So I have to finish or start November and finish until now. I don't care how long it's taking me! I'm getting caught up!
I seem to remember specific occurances like -went to football games, but when it comes to things that are not defined within one specific calendar day i.e. brother is getting a divorce or best friend is lesbian and we just finished talking about MtF sex changes for fun. both statements true and may never be mentioned...
Apparently on Nov. 1 I got a personal trainer. haha she called me 3 times yesterdat bc i have been MIA from my expen$ive 80 bucks a month 50 bucks for a hlaf hour training sessions. But for a while there I was going at least 3 times a week with work husband Jason. Havent been in a month now, since I got sick in Dec and then went home and then didnt want to deal with the new years resolutions crowd, but now I have no excuse except that i work 12 hr days now that we're super busy at work. more changes were made with management and splitting the teams in 2, that our team is swamped, busy busy.
Going home for my bday, the 26th. It will be my golden bday. turning 26 on the 26th. Nutty. How old. Gotta pop out those kids in like 4 years or so.
So yeah the personal training has been cool and hard-hurts so good. i like the 30 min sessions more bc well... theyre 30 min not an hour of torture. if i havent already described lisa, shes nice, has thick covered dreads and I dread going lol. feels great after of course. still too expensive-got a little guilted into doing it. im in sales, but the sales pitch worked. I have 2 more sessions b4 the next guilt trip into brokedom.
November 4th weekend: April was in from Tennessee for work so friday, her seth and I went to all you can eat and drink sushi and had a good ole time. then went to Beauty Bar where we danced around in the back area. there, in the bathroom, a random chick went in with april and did a line of coke off her. In another should have been bathroom story, April got back to my apt and puked her brains (and seaweed) out into my non-disposal having kitchen sink. we were very drunksies.
Next day, we wanted to do brunch-it's NYers favorite meal and one I rarely do on purpose. We went to a cutesy spot, Penelope's and had yummy, yummy omelets and nutella french toast and oj served with a side of hope the 2 hr wait was worth it. Which it was bc we walked around the city to my work and seths work in the meantime. But yes, penelopes is popular and very cute. I have some other spots that seth and I need to try. I had the hankering for one of those omelets the other day and Seth and I made some bomb ones.
We dropped off her car at Laguardia, filling up on gas was an adventure in our race against the clock, one-Im never in cars in NY, 2-where the hell is the nearest gas station and luckily spotted one right away and 3 what button do you press to open the gas thing?? oh, you just pull it out. i see. ha. We bused it back and went to the gym. Stayed in that night and watched, Diary of a nymphomaniac, of course it was a foreign film.
Next day, april woke me up at the butt crack of dawn-yes 10 am-(hey i wake up early as balls to be at work even earlier now 8:15) to attend a bootcamp class at the gym. now i know better than to attend any class called bootcamp. She did burpees, while I went at my own pace on the elliptical. Later, we went to watch the bills and jets at Muhollands outside, which had the game on mute, but playing nelly and other oldish school. good combo.
Felt sick and missed the next day musta been the assorted twice fried wings and nacho cheese ranch and such coupled with the fact that the ppl behind me were smoking a potent blunt of maryJ in my face. ew. I took Veteran's day off bc emman was coming into town-this is his 2nd home-he's buying a house by the way near where courtney and christian and joey live. It was 11.11.11 the day I always said that I would get married bc it was my favorite number -11 that is not 111111 and Amie always said we wanted something big to happen. Anyways she wanted to come up so we could celebrate this historical and significant day together but to no avail. It was a little sad actually, i mean im not ready for marriage or babies but the thought that we made this date out to be so significant the least we could day is play and we didn't but we thought of each other all day. it will always be our day :) guess we have to pick different days to get married on-im honing in on one- never. ha. according to seths mom, it will be in 2 years and we'll start bearing children immediately following. dream on lady haha jk luv her.
So what did I do on the all important 11.11.11, what else? We went to Harlem.
Emman, Ade, seth and I went discovering. We started by seeing the outside of the Apollo where many like Chris Rock have performed and ended by seeing the outside of the cotton club, which was most disappointing and lacking dubbing anything anticlimactic as "cotton club" In between we saw some old churches from the outside, spent the majority of our energy climbing a hill to a gorgeous castle-looking school, walked around the school's campus-city university of NY?, walked by a couple other cool streets one sign said "walk your horses", saw a sign that said, "Hi, Everybody this is Big Al & I am inviting you to My Birthday Party Nov. 10th, 2011 from 10pm until 3:45am Lady's Lady's Lady's first 50 lady's in P.J.s I am Buying you a Drink" pretty fun time walking around. Ade carried himself with the confidence as if he owned the place. haha.
Earlier for lunch, we had Roberta's and for dinner we went to a great Chinese place named after a place in China-Shanghai Cafe in China town, recommended by a real-live Chinese person. Delicious and cheap, without great care towards service, but yummy dumplings above all. Then we got cannolis from the lesser commercialized Ferrara. Then we went to Robbie's house in Greenpoint where he was having a bit of a party and played card games with some of his friends. The funniest guy adorned a Movember moustache and played fuck the dealer with us. he kept being the dealer and he kept being fucked. we were like psychics with numbers that night-shoulda played the lottery. it was so funny seeing him all worked up and slamming cards and then saying ok ok one more round while emman laughed. then we went downstairs to wait for everyone to go to the woods and there was a stoner from the party talking about jamaicans and how his girlfriend was jamaican and how they dont eat shellfish... or pussy. who the hell knows, he was hilarious. We were at the woods for 15 minutes? b4 Ade got kicked out for bringing a tall can from home inside. Emman wanted to go anyways so worked out.went to ana marias then home.
Saturday, Emman Ade and I we went to Juniper cafe which everyone was very impressed with-the kind of silence while eating good altho im almost always like that seth and i not need make small talk during dining. I got the mussels even tho not in mood for them and they were delish. Emman got the rib sandwich and Ade got a burger. Very good and cheap. Great service.We dropped off Emman at bus stop then Ade went and explored and I went home. That night me seth ade went to a cool local old timey looking theatre, the Nitehawk, and watched a movie that haunted my dreams for days-one word. disturbing. okay two words. disturbing and vaginoplasty. i feel like ive written that word on here before. Again, another foreign film. Next day, went to Mohulland's again which was annoying bc we were playing the 49ers, ade is a 49ers fan and so appeared to be the majority of the ppl we were standing near... Seth and Ade went to a Jets game that night.
Next day, Monday Seth an I went to Carnegie Hall! The Carnegie Hall- best known for the residence of the bird lady from Home Alone. Said to be a hall with perfect acoustics. We saw American Born, Joshua Bell who did the entire soundtrack for the Red Violin and known as one of the world's best violinists. My favorite was a Chopin song he finished his concert with. We were supposed to party with him the other day, but didn't end up happening.
I can't think of what I did the weekend of the 18th, Seth and I brought wine to Sheilas? That coulda been another night. Pretty sure I was drunk at Sheila's and that's the last time I remember being drunk there. Either way, I went to the gym-I'll stop with that detail, just know I went and now I don't, but I will, and we went to TJ. Havent been in a while.
On 11/22 at 4 PM saw a hawk with Jen Ramos at MS Park, rode the bus-sat by a cool girl who I watched I think this one only brokedown for an hour or so, I went home Oct, Nov, Dec, and I'm going home Jan. Got there on Wed. and went for a walk with momma dukes, ate Chick no Pick, rode bikes with Emman around lagomar in the sunset skies, day felt as if we were not in Virginia Beach during and in the present day, but rather somewhere else. We threw Quebec out there and it seemed about right.
Then Sarah, Amie and her friend Julia came over and we got our 80's gear on for Water man's 80s night. We went to Christian's to pregame where him donnie and joey were with their friend and then the other girls came over with friends. Good outfits- guys ones picked out by Donald. everyone "we all look like the cast of saved by the bell-Joey. Hedy was newly broken up with Shane and brought some guy that she later wanted me to dance on. We took lots of pickies, pregamed, shots while wearing the Giants helmet, tequila, yes tequila is a verb te-kee-la meaning the act of having an amazing time prior to barfing. Courtney, you want a shot? Hell yeah! Then we all went out and had a blast! Danced our butts off, hedy looked down and I was doing the splits and she was like oh thats normal, its just vicky. Danced to MJ, Madonna, Prince, etc. with my boys and girls and just had an all out amazing time-most fun I had in a while. You should see the pics I have of Christian at any given moment.This will become a yearly thing. That night, I spent the night at Christians and Joey's-Joey disappeared to Lunasea that night. and Donnie, christian and I drunkenly went to 7-11. I was wearing Christians basketball shorts, my red pumps and the lady was like alright. i said i know i know. Christian asked for a taquito, she said, no you dont wanna eat those. noooope. theyve been rolling around under that light for hours and hours. Noo I want 2, he insisted and he got those along with an unneccesary amount of food like footlong subs and multiple pacs of mac and cheese, pizza, etc. hahaha so fun. Ive been chillen with Cristian a lot lately. He said something the other day that was less than polite in a funny way, and he goes oh we've seen each other too much, getting too comfortable. lol. luv it.
