Starting It off With A Bang - ish

Sorry for the MIA status folks, lots happening this week. With Inauguration just around the corner, all my attention has been diverted to 1600 Penn updates. But a few fun updates, Angela and I have taken the 2009 Discovery Channel Health Challenge. 

We've been milking the free month of Bally's membership. I'm on Day 7 and kicking butt ya'll.

Don't want to jinx myself though. With a gazillion other New Years Resolutions I've made over the years (ie: washing off the night's mascara masterpiece before bed ha!) I actually want to keep this one! I've noticed if you tack an appointment at Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door spa for good behavior to the end, it becomes much easier to keep! I'll let you know in May how that works out.

I thought I would kick start the year off with a few other improvements, like cleaning out the ole closet and either donating the clothes I didn't wear any more or getting the busted ones hemmed to reenergize the wardrobe a little. I was off to a good start, but in the process I racked up $60 at the dry cleaners (the mending pile was a year old) and in the process of donating my clothes, I also donated my house keys. Woops! (Fear not I tracked them down last night!)

But the best Jen Richer update is the star appearance of Nick Murphree, one of my all time best friends since we were like 8. No, really we were instant best friends starting in 3rd grade. (I moved to a new school and he was one of the first new friends I made. I mean, who can resist the charms of a kid noticing that you and Jenny Craig share the same first name? I was serenaded in the hallways for years with her latest ad jingles, not in a taunting bully sort of way, totally endearing I swear. (Well, that’s how I remember it anyway.)

Well Nick has taken a long weekend and a long flight to elude his studies and hit up the DMV (well D and V mostly). First, stop, Caps game tonight. (He's a huge hockey wonk.)

Happy New Year!

It was a balmy 15 degrees with a wind chill of 2 but the ladies of chez copa teased their hair, lined their lips and donned their formal poofs (ski jackets) to ring in the new year at the Crystal City Sports Pub.

The highlight of the event, aside from the champagne disaster (EDITORS NOTE: Only orange juice and Chambord may be mixed with Champagne, flavored vodka is terrible.) was the 8th grade ritual: the dance circle, which inevitable becomes a showcase for your best lawn mover and shopping cart dance offs!

I Already Have A Slurring Date, Thanks!

Gonna have to pass on this this year.

Last year, the girls and I gave it the ole Chez Copa try to celebrate New Years, despite my early shift the following morning. Assuming the challenge, the girls busted into my bedroom, slamming a champagne flute into my hand, dragged my half awake, stumbling self in front of the television only to watch the infamous Dick Clark slurring special.

This year I have a more humane schedule and will gratefully pass on this American of watching the painful countdown with this once legendary announcer.

LOS ANGELES — Four years after a stroke, Dick Clark is relishing the prospect of another New Year's Eve celebration, determined to appear for his 36th year in Times Square. And he's hardly surprised by the current state of the music industry he helped build _ he predicted this, after all.

Clark, who turned 79 last month and has been in front of the cameras for 61 years, said in a recent interview by e-mail that his involvement in "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2009," diminished though it may be, is a labor of love and "not really a job."

"Obviously, I'm not able to be as actively involved as I used to be out on the street, up on a platform and interacting with the crowds in Times Square" in New York, Clark wrote. "Thank goodness my friend Ryan Seacrest is able to handle that end of the activity on the show these days.

ABC-TV's 3 1/2-hour live extravaganza will include performances by Natasha Bedingfield, Fall Out Boy, Jesse McCartney, Ne-Yo, Pussycat Dolls, Solange and Robin Thicke. Fergie hosts the Hollywood segments.

Clark woke up with right-side paralysis on Dec. 6, 2004 _ "Your life changes overnight," he said. (Regis Philbin filled in for Clark on the New Year's Eve show that year.) Clark still uses a walker or wheelchair, and speaking is difficult.

"I am one of the fortunate ones who survived and have been minimally impaired, so I'm just thankful I'm still able to enjoy this once-a-year treat of bringing in the New Year."

The "American Bandstand" icon and longtime producer of the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Golden Globes has long considered them "my television kids."

He's also watched their ratings plummet in recent years.