Golf (did you know that it's an old acronym for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden?)

Last night a few of my coworkers and I decided we would enjoy the beautiful, sunny Thursday evening with a nice game of golf at the Greenlake Pitch n' Putt. This course is ideal for me - no holes longer than 115 yards. I'm not much of a golfer... I'm more of a golf carter or putt putt player, so I tried to negotiate with the guys that the ladies would get a two stroke handicap for each hole. That didn't fly. But in the end, I somewhat held my own. Maybe a little practice and I can actually hit par on a hole, maybe.

Some of the highlights:

• Frances' reaction to every shot she hit. (She and I both had a hard time keeping our vocabularies clean - what are we, sailors?!)
• My apparent obsession with hitting my ball into trees and/or bushes.
• Nick getting hit by another golfer on the next fairway over... while trying to hide from getting hit by Frances.
• Scott's amazing drive that landed seriously, at least three fairways over. And he actually claims that he golfs... I'm suspicious.

After our uber-competitive game, Frances and I owed the guys a drink since we lost, so we all headed to the GBAG (Greenlake Bar & Grill - my former stomping grounds). Turns out, even after two years, I still get an employee discount - sweet! We had some beer, ate some food and merrily chatted. You know, the usual.

This morning, Frances sent around this very informative history of golf clip. (Warning: Contains explicit language. Watch at your own risk.)

No habla espanol

At about 10:11pm last night, I started receiving some Spanish text messages. Obviously, they had the wrong number since I speak minimal Spanish (even though I took two years in high school and two quarters in college; I just didn't retain much. I guess watching Tarzan in Spanish every other class period didn't actually help us learn. Hmm, odd). Anyway, I didn't respond because I was in bed... because I'm an old lady and am usually in bed at 10pm.

The first text was: "Gracias por acordarte d mi y llamarme para saber." Eh, I know some of the words individually, but couldn't put a sentence together. Plus, I was trying to sleep and thinking in Spanish wasn't going to help the matter.

Second text about 10 minutes later: "Mandame una senal para saber q estas viva y q todavia existes."

I wasn't sure if this was going to keep going, so I just wrote back: "Yo quiero Taco Bell." I figured it would relay the fact that I don't speak Spanish and they reached the wrong person.

Today I decided to ask Kathryn to translate for me... So the first one says something like: "Thanks for agreeing with me and call me to know." Or something along those lines.

The second one, however, reads something like: "Send me a signal so I know that you are alive."

So that makes my signal, en inglés (or English for those of you on the same boat as me): I want Taco Bell.

I think I may have started a fight. Oops. I'm sure he/she was looking for a much different signal.

This guy doesn't understand young people and I don't understand Spanish. We have that in common...

Biking for beer

Last weekend, a group of 10 people made the trek to the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville via bike on the Burke Gilman trail - that's like a 40+ mile bike ride round trip! It was a smashing success! I sent out an email earlier in the week to gauge interest and slowly but surely, more and more people were added to the email chain and we had assembled quite the crew. Those who came along were Tronics, Holden, James, Nick, Team Barrows (Chris and Chrissy), JJ, Phil and another Chris.

It was a beautiful ride, but it made me want to get a really nice bike. I was a little shocked at some of the guys' bikes - even though some of them haven't actually been on a bike in like two years, they still had amazing bikes!

When we got there, we sat in the sun and had lunch and some beer. Perfect combination before jumping on your bikes to ride home, huh?

Here are some of the prizes I would give out after the ride:

Most Legit: Chris Cappello - you just can't downplay your biking skills when you have a full-on tanline where your spandex ends.

Best Sport: James - even though a spoke broke, he made it through like a champ!

Most Dedicated: Phil - he rode 20 miles, stayed for like 10 minutes and then had to ride back for a prior commitment. He didn't even get to have a beer!

Best attire: Nick - there's something very appropriate about wearing a beer bike jersey to a brewery.

Most Heart: Chris Barrows - well done, my friend. You admit you're not a biker and you're not ashamed to call the parents for a ride home. I love it.

The "Peace Out" Award: Holden - he straight up flew off when we left and was never seen again.

Best Butt: Maddie - she had some problems with her seat which resulted in a seat-shaped bruise the next day.

