H o M E !

Well, my ticket back to California was bought around late November. The first half of the battle was waiting until my flight home yesterday. The entire second half of the battle was all of December 23rd and the trek home itself. Oy!

My flight was at a leisurely 10a (not bad) but that still meant up at 6a, getting dressed and ready, packing my carry-on purse and out the door at 7a in the frigid and windy New York morning (the sky was dawning, but the lights of the Chrysler building were still glowing) and catching one train to the next, then to to the AirTrain to JFK. Then checking in, going through security, and finding myself in a bustling and crowded waiting area for my gate an hour before boarding. There was a sparrow that was somehow caught in there that hopped around, cocked its head looking at us, bit crumbs from the carpet and flew around. It was a surprise when I first saw him, but for that entire hour, all everyone could talk about was the bird! the bird! the bird in the airport! I was going crazy. People, it's a SPARROW not a freakin' MONKEY. WE GET IT ALREADY!

I had a middle seat. A MIDDLE SEAT from JFK to Phoenix. In the end, actually, it wasn't that bad. And I sat next to a very friendly and motherly lady who turned on my reading light for me, threw away my trash for me, and mentioned that she loved the book I was reading. I closed my eyes during take off and awoke an hour later. Already an hour down! And the flight had been so smooth, this was going to be the easiest thing ever!

WRONG. I was counting down the minutes for the rest of the flight. I couldn't go back to sleep, I was losing interest in my book, none of my music was distracting me, and I really hate people reading over my shoulder, so when I wrote in my journal I wrote in French, but my brain started hurting. (What's the French word for "scrumtrillescent"??) So landing in Phoenix was magical (plus, I LOVE Phoenix) but it was still a 2 hour layover. I got through that by laying across seats and watching Bruno on my laptop, and the flight from Phoenix was of course negligible, and I even sat next to an old cowboy from Durango. Talk about chivalrous! He wouldn't even drink his drink until I sipped mine first, and he referred to me as "A" (due to my seat assignment") and said I could call him "C". Somedays, I just never know what's in store for me.

Landing felt like Christmas morning already. Was this real life? Turns out it wasn't, cause Kathleen and Heather weren't there yet, but Kathleen showed up while I was waiting for my bag, and we met Heather outside. I sat in the backseat and got to meet Dexter and was presented with a box of Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's!

We then proceeded to the nearest Del Taco, taking it home, and I proceeded to eat FOUR Del Taco burritos (old habits die hard) and up to Kathleen's room with Dexter where I put on Friends (again, old habits die hard) and we fell asleep together and I woke up this morning with Dexter gone and replaced by Kathleen. But not replaced entirely, cause she wasn't asleep on top of me and instead stuck to her side.

It would be nice if it weren't all gray and drizzly today, but at least I'm home!

UPDATE: Kathleen and I went to make a gingerbread house from HOME DEPOT (so we already win) and we were a bit distracted since we were watching Friends... and it fell apart a few times but... here's basically how it went down.

If there are any redeeming qualities of that house (i.e., the white icing and colored dots) it is all thanks to ME. Kathleen was in charge of the roof (which I basically ended up doing anyway) and the orange frosting, and you can see how well that worked out for her.

All of the Lights

What a day yesterday. It was the last week of reading with my girl at the elementary school until after Christmas, and being there made me think about Sandy Hook and what was stopping anyone or anything from coming to this school? So tragic. I'm thankful that at least out of that the gun control is FINALLY taking a stage. Anyway, since it was the last week, the program gave us pretzels, chocolate, word searches, and CAPRI SUNS. I'm not kidding. I spent my lunch hour yesterday doing a wordsearch over a CapriSun with a sneaky little girl who kept saying she found a word but was "waiting for me to find it." Mmhmmmm...! In second grade, my best friend Alice taught me how to hold a CapriSun from the bottom and punch the straw easily into the blisterfoil with the other end in your mouth so you didn't lose ANY of it, and this is exactly how I opened it yesterday as well.

After my day, I walked off my stress headache around Columbus Circle's Christmas Market. It's deceitfully bigger than it appears, but also really cute and lively, and I was able to finish up my Christmas shopping (which for some reason has been impossible this year!) After that I decided to walk to my subway by way of Fifth Avenue to look at the window displays!! It's one of the most festive parts of New York City during the holidays and somehow I couldn't recruit anyone I knew to go look at them with me this year! Talk about the War on Christmas! Below are some highlights

The Peninsula Hotel

I forgot, but some nice corner building

It's a bad quality picture, but wrapping around Bulgari is a lighted, bejeweled snake. A SNAKE. Whaaaa? I really would like to meet the person that thought of this. And then the person who brought it up in the staff meeting. The executive who approved it, and then all the construction workers who were rolling their eyes to high heaven as they installed it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!

