Vermont Roadtrip!

A few of weekends ago, another of the Boy's coworkers offered us his vacation home in Vermont for a weekend. Yes, I know. It's becoming a rule that everyone working for an East Coast hedge fund own a vacation home in Vermont. The Boy's coworker even had free lift tickets to Mount Snow for both of us!

We left immediately after work on Friday, driving a rental car. The four hour ride went pretty smoothly aside from us not being able to get the trunk open and having our equipment bang about in the back.

It was icy, snowy, dark and cold when we arrived. The first thing we did was to turn the heaters on in every floor. The house was quite large with lots of winter recreation equipment. The first floor had three bedrooms with many bunk beds, a bathroom and laundry machine. The next floor had a bedroom, large kitchen, living room and huge, huge game room. Separated from everything else by clear, glass french doors, the game room had a really cool bar area with a pool table, darts, foozeball table and general lounge area in front of a fireplace. But it was so freezing in there that all we could do was turn on the space heater and run out while it warmed up overnight.

The third floor was where we slept in a guest room. It was late, so we decided to get a good night's sleep and be well rested for a full day's skiing the next day.

The next morning we left the house early to ski and snowboard at Mount Snow where the conditions couldn't have been better. The weather was relatively warm, and the snow was so thick and powdery that neither of us hit any ice patches on the slopes. Without any big, obnoxious snow makers going as there were at Stratton last time, we got in several good runs and barely fell.

On the way back to the house, we stopped by a supermarket to pick up a few groceries. Since Vermont isn't particularly known for their nightlife, we decided to stay in, cook and enjoy what the house had to offer. The game room was sufficiently warmed by now, so we popped open a couple of beers and chatted for a bit at the bar. Then we attempted to play pool, but we were both so horrible at it that we eventually got bored and gave up. Next, we tried playing darts, but my aim was so off that I was worried I'd put holes in the walls and maybe even break a window. I had to stop playing.

By now we were getting pretty hungry. Off to the kitchen we went to cook up some steak fajitas for dinner. Mmmm! We watched about an hour of Syriana over dinner on the couch, but the excitment of having so many options in the house brought on a bit of ADD. We gave up on Syriana and went back to the game room, but eventually ended up back on the couch watching Wall Street until we got sleepy and went to bed.

The next day, we tried out some of the snow equipment around the house. Each of us put on a pair of snow shoes and trekked all over the vast, open backyard which was covered so thickly with snow that you could barely see the patio furniture poking out from beneath. The snow shoes were cool with their metal, spikey teeth which made a crunch! sound with every step. As we explored the perimeter of the house, threw snow all over the place and examined huge icicles hanging off the edge of the roof, you could hear our every move! Crunch, crunch! Crunch, crunch!

Across from the house was a frozen lake. We took our snow shoes crunching over the front yard, which was buried in snow, and tapped about on the lake. I was a bit nervous since we weren't exactly sure how frozen the lake was, and I still couldn't swim. The lake was pretty frozen, but a bit slushy so we decided not to switch to ice skating. Instead, we tried sledding in the backyard, but for some reason the sled wouldn't move, or when it did, it would get stuck a lot.

After playing in the snow all morning and a bit into the afternoon, it was time to pack up our things and head home. The drive home was much more interesting than the drive there since it was daytime, and we could admire the sights and towns we passed through. One town was having a St. Patrick's Day celebration a week early. There were truckloads of people riding around with green hats, clothes and banners. Initially, it was nice to see. But when several of these were holding up traffic on the road, we began to get irritated. This distracted everyone into driving slower than snails.

We stopped by the Woodbury Commons outlet on the way home and shopped for about an hour and a half before having dinner at an Applebee's when we were starving and couldn't wait to eat. After dinner, we continued our drive home, but ended up making another stop to pick up some groceries for the week at Stewart Leonard's in New York.

I liked Stewart Leonard's. All of their dairy products were made fresh and delivered from a local farm. We picked up a couple of tubs of yogurt, milk, blueberry juice, strawberries and other items.

That was the last stop before going home.

