Obsession: Prison Break

A few weeks ago I figured out that running on a treadmill means that I can watch Netflix, which is a little better than just running in the sweltering humid heat of Hawaii (it also means I can sleep in). I started with Law & Order: SVU and that particular episode guest starred Wentworth Miller, which led me to Prison Break, which led to me watching pretty much the entire series in five days. But that’s sort of my thing: getting way too involved in a television series. Though, truth be told, I’m not all that involved in the series. I just really love the eye candy of pretty much everyone on that show. I can’t stop watching it.

What I’m trying to say is that I had plans to be crazy productive while Wes was out of town, but instead I just watched Prison Break. And loved most minutes of it.

Tomorrow I head to Las Vegas for a ladies trip and I’m looking forward to that even more than I’m looking forward to the day when Sara and Michael finally consummate their relationship (seriously, most chaste couple ever. How are they ever going to have that baby I know they had?).

New York: Part Time to Go Home

By Friday morning we were both exhausted and instead of going back to New York City to roam around and catch all the small things we’d missed, we decided to spend some time in Brooklyn. We started with the intention of walking through some boutiques and maybe stopping for a drink here and there, but then we found $2 PBRs on draft and we ended up staying for a couple of beers while playing 90′s Trivial Pursuit.

After the bar Stephanie had to go home and deal with a work emergency and Porter had to get to the airport for a tournament in Minneapolis. Wes and I wandered through the main streets near the apartment. There were beautiful churches and buildings every where. And in between that ridiculously expensive boutiques. Remember Marlena? We found a boutique that carried the terrariums and one was priced at $300. Granted it was a lot bigger than Marlena’s little world, but still. $300 for rocks, dirt and moss.

I don’t know what they’re selling, but I will buy it

That evening we had tickets to the rooftop movie, which I thought was going to be just one movie on a roof but turned out to be mini-documentaries on a roof. The first half was pretty nonsensical and I wondered why we had spent money to come there (Coop: “I told you!” even though she actually hadn’t said anything of the nature. Coop: “I thought it anyway!” which is hardly the same thing as warning a person about something but whatever.), but the second half was enjoyable. And the tacos we brought in from a local Mexican restaurant were pretty delicious.

Brooklyn Sunset

There was talk of a bar afterwards but once again we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep so we all made our way to our separate beds with plans to meet up the following morning for a little local market shopping and a trip to the flea market.

Coop dazzling us with her vegetable knowledge

The Dekalb Market has the makings of a great Saturday morning, but it’s still in its infancy and we were there for over an hour after it was supposed to open before it really got started. Still, the coffee was good and the breakfast sandwich that we had was so fucking good. I’m still bummed that I wasn’t ballsy enough to ask the chef for his biscuit recipe even though he totally told me he would give it to me.

Behold the deliciousness

This picture was mostly for Coop’s benefit, but it was so good that I would have probably looked like that even had she not had the camera pointed at me

After Dekalb we headed for the Brooklyn Flea market where we found a lot of cool stuff that was mostly overpriced. It’s where Coop went back to get me my sweet Flea Bag.

I told him to buy it but he felt a picture would suffice

After the flea market we had some downtime before the BBQ to celebrate my birthday began. Steph and Kenie were nice enough to host at their place.

Jalapeños straight from the garden 

Jalapeño poppers

There were a few really dark peppers that turned into crazy hot jalapeño poppers. I managed to grab the hottest one and look like a fool when I yelped out in pain while everyone else was happily chomping on theirs.

The whole spread: burgers, watermelon, pesto pasta salad

Cannoli, of which I had one of each but only because Coop is allergic to chocolate and couldn’t have any. I totally took one for the team.

After cannoli we realized it was 11 o’clock and that we had to be awake at 4:30 am to catch our 7 am flight. We sure do know how to pick flights. We said our goodbyes and left. When we woke up the next morning it was only 10:30 pm in Hawaii and we were in for a really long day of travel.

The worst part about vacation is not coming home. It’s two weeks later when you realize that you’ve been home longer than you were away. It’s six months down the road when you realize it’s been six months since you last saw that person. I had so much fun in Brooklyn and though I love my parents I think part of the reason is because I got to spend time with just Porter and Coop and Wes. That has never happened before. It makes me even more eager to get off this island and live closer to family. Until then, though, I guess I’ll just settle for the holidays we can all manage to spend together.

