Happy Thanksgiving!

2 weeks ago was pretty boring. On Tuesday, I went out and ran some errands before completely randomly running into an old coworker of mine at Penn Station. I saw her hair (she has very distinct hair) and kind of walked sideways beside her trying to make sure it was her, before jumping in front of her and shocking her. It was really good getting to see her - she worked full time for my company not-from-the-office, and once I made the decision to quit, I didn't get to see her in person to say goodbye. We spent 20 mins just chatting away which made my morning.

After running into my friend, I decided to head to the movies - and went to see "Gone Girl". I've read the book, so there were no surprises for me. But I will say - the movie made me more ragey than the book did. At least with the book, I could be like "all right, you're a dick but I see why". With the movie, I was just like "You're a DICK". The highlight of the movie was for realz yo, NPH. He had a part in it and rocked it out.

After the movies, I went grocery shopping for some grub before stopping at Landsdowne for nachos and beers to end out my afternoon. I need to stop ordering those nachos though - ever since they dropped the cheese whiz from their menu, the nachos haven't been the same. First world problems you all, they're real.

Thursday was a visit to the vet with grumpy pants. Tigga lost about .1 lbs - which the vet actually said is expected. He thinks Tigga is at a good weight now (whereas I want him to gain 2 more pounds), and that a slight bounce up and down now is what he expects. The brighter news with Tigga is that they did a full panel of tests this time, and when the vet called with the results, he said and I quote: "I couldn't ask for better results". So we've got that going for him! What's a slight weight loss when the chemo and steroids are doing what they need to do.

Friday night was a visit to the Winchester to hang out for the evening. We got caught up with our friends and made some Sunday Funday plans. We had a bit of a dance off to end our evening, which is always a good time. Because I'm such a wicked good dancer. Wicked.

Sunday Funday plans were as follows: 1) agree to meet friends at 10 am at a local breakfast place 1 block from your house; 2) arrive 20 mins late because that 1 block felt like 45 blocks and 10 am felt like 5 am; 3) skip breakfast because you were 20 minutes late; 4) split up into 2 cars and drive out to NJ for the day.

No joke - it was our annual trip out to our bartender's local bar in NJ. We try to do this once a year (hence "annual") - go see him in his natural habitat. It was a really good time - everyone came from our bar that we are friends with, the food was solid, and the buybacks were plentiful. And the PACKERS WON!!! After the first round of Sunday games, we decided to head back to Winchester to hang with the Sunday bartender who was morose as we were all in NJ instead of at the regular bar (we had been texting him pictures all day). And we ended the night pretty late, pretty drunkenly, at a local diner - bookending our day nicely with eating. Or would've been a bookend if I had actually made it to the breakfast place on time that morning.

Part of Sunday Funday involved trying to talk Mr Pooh into the Great Saunter - which is a 32 mile walk around the circumference of Manhattan. I'm not sure he actually agreed to my insanity, but on Monday, I wanted to start walking my ass off to get ready for the Saunter. Soooo... I managed to convince Blondie to eat lunch with me and walked 3.1 miles down to Blondie, taking the High Line Park route, before walking 3.1 miles back to our hood along the Hudson River route (it was 70 degrees, sunny, and I was *coated* in sweat when I got back).

After getting back, I crashed out in our apt for awhile, before meeting up with my bar friend at Pony to hang out for a bit. We hadn't seen our Sunday bartender in awhile (she also works Mondays) and wanted to catch up with her - it was a good thing because of something scary that's coming up for her that we didn't know about. We were able to talk to her about it all, offer her our assistance, and hopefully just be clear that whatever she needs, we are there for.

Tuesday was a long walk on the treadmill gym (I've been working out at the gym since I quit my job - I don't talk about it much on the blog but I do. Also, almost all walking for the Great Saunter will be at the treadmill over the winter, so I truly am training for it even if you don't read about it), before spending the day being ultra lazy.

And Wednesday - wooo hooo! It started snowing right when Blondie and I headed out to see a play. So we decided to walk in the snow up to Broadway. On the walk to Broadway, it warmed up just enough to turn the snow to rain, so we were soaked by the time we got there. But the play was amazing - we saw "Disgraced". It was about racial tensions, domestic violence, just a really well-acted play (it had Josh Radnor - Ted Mosby from HIMYM - in it). It was NOT a holiday play if I need to spell that out.

After the play we headed for cajun food and hurricanes, and then home for an after dinner drink, before meeting up with everyone again at Winchester. Many drinks ensued. Lots of jukebox song playing ensued. Lots of "who the fuck played this song?" ensued as someone else in the bar also had the app where you can play the jukebox from your phone. And lots of appreciation for my life ensued at that time. Yay drunk emotions - so real.

Thursday was nice - it was snowing outside in the morning so I curled up with the cat and watched the parade on the TV while Blondie worked on his game for a bit. And then we met up with our bar friends at 3 pm to go bar hopping around Murray Hill area - we went to Molly's and met an awesome bartender, before heading to Tap Room and enjoying some crazy good beer. Our dinner that night was at BLT Prime, where everyone ignored the turkey and went for steak. They had a steak temperature called "Blue" which was one temperature rarer-than-rare. So I had my steak blue.

Friday and Saturday were spent not leaving the house - except for a liquor store run on Saturday as we drank all the rum on Friday. I made a huge pot of chili yesterday (THANKS MRS POOH!) in the morning and it smelled sooo good all day long. And we mostly have been just lazy, watching TV and movies.

Today it's to Pony to say goodbye (for a few weeks) and good luck to our bartender. And that's it.

For anyone who's interested in the Great Saunter and would like to walk it with me and Mr Pooh (hopefully), let me know - you all are invited! Also, random trivia, but I read that you can tell the age of someone by how many spaces they put after periods in their sentences - apparently, you used to do 2 spaces after a period on a typewriter to clearly identify a new sentence, but now on computers, there is no need to do that because one space works out perfectly. So if you learned to type on a typewriter, it's obvious on your resume which then spells out your age (guess who updated their resume to have 1 space after a period? Guess who still can't do that when writing up blog posts?)

The Grateful List:
1) Blondie and Tigga: sooo happy as always these 2 are in my life. So happy that Tigga is better, kicking his cancer belly's ass (can you kick a belly's ass?). So happy that Blondie is Blondie - I wouldn't change him for the world.
2) Travel: I did a lot of it this year, and saw some great things. New places I visited were: Key West, Redwoods x 4, WA / OR border, Alaska, England, Wales. Places I've been and got to revisit were: Detroit x 5, Chicago x 5, Lex x 2, San Francisco x 4, Minneapolis / northern WI, Jamaica, Madison (x 1 now, x 2 because Xmas trip coming up). I'm sure I'm forgetting some. But the point is - there was travelling.
3) Quitting my job: I'm ready to go back to work, but I'm glad I did it (I'm glad Blondie talked me into it and is supportive of me in this venture) as I'm now mentally ready to KICK SOME ASS at wherever I go next.
4) Family and friends: I love you guys.
5) NYC: I love you, guy.
6) Blondie (again) and Mr Pooh: Pulling off a 40th birthday surprise of a lifetime! (and Mrs Pooh for watching the Pooh-lets while Mr Pooh came to NYC). The 40th birthday itself sucked, but what came after made it all worthwhile!
7) Turning 40: I hate it, but I'm glad it's done so I can stop thinking about it.

--K