Maybe This Year Will Be Better Then The Last...

I am normally in high spirits around the holidays but New Years always brings me down. First there is the stress of planning something. Everyone always hypes up New Years so if it's not the best night ever, it's basically a disappointment. We always have a controversy of what to do every year & ringing in 2009 was no different. 

I in no way, shape or form wanted to go into the city. I hate the crowds on a normal December day around there & it's at least 100 times worse on that particular day of the year. I also have to work the next day so I didn't want to make the trek to Atlantic City. I wanted to get dressed up & go somewhere, but I didn't know where. I dreamed of one of those perfect When Harry Met Sally type of New Years Eves but there was no such thing available to me. We settled on Arirang, which should be a good time. Delicious food, open bar & a dance floor...all I need to have a good time. Not to mention it's on the Island so it's very easily accessible.

Every year at midnight, I always get a little twinge of sadness. I don't know if it's the fact that I do not have someone to kiss when that ball goes down or what. It could be the fear of another year passing, which means another year older. Perhaps it's even the nostalgia for years past. I don't know but it's the same feeling every year. It is always a happy time though, too. To quote the Cunning Carla, (not Long Limbs Lenore) "Don't you just love New Years? You can start all over." I have an easy resolution this year & that is to get a job. If I don't accomplish that in a year, I should probably just give up & find a dying billionaire to marry, so I'll be set for life. Maybe that should be my resolution instead. Hmm. Well, I won't rule it out. Happy 2009 everybody!

'Tis the Season

Well Merry belated Christmas everybody! I had a wonderful Christmas this year, as I generally do. The holiday is not over though because we're visiting family for the next couple of days, which should be a lot of fun. Saturday, Sam & I were originally supposed to go to the Miami-St. John's game at the Garden but plans changed so I'm going to visit the fam in Jersey instead. I love how everyone has their own little traditions they have to do.

I was originally supposed to work on Christmas Eve, which I was pretty bummed about because I was going to miss everything that went on. Pop Pop comes over every year & so do my brothers & Kelly. Once I got to work, there was absolutely nothing for me to do & the only game was the ND-Hawaii game so I asked if I could go home since it was silly for me to be there. Luckily, I was able to & didn't miss a thing. Christmas Eve is the only holiday that we acknowledge that we have another heritage besides just Italian. On Christmas Eve, we have some Swedish food for my dad. Sill is the thing that we all dread. It's pickled herring & you have to have at least one piece. My piece is usually no bigger then my pinkie finger nail. The other usual food includes homemade mac & cheese, meatballs, shrimp & some other pickings. After dinner/dessert we open the presents from my grandparents & Uncle Den. Then we watch "It's a Wonderful Life" & cry. The last thing we do before bed is read "The Night Before Christmas". We have been doing this for as long as I can remember & it's definitely one of those traditions that's going to continue on when I have kids.

On Christmas morning, you wake up & open your stocking. Then you can go & look to see what Santa brought. My brothers & Kelly come in the morning & we open presents for several hours. When we were little we had a limit to how early we could get up & we had a door closing off the back porch so we couldn't see what was back there until my dad opened it. Pop Pop & Rae come over later in the day & we open presents with them & then eat for the rest of the day. This year we got Wii Fit so we worked off what we ate with that. That's about it as far as traditions go. I hope you had a lovely Christmas!

Recession Sheshmession

I love listening to Red Sox crying right now. Watching SportsCenter is putting such a smile on this little face of mine. In case you haven't heard yet, the Yankees have agreed to a preliminary deal with Mark Teixeira. Not only is he the top free agent position player of this year, but he was also at the top of the Red Sox wish list. I love how Steve Phillips of ESPN (an obvious Boston fan) tries to make it seem like it's not such a big deal & now the Yankees are "at the Red Sox level". We got the best hitter & the top 2 free agent pitchers. Give up. We won this round, Steve.

The Yankees were considered out of the race for Teixeira because of our other high-priced acquisitions of the off-season. Today, however the Yankees pulled a similar feat that they did in 2004 when Alex came to the team...they surprised everyone! Both times we pulled the rug right out from underneath the Red Sox & they were left flat on their asses. Alex was my favorite Valentine's gift the Yankees ever gave me; Teixeira is my favorite Christmas present.

