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The home office is dropping off the interns at Grandma’s house and hitting the road. We’ll have a special guest, Artie Lange’s audiobook, and some beef jerkey on this good old fashioned road trip to Cleveland.

Beyond the Rock and Roll HOF, Lebron James and that my friend now lives there, I know very little about Cleveland.

On the way we may detour to Pennsylvania Dutch country. H has not stopped talking about making pretzels, seeing beet farms and interacting with “real live Amish people”. *

I am personally looking forward to deep fried brussel sprouts.

*H spent many a summer family vacation in Lancaster, PA and keeps regaling me with tales from Dutch Country. I have a feeling the “good food” and “awesome fun” that she is getting giddy about might be a tad bit disappointing 25 years later.

We’ve come to realize that in addition to being a bully, our Puppy may also be a doggie bigot. It’s a bit embarrassing

if you look like this and you see a pretty red dog walking your way in Prospect Park, you should make a u-turn immediately!

Apparantly, our Puppy’s got serious beef with fluffy white dogs and LabraDoodles.

Live from bed:

Will: “I forgot to tell you… I hope it was dog poop, and not human poop, but…”

Hollie: “Wow, any sentence that begins with that is not going to end well”

Mixed feelings about Kick boxing tonight.

• INSTRUCTOR

PRO:  As I walked in I realized that the instructor was my crazy-in-shape Gym crush. I’m allowed to talk about him because I describe him as “Latino W”– he really does look a lot like W.  Height, bone structure, hair… but Hispanic and with a bit more… um… edge.  And tattoos. And his crooked nose is probably from boxing, not genetics. But as long as my gym crush isn’t the 6’3″ hunking black  Adonis that also trains there, W doesn’t seem to mind that I have a gym crush that resembles him.
CON:  intimidated by cute crazy in shape instructor!

NOT my gym crush

• MUSIC

CON: For the first 5 minute “warm up”, Latino W BLASTED hard core metal. To, uh, get us amped??  I just about ran out of the room
PRO:  Metal turned to COLDPLAY during our punching series.  Vida la Vida!

• JUMP ROPE

PRO: First time I’ve used a jump rope in who knows how long. FUN!…
CON:  Yeah, fun FOR THE FIRST 2 MINUTES.  Then it lost its luster and I felt like I had to puke.

• SENSE OF HUMOR

PRO: During my first one-on-one punching time with Latino W he called me “Champ”.  I believe he was being ironic.
CON:  When he called me over for my second series, I said something along the lines of, “Are you starting with me again, punk?”  To say I didn’t get a reaction would be an understatement. Instead he just yelled at me about how exposed I was leaving my ribcage.  He also applauded the 8 of us for our “seriousness” during class at the end. hmm.

• WORKOUT

CON: I felt like Shay on the Biggest Loser. I really thought I was going to pass out or throw up a couple times. And I really hurt myself kicking the heavy bag, but felt stupid so kept on going. And I can’t really do more than 5 squat thrusts in a row. And I definitely can’t walk my hands out and then do a push up and then walk my hands back and then do it again for 3 minutes.
PRO:  “Middle Eastern Belly Dance” was the next class, and when you walk out of the doors past girls in their belly dancing skirts after you’ve been through a class like that with Latino W, you can’t help but feel a bit smug.  AND I allowed myself to have cheese ravioli for dinner.

A champ has got to carb up, son. Get me my ravioli

“It’s OK buddy… it’s just a mini series!”

— W to Murphy, who got scared when W yelled at the TV while watching the original V

I need a haircut. I stopped commuting to an office 5 weeks ago and haven’t gotten a trim since then. H thinks it’s absurd that I travel from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side and pay more than $10.

H’s arguements:
– “There’s nothing to cut! What kind of skill do you need for that?”
– “Two blocks away you can go to an old school Brooklyn barber shop. Why travel on 3 subways for a haircut”*
– “You just go to your place because all of the people who work there are hot European women”
– “While we are both working at the Home Office, you are going to drop $40 on a haircut? How cost conscious is that?”
– “Josh has a guy in walking distance. He does a good job, has been in the neighborhood for 40 years, and only charges $7″

All fair points, however…I am a loyal customer. And while it is a bit embarrassing to walk into Amour de Hair (or admit to frequenting it), they do love hair! I somehow ended up going there while living on the UES and will not stray from my “stylist” Niki* (granted, there is limited styling that can be done to my head at this point).

I’ve never seen him, but this is how I imagine “Josh’s guy”. That is not what Niki looks like.

One of my friends is also a loyal patron but he prefers another one of the women there. We’ve debated who is better and he has even suggested that Niki was Elana’s apprentice. Ridiculous.

Despite H’s protests, I made the trip last night and was delighted by a new service at ADH. As the young pretty Croatian girl began to wash my hair she gently reached under my chair for a moment. To my surprise and delight, at no extra charge, a massage ensued.

they’ve installed brookstone massage chairs where you get rinsed. Bukur! (that’s “beautiful” in Albanian)

Josh has good recommendations on pizza, the best inter-borough driving routes to take and other helpful hints. However, he can keep his 75 year old Italian man, his free shot of sambuca and the $25 he saved on his trim. I’ll happily take my 45 minutes with attractive Eastern European women who have an unparalleled love for hair!

*The old school Brooklyn barber shop H references has only 2 choices – mushroom or fade. Sorry if I don’t want to look like Pete Rose or Kid N’ Play.

**W fun fact. Only 3 people have cut my hair.
1) My Mom
2) Jimmy (we have him to obliging my requests for the classic Long Island spiked hair and tail!)
3) Niki
(ok – there is a 4th; the woman in Argentina who could not speak one word of English. With my limited Spanish vocabulary, I think she thought I said “Make me look like Maradona”. I subsequently walked around Buenos Aires for a month with a mullet)

HOLLIE UPDATE Note that despite W’s $45 haircuts, I haven’t had as much as a pedicure since August, forget about haircuts.  Also, this topic seems very familiar, I feel like I’ve blogged about it before.  It’s ringing a bell… I think I wrote something on an old blog when “Amour de Hair” was featured on The Real Housewives of New York.  I also remember googling “hot european girl”.

One of my good friends, who is also a staunch Met fan, admitted something horrible to me last night. I think he felt guilty and was confessing his sin, but I wish he had gone to a priest, as I am horrified to hear that he actually attended the Yankee parade last week! There was some lame explanantion but I stopped listening and just proceeded to pound my pint of Brooklyn Winter Lager*

he probably shouted something disgusting like "hey Jeets!" or "hip hop Jorge!"

This rivals my other friend’s discpicable actions a few years ago. He also bleeds Mets royal blue and is my partner in misery with Mets season tickets. One night a few years ago, on the Upper East Side, we ran into Roger Clemens, who was one game away from winning his 300th game. As BP walked up to the cheater, I expected some clever anti-Yankee remark. Instead, I was appalled at the betrayel that fell before my ears…

Mets fan extraordinare exclaimed "Good Luck Rocket!"

The Yankees are pure evil. Period.

*Since when is the “seasonal beer” a winter Ale, the first week of November? This was more disturbing to me then when I ordered a Sam Seasonal on Labor Day and was poured an Oktoberfest.