Bachelor Sunday special with Morgan!

So it turns out that all of January/Juanuary there are special episodes if the bachelor on Sundays. This week is all about bachelor love stories and where are they now. Since most couples break up, this should be a short post.

1. Des and Chris: you might have forgotten because it was a pretty boring finale, but Des picked Chris (after crying for an hour because Brooks left). They live in Seattle and are getting a dog. That's it. 

2. Jason and Holly: I don't know who they are but they are married. It rained at their wedding. The have a daughter named Riley who is like 1 and adorable. Also Jason already had a kid, just like JP! They live in Seattle, too.

3. DeAnna: I guess she broke up with her man and has a new one. She is from an early season and I guess the contestants were uglier then because her man was bleh. Her current husband is the twin brother of a contestant from another season of the bachelorette, incest? They made a joke about Chris Harrison delivering their baby. At least I hope it was a joke. 

4. Ashley and JP: they feel like they've been together forever. He's Jewish. They're cute. They live in Princeton and she has baby fever!

5. Trista and Ryan: they've been married 10 years and are every other bachelor/ette's idols. They have 2 kids. He's a firefighter. When they renewed their vows he wore a paisley suit coat. Happy couples are boring, moving on. 

6. Sean and Catherine: don't believe this tabloid, they are still very much together. Sean tried to spin the story like he always liked Catherine best but I'm not buying it because he was all about Des and Tiara and basically everyone else. And she was probably in love with Leslie, who Ashley became good friends with in a Chicago bathroom. 

Sean is a born again virgin, which is an important detail of his life on this special. They are getting married next Sunday and they got to see the honeymoon suite aka the "consummation station." They are really excited to start their marriage in bed. 

Catherine is adorable and frolicked around the grounds. She's also pretty funny. 

Tomorrow is back to JP!

Love you Amy!

May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor

So Clare gets one-on-one date numero uno.  JP comes to pick her up at the mansion and takes her to the same place where he and Camila played in the snow.  It's now a romantically lit winter wonderland with a full blown ice rink, sledding, and a hot tub of course.  The good news is I kind of feel like I'm on the Bachelor since Blakely Court is also an ice rink these days.  Clare spends a really long time talking about her dad and JP gives her a rose.  Then music is suddenly playing!  They get out of the hot tub to find Josh Krajcik, whoever the heck that is, singing a private concert for them.  They dance and make out (duh) and it fake snows, which Clare is for some reason overly excited about.  Basically a normal bachelor date with minimal weirdness.  Back at the mansion, a bunch of the girls go in the pool.  Lucy (Lucinda) is topless obviously.  Also, Kat gets the second one-on-one date card.  

Kat is a dancer, and JP apparently lovesss dancers (I totally should have tried out for the show!).  They head to the airport and take a private jet to Utah.  JP pretends to be her seatbelt, so that's a little weird. Then they both change into light up outfits with light savers and lots of glowy things.  Turns out that they are going to a neon light up 5k run and they are the ones who start the race! But it's not reallyyyy a race because the whole crowd stops to dance every once in a while.  When they finally get to the end, there is a stage and JP and Kat are called up on it.  They dance some more and he gives her a rose.  No kissing though.

Group date time!  All the girls except for a few go to a warehouse for a photo shoot.  The guy in charge: a man with a turquoise beard.  The girls will be taking photos with dogs to help get them adopted.  Each girl is assigned a dog and then their costumes, hair, and makeup are done to match the dog.  Most girls are excited, but Elise and Andi get the shaft.  Their costumes are just cardboard signs covering their boobs and junk.  Both of them are super unexcited about this, and luckily Elise gets Lucy to trade her ketchup/fire hydrant costume for Elise's sign costume....since she is "happy to take off her top, as always" and then goes for a naked walk with her dog on the side of the road.  During the photo shoot, there are lots of yummy shots of shirtless JP ;)  But the best picture comes when JP agrees to be in the cardboard sign photo with Andi.  There is a whole series of pictures with totally naked Andi, JP, and Lucy all up against each other with their dogs.  Awkward...