Weeks 6 & 7: 365 Photo Project

I’m incredibly far behind and it’s mostly because I take a look at the pictures I’m taking and I’m not impressed with any of them. Well, maybe one or two, but for the most part I wonder how this camera that I’ve had for nearly two years is still so difficult for me to use. So yesterday I decided to sign up for Superhero Photo class (there’s still time to enter, Coop!) and I’m looking forward to seeing how my photography evolves with the class.

In the mean time, here are the photos from the past two weeks.

Wes’ dad made me this medal holder for my birthday. Right now it’s looking a little empty so I guess I need to race more.

We’ve been having some crazy clouds outside our apartment lately.

Pizza after a day of diving.

that’s our neighbor’s dog Titan, eying Tsunami’s bone because dogs, like children, only want what someone else has

new sheets and new bed spread

my new day planner

we got flu shots

iPhone photo

We helped some friends move yesterday and this was in her pile to donate. She kept saying her fiancé loved her in overalls so of course Wes had to put them on and stand seductively in the entryway.

New York: Part I-Was-Thisclose-to-Jon-Stewart

After basically having sex with Steve Buscemi on my birthday, I basically had sex with Jon Stewart the following day. Our friends Stephanie & Kenie were able to get us four tickets to the taping of The Daily Show Thursday afternoon and we pretty much spent all week counting down the days.

Wes and I went in ahead of Coop & Porter so that we could wander around Central Park. The place is huge and even though we spent hours making our way from one side to the other, we didn’t see even a quarter of it. So many places that we did manage to see I remember from movies and the more remote places I kept picturing the opening scenes of so many episodes of Law & Order and wondering how often people actually were murdered in the park (after Wes reads this he’s going to insist I stop watching so much crime drama).

I feel like this castle is from Stepmother but I’m not certain

Shakespeare

This bridge is in pretty much any movie set in New York City

You may recognize this place from a little movie starring Mel Gibson before he went fucking crazy (Ransom)

Spoiler alert: Gary Sinise did not kidnap us

The movies have tricked me into believing that the chess area is always busy and that a grandmaster is always playing against a child prodigy. The movies lie.

Yum

We came out of the park at 5th Avenue because we thought it might be fun to see all the fancy stores. While we were passing everything, though, we remembered that we spent two years in Orange County and now we live on Oahu so we have pretty much seen the fanciest stores ever. While all the other tourists were snapping pictures of Tiffany’s or Louis Vuitton we were all Dude, seen it.

And then we started walking towards Jon Stewart because we weren’t sure how this whole thing worked and we really wanted to make sure we got our tickets and got good seats, but in the end it didn’t so much matter that we got there early because Coop’s busted ass knee got us in the second row. I was 20 feet from Jon Stewart, so I  basically had sex with him as well.

We expected to spend a couple of hours watching the filming of the show, but it actually only lasted about 30 minutes. There are no second takes – everything happens as fast as it does in the final cut. Which made the whole thing even more impressive if not a little sad that I only got to see Jon Stewart for maybe 45 minutes. Still, he’s every bit as charming and funny and smart as he appears to be on television.

Dude in the black shirt next to the yellow sign is Aasif Mandvi, who had just eaten half a stick of butter dipped in mayo

As you can tell from the above picture, we headed to a wine bar after the taping and relived all the moments we had spent watching the show. We were also accosted by a homeless man and because I, for whatever reason, don’t know how to just keep my head down, we shook his hand and he wouldn’t not leave us alone.

From the wine bar we headed to a whiskey bar my brother knew about.

Even though my brother was the only one in our group who cared for whiskey we all agreed to go. And I’m so glad I did. I had a manhattan (in Manhattan!)(my first) and it was so delicious. I was hooked and ready to try my brother’s Pendleton whiskey and it was delicious. I wondered why I had never enjoyed whiskey before and decided then that I would become the whiskey drinking type (spoiler alert: I haven’t had anything with whiskey in it since that night).

He’s jealous that I’m the cuter sibling

After the whiskey bar we headed back to Brooklyn to meet Steph & Kenie for a birthday dinner at Fornino where we had the most delicious polenta fries with Gorgonzola dipping sauce and I pretty much never want to eat anything but those again. But then the pizzas came out and they were even more delicious and now I pretty much never want to eat anything that hasn’t been made in their kitchen.

