Cutest Kitten Picture in World?

The past few years in foster kittens.

Hey Y'all

I've decided to put MV:TB on ice for a while. This started as a personal blog, mostly about my life, and it seems superfluous these days.  My friends and family can catch up with vacation pictures on Facebook, and as for the other stuff - this may sound fogeyish, but it's not stuff I want living online.  My personal life isn't just mine anymore; it's also Dan's.  I'm not going to snark about my job, because it's not a temp situation that I'm leaving next week.  You know?

Anyway, I'm still writing about TV and whatnot over at Oh Keyboard My Keyboard (surprise! I have two blogs), with the occasional cat picture thrown in.  And who knows, maybe I'll return here next week.  But until then... it's been real, Blogger.  Bye!

PS

This is the $270 GOOP tray in action. GP is writing a note to her dear friend Mario Batali, probably about how she carted home all the centerpieces from her niece's wedding.

GOOP: The Collaborations

My mother, a champion shopper and possessor of impeccable style, recently purchased this killer knit blazer at the Gap:

Isn’t it great? The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $88. With various coupons and potions she paid $58.

Coincidentally, GOOP just announced their most recent “collaboration,” this time with rag & bone. The GOOP shop, building on its existing product line of a single $90 t-shirt, jeans and a bikini, a $270 etched tray designed by Diane Von Furstenberg’s ex-daughter-in-law, and a set of four towels, has decided to add two more pairs of pants (GOOP: empire of bottoms) and a blazer.

The blazer looks… familiar. It’s $495. My mom should take over as GOOP’s buying director, no?

Tags: goop mom shopping

I'm Proud, But Should I Be?

A few months ago, I decided to clean up the top of my dresser.  It had been a disaster for two years or so.  "I should take a 'before' picture for the blog!" I thought.

So I did:

Oof.  Mountains of jewelry, boxes, a pointless lamp (do you really need extra light on your dresser?), pens (?), loose coins and bobby pins.  How could I live like this?  Easily, it turns out, as two minutes after taking this photo, I got distracted by the cats playing with a paper bag and forgot about it for six months.  My guess is that I just stopped wearing jewelry and therefore could avert my eyes whenever I walked by.

Because of this, it is with only limited pride that I share the "after" picture, taken after a manic binge of spending at Muji.

Because of my innate tightfistedness, purchasing overpriced acrylic storage containers was painful (I htink the two boxes on the left were about $100 total), but I made myself do it, and I made myself buy all the appropriate inserts that I would usually try and cheap out on so that the boxes would actually serve their intended purpose.  It worked.  I'd been attempting to get everything into my jewelry box on the left and let it all pile up and pour out like lava.

If the nice people at Muji would like to now attack my desk (not pictured; it's too depressing), my door is open anytime.

The Dark Knight Rises

I saw the final Batman movie yesterday ("final" being a relative term; see: Spiderman 3), and found it overlong and disappointing. I did not enjoy images of terrorist acts being committed in New York City, or the idea of blowing up New York as entertainment. Anne Hathaway was surprisingly great, perhaps because she was the only - and I am not exaggerating, the only - actor who was entirely intelligible throughout the movie. What was up with the mumbling? And then the slightly overloud music over the mumbling? I'm sure you're all looking forward to my vicious complaints when the movie is inevitably nominated for Achievement in Sound Mixing.

Just Like Old Times, Except In 2005 These Pictures Weren't Staged

We had a Blackout Thursday LA reunion last week.

OH MY GOD WILL NOTHING EVER CHANGE?????

Basically, some people are married and our vision has gotten worse.  At least no one's gotten fat... yet.

(photos via the angry egg).

Ladies Only

At 9:27 this morning, I decided that taking pictures of makeup would be a good use of my time.  (My workday, in an office that is forty minutes from my apartment, technically starts at 9:30.  Number of times I have been there by 9:30 in the past year: 4).  That's how much I wanted you to know about Revlon's recent dominance in the awesome drugstore makeup department.