Highlights from later in the group date:
*Cassandra tells JP she has a two year old son. She also keeps calling him Juan which I hate
*Victoria gets smashed and says she's gonna straddle JP every day because "life is about straddling people". Also, she "gave Juan Pablo the hymen maneuver"and saved his life??  She starts screaming and says she wants to leave...and lucky for her, JP sends her home the next morning.  Smart man.
*Renee wants to kiss JP but doesn't.  But she gets points for being nice and taking care of psycho Victoria while she's having her drunken meltdown
*Nikki, the peds nurse, is obviously awesome
*Kelly gets the rose

The "hymen maneuver"

And at the cocktail hour...
*JP talks to all the girls who didn't get a date
*Amy does another interview about herself
*Charlene apologizes for being rude when he gave her the first impression rose
*Cassandra is sad because she misses her son, but Renee reassures her and they bond over their mommyness.  I really like Renee...probably more than Nikki even though she's not a nurse

And the rose ceremony...
*Amy and Chantel go buh-bye

Whew! Someone else's turn for week 3!

Fun Things! (Part 2--If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gon love someone else?)

The Saturday after TCAB left we went to our friend Stefany's birthday party. She happened to mention that RuPaul's Battle of the Seasons was coming to the 9:30 Club. She was definitely not prepared for how excited I was about it and seemed a little surprised when I explained who every queen on the playbill was.

This is the 9:30 club at capacity. It's no joke.

Then she invited me to go with her! So, obviously, I was super pumped.  We met up for drinks beforehand.  The line was CRAZY long but I knew Stefany and her mom had picked the tickets up from Will Call beforehand so I wasn't too worried. Then we went to go in a little after 9:00 and realized that super long line was the line to get in!!! It sucked, but it moved pretty fast so it wasn't so so bad.

When we got in, Stefany's mom suggested we get another round of drinks. We all got beers. Then out of nowhere, her mom suggests we all do shots too! I mean...it's Tuesday, so why wouldn't you do shots? So we did shots of whiskey. But they were really like double shots. Kinda more than I wanted to drink, but when someone buys you a shot, you can't not take it!

Michelle Visage did a song. Which is not a thing that I knew she could do. I thought she was just known for having huge boobs and hanging out with drag queens, but I guess she has some of her own talents. The the queens came out! First was Alaska. Her song is "Your Make Up Is Terrible":

I thought she was kind of annoying on the show, but I thought she was one of the better performers!

Then Carmen came out. I don't have good video of her because I was like half way back and she spent a lot of time on the floor (kind of a poor choice in my opinion, but she does what she wants).

 The point is she's incredibly hot. And does whatever she wants. Also she's becoming a transactivist, and not just a pretty lady, which I fully support.

Then Manila came out to Spongebob Square Pants because she dressed like a pineapple on the show.

She came back out later too looking like a pin cushion. She even got off the stage and walked into the crowd! I think she spent the most time actually performing.

Next was Phi Phi. I always think she's pretty whatever. I mean pretty, but not unique, you know?

Pandora Boxxx came out and did a stand up set. I didn't get any video because I had gone to the bathroom and wasn't standing with my friends and a super sassy gay guy was bullying me. He was like "Do you want to stand in front of me? Please. By all means. You clearly need to be here more than I do." And it was awkward. Then Elizabeth (Library of Congress Elizabeth) found me and pulled me up to her. Pandora was pretty funny and she also sang a song called Cooter?

Ivy Winters came out and I didn't really remember her very well from the show except that Ru had the most annoying voice for her. But she came out on stilts and did a pretty memorable bit!

Then Mimi Imfurst came out. And she sucks. She did this monologue from Wife Swap or whatever, and this monologue from Precious. Both of which I didn't really like. The first one is like a pretty obscure, old internet reference and I don't think a lot of the crown got it. And like, Precious is and should be a downer, not something a drag queen does for laughs. Also she was dressed as Dorothy.