Funniest: Random guy at the brewery who knew Chris - Picture this: Decent-sized guy walks in with a beer in one hand and baby strapped to his front with a pink blanket draped over it. Then, at the top of this lungs, "What the f*%#, Chris?!" He spotted Chris, his old friend. Can we say ear muffs? Too funny. Later he walked past our table holding the hands of his two other little ones and asked, "Anyone need to go poopy?" Let's not forget about how he was explaining how much his baby... well, poops, to keep it PG.

Here's our crew, minus the two ladies in front - I don't know them, but Chris did.

Tour de 'Hoods

Yesterday, Tronics and I took on a "Tour de 'Hoods." We made the pilgramage through a ton of Seattle neighborhoods and kicked some steep hill butt in the process. (Actually it pretty much kicked out butts, but that's not nearly as impressive.)

I used Map My Run to put a little run together. So we started at my place which we can classify as Ballard, ran on the Burke-Gilman through Fremont and into South Lake Union. Then, we journeyed up the hill through the U-District and down Ravenna into Greenlake. We did the outside track around the lake until we hit 65th and then died a little inside when we saw the impeding hill before us. We took it on though - with a positive outlook. I'm sure my "running" looked like walking to people passing, but I'd like to see them finishing off a long run on this ginormous hill - bad planning on my part. Along the way, there was this giant dog that barked at us along the way and neither of us were in any condition to take that, so Maddie told it to shut up... in so many words. I was like, "Seriously." So then we crossed through Phinney and down the backside to 3rd which eventually brought us back to my place. The weird thing was that neither of us were that winded after 8 miles of 'hoods.

I did have some Gu before my run, so that may have helped a little, but we totally felt like we could conquer the world. Maddie even said she was going to hit up Things Remembered and get us "Best Friend"-type necklaces, but instead that would have "Bad Asses" on them. Because after our weekend of a 40+ mile bike ride and an 8-mile run, we are bad asses. Details on the bike ride to come, but just know, it was awesome!

Thai Truck Friday!

Right now I am counting down the minutes until Kathryn, Christina and possibly Katie and I walk down to the Thai Truck. It's sooo amazing and super cheap too! I mean, you can't really go wrong with Thai, but the fact that we get to leave the office and take a little walk around the lake to the Center for Wooden Boats (the parked location) - that just makes it all the more while. You know what would make this even better on this sunny Seattle Friday afternoon?

This:
And this:

(Funny. I googled picnic table on the lake and they gave me quite a literal picture for the term.)

A cousinly bond

Last night I went to BluWater Bistro in Greenlake for dinner with my cousin, Lynnette and her husband, Paul. So my cousin and I are the same age (only a couple months apart) and have both been living in Seattle for the last 2+ years. She grew up in Seattle, but went to GA for college while I was at UW – so our overlap in the city has been minimal. With that said, we have been in the same city of 2+ years and still don’t see each other often. I think that will change because we found that we have a lot in common! We both like:

Drinking red wine with good company (after dinner we relocated to her apartment for some more wine)
Caprese sandwiches (ordered the same thing, ok, not so novel, but still...)
Watching Biggest Loser and ANTM
Cooking and trying new recipes
Going to sporting events (they have Sounders season tix)
Running around Greenlake
Beanie babies

Ok, so that last thing was a lie, but I felt like this post was getting boring and I wanted to spice it up. You know what else spices boring things up?! Google image searches. Like when I type in “Fun” to Google images, I get this awesome picture. Everyone loves a slinky.

Hmm, I feel like this has inspired a future post.

I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop

Last night, Stephanie and I stepped out to bring it on at Hip Hop at Westlake Dance Center. It was the first time we’d been back to our favorite class (that we had attended religiously for months) in over a year! Before the class started, all of these people in their baggy sweat pants and the Reeboks with the straps were showing up and congregating outside. Here we were in our simple running shoes, yoga pants and quarter zip pullovers – not quite the portrait of your typical hip hop dancer. We started sweatin’ because they all looked like they were going to “kill it,” as they say in hardcore hip hop. Had things changed that much since we last took class?!

The doors open and we all head in to the classroom. Then our instructor, Mark, comes in acting all cool – Visualize this, but with a fedora... and Asian.

