Saying Goodbye

We got the news on Saturday morning that Blondie's grandma had passed. She was the last surviving grandparent on either side, and we are going to miss her so much. She was an extremely classy lady, one of the nicest people I've known, and always welcomed me into her life just as if I'd been born a G-ster instead of marrying in. Hugs and Kisses Grandma - we are going to miss you.

We did have plans for yesterday, but due to getting the news, we've lain low all weekend.

Last week was also low-key - coming into freeze for a major project I'm on, and trying to get it all cleaned up has been taking my time. I'm writing up defects, farming them up, getting shit cleaned up - you name it, I'm there holding the shovel behind it.

Hope everyone has a good week.

--K

I don't have a lot this week, but I am a shitty sister... So there's that

First off, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to sis and brother R! Their birthdays were 8/11 and 8/10 respectively. I brain farted and didn't post a shout out to them on the blog on their days, but I did update their FB pages and in the case of sis, talk to her to wish her a happy birthday. Love from your crappy sister...

This past week was pretty tame. I feel like Blondie and I crammed so much stuff into our weeks and weekends when we first moved here, that taking a well-deserved break from the more touristy activities is a relief right now.

Blondie took off on Monday to Arkansas for the week - his baby bro is in graduate school there, and Blondie went down to hang for a week before classes started up again. He had a great time - from hiking and camping, to eating Chick-fil-A, it was everything he wanted in his vacation.

I, on the other hand, did jack squat all week. I worked of course. There is always that. But other than that, nada. I came home every night, made some type of mexican food for dinner (with Blondie out of town, it was all Kerri in the kitchen, all the time), and then crashed in front of the T.V.

On Wednesday, I got fed up with my hair. I had the very long, very straight hippie do left over from living in San Francisco for too long - I was in the process of putting it up on Wednesday when it hit me - "why do I do this? Why do I keep it really long and then tie it off my face? Why not just cut it off?" So I did. I LOVE THE NEW HAIRCUT! OMG. It makes me look about 10 lbs lighter, and it's so much cooler than all that hair I had before.

My hairdresser thinks I should go blonde, but I have to think about that one for awhile. It's been a long long time since I was blonde, and I'm not sure I'm ready to do that again - so I pussed out on changing my hair color. But I'm ecstatic with the cut.

Blondie flew back on Friday and we spent yday afternoon crushing on each other and our city. We got in a good workout, and then enjoyed some us time - we headed up to our veggie and meat markets, and stopped at our local magazine stand for lottery tickets, and then headed out to lunch at our bar - we snagged a prime seat on the patio, enjoyed some (many) cheap beers, ate some good grub, and people watched the afternoon away.

After our lunch, we headed back to our building and went up to the top floor (45th). It was a perfect day outside, 83 degrees and sunny, and the view from up top was spectacular. We both just kept saying "OMG. We live here!" or "OMG! Did you ever imagine 20 years ago that you'd be living in NYC now?"

After our trip to the top, we came back down and enjoyed a few more beers on our patio, before I crashed for a little bit. We ordered in a sub (I ate an entire 12" meatball sub on my own) and some pizza slices for dinner, and called it an early night.

Due to my sub-fiasco last night, I just got back from 2 hours at the gym. I feel a lot better now than I did before the workout. Today, Blondie and I are talking about going up to visit "Pop Tart World" in Times Square - 3000 sq ft dedicated to the pop tart. We also have to run another errand in Times Square. But the weather has turned crappy - it's completely overcast out there now, so maybe we'll just watch TV all day. What a great day to do nothing!

--K

A whole lotta nada

After our Willie Nelson concert last week, Blondie and I decided to lay low and just take it easy. We didn't entirely succeed in this mission, but had a good weekend anyway.

On Friday, I moved offices at work - I moved from my office down a little hall with no windows, to one on the main drag of the office with windows overlooking NYC and the East River. I thought I would love this - and I do, except that being on the main drag - everybody and their brother drops in. Sometimes this rocks, sometimes this is no bueno. Also, it's about 3 degrees in my office - the a/c runs full-blast at all times. I had to borrow someone's snuggie (it was a gag gift at the office holiday party) and cover the vents and then cover the snuggie with my whiteboard (which I took off the wall for this).

Since Friday is a short day at work and most of it was spent moving, my coworkers decided drinks were in order for Friday afternoon. We hit up one of our local bars that has a rooftop patio. It was a gorgeous NYC day - perfect temp, sun was shining - and we got awesome seats since we got there at 1:30 pm. Blondie joined us around 5, and by 9:30, I was home and getting sick. Sigh. Who's 35? Apparently not me - it turns out I act like I'm 17!

Saturday I felt right as rain though so Blondie and I did a good workout, and then I got a pedicure - I heart the color I got done and might make it my "signature" color. After the pedi, we went and did all of our grocery shopping before heading home to crash the day away.

Sunday we headed up to Times Square to see Inception, and holy shit - it was literally one of the best movies I've ever seen in my life. Blondie and I are still talking about it - 6 days later - trying to figure it out. We both have different theories, and both question how/why things occurred in some of the dream sequences. When a movie can make you question it almost a week after you've seen it - it's so worth it. Go see it. You need to. And I'm saying this even though Johnny Depp isn't in it - so you know I HAVE to love it.

This week went by kind of fast. It was work work work every day, but for some reason, it didn't feel like a dragged out week like it normally does.

Yesterday I was supposed to meet Blondie for drinks and lunch at 1 pm - but got waylaid at work. We're in the final stages of testing for a project I'm on, and someone had checked in some code that broke everything - so it was tracking that person down, getting the code cleaned up, making sure everything was up and running, etc (I still do traces of my old job duties in addition to my new role). Because of all this, I met Blondie 2.5 hours after I was supposed to - but we did get a nice spot on the patio and got to people watch and drink $2 Miller Lites for the rest of the afternoon. I'm going to miss summer Fridays.

I'm not sure what all we're going to do this weekend, but we are definitely going to see Dinner for Schmucks at some point. I need to get in a good run today, and Blondie has to pack as he's off to Arkansas to hang with his baby bro for a week. We bought tics back to KY for a couple of weeks from now to see my family, and SF trip is back on for work - I'm either headed there in 1 week for a week, or I'm headed out in the middle of Sept for 2 weeks.

Also, the best news! Last night, after too many Miller Lites, we bought tickets for my birthday to see Green Bay and the Jets! We are in the end zone, 10 rows up - so super awesome seats! I'm taking the Monday off after the game too, since it's a Sunday night game. So excited! Time to bust out the Green Bay gear...

--K

Willie Nelson, You Are Always On My Mind

OMG people! Last night was... Best! Night! Ever! When we first moved to NYC back in February, we made a list of things we wanted to do here before we left (you can see the list on my NY blog). One of the things was "Concert at Radio City Music Hall". So I went digging, looked around, and holy crap - Willie Nelson was coming to town in July. I booked immediately.

Flash forward to last night (about 4 months after I booked the tickets), and here comes Willie!

I started my day off by dressing in cowtown clothes - that is, I wore my cowboy boots. I felt like a giant jackass all day long (hint: people at work give you really funny looks when you wear cowboy boots), but it didn't bother me.

I met Blondie for dinner at a diner, we both enjoyed a hamburger and split a chocolate shake. Then we headed over to RCMH. Where I 100% fit in with my boots. And Blondie fit in with his facial hair. Literally, 80% of the men had some kind of random facial hair. Also, we were younger than about 95% of the people there too.

So Willie's warm-up band pretty much rocked my world - between them and a couple of beers, I was bouncing all over the place waiting for him to come out. And then he did! It was like the 2nd coming of christ - everyone went nutso.

He's a fabulous entertainer - a huge pot smoker (a lot of his lyrics were about being high) - and the most sprightly almost 80 year old I've ever seen go in my life. Blondie pointed out that since Willie is a huge pot smoker, and he's totally got more energy than either of us combined, maybe we should drop the beer habit and pick up a more herbal one. Which made me laugh until I about peed myself.

We love you Willie!
--K

You're so money, you don't even know it

I believe this is the year of the never-ending heat wave. It's so disgustingly hot outside, it's insane. All week long, it's been in the high 90's with horrible humidity. But for as much as I hate sweating through my clothes, I've also started to remember how much I love the heat in general.

This week was good - it was obviously hot, but a good week. I finally feel like I've settled into my new role (only took 6 months - go me), but I still don't like the position that much. I don't think I'll ever be comfortable having my job be making other people do their job. This week involved a lot of making uncomfortable decisions, but I did it - and because of that, I feel okay about work.

Outside of work, I had an excellent week. A friend of mine texted me on Thursday and asked me if Blondie and I wanted to join her and her hubby for Shakespeare in the Park on Friday. We were all over it! And then she told me we had to get in line at the theater in the park at 6 am on Friday to get tickets. Luckily, I'm a morning person, so we worked up an arrangement where I would meet her at 6, and then Blondie would take over my position in line at 9 am so I could go to work.

The alarm went off on Friday and it was just like being at the despised old job again (or bootcamp). My eyes popped open, and I was instantly wide awake. I left the apartment around 5:40 am, and was so freaking surprised by how many people were already out and about for the day! NYC wakes up early - or maybe it's better to say it just never goes to sleep to begin with.

I met my friend at the start of the line at 6, and we headed down the line to the end to join it. We started walking, and kept walking and walking and walking. So many people. SO MANY PEOPLE! They weren't even giving the tickets out until 1 pm, yet the line was ginormous. It was so different than going to Shakespeare in KY - there you just show up about an hour before the performance and throw your blanket on the grass. Of course, Al Pacino acts in the NYC Shakespeare, and he never came to KY once - so maybe that's the difference???

Anyway, about 6:45 am, the people that run Shakespeare came through and told us there was no way we were getting tickets that far back in line. So my buddy and I packed up our stuff, and headed for breakfast (side note: as I get older, it gets harder and harder to just make friends - but I honestly met this woman and felt like we had been friends for years already. Thanks Sweetie J! I owe you!) After breakfast, I cut back across the city to go to work. I didn't get my summer Friday on Friday as I had to make the decision to have everyone work the entire day (anyone want to guess as to how much they hate me right now?)

Friday night was low-key - I met Blondie at a german restaurant for some beers, and then we headed home to order some pizza for dinner. And then it was Saturday 5:30 am and I was up again. My sleep schedule tends to get thrown off very easily, so uber early Friday leads to uber early Saturday.

After a good workout, Blondie and I headed up to Port Authority to catch the bus to Atlantic City. We had a fantastic trip - enjoyed some really good seafood, and spent the afternoon and evening gambling the day away (craps, blackjack and pai gow). We caught a 1 am bus back to the city which put us into NY at 4 am this morning. We are both way down for the trip - neither of us caught any kind of streak which kind of sucked. But it was so good just hanging with Blondie and getting out of the nasty heat of the city.

When we came out of Port Authority at 4 am today, I about fell over - even then, it was so muggy - I can't even describe it - it was like walking through hot soup or something. Ugh.

Today we slept in and then I found the energy somehow to force my way through some semblance of a workout. We headed down to our deli and got some cold sandwiches for lunch, and then a huge storm blew through so we watched that for awhile.

We have no plans for the upcoming week, but I'm hoping it goes by fast. Blondie has a trip to Arkansas coming up, and we are looking at heading to KY at the end of August. My boss has hinted around at me heading back to SF for a week for a project I'm on - I talked my way out of the first trip she wanted me to go on, but not sure I can do that again.