Above, clockwise from top, are Just Bitten lip stain, Photoready blush, and Colorburst Lip Butter.  You guys.  Please ignore my disgusting dinged countertop: this is awesome stuff.  The lip stain stays on for forever and ever, until you're basically licking your lips and scrubbing it off with a toothbrush, and has a lip balm on one end to counteract the drying nature of lip stains.  The lip butter is a sheer lipstick that just feels really nice, and the blush - I mean, look at that blush:

Look how bright that is!  It's like a Make Up For Ever product that you'd find for $28 in Sephora, but it's from Revlon and I got it at Duane Reade.  It looks like Cruella De Vil makeup in the packaging but I promise it goes on nice and sheer.  You'll look like you just had sex.

Later Suckers

I remember a while ago, my older sister asking me: "Seriously.  How much vacation time do you really get?"

Three weeks a year, but I game the system (summer Fridays, national holidays, leaving early/coming in late, never taking additional time for Christmas or Thanksgiving), making this my third vacation this year.  But who's counting?  The worst I deal with is my boss asking, "do you actually have enough days for this?" before saying okay.

To the Jersey Shore we go!

The Newsroom: #2

Oof.  This show makes me afraid to rewatch The West Wing.  Josh and Toby never talked like this, did they?  And what's with all the klutzy ladies?  CJ Cregg only fell over and/or resorted to histrionics once in a while and always to great comedic effect, whereas the leading ladies of TN seem to suffer from a rare form of floppy, hysterical narcolepsy.  The main character is both boring and unlikable, yet we are supposed to think otherwise - Emily Nussbaum put it perfectly:

Whenever McAvoy delivers a speech or slices up a right-winger, the ensemble beams at him, their eyes glowing as if they were cultists. The series turns Will McAvoy into the equivalent of the character Karen Cartwright, on “Smash,” the performer who the show keeps insisting is God’s gift to Broadway. Can you blame me for rooting for McAvoy’s enemies, all those flyover morons, venal bean-counters, sorority girls, and gun-toting bimbos? Like a political party, a TV show is nothing without a loyal opposition.

But back to our patented "Real?" index:


Thomas Sadoski really wants his girlfriend to come work on his new show so he can mentor her, but doesn't want to meet her parents.
Either he's smothering her or not, guys, pick one!

Mackenzie MacHale, an apparently badass news producer/reporter who has sliced and diced her way through war zones, cannot send an email to its intended recipient -
-this part seems real -

-because she keeps putting an asterik at the beginning of every email address.
That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.  Who needs to break the habit of beginning their emails with "*"?  That's not a thing.

Will changes his entire stance on immigration within an hour.
No.

The staff all meet at a shitty bar immediately after work to swig terrible $3 beers.
Has someone finally revealed that the lower rungs of television pay nothing?  Dost my eyes deceive me?  It's probably an accident, but I will take it: this rang true to me.  Ditto on making the intern go and save you a table, although realistically you'd send a PA.

John Gallagher, Jr. still hasn't burst into song.
I know.

I thought I was going to like this show.
I KNOW, RIGHT???????????????????????

I Take It Back

All those nasty things I said about Roberts this week, I take it back, I take it back, I take it all back.

Mostly.

Sad

Seems as good a time as any to print out my favorite Nora Ephron New Yorker articles (ie, all of them).  This would ordinarily be unremarkable, because I reread her stuff all the time.  I'm very sad that there won't be more of it.  I didn't even know she was sick!  Which sounds so ridiculous; was she supposed to call me?  "Meghan, hi, I hear you like my writing.  I just want you to prepare yourself..."  No.  But I admire her greatly and I'll miss that squeal I could always let out when I saw her name in a table of contents.

Blaaaaarrrghhhhhhh

The last days of a Supreme Court term rarely show off the Justices to great advantage. Like other mortals, they have put off doing their hardest work, so only the most controversial cases remain. They are tired. They are frustrated. By a vote of 6-3, they need haircuts. (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan appear recently barbered; Stephen Breyer is bald.) But none of the usual end-of-year excuses explain the behavior in court yesterday of Antonin Scalia.