A window display at Tiffany's. There's are always cuter because the windows are so small so they have to be miniatures instead of anything life-sized

Another window display at Tiffany's. See all the presents under the tree?

Can you guess what everyone was crowding around to take pictures of?

Yep, Rockefeller Plaza!

One of the angels on the mall in front of Rockefeller

Some building wrapped up with a bedazzled red ribbon

Oh man, getting so close to "Christmas break" I can feel it. But I want to be there nowwwww! Who wants to pack, and go to the airport, and sit on the plane and blah blah blah?! And I had a dream last night that I had left all the Christmas presents in New York. Just gotta finish work, diving tonight, then a half day tomorrow, lunchies with lots of co-workers, then I'm technically freeeeeeeee!

Christmas Is Rescheduled

Last night I found myself back in my familiar old bar. When it's already dark when you leave at 5pm and it's cold and the trees all have lights, who can resist ever stopping in for a drink? Not me. So I found my Irish friends again and we were talking about our holiday plans and then got on the subject of how depressing January is... the holidays are over, the weather is awful, it gets dark so early, etc etc. So then we decided to throw a party in mid-January (at their place of course) and they even got Maryanne on the phone and made me tell her so she couldn't get mad. So I figured Christmas could be rescheduled so we could throw our post-Christmas Christmas party!

Also, how much do I love my coworker/friend Sara? Sara and I share an office for about 4 months of the year, and it is a glorious 4 months when it happens. She is awesome and very quick witted and always makes me laugh. She is who I was gchatting that whole time I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and she coached me through a lot of Harry Potter withdrawals. Well Sara and I were talking yesterday and she was telling me about how she was going to a concert in Brooklyn last night. This morning, I asked her how the concert was, and this was her response:

it was awesome
me and daryn nearly got in a fight with this stupid girl who ended up pushing her way up to the front of the stage and dancing like a helicopter and yelling at the performer

which, satisfyingly, resulted in the performer repeatedly telling her to shut up

and the girls bf kept bumping into people

who, satisfyingly, turned on him, huge fistfight stated

and one of my favorite opening acts just came down and CLOCKED the bf in the face twice!

buying that dude's record.

I LOVE THAT RESPONSE!! "Buying that dude's record." HAHAHAHAHA I still laugh when I read it. That's why Sara is the best.

So close to Christmasbreak and a half day Friday from work!

Irish Trivia

It's been almost a year now that I have been going to my same bar in my work neighborhood. Early January will be a year officially. But otherwise, it's more or less been 12 months and I have befriended all the weekday bartenders, found my best partners at darts, know the usuals, and meet newcomers along the way. And yet somehow I always forget that Tuesdays they do trivia there around 8pm. I actually kinda like trivia, but it's just annoying at that place and at that time in particular.

So last night I stopped in for "one drink" (yep) and was hanging out with my Irish friends, when suddenly it was 8pm and trivia was starting. If I thought it was hard to understand the Irish lads with their accents while music was on, imagine trying to understand them with someone shouting in a mic and yelling questions and playing audio clips too. We all hate the trivia so we packed it in and I was planning to head home but they told me to come on over to their apartment a few blocks away instead. The older one is married and probably in his 50s or 60s, and the younger one is in his 30s lives with them. Since I've been friends with them for about a year now and they're so friendly and fun, I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I accepted.

IT WAS SO NICE! When we got there, the wife was up and about and being so cute and telling us to go about our business. She's a native Gaelic speaker, and yet I could understand her English better than the guys'. They made and served a hot drink of Jameson, honey, brown sugar and cloves which was really strong but also really delicious. We were having so much fun that Maryanne came in, loaded up her arms with Hennessy and Jameson and some other stuff, and came back with her own drink and joined us for the night. And she was SO CUTE and so sweet!

I don't feel that they ever tame down their accents for me, maybe they articulate, but when they get going with each other, I get more and more lost and can't understand at all where the conversation is going or what it's become. I figured I was playing my own trivia game: just to understand what they were saying half the time. And I didn't always get the answers right, by the way.

I really think it was one of my more civilized and refined nights in New York City. I don't often do anything that takes place in a living room, much less with adults. And hot whiskey. Win. Win. Win.

Christmas is Canceled!

I went to Trader Joe's last night, not only because I always go there, or because it was time for more groceries, but because I had finished a box of the Candy Cane Joe-Joe's. These. Are. What. Candy. Canes. Were. Made. For. They're Trader Joe's branded oreo-style cookies but the cream is peppermint with crushed candy canes in them and they only come out during Christmastime and have I mentioned that I LOVE them?!

After schlepping around that store and battling the crowds and elbowing my way up to the aisles and shelves, I couldn't find them anywhere, try as I might. It was, so sad. The skies were already gray and rainy, but after this they became simply ominous. Getting to Trader Joe's isn't a huge hassle, but it's an extra step. And I can never go in there and just buy what I came from. And I'm super poor, so I don't even know if I'll have a chance to look for more before the Christmas season is over.

I bought some frosted gingerbread men instead, but I cried slow tears of utter disappointment as I bit their heads off and dreamed of the Candy Cane Joe-Joe's that had eluded me and decided that Christmas was as good as canceled. No one should have to feel the way I felt yesterday without this delightful snack at Christmastime.

The Holiday Parties

It is only December 10th and I have already been to 3 holiday parties. It doesn't even feel like the holidays yet!

Thursday was one office holiday luncheon, where someone brought homemade conquito (?!) a Puerto Rican rum drink made of sweet condensed milk, coconut juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and lots of rum. It was TOO delicious. Someone also brought their iPad and a photobooth app with it, so we were taking pictures of each other and letting others dress them up. The Santa's and elves apparently got boring, because my picture turned out like this:

I just love the gelatinous cranberry sauce floating in the air.

On Friday was another office's Christmas party that I was invited to. Their's was amazingly better than the lunch with their spread and decorations and a projection of a roaring fire. After the party, I was on the train with a coworker and we decided to head to the Village to get drinks. We were at the Blind Tiger until it was too crowded and we were too tired to stand and made it to a super cute little basement-level wine cellar bar in Greenwich and stayed there in a dimly-lit corner for the rest of the night with pinot noir. It's always a nice time with this guy because he's very intelligent, and there's always an interesting exchange of ideas and conversation. And it helps that we're like, the only two people our age at our work and at a similar place in life. So it was a nice Friday night.

On Saturday I had to will the headache from the beer+wine away as I headed out to SoHo early to meet Ronnie and Betsy for brunch. At Cafe Noir I opted for the unlimited Bloody Mary and boy did we stick around to get our money's worth. Afterwards, we went shopping in the SoHo neighborhood (which is always so cute!) and there are even a lot of stores that aren't on the ground level that you kinda have to know about to get to, this was one Betsy took us to, up on the second floor of some building

Ronnie and I stayed in and around SoHo almost all night, walked up to Midtown via Koreatown, where we stopped into a Korean lounge/bar on the third floor of some commercial building and made friends with the bartender (Joseph!) who gave us a free parting vodka shot. Not bad at all! Then, God knows how, but we ended up in the Disney store in Times Square. I HATE that place, how are we always there?! And we still have yet to re-meet our friend Ryan that we met there back in February! I hope he didn't get fired.

This was a lifesized holiday card set up right in front of the Flatiron building

On Sunday I was not feeling well, so I stayed in and listened to rain and watched Lion King and worked on my own projects and found the energy to get ready for my diving banquet. My diving team is encompassed by an entire Aquatics team that includes swimming and water polo as well, and they put together a really lavish affair on the Upper West Side with a cocktail hour, dinner, dessert, coffee, etc. It was so fun to get fancy and to hang out with the diving team outside of the pool and meeting some of the other people! When I was walking into the place, I walked in with what turned out to be some of the swimmers and we were wandering the halls of this huge school looking for the banquet area together and one of the guys said it looked like we were in Hogwarts. I laughed and said "So we're looking for the Great Hall then?" and he said "At this rate I think we have to find the Room of Requirement" and I laughed more... and thought, what would I do if I had never read Harry Potter and couldn't get these references??

I'm kneeling in the front row with a one-sleeved blue dress

The divers!

On the way out, someone said "Happy Hannukah!" to me and handed me this

So this is officially my second hannukah.

Nothing really going on this week, but considering I had the energy to get up and even curl my hair on a Monday, I guess it can't be too bad. 

HBD Doggie!

This is me and Doggie.

Today is her birthday. To give you an idea of her, she grew up going by "Cookie" but now refers to herself as "Psycho Sephy" so... you can do the math. Lolololol. She is the most talented artist you haven't yet heard of, and can sew her own clothes.

Here's a poll for everyone: WHO WORE IT BEST?!

I know that everyone will be tempted to say that I make the better Sailor Venus, but for today, the answer is: SEPHY! Happy birfday, make it a good one!

My New Favorite Place

I heard of the renown literary-den hangout of the the KGB Bar and visited it recently. And it. Was. Awesome. What a place that was! Located in the Bowery and housed in a brownstone that has a theatre on entrance, and up one flight to the bar. Red walls and ornately framed pictures and Russian paraphernalia, dim lighting and booth tables. The bar looked old and familiar, I felt like I was in the house from Casper the Friendly Ghost (the one with Christina Ricci) and I just loved the ambiance.

There was a reading going on so there was a good crowd and they had homemade gingerbread men and women on all of the tables, and I had Brooklyn lager and it was cold outside and warm inside and I got to listen and mingle and it was such a gem of a place.

My favorite Christmas album remains Maybe This Christmas Tree, a compilation I bought in 2003 (?) and still love and only listen to at Christmastime. This is The Christmas Song by The Raveonettes and it's a perfect warm up. I'll keep them coming.

Also, found this in the "archives" aka from Annapolis like 2 weeks ago.

That cannon was forged in England in the 1600's and brought over on the Mayflower !! All to fire one off on Sri.

LA Lakers

When I went to that UCSB happy hour in early November, I was talking a few people, one of whom said that he was the president of the LA Lakers Fan Club in New York City. I laughed and I laughed... until he pulled out his business card for exactly this position and then I shut my mouth. Oops.

So I finally made it to one of the get-togethers last night, which is naturally at a sports bar watching their games, yesterday against the Houston Rockets at an Irish pub in Midtown West. It was pretty fun, and I met a few people (one girl, from the High Desert, had all her best friends study at UC Riverside, so she spends most of her time in Riverside when she goes back to California now. What a nice girl!) and there were even some people from New York who supported the Lakers. I had to refrain from asking stupid questions, because I really don't know anything about basketball, and my Lakers knowledge peaked around 2002 when they were in the midst of their threepeat and I was hanging out with Mat and Ryan a lot who were obsessed and I absorbed all the stats and deferentials from them. So honestly, as far as I knew, the team was still the likes of O'Neal, Bryant, Fisher, Fox, Horry, Madsen, Shaw, and Walker. And I still thought that Vlade Divac and Mike Bibby were playing for the Sacramento Kings. So I bonded more over Los Angeles than the Lakers themselves. But I still support them.

The president (the UCSB alum) does really well at managing the group, and always changes the bars so that they cater to the group and give us killer specials. See how nice they were? And on my walk to the train I went up Fifth Avenue, and though I was further south than where all the main Christmas displays are, I passed Lord & Taylor who had a few... okay displays.

Not the best, but still cheery and fun to look at. I love Christmastime in the city!

September to December

On September 1, 2012, I went to visit Chrishon in Boston for a quick getaway. On December 1, 2012, Chrishon came to visit me in New York for a quick getaway. And both were phenomenally fun!

On Saturday, Chris came into town while I was still in pajamas and eating ice cream and coffee (the perks of living on your own I suppose) so after I took my sweet time getting ready, we hit the streets and walked to Long Island City where we debated the time parameters of brunch, and ended up in what I think was a Belgian bar, called Dominie's Hoek really quirky and cute and fun with a patio (not like anyone was on it in that cold) and lots of board games, and we got lunch and beers (cans of PBR and Lions Head, classy!) and stayed awhile before we wandered back, getting ice cream and then enjoying the warmth of my apartment from the cold. Pretty Woman was on and we took a power nap in my living room only to awake to A League of their Own. Do you know how hard it was to tear ourselves away from the television while this is on? And good thing we could because we ended up having quite a night.

I don't know why, but it seemed to call for an '80s night, so we went into Midtown East to a favorite 80s bar I would go to with Betsy called Joshua Tree... and we closed the place down.

On the walk from Grand Central Station, Chris didn't have her camera and she insisted I take a picture of these.

The music was soooo good, and even though it was more the pop and new wave 80s, they put on Bruce Springsteen and I was soooo excited... but when I saw that no one else seemed to even know what was going on (oh but sure, put on Madonna and everyone's an 80s fan) so I started yelling at everyone that they should be ashamed of themselves... and that was about the time the Dutch boys came over and made friends with us. We spent the rest of the night with two guys from the Netherlands who were so nice and so fun! Like 7 beers and 3 Duran Duran songs later, we saw the lights go up and left that joint at 4am. It felt like midnight! The wonders of a power nap, I tell you. The Dutch guys lived like 2 train stops away from me so we even all took the train home together, and I don't even know what time it was that we crashed, but there was a sun a-risin'.

After not enough sleep at all, we took to the streets and into a cafe where I got completely jittery on the coffee waiting for food and then gouging my face with a full Irish breakfast. We went to the poppin' Austin Street in Forest Hills for Starbucks, shopping, shopping, shopping, and saw Lincoln (I LOVE DANIEL DAY-LEWIS) before dinner at a (legit!) Mexican restaurant and then ice cream.

The weekend went by so fast and was such a whirlwind, it was refreshing to have the company and the fun. I'm looking forward to some ultra-Christmasey events in New York this week.