December 11, 2011

I know, I know it's been forever. So lets get on it. Im sure ill forget about a million things but let's start:

I know it's almost Christmas, but let's start off when my parents came for labor day.

Had a really good time with them. My mom had never been and my dad hadn't been since the subway cost 10 cents back in the 70s. I think he stayed near Queens then. He was eager to go to the US open and my mom was eager to not do the 1 million things I had on the agenda. I think they did more this weekend then a normal month/year for them. Took them to all the touristy places, my works, seth's work etc. Got them a decent, new and clean hotel room close to my place. I could tell they had fun. My dad would crack random jokes or say things like you know what i love new york (in a dumb way referring to the shirt and famous slogan) and would mishear my mom and I responding saying things like what? calamari? and we'd be like what the heck you talking about. I dont think any of that makes sense, but point is /i enjoyed having them here, good family time and they enjoyed themselves too.
This is what we did:

day 1:
great, quick flight
cab ride-not fun (cabbie got lost)
welcome to little puerto rico, saw victorias apt
riding the subway (not moms favorite)
madison square park-asian head: 23rd street and madison avenue
visit victorias work in flatiron district, saw views
saw the empire state building from 26th street
flatiron building (next to madison square park)
union square-where seth works- union square wines, ate at the carnival stands-sausage 14th street, union square 4th or 5th avenue
starbucks
checked into sumner hotel on broadway in brooklyn
early night-exhausted

day 2:
mom and dad went to big church on Broadway in Brooklyn by hotel
grand central station 42nd street and park avenue
saw chrysler building 42nd street and lexington
st patricks cathedra and stayed for spanish service 51st street
rockafeller center
radio city music hall 50th and avenue of the americas 
pose with dora
posewith LOVE sign 54th and avenue of the americas
the carnival follows us-pinchitos
starbucks- you know mom had to get her coffee
central park 57th street
mom poses with statue of liberty lady 6th avenue from central park to times square-this was funny
times square 42nd street
us open in Queens, NY next to citi field (met-willets stations)-my dad said he always dreamed of going and finally that came true. We saw a couple of very exciting matches-watched Stosur play in heathed match-ended up winning US open womens
stayed at home, took it easy had papa johns pizza, wings, salad thanks to seth, sopita
sleep

day 3: 
we ate breakfast at their hotel
check out

Sept 9th
Emman made an impromptu visit. picked up and came into town. I had to work that Friday, so during lunch, we went to number 7 sub with a couple ppl from work and then had our subs at madison square park while watching part of the US open outside on a screen. Then that night, we went to the Brooklyn Brewery, where we ordered pizza and cashed in our chips for different beers. Pretty cool ambiance. Had a good time, got trashed. went to the brooklyn ping pong place and watched them play. Next morning, Emmanuel just wanted to explore. not have a real set plan, but to explore. I am only half comfortable with things like that. might seem good in theory, but then you end up in a hood somewhere twiddling your thumbs, or you could discover something really cool. I like to have somewhat of a plan and then go from there. no strict strict schedule, but enough to moreso guarantee success and a good time. thats why when ppl come you do half stuff you know is good bc youve been there and half new. So we went to a coffee shop he'd heard about and picked the greenpoint location, Cafe grumpy. Pretty good coffee. Emman really liked Greenpoint found out it was primarily a Polish town, which can still be seen today with all the "ski" last names on stores and such. Went to a restaurant, Lokal after, really cute, sat in the outside part and had a great brunch, yummy omelet with a bunch of stuff in it. We were both satisfied to have had succeeded so far in our adventure, picking good spots.  then we decided to go to Queens to go to the US open, but no go, walked around the Flushing meadows corona park, a huge and pretty park right by and saw the massive Unisphere, largest globe in the world, and remnants of an the ny state pavilion from back in the day, after this, we  went to Astoria bc I had heard they had good food. Might not have gone to the right part there were a bunch of old ppl and families, saw a couple poppin off rest. but long waits, after walking to the queensboro? bridge overlooking the water, we ended up eating good gyros at like a chainy type place, which was a little dissapointing. Emman liked brooklyn a lot more than where we were in queens.
that night we went to fat cats for shuffle board finally, we asked this girl to play with us bc we needed a 4th and her man thought i was hitting on her.. yeah ok ha. then they played ping pong there and played there for a while and i think thats about it. He left the next day after robertas pizza and cappucino.