Dinner over, we made our way back (by cab – it’s so nice having a cripple in your group; you feel less lazy when you have to take a cab instead of just not wanting to walk 9 blocks back home) to Coop & Porter’s apartment. Porter was leaving the following day for a tournament in Minneapolis and still hadn’t packed. And honestly, Wes & I were exhausted from our constant goingness of travel.

Slow Down

Most mornings are a scramble to get out of bed. We usually snooze once or, if lunch doesn’t have to be made, twice before actually getting out of bed. I like my sleep. A lot. I prefer an extra ten minutes of sleep to say, blow-drying my hair or putting together an outfit with time to spare. So most mornings I have 30 minutes to get out of bed, brush my teeth, get dressed and look presentable (hair, makeup, etc) for work, eat breakfast and pack my lunch. If I’m lucky (or have to pee) then I have 45 minutes for all of this. Forty-five minutes, at most, to prepare for my day. Forty-five minutes to spend with my husband and our dog before heading out the door for my hour+ bus commute to work (yes, I am looking forward to the day I can stop that nonsense). Because of all that other stuff, though, and the fact that Wes leaves the house 5-10 minutes before me, it’s more like 10-15 minutes with my husband and maybe a head pat for the dog because she thinks that if she stays sleeping upstairs that we’ll forget she’s there and we’ll leave her inside. Not likely, but points to her for trying.

Our mornings, if not rushed, aren’t exactly leisurely. I feel scrambled and when Wes gets out the door I feel like we’ve barely said one word to each other.

I hate that feeling and yet, I can’t seem to bring myself to set the alarm for 5:15 or even 5:30 and I’m not sure why. It would be nice to wake up and not be scrambling about trying to fit everything in. It would be relaxing to have a cup of coffee and sit down and prepare for the day – maybe writing or reading the news or just taking time to straighten my hair and make the bed properly.

I know I won’t be in this rat race of work for much longer (hopefully), and yet it still irks me that I feel so out of touch with my own home life. I’m bothered by the fact that when I get home I want to tune out instead of be active in my own life. I have been trying to keep the television off lately when I’m home alone. I’ve been trying to plan dinners so that we don’t stare blankly at the fridge or head out to fast food. But maybe what I’m missing is my mornings. Maybe 30 minutes to prepare for the day, while possible, isn’t the best way to do it.

Week 5: 365 Day Photo Project

I promise I took a photo on Sunday, but there was an unfortunate incident with my waterproof camera where water got in the fucking camera so I haven’t been able to access the photos I took yesterday at the pool. Hopefully Pentax can fix this or the company we bought it from will return it and give us a new one.

Monday found me at the mall with these adorable children. I’d love to show their faces, but they aren’t mine and I’m not comfortable with showing them. Trust me, they are adorable.

Cornered

Dog sitting these two, plus having Tsunami, meant that we got very little sleep Tuesday night.

Tsunami tries to get to the neighbor dogs, a black chihuahua and a puppy pinscher

Pool at First Friday

Ko’Olina view while choosing our Fantasy Football team

The Time I Turned 29 in New York

Here’s how you make your birthday awesome:

Start by celebrating at midnight in a wine bar. After we finished The Book of Mormon Wes and I met Porter and Coop for at a wine bar near their apartment. After our first bottle of wine we realized that it was midnight and my birthday had officially begun. So of course there was champagne.

Yes, we absolutely picked this bottle based on the name

When the champagne came out there was singing. I know there are people who don’t enjoy being sung to in public. I am not one of those people. I fucking love it when people make me the center of attention.

We stayed at the bar until it closed and then made our way back to the apartment where Coop and Wes immediately crawled into bed. My brother and I, though, decided that a beer would be a good idea while we made a midnight snack and talked. but I wrote about all this before. So let’s just get on to my actual birthday.

My head was a little fuzzy when I woke up the next morning but after an iced coffee I was starting to feel much better. We walked to the subway station to head to the city and while we were all piling through the gates my brother looked at me and nodded his head towards a guy who had just come in. “Oh my god,” I mouthed at him. “Is that Steve Buscemi?”

