Summer Reading

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!