The “cool and careless” front immediately vanished when he saw us – “YOU GUYS ARE BACK!” I’d seriously compare his excitement level to at least winning a Lottery scratch ticket, if not the full on MegaMillions lottery! Please remember, it’s been over a year since we last took this class. We both smiled and then Steph was like, “Wow, we must be very memorable.”

We jumped right into learning a dance to “Me and My Girlfriend” and quickly realized how you should never jump to conclusions – the peeps in the ghetto, hip hop attire were dressed like that to make up for their shortfalls in dancing. Not that I’m one to judge, but seriously. Steph and I killed that dance! And we noticed that we are the only ones that make jokes with Mark and aren’t really concerned with what other people are thinking – probably why Mark loves us. At the end of the class, we got another call out – something along the lines of how he’s excited to have some people (as he stared, wide-eyes at us) return. Don’t worry, we’re planning on returning in less than a year this time.

It was awesome. I keep going through it in my head today and just want to bust a move, but unfortunately I have a window where everyone can see in my office. I guess I can take my chances…

Here's the song, in case you want to envision me groovin' at my desk.

T9 saved my life

Ok, so that's a little dramatic, but I do like texting. It’s so easy and convenient. Obviously, many times an old-fashioned call is in order, but sometimes a quick little message just does the thing. I was going through my inbox the other day and realized that I have a lot of messages that make me laugh. Here’s a sampling:

“Hi herk iM AT .THE AIRPORT WAITING TO LEAVE BY SIX NOT SURE HOW I MADE CAPITAL LETTERS ?” –Dad, I think this was his first message and I love it so much that I can’t delete it. It still makes me smile.

“So pretty sure someone is waitin outside dentes house and is doing drugs and waiting for dente. Its the perfect time for stake out!” –Autumn, Dente was our old neighbor in Greenlake who suspiciously was MIA for like 5 months and then came back and said he was in Australia for business. We think Australia = Jail for drug dealing.

“H to the Ho Bag” –Steph, I have such nice friends.

“If I see my face in InTouch, I’m hunting you down” –Josh, I’ve always told him that I would make my riches from slowly leaking very unattractive pictures I’ve collected over the years to the tabloids when he gets famous. He said if I did, he would wear a t-shirt featuring an ugly picture of me for every interview. I’m torn now. Eh, I think I’ll go for the money.

Series of texts:
“Cab thirty dollars!” –Dad
“For?” –Me
“To drink what else” –Dad
“At 4pm? You crazy!” –Me
“Schools out for summer!” –Dad
“Yay! Congrats!” –Me
Later in the night when apparently the drinks were setting in…
“Your dad is proud of you!” –Dad, gotta love, out-of-the-blue drunken texts from your Dad!

"Can you find me? Of course not, because I'm in camo: -Josh, accompanied by this gem of a picture.


“Love you love you love you!” –Josh, awwwww.

“I have a Montana love for you and so its all settled. You will move here and we will hang out everyday you aren’t with boy wonder” –Alisa, this reminds me to cash in for this wonder boy.

“Psst. I love you” –Suze, another awwwww.

“Yesssss I killed her cousin the other day. We are such badasses. Regulators! Mount up” –Maddie, in reference to a picture of a giant spider that I sent her… I killed it. She thinks I’m a badass in my spider-killing skills. Ooh, say that 10 times fast: Spider-killing skills, Spider....

“My gas is fierce. Be glad you’re not here.” –To protect the innocent, I will leave this one as anonymous.

“Oh my god! OBAMA!!” –Mom, oh what a spectacular night.

“Remember rome waz not blt n a da” –Mom, this one took me a while to decipher and I can’t remember what it was regarding, but I love her shorthand. Take a guess of what it says.

“Thanks for tonight because” –Holden, because why Holden? Oh wait, the text was received at 3:28am. Looks like someone had 1 too many drinks to actually finish the text. :)

Series of texts:
“Happy Friday!” –Me, I’m actually not quite sure what I originally wrote, but it was something along those lines.
“Cus me i am driving u r nt to text while i m driving” –Dad
“Huh?” –Me
“Text lang” –Dad

"The one thing I know I did right in my life was you." -Mom, awwwwww, so sweet.