As for these animals who keep complaining about my team making it unfair for them, let's look at the stats. First of all, the Yankees got rid of over $88 million of next season's salary by shedding some dead weight (cough, Carl Pavano). Bobby Abreu, Mike Mussina & Jason Giambi were all making big money too & we no longer have to worry about that. Giambi was making $21M/year, Teixeira will be making $22.5M. Is he worth the additional $1.5M? Um, are you kidding? Of course he is. Our top 3 free agent signings total up to $64M/year. We have a lower payroll this year then we did last year, so why would we not go for him? Really, we're making it a more even playing field if we're lowering our payroll. So quit complaining.

The reason we have the ability to pay all this money is multi-fold. Let's start with our brand new beautiful stadium that is going to generate more revenue in one year then the Pirates can hope to make in 5. When you sell out every game with select seats priced as much as $2500, what do you expect us to do with all this money? We also have the #1 Regional Sports network in the country with YES (can you tell I used to do P.R. for them?) The network brings in big dollars. Also, the Yankee brand is just an automatic money-maker. I mean crazy folks even get such symbols tattooed on their bodies, for goodness sake!

I personally appreciate what the Steinbrenner family does. They want to win & they will spend money in order to ensure this. Whether or not the economy continues to plummet has no baring on the NYY. They give we, the fans reason to be fans because we like cheering for a team that wins. Think what you want about our "evil empire" but they do it for us. The Yankees have always spent money to get big names, so it doesn't matter. Keep crying about it being unfair because I will be looking down at you from atop the American League East smiling, come October.

Fantasy Psychic (Reprise)

I wrote a post a couple of months back declaring myself as a Fantasy Baseball Psychic. I would like to re-instate this title once again. I loved Xavier Nady on my fantasy team, then he was a Yankee. I picked up Pudge & the next day, he was a Yankee (although not a very productive one).  In addition to these players, I also had CC & AJ Burnett as my top 2 pitchers. If not for these 2, I would not have won my league because in the last week of the fantasy season, they had combined over 30 strikeouts. I beat my opponent by a score of 6-4 because I won strikeouts in the last week.

Today the press conference took place announcing the 2 of them as Yankees & I am more excited then ever to have them on my real team. They both seem to have the right mentality to play for the Yankees & I feel like they are going to be a great fit. Even though neither of them have pitched on as big of a stage as NY, they have each stepped up to the plate when it was most important. AJ always pitches phenomenal against both the Yankees & Red Sox because those were the teams to beat in the AL East. Let's hope he keeps up the good work against Boston. CC basically single-handedly took Milwaukee to the play-offs last year. He was a big game pitcher for them when it mattered most. He is also a great presence in the clubhouse & seems like he will be a great teammate. I think Joba can learn a lot from him. AJ is oft injured but had a great season last year. I appreciated his answer when he said that he has learned how to take care of his body now & doesn't foresee injuries as a big problem anymore. Perhaps he should adopt Alex's workout regimen. All-in-all I am very excited about the acquisition of both of these players. I was a little skeptical at first but I really think they will be a good fit & I look forward to the 2009 season!

And in a side note...Manny Ramirez was not on my fantasy team & I do not want him on my regular team. I do not care how good of a hitter he is, he is not a Yankee. You saw what he did to the Red Sox. He's trouble. He will disrupt the team & cause more problems then he's worth. If he is acquired, I will never acknowledge him as a Yankee.

Christmas Light Connoisseur

I love the holiday season. Seeing Christmas trees lit up, lights lining the streets & just decorating to the extreme. It really brightens up the night with the amount of lights everywhere. Some people abuse this privilege though. You know who I mean. Those that try & be Clark Griswald. Those tacky people who put up far too many things & mix everything all together. Call me a Christmas light racist, but the lights need to be segregated: colored & white do not mix!

I am so judgmental of people who do this. I tend to drive slower during the holiday season, just to appreciate the holiday spirit around me but then there are those eye sores that just make me wanna drive my car right into the front of their house to put not only myself out of the misery, but their house as well. If you put icicle lights around your ledge, do NOT have them in colors. They are icicles; icicles are white. Also, don't decorate half your house with colors & half with white. Pick one. I personally prefer white, red or green lights but if a house is decorated with all colored lights & nothing but colored lights, I will accept it. Under no circumstances should you ever think that decorating one bush colored, one white, one red, one blue & one green is a good idea. Trust me, it's not. I also have a problem with blue lights. Unless you are Jewish, blue lights should not be used. Christmas colors are red, green & white so stick with the traditional. Also, this is a religious holiday not an American one so please avoid red, white & blue. I also HATE when people have blinking lights that are more like Las Vegas then La Navidad.

One of my biggest decorating pet peeves is those massive, imposing blow-up items. One is acceptable on a very large lawn. People on Staten Island do not have large lawns, do not use them. If you can't pull off one, then you definitely can't pull off multiple. Nor can anyone get away with some of the designs of these hideous creations. Since when does Santa ride in a helicopter? I am so against these for every holiday season. There was a family that lived near me in Coral Gables that had at least one for every holiday. At Christmas time last year, I counted & they had 14. FOURTEEN! I don't care if you live on a golf course (which these people certainly did not) you cannot get away with 14.

My mother tries to go against my advice at times when I am not around to defend myself. I knew Maggie was meant to be my dog when she chose to chew on the blue lights while we were decorating on her first Christmas before Linda could put them up behind my back. Luckily for my sanity, I was around for decorating this year & was able to stop any unnecessary colors. We have a very tasteful white light display on the bushes in front of the house. She did get some sort of twinkle light that I am not so into but even I can compromise. Red, white & green lights also surround the door & the inside window. Traditional, tasteful, terrific.

Don't Hate the Player...

I have recently come to the conclusion that I have no game. Maybe I used to but definitely not anymore. I don't really know what happened to me. I used to have the ability to get any guy I wanted & this is not me bragging, this is simply the truth. Now that I am no longer in a college environment & am in the real world, I do not know proper etiquette. I also have extremely bad taste in men.

There once was a boy at Marist who none of us hooked up with but we all loved him in a brotherly-like way. One day while he was eating lunch with us, he was telling us what would be his perfect girl. He described me to a T, right down to the sweatpants. I recently discovered that this boy has since been arrested several times & is on crack. What does that say about me, that I am a crack head's dream girl?

In college, I never really worried about how often I talked to a guy or when we would see each other, etc. I would usually bump into the guy on campus & would definitely see him out at the bar several times throughout the week. Always drunk & always sloppy drunk make-outs. Walk of shame the next morning. That was my life. We never went out on dates because why would we?

Now in my post-college life, sloppy drunk make-outs are few & far between. In order to see the boy, we now need to be in contact with each other & make plans. This is where I have no game. I don't know how often is too often to talk or not often enough. Nor do I know if it's okay for me to contact him & when. I don't want to ruin anything but I have no experience in this area of life. I do not know how to have game in a post-college world!

Oh, Christmas Tree

I just got back from picking out my first ever live Christmas tree! I've always wanted a live one but we had our artificial that we use every year. I think my parents were sick of hearing me complain about how much I hate colored lights, (& that's what happens to be on our tree) so they gave in & we got a real one. It's so fun to pick out a tree & I think every one I saw I liked, but we finally settled on one that is perfect. It also happened to have a tag with little Texas pictures on it, so I am assuming that's where it's from, so it really couldn't be more perfect.

We're also decorating our tree differently this year. Normally we just use all of the ornaments that we've collected throughout the years & along with the colored lights it just looks like Santa threw up on our tree & left us with this big old Christmas mess. I still love it though because our trees always have character. This year, however we decided to go a new route. Since I've traveled a lot & so have my parents, we decided to get ornaments from all the places we went & this year we are going to have a "travel tree". I contributed a Vegas, Hawaii & Miami. Since obviously there wouldn't be enough to fill a whole tree, we're also putting snowflakes & stuff like that on it & will of course have white lights. I can't wait to listen to Christmas music & decorate it. As if I don't listen to enough Christmas music during the month of December. Speaking of, "Oh Christmas Tree/Oh Tannenbaum" just came on my iTunes! It's like it knew I was blogging about it right now or something. Bizarre.

But speaking of Christmas trees, Samantha & I decided to go to the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center last night. Let me tell you, what a nightmare! All I wanted to do was see Beyonce, I didn't even really care about the tree so much & we didn't even get close to either. Of course she was on a rooftop so I don't think I'd have gotten close anyway. Instead of standing in the cold unable to see anything, we just ended up at a bar watching it on TV. Strange that we would end up at a bar, I know. We ordered some sort of "Christmasy" drink, which was just a big sweet disgusting mess of a martini, but I still drank mine & half of Sam's anyway. When I saw Jaime Foxx come out on TV, I was so sad because I love him so much & I was so close to him yet so far away. I was really hoping him & Beyonce would forgo the Christmas music & just break out into Dreamgirls but I can't always get what I want. Maybe if I told them it was my birthday they would reconsider? We ended up waiting around though & saw the tree after the sea of people dissipated but not even a close up, so I'll have to go again at some point. If I ever decide to go to the lighting again, I know now to get there in the morning if I want a good spot. Probably will never happen but it's good to know.