-Jeffrey Toobin, continuing in his quest to convince me to burn the Supreme Court to the ground.  I haven't finished an article of his in a while because I tend to drop the magazine at the two-thirds mark, my hands quaking with warm, slippery rage.

The Supreme Court hears what, twenty cases a year?  It is THE EASIEST JOB ON EARTH.  Yeah, you have to be really smart.  I think the selection committee checks to see if you went to your high school prom, and if you were able to find a date, 'yer out (John Roberts excepted: you just know that guy was student body president).  But mostly, you sit around, you ask some snotty questions (or not, Clarence Thomas), you deny sexually harrassing your staff (Clarence Thomas), you vote, and you have your overqualified clerks write an opinion.  Oh my Goooooooooooood they must be soooooooooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiiired.

I used to admire the Supreme Court, but I'm pretty sure they haven't done anything good for the country since 1973.  Now it seems like a playground for Thomas and Scalia to apply theoretical principles from the Constitution to a country that needs much more.  Kennedy's the yard monitor who says yes or no.

Also disheartening is that justices have life terms, and my sneaking suspicion that John Roberts is going to live forever.

The Newsroom

Having worked for three months five years ago as a temporary production assistant on a show on CNBC, I feel uniquely and thoroughly qualified to tell you everything that's right and wrong with The Newsroom, HBO's latest new show/Aaron Sorkin's attempt to get us to believe journalism can still be good. Real or not real? Read on.

Will has a public meltdown and people care for more than fifteen seconds.
He's not Brian Williams, guys. No one pays attention if Chris Matthews yells at someone.

Allison Pill and Thomas Sadoski are dating, and Allison Pill is super paranoid that someone in HR will find out and she'll be fired.
Cable news is second only to university student-run musical theater groups in terms of incestuousness. It's high pressure and creates lots of moments for intense bonding; plus, no one ever leaves the building. Where else are you going to meet someone?

Thomas Sadoski is a passive-aggressive dick to his girlfriend and she puts up with it.
Ugh, true. Dump him, Allison. He's not even wearing an undershirt.

The network head hires the anchor's old flame as his new executive producer without consulting said anchor.
I don't know if this is real or not. Probably not, but EPs get hired for weird reasons. Ours was only 33, and depending on who you ask, was hired because a) she'd had an affair with the head of the news division, or b) she had a unique ability to get our notoriously distractable anchor to do what he needed. Probably a combination of the two.

Mackenzie, mentioned above, immediately promotes Allison Pill from assistant to associate producer because of her loyalty.
Kind of real. I mean, the actual conversation was unlikely, but the promotion process in cable news is byzantine. The fastest way up the ladder is being one of the only people around to climb it.

Mackenzie instantly gets inappropriately involved in the romantic lives of her staff.
True! 

Will does not know his assistant's name.
I buy him not knowing anyone else's name, but there is NO WAY he doesn't know the name of his assistant. He would forget the name of his wife before his assistant. What else is he going to yell at her to get him his coffee?


Will is apparently dating Erin Andrews.
Yeah right.



Will does not where his control room is.
True.

Will is kind of an asshole.
True.

John Gallagher, Jr. shows up and DOES NOT burst into song.
I guess this is true, but that doesn't mean I'm not upset about it.

The more sympathetic members of the newsroom staff reveal unparalled expertise on ocean floor geology approximately twelve seconds after the Deepwater Horizon explodes.
Most people who go into cable news are not physical science majors. I'm just saying.

The network head wanders the hallways in a bow tie, carrying a bottle of Scotch.
I wish that one were true.

John Gallagher, Jr. looks sad when Allison Pill/Margaret leaves with her awful boyfriend instead of dumping the rube and dating him instead, after knowing her for six hours.
Aw, I hope this would be true. Sorry. I love John Gallagher, Jr. Did you see him in Spring Awakening? Squee! He's the cutest!

