Happy End-of-the-Day Diversion

I had a long day at work. It was good to get a bunch done, but it was long.  Until, on my way out of the building, I happened to see this:

8pm-ish: I see a bright orange balloon in the women's bathroom. My thoughts: 'Whaaaat? Sweet!  Hmm, I could carry it back to my aunt's house. [10 seconds visualizing myself toting a balloon around Manhattan like a little kid]  Noo.  I'll leave it to surprise the next lucky ladies room visitor.'

"I'm here can you pick me up?"

I'm like a little kid again! Or a teenager without a license.  While I stay with my Aunt she's dropping me off and picking me up from the train station every day.  Here's my view as I get off the train and look for my Aunt's car.  You can't tell but there's a rabbit in the grass.

9:17pm:

Moved (temporarily) to NJ!

I moved in with my aunt and cousin in NJ! (For my last week working in Manhattan.)

3:45pm-5:30pm: Try so hard to pack. Pack most of my stuff. (Thank you roomie for letting me crash at your studio this past month...even though I brought the total occupancy up to 4 girls. Crazy.)

5:45pm: Head to Penn Station with two very heavy suitcases in 90+ degree weather. Lug the suitcases down 5 flights of stairs. Drag them over to the subway station and down more stairs. Lug them over to the elevator. It's hot. It takes a lot of effort. You get the picture.

The awful suitcases themselves:

6:40-8:00pm: Wait at Penn Station for the next train out to my Aunt's. I fall asleep for a bit sitting underneath this piece of wall-poetry:

There's just something about staying with family. My stress level has plummeted. (Hee, well at least this first evening.) Thank you Auntie for letting me stay with you!

Apartment-Limbo

12:15 am: I walked past the street that I'd turn down to head toward my old apartment:

Sometimes I still walk toward my old apartment on accident.  I won't live in a really permanent place until September and I can't wait!  Not only will I feel settled, but I'll have access to some not-so-common-in-NYC-when-you're-living-on-a-budget amenities, namely a washer and dryer, kitchen counter space, and a patio.

Wednesday Mets Game

They won! We didn't stay to see the 10th inning, but they won.

I have to admit I feel like people go to Yankees games to see the Yankees win and people go to Mets games to eat Shake Shack and Blue Smoke.  So I was happy to be proved wrong! (Sort of. The food was good too.)

Sometime Wednesday, June 20 between 8pm and 10pm:

We--the Mets--get a home run and the home-run-apple (who knew) makes its appearance:

Also sometime between 8pm and 10pm:

A kid jumps the fence and runs around the field.  He gives the security guys a really long chase--this kid is good--before he gets tackled and cuffed.  Here he is with four security guys trailing him:

What an eventful game/great evening!

Cat Walk

It was HOT out today! On my way to my church class I saw a cat in the doorway of a closed up shop.  I've noticed a bunch of stores with cats (mice? or they just like cats?).

Between the time that I noticed the cat and about 1 minute later when I took a picture of it, the cat acted pretty catlike.  1) A bulldog came up with its owner and freaked out--barking pretty desperately--until its owner dragged it away a few seconds later.  The cat responded by rubbing its side up against the bars and staring steadily at the dog.  Ha.  2) A little girl came up and crouched down to wave at the cat.  She wasn't as exciting as the dog, so it looked at her a few times and then lay down.  3) It almost completely ignored me.

Brooklyn!

5pm: Falafel in Brooklyn w/ coworkers. Mmmmmm:

I'm starting to realize that I'm actually moving.

Gaaaaaaaa...the going-away parties are starting!!

My boss threw a going-away party for me/housewarming party for him for me and my coworkers at his home in New Jersey.  I had a lot of fun and forgot to take pictures the whole time.  Actually I thought about it once but I was too busy to grab my phone (camera.)

No pictures aside, I felt really appreciated and happy to get out of the city.

