The Importance of Being Idle: Cleaning Out My Closet

As you may know, we moved out of our apartment after a four and a half year residency. And we got our whole security deposit back, BOO-YAA! We took sad photos after we'd emptied and cleaned:

Lots o' boxes EVERYWHERE (33 to be precise):

Peace out kitchen with tiling circa 1974

Sure shot (because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop)

Bye bye huge closet

(no need for tears - our new place has a closet close in size, and it's solely to store crap)

This is my favorite picture (we left the New Year's balloon on the ceiling as part of our legacy, and also to be like - it's Feb 3rd and the New Year's balloon is still on the ceiling, can you believe it?!)

We are all settled in our new apartment. Dave caved - I got him to go to Ikea mwahahaha (evil laugh.) I think he was secretly enjoying it until he realized it wasn't so easy to just leave.

These are a few of my favorite things about the new apartment:

Decorative birdcage (lights will be added, which are en route)

Our awesome Ikea rug which I could stare at all day

Since I could never find the Don't Look Back in Anger single as a full-sized record, I framed the CD & cover (my favorite cover of all time)

Here's a close-up:

By the way, did you hear who the new spokesperson is for my brand?

Yum

I have zero chance of meeting him since I'm in Operations and not Marketing, le sigh.

My mother-in-law injured her knee skiing, had surgery and is now taking medication for it. Dave asked if she's allowed to drink while on said medication. The conversation that just ensued:
Dave: Can you drink while on the medicine?
Mother-in-law: No one said that I couldn't. I asked Pat (friend who is a nurse), and she said it's fine.
Dave: You asked Pat? She is a nurse who does adult circumcisions.

We went to Puerto Rico for President's Day weekend. Perhaps you already caught this on Facebook, but we had a "wish board" in our room.

I'd seen on Trip Advisor that people asked for things like chocolate covered strawberries and had their wish granted (some people asked for extra towels - not sure why they didn't just call housekeeping?) We figured we'd go for it and asked for champagne, thinking maybe they'd get us the $5 sparkling wine they sold across the street at Walgreens, but we didn't even get that. WISH DENIED!

This was a boutique hotel, and their "thing" was apparently neon. If we chose to shut off the neon lights in the room, there was only a single lamp, so basically we couldn't see anything.

The pool was on the roof and only had 6 seats. Not a problem though - on the Saturday morning we were the only ones up there, and it felt like we had one of those rooms with it's own private pool:

They also played the best music ever at the pool/lounge (Foster the People Pandora if I had to guess) and I was the happiest girl on Isla Verde.

This was our view from the rooftop lounge:

We were grateful that we weren't staying at the hotel next door where the pool hovered over the parking lot:

And now, closer:

At the beach, they brought us limbers, which was some cocunutty ice concoction and it was amazing. Ejemplo:

We ate at the hotel restaurant, Zest, which was maybe one of the best meals I have ever had. We ordered the "popcorn soup," which is literally popcorn served in a snifter (which I've been telling everyone was a "sifter" until I just looked it up to confirm), and they pour the soup on top. It was the richest, most wrong thing I have ever eaten.

Well, that was until I had a mofongo, which is a Puerto Rican specialty. It was a dish of chicken and smashed plantains in a wine sauce. Super delicious and also super wrong. I felt so gross and guilty afterwards that I took a photo to show you the evidence of all of the butter and oil that was leftover after I ate, it was a freakin' pool of fat!

The rooftop lounge had a DJ on the weekends, and was pretty chilled out. The menu lit up, though you can't really tell in this photo:

We also went to Old San Juan, it was lovely.

Cats like to hang out on top of cars there.

This past Friday night, we went for dinner with Angela and Lee at The Heath. This has to be in my top ten weirdest NY experiences. It's basically like a speakeasy, but they have actors that come around and chat to you. I don't want to give too much away, but I kind of have to because it was that weird. When we first sat down, we had written our names on playing cards per one of the actor's request, and a little while later, someone came over to the table and specifically asked for me. Then, a few things happened:
- I got taken into the hallway where a woman with a sexy voice asked me if I remembered "dreaming of Manderley last night?"
- She whisked me away into a pitch black room, lit a piece of paper on fire, blew it out, and suddenly she was gone and a man was standing there
- I was seated in a chair
- Then the back went down so I was laying flat (still in almost complete darkness)
- I got dragged backwards about 20 feet at a pretty fast speed
- The guy grabbed my arm and was talking about I don't know what while I was staring at some 3D scene on the ceiling
- The woman came back and pinned me against the wall
- And some other weird stuff

I was trying to control my nervous laughter - I know it was an "experience" but I didn't know how to react to the whole thing. Very bizarre, yet exciting, glad I got chosen for the back room experience. I recommend it!!

Last night was Shannon's birthday at Ward III. Photo:

I went to the gym FIVE times this week! Step on Sunday, UXF Burn on Monday, Elliptical on Tuesday, Spin on Thursday with my coworkers, and Shred on Saturday. I literally live 2 minutes away from the gym now so no more excuses, for real!

We went to a Polish wedding a few weeks ago at a beautiful venue in Brooklyn