Oh yeah – we went to Disneyland this weekend. It was pretty awesome. Erin, Drew and I drove down Friday after work, and got there about 11pm. We stayed with our friend Travis in Santa Monica, and got up at like 5:45 Saturday morning to go to the parks. We were at the parks ALL DAY LONG – back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure – and went back to Travis’ around 11pm. Then on Sunday we had brunch with some other SoCal friends, and then saw Travis’ show, Dracula at the Long Beach Playhouse. Then we drove back to the Bay Area, getting home shortly after midnight.
I stole some pictures from the album Erin posted on Facebook. Here are four of them.
At first, I thought it was charming......but seriously, I don't think I'm a "character" person.Love this picture! and Tower of Terror!Waiting for World of Color to start
There are more pictures on my camera (which I have to find) and on my phone (which I have to plug in). First world problems!
Also, this is my favorite tweet I’ve ever tweeted:
Megan wanted to go into New York City for her bachelorette party. So 2 days before the wedding, 9 girls piled into a limo and prepared to take the Big Apple.
2 Ms of Honor, 5 bridesmaids, 1 friend, and 1 bride!
It was about a two hour drive into the city, with one stop for orange juice (to mix with the champagne we’d brought) and another bathroom/snack stop (the first of many of the day).
The limo dropped us at Astor Place, where everyone grabbed some pizza to get us through until dinnertime. Then we walked down to our East Village nail salon, called Blush – a place I would highly recommend (I really need to write them a Yelp review).
I love this picture!
I originally wanted a French manicure, but ended up just getting a regular one with a super pearly pale white color. I really liked it – and the whole thing was worth it for the cuticle cleaning up and the hangnail clipping. Man, I love that.
A success!
After our salon time, we walked back to Astor Place to catch an N train to Times Square. A couple of the girls had never seen New York City, so we checked out Times Square, including the M&M store and the Hershey store.
Then we walked over a block to Megan’s favorite New York restaurant, La Masseria.
After that we wandered through Times Square, and down to 42nd Street. We went into Dave & Busters to find a bathroom, then we heard from the limo driver that he was trying to get back into the city but was stuck in traffic. So we decided to walk back up to Toys ‘R’ Us to ride on the ferris wheel. But we all got separated, so 6 of them went on the ferris wheel and 3 of us ended up watching.
Then, Megan realized she was missing her phone, so her cousin Emily called it about 20 times until someone answered. Turned out it was back at Dave & Busters. Then the limo driver called and was going to meet us at 42nd and Broadway. So I grabbed Megan and said, Let’s run back to Dave & Busters, the two of us can go really quickly. So we dashed back and got her phone, then back to the limo.
He drove us downtown past the Freedom Tower (I’m still not totally sure why) and then back to Connecticut. We got back to Mindi’s house and drank and talked and ate Cheez-its and played with her kitten. Then around 1:30 we divvied up the sleeping places (I got the couch!) and passed out.
The next morning it was back to the hotel via Dunkin Donuts breakfast, and then lots more to do before the rehearsal dinner Friday night!
A muy successful bachelorette party: a great salon, a great dinner, NYC fun, and Megan even got her lost phone back!
We actually stood across the street from the stage door of the show he’s currently in, The Mountaintop, and waited for like 20 minutes in this massive group of people. We didn’t actually know who would come out first – him or Angela Bassett. So I’m not sure this really counts as “spotting.” This felt touristy, but you know…Samuel L. Jackson!
That's him, in the green. This was supposed to just be a picture of the mob scene, but I'm happy he stands out.
Second: Bobby Moynihan, from SNL.
Drew and I were having a snack at Pret a Manger in the concourse of Rockefeller Center, and Drew said, “That guy is from SNL.” And I said, “Which guy? That guy?” And he said, “No, the guy in the blue hoodie. Bobby Moynihan.” He had just gone into this little convenience store type place, and so I made us go over there and kind of stalk him in the aisles. He was debating over types of peanuts to buy. I wanted to say something (but what?) but then he came out of an aisle and we sort of did that “oops, excuse me” dance, and I sort of smiled but he didn’t really give me an opening.
It was our last day and we were at Penn Station, going to get salads before going to the airport. So we had all our stuff and looked like total tourists. I have a strong dislike for being mistaken for a tourist. Everyone had umbrellas, but Drew recognized NLB and said, “Norbert Leo Butz. Norbert Leo Butz.” over and over again so I would see him. Yay! I definitely would have liked to say something to him, but again…what would I say? Maybe something like, “I saw you in Is He Dead in like 2008, you’re the greatest!” I don’t know. Or, I know! If I had an opening I’d bring up the fact that he performed in a Samuel French festival play that I worked on!
DREAMY.
Anyway. Thank God Drew is good at recognizing celebs. Almost all of the celebs I’ve seen are because he’s grabbed my arm and said, “That’s Mel Brooks,” or whatever. It’s just not one of my strong suits.
So, Drew and I are back from our East Coast extravaganza. We had a great time, and I’m so happy we went, but I was also totally ready to come home. Which is just about the perfect balance, I guess.
I’m going to start with a Dear Diary overview of the whole thing, then fill in specifics after. I just can’t bring myself to start one, long, DD post of the entire week.
So: last Tuesday night I flew out of SFO on the red-eye to JFK. I got in Wednesday morning, and dropped by my old work to say hi to the people I know who are still working there (there aren’t many left!).
Wednesday afternoon I took a Metro North train to Waterbury, CT, where Megan (the bride), Dawn (the maid of honor) and Toni (the mother of the groom) picked me (the matron of honor) up. We did wedding party things, checked into our hotel, and then Toni and Ken (the father of the groom) took us girls out for dinner.
On Thursday, we had Megan’s bachelorette party in NYC. That deserves, and will get, an entire post.
On Friday, Drew drove up from NYC, where he had arrived late the night before. That afternoon, I had to call in to work for 90 minutes for an interview that I was missing, being out of the office. Friday night – rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.
Saturday was the wedding! Yay for the happy couple!
On Sunday, Drew and I drove back to NYC. We saw an off-Broadway show at Roundabout called Sons of the Prophet, and hung out with Joe and his bf. We had dinner at 5 Napkin Burger, which is always good. We stayed at their Hell’s Kitchen apartment, a luxury and VERY convenient!, and watched Bridesmaids.
On Monday we did some touristy stuff – Wall Street and the protestors, walked along the Hudson, saw the bull at Bowling Green, etc. Then we took our luggage and checked into our Queens hotel, which was in the same neighborhood where we used to live. We had lunch with Jared, our old roommate, and saw our old apartment. That might have been the weirdest part of the whole trip for me. Then in the evening we went to see Sleep No More in the meatpacking district (?).
On Tuesday, we went into Chelsea and I had lunch with Sara, an old coworker who promises me she’s going to come visit San Francisco next summer. I saw the people I didn’t see in the office on my first pass. Then Drew and I did Union Square, The Strand (18 miles of books!), etc, and walked up 5th Avenue. We intended to walk all the way to Central Park (40ish blocks) but couldn’t handle it, so we took the train. We did more 5th Ave, then Rockefeller Center, back through Times Square to the Marquis Theatre to see Follies. Then a late dinner with Kaitlin and Joe on 9th Avenue (at Whym).
Today we checked out of the hotel and took the train to Penn Station, where we got chopped salads for lunch (I miss them so!) and then took the train to JFK, where we were hideously early for our flight. Drew read The Hunger Games, and I called in for a second interview at work. Then a 6 1/2 hour flight and we’re home!
Our apartment is bigger than I remember. And I missed it. It’s really nice to be back.
Okay. I promise to be more interesting in the details. A whirlwind week! But everything went as well as can be hoped, thank God.
I miss things about new York. Other things I don’t miss at all. Bad smells, crazy crowds, the humidity. I definitely am happy that my home is in California. But I hope we can visit NYC again soon!
Last weekend, we celebrated my friend Liz, who is getting married in November. Yes, her bachelorette party was a little early (like 6 weeks before the wedding), but it was one of the few times that the three of us (Liz, Molly and I) could get together.
First, we all met up at Molly’s apartment in San Francisco. Note the stellar SF parking:
Neither of these people is me, don't worry.
Then we got all dressed up to go out. Because I felt very underdressed, Molly loaned me a giant sparkly necklace.
Once we got outside to the sidewalk, we realized we were not underdressed, as it was not cocktail hour in the city, but rather, 5 pm. But we didn’t let that sway us.
First, a grungy man said “Are you three Charlie’s Angels? I’ll be your Bosley.” Then, a very young-looking (like 12 years old) man with super long hair walked straight up to Liz (who was wearing a tiara) (and had like a foot on him) and said, “Hey princess, I heard you were looking for a man like me.” Molly said, “Probably not, since she’s getting married,” and he very politely backed off, saying, “Oh, I guess it was someone else.”
On the bus, a man drinking a 40 out of a paper bag told me he liked my necklace, then asked another girl (who I doubt was older than me) if she was my mother, because we were both very pretty. Yikes.
Finally we arrived at our destination: The Cheesecake Factory. (We have good associations with this place, and Liz has a special fondness for cheesecake.)
See?
After dinner we jumped in a cab and headed to the Castro Theatre, where they were showing The Little Mermaid, but with a very special twist:
OMG! A sing-along! They also gave us a gift bag with: a paper crown, a plastic pearl necklace, a dinglehopper, a noisemaker (to clack whenever Sebastian talked), bubbles to blow, and a glowstick.
It was kind of wonderful. But dark. So the pictures are lit by glowstick.
Here’s a clip of the entire theatre singing along:
After the movie, as the credits rolled, Part of Your World started again, and the entire theatre began singing it as we exited…out of the balcony, down a couple flights of stairs…and you can’t hear the movie playing anymore, but every single person is singing out loud, and as everyone around us spilled out onto Castro Street, we all finished the song (a big finish), and then everyone clapped and cheered.
One of those moments where you just feel like people are good.
(My apologies to those certain people who have heard this story too many times.)
Then Erin picked us up, and we went to Martuni’s, a piano bar, where we proceeded to drink very colorful cocktails and sing along with the rest of the crowd. Right as we started to leave, he started Cee-Lo Green’s “F*** You” and so we stuck around for that one.
Then back to the Haight for late-night pizza!
And then back to Molly’s to eat chocolate and talk girl talk, and eventually fall asleep all over her studio.
All-in-all, one of the best bachelorette/slumber parties I’ve ever been to. Great job us for planning, and congratulations Liz on your upcoming nuptials! Parties are awesome!
There used to be this show on MTV called “Undergrads” – it ran for one season and everyone I talked to either loved it, or had never heard of it. I actually never saw it on TV, I watched downloaded episodes after it had been canceled. But I have fond memories.
This is one section that I have never forgotten:
Throughout the entire beginning half of the episode (called “New Friends,” which I recommend, but I doubted anyone would watch an 18-minute youtube clip), Brody keeps saying things about film and directors and his awesome film career, Kruger just drops f-bombs, and Dan laughs at them.
Sometimes…I just feel like Dan. Everyone around me is talking, and I just laugh at everything and contribute nothing.
Today we went to a friend’s baby shower – both Drew’s and my first baby shower. One of the games was to put a paper plate on top of your head, and then draw a baby – no looking at the plate!
This used to be kind of my thing. I used to draw pictures of my high school best friends all the time, without looking at the paper. I recently found some of those drawings, which I would love to scan and insert here, but they are back in a box somewhere and that is very labor-intensive.
But here’s the plate with baby that won me the game (well, I tied with another guy) and the Jamba Juice gift card!
That’s not an earring – it’s a rattle. I just missed the hand.
Over Labor Day weekend, my mom brought me a bunch of home-grown food: a zucchini, some beets (red and golden), cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, pears (not ripe yet), and a gallon Ziplock full of blackberries – my favorite!
I wanted to do something special with it all – I like the concept of “living off the land,” not that I’ve ever actually done it, and I’ve never cooked beets before.
So I dreamed up this menu for last night, basically using everything. On Wednesday night I cooked the beets so that I could refrigerate them all day. Beets, it turns out, are the most fun.
"What am I gonna do with these here beet greens?" Answer...nothing.
Meanwhile, the beets bubbled away on the stovetop.
Then I peeled them – and the skins came right off, just like the internet said they would.
Oh so satisfying.
Then into the refrigerator so that last night I could make beet salad.
Beet salad! Microgreens, beets, cherry tomatoes, and shaved parmesan. (Also penne with chicken, zucchini, and pesto.)
(Tonight! Leftover beet salad! Also, potstickers. And leftover rice.)
After dinner last night, it was time to make blackberry pie.
Yay mom!
Success, beezys!
Thanks, Mom! If you have more beets or berries you need to get rid of, you know where I am.
(Coincidentally, Jamba Juice has a “Berry Upbeet” smoothie that combines these two flavors. You’d think I would love it. But actually it tastes like berry, with an undertaste of V8. It’s okay, but it’s not going to become my go-to.)
On our way home from Labor Day dinner with my family in Santa Rosa…we stopped to check out the Golden Gate Bridge from high up.
Everyone else had had the same idea, so we had to pass the first two vista points and stop at the third, which is a little further away and so the point is slightly less vista. But that’s okay!
Then we got back into the long line of cars to drive slooooowly over the bridge.
I might hate CDs. I feel like they multiply, and they are everywhere in our apartment. But when do I play CDs? Occasionally, in the car. But why play a CD when I have all my music on my ipod? The CD in my car player right now is disc 1 of the PBS “Broadway – The American Musical” 5-disc series. It’s been there for months. I never listen to it. Not sure why I even picked disc 1 and stuck it in there. I should switch to a different one. (For a full listing of all the songs on each disc, click here.)
The down side of going through all your childhood stuff is that, if you’re a child of the same time period that I am, you have collected a lot of CDs. A lot of factory CDs, but also, a lot of CDs with unfamiliar handwriting – The Rocky Horror Show, or Poe’s Haunted, or even non-music CDs, like Mario’s Into The Woods Pics. It’s actually a relief when I flip a disc over and discover that it’s scratched beyond repair, and I can just toss it. Otherwise, I have to sit and think about whether I need a CD version of Poe’s Haunted, when I have the entire thing in digital form.
When I Google “recycled CDs,” I find this website telling me ways I can use old CDs for fun crafts. Here is an excerpt from that site:
Others have used old CDs to make disco balls, sun catchers, wreaths, mosaics, mobiles, party invitations and even bird treats — just coat the disc with peanut butter or bacon grease, dip it in bird seed, attach it to a tree with yarn and watch the birds flock to your yard.
Um, yuck. For some reason, the idea of using a CD for a bird feeder – covered in bacon grease, no less! – just grosses me out. What’s wrong with the good old-fashioned bird feeder, using a pine cone coated in peanut butter and seed?
Anyway. For now I’ve just been kind of stockpiling the CDs that I can’t bring myself to throw away, and chucking the ones that I can justify.
Future generations: You are so lucky (or, potentially, so unlucky in some way that I can’t even fathom) to have everything be digital. It’s so much easier, and you don’t constantly feel like you’re being wasteful. Although it makes me nervous to have everything just be floating around in cyberspace, I can usually tamp down the urge to print out everything and store it in a box for 12 years.
In a crossword puzzle yesterday, a clue was “a button on a cassette player” and the answer was “rewind.” Do you even know what that means, people who were born after 1995?? (A coworker suggested we call them “Generation Text.”)
PS. This is even crazier – I found this:
If I hadn’t already found the bound paper version of this Nanowrimo, that I had printed at Kinko’s back in 2003 (before it was Kinko’s/FedEx), the discovery of this floppy disk would have thrilled me, while also panicking me, as I have no idea where I could even put this thing.
The Cameraphone Diaries 