Thanksgiving 2006

The Boy and I did Thanksgiving, just the two of us, with ham, stuffing, yams and a chocolate cake for dessert. To keep things simple and not have to slave away all day in the kitchen, I made the stuffing and cake from a box (alright, so I've never made stuffing, and I can't bake!). The Boy took care of the ham, making a honey, molassas and pineapple dressing before popping it into the oven with foil wrapped yams. Paired with a nice bottle of riesling, Thanksgiving dinner was great!


Afterwards, we caught a movie at the local theater (Stranger Than Fiction). I liked it and thought that the story was clever, funny and entertaining, but the Boy was somewhat dissatisfied with it for unstated reasons.

We both had to go to work the next day, so that was it!

Both of us got off of work early the next day. We ran a couple of errands, and after a quick dinner of ham, stuffing, yams and chocolate cake again, we met up with the Boy's friend to see another movie - Casino Royale. The only problem was that it was sold out in every theater we went to. So, we ended up at Vespa, a local restaurant, to drink and talk. Vespa has a cute outdoor patio area in the back with heat lamps, so we chatted over a bottle of red and a cheese plate for the rest of the night.

The Effects of Global Warming

It's November now, and the weather should be chilly. There were a couple of cold weeks in October, but the weather turned warm and slightly humid again after that. Being a California girl who loves the heat, I would normally welcome the warm weather to stay as long as possible. But on the East Coast, warm, sticky weather means mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes everywhere! This past summer, I must have gotten at least 50 bites. My skin reacts very badly to them with each bite exploding into a huge, red itchy bump. When my old boss first saw one of them on my wrist, his gasped and asked if I had accidentally burned myself.

Knowing this, we tried to mosquito proof the apartment last summer. I bought mosquito repellent incense, sprayed myself up with DEET and plugged in little devices that would supposedly make mosquito repellent noises all over the apartment. But the incense would only burn for two hours, the DEET also had a two hour lifespan, and the noise making devices were useless. The Boy frequently caught mosquitoes resting and even dancing on top of them. So despite our efforts, I became a nightly snack to all the mosquitoes in our neigborhood.

Naturally, I was elated when mosquito season ended at the end of September. But when the weather turned warm again, the mosquitoes came back. About a week and a half ago at 5AM, the loud buzzing of mosquitoes in my ear so rudely awoke me. What the &#^$*!!! They're all supposed to be dead by now! We both woke and killed the ones visibly flying around the apartment. The walls smeared with fresh blood as we smacked them dead. I couldn't fall asleep after that, knowing that there could be more hungry for some fresh blood.

This same pattern went on for the next few days, producing another 10-15 more bites. I got so paranoid about falling asleep that I began to imagine their obnoxious buzzing sound in my ear anytime I was in a quiet room. I didn't sleep so well that week, and after a few days of this, we'd had enough. It was all out war now! We went out and bought 4 rolls of sticky fly paper to hang all over the apartment. We got lemongrass scented incense, bought a three pack of Raid foggers and even ordered a mosquito net on Amazon.

It was overkill. We fogged the apartment with one can while we were at work and never saw another bug again.

Adventures in Westchester Part II

So now we were at the concert in a small auditorium at SUNY Purchase which was nice because there wasn't a bad seat in the house. As usual, the crew was still setting up, and the concert was running late. During this time the Boy handed me a half a roast beef sandwich which I stealthily munched on, knowing that there wasn't any food allowed inside. Halfway through, the band started playing and Matisyahu made his appearance.
http://music.aol.com/artist/matisyahu/698529/main

Normally, I'm not much of a reggae fan, but Matisyahu rocked with his catchy beats that would make anyone want to clap along at the very least. A lot of the crowd was either up and dancing or bouncing along in their seats. He did a really good beat box (click on it! click on it! it's the best beat box I've ever seen!) and even had an Asian keyboard player.

The concert was great! It ended at around 10PM at which time the Boy and I bolted out (work night). We were mainly concerned with how we were going to get back and prayed that there would be a cab somewhere in sight.

There wasn't, so we started calling cab companies, which one by one refused to pick us up. Purchase, NY? Oh no, they weren't driving all the way out there.

Crap. It was a chilly night, and we were screwed. The cab ride from the train station was about 10 minutes away and included a freeway (at least mine did) stretch. There had to be some other way. We weren't going to walk there. Right about now, a young college student walked past us and headed to her car after a late night of studying on campus. A light bulb went off above the Boy's head.

Boy: Hi. Excuse me, excuse me. Do you know where we can take a bus to the train station? We just got out of the Matisyahu concert, and the cab companies have stranded us here. We can't get home.

Girl: What?! They took you out here and won't take you back?! That's horrible! Let me drive you to the bus stop.

Was she crazy?! Taking complete strangers into her car?! How did she know we weren't psychotic? Whatever. It was our ticket back.

We hopped into the car, and she drove us along the long and windy path outside of the college. She was 24 and studying Education. Originally, she wanted to be a vet, but the sciences deterred her. She married young, and took two years off to support her husband before returning to college. Ah, a bus stop!

The bus stop was a dark and lonely place. That, and it was going the wrong direction. The right direction was no where to be found. She was kind enough to drive us around until a while down the road, we found a bus stop pointed the right way.

But it was out in the middle of nowhere, dark and deserted. We hopped out, wondering how long it would be until the next bus. Thank god for her small town hospitality! She wasn't comfortable dropping us out into the dark, not knowing if the bus was still running or what would happen to us, so the Boy suggested she could take us to the train station in Yonkers where we could catch a subway to the City.

Back in the car! She wasn't always a small town girl. She spent the first 15 years of her life in Paris before moving with her family to Portugal and then various places all over the world with different family members before ending up in Yonkers. She thought Austrailia was boring, but New Zealand nice. The two years supporting her husband were tough.

As the Boy and I listened, I could feel a lecture brewing from inside the Boy's head for me never to do what this kind girl was doing. Picking up two random strangers (one a man) and driving them around town was a dangerous thing. The girl even said it herself. This is a dangerous world we live in. But we were grateful for her kind hearted trustfulness.

We all made it safely to the train station! They Boy thanked her, handed her his business card should she ever need anything from us, and slipped in a little cash for her trouble. And with that we all parted ways.

Adventures in Westchester Part I

A couple of weeks ago the Boy and I were at a Matisyahu concert in Westchester. Matiswhaa?? Matisyahu-a sensational hasidic Jewish reggae singer who guest starred on Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, to name a few. I'd never heard of him before the Boy called me up at work and asked if I could go to the concert with him. The Boy's boss bought charity tickets to the concert and couldn't attend. Pretty much everyone in the office was a Matisyahu fan and had already gone to his prior concerts, so the Boy had no trouble scooping up the tickets for us.

At first I really wasn't up to it. I had a headache all day, and getting to Westchester by 7PM was going to be a challange considering I would be off work at 6PM. But the Boy seemed really excited about it, the tickets cost the Boy's boss a small fortune, and the opportunity to see a man sing and dance about the stage in full hasidic Jewish garb was intriguing, so I skipped out of work 15 minutes early and headed out to Grand Central Station. The Boy gave me instructions to take the Metro North to White Plains and then catch a cab, specifying that the cabbie should take me to the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College.

I did exactly that. I got off the train station at White Plains and found a line of cabs waiting outside where I read off the instructions and then hopped in. But to my surprise, we weren't leaving just yet. As I sat down and shut the door, a huge throng of people came rushing out of the train station. Without my permission, the cabbie began soliciting more customers until the cab was full. I was running a bit late and annoyed, but complied as I didn't know what else to do. I had no idea where we were going, in what order we were going to be dropped off and if any of these stops were along the route. They weren't, and although I was the first in the cab, I was the last to be dropped off.

The first drop off was about 5 minutes away. The driver charged the lady $4.90, and the lady handed him a $5 while thanking him and exiting. The $.10 tip pissed the driver off, leaving him to mutter incessantly through the next route and even prompting his own high pitched rendition of her "thank you very much."

The next route was about 10 minutes away. Where the hell were we going?! Was I next?! We stopped at the home of the guy sitting next to me. He could tell I was irritated, having been the first in the cab and now the last drop off. That he left a huge tip for the driver was really no comfort to me. Now I was really late, had no idea where we were and was worried that the driver would charge me an exorbitant fee, seeing as how I had been driven around for 15 minutes and could very well have been taken far off course. I also wondered if the driver had other plans for me. He seemed a bit crazy. Not wanting the driver to know that I had no idea where I was, I began madly texting the Boy to let him know I'd be late, that I had no idea where I was, and to find out how long his cab ride took from the train station.

The Boy called immediately, demanded to know where I was and let me know that he was going to kill the cabbie for driving me all over town and soliciting other passengers without my consent. Now I had blurted out that I didn't have the slightest idea where I was. Great. The cabbie had the green light to devise a plot as he drove me out to the middle of nowhere and I wouldn't know a thing. The Boy called me repeatedly to make sure that I was on course.

Finally, I'd arrived. The Boy was waiting outside and opened the door for me to get out. I was about to pay the driver when the Boy shoved my money away and would only pay the driver as much as the cost of his cab ride. Then he screamed at and cussed the driver out until he drove away and made no protest for more money. I imagined more muttering and gruff imitations in the next few minutes as the driver drove off.