morning y'all

my current favorite lunch place in nyc is the british chain 'pret' (the cash registers say 'till' tee hee hee) - super good chicken salad sandwiches, ceasar salads, and baked goods. but they also have amazing oatmeal - ala collis  - with coconut, almonds, maple syrup (real or fake? i prefer fake!) and frothy delicious milk. highly recommend you try it out.

quote from last night at the d mini-reunion at the boat basin with cody, megh and kevin:

'i just don't like being wrongfully imprisoned' - kevin on why he didn't enjoy his time in costa rica

gonna be a long day kids.

the value of bleeding d green

interesting article from forbes, courtesy of soh won - 'top colleges for getting rich'. where does my beloved alma mater come in? top! (self call).

Big Green grads are in the money. So says a recent study compiled by PayScale.com that looks at earnings of alumni at colleges around the country. Graduates of D finished on top of the list with a median compensation of $134,000, edging out alumni of Princeton University who finished second with a median comp of $131,000.

let's throw tennis balls at princeton shall we?

ranking is based on compensation for 10 - 20 years of experience - but boo yeah! this means i need to get paid more ;-P

tidbits

hi bloggers. here, in no particular order, are the latest in my life:

*power hour on sat night turned into power half-hour as there were too many people to make listen to the music (a critical component) and everyone was talking to each other anyhow. had a great turn-out - spent most of it outside. hoping our neighbors don't hate us, but they probably do. once again vin and i did not make it out. this is the problem with hosting parties. you have to rage to set a good example for your guests and drink yourself under the table in the process.

*sat night's roll call included strack, cody (back from hawaii) and kevin g - who has been staying with us all week. this makes me extremely happy. he's back on the east coast for the long haul - starting bc law in mid-august. hooray for fun people in beantown!

*impulse bought the following things: a digital camera, ski goggles. um, yeah. both probably could have managed to hold off on buying for awhile. damn.

*did an interval training gym class yesterday which kicked my ass. called '30, 60, 90', i was doing

jumping jacks with a body bar. needless to say, can hardly move today. ran into alex lentz '07 at the gym. kevin sent me an article a bit ago discussing nyc's similarities to a college campus, in that people are boozing outside all the time. other similarities include running into people you know (exhibit a - the gym) and feeling a bit like our apartments are dorm rooms that we separate and go back to at the end of each day. interesting.

*linsalata has booked us a party bus for the boston buffett show. he assures me this was a meditated move (if we weren't all crazy we would go insane . . . ). however, we have plenty of room and an extra ticket if any boston-based parrotheads want in. sat sept 6. let me know.

*hiking moosilauke (she's going to hike mt. moosilauke. or is she?) with stein in a couple weekends. really excited for some still north!

convo with kevin:
me: your phone sucks. i don't care if it's an iphone
kevin: i know. it's great as an ipod or as a web browser. but it's a terrible phone

she's just being miley

i know the blog readers are mildly obsessed with miley cyrus and her 'see you again' song, so i thought you'd all appreciate that she played at my company headquarters this morning and i saw two girls while walking to work wearing shirts that said 'she's just being miley' . . . ;-P

it's always great to get away from nyc - even for an hour

so am due a post on the weekend as well - between today and yesterday, you lucky lucky blog readers hit the jackpot .

headed up to beantown on fri around 7 with vin. caught the fung wah, which i have become very zen about - accepting if you will of the trip and the time it takes. made it to boston by 11:30 which it seems is the opportune time to go out, even though the bars close earlier than nyc. we met ceppos at clery's in some area of the city (don't know boston all that well) and had some catching up to do, booze wise.

after being laughed at for ordering lemon drops (SHOTS SHOTS. apparently ordering a lemon drop DRINK is lame, but i think a full shot of vodka is not lame in the least) we pounded some drinks and went downstairs to dance, as boston, unlike nyc, has dance parties without pretension. about as sketchy as a chi gam dance party, but we all love a good dance party, and i maintain it is a vehicle for meeting people, which is nyc's big problem. no good reason to go talk to someone. let's go to a party and socialize exclusively with our friends is nyc's motto - i swear.

