He can call me Flower if he wants to...

Sooooo, there are now 5 of us living at the townhouse: Kim, Lindsay, me, Ava, and apparently this little critter living under our back patio porch.

Aww yea Flower is so cute right? Until it sprays your back porch and the stink permeates most of your house! The good news is that the smell was so pungent at one point we thought the animal had died too, but luckily, that was not the case. Mr. Sherlock, the pest control guy, came out yesterday evening, put a skunk repellent under the porch, and the smell inside at least should fade...in 4-5 more days!! Who knows how long the smell will last outside!? Great, now we're the new stinky neighbors....

Sadly, I think we are getting used to the smell though. Lindsay and I have spend the past few nights on the back porch plotting how we can cook all of our meals on the grill. So, while I was busy at work today, I checked out the 'Grilling Guide' on MSN.com and came across this recipe for Grilled Banana Splits. Although I'm not even a fan of banana splits ever since I puked 22 times after the last time I had one, (yes, I did count the number of times and no, alcohol was not involved), something about it drew me in. I have not tried it obvy, but it actually sounds really good! Check it out:

Grilled Banana Split

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION (perhaps I should have omitted this part)
1 serving: Calories 642; Carbohydrates 89g; Cholesterol 95mg; Fat 28g; Sodium 188mg

INGREDIENTS
4 ripe bananas
8 teaspoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4 tablespoons light brown sugar
4 tablespoons brandy
3 cups vanilla ice cream
8 teaspoons chocolate sauce
1/4 cup toasted pecans (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Heat grill to low. Make an incision lengthwise on the side of each banana, leaving 1 inch uncut at both ends and the skin intact. Spread open the cut and place 2 teaspoons of the butter pieces, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon brandy inside. Grill, covered, until the butter mixture has melted and bananas are heated through — 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the bananas to 4 separate sundae dishes, carefully flipping the bananas over and pouring the sauce into the bottom of each dish. Peel off the skins, and top each with an equal amount of ice cream; add warm chocolate sauce, and nuts, if desired. Serve immediately.

BBB

"Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold themfrequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you.

-Saint Francis de Sales

"Rather than mourn the absence of the flame, let us celebrate how brightly it glowed"

Miss you.

PC Load Letter...??

Happy anniversary to me! Today marks my 3rd year as 'office bitch'....correction, 'executive office bitch.' Oh happy day! I've seen it all my friends: Hawaiian shirt day, newbies buying generic ice cream for Cake day (*gasp*), and even more recently some battles over Breakfast day. I know there have been other memorable events along the way, but I think I've suppressed those memories. It's an exciting life....a really....exciting....life.

In other news, we have t.v! Whoop whoop! And by 't.v,' I mean DIRECT TV! In yo' face Cox and Comcast. We couldn't be suckered into your crappy deals with even crappier service, especially when we discovered there was already a dish on our beloved townhouse roof! I dig it. Next Saturday, the guy comes to install Verizon FiOs, conveniently sometime between 8am and 5pm. Jerks...(I said 'guy' instead of 'gal' b/c really are women smart enough to do this sort of work? I mean, Trinity Church's female Rector is one thing....but female technicians? I think not. We need to get back in the kitchen and keep house...hehe..he..eh?)

Speaking of t.v, the revival of television at the Blair-gowksi household (soon to be Blair-gowski-hall..or maybe it could be Blair-gowski Hall...) means MLB Extra Innings is back in service. With the amount of randomness Kim and I notice during these games, we could really be the next female versions of Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy. So last night as we noticed Coco's new coiffure, it was this striking resemblance that caught out eyes. Does anyone else see the resemblance?

Coco Crisp...

(I tried to find a Coco Red Sox pic with the fro but wasn't successful...)

Billy Crystal...

These pictures don't do it exact justice, so please if you can catch a game or at least some game highlights in the next couple days (b/c who knows how long Coco will keep the mini fro before going back to cornrows), I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's well worth the chuckle.

One more thing....everyone knows I love Kevin Youkilis as much as the next person...probably more, because really does anyone else share my obsession? But he can be soooo dramatic sometimes

Finally, I know everyone is on pins and needles waiting to see pictures of the new townhouse and from this past weekend's visit with the Boston Blairs. I will post just as soon as either Kim or I can find our adapters to download the pictures from my camera. The wait will be worth it though; I don't think you'll be disappointed. I don't want to give any surprises away, but did someone say Mandy Moore??

But what about Bob??

Excuse me? What about this guy? How are we supposed to keep up with Blake's upcoming adventures in Richmond/MCV with no blog?? Maybe the Boston Blairs should hop on this campaign...it's not like med school will keep him busy; he should have plenty of time to entertain the rest of us!! :P

'Picnic spoiler' (3 letters...)

1) Good news guys: One of you might have a chance at entering this year's 4th of July, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. If you can get past the initial snap of the natural casing (I just puked a a little in my mouth,) one of you could take the place of Kobayashi — the Japanese competitive eating icon and international celebrity. Kobayashi's latest stint with lockjaw leaves him questionable for Wednesday's contest. Sounds to me like this guys a little scared of this Joey Chestnut guy (...wouldn't blame him, sounds like a character straight of out the Sopranos) who broke the record in a prelim. competition by scarfing down 59 1/2 hot dogs. Ughth! I bet The Black Widow from Alexandria, VA (no, not Uncle Bill) will be there too! Banks, maybe they will peel the hot dogs for you first! :)

2) I spend a majority of my afternoon yesterday getting my car registration renewed. Besides having to deal with the dreaded DMV, stupid northern VA and their dumb air quality laws that require Emissions tests before you can renew your registration. Good thing I realized Sunday, July 1st around 11ish p.m. that my registration expired on June 30. Hrumph. I've got to do a better job of remember these things. Anyone remember the incident of June '06, where I got pulled over TWICE in a matter of 72 hours for this crap, once without my license...dumb dumb dumb...luckily no ticket! Thankfully, bossy suggested I take the afternoon off to take care of all this. SO, 4 hours and $70 later, I've registered by car for another year; this time no cops involved!

3) To celebrate this victory, Sus and I went on a 5-mile walk along the Washington & Old Dominion Trail that runs 45 miles from Purceville to Alexandria. Unfortunately, I got home to discover a blister had formed again on my heel inside the previous blister that had finally opened and started to heal, another one on my other heel, and on the sole of my right foot.

Later, I decided to break out the old crossword puzzle book to unwind after a stressful day. I was so excited to finish the entire puzzle sans cheating and looking in the back OR asking anyone for help...then I realized it was the 'Easy' category. Oh well. I should have figured when all the clues were "Mayberry youth"...."Black and white sandwich cookie"..."Tennis star Lendl". Doh!

Victorino Is Crazy

So Kim and I were flipping back and forth between the Red Sox game (for obvy reasons) and the Astros game last night, hoping that her cuz, David Borkowski, would come in for relief pitching. He did not, however, we did get to see this crazy attempt to catch a foul ball! bahaha it was so much better to see live....but ouch. I'm ok laughing, even though he could have been (might be)hurt, b/c even he was laughing a little afterwards... unless that was a grimace in pain....