Do You Swim?

I do. I love the water (oceans, rivers, pools, Jacuzzi, bathtubs, but not lakes - yech!). I'm a lazy athlete, so I thought I would pump up my pool time this summer by actually doing some swim workouts. I tried to remember some of the ones my coach made me do as a 'tween/'teen, but I guess my memory is getting more faulty the further away I get from those years. Thank goodness for the internet! Check out swimplan.com for free, customized swimming workouts. All you have to do is register, enter some of your swim stats, your pool length, and click on a few options and it will spit out a swimming program designed to match your needs. I have used a couple of them on and off for the past month as part of my cross-training effort, and I have to say that I feel that I am having a lot more fun with my lap swimming. No boring laps for me anymore! I only have two types of strokes in my repertoire that I use with any regularity. But Swimplan allows you to select strokes, equipment (bands, fins, boards, paddles), pace (slow, beginner, intermediate, master, etc.), and duration of your program. All of the plans include a warm up, build up, core, and warm down component. Depending on the options you choose, your personalized program will also include various intensity levels from easy to aerobic to endurance to sprint. Again, I'm a lazy athlete so none of my programs to date have included a "sprint." LOL! Check it out and build your own personalized swim workout. NAYY -- its just fun!

Studio Movie Grill: Great Concept, Poor Execution

Nice Concept
So my girlfriends and I went to a local Studio Movie Grill to watch SITC, have dinner and imbibe some adult bevs. SITC was excellent, the plot was ON POINT!!!, The fashion was ... FABULICIOUS (well, except Samantha's wardrobe! WTF???). Problem was Studio Movie Grill (SMG). SMG supposedly resolves the age old dilemma of "dinner before movie?" or "dinner after movie?" by allowing you to have dinner with the movie! They have a full dinner menu (American grill, anyway) and a full service bar. For SITC, they even put on "signature" drinks such as Carrie's Cosmo, Miranda's Strawberry Mojito, etc. Nice concept.

Horrific Execution
We got to SMG about 45 minutes before showtime (7:35 pm) and found that the movie was already seating (before the 7:00 pm show!). No problem. We got two great tables adjacent to each other. Other groups weren't so lucky. If you didn't get a table, your group was relegated to sitting in a row, shoulder-to-shoulder at a table height bar-like thing. Not so conducive to a "group" event, IMHO. Apparently, SMG had actually added 1 or 2 extra chairs to each row to increase the theatre's capacity (isn't that a fire code violation?). Those folks really were shoulder-to-shoulder!

While we were waiting, we ordered our adult bevs, popcorn, and a couple of other appetizers to start and began to peruse the menu. The waiter so kindly offered to bring us water "just in case." Thank goodness, because 30 minutes later all we had was water! The popcorn (drenched in un-ordered butter) showed up 15 minutes later (after the previews had started). At this point, the movie had started so we decided to go ahead and order food for fear of starvation.

hroughout the movie, the waiter for our area kept standing up in front of us while helping other customers. When we asked him to squat or kneel down, he replied snottily, "I'm just trying to do my job!" Of course, this was after we just witnessed him squat down to serve the ladies a few tables down from us! You got to figure on some noise/distraction at a place that serves dinner during the movie, but come on! I'm absolutely sure that those waiters are trained to squat, kneel, crawl, whisper, use mental telepathy, anything to minimize the disruption!!!

We finally got our food about one hour into the movie. And two of our group never got their signature drinks! Again, thank goodness for the "just in case" water! I didn't wait around to speak to the manager, but the head waiter for our theatre comp'd our appetizers and the dinners of those whose drinks never arrived. Even so, I'm planning a strongly worded letter to the management of that SMG location and to SMG corporate headquarters!

Woohoo! I got tickets!

