Kids Are Growing Up Fast These Days

Last Thursday, I went to a Bowling For Soup Concert at Rye Playland. I'm not much of a Bowling For Soup fan, but I figured this would be a good opportunity to hang out with my coworkers outside of work, and I've never been to Rye Playland.

We left work a bit early to get to the amusement park in time to get a quick bite to eat before hearing the concert. We took the subway to the train station and then the Metro North to the bus station.

The bus ride was nice because I got to look out the window and see what Rye, New York looks like. Rye looks like a wealthy, suburban area with very large homes and very large lawns. The amusement park was right next to the beach and reminded me a little bit of Redondo and a little bit of where I grew up.

Halfway through my burger and fries, the Boy met up with me and a couple of my coworkers for the first time. We then headed off to the concert area to either get a seat or find a place to stand. There was no way we were getting a seat - the place was packed. We were lucky to even get a place to stand.

I'd only heard a couple of Bowling For Soup's songs on the radio and in movies before and didn't really listen to them otherwise. Maybe it was because it was summer and we were at an amusement park, or maybe this was just their fan base. My coworkers didn't seem to mind that we found ourselves standing alongside a huge crowd of screaming 10-12 year olds accompanied by their mothers or fathers. There were even quite a few 5-7 year olds, too. The older kids at around 15 were obnoxiously snaking and shoving their way through the crowd. This really wasn't what I expected.

The band was alright up until they decided to sing Britney Spears' 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.' The Boy and I just sort of exchanged sympathetic looks at that point and wanted to leave.

The thing that surprised me was that Bowling For Soup is a real rock band. They sound a bit like Blink 182, yet there are five year olds singing along to them that know all of the lyrics! Is this really what kindergarteners are listening to these days? I know, I know - I sound like an old geyser saying this, but I'm pretty sure I was still singing the theme song to Winnie the Pooh and "I'm a Little Teapot" at that age.

But anyway, the Boy and I were happy to go home after this. On the upside, I did like the drive through Rye, and the amusement park was fun to hang around for a while.

Got An Ipod

I got my new Ipod mini last Thursday. Since I don't drive anymore, I rarely listen to music. The subway rides have been long and boring, with me staring at the walls and ads. Now that I have some form of entertainment, the subway rides go much faster.

This past weekend, I went running with my new Ipod in Central Park both days. I ran around the Jackie O Resevior to the sounds of Beck and Blur.

I'm No Pop Diva

I left my work in the West Village a bit early today to make an eye appointment near my apartment in the Upper East Side. I only chose an Upper East Side eye doctor because I was thought he would be open on the weekends, and it would be a bit more convenient for me. But when I called to schedule an appointment, the receptionist bombarded me with a slew of questions about my insurance and other information. I could barely get a word in, so by the time I found out that the optometrist didn't open on the weekends, I had already spent too much effort on this to not schedule the appointment.

I was going to get a new pair of glasses because they hadn't been updated since I was in college. My contacts were fine, and my insurance covered the glasses completely. Also, although I dress better for work now than I did in LA, I'm even lazier about my appearance outside of work than I was in LA. On weeknights and weekdays, I run around the city in flip flops, a tank, and shorts with no makeup, and in about a week, I will be running around the city in a tank, shorts, flip flops, no makeup and glasses.

Because of this, I wanted to get a cuter, trendier pair of glasses. After the optometrist determined the proper prescription for my glasses, I went to the counter to pick out a frame.

I picked out a bunch of frames to try - some wire rimmed, some plastic, some without rims and some with the top rim only. As I browsed the collection, I almost laughed aloud when I noticed that Britney Spears had a collection.

I brought my picks out to the counter to get a second opinion on which frame I should pick out. The Boy was supposed to meet me here to help me decide, but he didn't show.

As I tried on different pairs, the lady either approved or vetoed until I was down to two frames.
One had a top wire rim with an almost invisible lower wire that was cute, but looked more corporate according to the lady. The other had small, thin plastic rims in a pretty purplish color that was a bit more flattering and trendier.

I couldn't decide which I wanted. I was leaning toward the plastic purplish one until, to my horror, I noticed Britney Spears' name on them. Britney Spears was the designer of this frame?! There was no way! I don't own any of her CDs, perfume or whatever else she produces, and I sure as hell would not own a pair of her glasses! But they did look the cutest out of the frames that I tried on. As I retried the other frames that I picked, I thought to myself, "No one will know. Who's going to see the label inside one of the legs?"

And then, the Boy showed up and saved me from the shame of owning a pair of Britney glasses. He took one look at them and tossed them back onto the rack before picking out a really cute bluish pair with a cateye-like shape.

Very nice.

It's Really Really Hot Out Here

It's eighty million degrees out today! Ok, it's really only 96 degrees, but it's humid and sticky too. Both ACs are on full blast. I looked at weather.com, and it's 20 degrees cooler in LA.

It was already 83 degrees this morning at 9AM when I went to do my laundry down the street. Aside from going to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick up a few household items, the Boy and I stayed in for most of the day since it just kept getting hotter and hotter outside. You'd already be dripping with sweat after just being outside for five minutes.

Later in the evening, we went out. It wasn't much cooler though. We took the subway downtown to the East Village. It was unbearably hot waiting in the subway station for the train to come. We missed it by 30 seconds, so we had to wait another 5 - 10 minutes for the next train to come. We stood on the steps "in limbo" waiting for either the next 4, 5 train or a 6 train. The 4, 5 came first, so we bolted down the stairs and ran in. The air conditioning was so nice in there, even cooler than the AC in our apartment. I almost wished that the train would get stuck for a little while. But instead, the conductor announced that there was weekend construction going on, so after two stops, everyone would have to switch over to the 6 to continue. The train went full speed ahead to the last stop, and we found ourselves waiting in the heat again for the 6 train to come.

We got off the subway at 14th street/Union Square. I was dissappointed that it was only a little bit cooler outside than in the subway station. We did a little bit of shopping before dinner to take advantage of the AC in the stores.

Then we went to Momofuku, a trendy little noodle bar in the East Village. It's a small place where you sit at the counter and watch the chefs cook right in front of you. It's fun to watch, but since you're practically in the kitchen, it's like an inferno. The food was really good. The Boy and I shared an appetizer of shitake mushroom buns (mmm!), I ordered the spicy rice cakes (very good, but too filling), and the Boy had Momofuku's special ramen (delish! that's saying a lot considering that I hate ramen). The Boy took mental notes of how the chef was preparing various dishes. At one point he reached into a cabinet, and scooped out a huge bowl of live crawfish. They were crawling around eachother in the bowl. I felt bad for them. They knew they were going to be sauteed once the pan got hot enough. One of them kept trying to make a getaway. I watched as it tried to crawl out of the bowl. It was almost completely out of the bowl until the chef noticed and tossed it back into the middle. The minute the chef had his back turned, the same crawfish got out of the bowl again. It crawled around the counter unnoticed looking for a place to hide, but the pan was ready for them now. The chef turned around, found the runaway crawfish and threw it into the pan along with all its other friends. I cringed as they hit the pan. The kitchen crew found my reaction amusing.

After dinner, we walked around the area, occasionally popping into various shops to cool off. Despite the heat, there were still a lot of people out.

Upstate NY Trip

Weekend Agenda: Saratoga Race Tracks
Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra

Yesterday, the Boy, myself and his friends went to the Saratoga Race Tracks. This was my first time going to see horse races and my first time upstate. Saratoga is about 30 minutes north of Albany which is about 3 hours from the city.

I'd seen horse races as the background in movies before, and that's pretty much exactly what they are like. Many ladies dress up in colorful polka dot dresses with fashionable straw hats and sunglasses. Some men wear suits, while others wear khaki pants with polo shirts. The Boy and I bet on almost every single race to make the experience more fun.

For the first race, we bet on a horse named "Speedy Deedy." And Speedy Deedy was speedy indeedy. He wasn't slated to win, so we got paid out more than five times what we put in! Most of the time since we didn't know how to pick winning horses, we picked the horse with the most symbols and best ratings in the book. After winning some races and losing others, we noticed that the horse favored to win almost always won. So, we went with the favorite for the next round and won, but the payout was only three times since everyone bet on it.

For the next round we decided to bet all of our winnings on the favorite again. This was definitely the most exciting race for us. Initially, our horse wasn't even in the top 4. We were so pissed off! What the hell was wrong with this horse?! But it started gaining in the last quarter of the race and came neck in neck with the leader by the end. The horse snuck up on the leader so quickly that the commentator didn't even have time to mention it, but in the end it came in second. The Boy and I just sort of stared at eachother first and then turned our attention over to the slow motion instant replay screen, hoping it would reveal that our horse really won the race even though we knew that it was pretty obvious that it didn't.

In the end, we broke even and had a lot of fun at the races. We continued to go with the favorite, and won every time we bet small, but lost every time we bet big. At one point, we left our seats and went to the field where the horses parade out with their jockeys riding along. The horses were really lean and muscular, and the jockeys were either small guys or girls a little bigger than me.

After the races, we walked around Saratoga and had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. The neighborhoods in Saratoga and Albany are really cute. The homes have porches, attics and white picket fences. They were total 'Leave It To Beaver' neighborhoods with nice lawns and trees.

In the evening, we went to see the Philadelphia Orchestra. The venue looked a bit like the Hollywood Bowl. It was outdoors, and people picnicked on the grass near the stage. We had orchestra seats a few rows from the stage. I'm not much of a symphony person, but the soloist in this orchestra was mesmorizing. I've never seen or heard such a great violinist perform. Everyone loved him.

We stayed at the Boy's friend's brother's place in Albany that night. Actually, the Boy's friend's brother just moved in a couple of days ago, so his place was a bit cramped with boxes and no place to sleep. So, we stayed at the neighbor's (good friends with the brother) instead.

The next morning, we went back to the city.

Getting My Priorities Straight

The HR people at my work do a pretty shabby job. It's taken them quite a while to get my full profile completed, and it's usually wrong. After two weeks of being there, I had to correct my home address, cell number, and birthdate. Pretty much everything on my profile was wrong. Whenever I got bored at work, I would check my profile to make sure that the necessary updates were made, which is when I noticed that they got my gender wrong, too. When I called to try to correct it, the HR person that I called told me that it sounded pretty obvious that my gender was wrong, but she wouldn't be able to correct that. I'd have to find out who my local HR contact was through my boss and then try to get them to fix it. It seemed like a lot of trouble for something that I didn't think was that big of a deal, so fixing my profile completely fell to the bottom of my priority list when I got kind of busy. After a few days, I lost the motivation to fix it at all and sort of forgot about it until a couple of days ago when my health insurance card was ready...and I was a man! Suddenly, fixing my profile shot up to the top of my priorities list. The admin lady couldn't stop laughing at me for this.

My Fun Weekend

After taking the scenic route home last Friday, the boy and I headed off to a bar/club near Union Square for his coworker's 30th surprise party. NY bar/clubs look the same as LA bar/clubs. Everyone was pretty friendly, and I met and talked to a bunch of random people that I will likely never see again. Conversations usually started with how do you know the birthday boy? I didn't even know the birthday boy's name, so my response was usually, 'Who?' And then I would explain that I was the birthday boy's coworker's girlfriend from LA. Then the whole NY-LA comparison convo would start up.

We left the bar/club after about an hour and a half and ambled over to Veniero's for dessert. We made a pact not to get drunk since we had a fun Saturday planned out. We both had just two drinks each: two beers for the Boy, and a chambord straight up and midori cranberry for me. The Boy and I have completely different tastes for alcohol. I hate beer, and he likens the taste of my drinks to cough syrup.

We went all over the place on Saturday. The first stop was to buy me a new ring. I have a terrible habit. It doesn't matter how hard I try, but I've lost every single ring the Boy has ever given me. I'm always pretty upset after I lose them. The first ring I had for about a year before I think it must have gone down a drain while washing my hands at work. It was too big, and it just slipped off. So the Boy got me a Tiffany heart shaped ring for Christmas that year to replace the ring I lost. It fit perfectly, and I managed to keep that one for quite a while. But shortly after I got to NY, I took it off while cleaning the apt, and that was the last I saw of it. So, on Saturday, the Boy bought me Tiffany's latest open heart ring design. For being so sweet, I bought the Boy an oil painting he'd been eyeing later in the day.

After Tiffany's we checked out a bunch of specialty food stores. There was the famous Murray's Cheese shop, a specialty meat store, a bread shop/bakery (with a red velvet cake that was to die for) , the Green market, and a store devoted solely to selling different (seriously, how different can they be?) types of olive oils. As we were walking around, we stumbled across a street fair going on and spent some time browsing through that. Around that area, some famous rapper walked out of a store to his Rolls, and a crowd started to form. I don't really listen to rap, so I had no clue who he was, but he came out right as the Boy and I were outside the store, so I was pretty close to him before the crowd formed and we left.

After wandering around the lower half of Manhattan for a while, we went back to the apt and made dinner with the stuff we bought before heading off to The Comic Strip Live, a nice end to a perfect Saturday in the city.