Turkey day. I slept. Ate turkey. Slept again. Food as usual was off the chain. We all have lots to be thankful for. All of us at that table have gotten closer this year. Seth's family did thanksgiving up there, which made me happy bc I wouldn't want him to spend it home alone. Weird not having the kids around this year, but that's another story touched upon in beginning of this entry. Black Friday, we didn't go all out like last year supermarket sweep style. Instead we just went to NEX, then took Chris and Rafa to Skinny Dip for froyo and toppings, then went to Yama with April and Hedy and had many a saki bomb and caught up and then Hedy rapped "Grillz" to me on our way to Yardhouse, a new beer spot in town center. Re-met Courts new man and Kellys boy, talked to Sarah and her sister for a bit, mingled and dipped to Hot Tuna with Amie, Julia and April. Danced, got pizza from brothers pizza then home.
Next day was me and Seth's 3 YEAR ANNI!
3 fricken years since he sneak attacked me.
Unfortunately, I was still in VA and so I went to Olive Garden with Kia, who I hadnt seen in a long time-always good seeing her. Then at some point, I had steak and lumpia. Can't remember what else I did Sunday bc get back home after the bus crapped out for a bit and then I watched 4 F trains, a foreigner hit on me when i had fuck you written on my face, and smelled a homeless man pee himself, before getting on my way home.
Then I got home to Seth's fam, hungout for a bit, but then had to pass the ef out. We went to the Union Square Market and walked around looking at the jewelry, etc. the booths had to offer. Then, we went to Peter's restaurant. Pleasant evening hanging out with them!
Moonie died on 11/29. He was only 2. They don't know what happened-maybe a heart attack. I was at work, saw my mom's profile pic of the cat, clicked on it and the caption no shit said, Rest in peace moonie, with the dates of life and death. I fucking lost it. I'm not a huge animal lover, never really been that close to pets. But I loved Moonie, would hold him like a baby and baby talk to him. Remember when Mom opened the patio door and was yelling for my dad, Manny... Manny! and Moonie came running which tickled ma. and I had just seen him a few days before. I held him like a baby while we all sat around the table talking about mom's pets. Lucy and Lola will be sad if they find out. "Weeta, What's moooonie doing?"
DECEMBER:
me to the owner of sem sem deli: do you have any tuna?
Yes, we do he says as he grabs the albacore from behind the counter.
why do you keep it there? i asked.
bc people steal, put it in they pockets, he responded
People steal tuna? I inquired.
This is brooklyn,baby- people steal everything.
Besides that, 12/2 went to Deweys upstairs and hung out with the wolfers for a good while, checked out Bata's pimp ass penthouse apt-no 25 yr old should have a place that pimp. Then later that night, went to Katz's deli with Sheila and T Gooding.
Next night Seth and I celebrated our 3 year! We went to Bistro Lamazou for a wine and opera event, where the emphasis was less on the wine, and more on the big, white plates with tiny portions of gorgeous and delicious food. And of course the opera singer, Amaya from the Basque area of Spain. Really fun and classy. How we roll, son. We had to be the youngest people in there. The performance was good and the 4 different dishes and wine were delish. Think that might have been my first time eating duck, and what a huge scallop. Afterwards, I made small talk with Amaya in Spanish for a little. Good times.
12/7, went to Carnegie hall again and watched the London Philharmonic, who did a lot of the music for Lord of the Rings I believe. Fancy Schmancy. Pretty good seats too.
That Friday, Seth and I went to Taleb's birthday which was a blast. We brought some to-kill-ya, and champagne (present), pregamed with Cassandra, Talbs and his roomate and friends, Bata, etc, then went out to Veranda, where Niko a club promoter that works with us got us Bottle Service and a hookah. Taleb was surprised I looked like a girl-I never look hawt at work. I don't go clubbin much so you know I had a good time. Dancing with Cassandra, Cassie and Tessa while drinking $600? bottles of Grey Goose and smoking hookah. Moved on to dancing on the couches with Aniqa (her bday soon). Super fun.
That super fun got me super sick. Ugh. What a bad week to get redonkulously sick.
I could hardly speak at work, but struggled through it. I tried to save my voice at night, but my Wed. hardly had any. Wed. went to Madison Square Garden with Jhart and Seth to see My morning jacket and band of horses. I was playing charades all night, so I guess it was good I didn't know many of the lyrics. This was my 3 yr anni for seth-great seats and fun times. Long show, very cool. still like fleet foxes better.
It's been a long day of writing. already 1 AM. I didn't go outside and I definitely didn't see any humans today. Crazy and yet awesome.
I had been looking forward to going to my company's holiday party (never had I heard so many "Happy Holidays" and so few "Merry Christmas'" until NYC) for a good while, bought a couple dresses and such, looking forward to the venue-The Standard, but no, no Holiday Party bc I woke up Friday with zero voice. I've never completely lost my voice-nutty. Anyways, this was the weekend Christian, Donnie and company were coming up and we had spent $160 on Broadway's Lion King and $175 on Giants tickets, so I needed to rest up.
I spent the evening watching Spanish soap operas instead, and probably getting daily doubles right on Jeopardy! I wasn't excited, I think Jeopardy! is always spelled like that.
Lion King! That one I meant:
I was miming to Christian who was 35 minutes late! bc he was taking a tour of the Giants stadium with everyone.
What a great show. Everyone raves about the costumes and they really are awesome-of course I loved the giraffe. Everything was really creative. Followed the movie, but also had original songs as well. Scar actually had a really large role in the broadway version of it and my favorites were timon and pumba. Christian was stoked to be there too and he liked the stampede scene, not Mufasa dying, but how they were able to bring the depth to the stage like that. I luv when I find myself questioning "how'd they do that" on a stage in theatre, and I think I can appreciate a tiny bit more from the theatre classes I took at JMU. I've always wanted to watch this show with Christian. It's our favorite Disney movie together (my first fave is Aladdin) and I always wanted to watch it with him more than anyone else. So good, and I snuck a photo at the end and we bought merchandise. Poster is right next to my Phantom poster. Maybe I should go see Wicked for my bday. I don't know what other show I should see.
The next day, Seth and I got our Giants gear on, face paint, temporary tattoos and went into Jersey to meet the crew. Christian, Cody, Donnie and his girl Jill and her sis and her man. All good ppls. Cody was tickled by the fact I couldn't speak "aww that sucks and you talk so much too, this must be hard." We pregamed for ever. That was the most fun part of the day. I broke my no drinking before 5 PM rule and my don't drink when you're sick rule. Christian's cool ass aunt, uncle and 2 girl cousins came out from Long Island and drank with us, eventually leading us to where their buses and a table full of food was. After partying a bit at our area, we partied there,although we'd lost the two couples. I blame some cinnamon drink for getting Christian hammered. So much fun, even if I was miming and playing charades. We made it back to our original tailgating spot and then wrapped it up and went into the game missing kickoff. These seats were amazing. End zone like 8 rows up or something crazy like that. I had been waiting to see a Giants game with Christian and Donnie since they got me into it in years ago- I'll never forget superbowl in 2008, 2007-2008 season in Richmond with them, Amie and even Joey. Amazing. So we were all finally there. 5 minutes into the game Christian gets kicked out for being drunk and rooting for the giants unlike all the other pompous assholes pretending to be fans that complained about him. Donnie and Seth went with him and eventually came back, while christian watched from a cell before getting picked up by his aunt-who has like season tickets and is somebody around there. I with hardly a voice pleaded with the guy for a warning, then when they left, I started crying, Cody held me lol. And I think the fact that that happened is why we lost and it wasn't like a oh that's a good game and we ended up losing. No, that shit against the redskins was garbage. Absolute garbage. I spent the majority of the game getting hot cocoa and putting marshmallow (why is that word spelled like that?) vodka in my cocoa and being angry, although it was cool to see Manning so damn close. Giants are in the finals though and play the almost undefeated Packers tomorrow, which they played a close game with them prior to the Redskins game...so we'll just have to go again. Went back to their hotel after finding Christian and watched the Jets lose too.
That Thursday, Dec. 22 or 23rd, I took the bus home, yes it broke down on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge for 2 hours and the whole time, I hung out with a guy from Belize that sat next to me. I took all that time to learn everything about Belize- the fauna, the flora, what each indigenous group is comprised of, you name it. Everyone was bitching. I expect this will happen every time and "that train's never late" even though the bus always is. Chris picked me up with his new "friend" o he's not gay, that I apparently grilled, although I think differently. At least he's more positive and happy than he's been in recent months since the separation. We'll see what comes of it all.
I saw almost everyone on my list and ended up working a lot from home. Closing two deals while I was there which was stressful yet good. Saw Lyn-z who I hadn't seen in over a year! On Christmas Eve, we went to Kelly's and had our annual breakfast and ornament exchange, catching up with them, Love hanging out with my girls sanz boys. Went shopping with mom which she enjoyed, Wrapped a million presents, maybe watched a Christmas Carol that night, then went to midnight mass- they recently changed the wording of some prayers and responses to be more literal, which was confusing. i.e. for all that's seen or unseen to all that's visible or invisible." That messed with me a little and as usual, mom pointed out that my homecoming king was at church with his family.
Christmas morning, mom and the kids made out on gifts. Mom, who recently got into cake decorating and baking got a kitchen aid mixer, chi straightener (I got one too along with TMNT tee, book on NY, estee lauder makeup, sweater, jacket, filtering water bottle from seths bro, necklace, bracelet with stones, etc.) and the best gift she got was an "engagement" ring from my dad. Very pretty-he even got down on one knee and everything playing around-disguising the ring in a watch box since she's always telling him to stop buying her watches. It was cute. I think Emman liked the non-conventional NY coasters I bought him for his apt or house he'll buy. The boys are spoiled I tell ya. $20 is like finding a penny on the ground tails up to them. They got pogo sticks and bikes though which they were excited about. Chris tricked little Chris saying that Rafa was the only one that got the bike. We had some bomb diggity food again, I gave Seth his gifts, and that night and then I went out to Courtney's that night to partay. Ok back, its Sunday and I'm giving myself 2 hrs to write.
So yeah Courtney's was a whole lotta fun. A lot of couples were there including sethypoo and me and I in my new TMNT tee were having a grand ol time. Flip cup brought me back, boys were shotgunning brewskies, listening to Christian d-j'd old school rnb z104 music, singing Az yet with moves on the floor, sitting on Amie's lap belting out "I swear" seeing Courtney have a chugging contest with Jeff her bro that just got back from Marine Boot camp, taking JMU kid pics, ending up the night on the ground singing to Kelly's confused brother Kyle, etc. Lots of fun and after party found myself puking out of a Wawa bound moving vehicle. Yum. I need that shit. The partyin with my gals and boys not the puking.
What else during break, again worked a lot but moving on, saw Peter Cerwinski a few times! Hadnt seen him in like a year. Went out to Mexican, where he raved about his new Mexican girlfriend-I know, I know another one. We drank some margs, had lunch and I had to get back to work. That night, him, Hadjiyasemi, Kristen, Hedy, Austin Lanteigne, Ashley Hardwick and eventually Christian all went out to Swell for some dranks. Peter informed me while we were listening to Keith Sweat in the car-yes all the way to the end, don't end that song until it's over, that said Mexican girlfriend broke up with him. I said ok, nothing Mexican tonight, no coronas, no chips and salsa, nothing. Walked in, asked what the specials were, Well we have dos equis for 2 bucks... done! I said. Sorry Peter, you understand. haha. yeah but random group. After that bar, Peter, Austin, and Ashley and I went to kellys chilled there for a bit. Saw sean stroud who i hadnt seen in a while. He was jolly, but not like santa.
Also, earlier that evening, I had gone to Seth's parents to do Christmas at their house. This is always fun. We had Seth's dad homemade pumpkin pie or as they like to say a little bit of pie with my whipped cream, red rooibos tea and exchanged gifts. Seth's mom and I both got each other the same stone-pink quartz and the gift that zach gave me is one that I use everyday-the filtering water bottle. Anyways we made rather merry and then Seth said we had to go get yama with his boys, so we went and I was so full for the first time in my life, I didn't eat at yama. Had a good time with Calamari, Sean and Ade and found out Ade was coming back home on the bus same night I was! After that, they dropped me off and I got outta one boys car and into another (peter's) felt like I shoulda been turning tricks haha.
Next day, I had dinner at Chili's with Steven. Hadnt seen him in a year or a little over. didn't know where to start the convo. Still the same ole Steven.
Same night, I met Amie, Kristen, Christian and Cody at Bdubs. Christian had been drinking all day, so that was fun. It was a really good time. We were taking stupid and hilarious pictures with condiments, and unrelated, reminiscing on middle school and going down memory lane. Pretty funny.
Next day, got Yama with Lyn-z and Thomas who I had not yet seen enough of, Sarah Leive, Sarah Meredith and Court. Christian was spossed to join us but he was too busy getting pulled over for ralphing out of his car at a red light. He came as we were leaving and him and I decided to do our usual, lottery playing-Debbie from Exxon "Is that it? That's all you won?" haha.
Met up with Catherine from the hotel at Starbucks and caught up. She's a real cool, down to earth funny gal.
Celebrated little Christopher's (I don't know why he's a Steelers fan) 11th bday at the house, and then me and Emmanuel packed up and left.
Met up with Ade at the stop, while I was glued to my phone for work and also decided to record some of the shit going on around me. The bus, always an adventure. We waited for an hour on the bus b4 they told us to switch to another bus. Poor ade had this Vietnam vet talking to him about hell knows what "oh you a fast talkin city skicker aint ya?" and something about all the Southern countries including Philadelphia. and then some teenage girl who was like, I'm from the hood, im gangsta and then started singing at one point, "yeah, uhuh Im a trick, skeet skeet" soo funny. Glad they were with me.
Got home, had some McKedee's and slept. Went back to Juniper yum, then walked along downtown brooklyn area, on the brooklyn bridge, world trade center area, 2 hours trying to find a cup of coffee, found one at Kaffe 1668 which reminded me of Smartwool brand bc of the sheep everywhere, liked the atmosphere, real dim lit quiet, although the view of the brightly lit Bank of America threw it off a bit. We met Seth at work and Ade and I wanted Indian food (I only had it once at a wedding) but we never got it. Instead, we went to I think Alphabet city area and went to a bar called Speakeasy. The gimmick was cool. The window on the door was cracked, you walked in and pressed a bell, and then an owner looking guy came and opened the door, and asked us to show him our fake ids. Inside however, there was no one there except a couple of older dudes in a room smoking cigars and playing poker. We stayed for a couple of drinks and left. As we left, a ton of people were coming in.Went to a place called Royale and grabbed some beers, onion rings-i hate onion rings, and split a burger which they're known for. Later, we went to a Spanish tapas bar which was cool. We got three kinds of jamon serrano (normal, iberico and pata negra) with bread, cheese, almonds, and olives and a pitcher of sangria. Fun! We ended up talking to the waiter who was from Alicante where Sonya is from. the owner was from DR and Haiti, I believe. Good spot seth found. Seth and Ade stayed out and Emman and I went home.
Next morning, we went to Bedford and went to the Meatball shop, which was very yummy. Ade was exhausted and didn't want to join me and emman on another 2 hr coffee shop hunt so he went home. Emman and I went to El Beit, I believe was the name of the coffee shop.
That night was NYE and unlike last year, where we had it all figured out. This yr we had no clue, yet at the same time, none of us really cared. Ended up meeting Jeanne and her friend Kristen and their friends on upper eat side 82nd? I dont know but that shit is far from me. A place called Gael Bar. 55 bucks open bar. Seth seemed to be in a grouchy mood right when he got off from work and then spent the rest of the night trying to get Ade laid. At some point, I thought he might have been saying something to Emman and I was like oh no no no, he does not need anyone's help in that dept esp. you lol. We drank brewskies, did the grapes and I was drunk by like 1. Me Emman and Jeanne got pizza and went home. Jeanne was convinced her year was going to suck, bc she had some guy trying to make out with her at 12 that she wasnt into, she dropped a grape on the ground, then threw it at me and her champagne spilled b4 she got to taste it. It was fun, but not as cool as last year. Next morning, we woke up and found out someone got killed by the borinquen projects by my house. Way to start off the year.
Next day, Me Emman and Jeanne went to Roberta's. The bee sting pizza was delish. I won't eat the Cheeses christ pizza strictly on principle.
Jeanne and I dropped off Emman and then after yrs on the Subway including a certain C train that sounded like we were running over zombies, we made it to the American Museum of Natural history where we learned about Black Holes, how much we weigh on the moon (29.8 lbs) and on a neutron star (3 trillion?), saw big dinosaurs and ended the day with an Easter Island statue (I will see them on Easter Island one day). Aid and Seth joined us at some pt during our time there. Jeanne went back to Jersey and btw-I've been rocking a fanny pack for a couple of weeks now. It's a nice one as far as fanny packs go. It's leather and from Seth's mom. I made Ade wear the purple one and we sent Calamari a pic on his bday saying that Ade just wanted to pack it in Kyle's fanny. We went to Prospect Park area in BK to meet a coworker of Seth's at 200 Fifth and watched the Giants win :).
Went back to work that Tuesday the 3rd and I dont think we've been doing much instead of watching Game of Thrones, HBO show. I don't know if I mentioned that a girl from JMU did a piece on me-a blog. Kinda cool.
Hmm been cooking a lot, but that's not really new. Went to happy hour with a lot of the coworkers where they saw me dance which is a rare sight here. What else. Went out the other night with Sheila and Bata for a needed shot of tequila ended up having 5 and ending the night by chugging condiments with Bata. Went to Exchange bar with Amy and Sheila one night. Last Friday the 13th, after leaving work at 9 pm, went to Cork Buzz with Seth as part of his Christmas present to me. I, again was in my ninja turtle tee, skinny jeans and vans and felt completely underdressed. Luckily, Seth knew the folks that worked there and he spoke about wines in his wine voice and I annoyed him with my sales voice and we had some yummy brussel sprouts, potatoes with duck crisp?, speck, and noodles with mushrooms, yum and of course wine.
Saturday, I worked and got more organized and wrote this all day which I enjoyed thoroughly.
Sunday, watched the GIANTS win against the almost undefeated Packers. They have one more game to go before the Superbowl. Watched it at Niall's on 52nd, again a far ish hike. We had the place to ourselves pretty much. It was Seth and 2 ppl he knew. Amy, her man and some of his friends and Jhart and then some old guys. Jhart was out of control, but entertaining. And yeah, we won and that was a damn good feeling.
Think that's about it! Going home for my golden bday. Going to Christian's to pregame then not sure from there. Not too excited about going back to work, especially bc my team is slammed, but at least it's a short week- (it's MLK) if not in hours at least in days.
Goodnight and God's speed whatever that means.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sunday, December 11, 2011
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
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
Monday, September 5, 2011
August 28th 2011
So we were suppossed to have some crazy hurricane today. The eye of the storm was supposed to hit NYC, the entire transit system shut down, everything closed, hundreds of thousands were evacuated and scheduled events were cancelled. Now, I'm used to hurricanes and was kinda looking forward to this one. Got everything prepared just in case bc the thought of a hurricane in NY scared me more bc of the amount of ppl living on top of each other.
Anyways, no hurricane in NY... guess i'll be bringin the canned chicken to lunch, and eating poke n beans for dinner next week.
Va had an earthquake the other day... NY felt it too. I didn't bc i was in an elevator on my way back from client meetings with Saks 5th avenue, Sony and lunch at blue smoke with Scholastic. I felt very business woman like in my power suit meeting NYC clients. Met with Polo Ralph Lauren in NJ a few weeks back too, which was pretty cool. I go with sales reps, so they do most of the talking, but I'm good with clients and it's nice to get out of the office although it takes time from the recruiting part..
Earthquake lasted about 20 seconds and did minimal damage, felt primarily in Richmond, DC. I wished i woulda felt it. During the hurricane in VB, there was a tornado in Sandbridge. What is this doomsday??
Anyways lets back track to ESPANA:
Our main reason for going is to visit abuela. She had a stroke 2 years ago when I was 23, and the entire family went back then. I didn't go last year. The last time I saw her completely herself was the summer of 21. Anyways, don't want to delve into this much, and talk about an underlying sadness/blue feeling so just know the point of us going is more for her than anything else, and if we had fun as well, well that was a plus. We hung out with the fam the whole time, making 2 days touristee days. I'll talk about the good stuff:
Number 1 good thing was... (which was another reason for going) meeting LUNA STELLE! This baby is amazing. I need to see her again before she gets much older. My sister, her fam and I got an apartment, one of Chris's friends lent us a car-huge car for Europe-Chrysler that looks like a bentley, Coach interior, rollin on 22s haha. apt was fine too minus the lack of AC, it was so hot there. We all met Lunita for the first time, even my mom (she's been in Spain taking care of my abuela). This baby: happy, happy baby, made everyone feel like they were special bc she would smile and laugh at everyone. Curly brown hair and blue blue eyes. Somehow, I knew that would be the combo. She's such a good baby too. Hardly cried or anything.
Day 1: Got to Spain, no problem
Jose and Alvaro and my mom got me, we had some convos in the car. Since I only speak spanish for 2 weeks every 2 years, I decided I didn't care if I didn't sound amazing at it, I was going to speak my mind and let my personality shine through. If I had to wait the while that it takes me to perfectly form a sentence and get the verbs exactly on and everything, I wouldn't be saying much. Too often, I have to change my personality up bc its easier to get the other one across than my own. Eva is super sweet and talks like a baby in Spanish. On the contrary, she's outspoken and can be a self proclaimed bitch in English lol. Super glad to hangout with Eva and the fam, get some good fam time in. anywho, done sounding naive and innocent (my mom said that's how i came off) no more nodding and smiling, time to be me. haha every year i succeed in this a bit, but did better this yr.
I met the lady Maria Angeles that takes care of abuela during the day, also met the one that took care of her at night, but she ended up quitting. Walked in, said hi, ate some Buchero, I joked aboit wanting a petit swee which made abuela laugh and tell me that tu eres muy grande, abuela told me, que pedaso de culo (big butt) Eva and them werent there yet, but Chari was also suppossed to come. Abuela said that Raul (chari's man) told stories de otro mundo, from another planet haha. I know he cheers her up. Took a nap, then Carmen, Poldito, Sonya came and then Chris Goodloe and fam pulled up in the fancy car and everyone made a big fuss about the baby. I think Lola and Lucy ran off to play with Javi and the kitties. Eva, the fam and I went to get our apartment not too far in Bonanza.
Came back to the campo, abuela was sleeping. Chari and Raul had gotten there. We sat outside and drank wine, ate quesito (cheese), Jamon (ham) talked about travels, etc. good convo.
Day 2:
Ma said "Rooouade" when criticing Chris on his driving. Lots of laughs on that. Lola had a few tantrums during the trip, one in which Chris "refreshing deer flesh" style, called one an "exotic tantrum". Eva and I had fun with that. We also said that we came all the way to Spain to hangout in Bonanza (bodunk lil town). We got breakfast in some lil place downstairs from the apt with momma dukes. Walked around bonanza, took some pics on a boat on a beach, church pics, went to the supermarket with eva/chris which is so much fun in spain, had paella at the campo and spoke about astrology which raul and chari are believers in, Poldito came and everyone had coffee (except me I still dont drink the stuff) and as we were sitting outside Raul broke one of the chairs and fell on his ass, abuela laughed. It was pretty good. We took forever at a Chino store, buying towels and by the time we got to the beach, abuela and mom were "desesperada". They left quickly and the rest of us took a walk. short day at the beach dont know if lola got her "sheshells"
Day 3:
Dragged outta bed . We went to the plaza area. Chris got lost and we had some ok breakfast. Found out Manolo died-Juli's husband, sad shit. We shopped at the hippies, bought dresses, glasses, went to the Euro store, saw a Prince William and Kate inspired wedding-they all had fancy little hats on. Went to a church, prayed, went back to the campo and had pasta and clams. Reminded abuela about how she went to visit us in VA and she learned "hi, hi" haha. Went home got dressed, spanish music was on the radio which is good for the soul (we were in an american car therefore had diff stations), went to the Plaza cabildo-i love the plaza cabildo took a million pics of it, will get a large canvas photo of it for my house, Lola, Lucy and I bought cucheria and bubbles, and had ice cream at Tonis, abuela was in good spirits, the night ended a little sadly, but im glad we were able to all get out.
Day 4:
Hectic, hectic morning with the landlord showing up asking for money, house a wreck, everyone all stressed. Went to the campo, chari exchanged presents with us. They left to go back to Madrid. Heard Camaron which made me happy. Chris cleaned up the farm a bit, I hung out with Luni, hungout with abuela, looked at old pics with ma and them. We left, went to expensive, not great mcdonalds- 27euros! thats like 42 bucks at mckedees. Came back to the apt, Joselito and Esmeralda came over and we caught up. Good to see them. Looked at pics, talked about NY, he had a test the next day.
Day 5:
We started off the day with churros! breakfast no jamon, but good chorizo and toast, OJ. went acesory shopping at the lil boutique, went to stradivarious, a thrift shop where the girls got flamenco dresses, went to the hippies, store to buy flamenco shoes. Then we went to Barbinos for tapas: we had chocos, camarones, pulpo, and cerditos. We went to the internet cafe, finally wrote Seth, went to Toni's icecream where I had an accordian solo, then to the supermarket and fishing store that chris found since he had suffered thru our shopping day. then off to abuela's house, hung out with Carmen and Sonya, took pics of Alvaro driving the fancy car, and then either Joselito and Esmeralda came to the apt or came to hang out in the farm.
Day 6:
We slept in, ate at the house, had icarly on in the background, spent the day at the beach in Rota with Alvaro, Joselito and Esmeralda and played uno.Good time at the beach. We treated everyone to Baskin Robbins-which is for them American ice cream, bought some souvineers. Then drove back home and went to pizza planet. Chris went fishing and Eva and I watched "hallpass". had a lot of good hangin out time with her
Day 7: Went to the Gitanos which is a must do with Eva and bought matching dresses among other things there, not too many accesories this year, bought a chicken asado and brought it to campo where abuela was more aspabilada, cousins were there hungout with Loli, Soraya, Leo. I dont think i saw soraya when i was there last time. Then went to the Paseo Maritimo with Abuela and Alvaro. It was a little stressy. When we got back, Chris picked her up and she had the biggest smile on her face.. She laughed and smiled so hard. everyone had fun with that. Then we drank beer, had some tapas with Jose, Carmen, Abuela, Edit, bonded on the old days with Carmen and Jose.
Day 8: (Thursday 30th)
(as im writing its now Sept 5 and my parents just left nyc)
We went to the beach with Alvaro. Me, Lola, luci and my mom played in the water and did ring around the rosie and there was some part about touching culitos? i dont know it was funny. We ate tapitas in the chiriguito at the beach like tomato soup, chocitos, that kinda thing. Had some posicles. later that day, we ran into Frankie, which was random and then we got on a touristee bike. ive always seen them in virginia beach and now I finally got to do it. I feared for my life when lola was drinving, but it was fun. i drove too. We got those good fresh potato chips from the stand that luci and i like and then lola threw a tantrum so we went home.
Day 9: July 1
This was more of a touristee day. We went to CADIZ-the main city part of where we live. We walked around and admired the beautiful Cathedral including the basement area which I really enjoyed- i luv cathedrals. Ate a yummy lunch of motaditos. got lost thank god i had the track phone with me. went to the Torre Tavira where all but mom climbed up swirly stairs into a dark room where a concave projection screen we were all looking down on showed a 360 degree view of the city-kinda nuts. the guide spoke english while explaining the history of what we were looking at. we climbed further up to the roof and then were able to see the view of the city that was shown to us before. It was hard to pick the topthings we wanted to do. We asked a couple of people. Went and got coffee. It was really hot. We saw another castle/church from the outside and then went to the Plaza de Espana where there was a monument commemorating the signing of the Spanish constitution. Definitely a full day. i know Chris appreciated doing something touristee where he could use his fancy camera. We went home, Joselito and Esmeralda picked me up that night -Fri- and we drove to a spot and got a beer at a bar, sat outside-chatted about everything then went inside to a bar where there was live flamenco. jammed to that for a while, got another beer then after walked on the boardwalk where ppl who were out were hanging. Fun. the past years i spent every day with them, this year less, but I luv it. Esperanzi arrived from Malaga this night.
If I forget to mention it, one day we went and hand-picked the pasteles from the bakery-not like a quaint bakery but a steel pan, ppl quickly and precisely spreading pastry toppings they were being made at (pastries) brought them back to the campo for everyone to have with coffee.
Day 10:
Talked with Seth for a bit on phone, slept in didnt go to breakfast. Eva went to Rota. I went to the campo. I walked around, took pictures of really seemingly trivial things that were so important to my memories of the campo like broken pink tile from the original steps of the front of the house, or broken blue tile from the bathroom or the laundry room with the painted over green palm tree that my sister painted when we were younger and wanted to make the farm prettier. Little things like that. or somewhat bigger things like the cactuses, el pino, the path to en ca de carmen, the non paved road to abuelas. . Just walked around the land and inside the house-those blue curtains or that picture of my uncle from his first communion whose eyes always seemed to be following us or the parrot sofa bed that was evas bed in our flat in spain. the picture where abuela was in front of our house in virginia where chris is in the background running outta the dorr late for his job at mcdonalds, the cast iron sewing machine, Esperanzi's cabbage patch doll, so, so many things. I could write a book on that stuff alone. Anyways, it was my day to reflect, write a little, have the sun shine on my face and appreciate.
We got ready and took Abuela out, we had tapitas- fun and then Toni's ice cream-everyones fave. She was being funny and did some funny tongue thing that made us all laugh. she told me "como tu, no hay otra" and I think the night was a success. She had a fun time. I lost the bunch while buying souvineers and had no way to reach them. I had a guitar i bought for lucy bday around my neck and waited on the corner. I looked half retarded with the damn baby guitar and ppl were looking at me expectin to play lol. Then I went out with Joselito and Esmeralda. We went to the boardwalk, saw Soraya and chatted with her for a bit, then met back up with her at the chiringuito on the beach and drank and danced with them. as always a good time. got home late and had to be up a few hours later for a full day hanging out with Cristina and her man in SEVILLA.
Day 11:
This was probably the most fun day. beat the pants off of Cadiz, it reminded me of Paris, soo many worthwhile things to see. Just me and the Goodloes. Lucy puked on the way there, we passed a town called the cabezas de san juan and we saw a man dressed in a baby outfit diapers and all way too early in the morning, We finally got there and we went and fed doves in the plaza de america. Lola was sad bc she hadnt gotten any to fly to her. Chris looked like the pigeon lady on home alone and they scratched the mess outta me while landing on my shoulders. pretty cool experience. lucy got a few no problem. Then off to the plaza de espana (we saw other countries plazas that they built for the Expo) and it was frickin huge and gorgeous. The building on the plaza was some castle from star wars- the haboo monumental brick building. Has historical events from each province. Cristinas man antonia gave us a history lesson, in fact they both looked up facts and figures studied if you will before giving us a tour, they were very very hospitable. Bought some spanish fans from an old man flattering me. Rode on the outside metro to see the famous Cathedral, we mostly saw it from the outside and saw a subsect of the cathedral where the 2 lovebirds were getting married. They treated us to lunch, passed by the plaza de toros where Chris has a funny video of me pretending to be a bull, got some yummy icecream, saw the famous tower of the cathedral-so cool, then went to the Islamic Real Alcazara-huge. where the king and queen of spain come when they visit-absolutely beautiful, room after endless room of ornate and meticulously crafted islamic decor and architecture. A pond for his mistress that looked like it wuld be straight outta thailand, a gorgeous graden with waterfall, so pretty. Then topped off the perfect day with a horseback ride for me and the goodloes through the city back to the plaza de america where we started. By the time we got on the horse the jaded Lol was already asking about the pigeons again. these kids are jaded, I was estatic. riding in the front and all. We got back to the plaza and ...Lola got a dove!
Thanked them and said our goodbyes.We went back to the campo to hangout with ma, abuela and Esperanzi and I made her laugh by imitating her snoring which i totally forgot about until something triggered it. Then while watching crazy spanish tv, there was a feauture on Miami and all these huge-like triple z women were in bikinis and dancing and talking. we all had a lot of fun with that.
Day 12: had to go back to the real world the following day. This day, 4th of July, we decided to celebrate Lucy's bday. Im glad too because I wanted a way to get the whole family to hangout. Esperanzi (I think it was this day) gave Eva and I very thoughtful presents. A journal that smelled like sobre cartas and a poetry book in spanish. Not sure what else we did this day, but we got the party together and entertained. Poldito commented my spanish was good. Lucy liked the guitar the best. One of the best parts of the day was when we all took family pictures and abuela was cracking short jokes cracking everyone up like how chris was so slow that "le calle los juevos" and things like that. It was a good ending night and I said my byes, most emotional one with abuela. I was trying to make her laugh during it though.
Then the next morning, i flew back 22 straight hours of travel-dont know why the hell I booked London? then got home at 9 pm exhausted, Seths mom and bro were there and I chilled with them and went to bed, then work the next morning.
Come to find my boss that had been there for 4 years had gotten fired... which sucked for me bc i liked her and she liked me a whole lot. definitely took me a while to get back in the swing of things.
Weekend July 8 and 9th
Not sure what I did that Friday. Saturday went to teh meatpacking district to watch Jeanne's band open for the Bouncing Souls. im not a big fan of them but wanted to see her and show support for her band. She went nuts and was stage diving, seth and i left to get pizza and beer and saw the ritzyish kinda area that we're never around in. weirdest part of the night was when we were hanging out with the only other person that Jeanne invited. After a series of questions found out he was our fuckin next door neighbor! we only have 4 apts in my complex and hes in the one right across from me on my floor (only 2 per floor) what are the odds??
The next day, the 10th, Sunday we went to the beach. Jones Beach. took us forever to get there 1.5 hours on public transportation. We met Seth's coworker a 35 yr old hippie that gt his kicks from tying a dollar bill to a fishing rod, tugging on it and seeing what madness ensued. Nice guy. His gf was in a thong which was surprising and crzy but a pretty fun time at the beach no less.Nice beach.
The following weekend Amie came! this was how i looked back on it: i look like hamlet in your profile pic lol miss ya already. im glad we didnt have a completely touristy time in nyc. it was like bringin JMU to nyc. randomness, getting lost, loopiness, dancing, drunken bliss, hangover hell, laughing about everything and nothing, eating terribly but amazingly, roaming around clueless, crazy ruckuss, drama, going with the flow, jasmine, kelly, Room mating, doggin on crazy ppl, hatin on skinny dumb bitches, reminding ourselves that we are soulmates ETC. good times.
We: Went to Roberta's pizza with Kelly and her school teacher friend from home, went to the Moma for the first time on the free night and took funny pics "little girl" and paintings that we questioned if they were really art, impressionist paintings with kelly remind me of paris, favorite was seeing "the persistence of memory" by Dali. St patrick's cathedral went inside, Mr softee icescream, pregamed with red solo cups but fancier vodka than burnetts haha and went to the Woods bar, met drunk seth and robbie there danced and drank, got pizza at ana marias.
Next morning, went to the Brooklyn flea and got fried chicken biscuits and lemonade, then the ferry ride to see the 3 bridges-sadly found out jasmine decided to move back to VA to teach dance, accidently ended up on Governors island, met Jasmine at the flatiron building, saw my work, ate at rickshaws dumplings, said bye bye Jasmine ... went out to Libation club, drank way too much danced met heather miley but only hungout a while longer, cab drove us to wrong moore street, puked my ass off, next day hungover city, to Jones beach hungover as hell for the bumpy 1.5 ride 19 stops on J. 4 on long island railroad and a bus ride on a highway, puked on the bus in a bag... the gay brunos in front of me were disgusted. I carried my baggie, died a little more and recovered with a strawberry popsicle, met tim who again coincidently ended up working the floor below me, crazy. seth and i didnt have a great night that night and instead of having to call amie, she was already there lol. It was very much a vicky amie weekend which i luved and needed.
I am going to make pulpo linao. bbs
Well hopefully that turns out edible. never made it b4
July 18th and 20th went to some mets games. 1st one against Marlins went with Sheila, her lil sis-her sister's friends who are from florida and robbie, tim and seth. it was alright, pretty uneventful, good to see sheilas lil sis again. think mets lost.
The 2nd one was more fun against the cardinals with more work ppl, matt l and his fiancee, amy, shar a, taleb, jesshart, tomo, peter and seth. A guy ran into the field (i didnt know what was going on-thought it was part of the show) and dodged the officials. Also, pretty sure we got a home run towards the end and i got to see the apple pop up. and we won.
July 22nd, went to Stout with some work folks and chilled in the downstairs area, then went back to sheilas with the toms, grecco and drank. then seth came over and we played some easy fun drinking games with the too fuckd up to think folks. pretty fun night.
July 23rd, went to Harry Potter 3D, the last one at the theater, pretty good, funny ending. Got some baller vietnamese sandwhiches and ended up getting max brenners chocolate by the bald man, fondue (couple days later i bought a set)
Juy 24th-Early that morning, Jenn R and her man -nice, quiet guy with tats came over and we drank sangria while playing cornhole that they had never played before. cracked my phone when i put the phone in my bikini top going down the fire escape. Then we met Kristen and Drew who were in town and we all went to Ippudo which they enjoyed then came back to our place and drank a little more. fun couple day.
July 26th, sheila and I had a random KFC night. I dont even know what that means entirely haha.
July 29th: Atlantic City! I'd never been and Sheila brought it up to me before that Gillians man had a free room (ended up being a nice sized suite) and that we should go. Seth, me, Sheila, gillian and her man and aaron (bata) took a bus up there. And i was sober all night unfortunately since no one thought to bring a bottle. Got up to the big suite, got ready and just gambled downstairs of Harrah's all night. Sheila was beastin blackjack, i played safely and i think was down 80 bucks? for the night. Bata was throwin money around and losing it all. gillian lost 200 bucks instantly and stopped playing. We never did see the backstreet boys lol that were supposed to be there. played roulette and ive decided i hate slot machines-you know those levers arent even real? u push a button instead. im coughing now just thinking of the smoke I inhaled with them all smoking. Fun night just walking around gamblin. Slept for a few hours then got back on the bus. Seth went directly to work... dont know how he did that.
In the month of August, I started working out like in gyms and not just gilad. I bought a scale-the one from bed bath and beyond that told me I was the lightest. i did hot yoga on August 2nd with jess, amy alexa and cassandra from work and while the tiny ones looked refreshed the rest of us looked like we were going to die. they all laughed at my facial expressions, but think 90 minutes in a sauna working out when you havent in a while. man. but the next day, i felt like a rockstar. that week, Jason and christian (who has since quit-as a matter of fact a lot of ppl quit) went to Spin which again was a first for me. our ghetto instructor nikki was so cool "if you need it want it gotta have it, turn it up" good music too. "dont blame me blame your friend for bringin ya" went to yoga the next week and spin, yoga the following week and went to NYC sportsclub to do cardio and weights that i got a trial membership to, the next week worked out once and the same for the following (spin-very gay man teaching, bobbing his head to lady gagas born this way' and such) Besides working out, ive been Not eating right, went to Deweys on August 3rd for drinks with the coworkers found ourselves segregated in corners Brown corner, jewish corner, italian corner and gillian haha.
August 5th, i think seth and I rode our bikes around to bars, on August 6th sheila and i went shopping then to olive garden, then Seth and met tim and some folks at a german beer garden which had a pretty cool atmosphere. August 7th, seth and I went to a cold soup contest in williamsburg which was interesting. our fave was the one with bacon of course, then had a nice meal at the crib with wine. We do that a lot.
That Friday August 12th Kelly was in town (i know she comes a lot which is nice) and her, her bro and seth went to a Yankees fame, got some close up seats this time for sure. Foul ball came somewhat close to us. that night seth and i went to a the broadway comedy show-has nothing to do with broadway, pretty funny stuff altho one guy in the audience was being annoying, sat with some fun, loud latinos from jersey that made it more funny.
Saturday, Ashby 1150D came into tow, Jeanne and her roomates used to live there in Harrisonburg, so thats what i called them. hadnt seen them in a good while-randomly saw stacey at galax actually last yr. Went walked around like 15 ppl deep, felt like a freshman at jmu searching for a party, ended up at chinatown in some random kareoke room to ourselves-most fun singing bohemian rhapsody, toms and grecco joined too.
Aug 14th went to an "all you can eat and drink" seafood thing with Chris Choi, but it rained and the lines were beyond redic. i have a sense of what would happen if we ran into a scarcity of resources in ny-not pretty. we made friends with the ppl ahead of us and event. got food. it was not bad besides the redic wait.
August 18th out from work sick thanks to the roomies ahem ahem
August 19th had drank a little at work, (Don moved to UK) then continued at Life Cafe with seth yum chicken wings and mac and cheese
August 20th, got into words with friends, met tom c out with seth and chilled with him for a bit with some work folks from the SF office. Seth and i got pom frittes, then we did something adorbs-camped out on our roof. i miss camping and thats the closest we were gonna get.
August 21st sunday, moms bday-NY was her bday gift, went to Junipers for wings and mac and cheese again haha then Jets preseason game against the bengals. it was raining its butt off we were soaked throughout the game. cool besides that. saw plexico in action. We even got to go rediculously close for the last few minutes of the game since no one was really there.
I talked about my meetings on the 23rd and how we had that random earthquake. that night we did trivia at brooklyn winery with taleb, amy, robbie, then liz joined later. we got 3rd place.
August 25th, went to the long island wineries for "forced fun" day with work ppl. It was fun, but i think it would have been more fun to go somewhere where they could be their normal drunken selves. Had a pretty good time though going to the different wineries, learning, teaching, not being at work, seeing green grass. that night i stocked up on supplies for the hurricane. the 26th, sheila and i went to tj then to Rogue where i think we should change our work spot to bc its cooler than deweys and drank a lot, caught up. then we met seth and joseph and played pool.
I think im thru! if i rem anything else ill let you know. next entry will talk about what me and the folks did on their trip to the big city!
Anyways, no hurricane in NY... guess i'll be bringin the canned chicken to lunch, and eating poke n beans for dinner next week.
Va had an earthquake the other day... NY felt it too. I didn't bc i was in an elevator on my way back from client meetings with Saks 5th avenue, Sony and lunch at blue smoke with Scholastic. I felt very business woman like in my power suit meeting NYC clients. Met with Polo Ralph Lauren in NJ a few weeks back too, which was pretty cool. I go with sales reps, so they do most of the talking, but I'm good with clients and it's nice to get out of the office although it takes time from the recruiting part..
Earthquake lasted about 20 seconds and did minimal damage, felt primarily in Richmond, DC. I wished i woulda felt it. During the hurricane in VB, there was a tornado in Sandbridge. What is this doomsday??
Anyways lets back track to ESPANA:
Our main reason for going is to visit abuela. She had a stroke 2 years ago when I was 23, and the entire family went back then. I didn't go last year. The last time I saw her completely herself was the summer of 21. Anyways, don't want to delve into this much, and talk about an underlying sadness/blue feeling so just know the point of us going is more for her than anything else, and if we had fun as well, well that was a plus. We hung out with the fam the whole time, making 2 days touristee days. I'll talk about the good stuff:
Number 1 good thing was... (which was another reason for going) meeting LUNA STELLE! This baby is amazing. I need to see her again before she gets much older. My sister, her fam and I got an apartment, one of Chris's friends lent us a car-huge car for Europe-Chrysler that looks like a bentley, Coach interior, rollin on 22s haha. apt was fine too minus the lack of AC, it was so hot there. We all met Lunita for the first time, even my mom (she's been in Spain taking care of my abuela). This baby: happy, happy baby, made everyone feel like they were special bc she would smile and laugh at everyone. Curly brown hair and blue blue eyes. Somehow, I knew that would be the combo. She's such a good baby too. Hardly cried or anything.
Day 1: Got to Spain, no problem
Jose and Alvaro and my mom got me, we had some convos in the car. Since I only speak spanish for 2 weeks every 2 years, I decided I didn't care if I didn't sound amazing at it, I was going to speak my mind and let my personality shine through. If I had to wait the while that it takes me to perfectly form a sentence and get the verbs exactly on and everything, I wouldn't be saying much. Too often, I have to change my personality up bc its easier to get the other one across than my own. Eva is super sweet and talks like a baby in Spanish. On the contrary, she's outspoken and can be a self proclaimed bitch in English lol. Super glad to hangout with Eva and the fam, get some good fam time in. anywho, done sounding naive and innocent (my mom said that's how i came off) no more nodding and smiling, time to be me. haha every year i succeed in this a bit, but did better this yr.
I met the lady Maria Angeles that takes care of abuela during the day, also met the one that took care of her at night, but she ended up quitting. Walked in, said hi, ate some Buchero, I joked aboit wanting a petit swee which made abuela laugh and tell me that tu eres muy grande, abuela told me, que pedaso de culo (big butt) Eva and them werent there yet, but Chari was also suppossed to come. Abuela said that Raul (chari's man) told stories de otro mundo, from another planet haha. I know he cheers her up. Took a nap, then Carmen, Poldito, Sonya came and then Chris Goodloe and fam pulled up in the fancy car and everyone made a big fuss about the baby. I think Lola and Lucy ran off to play with Javi and the kitties. Eva, the fam and I went to get our apartment not too far in Bonanza.
Came back to the campo, abuela was sleeping. Chari and Raul had gotten there. We sat outside and drank wine, ate quesito (cheese), Jamon (ham) talked about travels, etc. good convo.
Day 2:
Ma said "Rooouade" when criticing Chris on his driving. Lots of laughs on that. Lola had a few tantrums during the trip, one in which Chris "refreshing deer flesh" style, called one an "exotic tantrum". Eva and I had fun with that. We also said that we came all the way to Spain to hangout in Bonanza (bodunk lil town). We got breakfast in some lil place downstairs from the apt with momma dukes. Walked around bonanza, took some pics on a boat on a beach, church pics, went to the supermarket with eva/chris which is so much fun in spain, had paella at the campo and spoke about astrology which raul and chari are believers in, Poldito came and everyone had coffee (except me I still dont drink the stuff) and as we were sitting outside Raul broke one of the chairs and fell on his ass, abuela laughed. It was pretty good. We took forever at a Chino store, buying towels and by the time we got to the beach, abuela and mom were "desesperada". They left quickly and the rest of us took a walk. short day at the beach dont know if lola got her "sheshells"
Day 3:
Dragged outta bed . We went to the plaza area. Chris got lost and we had some ok breakfast. Found out Manolo died-Juli's husband, sad shit. We shopped at the hippies, bought dresses, glasses, went to the Euro store, saw a Prince William and Kate inspired wedding-they all had fancy little hats on. Went to a church, prayed, went back to the campo and had pasta and clams. Reminded abuela about how she went to visit us in VA and she learned "hi, hi" haha. Went home got dressed, spanish music was on the radio which is good for the soul (we were in an american car therefore had diff stations), went to the Plaza cabildo-i love the plaza cabildo took a million pics of it, will get a large canvas photo of it for my house, Lola, Lucy and I bought cucheria and bubbles, and had ice cream at Tonis, abuela was in good spirits, the night ended a little sadly, but im glad we were able to all get out.
Day 4:
Hectic, hectic morning with the landlord showing up asking for money, house a wreck, everyone all stressed. Went to the campo, chari exchanged presents with us. They left to go back to Madrid. Heard Camaron which made me happy. Chris cleaned up the farm a bit, I hung out with Luni, hungout with abuela, looked at old pics with ma and them. We left, went to expensive, not great mcdonalds- 27euros! thats like 42 bucks at mckedees. Came back to the apt, Joselito and Esmeralda came over and we caught up. Good to see them. Looked at pics, talked about NY, he had a test the next day.
Day 5:
We started off the day with churros! breakfast no jamon, but good chorizo and toast, OJ. went acesory shopping at the lil boutique, went to stradivarious, a thrift shop where the girls got flamenco dresses, went to the hippies, store to buy flamenco shoes. Then we went to Barbinos for tapas: we had chocos, camarones, pulpo, and cerditos. We went to the internet cafe, finally wrote Seth, went to Toni's icecream where I had an accordian solo, then to the supermarket and fishing store that chris found since he had suffered thru our shopping day. then off to abuela's house, hung out with Carmen and Sonya, took pics of Alvaro driving the fancy car, and then either Joselito and Esmeralda came to the apt or came to hang out in the farm.
Day 6:
We slept in, ate at the house, had icarly on in the background, spent the day at the beach in Rota with Alvaro, Joselito and Esmeralda and played uno.Good time at the beach. We treated everyone to Baskin Robbins-which is for them American ice cream, bought some souvineers. Then drove back home and went to pizza planet. Chris went fishing and Eva and I watched "hallpass". had a lot of good hangin out time with her
Day 7: Went to the Gitanos which is a must do with Eva and bought matching dresses among other things there, not too many accesories this year, bought a chicken asado and brought it to campo where abuela was more aspabilada, cousins were there hungout with Loli, Soraya, Leo. I dont think i saw soraya when i was there last time. Then went to the Paseo Maritimo with Abuela and Alvaro. It was a little stressy. When we got back, Chris picked her up and she had the biggest smile on her face.. She laughed and smiled so hard. everyone had fun with that. Then we drank beer, had some tapas with Jose, Carmen, Abuela, Edit, bonded on the old days with Carmen and Jose.
Day 8: (Thursday 30th)
(as im writing its now Sept 5 and my parents just left nyc)
We went to the beach with Alvaro. Me, Lola, luci and my mom played in the water and did ring around the rosie and there was some part about touching culitos? i dont know it was funny. We ate tapitas in the chiriguito at the beach like tomato soup, chocitos, that kinda thing. Had some posicles. later that day, we ran into Frankie, which was random and then we got on a touristee bike. ive always seen them in virginia beach and now I finally got to do it. I feared for my life when lola was drinving, but it was fun. i drove too. We got those good fresh potato chips from the stand that luci and i like and then lola threw a tantrum so we went home.
Day 9: July 1
This was more of a touristee day. We went to CADIZ-the main city part of where we live. We walked around and admired the beautiful Cathedral including the basement area which I really enjoyed- i luv cathedrals. Ate a yummy lunch of motaditos. got lost thank god i had the track phone with me. went to the Torre Tavira where all but mom climbed up swirly stairs into a dark room where a concave projection screen we were all looking down on showed a 360 degree view of the city-kinda nuts. the guide spoke english while explaining the history of what we were looking at. we climbed further up to the roof and then were able to see the view of the city that was shown to us before. It was hard to pick the topthings we wanted to do. We asked a couple of people. Went and got coffee. It was really hot. We saw another castle/church from the outside and then went to the Plaza de Espana where there was a monument commemorating the signing of the Spanish constitution. Definitely a full day. i know Chris appreciated doing something touristee where he could use his fancy camera. We went home, Joselito and Esmeralda picked me up that night -Fri- and we drove to a spot and got a beer at a bar, sat outside-chatted about everything then went inside to a bar where there was live flamenco. jammed to that for a while, got another beer then after walked on the boardwalk where ppl who were out were hanging. Fun. the past years i spent every day with them, this year less, but I luv it. Esperanzi arrived from Malaga this night.
If I forget to mention it, one day we went and hand-picked the pasteles from the bakery-not like a quaint bakery but a steel pan, ppl quickly and precisely spreading pastry toppings they were being made at (pastries) brought them back to the campo for everyone to have with coffee.
Day 10:
Talked with Seth for a bit on phone, slept in didnt go to breakfast. Eva went to Rota. I went to the campo. I walked around, took pictures of really seemingly trivial things that were so important to my memories of the campo like broken pink tile from the original steps of the front of the house, or broken blue tile from the bathroom or the laundry room with the painted over green palm tree that my sister painted when we were younger and wanted to make the farm prettier. Little things like that. or somewhat bigger things like the cactuses, el pino, the path to en ca de carmen, the non paved road to abuelas. . Just walked around the land and inside the house-those blue curtains or that picture of my uncle from his first communion whose eyes always seemed to be following us or the parrot sofa bed that was evas bed in our flat in spain. the picture where abuela was in front of our house in virginia where chris is in the background running outta the dorr late for his job at mcdonalds, the cast iron sewing machine, Esperanzi's cabbage patch doll, so, so many things. I could write a book on that stuff alone. Anyways, it was my day to reflect, write a little, have the sun shine on my face and appreciate.
We got ready and took Abuela out, we had tapitas- fun and then Toni's ice cream-everyones fave. She was being funny and did some funny tongue thing that made us all laugh. she told me "como tu, no hay otra" and I think the night was a success. She had a fun time. I lost the bunch while buying souvineers and had no way to reach them. I had a guitar i bought for lucy bday around my neck and waited on the corner. I looked half retarded with the damn baby guitar and ppl were looking at me expectin to play lol. Then I went out with Joselito and Esmeralda. We went to the boardwalk, saw Soraya and chatted with her for a bit, then met back up with her at the chiringuito on the beach and drank and danced with them. as always a good time. got home late and had to be up a few hours later for a full day hanging out with Cristina and her man in SEVILLA.
Day 11:
This was probably the most fun day. beat the pants off of Cadiz, it reminded me of Paris, soo many worthwhile things to see. Just me and the Goodloes. Lucy puked on the way there, we passed a town called the cabezas de san juan and we saw a man dressed in a baby outfit diapers and all way too early in the morning, We finally got there and we went and fed doves in the plaza de america. Lola was sad bc she hadnt gotten any to fly to her. Chris looked like the pigeon lady on home alone and they scratched the mess outta me while landing on my shoulders. pretty cool experience. lucy got a few no problem. Then off to the plaza de espana (we saw other countries plazas that they built for the Expo) and it was frickin huge and gorgeous. The building on the plaza was some castle from star wars- the haboo monumental brick building. Has historical events from each province. Cristinas man antonia gave us a history lesson, in fact they both looked up facts and figures studied if you will before giving us a tour, they were very very hospitable. Bought some spanish fans from an old man flattering me. Rode on the outside metro to see the famous Cathedral, we mostly saw it from the outside and saw a subsect of the cathedral where the 2 lovebirds were getting married. They treated us to lunch, passed by the plaza de toros where Chris has a funny video of me pretending to be a bull, got some yummy icecream, saw the famous tower of the cathedral-so cool, then went to the Islamic Real Alcazara-huge. where the king and queen of spain come when they visit-absolutely beautiful, room after endless room of ornate and meticulously crafted islamic decor and architecture. A pond for his mistress that looked like it wuld be straight outta thailand, a gorgeous graden with waterfall, so pretty. Then topped off the perfect day with a horseback ride for me and the goodloes through the city back to the plaza de america where we started. By the time we got on the horse the jaded Lol was already asking about the pigeons again. these kids are jaded, I was estatic. riding in the front and all. We got back to the plaza and ...Lola got a dove!
Thanked them and said our goodbyes.We went back to the campo to hangout with ma, abuela and Esperanzi and I made her laugh by imitating her snoring which i totally forgot about until something triggered it. Then while watching crazy spanish tv, there was a feauture on Miami and all these huge-like triple z women were in bikinis and dancing and talking. we all had a lot of fun with that.
Day 12: had to go back to the real world the following day. This day, 4th of July, we decided to celebrate Lucy's bday. Im glad too because I wanted a way to get the whole family to hangout. Esperanzi (I think it was this day) gave Eva and I very thoughtful presents. A journal that smelled like sobre cartas and a poetry book in spanish. Not sure what else we did this day, but we got the party together and entertained. Poldito commented my spanish was good. Lucy liked the guitar the best. One of the best parts of the day was when we all took family pictures and abuela was cracking short jokes cracking everyone up like how chris was so slow that "le calle los juevos" and things like that. It was a good ending night and I said my byes, most emotional one with abuela. I was trying to make her laugh during it though.
Then the next morning, i flew back 22 straight hours of travel-dont know why the hell I booked London? then got home at 9 pm exhausted, Seths mom and bro were there and I chilled with them and went to bed, then work the next morning.
Come to find my boss that had been there for 4 years had gotten fired... which sucked for me bc i liked her and she liked me a whole lot. definitely took me a while to get back in the swing of things.
Weekend July 8 and 9th
Not sure what I did that Friday. Saturday went to teh meatpacking district to watch Jeanne's band open for the Bouncing Souls. im not a big fan of them but wanted to see her and show support for her band. She went nuts and was stage diving, seth and i left to get pizza and beer and saw the ritzyish kinda area that we're never around in. weirdest part of the night was when we were hanging out with the only other person that Jeanne invited. After a series of questions found out he was our fuckin next door neighbor! we only have 4 apts in my complex and hes in the one right across from me on my floor (only 2 per floor) what are the odds??
The next day, the 10th, Sunday we went to the beach. Jones Beach. took us forever to get there 1.5 hours on public transportation. We met Seth's coworker a 35 yr old hippie that gt his kicks from tying a dollar bill to a fishing rod, tugging on it and seeing what madness ensued. Nice guy. His gf was in a thong which was surprising and crzy but a pretty fun time at the beach no less.Nice beach.
The following weekend Amie came! this was how i looked back on it: i look like hamlet in your profile pic lol miss ya already. im glad we didnt have a completely touristy time in nyc. it was like bringin JMU to nyc. randomness, getting lost, loopiness, dancing, drunken bliss, hangover hell, laughing about everything and nothing, eating terribly but amazingly, roaming around clueless, crazy ruckuss, drama, going with the flow, jasmine, kelly, Room mating, doggin on crazy ppl, hatin on skinny dumb bitches, reminding ourselves that we are soulmates ETC. good times.
We: Went to Roberta's pizza with Kelly and her school teacher friend from home, went to the Moma for the first time on the free night and took funny pics "little girl" and paintings that we questioned if they were really art, impressionist paintings with kelly remind me of paris, favorite was seeing "the persistence of memory" by Dali. St patrick's cathedral went inside, Mr softee icescream, pregamed with red solo cups but fancier vodka than burnetts haha and went to the Woods bar, met drunk seth and robbie there danced and drank, got pizza at ana marias.
Next morning, went to the Brooklyn flea and got fried chicken biscuits and lemonade, then the ferry ride to see the 3 bridges-sadly found out jasmine decided to move back to VA to teach dance, accidently ended up on Governors island, met Jasmine at the flatiron building, saw my work, ate at rickshaws dumplings, said bye bye Jasmine ... went out to Libation club, drank way too much danced met heather miley but only hungout a while longer, cab drove us to wrong moore street, puked my ass off, next day hungover city, to Jones beach hungover as hell for the bumpy 1.5 ride 19 stops on J. 4 on long island railroad and a bus ride on a highway, puked on the bus in a bag... the gay brunos in front of me were disgusted. I carried my baggie, died a little more and recovered with a strawberry popsicle, met tim who again coincidently ended up working the floor below me, crazy. seth and i didnt have a great night that night and instead of having to call amie, she was already there lol. It was very much a vicky amie weekend which i luved and needed.
I am going to make pulpo linao. bbs
Well hopefully that turns out edible. never made it b4
July 18th and 20th went to some mets games. 1st one against Marlins went with Sheila, her lil sis-her sister's friends who are from florida and robbie, tim and seth. it was alright, pretty uneventful, good to see sheilas lil sis again. think mets lost.
The 2nd one was more fun against the cardinals with more work ppl, matt l and his fiancee, amy, shar a, taleb, jesshart, tomo, peter and seth. A guy ran into the field (i didnt know what was going on-thought it was part of the show) and dodged the officials. Also, pretty sure we got a home run towards the end and i got to see the apple pop up. and we won.
July 22nd, went to Stout with some work folks and chilled in the downstairs area, then went back to sheilas with the toms, grecco and drank. then seth came over and we played some easy fun drinking games with the too fuckd up to think folks. pretty fun night.
July 23rd, went to Harry Potter 3D, the last one at the theater, pretty good, funny ending. Got some baller vietnamese sandwhiches and ended up getting max brenners chocolate by the bald man, fondue (couple days later i bought a set)
Juy 24th-Early that morning, Jenn R and her man -nice, quiet guy with tats came over and we drank sangria while playing cornhole that they had never played before. cracked my phone when i put the phone in my bikini top going down the fire escape. Then we met Kristen and Drew who were in town and we all went to Ippudo which they enjoyed then came back to our place and drank a little more. fun couple day.
July 26th, sheila and I had a random KFC night. I dont even know what that means entirely haha.
July 29th: Atlantic City! I'd never been and Sheila brought it up to me before that Gillians man had a free room (ended up being a nice sized suite) and that we should go. Seth, me, Sheila, gillian and her man and aaron (bata) took a bus up there. And i was sober all night unfortunately since no one thought to bring a bottle. Got up to the big suite, got ready and just gambled downstairs of Harrah's all night. Sheila was beastin blackjack, i played safely and i think was down 80 bucks? for the night. Bata was throwin money around and losing it all. gillian lost 200 bucks instantly and stopped playing. We never did see the backstreet boys lol that were supposed to be there. played roulette and ive decided i hate slot machines-you know those levers arent even real? u push a button instead. im coughing now just thinking of the smoke I inhaled with them all smoking. Fun night just walking around gamblin. Slept for a few hours then got back on the bus. Seth went directly to work... dont know how he did that.
In the month of August, I started working out like in gyms and not just gilad. I bought a scale-the one from bed bath and beyond that told me I was the lightest. i did hot yoga on August 2nd with jess, amy alexa and cassandra from work and while the tiny ones looked refreshed the rest of us looked like we were going to die. they all laughed at my facial expressions, but think 90 minutes in a sauna working out when you havent in a while. man. but the next day, i felt like a rockstar. that week, Jason and christian (who has since quit-as a matter of fact a lot of ppl quit) went to Spin which again was a first for me. our ghetto instructor nikki was so cool "if you need it want it gotta have it, turn it up" good music too. "dont blame me blame your friend for bringin ya" went to yoga the next week and spin, yoga the following week and went to NYC sportsclub to do cardio and weights that i got a trial membership to, the next week worked out once and the same for the following (spin-very gay man teaching, bobbing his head to lady gagas born this way' and such) Besides working out, ive been Not eating right, went to Deweys on August 3rd for drinks with the coworkers found ourselves segregated in corners Brown corner, jewish corner, italian corner and gillian haha.
August 5th, i think seth and I rode our bikes around to bars, on August 6th sheila and i went shopping then to olive garden, then Seth and met tim and some folks at a german beer garden which had a pretty cool atmosphere. August 7th, seth and I went to a cold soup contest in williamsburg which was interesting. our fave was the one with bacon of course, then had a nice meal at the crib with wine. We do that a lot.
That Friday August 12th Kelly was in town (i know she comes a lot which is nice) and her, her bro and seth went to a Yankees fame, got some close up seats this time for sure. Foul ball came somewhat close to us. that night seth and i went to a the broadway comedy show-has nothing to do with broadway, pretty funny stuff altho one guy in the audience was being annoying, sat with some fun, loud latinos from jersey that made it more funny.
Saturday, Ashby 1150D came into tow, Jeanne and her roomates used to live there in Harrisonburg, so thats what i called them. hadnt seen them in a good while-randomly saw stacey at galax actually last yr. Went walked around like 15 ppl deep, felt like a freshman at jmu searching for a party, ended up at chinatown in some random kareoke room to ourselves-most fun singing bohemian rhapsody, toms and grecco joined too.
Aug 14th went to an "all you can eat and drink" seafood thing with Chris Choi, but it rained and the lines were beyond redic. i have a sense of what would happen if we ran into a scarcity of resources in ny-not pretty. we made friends with the ppl ahead of us and event. got food. it was not bad besides the redic wait.
August 18th out from work sick thanks to the roomies ahem ahem
August 19th had drank a little at work, (Don moved to UK) then continued at Life Cafe with seth yum chicken wings and mac and cheese
August 20th, got into words with friends, met tom c out with seth and chilled with him for a bit with some work folks from the SF office. Seth and i got pom frittes, then we did something adorbs-camped out on our roof. i miss camping and thats the closest we were gonna get.
August 21st sunday, moms bday-NY was her bday gift, went to Junipers for wings and mac and cheese again haha then Jets preseason game against the bengals. it was raining its butt off we were soaked throughout the game. cool besides that. saw plexico in action. We even got to go rediculously close for the last few minutes of the game since no one was really there.
I talked about my meetings on the 23rd and how we had that random earthquake. that night we did trivia at brooklyn winery with taleb, amy, robbie, then liz joined later. we got 3rd place.
August 25th, went to the long island wineries for "forced fun" day with work ppl. It was fun, but i think it would have been more fun to go somewhere where they could be their normal drunken selves. Had a pretty good time though going to the different wineries, learning, teaching, not being at work, seeing green grass. that night i stocked up on supplies for the hurricane. the 26th, sheila and i went to tj then to Rogue where i think we should change our work spot to bc its cooler than deweys and drank a lot, caught up. then we met seth and joseph and played pool.
I think im thru! if i rem anything else ill let you know. next entry will talk about what me and the folks did on their trip to the big city!
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