anyway, around closing time i had a new experience, in that i actually exchanged eye contact several times with a guy with a successful end result, though i'm not sure i've ever exchanged eye contact with a guy at all. we started talking and i ended up staying in dorchester (hi vin) for the night. cute guy, very irish, with a wicked boston accent. i asked him about 'the departed' - the way he said it was great. something about these irish boys. all in all - we decided that there must be something really attractive about the 'i just spent 4 hours on a bus' look, as it seems to get results. picking up guys in boston is like shooting fish in a barrel compared to new york.

anyway - he drove me back to the north end sat morning and am thinking how convenient this could be, as i travel through boston a fair amount. guy in every city as boxa likes to call it. only thing is, it's getting a little annoying that my love life is not in nyc. on a similar note, the georgetown '08 texted on fri night as well. of course. does he have some sort of radar to know when i leave the city? he only ever texts when i'm gone - which he has done about six times in the last four weeks. really? really?

diana came and picked us up and we road tripped down to the cape - stopping to spend $25 dollars at a drive-through only dunkin' donuts. (we were all big fans of d+ds in college. it was one of the few chains in htown) before making it to the cape and hitting long beach. diana just got a job in cali with her current company and is starting aug 25th - so between packing to move cross-country and being in elise's wedding in mid-august, she's got a full plate. so bummed she'll be on teh west coast full-time, but i suppose it's a good argument for going to san fran for labor day, which is my 5th tentative plan for that weekend - haha. other tentative plans include jb in dc, new orleans, nantucket and hiking the at. not all of those are viable.

the beach was GLORIOUS. must have gone swimming about six times. was so so happy to be there and not a city! had some seafood for dinner in hyannis, heard from laurak, who had been maintaining radio silence on the boat in san fran (other good reason to go to sf for labor day), and then headed out to the foxhole.

after some parking lot shenanigans (pic at left) and fooseball we went skinny dipping. it was a hot, clear night, almost full moon with halo shining around it. the water was warm and the air was warm and it was perfect. the way summer is meant to be.

hit up the beach briefly on sun after bfast and then headed back to nyc. my dad packed me up another tomato plant - this time in a carnation instant breakfast box - so we'll give this 'vegetable' thing another whirl.

am home alone because vin is off in cali for work. enjoying a respite from social activities for a change, but looking forward to the power hour we're hosting this weekend. lingley tried to get me to do a week detox with her, which i said i was happy to do, it would just have to wait until after the next two weeks, as have already scheduled drinking events. but the mini detox this week is going well. so nice to wake up and not be hungover. went out every night last week and it was brutal. time to give my liver a break.

kids say the darndest things

post courtesy of my momma (a teacher):

My five-year old students, are learning to read.

Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, "Look at this! It's a frickin' elephant!"

I took a deep breath, then asked..."What did you call it?"

"It's a frickin' elephant! It says so on the picture!"

And so it does...

A f r i c a n Elephant

Hooked on phonics! Ain't it wonderful?

if you want it here it is come and get it

but you better hurry 'cause it's going fast!

so my friend nicole from the cape turned me on to a great website - steep and cheap. their business model is the 'one thing at a time until it's gone' at ridiculously cheap prices. so if you want the featured item, you best get on it stat.

the site features sporting gear - camping, skiing, etc. and has the dangerous nature of being a good thing to refresh often when bored at work. as a result, am tempted on a daily basis to buy things i don't need, particularly living in manhattan.

recently, i've been thinking, and i mean a lot, about buying a sleeping bag. like moments away from the impulse buy. in manhattan, i need a sleeping bag like a fish needs a bicycle. i hardly ever go camping, even before i lived in manhattan and yet, the prices are so cheap and the daydream of camping somewhere along the appalachian trail is so tempting, i'm one click away from purchasing a $150 dollar sleeping bag i totally don't need.

