Job perks

The other day, I was turning onto my street and spotted a young woman walking several feet ahead of me. She was a familiar sight to me.

She was walking at a brisk pace (some might find it to be a "huffy" kind of walk), bouncing along despite the large backpack over her shoulders, bulging out as though she really packed the kitchen sink. There was a laptop bag hanging from her arm, swinging as she walked to reach her overpriced Manhattan apartment as quickly as possible to better kill herself by imbedding her civil procedure textbook into her skull.

Oh wait, I'm thinking about what I wanted to do when I was walking as fast as possible away from law school. That girl was probably going back home to passionately study civil procedure and make helpful study aids like legal flashcards or something like that. I never really bought into the whole flashcard business anyways.

Anyways, on a Sunday night last semester, I'd be killing myself so I could watch Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. I used to have first period contracts with the professor from hell. Tonight, I got to enjoy those season premieres without worrying whether I'd be prepared for my Monday.

Josh's mom has been dropping hints of her displeasure at my career path change. She said to me the other week, "So, do you still like your job?" Even if I didn't like it, I wouldn't run back to the arms of law school begging it to take me back. There's something different in her eyes when she looks at me. I can't decide if it's disappointment or a loss of respect. I don't really care what she says because I can bet you a million bucks that I'm happier working full-time at my job than she is working part-time at hers.

The funny thing is: my own mother has been more enthusiastic about what I've been doing career-wise than she was about me going to law school.

Not all is lost

Josh and I went out to dinner last night at Perbacco Cafe. I wanted to grab a bowl of seafood stew from a restaurant within walking distance. Instead, Josh wanted to try this Italian place out. When I found out which train we had to take in order to get there, I began having doubts. On our way to the subway station, it started raining. When we got out of the subway, we had to walk seven blocks in the rain to get to this restaurant, which was out in the middle of nowhere.

Since Josh sat on the inside along the wall, I kept getting bumped into by the servers for the tables on either side of us. The appetizers were good, but the pasta was mediocre. Primitivo Osteria has better pasta. Josh also didn't notice that they didn't take credit cards. I wound up walking out to get cash from a nearby ATM. $2 to take out cash???? Ridiculous!

We skipped dessert so we could get the hell out of that place and walked up to Veniero's, an Italian bakery/cafe a few blocks north. Finally, Josh and I were able to have a conversation (Perbacco was hugely loud) and sit next to each other. I had this fantastic slice of almond torte. It was filled with layers of yellow sponge cake and apricot jam, covered with a crust of baked almond paste. Yummy! It definitely redeemed the night. The hot chocolate was not as good as Ferrara's though.

After dessert, we had a lovely walk to Union Square in the cool weather. I can't wait for Fall to really start!

They don't work you hard enough

I went to my first vendor lunch today at work. About half of my department went with the vendor to Aquagrill at 12:30 today, and we didn't go back to work until 4:00. I was the only one who didn't drink anything (alcoholic). At the end of the meal, one of my supervisors said that I had to start drinking at work events because then he wouldn't feel so bad about the four drinks he was having.

I've also started doing Sudoku puzzles, thanks to a couple Sudoku-obsessed coworkers. They've actually gotten good enough to race each other. So far, my time is 20 minutes for a puzzle, although Josh was constantly bugging me while I was doing it. Hopefully, I'll get good enough to take part in the Sudoku hijinks. We've gotten so obsessed that we were thinking about doing the puzzle during our vendor lunch today, but it would've been awfully rude.

And then we considered passing it under the table, having each person do one number at a time, telephone-style.

Where were you?

I remember that I was in the Livingston student center that morning, buying my dunkaccino at Dunkin Donuts. I was dreading going to my communication class when I looked at the TV to see one of the towers burning. I remember the students watching in stunned silence.

I remember being in that 9:50 class when a student ran in to announce that one of the towers had fallen. Sometimes I wonder who told that student to make the announcement. The professor let those students with family and friends who worked in NYC leave early, and I left class.

Rutgers wound up dismissing class for the day while I was on the bus back to my campus, and classes were cancelled for the next couple days as well. I actually had to work that day and we could see the smoke from the top level of the bookstore's parking garage.

It was a strangely surreal time and the details of that day are very sharp to me.

Yes, that's who I think it is!

After living for a year in Manhattan, I've finally had an honest to goodness brush with fame.

Josh and I were walking by Les Halles, which is right by my apartment and we were standing on the edge of all the cameramen who were surrounding a red carpet. Apparently, Les Halles was having a party in honor of Anthony Bourdain's book, Kitchen Confidential.

I was looking for anyone I recognized in the crowd, figuring that there might be someone there from Food Network. Then I saw this guy and said to Josh, "Isn't that Harold from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle?" And sure enough, it really was John Cho.

He walked towards us and I said hi to him when he was close enough, and told him that I really liked Harold and Kumar. He thanked me for the compliment, shook Josh's and my hand, and introduced himself officially. It was really neat and it made my day.

Nothing this exciting ever happens down by where I live after the trading day is finished. The most exciting thing Josh and I have ever seen is a shoplifter being chased down by Century 21 security.

So long, suckers!

Most of the planes here have propellors!

Because our flight was to depart San Juan at 12:00 p.m., it qualified as an "early departure." I had to pick up special luggage tags that would distinguish our bags from the "late departures." This whole early/late division seems like a good idea, but since the sort criteria was whether the flight is before 1:30 p.m., it was pretty useless. I'll draw another comparison to Royal Caribbean here. RC has more than 2 groups of disembarkation times. It divides the passengers into many groups based on their flight departure times. I think our flight out of Miami was about the same time last year and we got there with a couple hours to spare.

Since we were early departures, we had to report to the auditorium at 7:45 a.m., where we proceeded to wait over an hour before anybody was allowed to leave the ship. I felt bad for the people with 10 a.m. flights because it turned it that flight times didn't matter. Carnival released people based on how close they sat to the front of the auditorium! Therefore, it didn't matter if your flight was the earliest one, it mattered that your seat was closest to the stage. People like Josh's family and me who decided to eat breakfast wound up stuck in the back and waiting until 9:30 to get out of the auditorium.

We got to the airport in time and even had some time to wait and talk to each other without the Nocheeses (finally!). I spent the time anticipating getting to see my little morons who were waiting back home (see left). When our plane arrived, we watched the eager-faced passengers step into the terminal. Undoubtedly, some of these people were the Carnival Destiny's next victims, fresh faced and filled with optimism about their cruise vacation.

I guess my expectations about seeing Morty and Eli were a bit high because when I walked into my apartment, they both ran and hid under the bed. I think they were scared by the luggage. After a few minutes, Morty poked his head out and stared at me for a couple seconds. Then, as though he suddenly remembered who I was (I could hear the shriek of "Mommy!!!" in his head), he ran over to me and head butted me like there was no tomorrow.

And then I was home.

(Eli took several hours to say hello to me because he's a scaredy cat.)

Cruise Post #13: Aruba, Jamaica, ooo I wanna take ya

On the first day of our cruise, all passengers were required to go through a muster drill before the ship departed Puerto Rico. During the muster drill, you report to your assigned "muster station" after a few ear-splitting blasts from the Carnival whale-tail above. Good little passengers, such as Josh and I, wore their standard-issue hideous orange box of a life preserver. Since Josh and I were early, we wound up being in the back of our muster group, smushed against the wall.

Josh took off his preserver since none of the Carnival staff would notice (not that they really cared) because it was so disgustingly hot and humid. I discovered that if I leaned back, my life preserver would preserve the back of my head from hitting the metal wall behind me, so I semi-reclined as I was given instructions that would save my life in the unlikely event of a maritime emergency, while the lackluster crew pointed out where our lifeboat would be (right in front of our muster station - probably the only sensible design on this cruise ship - although screaming passengers during a maritime emergency would make this moot).

While we were listening to the instructions twice (once in English and once in Spanish), I watched a beautiful, glittering ship depart San Juan's port with a few joyful toots of its horn. It was Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas, a ship equipped with an ice skating rink, rock climbing wall (not that I would do it), mini golf, basketball court, fine dining restaurant, and lovely decor. I wanted to scream "Wait, you forgot me!" as I sweated in my fluorescent nylon cocoon. Of course, I wound up staying on the Carnival Destiny for the week, with its decor of disco meets strip club (really, I thought the ass flashing Destiny Dancers were going to do a number with the numerous mirrored poles located all over the ship) and its nonexistent activities.

The prices between the Adventure of the Seas (AOS) and the Destiny were about the same for the week everyone was able to go. I tried to make my case for any of the Royal Caribbean cruises (western or eastern cruises were fine too!) during the planning stages of our trip, since nobody had traveled on RC except Josh and me, and everyone else had been on Carnival (10 years ago). However, we all know how that attempt to put in my two cents went.

Mr. Nocheese put his foot down. He said that all of his friends said that Aruba was the place to go, so it must be a southern Caribbean cruise. The only cruise ships doing that area were the AOS and Destiny. Unfortunately, AOS wasn't going to Aruba, although from the looks of its itinerary for the fall, was probably going to a not-so-shabby place of St. Lucia or St. Maarten instead. Mr. Nocheese demanded Aruba be the priority in vacation planning, and I was wondering why he didn't just go to Aruba for a few days instead of complaining about the cheese onboard.

When we got to Aruba, our final port of call, Josh and I prepared to go to the beach (which turned out to be a disappointment - St. Thomas was loads better, with Barbados in a close second). When we went for a taxi, I noticed that Mr. Nocheese and Computer Cousin were conspicuously absent from the group. It turns out that the two of them were headed off for a tour of a BUTTERFLY FARM.

So the one who mouthed off the most about how Aruba was to-die-for and therefore limited our cruise choices didn't even visit the beaches his friends so highly recommended. Honestly, if he wanted butterflies, he should've saved the bucks and gone here.

Cruise Post #12: Monday morning gambler

Since the Carnival Destiny had diddly squat for activities onboard, we were left with the casino for fun. Josh became interested in playing craps when we were on Royal Caribbean, and he and MB watched the craps table for a while so that Josh could refresh his memory, and MB could learn. The table was really crowded, so I went for the widely available slot machines, where I won $10 and called it quits.

When Josh and MB finally played, MB lost $20 pretty quickly and he declared that he didn't like the game. Frankly, I was happy that MB wouldn't be playing craps because the craps table would be unbearable with him and his snide right-side-of-mouth comments in addition to the possibility of losing money.

The next couple nights, I played Josh's money. Josh says that he does better in craps when I'm there, so he stood by me and made suggestions. I served more as a restrictive feature than crazy gambling girlfriend. If he wanted to put down $12 in additional bets, I would protest sometimes (I was right more often than not because the rollers crapped out quickly).

The last night, Josh went for the craps table. There was no room because of all the gamboholics wanting to get their last fix before debarking the next day. Josh decided to squeeze in between the dealer and this behemoth of a woman I called "Aunt Jemima." I didn't play for him due to two reasons: (1) there wasn't enough room for both of us and (2) the Nocheese family was there too.

I told Josh that he shouldn't be playing craps while the Nocheeses were around because it was like having your parents watch you gamble. Since the Nocheeses were notoriously cheap, there was plenty to be said by them. Mr. and Mrs. Nocheese's comments were more of the movies-with-your-parents variety.

MR. NOCHEESE
Was that a bet?

MRS. NOCHEESE
You ween money?

MR. NOCHEESE
What just happened? Did you lose?

MRS. NOCHEESE
You lose money?

Mam's Boy was more annoying than his parents (quite a feat in itself) and puffed his chest out with his craps knowledge (which was learned the first day of the cruise). His comments were more of the stating-the-obvious of a Monday morning quarterback.

MAMA'S BOY
[watching somebody win $25 on a field bet]
You should play the field.

JOSH
Nah, it's a lot harder than it looks.

MAMA'S BOY
[watching the roller crap out and everyone losing their bet]
You should play the C & E.

The dealer passes the dice for Josh's turn to roll

MAMA'S BOY
You'd better not crap out on your first roll!

JOSH
[craps out after second roll, and I try not to shoot daggers at the smirking MB from my eyes]
Well, you win some, you lose some.

MAMA'S BOY
I would've played the C & E.

ME
So, are you going to play craps now?

MY INNER MONOLOGUE
And use some of that oh-so-great-craps-knowledge?

MAMA'S BOY
[clutches his roll of quarters, funded by Mr. Nocheese]
Oh no, I'm going to play slots.

Josh left the craps table soon after that, and we escaped the Nocheeses. He had learned that the only thing close to the horror of Josh's mom, a serial backseat driver, was a Nocheese backseat gambler.

To be continued...

Sorry, I need a night off! I've got about three stories left to tell, so I'll continue tomorrow.

Cruise Post #11: Would you like some whine with your Nocheese?

Most nights, Josh would have wine with his dinner. He was able to buy a bottle and the dining room staff would keep the remainder on hand for the next night so he and his dad wouldn't have to purchase wine by the glass. Josh liked to spend a lot of time perusing the wine list and talking about the wines he likes.

MAMA'S BOY
Have you ever taken a wine tasting class?

JOSH
No, I've always wanted to take one. I couldn't fit it into my schedule during my senior year.

MAMA'S BOY
You should definitely go. I've been to a wine tasting seminar. My company treated me this year. It was one of the few things they did for us considering they didn't pay us. I learned how to drink wine and detect its undertones, like berry or oak.

This admission makes me think that MB did not go to Aureole in order to sing its praises over and over again at the dinner table. It's doubtful that his frugal nature would allow him to throw $79 for a dinner there.

JOSH
Would you like some wine then?

MAMA'S BOY
No, I don't want any. I do like pinot grigio though.

Am I crazy, or isn't pinot grigio a wine? With all the wine knowledge that MB was mouthing off about, he didn't offer an opinion about what wine to order.

COMPUTER COUSIN
My company took me out to dinner one night and I drank so much wine that I got drunk and was hungover the next morning.

JOSH
Would you like some wine then?

COMPUTER COUSIN
No, I don't want any. I think Labatt beer is the best.

With all the wine-talk coming from the Nocheese boys, I'd think they would have had some wine. They both refused to taste any of the wines Josh ordered that week. How could I be surprised about this? After all, Mr. Nocheese does not drink wine either, and his boys are quickly turning into his spitting image.