Overall, I thought the show was entertaining.  Yes, I let out a giant groan during the uber-earnest West Wing style opening credits, but Emily Mortimer is pretty lovable as Mackenzie and the "recent past" setting works against odds.  Will Olivia Munn's entrance as a Money Honey wreck it all next week?  Time will tell.

Fly Better

GOOP has been so lame lately.  Last week we learned how to make beds (really) and the week before it was her brother-in-law's apartment renovation.  Yawn.  We reached a new low this week with tips on flying.

I'm not sure Gwyneth understands the meaning of "bedraggled," (1.) as her hair looks pretty great (2.).  Please note also the fancy first class seat (3.) and diamond ring the size of a Raffetto's mini ravioli (4.).  The working life is hard.

The tips, however, are life-changing!  Tip numero uno: bring an iPod.  An iPod!  It's like an iPhone but it plays music.  But doesn't an iPhone play music too?  Maybe bring both to make sure.  But you also need to bring these things called "headphones," they're like speakers for your ears and only you can hear out of them; they're really neat.  You can also buy this thing, "moistalyzer" or "mosertightener"... I forget the exact word, but it's this goop (!) in a jar or a tube and you put it on your skin.  If you forget, your skin falls off.  

It's equally important to metallize yourself (5., 6.).  I'm not so sure about this one because I don't want Magneto having that kind of control over my body, but I guess if Magneto is on the plane it's going down anyway?  Unless Professor X manages to levitate it and/or Storm creates some kind of wind cushion to keep everything afloat.  Well, whatever, I bet everyone downs magnesium and sprays silver on themselves before they fly, so it's not like I'll be the only one.

Finally, being near normal people is gross, and regular hand sanitizer gives you polio, so protect yourself accordingly (7.).  Thanks Gwyneth!  I hope someday that I get to fly somewhere you recommend, and I will definitely spray high stability active silver everywhere to ensure I arrive safely.

Love,

mv

Chillin'

Just eatin' Laduree macarons on top of the Eiffel Tower and ridin' through the Louvre at sunset; you know how it is.

FYI

This is a great website for when your coworkers won't shut up about Sunday's Mad Men and you're three weeks behind.

Spoiler after the jump:

Paree

Off to Paris, land of one million photo ops.  Perhaps I will run into Hemingway?

Jen and George

The weekend before last, Rini got married (pics TK).  This past weekend, Jen got married!  KP marriages are the best marriages.  Sorry.  Your friends' marriages are second.

Dan and I put on some fancy clothes:

Can I please take a moment to thank my sister-in-law for teaching me how to pose for the camera?  Finally, I understand why every lady on the red carpet is always weirdly crossing her legs.  Also, let's all give mom a round of applause for finding that dress.  Me likey.

Also cleaning up nicely was the happy couple:

It was also cool seeing Dennis in full-on wedding photographer action (he was the official photog for the event).  I've never seen a hired gun jump and scream along to One Direction on the dance floor while waving around twelve thousand dollars worth of photography equipment, but apparently it worked, because he got great shots.

Shots w/ the father of the bride.  (personal photo)

(Jen is singing into Ashley's leopard print cane.  She needs it for medical purposes but maybe bought it at Ricky's?  Not sure.  I also just noticed the large drunk man staring at the back of Jen's head, plotting something sinister.  NOT THE BRIDE, DRUNKMAN!  LEAVE HER BE!!!!).

So yeah it was a great weekend, there was an engagement party the next day for Melissa and Kyle and we had a dinner party last night so - good times for everyone, and I have to go to work now.  Bye!

Dubious Honor

My Direction

My sudden and deep love for One Direction troubles me, mostly because I don't want to date them - I want to put them in my pocket.  They're just so cute!  One of them is Irish!

That this is the extent of my love - that I don't want to marry them, plaster my phone with One Direction wallpaper, or write a psycho-fan Tumblr blog - makes me feel one thousand years old.

Santa Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Dennis semi-recently became obsessed with Broadway musicals.  Last night, he got us last-minute tickets to Newsies.

While yes, ok, I'm a bit of a theater snob and I really recommend you go see Nina Arianda take her star-making turn in Venus in Fur before it closes in June... I loved this freaking show.  I'm not sure how you couldn't.  Those ragtag street urchins can dance, dammit!  No really; it's ridiculous.  You should probably see it.  There's a ticket lottery 2 hours before each show that's not particularly hard to win - you'll get okay (near the front, off to the side - technically partial view but you're so close it doesn't matter) seats for $30 (!).  And then, when the show ends (SPOILER: it all works out) and you're like, awwwww, I could've watched those boys dance all night, they come out and do a completely superfluous dance number before the curtain call!  Newsies 4vr!

Freechicken

People in NYC are too cool and proud to ask for someone else's secondhand freechicken, even though they all would gladly eat it.

-Dennis Kwan, 2012 

Dennis and I go gallery-hopping, eat a pre-owned dinner .

Beyumblr

Beyonce is on Tumblr now.

Rachel:  btw in one of the videos

SHE'S FLYING IN COACH CLASS

HOW DARE OUR QUEEN DO THAT!

 me:  what is wrong with us as a society that we would allow such a thing

I kind of want to be on Tumblr, but it looks exhausting.

Green Salsa

Did you volunteer to bring chips and salsa to a barbecue out of laziness and then realize that every guest at this barbecue is an insufferable food snob who will look down on a jar from the deli?  I didn't either, but I live in fear of the day I do, and when that day comes, I will be ready with tomatillo salsa.  I once made this when I had to leave the house in fifteen minutes and still hadn't showered (that specific method, below).

6 tomatillos

1/2 a white onion

1 jalapeno (or half of it, if you are weak)

2 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

1/2 a lime, to taste

giant handful of cilantro, chopped.

Pull the husks off the tomatillos and rinse them in a panicked frenzy.  Cut into quarters and throw into a blender.  Cut the onion and jalapeno into a couple of pieces and chuck into the blender as well; then rub your eyes in a moment of distraction and spend several precious minutes flushing them out with water (optional).  Roughly chop the garlic and add that to the blender too, before blearily pouring in the water.  COVER THE BLENDER and then hit puree.  Watch as your ingredients turns into a rather loose and smooth green liquid, resembling something you'd drink on a BluePrint cleanse.  Pour the salsa into a saucepan over medium heat, bring to a simmer, adjust the heat to medium-low, and set a timer for twelve minutes.  Then bring that timer into the bathroom, set it on the counter, and take a shower.  Finish your shower before the timer goes off!  When that happens, run into the kitchen, turn off the heat, pour the salsa into a bowl, stick it in the freezer, and go dry your hair.  Once you're all beautified the salsa should be relatively cool.  Stir in the cilantro and some lime juice.  Add more salt if it's not zippy enough.  Seal that container - or, for a dash of added whimsy, into an empty Tostitos salsa container you originally planned on storing jewelry in - and go to your barbecue!  Don't forget to buy chips on the way.

Image from Pinch My Salt

Story Time

I'm several years late to this party, but do you read Tess Lynch's Tumblr?  It's so good!  She does a fictional feature called Story Time, and each piece is delightfully weird.  Funny.  Creepy.  Un-blog-like.  They remind me of A.M. Homes's short story A Real Doll, which I read after seeing it listed on a recently unearthed David Foster Wallace syllabus.  Yes, I mean that as praise, and yes, I am aware that my pretension is palpable and gross.

Why

 

No, seriously.  Why?  (Not, "why so much Photoshop?", although one could be forgiven for asking that.  On magazine stands this picture looks like a monochrome, flesh-toned pancake.  Like, why?  Why is this?  Is this person still famous?  What is the what?)

Totes Agree

Rev. Dennis Terry recently spoke at a Santorum campaign event.  His speech included the following:

"Listen to me. If you don’t love America, if you don’t like the way we do things I have one thing to say — get out!”

I SO agree.  But not when he puts it in to context:

“I don’t care what the liberals say, I don’t care what the naysayers say, this nation was founded as a Christian nation. There’s only one God, and his name is Jesus. I’m tired of people telling me that I can’t say those words. I’m tired of people telling us as Christians that we can’t voice our beliefs or we can no longer pray in public. Listen to me. If you don’t love America, if you don’t like the way we do things, I have one thing to say — get out!”  

First off... wait, is that right?  Can Christians not voice their beliefs in public?  I saw a lady muttering scripture on a subway platform just yesterday, and I'm pretty sure there's one psalm a day on my Facebook wall.  Wasn't he at a public event, voicing said beliefs?  Yeah.  I don't think that's accurate.

Santorum perplexes me because we have not even the most basic things in common.  Ie, usually you can say "Republican Candidate X has a lot of misguided ideas about education, but we both agree that school is important."  Santorum thinks that school is "anachronistic."  We should homeschool.  This is a big divide.

So, back to my point.  Rev. Terry: in America, we have freedom of religion, but it's freedom of ANY religion.  Even freedom of no religion!  I can worship at the altar of the Flying Spaghetti Monster if I want to (it's weird.  The Flying Spaghetti Monster says I HAVE to take birth control pills, so if you won't let my insurance cover it, you're violating my rights.  It's a sticky wicket).  The founders of the nation - those guys you were just mentioning - wrote that into the rule book.  So if you don't LOVE that; if you don't like the way we do things, I have one thing to say - GET OUT.

Stefan Urquelle

Jaleel White is on this season of Dancing with the Stars and I may have just voted for him.  The guy has spent the last decade+ dealing with daily Steve Urkel jokes: he deserves a mirrored trophy.

Does anyone else remember how Steve Urkel, in order to win Laura Winslow's heart, tampered with his DNA in a suburban basement lab, transforming himself into the smooth-talking Stefan Urquelle?  Of course you remember (if you are between the ages of 27 and 33).  It's basically all anyone talked about in 1994.  To reiterate: this family sitcom, which had heretofore focused on not lying, putting family first, and being kind to one another in a variety of very special episodes, introduced a subplot in which the neighborhood geek transforms his own genetic material in a neighborhood laboratory straight out of Young Frankenstein, and no one thought this was strange!  Can you imagine if this happened on Modern Family?  The internet would explode.  And they say we're in a golden age of television.

True

I so identify. 

Source - a very cool blog in general, actually

Panem

Someone has way too much time on their hands, and I love them for it.  Behold, a functional map of Panem!

Explanation from the creator here.  It's pretty spot-on.

My New Favorite Casserole

I made this last week, before I start subsisting on juice, and it's easy enough that I think even Dan could make it?!

Annie's Spinach-Cheese Casserole
box says serves 4 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA it serves 2

1 box Annie's Shells & Real Aged Cheddar (orange box)
1 cup frozen chopped cooked spinach
panko bread crumbs, olive oil

Fill a pot with water, add more salt than you think is necessary, and put it on high heat.  TIP: Water boils faster if you cover the pot.  Once the water is boiling, add the pasta from your box o' Annie's and cook for seven minutes.  Turn on your broiler.

While the pasta cooks, put the spinach in a strainer.  When the pasta is done, drain the pasta in the same strainer - the hot water will thaw the spinach.  Set the strainer, now filled with pasta and spinach, aside and return your pot to the stove.  Over medium heat, warm 4 tablespoons of milk and whisk in the cheese powder, also from your box o' Annie's.  Add some butter and/or plain Greek yogurt if you're feeling crazy (recommended).  Dump the pasta and spinach into the pot and stir to coat with the cheese sauce.  Pour the mixture into a pie plate, top with panko as desired, and very lightly drizzle the whole thing with olive oil.  Place under the broiler for about two minutes, or until the crumbs are golden brown.

You can also make a classier version of this with regular pasta, bechamel, and grated cheddar cheese, but that kind of misses the point.

Delicious!

When Dan's Away...

I mentioned this earlier, but Dan's in Israel for nine days.  And when Dan's away, Meghan will play... at crazy diets!!!!

 

Usually I do a hodgepodge Crazy Diet, where I eat kale salads with avocado chunks and carrot-ginger dressing for two days straight, and then go home and drink a martini with twelve olives.  This time, though, I wanted to get serious and actually lose some weight/break bad habits.  So I'm doing the BluePrint Cleanse.

If you've been on the Internet between 2007 and the present, you know that the BPC is a juice-based "nutritional cleanse" involving six "fresh-pressed" juices a day.  Allegedly, three days of BPC-ing will "gently rid your body of impurities, regain an alkaline balance and normalize digestion and metabolism."  This mantra allows people to believe they aren't on a liquid diet to lose weight.  It's for health reasons!  I'm totally Zenning!

Anyway, I'm on day two of juice and feel pretty good.  I was a bit tempted to eat something yesterday, but upon remembering how much cash I forked over for these g-d juices, I decided the salad wasn't worth it.

I'm pretty sure that thought process is the main reason this works.

Confessions & Photoshop

While I am very happy with the vast majority of our wedding pictures, twenty-one months later I can finally admit that the family portraits are a bit disappointing.  One part is my own fault: in making a list of shots to take, I left out a lot of combinations that I now wish I had (ie, a photo of me with my older sisters, or ANY photos with Dan's aunts and uncles, etc.).  The second part is that I feel like the photographer could have corrected people when they posed awkwardly and made sure everyone was looking at the camera.  Also, why did I listen when she said we should have chairs out for the group shots?  It worked for this one:

But was seating really necessary for smaller groups?  We look like guest speakers at a corporate retreat.

YAWN.  I don't know.  I mean, they're fine.  And like I said, I love all the pictures of the ceremony and reception.  But at the same time, the pictures that people print and frame on their walls are pictures of you and them, looking at the camera and smiling, so when those pictures come out kind of meh, it's disappointing.  So, while I'd already edited portraits with a basic let's-get-rid-of-those-undereye-circles eye, I decided to try my hand at further improving some of the family shots.  Also, Dan is out of town and I was bored.

In this family portrait, I decided that Scott and Biz should face their fears of standing closer to the bride.  Also, let's lighten and soften that backdrop.  This was a spring wedding - why are all the portraits in front of high-contrast pine trees?  Are we goddamn Karstarks?  Were we wed in a land of Endless Winter?

Before:

After:

Also, in no picture are me, Dan, Mom, and Scott all smiling at once.  But with a little surgery...

Yes, I cut and pasted a Mom-and-Dan out of another photo and glued it into the one you see above.  I'm awesome.

Now moving on to the special torture that is the bridal party pictures.  WHY are all the bridesmaids leaning forward?  Whyyyyyyyy???  (Pretty sure the answer is: because they were told to).  This is a FORMAL PICTURE.  We couldn't have just had people stand next to each and ZOOMED OUT?   To put the cherry on it, the leaning didn't even work - in every single shot, Matt is hiding behind Kate's head like this:

Listen, I'm not a professional.  I can't fix rampant purposeful slouching.  Well, maybe if I spent a reeeeeealllllly long time cutting and pasting, and who knows; Dan is gone all week!  But I can cut Matt and Kate out of the picture and then move them around like paper dolls, and also find a shot where Katie and Biz are leaning less... so I did.

Meghan's inner OCD-freak: you're welcome.  Now print and frame away.

Hi, I'm American

Dug into my purse for a lip gloss and found not one, not two, not three, but nine glosses/lipsticks/chubby pencils/whatever, including two tubes in the same shade.  

It's only a small sample of my collection.