someone tell me there's no way i need a sleeping bag in manhattan. please?

full moon fever

so i swear it has something to do with the time of the month - the full moon makes people crazy - but my job just faked right and went left. at about 6 pm yesterday.

my big boss is going to work in another area of our team, which is great for him, he deserves it and is good at what he does, but this means that my pseudo-boss and i are running the show and reporting directly to our big big boss (d '97), which i have heard is not a good thing.

and it's not like we won't be working together in the future, and he told me i would always have a mentor in him, which is something i have been looking for, and having him be it would be amazing, he is so so good at handling people and situations, but it was a little like the end of an era. he and i started working together seven months ago, not knowing much about each other and assigned to undertake this herculean task, and while i still wouldn't say we were super close, we've been through so much together, and i know he's gone to bat for me on more than one occasion.

not really sure why, but i pretty much cried myself to sleep last night about it all, after walking back from the west side to the east side, also with tears running down my face (prob not all that uncommon a sight in nyc now that i think about it). am a little surprised at how much it's affected me. i think part of it is that i'm a crossroads here, and i'm going down this path, but it's gonna be a little different now.

guess this means it's time to grow up lyon. ding round 2.

lyon lyon how does your garden grow?

it totally does kids. who needs a dog, cat or rabbit when you can take care of morning glories???
(image from anne taintor)

what's the difference between pong and air?

Monday. 4:18 PM

Aida: doing anything fun this week?

me: power houring on sat

Aida: will u play pong?

me: perhaps

Aida: that would be fun

me: :)

we can pretty much play pong whenever you wish

Aida: hahah

yeah i figured it would be a hard thing to turn down

its like... will you be breathing air?

me: haha

Aida: why, yes, yes i will
me: you are full of snark

stuff i like

pretty sure that most of you blog readers aren't big twitter types - so far the twitter audience has proven to be people older than us in the industry who are using it as a tool to talk mobile and digital - but it does have some pretty cool functionalities. i like to use it to say the things i wish i could make my gtalk status if i didn't have my entire work division on my buddy list including my boss. and as you know- you can always catch what i'm up to on the right hand side of the blog - and 'follow' me if you need a fix faster than i can update.

but i digress.

stumbled upon this pretty cool functionality based on twitter - twistori. it's like a rolling feed of twitter posts that have the keywords 'love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish' in the posts. interesting way to see what's going on in people's lives around the world. check it out.

let's call the whole thing off

on the monday of the week that i was on the cape i come downstairs in the morning for breakfast and my dad tells me he has a tomato plant in a plastic bag that he wants me to have because the tomatoes he's planted over the years are taking over everywhere and they can't be killed with a hammer. i say, 'dad - you know i'm not leaving until sunday right?'. he says he knows but that it will be fine - the plant will live because they can't be killed with a hammer.

the tomato languishes in the plastic bag all week, then through the 10 hour drive back to nyc (with a 3 hour shopping stop and bad traffic on 95), until i dig a hole monday morning while late to work and jam the thing in.

this being before vin's dad fixed the hose for us so we can properly water the plants (i was emptying and refilling a 2 gallon water can - v. tedious) so the plants were in dire straits and when vin was pruning the baby's breath forest she inadvertently pruned the scraggly, traumatized tomato as well. i haven't had the heart to tell my dad.

so we will try again this weekend.

boston tonight, cape tomorrow. usual suspect reuning and general debauchery to ensue. my house is going to be taking a page from sd - lots of girls. diana, ceppos, vin and my sisters and their friends. oh my! it's supposed to be hella hot - low 80s on the cape - that never happens. thank god for the beach though. so excited to get out of the city and be back in new england. good times. =)

the good old days

remember when we didn't have class years attached to our blitz addresses? yeah. those were the days.

the world according to d

diede and i discussing her saturday night in which she was on the lower east side, then left and went up to columbus circle with the intent (yeah right) to come back to the lower east side in d terms:

"that's like being at sigma delt and meaning to go to psi u but going down to the river first"

once you leave the area when out drinking there's no way you're coming back. haha.

she and i then proceeded to play a lot of fooseball at 'down the hatch' - which she did extremely well given her lack of experience, even so much as prompting the two danish guys we were playing to pronounce us skilled enough to play in europe (now that's saying something).

in other news - it's july 15th. why am i getting emails from retailers touting back to school? really?

new office is kind of weird. you get used to seeing people in a certain setting - to see the same people in a completely new environment is odd. also now sit in an office with two other people (the rest of my team). would almost rather be in cubicles. ah well - beggars can't be choosers. on the plus side - now i work below deide and the boys are way cuter in midtown west. haha. have office party tonight at the delancy on the les. could be bad. or i could have to take it easy b/c of last night's foose. but we had a clutch queso so that might not be a deterrent.

- am going home this weekend (yes AGAIN. why not spend all your time on the cape in the summer?) this time with vin, ceppos and diana for some seafood and reuning. super psyched to see them and hit the beach that does make me feel like i'm swimming in trash (hi ceppos.). hooray for fun things to look forward to!

song for the asking

here is my song for the asking
ask me and i will play
so sweetly, i'll make you smile

this is my tune for the taking
take it, don't turn away
i've been waiting all my life

thinking it over, i've been sad
thinking it over, i'd be more than glad
to change my ways for the asking

ask me and i will play
all the love that i hold inside
- simon & garfunkel 'song for the asking'

lyon and vin give it two thumbs up!

vin and i went to a screening of 'mamma mia' (the movie) last night thanks to my employers. it was great - highly recommend it to everyone - we've decided it's the kind of movie you'd watch on a saturday night when you're depressed to get out of a funk and intend on buying it stat. it's a lot of fun, kind of silly, and the upbeat, sugary beats that the '70s are famous for with gorgeous scenery, beautiful men and high sing-along potential.

anyway - am obvi listening to abba up the wazoo and have decided that 'does your mother know' is my theme song. google the lyrics. ;-P

life is just so daily

was noticing today at the gym that everyone works out in their frat or sorority greek shirts from undergrad.

it's very strange when your professional and personal lives clash when you least expect it - like when you discover your coworker lives with d '07s who are friends with a kid you hooked up with senior year. oh my.

summer in nyc is a bit like a war of attrition. you scuddle from air-conditioned place to air-conditioned place and try not to sweat too much at any given time, esp not going to work. wake up and check the weather forecast and breath a sigh of relief that it's still in the mid-60s at night. i always feel like i'm fighting to make it through and dreading the days when the heat is on (haha).

we're moving offices on friday - closer to midtown. i have mixed feelings about this - 'i like change she said, as long as i remember i like change' - things are def changing. spare changing. hmmmmm.

going hiking on sat with taylor and lidia. i think the plan is to head up to the catskills. is sure to be an adventure regardless. 'the woods are lovely dark and deep'. looking forward to getting out of the city (again). thought about doing moosilauke but i think it's not enough advanced warning. august. =)

the word is ceppos is in town this weekend - hopefully will catch up with her, but if not then next weekend when vin and i head to the cape. ceppos and diana are planning on joining so we'll have a delightful usual suspects mini-reunion.

finally - burn notice season 2 premieres tomorrow night! if you haven't already seen this show set your dvr for the all day marathon starting early tomorrow, or catch it on hulu.com. 'guns make you stupid. duct tape makes you smart'. that's all you need to know.

i love my job take 2

meeting request from boss:

subject: high level meeting near office
time: tues, july 8 5 - 5:30 pm
location: secret

me to boss: double secret? ;-)
boss to me: that's code name for bar . . .

thank you captain obvious

boston vs. nyc

lidia: the other day in the west village i saw a man dressed in a cat suit. head to toe skin tight leather, ears and whiskers. i've never even seen a WOMAN in a cat suit in boston!

and we quote: ernest hemingway

a few good quotes:

"I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it
remains." For Whom the Bell Tolls

"To hell with luck. I'll bring the luck with me." The Old Man and the Sea

overheard: cape edition

At the beach:

Teen guy sitting with group of teen guys and girls: 'you guys have all
these towels and you left me with the pochontas one? Really?'