Michele Visage came out, sang that song Queen Latifah sings in Chicago, which I really liked. Then they tried to make Alaska answer the questions people had tweeted in and it sucked. I think she was too drunk to really pull it off.

Then Sharon Needles came out and was really really weird. I mean anyone who watched the show knows she's weird, but this like wasn't the good kind of weird. This was her performance (make sure you make it full screen so you can fully appreciate it):

She never took the mask off and it was an original song that was a reallllll bigggg downnnerrrrrrrr. Whatever, everyone else was really impressive and it was a super long show!

So long that the metro had already closed. Which normally I don't let happen to me because it's so annoying to get back without the metro. But Stefany assured me she would drive me back. So we got into a cab, talked to our Somalian cabbie and headed to Rosslyn. If you guys remember, Rosslyn is where Zack works and isn't that far, BUT we had to drop off the other people with us, which involved going all the way to the end of the blue line and circling back.

So I didn't get back until 2, felt like crap and struggled all the way through Thursday and White House bowling. But, I'd do it all over again if I could!

Fun Things! (Part 1--La maison blanche)

Since TCAB left DC we've been doing pretty fun things. We were also doing fun things while they were here too. So really, we've been doing fun things for the last month.

This past Saturday we went to the White House for a tour! We might have mentioned it, but the tour we were supposed to take got canceled because of a snow day. Let me remind what a snow day looks like here:

You'll notice, there's not actually any snow. And while I was happy to have an unexpected (paid) day off from work, it was a little disappointing because if we had gone then, we would have seen all the Christmas decorations AND we could've taken pictures. But whatever. Over it.

The tour was really cool! We only went in the East Wing. So it wasn't really like we were on Teenie's favorite show--you have to know someone legit at the White House to go to there. The building itself was actually way smaller that I thought. It's really not that big of a place, but they really do like to cram in artwork. 

Highlights include:

Obama's Muslim Prayer Curtain. Or you know, maybe that's just the decor of the biggest room in the White House. Believe what you want, libtards--it's def covered in Arab symbols.

The China Room. Each president has the option to pick their own china pattern and have it made. Who knew Rutherford Hayes had such weird taste in China--or I mean I guess it was his wife that was the weirdo.

The Blue Room. It's big. Looks a little like Michigan. It's fancy.  There was a secret service guy in there who was telling us a lot of cool facts (none of which I remember).  Since it's a self-guided tour you have to rely on the secret service to answer your questions. I thought they were only gonna talk to us if we initiated the conversation but they were like real tour guides and were super friendly!

You can only take pictures outside so we did that. But, it was raining really hard so we didn't take too many. You gotta take what you can get, I guess.

With my Kruppcake, the guy who got us in!

I was pretty content with just going to the East Wing BUT on Monday, one of my coworkers asked me if I wanted to go bowling at the White House and a like team bonding thing! Uh, duh I want to go bowling at the White House! Also, I got to gloat because not everyone in the office got to go! So, suck it everyone who didn't get to go! (Jokes, they're all nice people.)

So after work we went to a bar to kill some time, picked up our pizza, and picked up beer and wine. It's funny, for the East Wing tour you couldn't bring your purse, you couldn't have your phone out, and you had to be sniffed by a dog.  For this, you could bring whatever food and drink you wanted and security was way more lax.

The bowling alley itself isn't actually that impressive:

It was built in 1947 by Truman and hasn't really been updated, other than to add goofy portraits of the presidents with bowling balls. But you know, you go to say you went, not for the high caliber of bowling. 

We split in to teams, and unfortunately my team lost. It wasn't one of my better bowling performances, if I'm honest. But you know, whatever. I went to the White House twice in a week. I'll probably be living there soon--nbd.

Here's some misc pics:

Samantha who you may (or may not) remember from New Years. Also Barack.

Look at that stance! Also, presidents don't have to wear bowling shoes?

It's Juan-uary...and the drama begins

Alrighty well it's another 2 day long episode.  They really need to stop doing that since I don't have cable and always end up watching 4 hours worth of Bachelor in one sitting the next day.

Let's start with the "behind the scenes" episode.  Chris Harrison and JP visit viewing parties blah blah blah same old, same old.  But this boring beginning is made up for by the fact that JP and Camila later play in fake snow and go ice skating together! Camila has never seen snow before so she is adorable when she gets to experience it for the first time...and I kinda fall in love with JP whenever he's with/talks about his daughter.  

If I didn't already have a Mac, this would make me buy one

After this, the girls pretend to like each other and have fun at the mansion while JP catches up with Sean and Catherine.  I'm still angry he didn't pick Des, but I guess they're a little cute.  They're either getting married in January or June...it was unclear.  Following a few scenes of girls crying because they got sent home on the first day comes the fun part:  sneak peak at the Drama Causers.

1) Victoria: Married when she was 18 and now divorced.  Says guys her age can't relate to her and are like "you're so pretty...let's sleep together".  Thinks she has a lot in common with JP because she can recite a bunch of common knowledge facts about him.

2) Lucinda: "It just feels good to be naked." Need I say more?? But really, she's weird.  I'm pretty sure she thinks she's a fairy or something.

3) Elyse: Her mom died of melanoma a while ago.  Sad right? But (of course there's a but) turns out her mom wrote a letter about her to submit to the Bachelor before she died.  Whyyyyyy???

4) Amy: Not too bad.  She did a fake newscast about herself looking for love, but whatever.

5) Clare: Part Mexican. Dad died of brain cancer.  He made a DVD before he died for her future husband to watch.  These parents really have no faith in their children to do things on their own.  

Well that's all I've got for tonight.  Stay tuned for Week 2 Part 2 in the next couple days. <3 Ash

The ABCs of my Weekend in Chi-Town

After abstaining from traveling to Chicago for the first 21 1/2 years of my life, I ventured into the windy city for the THIRD time this year!  I'm basically a native Chicagoan now.

This is not what it looked like when I was there.  There was a lot
more dirty snow, slush, and fog.

Why was I in the big C you ask?  Well that brings me to the first letter of the alphabet.

A)  My sister, Courtney/Court/Ney/Ney-Haw, is spending the semester abroad in Madrid, Spain.  Her flight departed from O'Hare this afternoon so we had to go to Chicago so she could ride the Airplane.  

Little Ney herself.  

 Since it's no fun spending 8 hours in the car driving to Chicago and back just to drop the young'n off, the Ring family decided to turn the trip into a family getaway.  We left early Saturday morning, arriving in Chicago around 12pm (C-town time).  After checking into the hotel, we headed to the Magnificent Mile.  We went in a few stores...mostly just to keep warm, but overall it was a very unsuccessful shopping spree.  Meaning we bought nothing.  For one, I can't afford a $700 ugly jacket.  Two, there were about a zillion other people who decided to shop that day also.  Victoria's Secret looked like Black Friday, probably because they were having their semi-annual sale...which I swear happens once a month.  Also, I had no desire to wait in huge long lines to get naked and try clothes on and then wait in some more lines to check out.  So, the magnificent mile was more like the mmm-unsuccessful mile (I couldn't think of a synonym for unsuccessful that started with an m).

This is what it looked like. Not really. But kind of.

After shopping, we went to Second City to see a comedy show about Chicago.  Court and I were in the front row which made us really nervous, but luckily they didn't call us up on stage or throw things in our faces.  Even though we didn't get some of the jokes about Chicagoan things, it was still pretty funny.  After the show, we rushed back to the hotel to fancify ourselves so that we could go to another show!  This time it was a musical called "Ghost".  I liked it a lot and decided that I want to be a person who goes to plays.

The main actors.  The musical is based on a movie where these
characters are played by Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore

   On to the next letter....

B)  Gotta rewind a little for this one.  As we were driving along, prepared to take on Chi, I was keeping up with the rest of the world on facebook.  As I was scrolling through my newsfeed for the fiftieth time, I discovered a post by one of my cousins.  It was about the value of Beanie Babies these days.  After skimming through it, I exclaimed to my family, "WE'RE GONNA BE RICH!"  The article claimed that Beanie Babies, one of my favorite childhood toys, are valued at thousands of dollars today.  There were photos of ebay listings for multiple beanie babies.  However, the most valued of these treasures is the Princess Diana First Edition bear.  And it just so happens that I STILL HAVE ALL MY BEANIE BABIES INCLUDING THE PRINCESS DIANA ONE!!!!  See below for an example of what this beanie baby is going for:

Better make sure you all stay friends with me....just sayin'.

And last but not least...

C)  Before taking Ney Haw to the airport, we squeezed in a delicious meal at one of the most amazingly delicious restaurants on the planet: Cheesecake Factory.  We all ordered way too much food and after already having giant food babies, Courtney and I of course topped it off with yummy cheesecake!

Even though I'm still full from lunch, I'm drooling looking
at this picture.

  Finally, it was time to say our goodbyes...to the baby Ring and big Chi.  After making sure that Courtney got through security with her 100lbs of luggage, we blew her kisses and hit the road.  Until next time Chicago...

There and Back Again: A Bachelor's Tale

Somewhat embarrassingly, CART house follows The Bachelor/Bachelorette kind of intensely. Sometimes our friends watch with us and participate when we make brackets to bet on who is going to win. One of those friends is Amy. On the last season of The Bachelorette, there was a bachelor that Amy particularly liked. His name was Juan Pablo, and the reason that she liked him so much was because he is Latino and that's a thing that she's into. CRT also liked him, although Ashley didn't so much because for some reason his accent bothered her a lot. Sadly, Juan Pablo did not win Des's heart, but less sadly, he is now going to embark on a love journey of his own, as he is the bachelor (Bachelor?) this season! Because Amy is off adventuring in Latin America, CART is going to blog the show for her and keep her filled in.

(I don't know why I am explaining this. The odds that anyone who doesn't know all of this is reading this blog are slim to none, with an emphasis on the none.)

Without any further ado, let's get started!

On The Bacheor, it is considered a sign of success to receive a rose.

They started off with an episode called "The Countdown to Juan Pablo," which was code for "We just threw together some clips of shit because let's face it, you're kind of pathetic for watching this show in the first place and we know you'll watch this too." And they were right, I did! Ostensibly, the show was supposed to introduce you to the contestants and also tell you a little bit more about JP, but it mostly didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and I can't remember the names of any of the women who are going to be on the show. In the spirit of making this blog post meaningful, however, here are the things that I got from watching:

But then we knew that already.

1. Many of the women who applied to be on the show were crazy people.

2. Juan Pablo can pull off wearing pink shorts without appearing homosexual--props, bro.

3. Someone that Juan Pablo is related to (his sister?) and who Skyped into their family party is pregnant, and he's pretty pumped about it. Go her!

4. Juan Pablo really likes his daughter, Camila.

5. Juan Pablo doesn't really have a type--he has dated a variety of girls with different colors of hair and different professions, such as DJ, model, actress, and teacher. Which to me says I still have a chance, because I'm a teacher and I have hair.

Juan Pablo has 98% less boob, though.

6. Juan Pablo has been brushing up on his English, including his accent, and when he tries to say things without his accent he sounds like that Episode of Modern Family where Sophia Vergara tries not to have an accent. I like it.

7. Someone who was on the Bachelor before who was named Gia died in 2013. They had a segment about how people were sad and they remembered her. At first I wasn't sure how she died, but then at the end they had a suicide prevention hotline number, so it was probably that. It was a dark turn for the episode to take at the very end.




Anyway, that's about it. I will watch the premier tomorrow and will blog about that too. Hopefully there will be more exciting things that happen!