and the city shuts down

SNOWDAY!

Today we all sat around the house and marveled that schools were closed. If we were still in Buffalo, the schools would be open, and Meg, Danny & Liam would not have been able to sit around in jammies with me :)

What is amazing is the fact that everything will (supposedly) be open tomorrow. It's still snowing, so who knows.

I like to clean. I can't help it. Unfortunately, I no longer live alone, and launch into cleaning frenzies, during which, I move stuff. Fortunately, I have the best roommate who forgives me even when I throw out important stuff.

(It helps when you then dig through the trash in an attempt to retrieve the important stuff)

Anyway. This is for Meg.

Thank you for forgiving me when my OCD strikes, and thank you for listening to my winter-induced-crazy-depressed rantings. I'm very glad we all got to sit around & relax today.

Next week: Buffalo adventure!

2010 bitches!!!

Meghan and I rock.

Well, Meg is fabulous, and I am awesome, but you get the picture.

Check out our individual blogs if you haven't already & prepare yourselves for our NYC 2010 adventures.

and then there was November

For Thanksgiving, I was able to get the dreaded Black Friday off from work. Of course, this is no longer a concern for Meg, who as a teacher, had the day off anyway. Meg, Danny and Liam were driving to Buffalo along with Meg's cousin Hope, and I was able to hitch a ride to Albany.

The entire week before Thanksgiving I announced my plan to everyone: sit on my sister's couch for two days and have my family bring me cocktails and food. I was not going to lift a finger. This did not happen, but honestly I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love to cook, but ther than a pot of lentils or stew I haven't cooked much since moving to Brooklyn. My diet consists of cheese sticks and frozen things, or stuff Liam buys me when he goes to the corner store.

When I got to Albany my sister, my mother, and I discussed the menu. The groceries were all taken care of; Steph made the list and Mom took my cousin with her to the store. All we had to do was create the ultimate vegetarian-gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner. We've done vegetarian for many years now, with the occasional turkey thrown in, but this year we weren't even going to have stuffing or crescent rolls. It was up to Steph and I to make this dinner happen, and we were up for the challenge.

As I sat at my sister's kitchen table sorting the cranberries, I realized I never ate a raw cranberry before. I asked Steph if she ever did, and she scrunched up her face and said, "No." I thought I should eat one. Suddenly this uneaten cranberry symbolized all the untapped potential in my entire life. All the things I haven't done because I either assumed I already knew the outcome, or was simply too lazy to try.

The cranberry became a topic of conversation between my sister and I for several minutes. What would it be like? Images of thousands of cranberries floating in water danced in my head, followed by gallons upon gallons of cranberry juice. I knew how much sugar I add to the cranberry sauce each year, and I've had unsweetened cranberry juice before, so I declared to my sister that I thought I knew what to expect. The cranberry would be crunchy, it would burst between my teeth sending such bitter juice into my mouth that my face would involuntarily spasm. Then I showed Steph what my face would look like, smashing my eyes shut, and sucking in my cheeks until she started laughing.

So great was my imagination that I got myself a glass of water before commencing the experiment. My sister asked, "Are you ready?" With a drum roll I began, and was... surprised. The cranberry was dry, very dry. In fact, I would say there was no juice at all. It was bitter, but not at all with the intensity I was expecting. Steph read the disappointment in my reaction and suggested I try another one. Perhaps I got a bad one? Alas, the second berry was just as dry and unexciting as the first.

Didn't stop me from making some kick-ass cranberry sauce though. Along with: herb & garlic marinated tofu, mashed potatoes, miso-mushroom gravy, "dirty" sweet potatoes, corn, and our newest creation, wild-rice dressing. I plan on perfecting the dressing, and freeing our dessert course from gluten as well. No more belly aches for this family.

Can't wait for Christmas.

photo by Muffet / liz west

that was october

Halloween came and went here in Brooklyn. Meg was awesome enough to buy us pumpkins even though she doesn't really like scooping the goop. I love carving pumpkins, and that was my favorite moment during the month of October.
Thanks Meg :).

Liam was a creepy clown, and scared the crap out of me. I wore my vampire teeth to work, and discovered pumpkin spice lattes have the power to stain them.

The rest of the month is kind of a blur. I work. I sleep. I try to do dishes. I try to remember to take out the trash. I work. I run out of underwear and force myself to hit the laundry mat twice in one week so that I can procrastinate for another couple weeks.

So you see, somethings never change.

I fell in love with the express bus.

That's right. I indulge myself. Life's little pleasures? Lattes from Starbucks and sleeping on the express bus. I'm really good at it. First I spend sometime on my phone looking at facebook, then I slip into slumber, waking up just a few blocks from my stop an hour later. But I do not like the 5:30am bus.

Most of the time, I compare riding the express bus with flying business class, but it is actually closer to riding business class on the train because there aren't TVs or jacks for your laptop. There are however, neat rows of high-backed seats, with lots of room to spread out. The temperature is comfortable, and everyone is quiet - they are either sleeping like me, or reading.

The 5:30 bus is nothing like this. First of all, it comes at 5:25am, NOT 5:30am. Second of all, it reminds me of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter.

It rolls up in the dark, old and rickety. The heat does not work. The seats are uncomfortable, and it is filled with the weirdest cast of characters.

There is the tall skinny man, dressed in black from head to toe. Including dark sunglasses, and a black felt weekender hat. He does not talk. Across the isle from him is an old woman in a dirty brown 3/4 length winter coat. She does talk. She talks to the bus driver, to the fat smelly guy in the very front seat. She greets a few of the other men who get on the bus. She wants to talk about the Yankees, but she knows less about baseball than I do. Then there are the two middle-aged black women with the crazy hair. I don't mean crazy styles, I mean crazy, as in NO style, as in sticking up in the back and if I am unlucky enough to have them sit down in front of me I can smell them. At the back of the bus you will find the Coffee Slurper, the Snorer, and the Sniffler. I don't know what they look like because I have never turned around. I admit, I am afraid to.

Needless to say, I sit shivering and grinding my teeth all the way to work.

some things never change

If you are ever sitting around pondering how to change your life, make sure you consider carefully. Remember that no matter what your job, where you live, or who your friends are you will still be the same person on the inside. I don't think Meg and I had any delusions on that front. Whenever anyone commented on our exciting move to NYC, we would reply jovially that we'd still have to go to work, do laundry, get groceries etc, etc. We did however, make a few grandiose plans, if you can call blogging regularly grandiose.

So here we are living in Brooklyn, and the procrastinators inside us are here too. I need a day to shuffle around the house; frankly I'm ok with that. It's been pretty stressful, not adjusting to life in the big city, that part is awesome, but dealing with my new job has proved to be quite a challenge. My excruciatingly long hours combined with the ever growing "to-do" list - not to mention erratic eating and sleeping - have resulted in mood swings and zits.

Liam is busy opening and closing cabinets in search of food, Meg is napping on the couch, and I'm messing around on the computer. We should be going to the grocery store, doing laundry, cleaning, paying bills, instead I spent an hour playing cake-drop on facebook. It's all good, we'll go later. Plus, I had to blog!

We've been making time for fun of course. A couple weeks ago we went to Harbor Days at the Brooklyn Bridge and met up with Kristen. We rode a ferry, and had ice cream - yes, even I ate ice cream, but I don't know that I'll be doing it again soon. We went to Astoria last night to Hope & Robin's for a family dinnah party where I overindulged. Couldn't help myself, veggie chili and beer! Every once and a while I have a moment of ... well, it's hard to describe. Happened walking under the Brooklyn Bridge, happened again last night as Meg drove us home from Queens. Liam and I were looking through the night at the skyline pointing out the buildings, and then I saw the Statue of Liberty.

I live in NYC. How crazy is that?

Wonder when those moments will stop happening. Not for a while I hope.

Michael vs. Prince

Wow. We really haven't posted anything in a while. I've been working a whole heck of a lot. Meg and Liam have been slowly putting the house together, and making sure there are cheese sticks and beer in the fridge for me when I get home. It's felt more like home now that Liam is here. Our house is full of snacks and juice boxes. I've been able to stay away from all the sugary drinks so far, but I can't resist crackers... nor was I able to turn down some Captain Crunch-berries when offered : /. I crack up regularly watching Liam and Moochie play with one another. Liam also has a tendancy to dance and sing when he thinks no one is watching.

We finally got a chance to go out to a club last night. Thank goodness for Meg's closet - she dressed me - I think I looked kinda cute in her clothes. I got to play with Meg's hair, spending an hour straightening it while we watched Spiderwick. With her dress & heels she was damn hot. Unfortunately, Renee, Stephane, Meg, and myself had to wait for Danny to get out of work and make his way to Brooklyn. We sat around in our club clothes, drinking warm beer and playing with Moochie til Danny rolled up. Then we all ran outside to find a pretty hilarious site: Danny changing his clothes in the back of his car. We went to Crash Mansion in Manhattan. It was soul slam night: Michael Jackson vs. Prince, so we all had a lot of fun singing along & making fools of ourselves. Well, mainly Danny & I were the fools, me 'cause I dance like a white girl, and Danny 'cause he is a big clown.

Even with the NYC prices, we all got pretty lit. When we left the club, Renee and I set off with purposeful strides as though we knew where the car was...which we didn't, but oddly we had no trouble finding it! I know I went a bit over my limit, as I found myself kinda teary-eyed, or as Danny put it "pink," due to something that has nothing to do with the fun of the evening (someone hurt my feelings earlier in the day, not worth mentioning). I shook it off in time for the drive-through at McDonald's. Stephane, Meg and I were all excited for chicken nuggets - well, Steph was kinda passed out, but he woke up enough to mumble "nuggets" - none of us realizing it was so early in the morning, McD's was only doing breakfast.

When we stumbled through the front door to find Liam and Brandon passed out face-down on the couches...we left them there slumbering. They woke up earlier than the rest of us, of course, played some basketball, and are currently playing x box.

Ah, to be young and carefree.

Lucky for Me

It's been a little over three weeks since we moved here, and Wednesday of last week marked my first visit to Buffalo since. I was going back to my mother's house to pick up my car, that ($500 later) finally passed inspection. Lovely. A car. This will make things so much easier...

While I was in Buffalo I went out with my father and had the most amazing meal at Pearl Street Grill (www.pearlstreetgrill.com) and spent Thursday kicking around my mother's house, trying to get all of The Punk's things in order. I ended up leaving Buffalo on Friday with two hours of sleep under my belt, and very bad directions back to Brooklyn. Recipe for disaster.

Everything went swimmingly until I hit the Poconos, where I got turned around on the 80, and then sat, stock-still, for two hours on a sharp incline while waiting for some sort of traffic jam to subside. With squeaky brakes. Taking into account my constant need to stop and buy more coffee, pee, and check my tires, I made it back to Brooklyn in about eleven hours. The ride should have taken about seven and a half.

In true Meghan form, I got lost immediately upon getting into the city. I got on the BQE headed in the wrong direction, took Prospect Expy thinking "Well, at least that's headed toward Brooklyn..." and got off at the first street I recognized. In Coney Island. Which is not where I live. Awesome.