At ice cream:

Young dad on cell phone: 'you at the bridge? Whatever you do, don't
jump off of it. Don't go swimming either - the current is too strong.'

(bridge in question is the sagamore bridge. And he's talking about
swimming in the cape cod canal. no one in their right minds would think 'i like bridge jumping. let me jump off THIS bridge!')

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

tidbits

hello from cape cod! happy july as well!

interesting quote from the washington post article 'the city girl's
club, a hollywood establishment' - discussing how 'sex and the city's'
four-single women looking for love in manhattan is bringing back a
favorite hollywood theme dating (pun intended?) back to the thirties:

"Girls who come to New York are, above all, uncommitted. They seem to be girls who want to prolong the period when they can experiment, mess around, make mistakes . . . New York is full of people on this kind of leave of absence, of people with a feeling for the tangentialadventure, the risk adventure, the interlude that's not likely to end
in any double-ring ceremony"
- Joan Didion in 'Mademoiselle' 1961

part of me feels like this putting a much more glamorous spin on my
coming to nyc b/c i got a job - but it does seem to be a backdrop for
experimenting. lots of discussion of marriage and relationships at the
wedding of course, and the overarching theme i came away with was -
'i'm not ready to get married yet. i still have stuff to do'. so i
guess it fits in with that. =)

speaking of the wedding, it was a lot of fun when i wasn't thinking
about the fact that my friend is now a 'mrs.' which was just plain
weird. as touched on above, the whole experience brought up a lot of
conversations about love and marriage, etc.

headed up to boston on fri night to meet mulley, ally and ceppos at
the bhp in beacon hill. mulley was back in town for a wedding on the
cape on sat. ended up hanging out with maynard for the second night in a row and seeing reiten briefly as well. was joking that i don't ever have anything to do
between 7 and 11:30 on friday nights - should head up to boston more
often, esp as the entire bar was full of boys my type. oh boys from
new england. =)

drove down to the cape on sat with mulley and hit up the beach for a
bit before heading our separate ways for wedding festivities. had a
picnic at the bride's house on sat which was a lot of fun. played some
wiffleball and croquet and then hit up the foxhole with my sis to kick
some ass at fooseball. one of erin's friends needed a place to stay (he'd come up from new orleans) so he ended up at the foxhole with us.

sun we spent on the beach which was fabulous, and then headed down to
new seabury for the wedding. matt (erin's friend) was playing a drum
in the ceremony, so we were there early enough to hit up the raw bar -
a favorite of mine and christine's - before heading over. the ceremony
and location were gorgeous - the ocean was the backdrop and the beach
down a path. it rained during the ceremony and cleared for sunset -
typical cape weather.

had four seas brownie sundaes for dessert, danced forever and had a
great time visiting with people. post-wedding we went to someone's
condo on the beach and sat on the beach with the waves crashing in
total darkness staring out at the ocean. was AMAZING. perfect end to
the day. when it was time to head home we walked back along the beach
to where the cars were, and scaled two fences to get back to the
parking lot as it was 12:30 and everything was closed up. went through
the pool area and considered taking a dip, ala green key '06 when
laurak and i also considered going swimming in the gym as it was
deserted. i fully regret not doing it both times now, but i figured
getting arrested for trespassing in a dress and high heels wasn't
going to go well for anyone.

ergo - as long as i don't think about the fact that they're married,
weddings are a total blast. going to take some getting used to for
sure. super glad to not be in nyc - life is good. =)