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

They had scotch and vodka out ON the tables

Brandon and Kristen

Kristen and Eric

Dave and I actually met 8 years ago today, yowsa!

I'll leave you with pickled herring and some kind of congealed jelly meat blob

Current Music: Django Django - Waveforms

Holy Mole-y

Just to get my personal weather report out of the way, this arctic blast is no joke.  I worked from home today (two-for-one plumber and doctor appointments) so I didn't need to face the low temperatures until later, but holy crap it's freezing!  In related news, here's your token photo from Friday's snow storm/work from home day (through my window screen.)

Yeah, so uh, big thanks to my super and the plumber who were supposed to show up at noon today but instead came during the middle of my conference call (just a radiator fix but still embarrassing.)  Also, my super has a black eye and his arm is in a sling - motorcycle accident or got the crap kicked out of him?  He was probably stoned at the time, so either way, I'm sure it didn't hurt too much.  

Today I went to the dermatologist to get a beauty mark removed from my leg.  It had started looking "interesting" back in '05 so I had it scraped off, and there were no issues with it at the lab.  I was all sad because I had this scar where my beauty mark used to be, but then it actually grew back a few months later (which totally creeped me out.) It started looking slightly funky recently (recently being two years ago) so I finally went back to have a new, local doctor check it out, and all that she could say is that she didn't have the medical history (I have no idea who the doctor is that removed it), so she didn't know if it was a mole-of-interest or not.  I decided to go the safe route because it was freaking me out and have it removed.  Since it was technically a surgery this time and not a "scrape," it cost a whopping $300! Now I've got four stitches, a hole in my bank account, and a hole in my leg.  Well, better safe than sorry, right?

We booked a trip to Puerto Rico for President's Day, yay!  I don't know anything about PR except that the government had an official travel agency which my mom used to work for in the 70s that gave her free trips.  We are staying at some trendy boutique hotel on Isla Verde beach that has a pool on the roof, and that's all I know.  So, if you have any tips on what to do, please advise.

This song is fabulous: "Haboglabotribin"

Why can't I download Bastille's "Of the Night" in the US?  WHY??

For the Price of a Cup of Tea

Welcome!  My 2014 resolution is not to lose weight (because that should just be a forever ongoing goal), but to return to blogging on a consistent basis.  I'm just kind of over Twitter, and like the idea of having my blog as a kind of diary once again, so, here we go 2014 (let's see how long I can do this for before I return to tweeting.)

Disclaimer: Some things in this post may have already been Facebooked and/or Tweeted because, you know, there was no blogging for a while.

Here's a cool post box I saw on Fifth Avenue:

Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I was in England last week for Xmas, my 8th one at Dave's (WOW!)  United Airlines are seriously the worst.  I know that my butt is big, but the fact that I could only fit half of it on the seat is kind of ridiculous.  The entertainment was awful (5 movies that are ongoing and you never know when they are restarting.)  On the way back I made up for it with a movie marathon on Air Canada (Deliverance, Don Jon, Crash, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.)  Anyhoo, Dave's mom picked us up at Heathrow and I passed out in the car, then took a nap, then went to bed at 10 pm.  Ahh jet lag.

On Sunday we went into London and I met up with Shiraz, Jackie, Ryan, Ellie, and Doug in Bethnal Green (the only area in London without a cash machine, fact?)  We went for a pint (actually, half a pint, I couldn't get through my Stella for some reason), then to The Boundary for cream tea.  This was maybe the most filling meal I've ever had, I was stuff-oed.

We all planned to go home after that and said goodbye until the fresh air awoke Shiraz so we went to The Water Poet.  Nice pub, great back area!!  Then we planned to go home and Shiraz got a hankering for McDonald's so we went there (AND they played "Helena Beat" AND I almost had a heart attack.)  Then we planned to go home but the fresh air woke Shiraz up again so we went to another pub.  AND we saw a mop dog!!

After that I met up with Dave and Krish and I got a doner kebab. What a mistake - I had a stomach ache the whole night.  Guess I can't eat that shit anymore.

The next morning we completed our Xmas shopping and met up with Krish for lunch.  Before that we saw the giant blue rooster (??) in Trafalgar Square.

Here are this year's Xmas decorations on Carnaby Street -

The weather turned into a horror movie with out of control rain and winds so I had to cancel my dinner plans with Laura and Joy because the trains stop in the UK if there's so much as a breeze (I'm still furious about this.)  The trains had actually stopped going to Clacton as early as 1 pm so we ended up at Colchester and did a bit more shopping.  I found this gem of a game in a department store -

I went to the Red Lion only four times during the week!  This was Xmas Eve:

This was the Xmas ham:

Dave trimmed it nice and thin; when I took over I sliced off giant chunks and basically ruined the ham (which was delivered from Spain.)  Sorry.

On Christmas night we did karaoke.  "Party in the USA" is really difficult to sing!  (Don't tell anyone that I selected it, okay??)

Here are some Morris Dancers on Boxing Day, LOLOLOL:

And this wrinkly doggy in the pub:

We spent a lot of time with Cameron and Olivia.  Livvie got two hamsters; here's one eating Cam's Legos:

We also went bowling in Clacton.  I got a "Shmoo" with Baileys.  I guess I asked for that with a thick New York accent because the bartender certainly thought it was funny.

The Pavilion was super cute!  Here's the smallest ice skating rink I've ever seen.  It's not even made of ice?!

Also, it has the smallest bumper car grounds -

On Saturday night we did a quiz at the pub.  How many rows of stars are there on the US flag?  Don't ask the Americans because we for sure had no idea.  Also, look who played on the 14th lol.

We had a coffee in Strada at Heathrow AND they played "I Would Do Anything For You" AND I almost had a heart attack.

Here's a photo from the most laid back New Year's Eve ever:

And here are moustaches.  Dave looks like a porn star from the '70s and Brandon looks like a creepy circus emcee.  Eww, I can't, eww eww.

I got a nose bleed tonight.  WTF?  Aren't those only for kids and cocaine addicts?

Current music: AWOLNATION - Kill Your Heroes