Igbo Girls' Night is on tonight! A group of my Igbo girlfriends try to get together about 3 or 4 times a year to hang out. We all originate from different states in Igboland, and ordinarily we wouldn't have had a chance to meet and known each other except for fate. All of our parents immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria during the early '70s and at some point ended up in the north Texas area. Well, as you can imagine, there weren't too many Igbos in Texas at that time, so the few families that were here clung to, helped, and socialized with each other. We girls "grew up" together as "cousins," though we don't share a drop of common blood! As life would have it, we all went our separate ways -- to college, to travel, to married life -- but eventually we all ended up back here in the Dallas area. So now we get together and have fun, talk about living a neo-African life in America, and boys (of course).

So tonight, for Igbo Girls' Night, I got us tickets to see Sex in the City at Studio Movie Grill. Studio Movie Grill is a great place for dinner & a movie -- they have a full-service dinner menu and serve adult beverages. I tried to get these tickets a few weeks ago, but all the showings were sold out. Fortunately, the Dallas location scheduled a couple of extra showings for opening night, so we are in!!! This is especially exciting because 2 years ago when one of us got married we threw a Sex in the City bridal shower for her. We stayed up all night drinking Cosmos, giggling at her haul of sexy wedding night lingerie, and watching the first 5 seasons of the show.

The World Is Watching ...

I just got this in an email from an old friend in Scotland. This is apparently a float at a recent parade in Germany. Whatever your affiliation, make sure you vote come November!

Ssshhhh....don't tell Mom!

Plans for a Mother's day giftie. Fingers crossed it will be done by Sunday brunch after church.

What gives? Life's UFOs...

Well, I didn't get much done on the sewing front this past week. I spent most of the week dealing with the ethics committee and end-of-life decision questions at the hospital at which I work. Its not the patients, but their families, that really have divergent views that we (the hospital administration & attorneys) are called upon to help referee. Surprisingly, our patients are quite prepared for this stage in life on paper, but tend to fail to adequately communicate their wants to their family members and friends.

*** BEGIN PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT***

Okay, let me put on my hospital lawyer hat for a moment and remind you all out there in blogland how important it is to plan for health care decisions before a crisis occurs! You don't have to be suffering from a terminal condition to make your wishes known and document them in writing. In fact, it is better if you make those decisions long before, God willing, they are ever needed. And once you make those decisions, please, please, please have candid discussions (plural) with your family and friends about it -- make sure they understand YOUR wishes despite their own thoughts/biases about what is best for you. If you don't have an advance directive/living will, check out Caring Connections for your state-specific advance planning documents, or speak to your personal lawyer of choice.

***END PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT***

So back to sewing ... I did manage to retrieve my dress form from my parents' garage. Its a size 10; I am not. I hope with a lot of padding, some muslin, and a fitting shell, that I can get "Iyagogo" to resemble my shape and be a boon to my attempts at fitting myself. My name, "Nneka," means "Mother is great/superior" in Igbo; "Iya" means "Mother" in Yoruba (one of the other main Nigerian languages); and a girl who takes after, is named after, or reincarnates (if you believe in reincarnation) her grandmother is often called Iyagogo. I haven't decided yet what method to use to pad Iyagogo out, but I'm contemplating either: (1) a duct or paper tape double a la Threads that I can put over the dress form with some kind of stuffing between the form and my double; or (2) creating a tight princess seamed shell based on my measurements and pad that out like Kay Y and Agnes on PatternReview.com did. Oh, I see that I commented on Agnes' review back in '06, so I better get cracking on this one!

I also found this ECI dress at a Dillard's clearance sale a few weeks ago for $15, marked down from $125!

I LUV the fabric. Its 100% rayon jersey cutout embroidery. It is buttah-soft & very drapey. The neck is done in beautiful silk organza and its lined in nylon. It is *supposed* to be a dress, but it is waaaay too short for decency's sake IMHO, so I'll wear it with jeans. But, as I said, I'm in love with the fabric, so I think I need to find something similar for my stash. Have any of you seen it out there in fabric land? Preferably online?

Well, that's it for now. The classic white shirt is still on my list, but I think I need some instant gratification projects this week.