A Really Dumb Post

I'm not exactly the most internet lingo savvy person. For the longest time, I had no idea what LOL meant. I remember someone once telling me that it stood for "loser online." So for years and years, I thought I had the meanest friends for constantly calling me a loser in e-mails and text messages. After being bombarded with seemingly misplaced LOLs in everything, I finally asked a friend to spell out exactly what it stood for. LOL means "laugh out loud"! I can't believe I never knew that!

How silly! Hahaha!

Oh wait, I mean LOL.

'Why Men Love Bitches'

Yesterday, the Boy and I were out walking around our neigborhood. It had just snowed the night before so the streets were all slushy and unpleasant to walk on. But it was a sunny Saturday morning with a St. Patrick's Day parade going on so we didn't want to stay in. Actually, the St. Patrick's Day parade was ending, and we found it quite annoying that there were so many people all over the place, making it even more difficult to walk.

The Boy wanted to go to a couple of high end stationary stores to buy good quality blank cards to write thank you notes to his boss and other coworkers who had offered us their Vermont homes and free lift tickets on a couple of weekends. We found a nice box of Cranes blank cards. It had unique envelopes with leather-like insides. Those would do nicely.

Next, we decided hang out at Barnes and Noble, browsing through books and magazines. I looked through the 'paperback favorites' section. This was usually how I picked out books to order on Amazon. I sifted through a bunch of interesting reads, but knew I wouldn't remember them the next time I ordered since I'd just received three new books through Amazon.

Then my hands came across a book entitled, 'Why Men Love Bitches.' It was a national bestseller. Normally, these aren't the type of books I read. I'm more into memoirs and historical fiction, but I flipped through a few pages to see what all the hype was about.

Ahhahaha! It was hilarious! I couldn't stop smiling at all the funny and somewhat true things this lady was writing. I took the book and searched for the Boy to sit down and read. When I found him, he asked me to find a spot for us to read together while he picked out a book or magazine. I flashed the title of my book to him, which elicited a little chuckle out of him before I went off to find us a reading spot.

As I walked around, I spotted an empty chair. I walked over to the table, hoping that there would be another chair for the Boy also. When I got there, I found a middle aged man sitting in the other chair, asleep and snoring slightly. I sat down with my book, hoping that the man would wake up and leave by the time the Boy found me.

Didn't happen. When the Boy found me reading, I moved to get up so that we could find another spot for both of us to sit, but he motioned for me to stay. He told me to stay comfortable where I was, and he'd read somewhere else. We'd find eachother when one of us got bored.

So I sat there reading 'Why Men Love Bitches', smiling and laughing silently at how hilarious this book was. I was blowing though it quickly, when the man across from me snorted and woke up. He started to get his things together when I heard a "No, that's not true. None of that stuff. It's not true. Don't believe it."

I looked up and laughed. "It's hilarious, though!"

He had his things together and started to walk away, but turned around after a few steps, "Really, it's not true. She just made a lot of money off of it. It's not true!"

Ahhhahahaha! His attempts to make me put down the book and read another only made me want to read it more. I'll surely remember this one when I order my next batch from Amazon in a couple of months!

DMV in NYC

For the past year and a half that I'd been living in NYC, I'd transitioned from being soley an LA driver to being soley a NY subway hopper (with the occasional cab ride here and there). Now that the Boy and I have explored much of the city's neighborhoods on foot, we've been itching to expand our exploration outside of the city with weekend road trips. But without a car, our options are limited. I hate bus tours, as I usually spend most of my time asleep, and trains will only conveniently drop you off to certain places. Also, with trains, your time is governed by a schedule.

So, we decided to activate our car insurance and register the Boy's car which has been sitting unused in a garage in Connecticut. This idea had been in the works for a while, but the Boy's schedule made it so that he could never get to the DMV to get anything done. They aren't open on the weekends, and their hours are 8:30 - 4PM on the weekdays. The only way this was going to get done was if I went down and registered the car myself.

I'll admit that I wasn't initially too excited to do this since I hate DMVs and I'd have to swap my CADL for a New York license, thus throwing me into the New York jury duty pool.

But the Boy was nice enough to fill out all of the paperwork for me so that all I had to do was sign a few spots and go down to the DMV with all of the necessary documents. Carrying all of these documents made me very nervous. I had on me my CADL, passport, social security card, checkbook, title to the Boy's car, and (since my coworkers entrusted me with the safety of our MegaMillions lottery pool) 60 lottery tickets a worthless pile of paper.

I got to the DMV near my work right when it opened at 8:30AM, and already there were 20 people in line ahead of me. I got behind the last person in line and waited to tell the lady what my purpose for the day's visit was. She then handed me a slip of paper and told me to wait in the photo and eye exam line.

Now part of the reason why I think the DMV is so inefficient is that there are too many lines to get into and no one directing people or giving them instructions on what to do. People got into the wrong lines, didn't follow procedures once at the front of the line and were generally disorganized. I'm sure the DMV workers thought we were all a bunch of idiots, but they had to give us licenses anyway.

By watching everyone else make mistakes and get yelled at, I had all of my papers in place and knew that when I got to the front of the picture line, I was to step to the left and read off the eye chart. Only then was I allowed to approach the desk and hand over my paperwork. Then I would step over to the left again and have my picture taken before taking my paperwork back and taking a ticket to wait in the paperwork processing line. All seemed to be running pretty smoothly for me. Only, I forgot to take my big, ugly, puffy jacket off while taking the picture. Damnit! That thing made me look like a marshmallow, and this would be my permanent driver's license picture. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

I waited about 10 minutes before my number was called, and I could have my paperwork processed by a virtual human robot. She barely looked at me and spoke with such an exasperated, monotone voice and scripted words that I had a hard time processing what she was asking me. I handed her all of my paperwork and told her that I was here to swap my license and register a car. She sifted through my paperwork for a minute and turned to a computer. And then the dreaded words came out:

DMV lady: You're picture didn't go through. You're going to have to go to the picture line and retake it.

I looked over at the picture line which wasn't too long, but the paper processing line had blown up to double the length it was when I first went through it. My friendly face began to unravel at the thought of having to go through two lines all over again.

Me: What?! I have to do the whole thing all over again?!

DMV lady: No, I'll stay here with your paperwork. You just get me another picture. Come right back over here when you get your picture.

Whew! That's not so bad. And I get to retake my picture. Things are going well.

There were only four people ahead of me in the picture line. I stood in line and waited for a couple of minutes before I heard the DMV lady shouting my name out.

DMV lady: Ms. LANYTransplant! Ms. LANYTransplant. Please don't wait in line again! Go up to the front and get your picture taken.

Cut the line?! I can't cut the line! I'm a horrible line cutter! I'm not aggressive enough for that! Why didn't she come over and bring me up? I can't just go up to the picture taking guy! He has rules and doesn't like them broken!

Me (to the girl in front): Excuse me, I'm at the window over there and need to have my picture taken right now. I'll just step in front.

She was seething. The picture man saw me and made a point to ignore me for trying to cut. The girl behind me stepped right in front of me to reclaim her spot. By now, the people in the paper processing line were yelling at me to go up to the picture taking guy and get my picture taken now! I was holding up a window so that the paper processing line was just growing longer and longer. But the picture taking guy would not pay attention to me, and the people in front of me were satisfied that I was not going to cut in front of them.

There were only a couple of people in front of me. I could wait. I ignored the shouts of the DMV lady and people in the other line since the picture taking line people wouldn't let me through. I waited in line, comforted by the thought that these idiots in front of me were only making their wait longer by not letting me through.

When it was my turn to retake my picture, the picture guy had forgotten me. I broke his eye chart rule, marched up to him and told him that my picture didn't go through. The lady at the window had been trying to get me to quickly take another. He'd realized his mistake now and politely took another. I was so irritated that I could barely smile.

I then went back to the robot. She processed my paperwork and then rattled off some instructions about a car inspection and my interim license which I could barely listen to with such a monotone voice.

A week or two later, I got my license in the mail. I looked pissed.

Orchid Show

Finally, the weather's looking up! Today was a nice, sunny 55 degrees! The Boy and I got up early to see the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

I'm not much of a plant person, and neither is the Boy, but the NYBG did a great job simulating a tropical rainforest environment in which some orchids grow and arranging other orchids into such aesthetically pleasing sights. Alright, so our main motivation for going was that my work was having a corporate members day, so neither of us had to pay the $18 admission.

But it was a nice day to see the flowers in the greenhouse. The rest of the park was barren. The trees looked like twigs with no leaves, the grass was dead and everything looked bleak. Some pictures from the show: