My Life In The Big Apple

Sardi's

2012-02-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't been to Sardi's in a while unfortunately, but the last time I went by I took a picture for you because I wanted to tell you how awesome Sardi's was for dessert! My friend Amy and I went there after seeing Equus on Broadway a couple of years ago and got dessert. It was scrumptious! During dessert we struck up a conversation with the couple at the table next to us and they were so fascinating that we talked for hours and closed down the restaurant. It was an amazing night.

For those of you who aren't aware of what Sardi's is famous for it is the decor. The food is great too, of course, but Sardi's is the restaurant with all of the caricatures of famous people on the wall. It has been featured in loads of movies but my favorite of them all was the scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan where Kermit is trying to make himself seem like a big-shot producer and he sneaks into Sardi's and takes down Liza Minelli's photo and replaces it with one of himself. That was comedy gold to a six year old, let me tell you!

Lederhosen

2012-01-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

Today for lunch we took a trip downtown to one of our favorite places. Lederhosen is a lovely German restaurant in the West Village.

The food was fabulous, as always! The place can get a little loud at night as it is a bar as well as a restaurant but everything else about it is perfect. They offer traditional German fare at a very low price (especially with their lunch specials) and there is a beautiful mural painted along the back walls of the rolling hills of Germany. If you are in NYC and looking for good German food this is the place to go! Check out my lunch today!

Fresh Direct

2012-01-22T17:33:00.000-08:00

One of the most awesome things about living in NYC is grocery delivery. You can get all sort of things delivered here from chinese food to shampoo but the very best delivery of all is groceries. At www.freshdirect.com you can shop online for almost anything you can get in a standard grocery store, as well as prepared foods and bulk items, and they will bring it right to your door. I've found that they are pricier than a standard grocery store but that I spend much less on groceries shopping this way because I don't have to walk by displays of cakes, cookies, candy bars, or other delicious items to get to the things I am there to buy. I have very little will power when it comes to sweets so I love that I can avoid those things by ordering groceries online.

If you live in NYC or the surrounding area go check them out and place an order. They are fantastic!

Dinner at Angus McIndoe

2012-01-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

Last night we met my husband's aunt at a restaurant downtown called Angus McIndoe. We had a great time!

The food was really delicious. My husband had their conch chowder and I had their le burger superieur and we both thought they were excellent. Our waitress was wonderfully attentive and the restaurant was lovely. It was a little pricey but we had a gift card so it wasn't too bad. The best part was that they were wonderfully understanding about our bringing the baby with us. She stayed quiet the whole time and everyone made funny faces at her and told us how beautiful she is so we were very pleased that they were so understanding about having a baby in the restaurant. If you are in the theater district and looking for a good place to eat I highly recommend it.

Here we are enjoying dinner! I put black bars over our faces for privacy purposes but this way you get to see the inside of the restaurant (and the baby in all her cuteness!)

Discount Week and Other Fun Stuff

2012-01-11T19:43:00.000-08:00

It looks like there is a ton going on this month in NYC!

First up is Restaurant Week. This is a fabulous time to go to dinner someplace that would normally be out of your price range. I personally suggest 21 Club or Bobby Van's for dinner because they are both delicious. Then after dinner you can catch a half price Broadway show during Broadway Week! Today started the New York Jewish Film Festival and currently you can see the caricature and satire exhibit Infinite Jest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All of these things look fantastic for those people who aren't at home taking care of a newborn. Please go out and experience the wonder of the city so that I can live vicariously through you.

Stand Up at Carolines

2011-12-31T12:31:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday my husband and I went to Carolines to see my husband's favorite comedian, Jeff Ross, perform. We had a great time!

I will say that, as nice as Carolines was, we have other comedy clubs that we prefer in the city. The only reason we went to see Jeff Ross was because the tickets were a gift from my husband's aunt, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to afford to go. On top of a fairly pricey ticket they also have a 2 beverage minimum so you aren't getting out of there for less than $120. We typically will go to Dangerfield's with their online coupon or to the HA! via street hawkers if we want to see some stand up comedy. The comedians aren't as famous but the prices are significantly better.

I do have a picture but I have to upload it from my husband's phone tonight so it will be up later. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve (and please don't stand in Times Square for 16 hours to see the ball drop...just go to a party or stay home and eat chinese food like the rest of the sane people in NYC.)

The Philharmonic

2011-12-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I went with a friend of mine to see Handel's Messiah at Avery Fisher Hall. It was fabulous! I consider myself very lucky that she had a spare ticket as they are so expensive that I wouldn't have been able to go otherwise and it was a wonderful performance. The only bad part was that the Tenor became ill and his part of the show was cut after the first act, but frankly most of the people there were simply there to see one thing anyway so it wasn't the most terrible thing to have happen. I ran out the door without my camera unfortunately but I did take a picture of the program when I got home!

I'm so glad that I got a chance to get out and do something "Christmas-y" this year. With the baby at home we've been very busy and mostly home bound so we haven't had a chance to do the things you normally do in NYC during the holidays like seeing the tree at Rockefeller Center or the decorations at all the stores on 5th Ave. We haven't even had snow yet this year except for one freak storm in October! Usually I'm a big fan of this time of year but this year it seems like we are putting the holidays on pause and making up for it next year instead.

Sucky Winter Weather

2011-12-07T18:37:00.001-08:00

I love cold weather. LOVE it. For my honeymoon my husband and I traveled to Finland in November and went up to the arctic circle where we did snow tubing and dog sledding. We are really into cold, wintery weather.

So, of course, this year it has been 60 freaking degrees every day. We have the air conditioner on and it is December 7th! I'm dreaming of a white Christmas and instead I'm getting a warm, wet, gross winter. Sigh. At least the lights are still up all over the city so I'm enjoying that!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T20:54:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm still here, I promise, but man am I busy. Last week the baby was born and since then we've been sleeping in shifts and I've been surviving on percocet after a very difficult c-section. I'll be back eventually with all sorts of New York-y things for you once I've had a chance to heal and sleep a little.

Halloween

2011-11-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Halloween in NYC was pretty hilarious. The kids trick or treat from store to store instead of apartment to apartment which means we were not disturbed all night long. I can just imagine the ruckus if the doorbell kept activating the dog every 4 minutes!

The best part though was the tweenager costumes. Normally I am against 10-13 year old girls wearing slutty Halloween costumes but this year I was just fine with it. Why, you ask? Because it was so chilly out that they all had to wear coats, leggings, hats, and gloves with their costumes! I saw a 12 year old in a playboy bunny outfit and the only skin you could see on her was her face. Mother nature knew how to help out an exasperated parent this year!

I swear I will bring back pictures on the blog here soon. I'm due to pop in less than 2 weeks and then I will be able to move around like a normal human being again. That will dramatically improve my picture taking abilities.

Winning the Lottery

2011-10-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday we won the lottery! The theater ticket lottery, that is. Most of the big shows on Broadway have a lottery before each performance where you can win super cheap front row seats if your name is pulled. My husband had some time to kill so he went down and entered the lottery for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and he won! He was the last name pulled and only got one ticket so he gave it to me because he knows how much I wanted to see this show.

It was phenomenal! Daniel Radcliffe is so cute (I saw him in Equus last year too...yep, I got to see Harry Potter's magic wand!) and John Larroquette was wonderful. Front row seats were amazing and only $30 for the lottery winners, which is pretty amazing considering I haven't seen orchestra tickets for this show for less than $180 in almost a year. I did take pictures and I will upload them later but right now my camera is across the room and my dog is on my lap and she is too cute to disturb.

And finally pictures are here! Well, one picture at least.

Love, Loss and What I Wore

2011-10-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

On Friday my husband and I had free tickets to see Love, Loss and What I Wore on 43rd St. We had a great time!

Before the show we went to Juniors because it was free cheesecake day! My husband had the pumpkin cheesecake and I had the devil's food cheesecake. I had their wonderful southern fried chicken breast and it was delicious.

The show was wonderful! It was lovely to find a show with a character that I was so able to identify with on the stage. That doesn't happen often for me, being a plus sized woman and all. I highly recommend the show if you haven't seen it already.

Dinner and Protesters

2011-10-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

Last night we went out to dinner at Amor Cubano again. I've mentioned them previously and they are super delicious! We had a gift certificate we got from my husband's mother so dinner was free which was a super bonus.

I keep seeing the protesters on Wall St every day. I hope they are able to make a difference...I think their message is a good one even if I think they are going about sharing it the wrong way.

Occupy Wall St

2011-09-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

I work in the Financial District here in NYC and for the past few days I've seen a lot of protesters in the area. The are a part of #OccupyWallStreet, a grassroots protest against corporate greed. I'm finding myself more and more frustrated with them every day and not just because they make it difficult for me to get to work.

My problem with the protesters is that they are not accomplishing anything. I am willing to bet good money that most of the people that are taking part in the protest still have Bank of America or CitiBank checking accounts and credit cards instead of moving their money to a credit union or small, local bank. I'm willing to bet that most of them still buy things at Wal-Mart and Target instead of their local Mom&Pop because it saves them a couple of bucks on their purchase. I'm willing to bet that some of them even drove into the city in their expensive vehicles that take $4/gallon gasoline instead of taking public transit.

If you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is you will not accomplish anything. The companies that are being protested do not give a single damn about whether you stand around in the Financial District being vaguely annoying as long as their checks still come in at the end of the week. If you aren't willing to pay a few dollars more for local produce at the farmer's market instead of bulk produce at the Wal-Mart or walk to the store to use less gas then you are wasting your time at the protest.

I encourage everyone who actually wants to fight corporate greed to do some research into which companies cause the most economic problems and which had the heaviest hand in causing the recession and make a point of not doing business with them. Write them a letter and tell them you are moving your bank accounts, insurance policies, and cell phone contracts to another company that takes the needs of their employees and customers seriously. Write to companies where you used to do business and let them know you will be shopping elsewhere now because of their unwillingness to consider their impact on the nation's economy and then actually take your business elsewhere. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And stay out of the way of people trying to get to and from work. Lots of us who work in the Financial District work for charities, not-for-profits, and other businesses that are set up to help those in need and don't appreciate being treated like we kicked your baby panda simply because we are in a specific geographic area.

It's Fall!

2011-09-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

The leaves are still green and attached to the trees. Shoe stores still have sandals and flip-flops in the windows. Multiple flavors of lemonade are still for sale all across the city. Technically the seasons haven't switched over yet but it is 64 degrees outside and breezy which means that as far as I'm concerned it's fall, by Jove!

I love fall in NYC. Winter is really my favorite season but fall comes in at a close second place. Central Park is ablaze in red, orange, and yellow leaves and vendors start selling apple cider and hot cocoa. All the mosquitoes and other damned horrible bugs start dying off or migrating far, far away from here. The hot nut carts smell amazing on a cool, crisp day. I get to drag my giant scarves and hats out of the closet to keep me warm as winter approaches. The grocery store becomes a magical land of turkey and ingredients for pie. Dogs get dressed up in adorable sweaters to protect them from the chilly weather. This is a truly wondrous time of year!

I truly dislike summer pretty much anywhere in the country because no matter where you are (except perhaps in the Rockies or the Tetons or something) it is too hot, too humid and full of bugs. Nasty, biting, disease-riddled bugs that harass the crap out of me. The evil day star is around blinding people and burning them and causing all sorts of melanoma. It really is just the worst of the seasons, but I suppose the horrors of summer make me all the more appreciative when fall begins to roll around every year.

One Day in Chelsea

2011-09-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

This week we got free tickets to the Clearview Cinema in Chelsea and we decided to see the new Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess movie One Day.

It was a sweet romance with a bit of a shocking ending. We enjoyed it quite a lot! It was based on the book One Day (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage Contemporaries)

What we did not enjoy, however, was the horribleness of the cupcake bites and cinnamon bun bites that they had on super sale. We took a chance on the cheap candy and it was very, very gross. From now on we stick candy in my purse before the movie like all normal people!

Best Dining in Times Square

2011-09-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Lots of people are looking for excellent places to eat in Times Square so I thought I would list a few of my favorites for you. Let me know if you think I left anything out!

Best Thai in Times Square

Qi Restaurant is by far the best Thai I've had in Times Square. The atmosphere is beautiful and the food is delicious! They have some of the lowest prices of any restaurant in the TS area (seriously-they have several $8 dinner entrees and $5 lunch entrees) and they have a yummy flourless chocolate cake.

Best Italian in Times Square

Okay, this is just a smidge out of Times Square but it is very close and totally worth it. Angelo's Pizza on 57th is some of the best Italian food in the city. They are a pizza place but I've honestly never tried their pizza because their chicken parmesean is so damn good I can't bring myself to try anything else! My husband and other people who've been there with me have sampled their menu and have loved every bite of it so everyone should find something that works for them. Be forewarned that the service is not great, but quite frankly the food is good enough that the service doesn't have to be great to make it worth the trip.

Best Burger in Times Square

You've seen them mentioned on my blog before but they deserve another shout-out here because Shake Shack has the best burger in Times Square. They have the best everything, basically. Their desserts are so good, their burgers are phenomenal, and their fries are amazing. If you are looking for a nice, sit down kind of place for a burger this may not be the place for you but if you just want a good burger with a delicious shake this is the place to go.

Best Deli in Times Square

Juniors is by far the best deli in Times Square. There are lots of delis in TS (including Carnegie Deli, which is not nearly as good as it's reputation would lead you to believe) and Juniors has everything a person could want from a deli. Pastrami, corned beef, brisket, and all the standard fare served in portions big enough to feed a family of four. Go if you get the chance and also check out their cookbook! Welcome to Junior's! Remembering Brooklyn With Recipes and Memories from Its Favorite Restaurant

Best Steakhouse in Times Square

Del Frisco's is the best steakhouse in Times Square. Every year my company has our holiday party at Del Frisco's and people start talking about it months in advance because the food is so good. Their steaks are perfection and they have a lemon cake that is absolutely divine. They are pricey but it is worth every penny, especially if you can get your boss to pay for it!

Best Dessert in Times Square

This is a tough one because there is so much deliciousness in the city, but if I had to choose a place to go for only dessert I would say Jacques Torres Chocolates would be the place to go. I can't even point out one thing that you should get on the menu because it is all wonderful. Also check out their cookbook Jacques Torres' A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions

Best Seafood in Times Square

I don't eat seafood but my husband insists that if you are going to eat seafood anywhere in this city you need to go to Le Bernardin. A very expensive dining experience but one that is considered the best in the nation, Le Bernardin has some of the greatest seafood you could ever hope to have in your life. It takes some doing to get a reservation so call in advance!

I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Wait, what about pizza and hot dogs? Those are quintessential New York food experiences!" Well, they are, but the good ones aren't in Times Square. The best hot dogs in the city are uptown at Grays Papaya (not just good but cheap as dirt too!) and the best pizza isn't even in Manhattan, it is Grimaldi's in Brooklyn. If you want those things you are going to have to hop on the subway. I know it seems unfair that the best pizza and hot dogs are not in Times Square, but you can still have a great meal and see the Naked Cowboy!

The Park and German Tourists

2011-09-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

Today we took the puppy to Marcus Garvey Park so she could run around in the dog park. She had a fabulous time!

She is always the smallest dog in the park but she thinks she is the biggest dog in the world so she gets right in with the big dogs and holds her own in the park. She loves to run around and romp with other dogs as well as making friends with all of the people in the park too. She is super friendly and is happiest being surrounded by other dogs. Lots of dog parks in the city are kind of skeevy and full of people who haven't trained or fixed their dogs and aren't really safe places for people to hang out but there are several really great parks for dogs and Marcus Garvey is one of them. For more information about Marcus Garvey and why he has a park named after him check out The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans: Or, Africa for the Africans (New Marcus Garvey Library)

In addition to lots parks NYC tends to have lots of tourists too. I had a hilarious run in with a group of them on my way home from work! There were three German guys standing near the subway entrance and one of them looked really sick. I asked if he was okay and his friend gestured that he had been drinking to indicate that he was drunk, not ill. The drunk guy then turned and looked at me and yelled, "Fuck you!" His friend apologized and said in an adorable accent, "Sorry. That is all the English he knows." :)

Summer Reading

2011-08-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

I pulled a book off of my shelf for the next selection of my summer reading. It is The Cheap Bastard's Guide to New York City.

Given our financial situation I thought it would be a good idea to start researching some of the cheap/free things to do in the area that I may have forgotten about or not considered before. For instance, the book mentions how several late night and day time talk shows film in the city and that you can be a part of the audience for free. Given that Labor Day is coming up and we are going to want something to occupy some of our time going to watch a taping of David Letterman could be fun! It also mentions that often you can volunteer to be an usher for a big name show and get to see it for free that way. While I don't have the time to do that (or the ability...being pregnant means no standing on my feet for 4 hours at a time!) it is an excellent idea for other people who might want to catch a Broadway show but don't have the funds for tickets.

And for honesty's sake let me explain the recent appearance of ads on the blog. I am attempting to make a little bit of money this way to offset some of our income loss. If you see an ad or an Amazon item that interests you please feel free to click the link and check it out, but by no means should you feel obligated to do so.

Well, shit...

2011-08-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

We are so screwed. My husband was laid off from his job last week and because he hadn't been there for 2 quarters yet he isn't eligible for unemployment.

This wouldn't be so bad except that our insurance costs are skyrocketing and after the baby is born our health insurance will take up 50% of my paycheck. Rent takes up the other 50%, which means we have to dip into savings for food, electricity, and the like. In addition to that bit of fabulousness, because my company is a small business of less than 50 people I'm not eligible for FMLA and my maternity leave will be unpaid.

We are working to find him a new job as fast as possible and in the meantime we will be finding alternative ways to make some money but this is going to be a difficult time for us. Luckily there is a lot of free stuff to do in the city so we won't be without entertainment or more material for the blog!

Hurricane and Doughnuts

2011-08-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

So we are staring down the barrel of hurricane Irene. My father never calls me about anything and he called to tell me that we should expect a category 1 hurricane to hit the island on Sunday so I am taking this pretty seriously. We stopped today after work and got some milk and cereal (and dog and cat food) to make sure that we would be prepared for any horrible weather and we put off buying theater tickets for this weekend until we have a better idea of what exactly to expect weather-wise. After our earthquake experience this week I was hoping we could go for a while with no natural disasters but apparently that is not to be the case. If you are on the east coast make sure you have plenty of toilet paper and food basics because the natural disasters seem intent on visiting us like broke relatives looking for a place to stay.

This past weekend we went out to an awesome place called Doughnut Plant in Chelsea.

They make giant doughnuts the size of your head that come in awesome flavors! We got a peanut butter and jelly doughnut, a coconut creme doughnut, and a Valrohna chocolate doughnut. They were all so freaking tasty! They were voted one of the top ten doughnut places in the nation so we had to go check it out and we are very glad we did.

Also, I keep wanting to type donut but spell check insists that this is incorrect. I feel like spell check is being prejudiced against what is typically an acceptable spelling. Stop oppressing me, spell check!

Childhood Influences

2011-08-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

In November my husband and I are having a baby girl. I am starting to think about how to present a healthy image of what a girl should be, what a woman should be, what kind of person she should aim to become, etc. and I'm finding that there are a lot of different paths she might choose from and many different influences about which path to take. While I will make sure she gets exposed to lots of very positive NYC media like The Muppets Take Manhattan, Miracle on 34th Street, and Spider-Man my bigger concern is that she be exposed to lots of positive female role models and positive examples of what adult men and women should be.

Something that is both a benefit and a detriment of living in NYC is being exposed to all sorts of people, from the most coked-up homeless person to the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. I very much look forward to exposing her to all sorts of cultures but the cost I will pay for that is explaining homelessness and other unpleasant sides of humanity. My hope is that she sees where poor decisions and bad luck can take you in life and that will push her to work hard to do better but you never know what messages children pick up from the world around them, especially media images.

I used to love Inspector Gadget, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and She-Ra which I think were excellent examples of strong, intelligent people (and turtles, of course) but at the same time I watched Jem, which was basically a show where the animators barely attempted to make sure her cartoon hoo-ha didn't pop out from under her micro-mini and plenty of Disney movies with excessively thin and barely dressed heroines (I'm looking at you, Ariel and Princess Jasmine!) And let's face it, even though she was massively powerful She-Ra still dressed like a hooker at a sci-fi convention.

I'd like my daughter to be able to watch the occasional show or movie that skirts the line, not only because I don't think it is healthy to have a child that is too sheltered from culture and media but also because these things provide excellent talking points to start a discussion about personal values and such. And to be fair, the large majority of children's programming and toys, while perhaps not incredibly educational or anything, aren't inappropriate or damaging. However, there appear to be a few really inappropriate toys and shows that are overly violent or place too much emphasis on weight and appearance. Hell, even Strawberry Shortcake, the most adorable of 80's characters, has been revamped to make sure little girls know that you should be rail thin with long, silky hair. Heaven forbid a little girl be a bit pudgy or have curly hair! Take a look at the new vs. the old Strawberry Shortcake:

I know that most programming for kids is innocuous but I want more from my daughter's television, music, and other media experiences than that. I want for her to see more of things like the Powerpuff Girls (scientist father, crime fighting little girls, no excessively exposed skin or excessively tiny waists) and Dora the Explorer (explorer and naturalist little girl who loves her brother and works to save the environment) and less Cinderella (cleans a lot and her biggest accomplishment is marrying a rich man) and iCarly (ultimate dream is to be a reality tv star.) I also don't want to have to watch 7,000 hours of children's programming to determine which of the shows and movies should make up her viewing time, however much or little of it there might be. In a perfect world when she got old enough to appreciate television she would watch an hour or so a week and no more, but realistically I understand that TV might be what allows me to take a shower without an interruption too so who can say what will happen?

It's a good thing we have a little more time before she is born! We've got a lot of research to do, and not just best brands of diapers or how to operate a breast pump either. Hopefully by the time she is old enough to get into TV we will have figured out exactly how we want to approach the situation.

Veterinarian

2011-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows about our adorable puppy, right?

And the kitties!

We've been taking them to a vet in our neighborhood for the past year or so that has been pretty wonderful. One of the doctors there opened her own practice and makes house calls with her assistant now so today when the puppy needed an exam she came to the apartment to do it. It was very affordable and she was wonderful with the dog! I'm very excited about having a vet that makes house calls! The cats have never taken well to being hauled several blocks in their carriers and usually work themselves into such a fit that they poop in the carrier out of fear and anger. This prevents them from being forced into panic attacks at a time when they are probably already not feeling great, which is wonderful, and it allows for me to get them proper vet care without leaving the house which is hugely important to me as a very pregnant woman. I'm not really showing yet but I am pretty uncomfortable and due to the sciatica I'm supposed to try and avoid stairs if I can so it was great to have someone come to the house to provide a service like that. Check them out if you live in the area!

www.homefrontvet.com

Alice's Tea Cup and William Shatner

2011-07-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a fabulous time! We went to the Intrepid Museum and saw a ton of military history. We got to see a film on the intrepid and check out the flight deck. My husband rode a simulator and we got to see lots of places in the ship that I didn't even know existed! After we spent the day touring the museum we waited in line for 2 hours to get seats for the screening of William Shatner's new documentary The Captians which is about all the people who played a captain on Star Trek at one point or another. The documentary was okay and William Shatner was there for the screening (which was very cool) but the film itself was not great. There were lots of funny moments but it didn't really capture my attention and they didn't provide seats but instead made you sit on the cement flight deck of the Intrepid. Let me tell you, this was not at all comfortable especially for a pregnant woman. I couldn't stay for the whole film because it hurt my body so badly to sit on the hard ground. Also after hearing him address the crowd and seeing him in the movie I've determined that William Shatner is either the least self-aware person on the planet or a giant ass. He seems really unaware of the way his presence and the things he says impact the people around him.

None of that stuff matters though because yesterday I found a new restaurant in the city that is so good it makes me want to pack up and move downtown to be closer to it. It is called Alice's Tea Cup and it has the best scones I've ever eaten in my entire life.

The food here is absolutely amazing! The staff was very friendly and the decor was precious but, really, you go out to eat because of the food, right? This was probably the greatest brunch I've ever had and it was really, really delicious. If you are coming to NYC for a vacation put Alice's Tea Cup at the top of your list. If you live here and have never eaten at Alice's for the love of all that is good and holy in this world go now!

The Visitor's Center

2011-07-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

Holy crap it is hot in NYC! It is hot all over the country right now but in most places you aren't expected to walk so much or spend so much time outside so I think it seems worse in NYC. I actually bought a small package of baby wipes to give myself a whore's bath of sorts when I get to the office so I don't stink to high heaven from the heat. Luckily it is only like this for a few days during the summer here and most of the year is actually a quite comfortable temperature. But enough of that and onto today's post!

When you come to NYC one of the places you can go in Times Square is the Visitor's Center. It has some interesting stuff to look at and a ton of information about things you can do for fun in NYC. One of the things they have there is the ball from the 2000 ball drop on New Year's Eve.

Behind the ball you can see an old Peep Show sign from back when Times Square was kind of gross and dangerous and visiting meant you had a 50/50 chance of walking away with herpes and no wallet. It is obviously much better now and a fabulous place to visit but for a while there it was a little seedy.

One of the other things they have there is the costumes from various Broadway shows. Lots of fun stuff to see there! The costumes below are from Guys and Dolls, Sunset Boulevard, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. The pictures are sideways because I'm too damn lazy to figure out how to turn them right side up.

But do you want to know the best reason to go there? It is air conditioned! Seriously, get your sweaty self off the street and go check it out, if for no other reason than to prevent you from dying of heat stroke and having the crowd around you think it is performance art and throwing quarters at you instead of calling 911.

P.S.A. for NYC

2011-07-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

Many of you may remember when this video was all the rage:

This woman was on the Metro-North train from Connecticut to NYC and flipped out for being told she was too loud and to please quiet down so she wouldn't disturb other passengers. She paid the price for it when it was videotaped and put up on youtube so now the whole world knows just how difficult a person she can be sometimes.

Unfortunately people often do not take into account how their behavior impacts the people around them and this woman certainly isn't alone in that. This weekend we went to a Mets game ($10 tickets!) where we ran into her sporty doppelganger, Screams-Inappropriately-During-The-Game man.

We were 2 sections away from this guy and we could still hear him screaming the entire game. Lots of pseudo-rhythmic clapping, lots of screaming (in fact, he screamed so loud that towards the end of the game his voice started to give out as he yelled random crap at the players on the field) and no thought given to the other people who paid for tickets to the game that did not want to hear his commentary for 5 hours. Baseball games are not supposed to be quiet, they are supposed to be loud and fun and full of $7 beers and everyone knows that before they arrive. This man still managed to be so loud that people from our section were standing up to yell at him to shut up and put a hot dog in it. He got to a point where he was yelling stuff that wasn't even baseball related, just stupid stuff because he wanted to yell. I think I heard, "I need to get eggs at the store on my way home!" come out of his mouth at one point.

I know that it is important to do what you are going to do and not care too much about what other people think because if you did you would never do anything at all, but seriously, take some consideration into whether or not what you are doing is impacting the people around you. Major in art instead of business. Eat Cap'n Crunch for dinner tonight. Put off laundry until tomorrow and watch a few episodes of The Simpsons. Really, most people don't know or care if you do things that make you happy. But for all that is good and holy in this world please keep your volume reasonable in public. Don't be "that guy" if you can avoid it. And if you can't avoid it try drinking less and see if it is any easier not to be "that guy" without the booze.

The more you know...*insert rainbow graphic*

Food Trucks

2011-07-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of living in NYC is the food. Delicious, fabulous food everywhere you go with every imaginable type of cuisine. Seriously, there is a Tibetan restaurant here. One of the many awesome things about food in NYC is the food trucks that bring tastiness around the city. One of my absolute favorites is the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. I highly recommend the salty pimp!

But NYC has more than just ice cream on wheels. Every 15 feet there is a hot dog cart or a halal food vendor, there is the wonderful Waffles and Dinges, and there is even a Tabasco themed food truck I've seen a time or two before. My favorites are the gelato truck and the Italian sausage truck. Talk about tasty!

I think NYC was just made for pregnant women, what with all the delicious food that brings itself right to your home or work!

GLBT

2011-07-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! As some of you may know the state of New York legalized gay marriage. I am so glad to live in a state where, when my baby grows up, they can truly marry anyone they love regardless of gender. I didn't think I could be more proud of my state...until I rode the subway this morning. When I got on the train today I saw this:

This is an ad encouraging gay and lesbian couples to adopt children and open their homes to foster kids. Within days of the announcement that gay couples can officially marry in NY they are encouraging them to help children who are in need. I love living here!

Top Ten TV Shows Set in NYC

2011-06-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of my top 10 favorite shows to be set in New York City. Let me know if you feel like I left something out!

10. Night Court
I totally thought this was ridiculous growing up, but it turns out that the court system in NYC really does run 24 hours a day.

9. Law & Order
Law & Order has several variations that have been set in NYC (Criminal Intent, SVU, etc.) and all of them have been just fabulous!

8. The Jeffersons
Much like George and Wheezy we recently moved on up to the East Side and we love it here.

7. All in the Family
I heart Edith Bunker!

6. Friends
This show was awesome but it gave me a very poor understanding of apartment sizes in NYC.

5.Seinfeld
Why...do they always...eat...at that diner? I've been there and it isn't the best diner in their neighborhood.

4. Sex and the City
One of my favorite shows ever!

3. The Cosby Show
Ah, Bill Cosby. Your penchant for salty, fatty food and love of jazz stay with me to this day.

2. Sesame Street
Everything's A-OK here!

1. I Love Lucy
This is quite possibly my favorite TV show of all time and, if I'm honest, a big part of the reason I moved to New York in the first place. As a little girl living in a run down little house in Texas (my family moved up to bigger and better as I got older but we started out in a pretty cruddy house out in podunk nowhere) I would watch reruns of I Love Lucy and marvel at how awesome life was in NYC. Considering one of my favorite movies at the time was also The Muppets Take Manhattan I feel like I was destined to end up here!

Off Broadway

2011-06-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

On Friday we went to see a show at an Off-Broadway theater. The show was called The Sphinx Winx and it was kind of adorable.

It was a musical misinterpretation of Egyptian history, with Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony and a host of other characters. It would have been better with a larger cast and a slight script rewrite, but it was otherwise pretty cute.

I've been crazy busy lately so I haven't had much time to update the blog in a while but I will be updating it more frequently here in the future. Tomorrow is my birthday so hopefully I will have some new stuff for you soon!

Fleet Week

2011-06-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is that time again. Walking through the city in the early summer heat you begin to hear what sounds like Barry White music wafting through the air. You notice your hips swing back and forth seductively without any conscious thought or effort. You suddenly have the urge to buy a push-up bra and you don't know why. Yes ladies, it is fleet week!

Or it was last week at any rate. This is the time of year when the men and women of the US Navy dock in NYC and run around town in their delicious uniforms, being all sexy and patriotic. There is nothing quite like spotting your first sailor of the season, like when you see the first birds as the snow begins to melt away in the spring. I, of course, am married and pregnant so fleet week is simply appreciating the view for a while. I'm sure my husband would feel the same way if NYC had a large breasted underwear model week.

For your viewing pleasure, ladies and gay gents, I have taken pictures of a few of the sailors as they wandered around the city! I mostly have shots from behind, partly because I respect the fact that they may not want their faces posted all over the internet and partly because the best part of a sailor is his rear end, so enjoy!

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2011-05-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

You know what's awesome?

Museums. Art. Historical artifacts. Musical instruments. Central Park.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has miles and miles of incredible art and artifacts from almost every possible source. We took my parents last weekend when they came to town and they were simply floored by the amazing things housed in this museum.

Below are some pictures of items found in their Egyptian section. Some are are decorative jars, some are mummies and sarcophagi, others are actual buildings brought over from Egypt that you can walk into and view the hieroglyphics.

From the Egyptian section we went to the sculpture garden, which is actually one of my favorite places in the whole museum. They have dozens of sculptures as well as stained glass throughout that is all phenomenally gorgeous. My favorite piece is the gold statue pictured here of Diana the Huntress.

The last stained glass image is by Louis Tiffany (as in Tiffany's, the famous jewelry store) and is one of the most gorgeous pieces of art I've ever seen. The picture is sideways because I couldn't fit enough of the image in the camera viewfinder and still have it be recognizable the other way. When you stand in front of it the colors swirl in such a way that it is almost impossible to believe it is glass.

Below are some images from the American Art section of the museum, which is mostly gorgeous furniture that is nicer than anything I will ever own.

From there we went to the Guitar Heroes exhibit which was incredible but didn't allow pictures. I managed to sneak in one or two anyway but I will respect the museum's request by not sharing them with others. The guitars were beautiful though and I highly encourage you to go see them before the exhibit moves on. After that we moved to the permanent musical instrument exhibit and saw a ton of beautiful items, including some instruments that the museum really doesn't know much about. A few of them are the only ones of their kind and we don't know how they were played or who created them. The gold drum pictured below actually belonged to Ringo Starr!

The last place we visited was the weapons display. There were swords, guns, suits of armor, and all sorts of other weaponry on display. Even after all of these things we still only saw a fraction of the museum. One of the things that I love about the museums here is that you can visit them over and over again and see something new every time!

The Case of the French Pervert

2011-05-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend a news story broke about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of IMF who sexually assaulted a maid in New York before attempting to flee the country. As it happens, when he was brought to the courthouse and arraigned I happened to be in the area with my parents who were visiting for the weekend. It was a media circus!

There were press there from all across the globe and several people who just happened to be walking by that stopped to sit on benches across from the court and watch the scene unfold.

As it turns out the NYC court system runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so there were judges available immediately to arraignment. The show Night Court was based in NYC for a reason! As the case has unfolded it has been kind of surreal to know that I sat and watched as he was going through the court system.

I know this particular post was not long or informative, but I'm working on one hell of a post to put up this weekend so stay tuned!

Amor Cubano

2011-05-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend my mother-in-law came to visit for Mother's Day. And not only was it Mother's Day, but it was also the final day of obedience school for the puppy! She aced her test and graduated with flying colors. We are such proud dog parents! To celebrate we went out to dinner at Amor Cubano, a lovely Cuban restaurant in our neighborhood. (Well, we went and the dog stayed home with a special chewy as a reward.) The empanadas are to die for so we absolutely love going to dinner there!

They have live music, delicious food, and a friendly staff. Their bread is phenomenal and all of their entrees are scrumptious. If you are ever in the neighborhood I cannot recommend them enough!

This Was a Heck of a Week

2011-05-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

As some of you may have heard, President Barack Obama paid a visit to my fair city yesterday at Ground Zero to honor the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack on 9/11. This visit was especially significant because, as I am sure everyone across the globe is aware by now, on Sunday Navy SEAL forces found and eradicated Osama bin Laden. Below is one of the most famous photographs to come from the event, the president and his staff in the situation room watching the mission. This particular photo was taken by Pete Souza (the White House photographer) and I specifically got it from The Huffington Post.

I work a few blocks from the Ground Zero site but was unable to go and see the president speak as I was working at the time. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to go and be a part of that crowd but work must come first.

I've been somewhat confused for the past several days and not really sure how I am supposed to feel. On the one hand, our public enemy #1 is now gone and we have gathered an overabundance of intelligence information that will help keep our nation safe and secure. On the other hand, is it ever really okay to celebrate the death of a person, no matter how evil? But on the third hand are there just some people who provide no value and use a surfeit of resources who serve no purpose in this life? And even still, on the fourth hand my sense of patriotism pushes me to celebrate because of the benefit to our country and the closure this brings to all of those who lost loved ones to terror attacks those many years ago. But on the fifth hand, as a pregnant woman I can't help but wonder if Osama has a mother that is mourning his loss right now. I have to stop myself here though because I have long since run out of hands and am pushing into Vishnu-like territory.

No matter what, this has been an incredible couple of weeks, historically speaking! Prince William married Kate and Osama bin Laden was taken out by Navy SEALs. This is going to be one of those weeks you tell your kids about when they get into the more advanced history classes in high school, kind of the same way everyone knows where they were when Princess Di passed away or when JFK was assassinated.

Connecticut

2011-05-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to Connecticut to help out my husband's aunt. She is selling her house and needs to get it cleaned and organized before buyers start coming through so we went up and helped her do some cleaning. Well, my husband helped clean. I cooked and watched the dogs all day because I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy since I'm knocked up. We had a good time and the dog had the best weekend of her life apparently. She got to ride the metro-north train out to CT and make a ton of friends. Everyone on the train thought she was adorable and wanted to say hello. Then when we got to his aunt's house she got to meet her dog, Splash. Splash got her name because the house is right on the beach.

They played all day long on Saturday and then for several hours on Sunday morning. We took them out on the beach and they ran and played together like long lost best friends. We only got pictures of them inside and on the deck outside though.

They had a great time! We aren't going back out to CT for a while though. It is always a bit draining to head out of state for the weekend, especially when the baby is sucking up all of my energy.

Magnolia Bakery

2011-04-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to a cabaret to see a friend of ours perform. He did an awesome job but this post isn't about that. It is about Magnolia Bakery. It is one of the most delicious places in the whole city! There is an argument among New Yorkers about which bakery is better, Magnolia Bakery or Crumbs, and I am firmly in the Magnolia camp. Crumbs is excellent but it isn't as good as Magnolia Bakery! Magnolia Bakery is like the Harlem Globetrotters and Crumbs is like the Bruins. My husband disagrees and says Crumbs is superior but he is welcome to be wrong about that if he insists. Most people in the country know of Magnolia Bakery from this episode of Sex and the City:

They are most famous for their cupcakes but they also sell slices of regular cake and other assorted baked goods. I got a Whoopie Cookie, which is 2 sugar cookies with a maple cream cheese frosting filling in the middle. Little Debbie wishes her oatmeal cream pies tasted half as good as a whoopie cookie! It was the most fabulous cookie in the whole world.

I also got a double fudge brownie for today. Normally that would be a lot of sugar but since I got pregnant my blood sugar has been dropping with an alarming regularity so I need to have sweets on hand to keep from getting dizzy and passing out. I suppose if you have to have a medical problem during pregnancy having one with a delicious solution is the best kind! I would like to send a big Thank You to the wonderful people at Magnolia Bakery for helping me stay healthy (okay, maybe healthy isn't the right word...perhaps I should say conscious instead) while pregnant. This is the box we carried our dessert home in, but my thumb ended up in the picture somehow. That is not a toe, I promise!

NY Mets - My Favorite Squadron!

2011-04-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to get tickets to see the Mets! The Mets and the Yankees are the two major league baseball teams in NYC and while the Yankees tend to be much better players the Mets fans are more dedicated so it all kind of evens out. The Mets used to play at the incredibly famous Shea Stadium but recently it was torn down and replaced by the brand new CitiField Stadium.

Our seats were in the Mr Met section, where the Mets mascot came by and handed out t-shirts and posed for pictures with the kids. The view was pretty good and the seats were only $20, which was a steal!

His giant baseball head makes him one of the most adorable mascots in major league baseball!

In the end the Mets lost (which wasn't unexpected) but we still had a great time. Best of luck next time guys!

Radio City Music Hall - Shine On

2011-04-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

I'm back! On Tuesday we had tickets to Shine On, the Good Housekeeping celebration of remarkable women at Radio City Music Hall. It was amazing! I had never been to RCMH before but it was gorgeous inside and much, much larger than I had anticipated.

The show was phenomenal! I had no idea how star-studded the evening would end up being. The staging was gorgeous as well.

We were constantly amazed at the presenters and performers. The awards were given to Michelle Rhee, Christy Turlington Burns, Indra Nooyi, Elizabeth Blackburn, and the sOccket girls. They were all incredibly deserving of the awards and the recognition. My pictures didn't come out very well, but I will post them for you anyway. Are you ready for the list of presenters?

First, there was the host of the evening, Rebecca Romijn.

She introduced Eve for the first performance of the night!

Then she introduced Goldie Hawn to make the first presentation and introduce the next performer.

Then we got to hear a performance of I Hope You Dance by Leann Womack!

The next presenter was none other than Gweneth Paltrow!

The next presenter was Ali Larter of Final Destination fame.

Ali was followed by Alexis Bledel.

Alexis was followed by the hilarious comic duo Frangela.

The next presenter was Bridget Moynahan.

Fran Drescher was the next presenter!

The next presenter was my absolute favorite of the night! My own personal idol, Meryl Streep!

After Meryl we got to see a performance of It's a Man's World by Trisha Yearwood.

Then we got to see a presentation by Heather Graham.

Then there was a tribute to two women we lost this year, Elizabeth Taylor and Geraldine Ferraro presented by Kathy Ireland.

Overall it was an incredible evening! I've never been in the presence of so many amazing women before. It makes me hope that our baby is a girl so she can have been exposed to all of these amazing women in utero.

Baby on Board

2011-04-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have been super busy! As it turns out I am seriously pregnant (by which I mean pregnant and terrified of it) and, as such, I have been spending most of my days trying not to hurl all over the sidewalks of New York. I will be back with regular updates in another couple of days once I've gotten used to functioning through nausea. I have some really amazing posts coming up too, so please check back in later this week for non-baby related updates on life in NYC!

Doctors and Godiva

2011-04-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today I had a doctors appointment at the New York Downtown Hospital. It was a very long, very bad day.

They had to take blood. I do not do needles. I have a deep, intense fear of needles that is far worse than my fear of birds. I would be a horrible CIA agent because all a counter agent would have to do is come at me with a syringe and I would scream and squeal and spill all my secrets. I would make up totally fake secrets to keep them away from me. I seriously cried and cried while my husband held me and stopped me from jumping out of the chair and running out of the door. They took six vials of blood! Okay, I know that is only about 4 oz. of blood, but it is still a ton of vials. I was ticked off that after all of that they didn't give me a cookie and juice, so as a reward for letting someone violate my veins my wonderful husband took me to Godiva.

I love chocolate. Chocolate is my vice. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs but I will attack a pint of chocolate ice cream like it has the ability to make you rich and attractive. I love chocolate in a way that is a little bit frightening, so it was a fitting reward. I got Godiva chocolate-covered Oreos and a couple of their truffles. They are so tasty! I still don't like that I had to give up precious bodily fluids to get it, but in the grand scheme of things I suppose the awesome of the chocolate cancels out the horrifyingness of the blood work. Thanks for helping me get through my day, Godiva!

Lunch and The Opera

2011-03-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had tickets to see Monodramas at the New York City Opera. The NYCO is the building on the left here and the one in the center is The Metropolitan Opera.

A monodrama is a show with only one performer and the NYCO put together a show made up of three monodramas. The first and the third portions of the show were not good. They seemed to be attempts at "modern" opera and they just really went too far from a standard opera layout to be enjoyable. The second show was quite good though. It was called Erwartung and it was the story of a murder told backwards. It was really well done and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

I generally love the opera and it is a rare thing to find that I didn't enjoy a show but Monodramas made my list of least favorites. The first part was an opera based on an abstract painting that made very little sense. It ended with a big fire though so that was kind of cool. The third one was an opera based on a poem by Samuel Beckett that had a lot of neon colors and mirrored cubes that came down out of the ceiling. It was a strange show! The opera house is beautiful though.

We got there early to get our tickets to the show and since we had more than an hour to kill we went across the street to a restaurant called Rosa Mexicano and had lunch. It was phenomenal! I think I finally found a delicious Mexican restaurant in the city. I had their fondue with peppers and sausage and my husband made a meal out of their guacamole.

They bring this big cart to your table and make the guacamole right in front of you. It is made by hand without blenders or food processors and it was fabulous. Rosa Mexicano is now our go-to spot for tasty Mexican food in the city!

Stupid Pigeons

2011-03-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

On my way home from work today I passed a group of 6 pigeons hanging out on the sidewalk all huddled about eating something. As I got closer I realized it was a McDonald's chicken sandwich.

Yeah, you read that correctly, the pigeons were eating a chicken sandwich. Pigeons are apparently not smart enough to avoid pseudo-cannibalism. I just kept waiting for one of them to fly away screaming, "Sidewalk sandwiches are people-I mean, birds!" but I don't think pigeons appreciate movie references of Charleton Heston.

Pigeons in the city are scavengers. They will eat anything they can get their beaks on, including chicken apparently. They have no shame. They will pull food out of the garbage, off the street, out of anywhere they can find things. There is a reason they are referred to as rats with wings, I suppose.

Max Brenner - Chocolate by the Bald Man

2011-03-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

A few days ago my hubby and I decided to go out to dinner at one of our favorite places in the city, Max Brenners. Max Brenners is a chocolate themed restaurant. The decor is chocolate, the desserts are chocolate, and they have a chocolate shop built into the bottom floor.

The absolute best part of Max Brenner's is the way it smells when you walk in the door. It smells like heaven! It smells as though the wizards from Honeydukes have been using magic wands to bake chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cakes full of pixie dust and deliciousness. Directly to your right as you wait to be seated are giant vats of liquid chocolate that make you wish they handed out giant straws at the entrance.

Even the decorations on the wall are chocolatey! All over the restaurant they have stacks of chocolate bars bigger than my purse and jars of chocolate pieces and shavings arranged artistically on shelves.

If you get a chance to go I can't recommend it enough. Their lunch and dinner menu is delicious, their desserts are phenomenal, and the chocolate gift shop is marvelous. Stop by and take a deep breath when you get a moment - you won't regret it!

The Subway

2011-03-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about living in NYC is the regular access to awesome public transportation. The trains are, for the most part, reliable and quick. The trains are also one of the most cost efficient ways to get around the city.

I live off of an express train line so my commute to work is about 20 minutes. It is awesome! I read the entire way to and from work and I don't worry about the cost of gas or insurance or worry about getting in an accident or getting a ticket.

The subways are well marked and easy to find. I live just a few blocks from the subway entrance so it is a short walk to the train in the morning and on my way home there are dozens of stores on the street on my way home so picking up dog food or toilet paper or other necessities is super easy.

The train platforms tend to be open so you can see the trains going in both directions. Sometimes it gets kind of loud but that is kind of expected since you are underground. On every platform there is at least one map of the train lines so that you can find your way around.

The trains, buses, and the Metro North are all run by the MTA. While I don't always like every decision they make I must say that they do a pretty dang good job of keeping the trains going. The trains aren't perfect but they work perfectly for me! I am so appreciative of having access to safe, reliable public transportation. Big thanks to the city of New York for making it so easy to get around!

New York Top 10 List - Movies

2011-03-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

This is my top ten list of movies made in or about New York. Let me know if you agree, disagree, or have others you think should have been on the list!

10. Die Hard With a Vengeance
John McClane is suspended from the NYPD yet gets drawn into a deadly game with a terrorist plotting to blow up parts of NYC.

9. Breakfast at Tiffany's
The adventures of sweet and vulnerable Holly Golightly and a young writer named Paul. A romantic, lovely film. It should be a must see on everyone's list.

8. When Harry Met Sally
Such a fun movie! Follow the lives of Harry and Sally, who meet as college graduates and become friends after a road trip to New York and spend the film trying to answer the question, "Can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way?" And, the best part, Meg Ryan's fabulously hilarious scene in Katz's Deli:

7. A Chorus Line
Anyone who has ever had an audition or an interview of any kind can relate to the intense desire and need felt by every cast member in this wonderful film adaption of the Broadway show.

6. Splash!
A mermaid who once saved a young boy sprouts legs to come find him in NYC. Adorably innocent, she falls in love with Allen but can't decide how to tell him her secret. Such a fun, lovely film and it sparked the widespread love affair with the name Madison for little girls.

5. Coyote Ugly
Aspiring song writer moves to NYC to get her big break and works at a kick-ass bar run by women who know how to serve a drink! An adorable love story built into the story of a woman going out in the world to make her mark, this film should be seen by every young woman, aspiring artist, and night club lover.

4. As Good As It Gets
This is one of my favorites, setting be damned, and it gets better every time I see it. A neurotic author, a fed-up waitress, and a gay artist form a friendship of sorts in this adorable film. If you haven't seen it you should rent it right away!

3. Rosemary's Baby
One of the most horrifying stories ever told, Rosemary is a young woman who is tricked and forced to give birth to a very evil child.

2. Funny Girl
One of my favorite films, Funny Girl tells the story of Fanny Brice starring the incredible Barbara Streisand. If you are one of the people who only know of Babs from the mockery in South Park you need to see this movie. You will understand why she has so many fans who love her!

1. Sleepless in Seattle
The quintessential romantic film, this story follows Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks through a long distance courtship started by his young son. This movie asks the question, "What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?"

Ooh, square!

2011-03-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Every Friday at work we order in a variety of bagels and spreads for breakfast. Usually we get an assortment of normal bagels, but not this week! Take a glance at part of our bagel order from yesterday:

Square bagels! I had never seen square bagels before yesterday morning. I theoretically understood that they could be made in square shapes but the image of a bagel is always round in my mind. The square bagels were tasty too! This one had cheese baked into the top and there were several others that were covered in poppy seeds or other delicious toppings.

Drag Queen Bingo

2011-03-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Last night we went out with a friend of ours for a wild Saturday night of peanut butter sandwiches and bingo. Normally this sounds like something your grandma would do for fun but this was different and not at all grandma-like. For dinner we went to Peanut Butter & Co. which serves mostly peanut butter sandwiches of various kinds that are all freaking amazing. My husband had The Elvis, which is a peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich and I had the lunchbox special, which is your choice of peanut butters and jellies. I chose original crunchy and grape jelly, but they have ten different kinds of peanut butter including spicy, cinnamon, chocolate, honey, and maple varieties just to name a few. They are all super tasty! And they have a bunch of peanut butter related art on the walls.

They also sell all sorts of sodas that aren't available at most places. They have key lime soda, cherries and cream, and other oddly awesome flavors. This is the one that I had yesterday:

After we went to dinner we walked a couple of blocks to Le Poisson Rouge for Drag Queen Bingo.

They have the effervescent Linda Simpson (probably the sweetest drag queen in the whole world) calling numbers and giving out fabulous dollar store prizes. Well, technically New York doesn't have "dollar stores" in the sense that pretty much everything inside costs no more than a dollar. We have stores that sell cheap stuff that call themselves 99 cent stores but the name isn't accurate in any way. My favorite one is called 99 Cents or Less Or More. Heh. Talk about truth in advertising!

They gave away a bunch of stuff, including the prize that I won! I won some safari animal wall appliques and other people won a change bank shaped like two mice driving a car, a collection of miniature dolls, and a dinosaur with working jaw action.

At the end of the night they play one last game for a cash prize. Last night the cash prize was $116 dollars! We didn't win it though. Actually the winner was a doctor, which kind of rubbed everyone else the wrong way. Consensus seemed to be that if you earn 6 figures or more per year you shouldn't claim cash prizes, especially given the current economy.

We had such a great time! I think we are going to make Drag Queen Bingo a regular part of our lives from now on.

Public House New York

2011-03-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday we went to a restaurant called Public House New York. The restaurant is beautiful (though it is hard to tell by my picture as I didn't use the flash so I wouldn't upset other diners) and they have a really amazing menu. Let me tell you all about our dining experience!

We arrived after work on purpose because they have a dress code requiring shirts with collars for men and business attire for women so we wanted to be dressed appropriately. Once we were inside the decor was gorgeous but it was marred by the excessive number of giant televisions all over the place. It turns out it was the largest, most expensive sports bar in the whole world so that explained the noise and the televisions. At first we were a little bothered by the intrusive environment but once we saw the menu we figured it had to be worth it. Everything looked fabulous! We ordered 2 appetizers, the philly cheese steak egg rolls and a side of jalepeno bacon macaroni and cheese and they were delicious. I couldn't imagine a tastier appetizer! The macaroni and cheese was so good it almost seemed to come from some kind of Faustian deal with the devil where the inventor traded their soul for the ability to create the world's greatest side dish.

Then we ordered our entrees, a steak with broccoli and red potatoes for me and short ribs and potatoes with onions for my husband. The entrees were disappointing at best. My potatoes seemed as though they hadn't been cooked at all and the sauce on the ribs was not great according to my husband. We ended up wishing we had ordered one of their sandwiches instead. All of those looked amazing too...they had a pulled pork sandwich that looked divine and they had a crab cake B.O.L.T. (bacon, onion, lettuce and tomato) sandwich that seemed as though it had been created especially for my husband so we ended up thinking longingly of the sandwiches while eating mediocre entrees. We boxed up most of the food to go and decided to try their desserts, primarily because I wanted to be able to write about them here but also because we are sugar addicts.

Their cookie dough smash was really, really tasty. The hot chocolate chip cookie covered with vanilla ice cream was delicious, though I will say I would expect nothing less from chocolate chip cookies anywhere. So overall on a scale from 1-10 the appetizers were a 10, the dessert was a 9, and the entrees were a 4. The restaurant as a whole gets a 6 from me, though I will admit that if I had ordered a sandwich instead of a steak I probably would have given it an 8. I have to say that if you go to the restaurant give the appetizers a try and save your big meal for another restaurant.

Woo! Thank You Everybody!

2011-03-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has visited my blog so far. Now that I have officially had 100 views I feel accomplished! Well, maybe not, but 100 visitors is still very cool to me. I have had people reading my blog from the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Philippines, and New Zealand. I am so thankful for everyone who has taken a few moments to read my blog all over the world and I want to thank you the only way I know how - with pictures!

This is a blurry picture of the Chrysler Building. I promise to get a better one at some point, but I thought the blur effect was pretty neat, especially on the reflection of the gargoyles.

This one is a picture of the puppy with her rubber donut. She is super cute!

This is a picture of an empty subway car. This is the subway that I take to work every single morning so I can guarantee I get a seat.

This is one of the kitties...he is a bit ticked off by being woken up for a photo shoot!

And here is kitty number two!

So thanks again to everyone who has stopped by so far. I am looking forward to sharing even more of this great city with anyone who is interested. And please feel free to leave comments!

The Magic Show and Dessert

2011-03-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight my husband and I went to see a show called The Quantum Eye. It was an adorable show of magic, mathematics and mentalism at the St. Marks Theater. We got called up on stage to do a trick with the magician Sam Eaton and I learned how to do a very cute trick (of course, I will not reveal his secrets!) and my husband got to be amazed for an hour and a half. He loves magic shows, comedy shows, and anything else like that so it always makes me happy to be able to take him to that kind of thing. The St. Marks Theater was a lovely, intimate place with a cute little bar that sold hot, buttered cider that was delicious!

After the show we decided to grab a bite to eat. We had a gift certificate for a restaurant near Grand Central so we went there only to find that they have a dress code and since we forgot our swim fins we ended up going to the Junior's location at Grand Central instead. Anyone who has been to Junior's will tell you about their amazing cheesecake, but for my money there is absolutely nothing better in this world than their chocolate/chocolate layer cake. It is the best, tastiest, most delicious chocolate cake I've ever had in my life! This is also the place that introduced me to the concept of the egg cream. Being from the south I had never heard of an egg cream before, but after learning that there were no eggs in an egg cream I tasted one and quickly became a big fan!

For dinner I had their grilled cheese and bacon on challah bread and my husband had their brisket melt. It was incredibly tasty! Junior's is one of our favorite places for dinner/dessert and we try to take people who come to visit us there at least once during their trip. Everybody loves Junior's!

IFC Theater

2011-03-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

This week my husband and I went to see the movie Cold Weather at the IFC Theater. The movie was not great, but this isn't about the movie. This is about the theater itself.

As big fans of independent film we love the IFC and other similar theaters around the city. We always enjoy going to see a show there and Cold Weather was no exception. While the movie wasn't very good the experience was divine! The theater is right off the subway line so it is easy to get to and they showed the best prefilm short I have ever seen. In fact it might be the only prefilm short I've ever seen, but that doesn't matter because it was fucking hilarious.

The short was called Seduce Me, starring and directed by Isabella Rosselini as part of a series called Green Porno. Seduce Me was about the sexual habits of dolphins and it was done with giant dolphin puppets. Go ahead and read that again, I'll wait for you to get back from your double take. There is also a short about the sexual habits of deer and one about spiders and they all have Isabella and other actors in costume acting with the puppets. It is one of the strangest things I've ever seen on the big screen and I loved every minute of it! (For those of you that have to know what could be stranger than that I once saw a 3D porn movie from the 70's called Lollipop Girls and Hard Candy that had the red and blue 3D glasses that went with it. It wasn't very well done and the 3D effects were mostly feet and "spray" but it was very funny. At the climax of the film the 2 main characters were getting it on and then, out of nowhere, the chick was suddenly wearing a riding hat and holding a crop yelling, "Tallyho!" That was stranger but also less fun. Watching bad porn in a large group of strangers wasn't nearly as fun or interesting as I'd thought it would be at the time.)

Anywho, I highly recommend the IFC for anyone in NYC looking for something a little bit different to do on a free night. It has tasty snacks, fun T-shirts for sale, and interesting movies playing all year long!

Why I Love New York - Reason #34

2011-02-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

The NYPD is absolutely amazing! They are dedicated to their work and a constant presence around the city and, occasionally, they are part of a hilarious moment in your life like they were for me last week.

Last week I was taking an exam to get my Life, Health, Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance licenses and their instructions very clearly stated that nothing would be allowed in the testing room with you. I pondered this the morning of the exam and started digging up the phone number for the center to find out if they would have lockers or any other place to securely store your belongings during the test. My test was to start at 9:00 and it generally takes about 2 hours. My gallant husband advised that I didn't need to call them and that he would simply bring my purse to me at the testing center at 11:00 and we would go to lunch before I returned to the office. I was tickled pink and kissed him goodbye on my way to the testing center. I took my test, passed with flying colors, and was downstairs waiting outside the building at 10:56.

At 11:10 I walked to the corner and started looking both ways for my husband but didn't see him. At 11:15 I went back inside and asked the security guard if I could use the phone to call him (my cell phone was in my purse, of course) and was denied. At 11:25 I walked to a pay phone and started trying to trick it into letting me make a free phone call to no avail. At 11:29 I started contemplating something I had never considered before: begging for change from strangers so I could make a phone call. Right about the time I started looking around for a nice stranger who might understand my predicament and give me a quarter I saw my husband running down the street, purse in hand. As he ran up to me he said, "Did you know that if you are a man walking down the street with a woman's purse the police will stop you for purse snatching?"

Wow. No, I did not know that! Apparently as he was walking through the subway with my purse he was stopped for questioning. The police were incredibly polite and advised him that since he was more than willing to cooperate with them and answer their questions he was obviously not a purse snatcher and they let him go on his way. We had a good laugh over it and I took him to a tasty BBQ place nearby to say thank you for braving embarrassment and police interrogation to bring my things to me after my test.

As much as it is funny it is also quite wonderful to know that the police are looking out for the citizens of our city by keeping an eye out for situations that are a bit out of the ordinary! In fact this is the second such incident we've had with police inquiry into an innocent event. The other was when a friend of ours hosted a post-apocalyptic theme party and we went as zombies. I even decorated a cake to look like a brain! We covered our faces with fake blood, green make-up and blacked out our eyes and had a great time. Over the course of the evening my husband managed to wipe off most of the make-up on his face but mine stayed pretty much intact. On the walk home we were stopped by the police to make sure that I was okay and not injured. Once I figured out why they stopped me I laughed and explained the party and told them I would bring them there to see the event if they wanted and that there was even a policeman at the party wearing a gas mask and carrying a machete as his costume. They let us go on our way once they knew I was safe and did not need medical attention.

I love that I live somewhere that the police are a constant presence. I lived in Dallas for 24 years and the only time I ever saw a police officer was when I was being pulled over for speeding. It is comforting to live somewhere that you can actually see the efforts of law enforcement on a regular basis. It takes away quite a lot of the reputation they have for being "the man" that some people seem to be so unhappy about when you see them catch a criminal or pull someone out of a dangerous situation or even just have them inquire about your basic day-to-day safety.

Wildlife

2011-02-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

When most people think of wildlife in NYC they imagine sewer rats and pigeons. I will agree that there are plenty of those here in the city but there are lots of other animals that live on the streets (or in the sky as I've come to discover) in the city as well. This week my husband and I saw a prime specimen on the trip home from the store. It was a peregrine falcon! I know the picture isn't terribly great but I'll be perfectly honest with you and confess that I am terrified of birds. I am of the opinion that birds have two jobs-the first is to be delicious and the second is to leave me the hell alone. That second point is especially true of birds of prey and I have no desire to be anywhere near them. Because of this I was not willing to get any closer to take a picture so this one will just have to do.

Peregrine falcons are actually really common in NYC and there is even a sign that tells all about them in a park in the financial district. According to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection there are at least 32 falcon couples in the area (they mate for life) and they apparently nest on high rise buildings and church steeples. They dine primarily on medium sized birds so the pigeons in New York are essentially an all you can eat buffet for falcons which more than explains their constant presence in the city. As we were walking home from the store we got to see this particular falcon in action as he grabbed a pigeon and proceeded to start tearing it apart while we watched. He obviously wasn't too hungry though because after a minute or two of torture he let the pigeon go and then just sat there on the lamp post so that I could take a picture. Don't ever let anyone tell you that there is no nature in New York City!

Zabar's

2011-02-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we made a trip to Zabar's. For those of you who aren't familiar, Zabar's is a fabulous Jewish shop on the upper west side. They have a wonderful cheese section and olive bar as you walk into the store. My husband loves their brie! They have a magnificent bakery section where you can get breads, muffins, donuts, bagels, and most importantly rugelach, which is an amazing pastry that is a crescent roll with delicious filling. I prefer the chocolate rugelach, but I prefer the chocolate version of pretty much everything so take that into account when considering anything I recommend. They have a separate cake section where they have at least a dozen different cakes and tarts and other tasty things. Then there is the fish section where you can get lox, salmon, white fish, caviar, and lots of other traditionally Jewish fish. Across from the fish section you can get half a dozen different kinds of cream cheese and various free samples! Then as though this isn't fabulous enough they have an entire upper floor full of kitchen appliances, bake ware, and other kitchen gadgetry.

The store is so popular that it is difficult to walk through! The aisles are full of people and you have to squeeze by to get from section to section. I don't know that I ever would have noticed the place if my husband hadn't introduced it to me so long ago. Everything they sell is wonderful and actually have a section of our household budget set aside specifically for Zabar's. If you are in the city go now and bask in the fabulousness! If you are not in the city I highly recommend checking out their website and placing an order post haste!

Fondue

2011-02-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

Today a few of my girlfriends and I went to a restaurant downtown for fondue. It was yummy! The place we went is called Taureau and they have the most fabulous fondue menu. We had a cheddar and monterey fondue and a fondue called Devil's Whiff, which was a cheddar, peperoncino, and red wine fondue. We had garlic bread and a side of potatoes for dipping. There was steak and chicken in boiling oil for the meat course and that was followed by a milk chocolate fondue with a fruit tray on the side. It was super tasty and the atmosphere was lovely, though I didn't realize it was next door to a funeral home until I uploaded this picture!

I've been to a few fondue restaurants in the city and so far I have to say that this one is my favorite. They had a wide variety of fondues to choose from and a tasty selection of chocolate fondues for dessert. The cheese was so good and there was unlimited bread to go with it! It wasn't the healthiest dinner in the world to be certain but there is not much in this world better than melted cheese. Honestly, there is very little in the culinary world (outside of desserts, of course) that would not be improved by covering it in melted cheese.

For those of you not from NYC, the black thing with an orange cone in front of it is where food, clothes, and whatever else a store sells is brought into the building. Most stores have all of their storage in the basement (because every building in the city has a basement) and the stairs to get down there are generally pretty narrow and wouldn't support hauling large boxes of stock. The gates in the sidewalk make it much easier to bring things down into the storage section of the stores and cause paranoia in NYC residents. We are all a little afraid of stepping on a closed gate and having it collapse underneath you leaving you injured and embarrassed. The only thing worse would be stepping in the gap between the train and the platform...talk about dangerous and embarrassing!

Why I Love New York - Reason #12

2011-02-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

There are lots of things to love about this city, one of my favorites being that I am constantly surrounded by history. NYC is positively teeming with enough historical sights to give a nerd a mental hard-on. There is something historical for everyone, from Stonewall to the Margaret Sanger Clinic. You can pray at St. Paul's Chapel where George Washington attended services or visit Central Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in NYC if that is more your style.

One of my favorite sites is the grave of Alexander Hamilton. I work in the area and I absolutely love that I get to pass by his gravestone every day.

For those of you who are having trouble placing the name you might want to pull out your wallet and check out your $10 bill. That suave looking gentleman is Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He did a lot of amazing things for the country and died in a duel against his arch-nemesis Aaron Burr and I absolutely adore that I get to walk by his final resting place every single day on my way to and from work. I half want to stand there and shake my fist at his grave, screaming, "What a foolish way for such a smart man to die! Next time just flip him the bird! Jeebus, have you no sense?" but I don't. That would be nuts.

The Brain

2011-02-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my husband and I took his aunt to the American Museum of Natural History. It was awesome! The AMNH is one of my favorite places in the entire city and I could (and have, in fact) spent days of my time just wandering through the exhibits like it is the Holy Church of Chocolate and Awesome. While we were there we saw the IMAX movie Sea Rex which did an excellent job of introducing me to some marine reptiles I hadn't heard of previously including the liopleurodon, a short-necked plesiosaur of enormous size that looks like it has the head and body of a crocodile and the flippers of a sea turtle. It was fascinating! We also saw the planetarium show Journey to the Stars as narrated by Whoopi Goldberg which was lots of fun.

The best part was the brain exhibit though! They had a full exhibit on the workings of the brain and discussed the evolution of the brain, memory, addiction, love and other emotions, and the 5 senses.

This is a display showing the different parts of the brain as they apply to your 5 senses. The various colored sections show which parts of the brain work your sense of smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight.

This is a GIANT brain that shows memory and how the brain functions with a dancer. You see a video of the dancer rehearsing and the brain lights up in different places as she memorized this pattern. They talked about how similar brain patterns would be when you learned to tie your shoes or do other repetitive things. I'll never be able to look at another 4 year old without imagining the inside of their head lighting up like the Las Vegas strip at 2 a.m.

This was a display showing the parts of your body most sensitive to touch. The more sensitive the body part the larger it is on this statue. Before you ask, no, they left the sexy bits normal sized. I guess they didn't want to deal with 7,000 5 year olds saying, "Daddy, that statue has a huge wiener!" so they left that bit out of the display.

This is a giant, light up neuron that was part of a larger display about synapses and such. There were several of these and you could watch the light travel from neuron to neuron to show how information travels through the brain.

It was incredibly fun and informative! If you are in the city and can make the trip I highly recommend it. We didn't stay for the whole day unfortunately because the puppy needed to be let out of her crate so we limited ourselves to 3 hours at the museum. It was a fabulous 3 hours though! Then we went home and spent some time with our pets. Here is a picture of the puppy taking a walk in her sweater for those of you who love adorable pet pictures.

Restaurant Week

2011-02-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

This week in NYC it is restaurant week! Yay!

For those of you who aren't familiar, restaurant week is the time of year when all the super schmancy restaurants that charge a gazillion dollars per dinner acknowledge that there are many of us in the world who, while not destitute, are not exactly wealthy either and so they bring their prices down to a more affordable amount for a short while. The husband and I decided to take advantage of this and go to 21 Club for dinner for $35 for a 3 course meal instead of their normal $35 an entree. Seriously, they sell $125/oz caviar and their normal prix fixe meal is $73 per person. This is someplace that would normally lock the doors if they saw me coming and send out guard daleks to advise me that perhaps my empty wallet and I should go to Wendy's or something instead but for their low, low price of $35 a person we were able to make a reservation.

21 club has a dress code that requires men to wear jackets and women to wear nice slacks or a nice dress. No jeans and sneakers. No t-shirts, not even the one with a picture of the front of a tuxedo on it. Basically you have to look like you aren't going to steal the silverware before they will let you inside. When we got there and sat down my husband looked around and said he felt better seeing all the other men were wearing suits too. When I said that of course other men were in suits and asked why he would even wonder about that he said he thought I might have made up the whole dress code thing just to trick him into wearing a suit to dinner. The thought hadn't occurred to me before! I think from now on I will start making up dress codes for various places. "Yep, that's right sweetie, the theater has a strict 'neck tie and swim fins' dress code. We can't go see the show unless you have on swim fins!"

Dress code issues aside, this was such a fabulous meal! I had chicken in a tasty mushroom sauce with whipped potatoes and broccoli rabe with a lemon meringue tart with blueberry compote for dessert. My husband had the salmon tartare appetizer (by which I mean he had two because I don't eat seafood so I ordered one for him and he ate mine as well) and grilled pork with fried potatoes and homemade sauerkraut and vanilla bean creme brulee. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever had and worth every penny. Now I understand why they get away with charging the prices they do on a regular basis!

You know what wasn't worth it though? The $6.25 diet coke. This kind of thing is why they have those guard daleks, because people like me go there assuming that no one would ever charge more than $3 for a soft drink, no matter how hoity toity the restaurant, and they assume that obviously anyone who set foot in their restaurant knows to assume that everything there is at least 300% more expensive than anywhere else in the world. I have a feeling that Tavern on the Green and all the other schmancy places charge similar amounts for diet coke too.

They have a bunch of tiny horse jockey statues (I'd bet there are 21 of them) on the outside of the restaurant. It kind of takes away from the super expensive atmosphere they have going but otherwise they are just adorable!

Mexican Food

2011-02-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

I hate Mexican food.

No, that is a lie. I really like Mexican food. But I hate it. Hmm, lemme 'splain...

I am originally from Texas. Specifically, the part of Texas with the purple X over it in this picture.

Being from Texas I assumed I had eaten a TON of Mexican food in my life when, in fact, I had eaten a TON of Tex-Mex food. There are pretty dramatic differences between the two but because people who own restaurants in Texas are jackasses (okay, not all of them, but some) they name their restaurant So-And-So's Mexican Restaurant and then serve Tex-Mex food so that little white girls who go out to eat with their families assume that people in Mexico eat lots of deep fried foods covered in molten cheese.

When I moved to New York I found a lot of Mexican restaurants and thought, "Awesome!" Then I tried to eat at these places and they served me foods I was unfamiliar with, like soft corn tortillas filled with vegetables and small amounts of meat. No cheese. No sour cream. And when I say I want salsa I mean this:

Notice that this is a liquid. It is full of deliciousness that has been blended and pulverized beyond recognition into a sauce-like substance.

Apparently in Mexico salsa is this:

Notice that this is a solid foodstuff. It is more like a tomato-onion-cilantro salad than a sauce. I have always known this to be called Pico De Gallo (pronounced Peeko-De-Guy-o) and I don't like it. As far as I am concerned uncooked onions and tomatoes should not be considered edible food much the same way that we consider harvested grains that haven't been processed not to be edible foods. Unfortunately not everyone agrees with my ideas of what things should be and this stuff shows up on my food every time I order tacos in New York.

When I got here and went out for Mexican food the first couple of times I just thought that maybe people in NYC didn't understand true Mexican food, as though people from Mexico got across the border into Texas and stopped going when they hit the Dallas area or something. They didn't understand that all of these uncooked vegetables and the lack of dairy was obviously a gross error on their part. I even asked one of the restaurant's owners about it once and he advised me that he was born and raised in Mexico and he had never heard of a sopapilla and that most people in Mexico don't eat much cheese.

Now, the food I've eaten in NY that calls itself Mexican food is tasty, I'm not going to lie. But my expectations are always set for Tex-Mex when I go for Mexican and then they give me my tacos and I am sad about my lunch when I see that it is authentic Mexican food. Then I get about 5 or 6 bites in and realize it is pretty dang good and I shouldn't be sad anymore but the first few bites are always filled with sadness. I feel like I have been misled by the restaurant. It is kind of like if my husband called me at work and said, "Sweetheart, when you get home from work I am going to rock your world so hard you will temporarily go blind" but when I got home he said we would just sit on the couch holding hands and watch Under The Tuscan Sun. I would love to hold hands with my husband and watch an adorable movie but not when my system is all geared towards sweet, sweet lovin', you know? That is how I feel about Mexican food in NYC.

Kitties

2011-02-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

I had a long talk with the cats and they told me that they feel we are paying too much attention to the dog and not enough attention to them. I explained that the dog is just a baby and needs lots of attention right now but they would have none of it and insisted that I get out the camera and take pictures of them too. I obliged to keep them from feeling all left out. Here are the kitties:

They are cute and fuzzy and just as lovely as the puppy. There, hopefully they feel better!

I got the grey cat when I lived in Texas and he came up north with me to the Big Apple. He has never known anything other than living in my home and loves to follow me around and sleep in the bed with me. The orange fella, however, is a New York native. He was actually feral for part of his life and lived on the streets of the city, eating out of trash cans and such. The woman I adopted him from who brought him in and put him through kitty rehab thinks he was abandoned by someone before she found him. He is less snuggly and has more attitude (I suppose that could be because he is a native New Yorker as well, you never know) but he is lovely just the same. After I adopted him I found out that she had him in a facility with other cats and several pot bellied pigs she was trying to adopt out as pets. Seriously, pot bellied pigs!

The pup came from a breeder in MN and was shipped here before we adopted her. If we had adopted her straight from the breeder we would not have let them dock her tail, but since it has been done already there isn't anything we can do about it except love her extra to make up for the unnecessary tail removal. I am very excited for her because now she has finished her vaccinations and is almost done with her meds, which means that soon we can start taking her for walks! She will love going for walks and the kitties will love having her out of the house for short bursts of time.

Why I Love New York - Reason #132

2011-02-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

In NYC you see a ton of things you can't see anywhere else. A naked cowboy playing the guitar, alternative theater, and a store devoted solely to Pop-Tarts are all reasons that I adore living in this city and just one of the many things I love about NYC is this guy:

Today is February 4th. It is icy and cold outside. In fact, there are huge mounds of snow covered in ice where the plows and the shop owners have shoveled it into piles so it can melt without being too much of a bother over the next several weeks all over the sidewalks and the roads. Yet this man is wandering around Manhattan with no shoes on as though the city were actually a soft spring meadow.

And it isn't as though this is the only time I've ever seen him. I actually see him every single day catching the train in the Financial District with all the people in suits and ties like he considers himself an Executive Hobo or something like that. He really isn't even a hobo actually. He is always clean and appropriately dressed (except for the shoes, of course) and very polite to everyone on the train. He even has one of the world's most awesome hats to keep his head warm in the winter!

He has this massively large fuzzy hat. It is one of those Russian hats that is super fuzzy with a big badge-type thing on the front. It is so Russian that every time I see him I want to yell, "In Soviet Russia hat wears you!" but I know that would be very rude so I just think it very quietly in my head. He gets +3 cool points for the hat. He loses a point for the lack of shoes though. Or should the lack of shoes earn him an extra point? I haven't decided for sure yet.

Lunch at Shake Shack

2011-01-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

Today my husband and I went and saw a show and grabbed a late lunch afterward. The show was The Ride and it was a fun and amusing bus ride through the city. The best part of the day was the trip to Shake Shack though. For those of you who haven't been, Shake Shack is a burger and hot dog joint in Times Square. I had heard it was good but I wasn't quite sure what to expect when we arrived.

Oh. Mah. Gawd. It was fabulous! Probably the best burger I've had in NYC. And the desserts? They have this thing that is frozen custard, jam, and a cinnamon doughnut all mixed together that is so good it makes you want to touch yourself inappropriately right in the middle of the restaurant. That's right, it is a masturbatory dessert! It has a creamy vanilla taste with a slight swirl of jam and then you get hit with a delicious wave of cinnamon before your flavor experience is over. This was a dessert that could bring peace to the middle east. It could bring democrats and republicans together. It could make a nonbeliever discover faith in any number of gods. I can't believe I had never eaten there before! Seriously, if you ever come to NY go there and order a Jelly's Last Doughnut.

You know what's awesome? Tap water.

2011-01-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

A few months ago my office was renovating and ripping up everything in sight to make our workspace bigger, brighter, higher in fiber, and all other kinds of better. In the process of renovating they tore out our office kitchenette and moved it from one side of the space to the other and this meant, of course, that the filtered water dispenser thing also got moved. I bought a bottle of water at the store (the super, XXL sized bottle of water in fact) so that I could have something to drink at my desk one day and inevitably I ran out of water that afternoon.

I couldn't just leave the office to go buy more water. I also couldn't fill up my bottle from the filtered dispenser. Instead I took the obvious next step and went into the bathroom with the intention of filling up my bottle in the sink in the bathroom. Of course, when I got there and tried to fit my crossing-the-desert sized bottle under the faucet that didn't work very well. I stood there and laughed like a loon because the situation seemed funny to me at the time. While I laughed I heard the bathroom door open and a woman who worked in an office down the hall from me walked into the room. She asked why I was laughing and I explained that the universe had decided I was not going to have a drink of water today apparently and gestured with my bottle toward the sink to show her it didn't fit. She looked at me and said, "You were going to drink the faucet water?" as though I had told her I had accidentally dropped my lunch in the toilet but I was going to eat it anyway.

I was shocked that there are seriously people in this world who would not drink water out of a sink faucet. This was especially strange in New York City as we have some of the nation's best water. A few places in the country have water that tastes or smells like any combination of chlorine, copper, dirt, and rust so in those places I can understand preferring bottles of water but in New York our water tastes fabulous and is smell-free right out of the tap. What made this even worse though is that I could feel the ghost of every single person who lived before the 1880's speeding towards us with the intent of bitch slapping this woman into the oblivion.

Humanity has searched for ways to purify water for as long as there have been people. Water purification was mentioned by Hippocrates in his search for improving the health of humanity. There are pictures of water purifiers found in the tomb of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II. Sir Francis Bacon performed experiments to purify and desalinate water in the 1600's. Drinking water that tasted good and wasn't going to kill your ass was more important than any philosopher's stone or fountain of youth ever could have been and we finally began to master the concept in the late 17th Century with the creation of sand filtration systems. From there we moved to large scale filtration on a municipal level in Scotland and England later began to put government regulations into place to prevent outbreaks of cholera and other horrifying diseases.*

So after hundreds of years of scientific progress making it so that water is not only potable but can actually be accessed whenever you want it by turning a knob in your home we have let bottled water companies convince us that the water you find in your kitchen or bathroom that flows so free and clear people from the 1500's would have thought it was the work of a benevolent, wizardy baby Jesus is inferior to water that you can get prepackaged at the store. The most hilarious (as in hilariously terrifying) part of this is that bottled water is subject to less regulation than the water that comes out of your faucet so there could be all sorts of horrifying things in that bottled water and they wouldn't be required to tell you or clean it in future because there are no laws forcing them to do so. Some bottled water companies literally just pour faucet water into bottles and call it a day but others create their own filter systems and you have no one regulating what those systems are or how they should work. I knew advertising and marketing were powerful things but I hadn't known they could make someone reject something as pure and safe as modern drinking water.

So you know what? I am declaring today Tap Water is Awesome Day. Go and have a drink of water right from your faucet. Take a shower and know you are completely safe from water-born diseases while you do so. Make sure to give some to your children and pets too! And if someone gives you a hard time about the tap water in your glass you should feel free to rant at them about the history of water and tell them they are an unappreciative jerk.

*This information was found at the following website: http://www.nesc.wvu.edu/old_website/ndwc/ndwc_DWH_1.html

My Cracked.com Article

2011-01-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

I totally wrote and article for Cracked.com!

For those of you who aren't aware, Cracked is a website full of hilarious and informative articles. I don't advise visiting unless you have about 6 hours to spare because you will get sucked into the content and waste your whole day reading their whole site. My article is here:

http://www.cracked.com/funny-7250-health-insurance/

I chose to write an article on health insurance because that is what I do for a living. I am not particularly fond of my job and it is very high stress. There is nothing like being screamed at by a woman whose insurance was accidentally terminated while she is standing in the emergency room with her son who has a broken arm and is being denied medical service because of the scew-up to make you wish you worked in a mailroom somewhere. But who knows, maybe I can come up with a fabulous career as a writer! Or maybe not, but writing an article for Cracked is still something I am very happy about. I will come back later and let you know if they've chosen it as one of their feature topic pages and if I will get paid for my article.

Our Flatulent Little Frenchie

2011-01-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Eve day my husband and I adopted a beautiful little puppy. She is a French Bulldog and she is the sweetest, most snuggly little dog the world has ever known. She is also the most flatulent dog I've ever met in my life. It is bad. Really, really bad.

Her favorite thing in the world is to crawl up into your arms, close her eyes, and let out the most noxious gas cloud she can physically produce. Once she gets comfortable she really lets loose and the farts become the world's most disgusting metronome. We joke about using her for biological weaponry or renting her to painting companies so she can help them strip the walls.

Last night was the worst though. For the past 3 days my back has been injured and I've been pretty immobile. I can hold myself up against the walls to get to and from the bathroom but otherwise I have been either in bed or in our recliner with heat pads on my back. This happens once a year or so and it is always pretty uncomfortable but last night it was combined with the Farts of Doom. The dog farts were bad enough. Every 45 seconds or so silent walls of smell would waft over from where she was cuddled into the pillow. But to top it off my husband had a large order of onion rings and was joining the smelly chorus. Because of the back problem I couldn't even roll over to try and escape the smell. My thought process pretty much went like this:

"God, my back hurts."
fffffffffftttt
"Ew, what is that...oh, yeah, the dog. Gross."
brraap
"Wait, what? Now him too? Oh no..."
plbbbt
"Jeebus, how am I supposed to sleep through this? I must have done something horrifyingly bad in a past life. Maybe I was a mobster or child abuser or something."
honk
"I would pay one billion dollars for the ability to walk into the living room and sleep on the couch right now!"

Then after trying to roll over and realizing I couldn't the thought cycle would start all over again. I don't care whether or not I am mobile, tomorrow I am going to work and sitting by an open window all day.