California Lately

Christmas and Riverside and friends, here's what I've been up to lately



















And San Diego for 2012! Long live winter vacation

Home At Last

I'm home I'm home I'm home! Ronnie hosted me at his home in Queens and I got 2 1/2 hours sleep before getting up at 4a.m. and trekking to JFK. Queens Boulevard to the E train to the AirTrain to Terminal 7, all before 5:30 a.m. The airport was plenty abuzz, but not backed up or overwhelming.



You'd think people would all be bitter and irritated about flying home on Christmas Eve (obviously it would be nice to be home sooner) but everyone was so friendly and in such a good mood, and everyone was full of cheer and "Merry Christmas!"'s. We took off over the Rockaways in Queens as the sun was rising



The flights felt exceptionally long, but I survived, and got a layover in beautiful, beautiful Phoenix, like I look forward to every trip!



Shannon and Kathleen were set to pick me up at the airport, and I was down the escalator and at baggage claim, walked outside and watched them walk in a door down the way. They came with a sign a everything, but we had just missed each other. Oh well! I was just excited to be home and see them. Derp!



When I was en route to home, I was really excited to be coming, but I sort of missed New York as soon as I was gone! Whaaaaat a world. There's just nothing like New York, and even when you need a break, I guess you don't really want a break. Still, being home is refreshing, and familiar. It feels great to see open sky, and palm trees, sunsets mountains and know I'm home where I grew up!



And sometimes, a Christmas tree too. Nothing like being home for the holidays!

BAM! Nutcracker

Yes, it's really true, I really got to go see The Nutcracker ballet this Christmas season. When I went to a Korean lunch with a coworker from Columbia about a month or two ago, we learned that we were both into dancing, so I recruited her to see The Nutcracker with me this year!



Because we were too poor for the New York City Ballet's rendition at Lincoln Center, we went to the American Ballet Theatre's show at BAM! (Brooklyn Academy of Music). I lololol'ed to myself since I was relegated to the second-class performance in Brooklyn, but really I loved it!

After work I stopped by Phoebe's office and we rode the train out to Brooklyn together, and picked up some snacks at a convenience store. Phoebe had been to BAM before and led the way.



We had front row seats on the balcony and it was so pretty inside, even if those stairs were so steep I needed a harness to climb down







So, so beautiful! I just love ballet, and the music of the Nutcracker is so jolly and Christmasey!!

This is a scene from what we saw that I found online:



YES they felt it necessary to have the Sugar Plum Fairy get engaged at the end and NO don't get me started... I thought it was so ridiculous, poor Phoebe got an earful of it from me afterwards! Oh, and Phoebe tells me today she sat next to Phillip Seymour Hoffman on her subway ride home... JEALOUS!

I COME HOME TOMORROW!! Weird, because the weather report hasn't mentioned anything about a tornado sweeping through California for the next week... and yet it will happen.

Lady Gaga & Menorah's

I had a very holiday evening last night, I was very contented to experience some festivities in New York City during the last week before going home for Christmas (THREE DAYS!)

Down at Columbus Circle, I first got to check out their quaint little holiday market, which is essentially the same as the one at Union Square:



I walked along the south border of Central Park and came across the lighting of the world' largest menorah!!



I stayed for the whole ceremony, I just loved it! They played their cheery music before a state senator and a Hasidic Rabbi were flown to the top to light it. They both said some words (which got a little political with the Israeli government and all lolololol) but it was so nice! As they lit the candles they said their prayers in Hebrew and I was just lovvvvvving the whole thing.

Watching this happen I couldn't help but imagine some comic strip about a flying rabbi and his sidekick senator



Listening to the rabbi talk about how the menorah is a universal symbol to all peoples of the world of light of goodness in our lives and perserverence, etc., I thought it was so nice I felt like I should invest in a menorah myself. Lololol.

Okay so after that was GAGA'S WORKSHOP AT BARNEY'S. Soooo awesome!!



The whole 5th floor was dedicated to "Gaga's Workshop" which was very... Tim Burton to me, but still fun. Lots of Christmasey things with a Gaga twist, and they were playing Lady Gaga singing Christmas songs inside, it was such a cool vibe! Everything there was ridiculously expensive though...!



Matilda!! I received a copy of this book (before it was a movie!!) when I was like, 9 years old maybe and I LOVED it, and this cover illustration takes me right back to those days.



After that I walked along W 56th St, and stopped into a hotel that had a contest of gingerbread houses on display that I had read about. I LOVE GINGERBREAD HOUSES. It's one of my favorite things about Christmas... that and the Nutcracker.







That last one is actually "Occupy North Pole" and one of the signs says "Visions of Sugar Plums Won't Feed My Elfin' Kids" lolololol

Okay and ended up back at Columbus Circle with their cheery lights and multicolored star display



Soooo fun, but why does Christmastime have to go by so fast? It should be Christmastime all year long. Why do we have to wait until December to be bright and cheery? But I am ready to come home.

A Small Town in Maine

It never fails to amaze me. Does this sound familiar to you?

"Oh are you from X?"

"Yeah, but I'm from a really small town in X"

"Which one?"

...and they are always from the same indiscriminate town, or at least so close that they feel like family. Not only is it fun to observe the kinship blossom, but last night it got me free drinks!

My coworker friends I bonded with at the holiday party and I met up at the diviest of dive bars down the road from Columbia and had a grand ol' time! ($2 Yuenglings?? Christmas came early this year! Unless, of course, that was my second Hanukkah present?) One of the girls is from Maine, and was describing her boarding school to me near the Canadian border and was creating the Maine border with her hand when the bartender, a very ragged but gentle gent, interrupts us:

"Are you from Maine?"

"Yeah, but this was a really small town off I-95"

And you can see where this conversation went. What are the chances! Two little Maineinites meeting by chance in New York City's Upper West Side. Like, HE was the bartender that night and heard her describing Maine to me and picked up on it and they bonded.

The REAL Christmas present came just after that when he declared "The next round's on me."

You know in Chicago we got Priya into a club without her ID because the bouncer was from the Inland Empire and supported my friends bashing my Riverside roots. Riverside takes you places! And speaking of Riverside, I've had that as my computer theme lately, and have this picture of the Mission Inn at Christmastime as the background:



It makes my heart happy! ...but not happy enough to move back there. Ha!

My First Hanukkah

I got the first Hanukkah present of my life last night... and it doesn't even start until sundown tomorrow! I feel like I should be wearing a baby bib or have a tiny pink onesies pajama that says "My First Hanukkah!" on it. Anyways, the gift was a bar of luxury soap from the West Elm at Lincoln Center across from the NYC Opera House, scented Warm Lavender Wood; I'm legitimately thrilled about it!



I never really cared about bar soaps until last year when Cousin Bobby was out here, and he bought me Burts Bee's Rosemary and Peppermint bar soap and I just LOVED it and was sad when it finally ran out, actually not too long ago since I alternated it with liquid body wash, and now I have this fancy HANUKKAH one (disclaimer: nothing makes it Jewish or Hanukkah except that the person who gave it to me was Jewish and said... "Happy Hanukkah" when he gave it to me... so okay I guess it is pretty Jewish lolololol) I think he only said that because I was making a big deal about Hanukkah all night anyway. I swear I care more about these festivities than most actual Jewish people out here.

Maybe next year I'll acquire my first menorah.

Eight Days!

In all the excitement of my FOUR (!) holiday parties, I didn't realize how fast time was going and that I was soon to be back in California for Christmas. In EIGHT. DAYS.

The fourth holiday party was last night which was the big school one with all the faculty and staff and student workers, and I had SO MUCH FUN with so many co-workers that I usually just have polite conversations with in passing, but last night was out-in-out rumble tumble fun and closing the place. As you can imagine, the Columbia University community is a lot of older, "mature" workers. The crowd under 30 has to keep it alive and well... I called us the 1% since we were the only ones double fisting our drinks. And I may have been walking around with a pot of poinsettias and gold balloons.

Last night was also the holiday party for my old job at Embassy, wah wah wah. It was actually depressing to not be there with them all, but Jayna and Jenny sent me a picture of them there, so in some ways I do still feel like an employee



My my my how much can change in a year.

See you soon, West Coast!

Time Machine

Hey there. I've stepped into a time machine and I welcome you to Me Five Years Ago. I am right where you left me...

Sitting at a desk. At nearly 2 in the morning. Alternating beers and coffee. Writing a linguistics paper. Listening to my entire iTunes library. Going through random files on my computer. Laughing deliriously at dumb things on the internet. Checking the news occasionally. Chatting with other friends also online right now. Snacking. Going through mental states of genius and desolation.

Oh wait a minute! No! This isn't a time machine! This is me, right now, suffering as though I am in college again, thinking it was a great idea to take university classes when I work full time so I don't get to sleep in tomorrow... I can't just stay up til class, hand in the paper and go home and sleep. Nope! I will have to get up like normal and go to work after being up all night writing about the fascinating characteristics and structure of the noun phrase in Wakhi! (Exhibit A):

To address the issue of (b) it is necessary to look at the correct construction of what was being aimed for in the phrase, namely, to utilize 'tra' in an effort to describe that the distal pig is ugly. Below is a Wakhi clause that demonstrates one way to achieve commenting on the qualitative state of the distal pig:

(c.) ja xɨg=i tra ʃakratʂ
DEF pig=3SG LOC.LAT ugly
‘that pig (there) is ugly.’

The difference between (c) and the ungrammatical (b) is that (c) is employing the definite determiner 'ja', and according to Rijkhoff, this is because the definite noun phrase is present in the clause, and does not require additional information or clarification. The absence of the determiner 'ja', which complements and completes 'tra' in this sentence (evident because without 'ja' this is deemed ungrammatical) seems to make all the difference. We can still formulate a correct statement in Wakhi by making use of 'tra' in the clause-initial position as was tested and denied in (b) by employing a definite determiner. Below is this composition:

(d.) tra jor xɨg=i ʃakratʂ
LOC.LAT DET pig=3SG ugly
‘That pig is the one which is ugly.’

Way to go, self! You aren't going to hate yourself tomorrow at all! You don't hate yourself already now in this very instant! Keep it up... love, your present self.

Coffee Creamer

What's it going to take to get coffee creamer in this city?! I'm actually asking...! I've had it in my head that Duane Reade, the NYC based pharmacy that is actually Walgreen's or Rite Aid or whatever with a different name out front, sells them... and they sell drinks and beer and milk... and I swear I've bought coffee creamer from there before! Well do you know how many of these I stopped into looking for coffee creamer and it wasn't there? It was tragic. And I passed plenty of little markets and grocery stores, but in this cash-only city, I was terrified of being confronted with a credit card minimum and then having to buy a bunch of stuff I didn't need, or couldn't afford. I even stopped in the deli below me but they didn't have any, and I felt awkward walking right back out, so I bought a pity orange juice.

After 3 or 4 unsuccessful tries last night, I resorted to stopping in to the Appletree Deli, a small market I pass on my walk to work that all the students use, and I was remembering how CoffeeMate has the Christmas flavors this time of year (mmm gingerbread) but of course, all they had was Original and Amaretto. You'd think I'd just be happy to have found creamer but no, no I was bitter. (First World problems, eh?) The only "real" supermarket out here that you West Coasters would know is Trader Joe's, and the closest is 72nd, and anyways they don't even sell coffee creamer that I've ever seen. I might open a store in NYC that sells ONLY coffee creamer. The catch will be that I make amazing flavors, like Thanksgiving feast and Bacon Wrapped Porkchops... has a nice ring to it, right??

Also I forgot about this gem of a picture



Jens and I called it "Place d'Americain" in Montreal because why else would they put the only McDonald's, Subway and Starbucks on the same street corner? (I know it's hard to see in the picture) It was still my favorite place because of that Starbucks though...



It's funny cause when I first moved to Europe, I had this scavenger hunt to take a picture of myself in front of every Puma store I could find, but as the year went on, I got more excited about the Starbucks I would find (since there were none in Bordeaux... and yet one on the remote Greek isle of Mykonos... hmm...) and that became my newest obsession.

The temperatures have certainly taken a dip finally (it's mitten and glove season for sure!) but I wish it would snow already!

No Sleep til Santacon

I think the last time I stayed awake for over 20 hours was June 2008 when I was writing the last paper of my undergraduate career and I was so sad that I purposely delayed it and took until 6 in the morning to finish it. This time, however, I had no idea my day was going to turn into a 21-hour holiday extravaganza.

Welcome to New York City's holiday pubcrawl Santacon: Dress as Santa and get free drinks on the crawl. Due to the staggering popularity and high volume, the "official" pub crawl gets way too overcrowded for its own good, so just about every bar in midtown has Santacon specials, and now the goal is to dress in Christmas cheer, although Santas are still the main drag.

Officially it starts at 11 a.m., but that meant predrinks at Betsy's at 9 a.m. on a Saturday and yes you read that right. Because I had a holiday party engagement that evening, my plan was just show up for a few morning Bloody Mary's before going to home to change, work on my paper and get ready for the evening. But how can you expect to make any good decisions when you started the day with a decision to start drinking at 9 a.m. ??





















I stumbled away from Santacon to get the train out to Jayna & Stephen's holiday party in Queens and showed up with a raging headache, nauseous and starting my hangover. Nevertheless it was very fun, so I hope no one judges my amusement by the fact that I cuddled up next to pregnant-belly Jenny and took a "disco nap" before waking up completely refreshed and revitalized! I celebrated by taking down Daniel, the Wii tennis champion who suddenly complained of a "battery problem" in the Wii remote after he was defeated.

A freezing romp on the playground before our group catching the 7 train into the city to our respective destinations, I walked in my door as the first rays of sunlight were lighting the black sky and I dropped down dead exhausted, and didn't really get up again until 2:30 in the afternoon. I can't really call today wasted though, when yesterday was so fun and joyful with Christmas cheer... I mean beer... I mean, wait, yes, cheer.

MEAN DISNEY GIRLS

La la la so here I am on a rainy Tuesday sweaty from walking up the hill, waiting for my co-worker to come in and train me, wanting to cry because I have no one to go to the Nutcracker with when suddenly BAM! (Bus?) I get an email from mah gurl Jayna that has the best. thing. you. have. ever. seen. that has been making me giggle quietly like a maniac at this desk. (Awkward. So awkward.)

So if you like Disney, and you like Mean Girls (aka two of my favorite things), welcome them combined into your now 1 favorite thing



If you haven't (or won't) watch it... I oughta cancel your Spring Fling. (Or holiday party?) But I won't do that because we already paid the DJ. So I will keep you here til 4.

Fifth Avenue

In a dramatic reprise to our friendship, Ronnie and I met up on Friday night at Bryant Park with no real plans in mind (although Ronnie says he wanted to watch me ice skate and embarrass myself, but my ankle injury kept me out of that), but we ended up having a great night traversing all of midtown and seeing all the Christmas decorations and lights that we could!

Bryant Park had a fabulous Christmas set-up with a (free!) ice skating rink, a bar called Celsius, and this beautiful tree



We then proceeded to walk up 5th Avenue, where Ronnie wanted to see the famed Bergdorf Goodman displays, but we caught a lot along the way... such as the Rockefeller tree, just lit last Wednesday



We were wondering if the Forever 21 on 5th Avenue was going to have a window display and we almost missed it, but it was there. It was the most pathetic looking thing either of us had seen. Why did they even bother?! It just looked like they took the boiler from the kitchen and set it up in the window, I was laughing so hard I couldn't even take a clear shot of it



The rest of the "real" 5th Avenue looked cheery and beautiful, although I was absolutely taken by Tiffany's window display



Tiffany's built their displays outward and had a carousel-type theme



Each window had a miniature little moving display inside. My flash ruined it, but this one had the moving carousel. It's hard to see it, but the horse here has a significant gem it's carrying on its back



These carousel animals were actually moving up and down



This is a Santa sleigh full of Tiffany's diamonds being delivered to New York City!



And this one is Tiffany's store front even decorated for Christmas, with a huge Tiffany blue jewel out front. A Tiffany's inside a Tiffany's... TIFFANYCEPTION!



Bergdorf Goodman's display was nice... but I was so charmed by Tiffany's! Ronnie thinks Bergdorf Goodman's was the bees knees, but I was like, eh. It wasn't very Christmasy... they had beautiful dresses on display on mannequins with canary heads. WTF is that?! We decided we wanted to karaoke, so we schlepped our asses back down twenty blocks to Koreatown. (Ronnie made sure we sang some Christmas songs) before we called it a night. On the way there though, we passed a Hofbrau restaurant, that I had NO IDEA existed... I thought the only ones were in Munich and Las Vegas?! But it was so jolly with the Christmas decorations!



AND we passed Grand Central station... doesn't it look so regal and beautiful?! Notice the Christmas wreath too :)



Okay and remember how Jens bought me a mini Christmas tree?? Well I wasn't able to get a tree last year, so I also didn't have any decorations. We had a few sympathy ones we put on, but last night I bought my first ornament for it... it's a Starbucks holiday cup ornament! They actually sell these in Starbucks and they are actually ornaments. I sent the picture to Jens and he thought I had taken a real Starbucks cup and just hung it on the tree. Classy.



I just love love love how much this city loves Christmastime. Three full weeks left to enjoy it! If I can make it to a performance of The Nutcracker this season it will be complete.