Sept 11, 2011
10 yr anniversary. Seth and I had tickets to the primetime football game-Jets vs Cowboys. Good ass seats at that that he bought off Craigslist for cheap. Sound sketchy? Well there's a good reason for that. Because it was. Seth was so excited about the game, bought a Jersey and a hat all geared up and ready. Long story short, tickets were fake. Seth desperate to get in, bought first tickets available at the top of the world, I cried (stressed moreso than a deep luv for football) and the lady manager gave us awesome tickets at the price we paid for the top of the world seats. so one person destroys in humanity and another restores it immediately after. Soooo nice of her to do that. Seth ended up reporting the tix but police didnt give an ef. we then took the crappy top of the world tix and scalped -which was an interesting exp itself- for half off, ppl stuck withus to make sure real. then we tried to forget what just happenned and enjoyed the game in our great seats. didnt see mary j blige like advertised. half time show they had ppl with flashlights form in the shape of the twin towers and two spotlights shown from within the formations. cowboys fans were annoying and we saw lots of shit talking and fights. really gppd game and jets ended up winning-which was also cool since we were in ny on sept 11 and a ny team won. fun and exciting despite the beginning mess.

 9/16/11 It was like an intervention weekend, trying to cheer ppl up due to family issues that obv i wont go into here, but it was a stressful, put on a happy face, positive Patty weekend-dont get me wrong we also had fun, but it was a weekend with a purpose. Both bros came to visit and that friday, chris had never been. I was working and me and jason, taleb and this fun new guy Darnell, black gay southern man from missipy luv him went to the only chick fil a in nyc, at nyu. disguised as students despite jasons obvious"come on guys we have to get back to class" we succeeded at getting chick-fil-a! they dont have them up here at all its a southern thing. seth was visiting vb this weekend. dont think we did anything on friday except order Carmines pizza which was ok and chilled. Saturday, we took pics in front of lil puerto rico-my house, walked around the Brooklyn Flea, enjoyed the view of the city from there, took the ferry where emman had a blast seeing the 3 bridges like that and we ended up exploring governors island, which they really enjoyed. seeing all the old buildings, climbing the hills and overlooking think that reminded him of days in italy, seeing statue of liberty, hanging out at the beach part with the city view in the distance, listening to a band. everyone was feeling good/better. Then we got dropped off in brooklyn heights where we enjoyed the pretty houses, and then eventually made it back to manhattan where we went to the empire state building, which is always cool. We got home, ate chinese food from next door.
The next day, we went to Robertas, efin cardigans song and then i brought them to bus stop.

The next weekend 9/23-25, haha we're still in sept. ill be here all week
was it this week? seth and i went to the Little Italy italian fest, where a bunch of street vendors sell italian food, woulda probably been way cooler back in the day not so commercialized with premade foods (i feel like i already wrote this) but we had say it like jason nieves-sausage and peppers swaasij an peppas, calamari, mozz sticks, cannolis, etc. it was cool to go to, not amazing by any means but cool to go.

then the 25th, we went ZIPLINING over the Catskill mountains! such a cool thing to do and so out of my element, scared shitless, but know that u have to do things like this to be really living life. We got this livingsocial deal to go on the country's longest, largest, fastest and highest (600 ft up) zipline and one of the largest, etc. in the world. We took a bus with a bunch of ppl that had never done it before and after watching Almost famous on the bus, we were there, hunter mountain. got assigned to groups, enjoyed the scenery and then went on a ski lift up to a spot for short training and off we went. Seth picked for us to go first! probably bc he knows me. I said fuck it and did it. Soo much fun just gliding thru the air hanging by a string... and a harness, every now and again looking around at the scenery. seth and i would always zip at the same time and i got stuck a little ways out from the landing spot and had to get one of the cool guides to get me. we bonded with them and all the other scared ppl in our group. a girl even said I inspired her bc of my alright lets do this attitude. we could do freestyles on some (there were 5-6 zips) and adhere to a form on others. what an exhilarating/nerve racking/awesome experience! one of the coolest things ive done. seth and i have a video that he shot while going fast as hell.

Thursday, 9/29 was Matt Chans last day in NYC as he transferred to the DC office Him, Cassandra and I went and got Katz deli to the dismay of management since he had a hot req to work on.never had kat'z before. its famous and a delicious pastrami on rye sandwich.

9/30/11
DC and JMU weekend
Seth and I took a bus to DC to stay with Evan and Caitlin, and then to drive to JMU for Homecoming. We got there and Lisa who happenned to be home temporarily on break from war came over! We all made food, (I made my stuffed mushrooms which were a hit) and caught up. We went to eat our feast on the rooftop that consisted of steaks, the musrooms, bacon wrapped jalepenos, couscous, asparagus, and lots of yummy wine from Seth. Good food, good company. Then hung out with Lisa for a while longer and then she went home. Good to see her. needed that.

Next morning, we picked up a funny friend of Evans-believe his name was eric. if its not it will be rest of this entry. we were on our way to JMU! got there off I-81 and saw port republic-thats the best. I was trying to take it all in, townies awesome, natty light awesome. We drove to our tailgaiting spot-which is now the convocation center and no longer hillside or the baseball lot which is kinda lame, but the convocation center is where everyone was at, saw lauren caskey and talked to her-traded a budlight for yes a natty light and my red solo cup damn right, walked around drunkenly with caitlin, hungout with Tia who i hadnt seen in forever (vidals on the team), peed outside, tailgated with Evan's friends which was my home spot, ate sausage from the grill,saw some more ppl, chatted, walked around enjoying the drunken splendor of jmu purple out cornhole tossing, solo cup drinking tailgating. there is something truly magical about this place. i will always think so. wish my jmu girls would have been there. after fun taligating sesh, went to the game. sat in the new huge stadium in the new section that looks like a purple wing and can be seen from i-81. saw seths friend angela, sang the fight song, saw steamers fly, said J-M-U duuuukes after the cannon would fire. touchdown JMU.eventually got cold and left, we were way ahead i believe against the richmond spiders and we won. went on our way back to hotel (yup we dont know anyone who lives there anymore), got ready for the night, but first went to liberty gas sation by my old place where i would buy kegs, swung by my old apt real quick, then went to the hotel, played card games on an ironing board, ate at TASTE of THAI-yummy. efing love this place. We got our usual crispy beef, sesame shrimp and pad thai-which always reminds me of courtney and sara. yum-o. had it with great wines too. Delicious and good times. Then that night, went to downtown (which is apparently where all the kids party bc theres no highlawn, ceasers, luigis, or pub sadface) to Dave's, yes I ate more, saw some of Evans friends from tailgaiting, then sat at our own table and killed a bunch of pitchers. I was in the bathroom and a girl needed to get in, I opened the door only to see her spew puke while trying to hold it back with her hand-eww. I didnt totally hate the experience though as it reminded me of where I was. Seth was the only one that was hammered and we I wanted to go to a JMU house party, but we were kinda going along what others in the group wanted to do most of the time. That's probably my only complaint was that I didn't feel that I could really do everything I wanted bc I wasn't driving. I wanted to eat on campus like at dhall, walk through campus (we drove through it and around the apt complexes-ashby has a new name! like community fields or something lame and there are new complexes and food places), go to house party, etc. plus it wasnt the same bc i didnt have my girls there like Amie to reminisce with and party with there, but we will next time. I love JMU always will. gives me happy in love feelings as a matter of fact.

Oct 7, 2011
1 YEAR in NYC!!!
People at work joke me for anniversaries, but I think this is a big one-Seth and I made it! :) and had soo many amazing times so far! More to come!

That weekend, I went back home,and as the plane took off, I could see the Empire state building, crysler building, etc. and then i saw the complete outline of manhattan, clearly seeing the shape of the island-just like the one on the map-it was awesome and magical. and friday, was home (on the phone with Amie now, it's her 26th bday-damn we are getting up there!) and that night went out   with Chris, Alicia, Alex, Mikey to Shakas for Josie's friends event. It was good to hang with them, but rather an uneventful night, even walked down to watermans, but that was dead by the time we got there. Next day, went on a nice, long walk on the beach with ma and then I went to olive garden with Alicia and then shoe shopping got some boots and some flats. then i dont know what I did that night everyone was getting married this day, rather all my friends were at weddings like Kristen who was at April Altons wedding out of the clear blue sky-April and her man had only been together for a month before the wedding. yep a month haha.crazy girl. Next day, sunday, my girls and I went to Yama and then to the old Keagans and chilled there for a while and then Christian, and Kristen and I hungout at Kellys, then the next day, had lunch with my parents then (I know I did more this weekend) and then Christian and I got scratch off tickets and then got lost and I missed my plane... this sucked a lot and christian felt awful. my dad was pissed of course, and I ended up taking some crazy flight to Philli getting lost in teh airport having seth meet me at a guardia and eventually getting home after 1 am, then going to work the next day, no bueno.

Sometime this same week, Seth and I went to Room Service, recommendation from Sheila. a yummy and inexpensive Thai restaurant. (going to /bravo to get deli meats im starving-that break took 3 hrs watching broncos and the bears while eating tomato soup and grilled ham and cheese-didnt feel like making anything fancy. seth and I had some yummy fresh salmon and brocalli and mushroom casserole with gouda cheese. Back to the thai place. yeah cutesy and contemporary witha couple of hotel looking doors with numbers on them to go with the theme of room service. had yummy tuna tartar, calamari, and then seafood (which I hear is the most authentic) pad thai that was wrapped in a thing egg wrapper. Really good and great price.

Before I forget, April Hodges got engaged over the weekend. craziness, right? I'm gonna be in the wedding. yayuh. More on that when it gets closer.

That Friday, Oct 14, everyone from work went to happy hr. Jason, Jess, Sheila, Darnell and his man, cirri, gooding, Amy, Seth joined and it was a really good time getting with everyone and getting to know Darnell's man, Robert and such. At one pt an indian girl hit on Darnell and then later Darnell found out (they become ef book friends) that she was a man at one time.

On Oct. 15, I think Seth and I were pretty boring on this saturday although I luv that sometimes and spent all night watching Breaking bad which has been our show for a few months-good shit. Now we dont have anymore to watch, but Dexters back on and we also have watched some how to make it in america. The 16th, I didn't want to spend the whole day watching football at bars like we have been (btw we just found out that this whole time we coulda been watching football at home and we had at least 15 channels-ha. if i could pick channels we would have I'd pick: food network, CNN, discovery, travel, history -we do have jeopardy, hmm what else? anything with old sitcoms, family matters.) and so I said lets ride our bikes and go to a museum, so we rode our bikes down to near Park slope and went to the Brooklyn museum. African figures, real ancient mummies, some contemporary stuff, but the thing I was most excited about seeing was something I learned about in me and Jeanne's art class, Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" which is a triangular 36 person place settings of famous/courageous/admirable women. each leg of the triangle represents a different time period and each plate is an ornate vagina.. yep vagina. Then we rode our bikes to a little restaurant in Clinton Hill, next to a weave shop haha Hill Cafe. That night, Jeanne came over and she was hating life, we went to a bar with Seth and he watched the football game while we hungout outside. pretty cool little outside part.

Monday, 10/17/11
Seth made buffalo shrimp and brought home Austrian Reisling and took a picture and posted it on efbook a while back, and then Jaimies friend Amanda (goofy girl who we hungout with when Jaimie was in town) saw it, who works at an Austrian restaurant, Cafe Katja so we went there monday night. I asked what the common drink for  Austrians was and she said, spritzers or beer, I had a spritzer while listening to german being spoken at the bar. Had liverworst, and then sausage on some vegetable in cheese sauce. Then ended the night with Blueberry schnapps straight.m Dinner and the experience were good and fun.

Wed,  10/19
Me, Amy, Cassandra, Cirri and Grecco went a Moraccan restaurant, Cafe  after work (No, it was not food around the world week haha) Cafe Mogador very cute. The girls had an appetier with hummus, cous cous, babaganoush, etc and then I got the special the fish as my entree mmmm. We had a good time including creating one of those paper fortune tellers from when we was kids.

That weekend, Seth and I went to hey maybe this is when we went to Room Service...anyways we ended up at Chelsea piers and went to their nice bowling alley. We met Tim and his new girl there and their friend and i rekindled my hatred for bowling. i am soo terrible at that shit. i started off ok and then went to hell. i dont even think im that competitive, but i just dont wanna suck that bad.

I think the next day, Seth and I carved pumpkins-Seth carved the jets and I carved a haunted house. I didnt end up dressing up this yr despite a great idea for a costume. Seth and I were going to be conjoining tetris pieces or pac man, gave eth teh idea of gordons fisherman, but it snowed out of nowhere on halloween and hasnt snowed since, so I didnt do anything. The 28th, seth and I went to an all you can drink comedy skit show with Amy and her friend-definitely funny esp bc those things have a nact for being kinda lame and im awkwardly forcing myself to laugh but no it was good. Seth and I had seen the opening comedian before-a standup one.
The 30th, Seth and I met Tom and his gf-they're not together anymore at a Bill's bar, as they were doing very very well this season until recently and everytime they'd score the obnoxious bills song would come on. In other news, not to admit that im retarded but i never knew the bills were from ny. moving on haha.

Ok that's the end of Sept and Oct, maybe tomorrow I can do November/Dec so far! wishful thinking I know.













Cat died