It was Steve Buscemi and my birthday was officially made because I have a crush on him. I’m not even slightly embarrassed to say that the rest of the week Coop and I walked around saying that I basically slept with Steve Buscemi. (Which isn’t remotely true, by the way, let’s just get that out there right now.) What actually happened is that I creepily followed him down the subway platform while grinning like an idiot until he did an about-face and walked to the other end of the platform and as much as I wanted to chase him down and take his picture (and have mine taken with him), I opted not to. He just wanted to be left alone and I didn’t want to be that annoying tourist. But still. I basically slept with Steve Buscemi.

My birthday could have ended there and I would have been happy. But it didn’t.

Instead we took a tour of Rockefeller Center to see the artwork that adorns it.

Radio City

Don’t be jealous of our sweet headphones

Atlas

View from above

Porter, Coop, me, Wes

After Rockefeller Center we made our way to Ben’s Deli because we were all starving and getting snippy with each other and Stephanie and Kenie told us to go there. They’ve lived in New York for a lot of years so we took their advice. And it did not disappoint.

I often dream of this sandwich

Since we were so close to Times Square we decided to walk through because, well, what the hell. We were tourists. And Times Square has got to be the touristy place I’ve ever visited.

So much neon everywhere

After Times Square we headed towards Yankee Stadium for the game that evening. But as we were getting on the subway Wes realized that he left his credit card at Ben’s and we rushed back there before anyone had time to buy anything. And instead of getting back on the Subway at Times Square, we decided to walk to Grand Central Station and then get on the subway to Yankee Stadium. Walking in all I could think of was My Best Friend’s Wedding when Julia Roberts finally realizes that Dermot Mulroney doesn’t love her. And I swooned a little bit.

True story: when we were growing up and still had a land line my brother would sometimes, on particularly crazy days, answer the phone, “Grand Central Station”. Confusion ensued.

And then it was on to the game in the new Yankee Stadium.

With our four gracious hosts who helped make our first trip to New York really amazing

me, Wes, Kenie, Porter, Coop, Stephanie*

We were ushered out after the photo and made our way to the restrooms where I convinced Stephanie to take a pretzel from the vendor cleaning up. It was rock hard and instead of eating it we started playing catch with it.

And just when I thought my birthday couldn’t get any better, it did. Stephanie started a chorus of “Happy Birthday” on the subway and the entire car joined in. I’m still cursing all my friends for not pulling a camera out because I would have loved a picture of that. But there had been beer consumed so I can’t really fault them. There was talk of going to a bar but by the time we pulled in to Brooklyn everyone just felt ready for bed (well, enough of the group felt ready for bed that we decided against a bar).

Not a bad way to celebrate a birthday: basically sleeping with Steve Buscemi and having New Yorkers sing me “Happy Birthday” on the subway. I think this means 29 will be a good year.

*The couple that took this picture asked if would take their picture. They didn’t have a camera so we snapped one with mine and promised them we’d send it. And I did. Well, I tried to, but the email bounced back so either this couple was just fucking with us or they think we’re real assholes for not sending the picture when we swore we would.

Week 4: 365 Day Photo Project

I’m finally catching up with the daily photo posting.

I spent a day in Ko’Olina with some lovely friends and though I have many adorable pictures of the girls we were with, they’re all face-on and they’re not my kids so here’s a picture of my feet in the water.

This is the new dress I had to buy after sitting in the residue of Ben Gay on the bus. While wearing white pants. But still, it’s better than driving. Yes, this was a last minute photo before I went to bed. I keep saying I’ll get better but I haven’t yet. Maybe by the end of the year.

We take Tsunami to the dog park (or some form of exercise) every night because she has so much energy saved up from sleeping all day long. If we’re lucky, this is what she looks like when we get back home. Except, maybe not lucky because sometimes she’s so tired she can’t eat or pee or poop until 2:00 am.

I felt like a little impromptu date night after an awful night of sleep because above dog woke up to pee and then the sprinklers came on and hit her in the butt so she scurried inside but didn’t finish her pee. So I took her out front but then, of course, another fucking cane toad hippity-hopped across the sidewalk and Tsunami was so excited/pissed off that I wouldn’t let her go after it that I had to coax her to sleep again. It took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep myself and by the time dinner rolled around the following evening I had no desire whatsoever to cook. So Chinese food it was.

Probably everyone is already tired of all the Tsunami photos, but I can’t get enough of her laziness.

Game night. Wes’ sister gave us this game for Christmas a couple of years ago. She said she played it at a friend’s house and it was the funnest (yes, funnest) game she’d ever played. Naturally it sat, wrapped in its protective cellophane) for a year or so. I played it with my family while they were here for Christmas but we got so drunk beforehand that I remembered very little of how it was played, just that we had an incredibly fun time and I punched my brother as retribution for years of his shenanigans. (He totally deserved it. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.) We pulled it out again with our friends Ben & Megan and it, oh, man Quelf really is the funnest game ever. Wes had to wear something not meant to go around the neck as jewelry for one of his rules, hence the hanger. We had so much fun that we’re thinking about starting a regular game night with friends.

I had my eye on this Flea Bag while we were at the Brooklyn Flea Market but Wes said that I had too many bags already which might be true but also, I really don’t know if it’s possible to have too many bags. I passed on it but then, a week later when our sippy cups arrived (yes, we accidentally left them in Brooklyn), the bag was in there because Coop is very rememberful and nice. I love the bag and have been toting it around with me since I got it. After I took this picture I laughed until I cried because I thought it was so funny. Just the memory right now is making me laugh again. Flea Bag on a dog! I slay me. Tsunami, as usual, is like, dude what are you doing and why do you think this is so funny? She dropped her head after that and could not be persuaded to pick it  back up.

New York, Part II

Porter and Coop found a pretty awesome apartment just blocks from Steph & Kenie and it even has a backyard, which is great since they have two dogs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fenced in so the dogs couldn’t be contained back there. Tuesday morning while Coop was a physical therapy and I was sleeping Wes and Porter started to build a fence because we all just got tired of coming home to find poop in the apartment. No one likes that.

After fence-building and breakfast we all headed over to the Brooklyn Bridge. Wes and I had flirted with the idea of walking across it but when we finally got there and started mapping out the day we realized that we just didn’t have enough time. Instead we parked the car a few blocks away and got some pictures of the city line and the bridge.

Next we drove a little closer to see the bridge from below and watch my brother & Wes nerd out about how cool this thing is. Admittedly, it’s pretty cool.

Brooklyn Bridge: Sponsored by Verizon

While were admiring the bridge our ferry into Manhattan pulled up and we had to head into the city. We ended up near Wall Street so decided to do the tourist thing and check out the Bull. Of course there was a line of 20 in order to get a picture. Of course we waited.

From Wall Street we headed over to the World Trade Center Memorial. It started pouring just as we arrived at Ground Zero and though we usually pack rain jackets when we’re out, we had left them at home. We did the tour in the rain anyway.

I wish I had something intelligent to say about the memorial, but I don’t. We walked through buildings where people were working and getting lunch and going about their day, all while listening to survivors tell their stories. Every time I started to cry I would see another worker walk by on their way to something so normal. Signs of life going on were everywhere, which is what happens in the wake of tragedy. No one is standing around Honolulu, unable to do anything because of Pearl Harbor so I don’t know why I was expecting anything different. The memorial building was built, at least the outside. And the new World Trade Center Buildings were underway, preparing for the 10 year anniversary.

When we finished the tour the rain got worse and I think we were both a little emotionally exhausted. We popped into Century 21 to buy umbrellas and called a couple of hotels to see about getting a room for the night since we were celebrating our anniversary with The Book of Mormon later that evening. We decided to not pay $300+, though, and trudged on through the rain to Hell’s Kitchen for dinner.

While it seemed like we had budgeted our time well, by the time we got to dinner in Hell’s Kitchen, we were running a little behind. We ordered a bottle of wine and dinner and then changed in the bathroom so that we wouldn’t look like drowned rats for our celebratory evening.

The play was great and I’m so glad that we spent the money to see it. We had incredible seats from the second mezzanine because the venue was so intimate. During intermission we decided we needed a little pick-us-up after downing a bottle of wine with dinner. The drinks were, as expected, expensive, but they were worth it. Heavy pours and they came in an adult sippy cups. Don’t worry, we saved them.

After the play we contemplated dessert but decided to head back to Brooklyn to meet Porter & Coop for a drink at a wine bar a couple of blocks from their apartment. We were there until after midnight, so of course, I started celebrating my birthday.

We headed out as the bar started to close. Wes and Coop went to bed but my brother and I stayed up for another beer and a little sibling time. At 2 am we decided to call it a night and get ready for tomorrow’s activities: Rockefeller Center, Ben’s Deli, Times Square, Grand Central Station, and the Yankee Game.