“Do I get to keep the novelty toilet paper?!” –Holden, when I moved out of my apartment with him, I left some really awesome anti-tobacco toilet paper. He loved it, as well as the Mary Kay Satin Hands soap. Loved that stuff. So did every guy that walked out of that bathroom. It was quite funny actually.

“Jack’s hot, even while drooling.” –Stephanie, gotta love back and forth texting while watching TV shows.

“I love youk. Pa iam drink” –Maddie, when Maddie, or rather “Jenny” went out with the girls for her “21st” birthday. Good story.

“I just saw you sing the wrong lyrics” –Maddie, surprise, surprise! We were at a bar, sitting across the table from each other and I was singing a song (can’t remember which one) and I get this text. More proof that I’m a lyric master.

"Jack Bauer says he misses you." - Stephanie, So what? We like to text about JB and 24... and ANTM, GG, and....

“Lily has dingleberries on her backside!” –Dad, We use the word “dingleberry” a lot because when I was little I asked him what they were, thinking they were real berries, and when I found out the truth, I died laughing. Since then, we occasionally use it as a term of endearment.

“Im gonna shave he butt and make her walk backwards!” – Dad, Watch out, Mom! Your dog might be in trouble.

“Let’s all raise out glasses to Bea Arthur, the great Golden Girl, who died yesterday at age 86 of cancer. Thanks for all of the laughs.” –Josh, ummmm, ok?

“I was going to hold out for this one but fine. I will take off my bra… Call me if you want to talk. Even if its about my chest hair” –Anonymous, she was trying to make me laugh and it worked quite well, especially the chest hair part.

Weekend o' Fun

It started off on Friday with a poker night at the 304. There was a lot of trash-talking during the day. First, I sent my “horoscope” that ironically said that I would win at poker this week. (Whoa, how’d the stars know that?!) Holden responded with this “horoscope”:

CANCER (June 22-July 22). You are very handsome....some would say dead sexy. You will play Elisha Cuthbert's husband in the next season of the 24 when she reprises her role as Kim Bauer. This fake romance will eventually blossom into a real romance. You're also a great poker player and despite Erika's (obviously edited) horoscope YOU will actually win tonight.

I told him that the only horoscope I found for him was this one:

CANCER (June 22-July 22). You always aspire to win poker, but it's just not in the stars. Let's face it, you're no Jack Bauer. Try new endeavors like Paint-by-Number, hula hooping, or cross dressing. Also, you still owe your friend dinner. WTF?

This continued for awhile, but in the end, Holden was right. He won. Boo. Good payout too because we had like a dozen people. There went my winning streak. Next time.

So after poker night, Maddie and I were going to go to Nick and Lizzie’s Ski Party. We apparently hyped it up so much that everyone at poker wanted to join. Lizzie said “bring em,” so we rolled in with our entire crew. There were some great hot pink one-piece ski suits and the such. But the best part, hands down, was the “shot skis” (see pic for example, note: I don't know these people, but google images does wonders.). A new experience for Erika, but as James said, it promotes “team bonding.” Ha. Team bonding, very funny. After awhile we all decided to walk to my favorite watering hole, Teddy’s for a friendly (or rather unfriendly) game of ping pong. Not my best night of ping pong, but I blame it on the shot ski.



On Saturday, we were going to go to the Cheese Festival down at Pike Place, but we all slept in so late that by the time we got ourselves together, we decided a nice picnic at Greenlake sounded like more fun. So Maddie, Stephanie, Holden, James and I brought some snackies and board games down to the lake. Yahtzee and a picnic at the lake became a tradition last summer, so we’re continuing it even though I don’t live in the 304. This pic was from last year. So fun.

Then we moved the fun back to the 304 for a BBQ – an addition by JJ. He had to bring something to the table since he had some big roommate shoes to fill…

Then on Sunday, Maddie and I took on Lake Union and then some. I think I ended up running about 8 miles and felt good! So I apparently decided to reward myself and bought some new running gear. There’s something about buying new gear that makes you want to do it even more.

The night ended with a surprise birthday dinner at Cedars for Straubs. Man, that girl is tough to throw a surprise for! She was getting all feisty with her hubby, Matt, and was mad that he wouldn’t let her friends meet them for dinner on her birthday when in actuality, he had already set up for us to be there. Plus, it was the second attempt at a surprise because the Saturday night plans didn't materialize because she told Matt she had other plans. I love it. She’s great.

Overall, great weekend!

It's how I roll

May is National Bike Month. Therefore, the Cascade Bicycle Club decided to put on a Commute Challenge for the entire month. Companies sign up a team and each team member has to commit to riding their bike to work at least 5 times in the month. My co-worker, Katie, decided to gauge interest in the office and we got a team of 8 together – Katie, Kathryn, Frances, Allison, Nick, Scott, Nathan and me. I’m such a sucker for these things – like when Katie asked who was interested in doing the 100 push-up challenge and I said yes. Or when Autumn asked if someone was interested in running a half marathon and I said yes. Now this and I said yes… even without owning a bike or a helmet or a bike lock or really not having ridden a bike in over a year.

In an effort to solve this aforementioned problem, I scoured Craigslist and hit up Recycled Cycles, but didn’t find anything that was in my price range or it just was not the right bike. On one of my trips home, I stopped by Fred Meyer with my mom and I found one! They said they had a couple at the Ballard store, so I decided I would pick it up that next week – so exciting!

So one drizzly Monday evening, after an advisor’s meeting, I head on over to FM for my bike. After searching the store, I finally find the bikes locked up in the garden department due to a remodel. I find a salesperson to unlock them and he was looking at me pretty weird. I could just hear his thoughts, “What the hell is this lady doing buying a bike after 10pm on a Monday night?” I could just feel the judgment, but it didn’t end there. I went to check out and the cashier lady actually said that this was one of the more interesting late night purchases she’s ever had. I told her about my challenge and she was like, “You signed up for this without owning a bike?!” Affirmative.

Then I joyfully leave the store, bike, lock and helmet in tow. I get to my car and attempt to put the seats down… more attempting. Nada. Looks like I don’t know how to do this. I even ask these 3 high school boys to help me out and they are like in my trunk and backseat and they can’t even do it. So I realize what has to happen: I have to ride my bike home.

This would seem to be an easy feat since I live pretty close to the store, but I was in my dress pants, high heels and a coat. Not typical riding attire. ‘Oh well, I’m tough,’ I think. I hide my purse, get my keys and strap on the helmet. Oh wait, there’s a large cardboard extension (to hang it on the display), almost like an oversized visor, attached to the helmet. It’s ok, I’ll rip it off. OR NOT! It’s pretty much childproof and I don’t have a knife with me. So, I figure it’s not a big deal and put it on anyway. I look good.

So I’m cruising through the parking lot with my heels, pimped out helmet and tags hanging from my bike – laughing the whole way just thinking of what I must look like. People probably thought I was: a. Crazy, b. Drunk, c. Clepto, or d. All of the above. Then all of a sudden, my chain falls off and I start slowing down quickly. Crap. So I try to take my feet off the pedals, but I find that my heels are stuck in them! I’m about to accept fate that I’m going to fall over when I decide to take my foot out of my heel, onto the cold, dirty, wet pavement. Gross, but I survive. I fix my chain while getting disgustingly greasy and managing to even get some on my face, then finish the ride home. Bring my bike in my apartment and start on the walk back to my car. I surprisingly make it to my car unscathed; I thought for sure I would be mugged or something after the whole ordeal. And that’s the story of my bike purchase.

Since then, I’ve grown to like my bike after having a rocky start to our relationship. I’ve been riding to work and it’s actually pretty fun! I get a little energy from it, feel a little “green,” and I’m saving money on gas (minimal, but some). Today it was Starbucks Bike to Work Day, so they have a bunch of “commute stations” with free swag set up across the city – one along my ride at the Fremont Bridge. I felt like a badass next to all of these hardcore bikers because they have no idea that I’m a novice in comparison… well, until we get back on the road and they speed past me. At least I try.

Did you know that the major disaster of Michael Jackson in 1984 was that his hair caught on fire?

There’s something about trivia that I just love. It must be my uber-competitive personality, but when I play, I’m in it to win it. I think that would explain my fascination and minor obsession with Jeopardy. I mean, really, I can only answer like 50% of the Jeopardy questions on a good night (well, give questions to the answers to be completely accurate) and we won’t even discuss my off nights. So I’m not well-versed on Russian History in the Stalin Era or Corporate Espionage, can you blame me? But when the Teen Jeopardy Tournament is going on, I feel like a genius!

So last night, I met up with Lizzie, Nick, et al. for a fun game of trivia at the Pied Piper. They are regulars at this trivia night (actually they have come off a 3 week winning streak!!), so I was just getting my feet wet. The system there is pretty cool – so you have 4 rounds of 8 different categories and before each round you pre-score the categories (1-8) and get points on more of a weighted scale based on what you think your strengths are. Thanks to Nick, I think that the “High School Musical” category was a strength of ours and for the record, no, he doesn’t have any young siblings… At trivia, there’s always that one question that comes up and the answer is right there, just not quite right there. It happened again and now I will never forget that the inventor of penicillin was Alexander Fleming. I only know this because I got one of those chain emails about this crazy story of how Fleming was put through school by Winston Churchill’s dad and yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. I just googled it to link it to my blog and found that it was an urban legend, bummer. Nonetheless, I did learn that Fleming invented penicillin.

So the group had 2 teams since there were too many for just 1 team and one of our teams took 2nd! Good, but not good enough. I plan to return until we achieve victory. Better go brush up on my random trivia.

Biggest Loser + Ice Cream = Fun

Biggest Loser is an excellent show. Plus, it fits into my caliber of TV which is apparently really bad. I have recently decided to embrace the fact that I tend to like bad TV like Gossip Girl, America’s Next Top Model and some seasons of The Bachelor. I used to deny it, but there are only so many excuses you can make for watching a show on a regular basis. Fortunately (although maybe unfortunately), I don’t have cable so I can’t get hooked on those horrible VH1 and MTV shows, just network TV taken out of the airwaves with my sweet, MacGyver style antenna consisting of a coil wire and dismembered hanger. It’s rad.

Back to the subject at hand, Biggest Loser = so good. It’s just so inspiring to see all of these people really change their lives. I mean, $250,000 is a great incentive and all, but more than anything, they are happy to finally be healthy and enjoy life! I’ll spare you the details of how the show works because I would recommend that you watch it yourself for the full season, but these morbidly obese people go from ginormous to fit! Some of the contestants ran a full marathon and are doing Iron Mans; some even have an entire career shift and become personal trainers and whatnot. All along the way, they have to deal with issues that made them that big – which, I’ll admit, sometimes are tear-jerkers and I’m not even that much of a crier. (Side note: I never used to cry in movies or shows, but now, every so often, it kinda feels good to just let it all out.)

This season it boiled down to Tara, Mike and Helen. I was rooting for Tara because she got hot and then for Mike who also got hot (but I feel like a creeper saying that since he’s only 18). They all looked incredible! But Helen ended up winning after losing about 55% of her body weight! That’s more than half of what she started - doesn’t that seem impossible?! I watched it at my coworker’s (Katie) place and we had ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. There’s nothing better than eating crap food when you watch a weight loss show. I used to think that I should confine myself to salads while watching the show, but then I realize that I don’t need to lose 55% of my body weight. If I did, I would probably be dead or at least in a treatment center.

Here are the finalists today – pretty crazy! I can only upload 5, so you do the searching for Helen's before; I like Tara and Mike better. You’re soooo gonna watch it next season, huh? NBC should pay me for endorsing their show.

(P.S. I'm technically challenged, so I can't seem to upload these pics so they are in before and after order, but you get the point.)

I am a lyric queen

So I’ll admit it: I’m probably the worst person at song lyrics you could ever meet. Like bad, bad. In fact, there’s a scene in the movie 27 Dresses where Katherine Heigl sings the wrong lyrics to Bennie and the Jets (She’s got electric boobs!) and at that very moment, all of my friends turn to me and laugh, as if I, myself, had just sang the wrong words. But in all honesty, I guess I have earned this reputation fairly.

Where do I even start? How about that lovely JT song where I loudly belted out, “Who’s your sexy ho?!” when the actual lyrics are, “Get your sexy on.” Yeah, I was quickly corrected on that, well actually, after my friends stopped laughing at the hilarity of my obvious mistake.

“I……. went…….. to……. the DANGER ZONE!” It’s too bad this one was sung at the top of my lungs. In a car with like 5 people who then got silent. “Um, Erika? It’s highway to the danger zone.”

Then there’s my all time favorite: “Ace duka roka duka roka duka roka. Yeah, we’re trippin’. We’re trippin’ trippin’ trippin’ trippin’.” Come on, Run DMC, you don’t want to ace duka roka?? AND, I just found out in my trusty google search that I had the wrong lyrics again, even after being corrected. So the real lyrics are: "It's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time. It's tricky...it's tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky." In my defense, I totally knew those weren’t the actual words, but I tend to fill in words that I don’t know in songs. So, apparently, I only got “it’s” correct. I’m that good.

For your viewing pleasure, Bennie and the Jets as sung by the lovely, Katherine Heigl. We all have our quirks, right?

Aren't nicknames funny?

Seriously, nicknames are pretty much saying that your real name is too long (and someone doesn’t want to take the effort to say your whoooolllle name) or it’s just too boring. Some of my favorite nicknames are: Tronics, Bottom, Gilder, Crandallicious, Kimbie, Nickybutt (Nick cannot be uttered without the addition of butt; it’s literally impossible), Chanimal, Straubs and Donkey-anna… the last one isn’t really a nickname we use for our friend, but she shared it with us one time and it makes me laugh.

Here’s a sampling of my nicknames through the years.

Herka/Herk/Herka Lynn/Herkimer Jones: Probably my most long-lasting nickname that is still commonly used by family and friends. This one originated from my friend’s little brother who couldn’t say my name when he was a toddler (side note: now he’s getting married and that makes me feel old). Our families would go camping together and in the morning, he would run out of the camper, buck-naked yelling, “HERKA!! Where are you, Herka?!” And it stuck. As you can see, many variations have since come to be; my favorite being Herkimer Jones. This nickname is seriously so well-known, in fact, that my old elementary school secretary made her husband turn around on their road trip so she could take a picture of a road sign that read: Herkimer Road.

Peter: My friend Josh calls me Peter. It’s like he wishes I was a guy or something. Hmmm, that’s an interesting thought…

Petes/Petes McGee/McGee: It’s obvious how Petes came to be – because Peterson is too much of a mouthful, right? This was the brainchild of my friend, Maddie. (Well, I had a couple friends in middle school call me Pete at times) It started as a simple Petes and then one day McGee was mysteriously added. Apparently she liked the way it sounded, so she often times drops the Petes making me plain ol’ McGee. One time I threw out McGoo for her, just to try it on for size and it totally didn’t work – I couldn’t pull it off. I guess I’ll stick with Tronics.

Heidi: When I’m out and don’t want to give my real name to a guy, then he gets to meet Heidi. And, it instantly lets my friends know that I’m not interested and need to be bailed out of the situation. However, I should note that I often screw up this fake name game. Jenny is really good at it. One time I even gave my friend’s name and she gave me the stink eye. What can I say? I’m really bad a lying.

Gorgeous: This is the nickname I often call myself. I find that saying it five times out loud to my reflection in the mirror every morning makes my day bearable. (Ok, not really, but I should consider this…)

Welcome to Pete's Speaks

I honestly think that I am going to regret the name of my blog, but after thinking through my options and enlisting the help of a rather witty friend, this is what it was come to. I mean it's no Maddie Libs or Cupcakes and Cashmere, but it is what it is: Petes (me) Speaks (or actually types).

Here were some of the other options that were thrown out there:
Peter Spam
God Bless amErika
amErika the beautiful
I'm proud to be an amErikan
Meet Petes

My friend was really diggin' the play on America/AmErika. However, I decided to leave that in my past since it may or may not have been included in my campaign slogan when I ran for ASB President in 8th grade. Who would have known that more than 10 years later I would be the person behind slogans like these? While I can't say that I contributed in any part to the "Hope" phenomenon of Obama's campaign, I did have something to do with the No Stank You campaign at times. Drawing from both my own "street" vocabulary and fully utilizing urbandictionary.com, I cranked out some sick lingo, yo. (I've adopted the idea that adding "yo" to the end of any sentence makes it cool, yo.)

Well, didn't take me too long to go astray in this post, but maybe it's a sign of good things to come. My gift for sometimes rambling on and on will finally serve a purpose.

Welcome to Pete's Speaks!