Sweatily Yours,
--K

From Broadway to Paris... With Love

First off, the answer to the question I know everyone is asking. It's "Yes, I did buy another eggplant this week". My food was SO GOOD last week (actually, I can't decide if it was really that good or if I'm just a cheapskate) that I'm doing it again this week. I'm off to grill up an eggplant as soon as I'm done here. I did hit up my salad place today for lunch though - can't have my guys forgetting I'm "mixed greens" girl.

The early part of last week was pretty low-key, but then Thursday started the fun. Blondie came and met up with me and 5 of my coworkers for some Korean Fried Chicken. Between the 7 of us, we managed to put away 4 huge bottles of Soju. Um, WTF? How? We also managed to cram down more food than should be legal. OMG. I seriously felt so gut-heavy when we left, like it was pulling me down.

Friday, I got out of work early (woot!) so I met Blondie for some hurricanes and cajun food (he had smothered chicken and biscuits, and I had etoufee) for lunch. 1 hurricane turned into 1 hurricane and a beer, turned into 1 hurricane, a beer, and 2 margaritas, turned into the same + 8 beers. Oops. :) And a bag of pretzels.

Saturday we had no plans, so we decided to head up to see an off-Broadway play we'd been wanting to see - The Screwtape Letters. This is a story originally penned by C.S. Lewis - it was basically a 1 man play, involving a bureaucrat in hell who was sending letters to his nephew in the real word who was trying to recruit people to the devil's side. It was so incredibly interesting - I was shocked. The set was minimal but spooky, the main actor was the perfect person for the role, and they brought in enough modern day references and comic-relief, that it never felt like you were being preached to.

Seeing the play was like being in church though. The people behind me kept saying "yes! Yes! oh yes lord!" and the woman beside me was bored out of her mind and kept sighing and slamming her body around her chair.

After the play, we headed off for some nachos and beers before heading home early and taking it easy the rest of the night.

Sunday, we decided to do a heavy workout (we workout every single day of the week, but on Sunday, we wanted a hard-core workout). We headed down to our gym, and busted some major ass, before heading on over to Brooklyn. Some friends of ours were headed to Bastille Day in Brooklyn, so we met up with them and some of their friends. Our day involved a ton of fabulous new people (I'd be friends with them all), a lot of champagne cocktails (you can drink on the street!) and some pizza to end it all. It's a good thing I did that hard-core workout, let me tell you. Captain Butterball, reporting for duty!

Today it's 5000 degrees outside (no exaggeration) and I managed to sweat out everything I ate over the weekend. I had to run to Times Square after work to do an errand and decided to take the underground path from Port Authority to Times Square. The non-air conditioned, underground path, crammed full of people headed home from work. I sweated clear through my khakis and had to walk around Times Square with 2 enormous circles of sweat on my butt cheeks. Swamp Ass - that's the technical terms for it.

Hope everyone is doing well, and is less sweaty than us!

--K

The way to my heart

Blondie brought me treats this past weekend - he knows me too well. Roses and a celebrity gossip magazine. I LOVE THIS MAN!



--K

Making Eggplant. Yeah baby. Exciting life I lead!

To start with, let me say - I'm a salad girl. At least 2-3 times a week for lunch, I get a huge veggie salad with 1 protein on top (chicken, shrimps, egg, something). I love my salads. It's so hot here, that all I basically eat is fruit, cereal, and salad. What I don't love about my salad is paying a minimum of $8 a day for salad for lunch. Ugh. Why can't my salads be free?

Sooooo, this past Saturday when we hit up our cheap ass farmer's market, the whole paying for a salad was on my mind - and I saw the most beautiful eggplants. Ever. I just finished cooking up one and Blondie grilled me a chicken breast - I have lunches for the rest of the week! Go me!

I'm sure my salad guy is going to miss me though - I'm in my salad place so much that as soon as they see me, they start with the mixed greens as the base. It's kind of embarrassing actually. So many places to eat in NYC, and I pick the same one. Every. Single. Day.

This was a very good, but still very jam packed week we just came off of. Slick and PFunk left last Monday, and on Wednesday, we had our very first Mets game! They played the Reds (whom I used to ADORE but that's only because KY doesn't have any pro sports teams at all, and the Reds are basically in KY anyway). I met Blondie and we took the subway out to Queens. The ride was nice, but honestly people - I must have a sign stuck to me that says "I want you to talk to me!" Everytime I get on a car, I guarantee I've either got the crazies, the people who want to convert you to their religion, or the ones that feel the need to tell you everything about them.

This ride was no exception - I listened to a gentleman prattle on and on for the 35 minute ride, and the conversation ended by him telling Blondie he would look for him in his Mets cap on TV. Yes, because nobody else at Citifield would be wearing a Mets cap. Oh well, he made the ride interesting at least. If that was my biggest problem last week, then I'm 1 f'ing lucky person.

So the Mets lost which was sad - and brought our record of seeing NY sports teams play to 0 and 4. Yes, every single team has lost. But Citifield had some of the most amazing stadium food I've ever had. They had fresh jalapenos on their condiment station for crying out loud. It was beautiful. I almost cried. And then I molested the hell out of the condiment stand. Parents were covering their kids eyes - "don't look! don't look!"

Then, on Saturday, Blondie and I had tickets to see the Gotham Girls Roller Derby! We decided to cheer for the Queens of Pain (their mascot was a guy completely dressed in S&M gear - how can you NOT root for them?) They played the Brooklyn Bombshells, and absolutely whipped them. I LOVE ROLLER DERBY! I've made a decision to start taking skating lessons from the girls, because I think I'd be a bad ass blocker. It's all about the thighs, and trust me, I have the thighs. Blondie and I had a blast on Saturday, all without booze, because the rink was actually in a local college - no alcohol sold on that campus. It was so worth it. What a great game!

And finally, what I will call Shit Show Sunday. We got up and headed down to Greenwich Village to do a walking tour with a local meetup group we are a part of. Our subway ride (back to the crazies) involved an entire family from North Caroline (they screamed that they were from there) and a daughter-in-law who decided to climb up the rails and hang from her knees upside down. She kept hollering "Take a picture! Take a picture!" This woman was at least 25 years old. OMG. I couldn't decide whether to laugh until I peed myself or get the skeevies about how many gross germs she was picking up by flinging herself around like that.

And just so everybody doesn't think I'm a super mega bitch, I totally helped them with directions to the WTC site before we got off the train. Also, they TOTALLY reminded me of my family. North Carolina and KY are pretty dang close.

Anyway, I love the West Village area, and was really looking forward to hearing some more of the history about the place. So I was completely looking forward to this tour. But it was not good - I'm sure there are really good tours/tourguides, but our guide was not one of them. He did take us to 1 interesting site (in 2 hours) - some old stables that had been converted into houses on a street that was gated off. I didn't even know that existed. But the rest - nah. He seriously took us into Washington Square Park to look at an elm tree. I'm still not sure how that relates to Greenwich Village.

Afterwards, Blondie and I headed for margaritas and mexican food - which officially started Shit Show Sunday. While we were dining on the outdoor patio, I happened to notice a little bar across the street, down some steps, with $3 PBR specials. As soon as we were done with lunch, we hit up the bar where we got to watch the last of the World Cup game. The primary team being rooted for was Spain, and a woman in the bar kept screaming "Espana! Espana! We are the champions of the world!" Blondie made me about lose it when he said "If the Netherlands score (prior to Spain winning of course), then I'm going to scream Deutch! Deutch! and dry hump the TV screen".

After the game, we headed back to our hood but stopped on the way to pick up some margarita mix. We proceeded to each down a ton of beer and another margarita when we got home. I was fast asleep by 9 pm, completely drunk off my ass. I think I carried on an hour long conversation with my mom on the phone at some point but I could not tell you what we talked about to save my life.

Also, I'm getting old - today I totally felt everything I did to my body yesterday. I walked around work in a daze, feeling like I had been sucker punched in the gut all day. OMG. So old!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We have no plans coming up, just some relaxation time built in. Can't wait to just enjoy what NYC throws at us.

--K

It's really f'ing hot here

And apparently, the belly is the air conditioner for a cat.

Revisit, redo, and recap

Monday: Last week started off with Blondie's sister and her family (husband and baby) coming for a visit. I came home from work on Monday and we took off to our local bar (it's totally baby-friendly, for as much as a bar can be baby-friendly) for some grub and beers. While we were sitting there chatting and relaxing, we decided a night out in Times Square was needed. We headed up in the horrendous heat to take in the lights and sounds of the craziest section of New York (which is saying A LOT).

One of the local businesses had taken over one of the huge electronic billboards - they had trained a camera on the crowd so basically you could see yourself on the huge screens of Times Square. The 4 of us spent literally about 15 minutes being giant jackasses and laughing our asses off at ourselves. Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself... BTW, it was all my idea to do this too!

Tuesday: I met back up with the group on Tues evening in Little Italy for some pasta dinner. It was a quick 15 minute train ride down, and my pasta con broccoli was killer. We split a caraffe (how do you spell that?) of wine and just enjoyed getting to catch up.

Wednesday: The family was off, but Sweetie J was ready for some action. She came to my office and hung out with me for awhile, before we headed over to Murray Hill to meet up with some of her friends from Brooklyn. Blondie joined us for a fabulous indian food dinner at the suggestion of her friend. The restaurant (Copper Chimney) was soooo good, and I think I made some pretty obscene noises as I slobbered over the lamb chops with yogurt sauce. Go me! Many bottles of beer, and after dinner was over, it was time to head to a local bar and party it up San Francisco style!

Thursday: Um, owies! I nursed a headache all day but sucked it up big time and headed out to meet up with Blondie, Slick and PFunk. They had flown in from Chicago (minus Blondie who just flat out lives here) early Thurs morning and had spent the day drinking beers, napping, and generally making me jealous. The 4 of us decided to hit our local cheap bar (hint: I'm going to marry Rudy's when it becomes legal to marry an inanimate object). PFunk and I managed to catch the eye of a very inebriated (very x very) lady who took it upon herself to try and be our BFF's. This is literally what I understood of what she said to us over the course of 20 minutes: chickpeas, pressure cooker, 3 pounds, helicoptor, Beyonce. The rest of her words ran together so hard - it was like madlibs without any clues.

PFunk and I literally pushed the guys out of the bar, we were trying to escape so bad. We headed down the street to our local sports bar to imbibe some more and split a plate of onion rings. PFunk had an awesome idea for Turkish Cuisine, so we headed there for dinner. Since I hadn't gotten my fill of lamb from the previous night, I got the lamb stuffed bell peppers - I was about to take a bath with them, they were so good.

Friday: 1 pm end time = Lombardi's pizza by 1:30. Such great pizza, and no wait time like Grimaldi's! Afterwards, we wandered through Chinatown and over to the Brooklyn Bridge - it was a gorgeous day for a walk over, and then we found a bar and had several beers while cooling down. We got a completely nutter bartender whom I wanted to adopt. His opinion: you haven't seen Central Park until you've been there after midnight. Also, if I went after midnight and got mugged, I could drink for free whenever I went into his bar. My opinion: It's almost worth it for free beer.

We caught the train back to the city and relaxed for a bit afterwards, before getting ready and heading out to Les Halles!!!! This is Tony Bourdain's restaurant (even though he isn't associated with it any longer - that I'm aware anyway). Our meal was so good - I got steak covered in foie gras. I'm aware that foie gras is a hot topic, and am always very hesitant to eat it. To be fair to me, it's only about the 3rd time in my life that I've had it - so it's not like I'm eating it out every single weekend. But I did have a lot of guilt afterwards, so I think I'll add it to my list of "no way jose". It's a shame it tastes so f'ing good.

After our meal, we headed out for more beers - we gave ourselves a curfew of 12:30 am which extended to 1 am rather quickly. We had a curfew for a good reason - and I'm glad we stuck to it because....

Saturday: STATUE OF LIBERTY AND ELLIS ISLAND TOUR!!! We were up and out of the house by 11 am to catch the train down to the tip of Manhattan. We waited in a line that was crazy big, but was absolutely worth it. We didn't have tickets to actually go up into the statues, but we got to completely wander all around the base of the statue. The boat ride over was beautiful and the views of the city skyline from the island was amazing. After the statue, we caught a second ferry boat to Ellis Island and went through the Immigration Museum. The exhibits were amazing, and it felt exhilirating to get a tiny sense of what people did to move to this country. Blondie and Slick were able to search for some of their relatives from the museum's database.

We caught the ferry back to Manhattan and enjoyed a pitcher of beer in the beer garden, before heading back to our hood for some pizza and a shower. At 8 pm that night, Slick's cousin caught up with us along Sweetie J and another buddy of ours from San Francisco. We went for tapas and enjoyed a beautiful Saturday night on a patio with many pitchers of Sangria.

Afterwards, off for beer! We hit up several bars before winding down the evening in a singing (not dueling) piano bar, serenading each other with heartfelt renditions of Bon Jovi, Journey, and showtunes. We got home around 4 am and decided food was in order. So I drug my drunk ass down to our 24 hour deli and proceeded to buy anything that wasn't nailed down.

Sunday: All of a sudden it was noon. WTF? How did that happen? I haven't slept past 7:45 am in about 5 years, but here we were. Blondie came to the rescue with a giant pot of coffee and then we headed out for greasy breakfast before catching the train to Central Park. It was crazy hot, so we found a tree, spread our blankets underneath, and rehydrated all afternoon with water.

We headed back to our hood early to buy some pies and snacks, and then it was to the apartment to start our party train off. 2 pitchers of margaritas later, it was time to head to our balcony to watch the fireworks show from there. HOW LUCKY ARE WE? As we watched millions of people trying to get out to the river to view the fireworks, all we had to do was step out our balcony door.

The fireworks were amazing. So good to finally see them in person. After the fireworks, we ordered in some more beer (and flaming hot Cheetohs) and drank the night away. My schedule is so f'ed up right now.

Today, everyone is gone. It's me and Blondie again. Le sigh. I'm going to try and get back to Chicago to visit Slick and PFunk in August, along with a trip to KY to visit the fam. Blondie is off to Arkansas to hang with his bro for a week, camping and fishing. And that's what we have to look forward to.

I'm in a down mood right now - I feel like I've had one of the top 5 weeks of my whole life this past week, and now it's back to work, work, work. It's Monday dread times 50000.

I think I need a vacation.

--K

I have no title today

I'm trying to get off my ass right now and go for a run. It's not working.

Okay, so, I had a pretty good week. It could've been better, but it also could've been way worse - so that nets out to a win in my book.

Monday I came home from work and Blondie had some serious cabin fever. After dinner, he wanted to head out to buy some coffee so I went with him. It was a beautiful night, the sun was just starting to set - so Blondie suggested a walk to the Hudson. We sat out by the river, people watching, eavesdropping and debating about whether the city across the river was Hoboken (Blondie) or Jersey City (me). I lost.

We also found some free binoculars for your viewing pleasure - the kind that normally you have to put a quarter in. I made the pretty bad discovery that if you aimed the binoculars at our building, you could see in windows - you couldn't see in our windows as we are too low and face the other way. BUT, if people by the river can see into any window, that means that buildings that are close to mine can potentially see in our place. No more naked-walking around the apartment I guess. Sigh.

So half my office was in the SF office for work this week. I had big plans to leave a little early most of the week, but those were thwarted. We have 2 big projects coming up, and sure as shit, both of them had major issues this week that we were desperately trying to work through.

On Thurs, late in the evening, my friend suggested heading to a part of Manhattan called Koreatown for (you guessed it) Korean food. A call to Blondie and he caught a cab to meet us. We went for Korean fried chicken - a different kind of KFC! A huge bottle of Soju and a ginormous sampler platter later, we decided that the only appropriate way to end the evening was with fro-yo (thank god it wasn't karaoke).

We walked into the fro-yo place and lo and behold - they have Cap'n Crunch for a topping. OMG. Soooo good! I have an obsession with cereal but try to not buy sugar cereal because I treat sugar cereal boxes like it's my own personal sized box - I literally can eat an entire box of sugar cereal over the course of the day. But I added that Cap'n Crunch to my pomegranate yogurt and it was so good. Drool.

Friday night, Blondie and I trucked off to dinner where I received a text from Sweetie J. She had flown in from SF for the upcoming week and surprised us!!! She's staying in Brooklyn with a friend, but I met up with yesterday in Central Park for some beers on a blanket. I got to meet her friends from the city - she used to live here - and it was perfect temperature for a day in the park. Blondie stayed back and ended up watching the World Cup game, so his day wasn't quite as good as mine.

We have big plans this upcoming week too - we have a shit ton of cleaning to do today, and I need to get a good workout in and a pedicure. Blondie's sis and her husband and baby get into the city tomorrow. They leave Wed morning and we have dinner plans with Sweetie J and some of her friends Wed night. Thurs, Slick and his woman are coming in from Chicago for the weekend. Saturday night, another meetup with Sweetie J and another friend of ours from SF, Dirty Sanchez.

Now I just have to survive this work week! Blah. Maybe I'll make my good workout a jog to the corner store for lottery tickets.

--K

Crack is whack!

As promised, the picture of the Liberty Bell. Ahem, pssst, Liberty Bell? Your crack is showing!



--K

Chock Full o' ...

I'm coming off a jam-packed week, which interestingly enough, made my work week fly by. That rarely happens, so I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Anything that can make work go faster is 2 giant thumbs up in my book.

On Monday, I got stuck staying late at work for a project I'm on. Around 8 pm, when I was getting ready to leave, 2 of my besties from work suggested dinner. I wanted a burger, 1 of my friends wanted wine, and another one wanted mussels (random all the way around) so we ended up in a Belgium restaurant on the UES enjoying all 3. My girlfriend and I got a little blotto while my guyfriend just laughed at us both and ate all the food.

Tues night Blondie came home from the Land of Cheese! I met him at our cajun place in our hood where we both had a hurricane and a beer, and split some food. It was so good seeing Blondie again - 9 days apart is a lot.

Wednesday night was my 3.5 mile run through Central Park. I run on the treadmill 100% of the time and I'm fine with it - 3.5 miles on the treadmill is always doable. On the treadmill with no inclines in the air-conditioned gym in the morning no later than 7 am. I'm fine with that. Outside? At night? With hills? Um... BUT I DID IT! I'm a slow runner, but I got all 3.5 miles without stopping - and also, I noticed that all the hills in NYC are in Central Park, on the route that our race was on. My times probably would've been about 3-4 minutes faster if the walkers had lined up where they were supposed to - 15000 people entered and all I did was dodge walkers. It was also probably a lot more than 3.5 miles simply from all the weaving I had to do.

After my race, we stopped at Cold Stone so I could get a small Strawberry, Mango & Banana Sorbet mixed with gummy bears, before heading on home to order in a grilled cheese sandwich.

Thurs night and Fri night, we stayed in. The week had caught up with me, and I quite honestly, have something going on with my stomach. It started on race night where absolutely nothing sounded good - and nothing still sounds good. I'll be ravenously hungry but the thought of eating makes me want to vom. Hmmm... I hope it's not the precursor to some stomach flu.

Yesterday Blondie and I took off to the LES - we headed to Ippudo for ramen. This was Blondie's first visit, and my second one - the soupy ramen actually tasted good to me, so that made me happy. And Blondie LOVED it. I have a feeling we will be making a lot more trips down to visit.

After the ramen, we walked a few blocks over and toured Merchants House - it's an 1800's house, the only one left like it in NYC, completely restored to what it looked like in the 1800's. It was spooky and eerie, and also, the most haunted house in NYC. The whole house gave me chills. Every step you took, a floorboard would creak. The basement was freezing cold. The bedrooms where people died were boiling hot. The tour was amazing, but I was also glad to get out.

From the haunted house, to the oldest bar in NYC - McSorley's Ale House. Definitely a sight to see (from sawdust ALL OVER the floors to old-timey pictures ALL OVER the walls), and after more beers there than we intended, it was out to hit up a "Save the Lower East Side" festival that we had seen on our walk over.

Afterwards, we caught our train back to our hood and hit up our fish market for some tasty delights, before heading to the farmer's market and meat market.

Then it was home to collapse.

Today we are about 3 seconds from heading out to see the A-Team. We did laundry and a workout already this morning, and have to run an errand in Times Square after our movie, but then we are done for the weekend.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Finally, not only a big HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to the sheriff but also wishing TCKITW the happiest 5th birthday anyone can imagine!!!! I miss you sweetie and hope you are doing well!

--K

Shattered

I had my corporate challenge tonight. Even though I have no issues running on a treadmill, I haven't run outside in about 10 months.

It didn't matter tonight - I have been busting my ass hard at the gym and in working out in general, and it showed. I ran those 3.5 miles outside (not inside like usual), at night (not morning like general) and killed them.

I'm very proud of myself. And it was SO GOOD to have Blondie back and see him cheering me on as I rounded the corner into the home stretch.

Go me!

--K

Phew!

The week is over. I'm grateful. I had a blast last weekend in Philadelphia, but definitely am glad I'm in downtime right now.

So my week started with Blondie catching another Amtrak to Chicago. His dad came down from The Land of Cheese and picked him up, and he's been spending the week up there. He'll be back to NYC on Tuesday. I miss my Blondie. It's boring without him here. My cats are definitely not happy that they are the only ones I get to talk to at home now. They'll be trying to sleep, and I'm all in their faces going "Tell me about what you did today!" An eye will crack, a mean face will be put on, and I will not get the hint.

My week was pretty low key. I had a bad day at work - one of those days were you look around your office (or cube or wherever you sit/stand for work) and wonder how in the f'ing world you are going to survive another 30 years of work. Luckily, it was just one day that I felt that way, but coming out of those moods takes a lot out of me.

I swear I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer today. So I'll give you some good news from my weekend. Yesterday started off with a really good sweaty workout, and then I headed up to Times Square to see SATCII. My lunch was a bag of gummy bears, and it was everything I wanted.

AND THEN, to make my day even better, my friend from Philadelphia took a break from her hubby and kids, and took the train to NYC to visit me. We had a couple of beers and some dinner, and then walked over to Broadway to see MAMMA MIA! OMG. MUSICALS. Everytime I see a musical, I'm like "okay, it doesn't get better than this." And then I see another one, and realize it does get better.

After the play, we headed to the UWS to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes, and then I rode with her back to Penn Station for her to catch her train home. It was soooo good seeing her!

Today I got up and putzed around for a bit, before finally heading down to the gym. I have a race in Central Park on Wednesday so I wanted to time myself for the distance I'm going to run to give myself an idea of what timing I'm looking at. It actually wasn't that bad. I'm completely worn out now though.

The rest of my day is going to look like this: 1) eat fruit (I hit the farmer's market yesterday afternoon between the movie and my friend visiting and had a little bit of a love affair with the berries); 2) watch TV (is 'Bethenny Getting Married?' going to be as good as RHONYC?); 3) watch scary movie I downloaded off of Netflix; 4) make fajitas for dinner (I also had a love affair with all the peppers and cilantro yesterday at the farmer's market). Yum. Food.

--K

Go Flyers in the City of Brotherly Love!

What did we learn this past weekend? Well, we learned that one should not wear a Rangers hat to a city where their hockey team is in the Stanley Cup finals. We DEFINITELY learned that.

We also learned that my entire knowledge base of Philadelphia is based off of the movie "National Treasure". What can I say? I got my masters degree in Math, and my last history class was World History that I took when I was in the 10th grade.

Philadelphia was gorgeous. It has literally been about 20-25 years since I've been there (am I getting old or what?), and I don't remember much other than how hot it was when I was there last. That, and the horrid train ride in from the city my dad camped us in for our vacation. Apparently it's a LOT cheaper to stay outside of the city. Who'd thunk it? ;)

The birth of the US

We did a little bit of everything while there. We started out by getting tickets to tour Independence Hall - the only pre-planning event we had to do. Everything else was walk-up and free (with the exception of the Betsy Ross house - which quite honestly, was boring - my official opinion is "skip it").

We started by touring the US Mint. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the tour was quite interesting. It was kind of cool to see all the coins being made.

The outside of the Mint

After the Mint, we headed to Betsy Ross house - our admission was $3, but it wasn't worth it unfortunately. With the exception of the girl who pretended to be Betsy Ross in one of the rooms, and who had to answer all kinds of questions from the nutter in front of us - it was kind of boring.

Betsy Ross House

Ross house - I like the shadows in this picture

After the Ross house, we headed over to the postoffice that Ben Franklin was postmaster at. That was actually really cool - it was still an active postoffice with this wee little museum on the 2nd floor.

Post Office. And the back of Blondie's head

From the postoffice, it was just a few steps to the underground Ben Franklin museum. They had portraits up of Ben, his wife, and his son - and I got to laughing so hard - it honestly look like they painted Ben, put him in drag to get his wife, and then shrunk his body to get his kid. Seriously, is this a fugly boy or what?



We then hit up the Old City Hall - this was exactly what it sounds like. It kind of reminded me of a library - the smell and the floors I guess are what did it.

Library? Is it just me?

Independence Hall was our next stop. It was at this stop where I realized my "National Treasure" connection to Philly, and also where we realized that we were about the only adults without school-aged kids in tow. Our tour guide was not great, it was seriously like "where you from? Rhode Island? Oh, I went on a fellowship to a school there. Professor X was all kinds of awesome. Have you heard of Professor X?" And Blondie and I were like "W.T.F?"

Independence Hall, aka where Ben Franklin hid his glasses

The room where the Declaration of Independence was written

After Independence Hall, it was time for CHEESESTEAKS! So yummy - we got them from a street meat vendor, and they rocked!

Lunch was taken in a park right across from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (similar to Arlington, but from George Washington times). We checked out the tomb afterwards - it was quite a beautiful monument, and rather peaceful, until the hordes of 5th graders (wearing their class of 2010 t-shirts????) descended on the park. Yes, let's do it - let's have a whistle blowing contest in the middle of basically a cemetary!

No whistles here

One of the last stops on our tour was to see the Liberty Bell. I enjoyed the murals in the building leading up to the Bell, and then it was cool to see it again. Blondie has the pictures of the front of the bell (with the crack) but he's off to the Land of Cheese (Wisc) for a week so I have to wait until he returns to be able to post that one.

The Back of the Bell

Peace Out Dalai Lama - part of the murals

We were dead tired after all this, so a few beers in a tavern were needed before hopping a regional train to visit our friends who live about an hour north of Philly. They have a gorgeous house in the middle of nowhere, and a set of beautiful twin boys (5 years old) who took a serious liking to Blondie. Our time spent with them was relaxing and peaceful and full of good company (and food and beer).

Long story short (too late!), we'd definitely go back. I think our friends are going to be sorry they extended an invitation to us.

--K

Poor Blondie

I think Blondie is questioning why moving to the city that is home to Broadway was a good idea. I love musicals with a flaming hot passion, and Blondie quite honestly does not.

I managed to convince him that seeing Hair on Broadway today is a fabulous idea. We are going to the 3 pm show.

At least there will be naked people to take his mind off all the singing.

I'm thankful I have Blondie because this will be our 3rd Broadway play since we've been here, and 2 of them will be musicals (the 3rd one had Scarlett Johannson in it though so I guess we are about even).

--K

Fleet Week, summer Fridays, pedicure, and a hangover

Oh My!

I feel off this week and I have Fleet Week to blame for it. We had Fleet Week in San Francisco also, but it was at the beginning of October. So I'm wandering around this week, sweating my ass off b/c summer has finally hit and hit hard, and everytime I see a sailor or a marine, I'm like "Huh. It sure is hot for October".

I'm an idiot sometimes.

So the ships are docked, our armed forces are in town, and it's Memorial Day weekend. It's a great day to be in NYC.

Yesterday started summer Fridays for me. This is a 1 pm end time on Friday, making your 8 hour day a 4 hour day. And you don't have to make up your time. I love summer Fridays. Love them. Like I'd totally drop Blondie for them.

To celebrate my first summer Friday, Blondie met me at a local burger joint I've been wanting to try (Mother Burger). They have a huge outdoor patio which is very important since one of our favorite shared activities is people watching. I got a wing burger which is a burger doused in buffalo sauce covered in blue cheese dressing (um, OMG, so freaking yummy!) and Blondie got a BLT. They also have $2 cans of beer. Which started us off drinking, ahem, rather heavily.

We also started the "Imaginary Dinner Party" game - which is pick a theme, and then pick 5 people dead or alive who you would invite to that theme. We went through everything from sports stars (Brett Favre was on both of our lists) to movie stars (ScarJo was on everyone of Blondie's lists and Jonny Depp was on everyone of mine) to exes to political figures to ... We literally played this game all night - that I can remember.

After Mother Burger it was off to Rudy's - home of the $7 pitchers of Rudy's Blonde Ale and free hot dogs. 3 pitchers later, we headed home. I think we got in around 9 pm, we had skipped dinner, and were completely toasted.

Somehow we managed to split a meatball sub that I had leftover from a few days ago, which I guess was smart. I woke up naked this morning with no memory of removing my contacts or clothes.

I huddled in a little ball on the floor for most of the morning, before finally giving up and starting to workout. The sweating was what I needed b/c I feel right as rain right now.

I headed out around noon to get myself a pedicure (somehow a foot massage seems to cure everything) - we're off to Philadelphia next weekend, so I wanted to have good looking feet when I see my friends. Can't wait for the trip! Afterwards I called Blondie and he met me at our local BBQ restaurant Daisy Mays, where I induldged in mac&cheese and creamed corn. Hello carbs! You are my friends! The best part is the leftovers are in my fridge to eat with homemade crab cakes tonight!

Knappy has invited us over to Bklyn for a party on his rooftop, but after my hot date with beer last night, I think an invitation to go to bed early is going to be accepted.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

--K

Today's going to be a good day!

Let me start by saying - I need another weekend! Thank god this is a 4.5 day work week with a 3 day weekend coming up. OMG. I'm going to be counting minutes until Friday at 1 pm. Also - this Friday starts summer Fridays, so let's say it together - "WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO". Summer Fridays are half day Fridays that you don't have to make up your time for. So our work weeks become 36 hour work weeks.

It's the small things that make me happy.

My week and weekend have been ON THE GO. Blondie came and met me on Wed night for some shopping and dinner on the UES. He needed new jeans and I needed a new handbag. Then we both needed pizza. Then, of course, Dylan's Candy Bar (Ralph Lauren's daughter's candy shop) was calling our names.

Who's bright idea was it to have an entire wall of different flavored gummy bears? Those are my obsession. $15 worth of gummy bears later, my shame kicked in. But they were soooo good!

Thursday I made it to LES for lunch with CChu - another friend from work who was visiting her offices here in NYC. We ate at Ippudo, which is said to be the best ramen bar in NYC. It was definitely good, but I've also definitely had ramen I liked better. 5 hours after lunch, I was still stuffed to my eyeballs and it was TIME TO BOWL! My workgroup headed over to Chelsea Piers to bowl and booze, and finally hit up the arcade. I had a total blast - from games of flippy cup, to "Let's not aim for the pins, let's just bowl the fastest" to The Vadge putting on a devil voice and screaming "I'm the LOUDEST drunk alive!"

Which leads us into the weekend...

I have a slight obsession with SNL digital skits - the Lonely Island guys that make those videos are genius. A friend of mine from work told me about their latest video - "Today's Going to be a Good Day" - and we ended up watching it like 50000 times at work this past week. Check out Hulu - it's SO WORTH IT!

There is a point to this - the video was actually filmed in the West Village area of NYC, close to NYU campus, so I drug Blondie down with me to revisit the area this weekend. We had gone down when we first moved here, back in February, and we completely loved the area.

This time down we went ahead and visited Washington Square Park - home of the famous arch (see my NY blog - nynoob.blogspot.com - for pics), and then poked around the NYU campus some. Afterwards, we headed over to this bar we found from our previous trip down - which is home to honestly the best burger I've ever had in my life.

We headed there for lunch after our touristing activities, and I was so worried that maybe I had made the burger out to be way more than it was in my head. Fears were overcome though - that burger actually makes me want to cry it's so good.

About 7 beers into our afternoon, Blondie suggested giving the Knapster a call. Knappy was one of my BFF's from SF, who was actually in the process of moving to NYC when I was in the process of moving to SF itself. I heart me some Knappy but you have to have a certain amount of energy to keep up with him.

We determined we had that energy, the call was made, and the next thing I know, Blondie and I were on a train to Brooklyn to party it up Knappy-style in Williamsburg. It was the first time we've met up since we've moved here, which is actually totally my fault. We had a great time, and ended up back at his and his roommate's apartment drinking beers on their rooftop patio which had the most awesome view of the NYC skyline I've ever seen.

In a completely random happening, it turns out that Knappy's ex gf, the lovely Yo, LIVES IN OUR APARTMENT BUILDING! WTF? Of all the buildings in NYC, we moved into the same one in the same timeframe!

So last night when we were ready to leave Brooklyn, we hired a "livery cab" (I'm still not sure what this means) and Knappy came with us to visit Yo.

Today was spent dying. Blondie made me pancakes and turkey bacon for breakfast, and then I finally got a workout in. We made it out to Subway for lunch, and now I'm going to curl up in a ball on my floor and sweat the rest of the beer out.

The weather has turned crappy today - you'd never guess it was almost June out there right now, so this is a perfect day to be a lazy-ass. I'm going to try and convince one of my cats to take a nap with me also. We'll see how this goes.

--K

Laziness personified

My cats would say "HI" but they are too busy sleeping. And they could care less if you are offended by them not greeting you.



--K