On The Street Where You Live

I witnessed something for the very first time yesterday, and I have to say it was disturbing and amazing at the same time.  

While stopped at a red light near my parents home, en route from picking up the best sushi I've had in London (Conception Sushi on Wellington Rd. check your local yellow pages!) I witnessed two hillbillies beat the tar out of each other on their front lawn while their aged peek-a-poo-chi-jack-russel-teacup-yippy dog ran around them in a panic.  It was quite a sight.  Older man, younger man, punch punch, fall to the ground, followed by woman running out of the house cursing "you F&#)@! deserve that!" 

Am I on COPS?  God I hope not.  I am still hoping my television debut will be on Glee or at least Real Housewives of some county, but it was amazing to witness two adult humans resort to raw violence at 6pm on a busy city street.  I'm assuming one of them took the last helping of turkey and mashed potatoes, because that gets me pretty mad, but really?  Punching another human square in the face?  I swear I saw a tooth fly to the northwest corner and land on the neighbours porch.  I felt a civic duty to call the cops, after my shrimp tempura roll.  I kid, I called when I got home because I was hoping no kids were involved, and maybe that dog needed a therapist after the stress of it all.  I have seen other "fights".  I have two older brothers and we got in our share of scraps, and attending a high school with a rough reputation brought about a few shoving matches between students, but I wasn't expecting a front row ticket to yokel UFC on Adelaide St.  I'm still shocked that in this world, this happens on a pretty regular basis, just down the street from our comfortable, love and respect filled homes.  

It certainly makes me think twice about things.  Like, is turkey really worth that?  Should I get a small dog or is that too stressful?

Oh, and the shrimp tempura was amazing.  Almost as good as Cabo San Lucas.  Seriously Londoners, check it out.

My Kind of Town...

Chicago is.

This weekend I had a whirlwind adventure in the windy city, Chicago, IL.  My dear friend and bridesmaid Ioana moved there over five years ago after marrying her husband John, and this visit has been promised since then.  I owed them a visit, and decided to drag my one brother Mike along for the ride.

We started off our 7.5 hour drive from London and after an unnecessary border delay (and actually meeting my first pleasant US customs official) we were en route to Chi-town.  Now, I had a lot of firsts this weekend and one was walking through the doors of a Big Boy restaurant.  We stopped in Michigan just before the Indiana border to dull our hunger pains.  My brother and I always have to laugh that the minute you cross into the states from any angle, all vowel pronunciation changes.  Yes, I know, we Canadians have our "aboots" and "sowrees" but can a gateway really be the cause of such a drastic change?  "Hiya hahn, welcome tah Big Boy. You wanna buuth?"  We sure did.  Anyway, we had to laugh.

With the help of Randy, our GPS guide, an empty Skyway and a few toll booths, we found Ioana & John's place on the edge of the city.  The skyline greeted us with a wink, and there we were.  It was great.  In short, I got to see many historic sites like Wrigley Field, (Cubs came from behind to win 4-3) Buckingham Fountain, (as featured in the opening credits of Married With Children) great shops, and many gorgeous buildings (the view from the top of the Hancock building rivals the Empire State Building).  But one memory truly sticks out.  Enjoy.

So, our Saturday night started with an amazing dinner at ... (a mexican place that I cannot remember the name of...this will be updated with the name once I speak with Ioana) and then off we went to The Second City!  The first great thing was a talented comedienne that I worked with on the NCL Gem was in the cast, and the second thing was Ioana running over with a defaced ticket explaining that Kevin James of King of Queens "fame" was there!  She met him, professed her undying fandome and got his autograph.  Whilst she is explaining this chance encounter, who brushes past me to take his seat but the one and only Vince Vaughn.  I did the old act natural and then freak out when he is past  me so not to cause a scene.  Chicagoans are courteous, and let Mr. Vaughn enjoy his night, sending the occasional drink that remained untouched and requesting photos which he politely declined.  Now here's the kicker.  My lovely friend Ioana is a school teacher, and during the 11 o'clock show had a hard time keeping her peepers open, so when the free improv session after the show came up, she was beat, and requested we skip the final skit.  So, we left, went home, and I wrote my friend Allison a congratulations email closing with a PS. Did you know Vince Vaughn was in the audience?  This was her response back to me...

Hi! Oh my god, I wish you would've stuck around. Vince, Kevin James, Faizon Love, and Greg Olsen, this football player came backstage to meet us, and we convinced them all to play the set with us. It was a super fun set & the audience went insane. Thanks for your message!

Needless to say, the "I can't believe we got to see Vince Vaughn and others do improv...oh, I guess not" jokes lasted the rest of the trip.  Who knows, maybe I'll bump into one of them again and we'll be able to do our own one act in the grocery aisle.  Then it won't seem like such a loss.

My point is...I had a great time in an amazing city, Vince or no Vince.  It was my first, but certainly not my last visit to Chicago, and it truly is a toddelin' town.  Whatever that means.

Thanks Ioana & John.  Good times.

Promises, Promises

Just a quick entry today.  It's my first anniversary, and to celebrate Adam & I re-read our vows to each other.  Take a peek at the vows we made one lovely and memorable year ago today.  

Andrea’s Vows
 
Adam,
 
I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can
give.
I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests,
desires and needs, are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention and to bring joy, strength
and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my
world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face changes in order to keep
our relationship alive and exciting.
I love you for what you are, but I love you more for what you are going to be,
and what we will be together.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and all I
feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever. 

Adam’s Vows
 
Andrea,
 
Every step I took since the moment I could walk was a step towards finding you.
Today, I take you, Andrea, to be my wife, my one and only, the love of my life.
I promise you my deepest love, my fullest devotion, my most tender care, my
utmost trust, for now and evermore. I promise to always be faithful to you, I
will love you my whole life. You and no other.
I promise to commit to you and respect you, to support you, to give you my
strength, and to help you to fullfill your dreams. I promise to always be there
for you. Let me be the shoulder you lean on and the rock on which you rest.
You have shown me what love is and for that I thank you. You are my
everything, my beautiful lady, and at this moment I know my hopes and prayers
have been answered and that my dreams have come true.
From this day forward, you shall never walk alone. My heart will be your
shelter and my arms will be your home. As I have given you my hand to hold, I
give you my life to keep, forever and beyond.

Truly the best day of my life.  As I'm sure you are all tiring of my wedding memories, I won't apologize for it.  I love my guy...take it or leave it.

Happy Anniversary honey!  XO

Dish it out

I hate doing dishes.  Hate.  I don't use this term for many chores often, because it's a strong word, but I can use it for dishes.  I would rather vacuum, sweep, mop, dust, caulk, swiffer, re-shingle a roof or clean a toilet over doing the dishes.

I have it pretty good.  Adam and I have an agreement that if I do all the laundry, which I don't mind doing at all, he does the dishes.  I can make a roast dinner for 40 of the messiest people, and he will clean it up, and he can then spill that roast dinner down his clothing, and I will clean it...no questions asked.  It's a sweet deal in my opinion.

"So, Andrea.  Why blog about hating doing the dishes?  Is this a past hate you decided to waste my time about?  Talk about something fun, like your pretty hair!"

No readers!  If you have been following my blog, or know me personally, you'll know my husband has currently abandoned his duties as head dishwasher on Grand Ave. to provide for the family by working aboard the Island Princess.  This leaves me with the daunting task of washing my own dishes.  Trust me, I try to avoid it.  I eat out of disposable items, eat out at family members houses as often as possible ("No, no Mom.  I'm not hungry, well okay maybe just some chicken, mashed potatoes and corn") or like the other day, I used a coffee filter to hold my peanut shells.  (I'm getting pretty personal here folks.)  If I run out of these options, a jenga-like pyramid of our wedding dishes will begin to form in the sink. 
Oh...I also don't have a dishwasher.  Not that this matters, as I hate loading and unloading that too, but I just wanted to point this out so you can really empathize with my loathing.

Now, before I paint a horrible picture of my living conditions, I do the dishes at least once a day, but you'll be amazed at what I can accumulate during that day.  The one thing that makes me tackle the annoying mound daily?  I need the coffee pot each morning, and I need it really clean.  I don't just swish some water around it, I clean it.  So whilst the sink has some suds, I do the other dishes.  But here is my beef.  Today for instance I made peanut butter cookies.  So, after doing my normal 4 hour pre-soak, (this is mandatory) each dish that I washed smelled like peanut butter, and was covered in a buttery film.  So, an additional squirt of Palmolive-Oxy-whatever-was-on-sale soap, and away I go.  I scrubbed the cookie sheet with an S.O.S. pad (aptly named as that's what I wanted to cry out while cleaning) yet shadows of six cookies past remained on the sheet.  My pan became a history of my baking life.  A cookie here, a burnt pizza there.  And then my hands, that feeling of June Cleaver dishpan hands.  Do you mositurize after?  Do you exfoliate?  How long with this filmy feeling last?  Oh, and that water.  Now apparently because hot water is included in my rent that also means it's optional, so my luke warm suds turn grey almost instantly.  I just keep adding bubbles to avoid seeing it which works nicely for me.

And then another pile of dishes is formed in my dish rack, awaiting me in the morning.  I roll my eyes, carefully pull the coffee pot out from under the mound and brew a pot.  Throughout the day I will put away one dish at a time, with the same contempt I had while washing them.  Because I know, that before long, I will have to put my sandwich on something other than a magazine (which can also substitute for a plate) and will have to wash it a few hours later, again!  And so the cycle continues.

So there's my rant.  My point is, someone must come up with one of two things. 
A) A set of self-cleaning Gordon Ramsay dishes to replace my current non-self cleaning ones. 
Or B) A way to fly my husband home from the Caribbean Sea so I don't have to wash another dish again, or more importantly write a blog about something so rediculous.  

Be glad I didn't write about killing spiders, because that's the other thing I will not do around the house, but alas, I've had to step up and take over.  I'm a pretty good husband if I do say so myself! 

It's All Glee To Me

Alright folks, this is my one last pathetic attempt to get this video seen and discussed.  Negative, positive, I don't mind.  Brendan Behan said "There is no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary."  So going off of that lovely quip, please check out my little audition video I made for the television sensation Glee via the Myspace audition process, (which oddly enough was the most organized audition I've ever been to) and comment and pass it along.

Now, I realize my chances of being cast are slim to nil, and my reasons are three fold.

1) Seriously?  Being cast on a television show going up against hundreds of thousands of people?  Not likely.
2) I look almost identical to, if not exactly like the already cast Lea Michele, except I'm cuter, can belt higher and can pull of a sweater/kilt combo better than she does.
3) I have an amazing job working on a cruise ship!  Like I would ever give that up!*

*Andrea Ferrett is legally bound into a contract with Princess Cruise Lines' Island Princess and would never speak ill of the company.


Anyway, check out my Youtube clip, or my Myspace page, or Facebook, or Facespace or Mybook or TubeFace or whatever avenue you want to watch my video on.


Thank you for the opportunity to shamefully promote myself.  I'll keep you all posted from my house in the Hollywood Hills, sipping champagne with my husband and teacup poodle.  (Yes, my poodle would sip champagne!)

Enjoy!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XywzJEE26VU

Pack it up, pack it in.

For the next 22 days I have the arduous task of once again packing my, well our entire life into a 5x10x10 storage space. (Yes, Adam. I will go and check out the larger space next week just in case!)

Sometimes I wonder if it's sad that I can fit our life into 20 boxes and a few suitcases, or if it means we're ridiculously organized. Living on ships you learn how to make a cube your home by putting up a few pictures, adding a few tupperware drawers and buying Target discount bedding that will last you for the 6 months you're away. I am entering into my ninth (ugh!) ship contract in a month, and cannot help but realize I put everything in the cabin the same way each time. Socks in this drawer, shorts in the closet, hang as much as you can etc. Then enter my husband, who I graciously relinquish vital storage space to for the contract. I mean, my hair dryer is used to having it's own space, but now it must share with my straightener. It's tough, but we manage.

I look forward to the day when I can put a welcome mat out on a place that I know I'll be in for more than a few months. I will plant flowers in a garden I tend to, (or pay the condo fees for) and collect mail from a mailbox at the end of my driveway, not a superbox located at the main entrance of the building. But for now, as I look around the room at the McDonalds french fry boxes that will house our personal items for the next year, I realize we are lucky to be doing what we're doing, and our time for a picket fence isn't that far away.

Now, my only issue is, I think I packed the tape. Anyone have extra?