Dog Freaks Out Over Soldier's Return

I found this video yesterday on my Facebook news feed, posted by one of my favorite Facebook connections - a connection better than a camper for whom I was a counselor one summer nine years ago, or a kid I went to pre-school with, or someone who worked in my previous office but who I've never actually met in person. 

Yes, my wedding D.J. posted this amazing video.  Thanks, D.J. Ken, and thanks, obscure Facebook relationships! 

CiB loves flipping our shizz over the sweet videos of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  We can't get enough of it because we love any excuse to cry at work!

But usually it's the kiddos bringing the tears.  Never before have we seen an animal brought in to this loop of heart-wrenching bittersweetness.  Until now!

Enjoy!

Celebrity Doppelgangers

I consume celebrity gossip and culture quickly and in massive amounts, the same way I am currently consuming yesterday's office going-away party cupcakes that are stale, but whatever.  I pay closer attention to these people than I do to the people in my own life - like friends I value but only keep up with on Facebook or the chick who has worked at the desk next to me for the last year - whatever her name is. 

And yet I still do a double-take when it comes to some of these celebs and I'll mistake them for someone else.  I lifted these from Perez Hilton, i.e. my main news source.  Spot on!

Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman.  Gorgeous times two.

Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel.  Like twins!

Javier Bardem and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  I have always mixed these two up, but one of them has an Oscar and one of them is married to a chick from One Tree Hill.  Who's the big winner?  Also, apparently one of them was on Gray's Anatomy, which is a show I quit watching after Katherine Heigl's character told everyone off for making fun of her for taking immodest photos to pay her way through med school.  So, pretty much the first episode.

Edie Falco and Ellen DeGeneres.  Never thought about this one before, but okay.

Chris Rock and Mario.  Is it racist to say I've mistaken Mario for Chris Rock?

Gwyneth Paltrow and I guess someone who could possibly be her niece but not her doppelganger, the younger, less GOOP-y, less snooty, awesome Aussie Mia Wasikowska. 

Erika Christensen and Julia Stiles.  I used to mix these two up ... circa 1999.

Willem Dafoe and Denis Leary.  If someone compared my looks to Willem Dafoe's, I would feel the way I felt when I was in 6th grade and my class all had to write down nice things about one another anonymously, and someone wrote to me that I was "Pretty.... inside."

Amy Adams and Isla Fisher.  Totally couldn't tell these two apart in movies for two years.  One used to work at Hooters and one is married to Borat. 

Tom Hardy and some dude named Logan Marshall-Green.  I have no idea who he is, but, yeah, they look like mega, smoking hot twins.



Khloe Kardashian and Joanie Laurer, aka Chyna Doll.  Khloe is much prettier than this picture gives her credit for.

The insane hotness that is Zac Efron and Chace Crawford.  I would have done Chace Crawford and Ian Somerhalder (below).  I have more pictures, but I thought this wasn't a bad note to end on.  I'm so over the annoying Blogger photo uploader today.  Enjoy the Yum.

Shake Shake Shake

When one chooses a career path that involves a feast-or-famine environment, those days of fasting can seem endless when your boss can't return your e-mails because she has pink eye (SORRIES!).  You scour the blogs for anything entertaining or educational, and realize it's time to limit the number of articles you read about Courteney Cox and David Arquette's break-up / open marriage / cheating scandals.  The only Facebook update from the past 25 minutes is the news that a girl with whom you took ballet lessons in 3rd grade is now friends with a person you've never heard of.  Gripping.

Then 3:30 p.m. rolls around and your brain starts to feel like it's growing cobwebs.  You stand up, and feel kind of dizzy, so you sit back down.  You decide you need some candy corn, so you should probably go get some.  And then you eat the candy corn.  And you sit back down.

The phone rings and it's a number you recognize, and you can't believe it, it isn't one you want to avoid!  And then you have this conversation:

Leigh Ann: Hello, you big dodo brain.

Jeff: Hello, you smelly little stinkity stink stinkbug.  Have you been annoying everyone today?

Leigh Ann: What are you doing tonight?  Are you going to brink a dottle of wine... I mean drink a bottle of wine?  And breat a brick ... I mean eat a brick of cheese?  Jeez, my brain is turning into a big pile of macaroni and cheese.

Jeff: I wish your brain would turn into a big pile of macaroni and cheese.  Then I would hold you upside down by your ankles over a plate and shake shake shake you until your head fell off, so I could eat it.

And then you realize the length of your day prior to this phone call was totally worthwhile.

Jeff and I have been having this exact same conversation three times a day, every day, for eight years.  Here's a picture of us being disrespectful at the Vatican in 2002.  Jeff's look holds up well, but I am pretty sure I am outfitted entirely in American Eagle, except of course for the Skechers.

And here's him at my wedding performing the traditional breaking of the plate over the bride's head.  He was honored!

 

The First Post

So many people have approached me about starting a blog, and you should always do what other people tell you to do.

My Facebook status updates have amassed a successful following, but I have wondered if my one-liners can make the leap from supporting character on your news feed to carrying an entire show.  I don't know what this blog will end up being other than general musings about the day to day: failing to make ends meet while my husband works his way toward law and business degrees, avoiding molestation on the streets of Philadelphia, hating the celebrity trivia that fills my head, balancing a desperate desire to be skinny with a constant yearning for wine, cheese and chocolate, being judgmental about grammar and spelling, missing family and friends in North Carolina.  

But I am certain about one thing: pictures of cats in baths are really funny.  A bath for a cat is totally unnecessary and the documentation of it seems solely to exist for the purpose of entertaining humans.  Cats don't need baths; they're self-cleaning - like ovens.  They hate water and they hate you for putting them there.  They are angry, desperate, scrawny, alien-like, and totally adorable.  This blog will not focus entirely on cats in baths, but occasionally it will come back to that, because let's face it: I'm not going to make you think or enlighten you in any way.  I've never been particularly smart and I haven't always been gorgeous, so at one point all I had was my sense of humor.  Let's hope this guy retains his: