Manly/Girly Weekend

Actually, my weekend started on Thursday with the prep work for Josh's NFL draft day party. He planned an ambitious menu with baby back ribs, turkey lasagna, lemon chicken skewers, mashed sweet potatoes, guacamole, pesto pasta salad, and chocolate chip cookies. I stayed up late on Thursday and Friday while hosting Dave and Jeff, who stayed over on Friday night rather than go all the way back home in NJ.

I can't believe I got up at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday for a football related purpose. I didn't even get up that early for football games when I was in marching band [insert band geek joke here]! In the end, two of the guys never showed up, which created lots of leftovers. Did these guys never hear of something called RSVP? I was so tired from all of the cooking that I didn't have energy to feign interest in the third pick of the draft and his impact on the defensive line.

I napped for nearly 4 hours while the guys were outside doing the manly thing. You know - grunting, shouting, expelling bodily gas, watching TV, and playing sports-related video games. I bet I could kick their collective asses in Final Fantasy VII though! The sports revelry ended around at around 6 p.m. when the guys left. Guess who cleaned up!

Being that today turned into a gorgeous day, I decided to take advantage of the weather. However, Josh wanted to stay in and watch the 158th pick of the NFL draft and watch the Yankees game. I went to SoHo to pick up a new eye shadow for my friend's upcoming wedding. I found exactly what I was looking for at MAC.

I had a bit of a horror experience at Sephora on Thursday when I got back from work. It was a grand opening of the downtown location, so I figured I'd check it out. A salesgirl pounced on me when I said I was looking for makeup appropriate for a wedding. I told her to stay with the peachy/earthy tones and she said she would. And then here comes a smear of GREEN. I figured I'd let her finish and see the horror she imposed on me. It got especially forboding when she was painting on the eyeliner. She kept repeating, "This eyeliner looks A-MAZING!" Never mind that she had a couple friends waiting to chat with her (a bit inappropriate the first day of the job. At least I wasn't at the gyno's office being gawked at). When I saw my eyes in the mirror, I had to keep myself from making a face. With all that painting and 4 different shades of eyeshadow, it looked like a pale yellow layer on my entire eyelid with the blackest eyelinder that extended past my eye. Whoa! Way too much! I told her the look wasn't appropriate with what I had told her about the wedding. Yeah, thanks for listening at all! Really, don't take advice from a makeup artist whose makeup you would never wear.

Anyway, at MAC, I had a really nice makeup artist who showed me how to apply the makeup. I actually bought more than I set out to buy in the first place. After that, I decided to check out Anthropologie, where I found a sale nook they hid by their fitting rooms. I found this perfume I love from Stacked Style called Baroque Bleu and bought it for $20 instead of the retail price of $45.

And then it was time to go back home, eat leftovers, and then watch my Sunday night TV. Yay, Grey's Anatomy!

I'm nice!

People Envy Your Compassion

You have a kind heart and an unusual empathy for all living creatures. You tend to absorb others' happiness and pain. People envy your compassion, and more importantly, the connections it helps you build. And compassionate as you are, you feel for them.

What Do People Envy About You?

Crafty Dora

Last week, Jennie and I went to Purl Soho so I could replace the knitting needles Morty (see above) gnawed on. Due to the gnawing, the yarn would snag whenever I made a stitch. Purl is such a pretty little store with cubbies full of beautiful yarns. I should let the reader know that I can only make scarves in the simplest, most basic stitch that all beginners learn on.

I went back today to pick up a skein of yarn once I got back into my knitting this past weekend. I picked up a lovely skein of Alchemy Haiku yarn to make an airy scarf from Joelle Hoverson's book, Last Minute Knitted Gifts (Joelle actually owns Purl). However, I've never knitted from a pattern, so the helpful employees of Purl helped me understand the instructions and taught me how to do a yarn-over.

When I came home, I practiced my new skills on my leftover yarn. Morty likes to steal the yarn ball like a stereotypical cat and tends to curl up next to me after he's done playing. I gave him the finished practice piece to snuggle with like Mooch with his little pink sock.

Hopefully I don't screw this up. This ain't cheap yarn anymore.

Stoopid Subway People

Yesterday, I was taking the subway downtown after work. Just outside of my stop, the train stopped.

5 minutes go by
TRAIN CONDUCTOR
Attention passengers: The train ahead of us is still in the station due to customers holding the doors open. We will be moving shortly.

Another 5 minutes go by
Attention passengers: The train of us is still in the station due to customers holding train doors open. We will be moving shortly. This is why we tell you NOT to hold the doors open.

10 minutes later
Attention passengers: The doors have malfunctioned on the train ahead of us. They are taking the train out of service. We will be moving shortly and apologize for the delay.

5 minutes later
Attention passengers: They are trying to take the train out of service, but passengers refuse to leave the train cars. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

5 more minutes later
Attention passengers: The doors have been repaired on the train ahead of us. We will be moving shortly.

5 minutes later AGAIN
Attention passengers: The doors were repaired on the train ahead of us, but the train is still in the station because passengers are holding the doors open again. We will be moving shortly. Again, this is why we tell you NOT to hold train doors open!

We finally moved a little while after that. Most of the time, I don't miss driving, but yesterday, I really missed my old car.

Ye Olde Hometowne

And here's a post coming to you from central NJ!

I left NYC early yesterday because the company announced they would close early at 3:00. When we received that announcement at 1:30, I was sitting at my desk, preparing to send a hardcover book off for paperback conversion. I was looking through the pages, perhaps a bit too carefully, and it looked like I was reading the book. Boss P came out and said, "Since you look like you have nothing to do, you should go home now. I'm kicking you out." Whew! When he said it looked like I had nothing to do, I thought he was going to come up with some busywork for me. Then Boss B came out, telling me to leave as well.

You know what? I've been told to go home early 3 times this week, only to be thwarted by package duty (putting out packages at the end of the day).

Since coming home, I have gone to the supermarket twice (A&P and Acme), skipping Wegman's, apparently the greatest supermarket EVER. I have also baked two batches of my "famous" chocolate chip cookies (a.k.a. the ones my co-workers think I put crack in), one with semi-sweet morsels and one (at my brother's request) with milk chocolate/caramel morsels. I think my family ate a bunch of them though because it feels like there aren't that many cookies.

Well, today I'm off to my cousin's house with crack-laden cookies and a deck of Uno cards (have no idea why I have this urge to play Uno)!

Were you talking about this city?

Someone I work with just moved to NYC from a town in upstate New York. I have no problems with that. After all, I moved to NYC from a town in central NJ.

However, if you move to Manhattan and say that you always considered yourself a "city person," don't complain about the fact that you don't drive anywhere anymore (since you don't have a car), that groceries cost more (move to Brooklyn for less inflated prices), and that you have to settle for a one-bedroom apartment for $2200 per month when you used to have half a house for $500 per month.

Just imagine: this person is thinking about having his/her friend in Brooklyn (who has a car), take him/her to NJ to shop at Wegman's. Yes, Wegman's is awesome; I had one in my hometown, but I'm not going to schlep out there because they have a good international food section. Hello, don't we live in Manhattan? There are gourmet stores all over the place. Wegman's was not the cheapest store to shop in, and this person even admitted that if you go, bring your credit card. I guess this person is too lazy to go grocery shopping in several stores, like how the French go to different vendors to complete their shopping.

Bah. I hope he/she gets mugged by Amber.

Kindergarten memories

During Chinese New Year, there are all sorts of special treats to be had, and one of my favorites as a child were the chocolate coins, which were wrapped in gold foil.

I brought a couple in to eat during snacktime in my kindergarten class one day. I was going to throw them out when a boy came up to me and wanted the chocolatey gold foil. I didn't understand why he'd want it, so I threw it in the garbage anyway.

A few minutes later, the kid told me he took the foil out of the garbage. He showed it to me, taking the foil out of his pants - not his pockets. I guess he figured nobody would steal his precious chocolate smeared foil if it was in his tighty whities.

I think it's sad that this is one of the few things I remember about kindergarten.

Loyalty

I was talking with one of my bosses this afternoon and then had to talk to him about someone in the office who annoys me. I reached over and closed his office door and the first words out of his mouth are:

"Didyougetanotherjob??"

I told him no, I'm not leaving, but I'm glad that's the first thing he worries about when I need to have a "serious" talk (although I wasn't going to complain about anything really serious).

It turns out he's as annoyed as I am.