your 2¢

Today is my dad’s birthday. Happy birthday Daddy! I love you so much!

wRitErsbLock

Contributor (1)

It seems I’ll have a birthday on Sunday. I’m not happy about it. For some inane reason, 33 intimidates me. It has something to do with the fact that 33 is divisible by 11 three times. That freaks me out for some reason. I’m not generally bothered at all by aging. Oh, sure, I cried at 19 and found it to be very traumatic, but no birthday since then has been traumatic at all. Thirty-three… gah! I can’t cope!

Anyway, my loving husband asked me the other day

He: What do you want for you birthday?
Me: Pig tails.
He: I know that already. What else do you want?
Me: It’s so hard to answer that; we tend to buy what we want when we want if we have the money.
He: I know. We’re impossible to shop for. So… what do you want?
Me: Stuff for the house. A kitchen sink. Plants. Oooh! Someone to come rip out and re-drywall my kitchen! That’s what I want!
He: Riight. We can get you that lemon tree you’ve been lusting after.
Me: It’s $70. For $70 we can have a really nice meal with tasty adult beverages.
He: So do you just want to go out to eat?
Me: Yes… but I’d also like to just keep throwing money into our mythical vacation fund.

On the way home tonight, we stopped by our big box home improvement store to look at the plants. We seriously have a plant problem in that we have no self-control. We can’t remember which big box store we recently saw baby papaya trees for cheap (compared to our nursery of choice that is super expensive and really far away and sucks away so much of our money). This was not the right store for the papaya. But… they had my variegated pink lemon tree for $20 compared to $70 at the nursery. Granted, the tree at Lucas Nursery was much, much larger — a tree — and the one that came home with us is more like a shrubbery, but look at the difference in price! And so… I give you my birthday lemon tree whose name is Floyd:

Isn’t he pretty?! I heart him! Supposedly his fruit will resemble small, lemon-shaped watermelons. Here’s a close up of his newest growth:

Such a pretty tree.

And while I’m posting pictures of trees, let me update you on Manny, my ice cream mango tree. He’s trying so hard to produce fruit for me this year:

I just love all our trees. And am thrilled with Floyd. What a great birthday present! And since he only cost $20, we also were able to bring home two strawberry plants, a muscadine grape (we’re expanding our vineyard!), and a raspberry. And some flower pots for our existing, need-to-be-re-potted herbs. All for $20 less than what Floyd would have cost at Lucas.

My fingers are still crossed for dry wall installers to re-do all my horrid textured walls for my birthday, but I won’t hold my breath.

Bonus: pics a few weeks ago of the itty bitty baby lemons on Oscar the Meyer Lemon:

wRitErsbLock

Contributors (2)

While we were watching “yell at the tv hour” last night, one of the anchors mentioned a food recall due to an ingredient that shows up in many, many food products has been tainted with salmonella. One of the foods the anchor mentioned was hot dogs.

My husband and I have decided to blame salmonella for my stomach distress. It all began Tuesday afternoon after having hot dogs for lunch. It was 24 hours of agonizing stomach pain with no, um, puking or any other sort of expulsion from my body. Then, yesterday the stomach pain was gone, but the expulsions were frequent. Last night, the stomach pain resumed, combined with expulsions. And now this morning, more of the same.

I choose to blame salmonella.

That, or I’m allergic to my upcoming birthday. I fear 33.

wRitErsbLock

Contributors (3)