The Summer Heat, Sports and Other Random Musings

About 2 weeks ago, summer finally arrived in NYC. I celebrated by incorporating a few of my favorite warm weather pieces into my work wardrobe rotation and taking an impromptu trip to the beach last Sunday (the beach trip was so I could wear my $5 floppy hat). Today, I feel like the dog days of summer have already arrived: It's 5:20 on a Friday morning, and I'm up, blogging and sipping limeade (seriously) because it's too hot and humid to be doing anything else. I'm sure I'll regret this in about 5 hours.

Anyway, since I'm up, I might as well make the most of it. First, a brief sports round up:

1. Brett Favre. I don't know what to say, man. First you retire. Then you un-retire. Then you retire. And now, you're un-retiring again? One thing's certain: You've proven yourself to be just as good at retiring as Jay-Z. The selfish part of me is excited; I'll certainly be watching more Vikings games this season than I would have otherwise. The un-selfish part of me wonders if this retirement business is bad for professional football. And for Favre.

2. Plaxico Burress. The Super Bowl winning-turned-gun wielding wide receiver pleaded guilty to gun charges yesterday, following last winter's unfortunate incident at a Manhattan nightclub. He'll spend the next two years in jail. What an amazing fall from grace. I'll never understand why Plaxico felt that he needed to stash a gun in his sweatpants to be safe.

In personal news, I've been encouraged to give sewing another go (follow my moderately successful mostly unsuccessful stint as a sewing student at FIT here). I've also started knitting again -- I've been "knitting" a scarf for the past 6 years now, but I really am motivated to make it happen this time. My new goal is to finish a scarf in time for my family's post-Christmas ski trip this year (totally doable).

I"m looking forward to a good weekend. I have tons of work to do, but that's not so bad. I'll be sure to make time for a few fun things, too. Plus, I've got a great Netflix DVD (Footballers' Wives, one of my all-time favorite British exports) coming.

Sports Roundup

1. Breaking: Michael Vick has a new job: He's just signed with the Philadelphia Eagles. Also,
2. Rick Pitino messed up. I mean, really messed up.
3. Pre-season polls have the Florida Gators on top of the college football rankings. That's what I like to see.
4. Speaking of being on top, Tiger Woods is back on top after the first day of the PGA Tournament.
5. Apparently, A-Rod's latest girlfriend (Kate Hudson) and Derek Jeter's girlfriend (Minka Kelly) don't get along. Oh my.

Gap's CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund Khaki Collection: Cute! And Cheap!

Yesterday, I ventured to my neighborhood Gap to see if I could score a few simple tees. To my surprise, I stumbled upon an unbelievably cute floppy hat, and an unbelievably cute dress, for under $5 and under $12 (respectively)!

My new ($12) dress is on the model standing second from the right in this picture:

image: Glamour.com

And my new ($5) floppy hat is on the model second from the left in this picture:

image: Glamour.com

College Football Is Coming!

There's only one thing keeping me from being totally dejected about the summer coming to an end ( by the way, as far as I'm concerned, summer in NYC never began this year). That one thing is, of course, college football! I'm totally stoked about the 2009 season -- it's been far too long since I last watched my beloved Gators take to the field. To make this year's season even more fun, I'm planning a few special features for my little blog -- stay tuned for those! In the meantime, you can prepare yourself by downloading the 10 songs that will get you excited for the upcoming college football season (one person's opinion) to your iPod.

I Love The Golden Girls

Thanks to WE's dutiful rotation of The Golden Girls reruns, I have been reminded of just how much I loved this (Emmy award-winning) show! It was All in the Family meets Maude meets the South Florida early bird special. And what I've now come to realize is that while The Golden Girls may have been a half-hour situation comedy, Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche and Rose tackled some pretty heavy issues -- homelessness, racism, euthanasia, HIV -- and that's just what I've seen over the past few weeks of reruns. I'm pretty sure I didn't realize how socially relevant this show was when I managed to catch bits of an episode just before my bed time (circa 1989).

So, let's see . . . at the moment, my favorite things include tending to my houseplants (they're still alive!), trying new recipes (my cooking has improved dramatically over the past few months) and watching The Golden Girls on WE. Am I a 27 year old golden girl? Gasp.

Olbermann and O'Reilly: A Truce?!?

As I've mentioned on several occasions, I like to keep Stilettos on the Gridiron a politics-free zone (for the most part). So I'll keep this short. And neutral...

As a semi-regular cable news viewer, I cannot believe that I didn't realize that Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly had reached a truce of sorts (courtesy of informal negotiations that followed a cordial conversation about the Olbermann/O'Reilly banter between network hotshots Jeff Immelt and Rupert Murdoch).

The NY Times is reporting that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O' Reilly stopped their years-long on-air feud in June, after executives at MSNBC and Fox decided that the war of words had become a lose-lose for both networks.

I really don't have anything more to say about this, other than that I am totally shocked I didn't even realize that the fighting had ended until I came across the NY Times piece. But now that I know, I think I'm going to miss it.