Also, my company loves me and will miss me, and I know this because they scheduled Staff-Appreciation Week for 2 weeks before I finish working.  Here's us being appreciated (with lunch) last Tuesday at 11:45am:

I probably won't post a pic of it but next week we can pick up our free umbrella. Woo! My coworkers and I agree - and this isn't sarcastic - that, assuming it isn't too flimsy, an umbrella is a great appreciation-gift choice.

Harry Potter!!!!

Apparently I lose a lot of sanity whenever I think or talk about Harry Potter.  For example, I decided to dress up to see the last Harry Potter movie tonight with friends.  But it wasn't the midnight showing.  And I went on a last-minute shopping spree after work like this:

4:45pm: Take the M31 to FAOSchwarz and breath a huge sign of relief because they still have plenty of Hogwarts house ties.  I buy two and some Harry Potter glasses:

5:00pm-ish: Walk and take the M31 again back to TJMaxx and don't find anything. In between a bunch of these stops I duck into drugstores looking for a big fancy box of chocolates because I wanted to be Romilda Vane. But I don't find any that are good enough.  I mean, no love-potion of Whitman's sampler is going to cut it for Harry Ron, let's face it.

5:30pm-ish: Almost out of time! Walk to NY&Company and spend way too much on 2 white button up shirts:

6:15pm: Home and dress up. Learn how to tie a tie - thank you adorable-inflection how-to-tie-a-tie guy for teaching me the Windsor knot. Run out the door...

7:25pm: Arrive at the theater.  Realize that the Harry Potter spirit is only alive at midnight on opening day. Am still (40%) glad I dressed up. As my friend at the theater put it, this is the last time we can dress up for a premier.  There won't be any other awesome ones soon and by the time there are I'll be old and hopefully have kids and they'll think it's lame for me to dress up. So I most likely won't costume-it-out unless I feel like embarrassing them. Which I will probably do enough without dressing up for movie premiers. But I digress.

8:30pm: Movie! Not the best ever, but definitely wonderful. I need to do a HP book reading/movie watching marathon sometime.

Awesome night!

Kindle for PC: The Room

I spent most of my evening (6pm-10pm and 11:30pm-2am) reading The Room for my first ever book club meeting this coming Saturday. I bought it through Amazon's Kindle for PC:

Impromptu Evening Walk

9:30pm-ish: Tonight a friend knocked on my door...well, buzzed the apartment...and we went on an impromptu Pinkberry-run and city walk. (I loved this. It felt a little more like suburbia. The surprise neighbor visit part, that is.)

Sightseeing highlights from the walk include the only remaining original 1930-something lamp in the Tudor City garden:

...and these life-size statues:

Also: my new mantra for impromptu walks is "walk somewhere new." I led us to Tudor City because I'd been there before on a walk and liked it, but tonight wasn't the same. Don't get me wrong - the walk was enjoyable - but a different evening deserves a different experience don't you think?  There's something to be said for keeping enjoyable memories and still letting each new adventure actually be something new.

Christmas in July

Well, all year round.

Ordering supplies at work is kind of like Christmas or my birthday, but all the time.  When it's my turn to order I get stacks and stacks of boxes, someone has me sign for them, and I get to open them.

11am-ish: Today the new (autoclave mitts?) that my boss ordered came:

...and they kind of look like them came from Williams-Sonoma which is great.  I tried them on a bunch of times today.

Jazz is best in person.

Anyone who knows me knows I might not put jazz at the top of my music-listening-list. Let's just say I don't have a jazz-flavored Pandora station.


BUT, I like jazz in person. I like how Jazz is instant Mood and how it has a texture that's easy to feel from three feet away in a small lounge.  So, I loved Pascalito's Bastille Day Jazz Show at Opia tonight. (Thank you Scott R.)


8pm-ish: Here's my view from behind the bassist:

I actually brought my old camera around with me today, but I ended up being too embarrassed to pull it out - it's quite old and clunky.  It's funny that I was more shy about wielding my ancient camera than I am about blogging 2.0 megapixel camera phone pictures.


On the Menu:
Perrier
Warm Apple Tatin Dessert
Chamomile Tea


Mental Dessert Afterward:
Checkers in the hotel lobby.

Bluegrass Ramble, whaat??

So, in honor of Sunday nights in Upstate NY spent listening to Bluegrass Ramble I tuned in to the Bluegrass Pandora station at work tonight.

9:22pm (I checked the clock):

Can you see it very well?  I needed peppy but not pop-type music, so my go-to stations (Vivaldi and Third Eye Blind respectively) were out.  My new love-it song for the evening? Sierra Hull's Pretend. It's so good!  I don't usually listen to Bluegrass but I will probably check out more of her songs.

Also, (from the walk home) I'm excited (!!) for this:

Pinkberry on the Roof

Around 9:45pm: Had yogurt and ice cream on the roof tonight with some friends. Although a real camera would be better for this shot, here's the (only semi-city-crowded) view:

Lost my Keys, went on a shopping spree at Duane Reade.

9:00pm-ish: lost my keys. On the bus I think.  I had them when I left work. I had them when I pulled them out on the bus.  I did not have them when I went to unlock my front door.

9:02pm-ish to 11:20pm ish: Walked around looking for my keys on the street. Went to Duane Reade to buy "camping out in NYC" essentials:

...and hung out in the food court at the Citygroup Center.  Did you know that people like to play speed chess there late on Friday nights?  Well, they do.

Home Again

9:30pm-ish: I finish up with my Thursday evening church class and spend a while talking to a friend outside on the street.  I love summer evenings like this - it's been hot all day and it's still a little humid, but now it's cooled off and turned into perfect NYC-night walking weather.  I talk on the phone with my Grandpa for about 18 blocks and then catch the bus the rest of the way home.

10:05pm-ish: I start to unlock the downstairs door to my building and remember that I haven't taken any pictures yet today!  What's a 30-day-picture-blogging-challenge-taking-girl to do?

Document my final trek of the day of course!

1st flight:

 2nd flight:

 3rd flight (almost there):

 4th flight:

...And finally I'm there!

Unlock the door, walk into the air-conditioning...and now I'm home.  (And now I can't use the stairs as my picture of the day again.)

Falafel and Washington Square

6:45pm-ish: Last official meeting of the Falafel and Street Cart Club. I'd have shown you a pic of Mamoun's falafel, but I was so excited for it that I forgot to pull out my camera (phone) until it was gone:

How I'd rank the places we've gone:
1. Midtown Falafel
2. King of Shawarma in Astoria
3. Mamoun's (but their baklava's some of the best I've had)
4. The truck by Cornell/Sloan-Kettering - they don't have falafel, despite promising several times that they'd start making it, plus they changed their recipe about a year ago and the chicken and salad just aren't the same.

Here's where we ate:

Sitting in Washington Sq. Park at the fountain was a first for me!

Pics of the Day: Trader Joe's Run!

8:15pm-ish: Stood in line to get into the store:

8:45pm - Finished shopping and checked out.  I snagged: morning star veggie patties.  I just missed (i.e. they ran out of): fresh salsa and the good frozen Indian food meals.  

9:00pm-ish: Schlepped it all home on the 6 train!

Things I'm learning about taking pictures:

1. Well, my 2.0 megapixel phone camera isn't that good.
2. My camera doesn't "see" what I see. Or, what looks like it would be a good picture when I look at it IRL just isn't as pretty as a picture...yet!

Pics of the Day: Waterspouts and Fireworks

I watched this last night and decided to take daily pictures of my last 30-ish days in New York.

11am: Joined the kiddies at the Ancient Playground after running around the reservoir:

9:45pm: Left work just in time - ran the last block - to catch the fireworks show from Lisa's roof: