The Misadventures of a Native New Yorker

Me: Oh, man! Huey Lewis and the News are playing the Blender Theater February 9th!

j_bkl: Really? They live! They liiiive!

Me: And you know why?

j_bkl: ::shrug::

Me: CAUSE THE HEART OF ROCK 'N' ROLL IS STILL BEATIN'! AND FROM WHAT I SEE I BELIEVE 'EM...

j_bkl: ::facepalm::

I was going to do a sundries post, about finally seeing Inception last night, having a sinus infection (ugh) and indegestion (A+, there, body. :P), about the amazing Jet Blue quitter, the girl who quit on the whiteboard and how I'm sad that may be a hoax, and about the fabulous postcard eaners sent me from Florida (and how awesome he is for sending me a postcard, since it made my day yesterday). I also wanted to point this kind of hilarious post in newyorkers out to marchek.

However, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you my awesome fiancee, who just made my entire decade with tihs post.

Funny, I thought I was being a bit of a pms-y, stressed out pill this week. Apparently I am a double-rainbow wonder.

This is why I said yes, in case anyone was wondering. Because he's like this. Which is awesome. Or something that is so far more awesome than awesome that there's no word for it.

Best. Boyfriend. Ever. Which is why he became the Best. Fiancee. Ever. :D

I enjoyed the list format so much last time, even though I worried certain stories would be buried within it. However, thanks to the cool people on my f-list, this was not so.

• I had a wonderful Easter with j_bkl's family. Unfortunately, after a lovely afternoon, my stomach decided to rebel and I've been violently ill since about 8:30 last night. No idea what caused it (a bug, an allergic reaction, Zachariah the Evil Angel), but it laid me out so hard that when I woke up to attempt to go to work this morning, my entire body said no. I figure that if exhaustion, dehydration, vertigo, and all sorts of TMI ick I don't want to get into here are enough to keep the average starlet home from a premiere, they wouldn't mind me taking a day from the office. I'm 75% better, should be shipshape by morning.



• We also got to hang out with my folks on Saturday (which was rad as always), and replace the shopping cart I killed back in November? December? So we have a mega-cart again. This is happy-making.



• I am continually staggered, amazed, and disgusted by rampant consumerism encouraged by the wedding industry. No, really. It's disgusting. And, so much of it is swathed in this beautiful cloud of guilt that if you don't buy [thing] or [service] OMG UR WEDDING IS GOING TO BE A DISASTER I'M WARNING YOU IT'S JUST $900 FOR CHRIST SAKE ISN'T THE HAPPIEST DAY EVAR OF UR LIFE WORTH IT!! ISN'T IT? Blah. Thank goodness for Offbeat Bride and A Practical Wedding, as I'm sure these wonderful sites will keep me sane over the months leading up to the Marriaging. But seriously? $35 for a Pantone Guide to make sure everything is perfectly coordinated? $120 to have access to Evite on Steroids. It never ceases to amaze. (Mom thinks I need a break from this stuff. Maybe she's right?)



• I am now fully up-to-date on Supernatural(FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIILLL), Ugly Betty (OY.), Life Unexpected (My crack!) and The Vampire Diaries (HOMG). And, In Plain Sight is also back, and watched (Mary, I missed you!!). TV is so good right now it's almost not even worth it to pay $13 to go see a movie.



• I just got this out of the library, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm a fan of Not Eating Out in New York, though I enjoy her recipes more than her ranting. Still, I've heard good things about the book, and I've loved the hell out of all of the other food-related memoirs I've read so far. Specifically A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser, and of course, Julie & Julia AND Cleaving by Julie Powell. (Oh, the screenplay I could write for Cleaving.)



• As previously mentioned on Facebook, this is some bullshit right here. I mean, what next? Are they going to add mortgage backed securities to Monopoly? Scrabble has been just fine for the last 62 years, thank you very much. It does not need updating. Stop it.



• Every day around the same time, I can hear someone playing the trumpet outside of my kitchen window. This person is a very good trumpet player, and I enjoy listening to his/her sessions. However, I am so frigging curious about who this might be, I'm tempted to post it as a missed connection or something. In the meantime, J and I have dubbed them "Trumpet Man" and will continue to enjoy the music so long as the windows remain open.



• 5 weeks remain in school. Just. Five. Somehow, I will get through this. I hope.

Y HALLO THAR INTERNET.

I have some news. It's ready to be official, announceable news now.


J AND I ARE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right, sports fans: he liked it so much he wanted to marry it.



Then, he put a ring on it:



( In case you are interested, here's the tl;dr details )

Anyway, now that I've completed the prepared statement, we will now open the floor to questions. :)

Tonight's pre-theater menu at Chez Druber:

Platter of assorted raw vegetables

Grass-fed top-round sirloin, marinated in herbs and balsamic vinegar, pan-grilled and finished with herb butter

Yukon Gold potatoes, roasted with rosemary and olive oil

champagne

assorted chocolate truffles

middle finger, served to all restaurants with inflated prices on this Valentine's Day.

After dinner, j_bkl and I will be heading to BAM for a performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest. I am very excited. I'm also proud of the dinner I have going, although I'm a bit nervous about the steak. I'm not starting it until the potatoes have been in for longer, I like them extra-brown and crispy-like. But I am quite proud of what I've managed to put together here. :)

Love is saying "Of course I'll do the dishes! In fact, I'm doing them right now!" and then holding the phone near the water so I can hear them.

After a day from hell, this is really all I need.

Rather than do one giant dump, I'm going to try inserting topic headings in this post, borrowing a page from fragbert.

Health

Who's got two thumbs and an upper respiratory/sinus infection? *sigh* you guessed it.

So, infections with gross features I'd rather not discuss in polite company mean antibiotics, which I'm fine with, as they've done me solid in the past. (Try getting over bronchitis without them. No, really, I dare you. Herbal tea and yoga don't work in this case.) The only downside of this is that my stomach is getting pissy about all the attention being paid to my sinuses, and has decided to pitch a tantrum of its very own. The last day or two have not been fun by any slice. And, due to varied and assorted work things, calling in sick is not in the cards. So I'm trying to tough it out. *sigh*

School:

For those of you following along with my ongoing saga, I am happy to report that my application was placed in the hands of a bored-looking receptionist at the Administration office on Friday afternoon. Now it's simply a matter of crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. And figuring out the whole paying-for-the-part-I'm-not-being-reimbursed-for thing. (Thanks to redesigner for some of his suggestions and information this afternoon, though.)

Jealousy

j_bkl is going to tomorrow's Yankee game. I am not. I'm FINE with this, really. Hmph.

Budgeting

Since the news came down that Microsoft is no longer supporting its money software, I've been searching for a replacement. redesigner sent this list, which I'm pretty sure grabs every option out there, free or otherwise. I'm open to suggestions and/or testimonials, if anyone uses these budgeting tools.

Music
On Sunday evening, J and I traveled out to Williamsburg to see his sister perform. She had completed something called Willie Mae's Rock Camp for Girls . One of the ways the organization raises money to support their mission of empowering girls between the ages of 8-18 through rock music is having a camp for older women (older meaning 19 and up). The women go through a three-day program where they are put into bands, taught to play instruments, write songs, make t-shirts, and perform. (The girls's camp does the same over a longer period of time). I was happy to go out in support of this, and three hundred varieties of jealous that this didn't exist when I was 15. Then again, there's nothing saying I couldn't do this some year, too. The show had a raffle for a rather sweet Gretsch electric guitar, cherry red and goregous. I (stupidly) did not enter the raffle, as I'm slightly cash poor until payday, but it made me start thinking about maybe doing that again, the way I used to.

Suggestion Corner:
J and I are heading up to Provincetown in a little over three weeks. We have restaurant arrangements (Front Street and Edwige, in addition to a great BBQ thrown by the proprietors of our B&B). However, we are in need of a recommendation of a great restaurant for Friday night dinner. We're not so into the Lobster Pot, but anyone familiar with the area is welcome and encouraged to chime in.

And that's it. I'm going to bed.

Even though I wholly endorse and approve of everything covered in this post, it embedded Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" so deeply into my skull that I'm attempting to listen to it repetitively in order to cure myself. Not sure if that's going to solve the problem or make it worse, but at least it's a cure I can enjoy. (Note to self, borrow M&D's greatest hits later.All I have is this song and an R.E.M. cover of "Gentle on My Mind." ) But Blerg and I agree that Mr. Campbell is due for A Moment, much like Rick Astley, Neil Diamond and Michael McDonald before him. Which will be great for him, and shitty for us, because we liked him before he was cool for the second time.

Last weekend was so full of win I wanted to bottle it and sell it in stores. It started on Thursday when J and I had dinner with friends (something we need to make a habit of). Friday my beach plans were rained out, but that night J and I decided to see (500) Days of Summer instead. While far from the greatest film achievement of all time, it was (as I said on Twitter), a cupcake of cinema, and a well-made cupcake at that. Sweet without being overly cloying, fluffy (but with enough subtance to hold it together and make it pleasantly chewy), and some pretty icing and sprinkles on top. Yum. On a purely visual level, the film was lovely - they either used kodachrome or a digital filter to make it look like it was, and I really loved Zoe Deschanel's clothing and whomever did the set decoration/design. I loved the random dance number. I mostly enjoyed how it took a fairly mundane story and played around with it some. I didn't mind the ending as much as others, though. It was something I enjoyed watching and it would be something I'd enjoy watching again. Which is more than I can say for some of the films I've seen recently (I'm looking at you, Margot at the Wedding.)

Saturday we had a birthday party for one of j_bkl's friends at Ginger's (a great bar in Park Slope), after which I convinced him to go to Prospect Park for the free Celebrate Brooklyn show with Dean & Britta. (Speaking again of things that are just itching to make a comeback, Britta was the original voice of Jem. Talk about synergy! [oh, get over it. I can pun if I want to.]) Sunday we'd hoped to go to the Cloisters with friends, but headed to the New Museum instead. The museum was okay, the food we had at Congee Bowery after was spectacular (as was the company). We finished out the day after the rain came out in a park on Bayard Street, playing Chinese Chess (with the help of just about any old Asian man that happened to walk by.) And, as if you thought the end of the weekend would be enough to stop the fun and crazy times, we met up with two more friends in Central Park to see a free Bela Fleck show at Summerstage. J's friend had a crazy hookup that allowed us to sit in a fancy area with chairs, free drinks, and people who wouldn't let you in unless you had a particularly-colored wristband. It was awesome.

Tonight I get to find out once and for just how allergic I am to shellfish, after which I can take antihistamine again, thus ending the itching of the 2 dozen or so (no exaggeration, I counted!) bug bites I have. And to see if he thinks I have a sinus infection, which I am concerned I might. *sigh* And this weekend I have birthday parties, visits and dinners with friends, and if I'm super-duper lucky, laundry. Friday I'm taking my mom to see Julie & Julia, because we both want to see it. And tomorrow, just to bring this all full circle, blergeatkitty and I are seeing a group that could very well be the Next Big Meme. So I'm not going to tell you who it is. But if you use your private eyes, you might figure it out.

I think I'm on my fourth wind at this point.

Lemme summup.

Thursday night, redesigner and I celebrated Restaurant Week at Butter. It was...okay. Nothing terrific. I think the best thing I could say about it was that it was trendy, but tasty. (to borrow from S1, E1 of Buffy). The staff was nice and the cocktails were strong, though.

Friday was a short day (hurrah) and after a few errands, I met up with J and J's family for their birthday celebration. (J's family all has birthdays in July, except for him. He's March, like me.) It was a definite good time.

Saturday was two parties, one a birthday, one a gathering of friends. Both were excellent - full of good food, good people, and rollicking good times. All things one should have in a Saturday, really.

Sunday was a day of win and awesome. The win was for the Yankees, as I watched a fantastic pitcher's duel at the Stadium with trebleahead. The weather was seriously perfect, and a day it was almost a crime not to be outside. It was one of those games that causes me to be utterly baffled at people who call baseball boring. (And I was so proud of Joba!! 7 2/3 innings with 8 strikeouts and less than 100 pitches?? Attaboy!!) Afterwords, I met up with j_bkl, teany and selftoken for Harry Potter, which was awesome. I didn't mind too many of the story changes they'd made (there was a lot of ground to cover, after all), but I liked the story they did tell, and thought some of the shortcuts and tricks were quite clever. However: ( book-spoiler question )

Today, since J and I were both off, we decided to give our apartment a good straightening. It was perfectly clean (a bit disorganized, but that's what happens when you're two busy people in a small space). After several hours of hard work, however, the place looks excellent, and I'm proud of us. And now that I've had a shower, I'm going to drag my exhausted carcass to bed. I'm just glad I don't have to be back at work until Wednesday.

First, natal greetings go out to some of my very favorite people, who all seem to be clumped around this time of year.

Many, many happy (and happier) days to redstapler, jackalprey, firynze, and of course, antheia. I hope your days were all happy, and I can only wish you all even happier ones to come. ::hugs and smishes all around::

And now, a brief rundown about how things are chugging along:

* Last Friday I had the day off. I did some grocery shopping, but then j_bkl and I went and bought a real-by-God mattress. One with springs and coils and puffy parts and the whole bit. I was initially suffering from sticker shock, but after sleeping on it for the first time last night, I can honestly say it was worth every last penny. I also ran into whtegrlwthehair and her friend S and wound up joining them for an impromptu picnic earlier in the afternoon, while I was aimlessly wandering the slope. The picnic and company were both delightful.

*Saturday, the 4th, I was lucky enough to be a guest at two lovely barbeques. Lots of meats, beer, and good times. (And really amazing pulled pork that I must get the recipe for. For serious.)

*On Sunday, J ACTUALLY HAD THE DAY OFF. No, really. Seriously. So we slept in, watched some of Season 2 of Veronica Mars, and then, inspired by a call from lwoodbloo, wound up heading out to the Dumbo Brooklyn Flea, Bubby's for some lunch, and several shops along the way to the F train. Then it was home, some tidying, and even more Veronica Mars, and then dinner. It was so amazing to actually get to spend a weekend day with him, just doing random stuff. We had a lot of fun together, but that's not a surprise, we always do.

*Sadly, I wound up having the WORST NIGHT OF SLEEP EVAR on Sunday. I was a zombie on Monday, so much so that I forgot half of the stuff I needed to get on an after-work Target run. Blah. But then we finished Season 2 of Veronica Mars, and I got a much better night of sleep.

* Yesterday our mattress was delivered, work was crazy, but THEN we got to see Public Enemies. It was visually beautiful, Johnny Depp was terrific, and it was most definitely a Michael Mann Film. Every director has his/her own stylistic markers, some more prominent than others, and Mann's love of tight close-ups, slow-motion, light saturation, and quick cuts were very prevalent. He also doesn't hit you over the head with lots of detail, he gives enough to be accurate and just lets the actors work. Which was really great. Definitely worth seeing. Then we had Shake Shack after the movie. (yum).

*And now, work. Yay. J is working late tonight, so I still haven't made definite evening plans yet. Don't know if I'm going to go home or what. Still pondering. I haven't watched any of Torchwood: Children of Earth yet, so that's not a bad way to spend an evening. We'll see.

I've been too busy/distracted to write on stuff I've been ruminating about more deeply, so I guess that will have to wait.