Can I Get a Happy Birthday?!?

Hope it's a FAB day for you, girl.

XOXO!

Esmeralda's Prophecies

My family has an annual tradition of going to Disneyland every year. I have an annual tradition of getting my fortune from Esmeralda while we're there. Esmeralda is exactly like the fortune teller in the movie BIG. Most years she has been pretty on point so I was excited to see what she saw in my future when we were there this past Friday.

My reading:

Your life has been full of trouble, for which others are largely responsible, but you are now reaching a point when you will be able by your own efforts to control your own affairs. Beware of the proposals made by a gray haired man, but take the advice and assistance that will be offered by a middle sized and smooth faced one. You will receive an offer to go to a small town and engage in business far different from the one you are now engaged in. Accept it. You will meet with one who will love you. That love will be returned by you. The first name of this person begins with M and you will be introduced at a place of amusement. Your life will be long and your last days will be your happiest. One of your lucky numbers is 5. Drop another coin in the slot and I will tell you more.

Sounds a little to me like Esmeralda has been hitting the bottle but we'll see...

Oh and a Disneyland post will be up later this week :) It's good to be back - to blogging, I mean, not from Disneyland, OBV.

Meet The Loseys

For the third time within the past year, one of my best friends called me up to say "Hey, what's up? I got married tonight."

Renee Mayfield married Jason Losey on Friday, November 13th after 2 1/2 years of blissful dating. It was real low-key (obv since I found out about it afterwards) but totally appropriate for them. The big, flashy, white, lacy, cake to do was never really Renee's thing.

She's always done her own thing, her own way which is why I first approached her in P.E. class way back in the ninth grade. That girl has her eyebrow pierced YOU GUYS! And she didn't have a curfew. And she's older (by a whole year!). And she can pull of every shade of hair color imaginable (although we love her the most RED). Seriously, Renee was the coolest person I had EVER come across (and still is). She definitely has this edge about her, a toughness on the surface but she is one of the most caring people I have ever met. And she's funny. Hysterical, actually. We are 12 years into our lifelong friendship and realized recently that we have never gotten in a fight. That has GOT to break some kind of record for teenage/mid-20 girls. We've just always been very real with one another and we've always known how to have a DAMN GOOD TIME. Did you hear about the time that we memorized the dance to N*SYNC's "Bye, Bye, Bye" and performed it for her dad so he would buy us tickets to their concert? He stayed true to his word and that was the first of MANY concerts featuring Justin Timberlake and/or Britney Spears that we would attend. Yes, Eener is my guilty pleasure partner. From car dancing to the THONG SONG to standing in line at Smith's at the crack of dawn to get tickets to N*Sync to the new obsession of the Twilight saga...we are TOTALLY geeks about everything tweens are supposed to eat up like candy. She has been such an amazing friend to me over the past 12 years. We've survived high school, heartbreak, a car crash, the fall of Britney Spears, hangovers, the wrath of Pep, birth and death of family pets, opening night of New Moon and did I mention hangovers?

And Jay....he's THE SAME as us (minus the Tween loving, he is a little more on the Punk Rock side). We have SSFS every Sunday night at their house where we eat ridiculous amounts of food and spend the evening watching TV, playing RockBand and talking shit. Last night Golden Spoon was the featured dessert of the evening. As we're watching The Simpsons, Jay gets up and says (in complete seriousness), "I'm going to have my Cingha-Hoo-Ha now but I'm guessing you girls want to wait on yours?" I said "Pardon?", come to find out Jay has made up names for EVERYTHING and it 97% of the time, it starts with Chinga. Who does that?? People that I love to associate with aka: not the norm. Plus he's REAL GOOD about asking me about my new boy endeavours and is open about giving me the male perspective of my dating life if I need it.

So on the wedding....can I get a "I called it!" and maybe not exactly the way it went down but it does make total sense for them. From the moment I first hung out with Renee and Jay, I knew that they would tie the knot. Funny this is, we went to high school with Jay and had you asked me then what I thought about the two of them getting hitched one day, I would have looked at you like "Say WHA?" But that's the way the world works sometimes. One day, you can be wandering the halls of Cimarron Memorial together and 10 years later, you can be happily married with 5 dogs and a home.

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Losey. I love you both and am so, so happy for your new life together (and with me every Sunday).

Only in Vegas

I now represent a chocolate company (ethel's, my heart), a pizza place (Sammy's, my stomach) and a titty show (Fantasy, my....?) which HELLO, only in Vegas.

I've been meaning to do this post for awhile now, seeing as I live in one of the most unconventional cities in the world. So I've made a little list of things that I have experienced that made me say "Only in Vegas."

1. Every time I leave town and come home through McCarren Airport, the sound dingdingding of the slot machines, sounds like home. Or how about the fact that, most of the time, I don't even hear that sound anymore. This worries me, have I been here too long??

2. I drive past New York, New York, Paris and Monte Carlo to get to school.

3. It's 92 degrees at 8 a.m. OR more recently, it's 88 degrees in the middle of November.

4. We have a snow day once every 30 years (and for 8 inches of flurries).

5. 1/2 of the pictures on your Facebook have the "Spy on Vegas" logo in the bottom right corner.

6. Your night starts at 11 because here, there is no such thing as LAST CALL.

7. The Hard Rock Pool (home of Rehab) is like your friend who really isn't your friend but you pretend to like them so you can go swim in their AWESOME pool. Because The Strip is our backyard.

8. You despise the saying "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." As Lauren once pointed out, it doesn't count if you stay in Vegas.

9. Have you ever heard the one about the time I went to a friend's wedding and ended up with three Asian prostitutes at my hotel door at 4 a.m.? If not, ask me about it next time we have drinks, it's a good one.

10. If there isn't FREE CHAMPAGNE FOR LADIES, I'm not going.

11. It's 2 p.m. on a Friday and you're sitting at rehearsals for a topless show next to Robin Leach.

12. State taxes are considered foreign policy to you.

13. You know when Nevada Day is and feel the right to celebrate.

14. You come out on November 17th to a chocolate factory to watch 3-acres of cacti get lit up with 1/2 a million lights (and consider it a holiday tradition).

15. The boy you're (no longer) dating, tells you he just got a new job working security. At a strip club.

16. A story of the dangers of pole dancing in a moving vechicle runs in the daily paper.

I'm sure there are a ton more and I'd love to hear your own "Only in Vegas" story in the comment section below. I'll continue to add to this list as Vegas happens.

Wild Things

This year, I got it in my head that I wanted to be Max from Where the Wild Things Are. I did multiple searches - and if you know me, you know that I am the QUEEN of searches - but nothing was coming up. I found a few Max costumes on Etsy but they were $100 +. I couldn't believe it - how, when the movie came out TWO WEEKS before Halloween - were there not an abundance of Max and Wild Things roaming around??

This is when I picked up the phone.

"Hey, Ma."

"Hey, Kate. What's Up?"

"Ummm...I wanted to see if maybe...possibly, you might somehow consider making me a Halloween costume this year."

"What?"

"Yeah, you see, I really want to be Max from Where the Wild Things Are and you can't find that costume like ANYWHERE so we'd have to make it."

"We'd?? You must be out of your God damned mind."

A week later we were at JoAnn's picking out fabric and patterns (have I told you lately how much I love my mom?!?) and a week after that, I was headed to my first Halloween party all Maxed out.

A lot of people didn't get it, but I don't think I was working with the right crowd that night. I heard a lot of "King of the Bunnies!" (WTF?) but today, today is our annual costume contest at work and I've got Max in my car just ready to make the debut he finally deserves.

This costume contest goes hand-in-hand with SK+G's Annual Chili Cook-Off Event (and yes, today is basically a big party at the agency.)

Another matter that also deeply involves Pep (again, I love my ma!). The wonderful woman that I call my mother has spent weeks preparing the the 1st place winner (I swear, we've got this one in the bag. We placed 2nd last time). She is even making a side of homemade southern- style cornbread with chipotle cheddar. I KNOW, SHE = AMAZING.

So wish us luck. The Spice Girls are gonna OWN the Chili Cook-Off 2009 event. Sing it with me now (to the tune of Wannabe) "If you wanna eat my chili, grab yourself a spoon. This chili is forever, the spiciness never enddddsss."

OMG You Guys...I've Missed YOU!

Ah, life. It's been a little hectic lately. Ok, well for the past few months. I can tell you that every single day I think to myself "I've got to write on HSCOOC, I've got to blog about something FAB for all of my 16 readers." And then I get a call or someone is leaving town, or coming into town or hey, I'm gonna leave town or I'm working an event, and hey, the girl left the show, OH WAIT THE CACTUS LIGHTING IS ALMOST HERE. And in between all of that time, I get to do school work. And yell at Gordon.

But I promise to get back on track, I've got so much to say (as always).

In the meantime, will you forgive me if I post some really cute pictures of Jordyn Love? You see, I babysat the little cutie a couple weeks back and have been waiting for her to sign this release so I could post pictures of her (her career as a struggling artist is really blowing up big time).

She has been super busy with a number of important things, like learning how to count to four, getting ready for BH2 and potty training. Maybe she could come over and teach Gordon a thing or two since we're REGRESSING.

And, just for the record, I did not think she could possibly stick the whole banana in her mouth but THEN SHE DID.

Do Guys Google?

Guys, I can tell you that 99.9% of the time, if you give a woman your first and last name, she is going to Google you. It's just a fact. Some of us even get Google alerts on ourselves. So when the time comes and I present a gentleman with my first and last name, I have to wonder....do guys Google?

I am Googleicious. If roles were reversed and I googled a guy and 1/2 the stuff that comes up on me, came up on him, I would think I hit the jackpot. My whole life shows up. Including this blog (hence, the whole my whole life thing). A guy that I just started seeing could type in my name and all of a sudden, have access to my past, my present and my future. He could immediately know all of the 100 things I want to do before I die. See ugly photos of me. Learn about my speech impediment. Understand how seriously I take the art of cheese. And of course, while on that subject, my picky picky eating habits. He could probably single handily from this blog, decide he never wants to see me again.

In this day and age, thanks to this world wide web, a relationship could end before it even begins. With Facebooks and MySpaces and Blogs and Twitters....and even if he did decide to see me again after reading this blog...WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO TALK ABOUT? I give HSCOOC all my best stories.

Don't get me wrong, this blog is my heart but it does take the mystery out of getting to know someone. This blog is me. Meet me. Katie Knoch. My whole life is an open URL for your reading pleasure.

So, guy...is that you? Did you Google me and you're reading this now freaking out because I'm totally on to you and your antics?

Or am I just being paranoid? Either way, this calls for a poll. I would imagine that like .02% of my readers are actually male but girls, maybe you could ask your men...did you ever Google me when we first met? Holler with your findings over to the left.