family ties

In honor of the time we're all spending with family this holiday
weekend, a post reminiscing about mine.

I played basketball growing up from 6th grade or so on. Basketball is
the sport I most enjoyed and when I think about the comparisons
between sports and business, I generally think about basketball.

Sports on the Cape are not particularly competitive - there are about
5 big high schools on the cape, but none of them are known for having
particularly great sports - so me and my sisters played AAU basketball
- often on teams from southeastern mass like New Bedford.

New Bedford is about an hour away from where we grew up - over the
bridge as us cape folks say (if someone tries to tell you they are
from/are going to the cape and they don't have to go over a bridge to
get there, don't buy it) and we would practice twice a week and play
tournaments in boston, providence, new hampshire on sat and sun of
wknds (2 games a day).

This meant a lot of time in the car with my dad - life/sport coach
extraordinre (also meant a lot of time sleeping in cars, and is the
reason I don't like rhode island - too many bball tourneys). My dad
likes to keep a car v cold to stay awake, and he was a dj and did
sales for radio stations when he was starting out, so listened to a
lot of moody blues, gordon lightfoot, and bad company, as well as this
'kasey kasm' type radio program 'lost 45s' which I hated. But I do
have to say that you can't put a value on all the time he spent to
help me get where I am today. Just wish he could have turned up the
heat once awhile. :)

--
Sent from my mobile device

has anyone seen my voice (again)?

within the dreaded spitting distance of going home for thanksgiving. one busy day today and i'll be good, but today is going to be rough. 'spitting distance' is one of my dad's sayings, meaning close enough to have it in your sights, but still pretty far away. not sure why i am dying to go home so much, particularly after a long break already, but craving the cape and home something awful.

had a great weekend of singing, which, as the title suggests, means i've lost my voice again. did karaoke with the work crowd on friday night (including vin, who some people think i work with) and then played pong at hook with stoebe until 4 am.

saturday i ordered mcdonald's breakfast for delivery to make myself feel better, fullfilling a dream that i've had since i moved to nyc and found out mcdonald's delivers. got the party started at 4 on saturday afternoon at stoebe's '90s pop powerhour' to pregame karaoke. we pregamed the powerhour with a viewing of 'n'sync: live at madison square garden' (circa 2001). this karaoke event was epic - stoebe sent at least five 3 - 7k sized blitzes about the topic leading up to the date. i was assigned pat benatar as a music icon, which i was extremely flattered by, not the least because she was the first female artist to have a music video on mtv (thank you wikipedia). met a lot of the '07/'08 track kids, who i may have already met but i have a hard time keeping track of that, and was the oldest person there by a good 4 years in some cases. hi. yes i'm about to turn 27.

lots of singing ensued, both during the powerhour and at karaoke, and then it was back to hook and ladder, where we ran into some d track '05s, friends of the ex's. your ex bf's friends telling you look great 5 years after you broke up: win! stoebe claimed to be ragier than me in his limerick introduction that he did for everyone (really. he wrote limericks about 20 different people) which may be true, as i took myself home before he did, but then again, drunk, tired and emotional is no way to go through saturday night son.

dragged myself out of bed on sunday for brunch with celeste. worth it as it was so nice to catch up with her, and we hit up 'good enough to eat' on the upper west side - reminds me of woodstock, vermont a lot and is super delicious. i spent the rest of sunday watching 'ghost whisperer', uploading pictures and pulling myself together. it's the holidays people.

how to drink yourself a spanish dictionary

hola friends! am back from south america. picked up a little bit of spanish while i was there, which i will continue to use to populate my speech for the next month or so. get used to it. i adore peppering my speech with forgein languages. and using the transitive property inappropriately.

had a fantastic time in the lower latitudes. traveling really does make you understand that it's a damn big world out there and we've only just begun to scratch the surface. went down there with vin and my coworker, rowena. rowena and i had gotten a fantastic deal on our flight - cheaper than flying to la - but it meant we spent some quality time in the mexico city airport, and spent a good portion of the 12 hour flights sleeping sitting up.

some observations:

• buenos aires is an extremely hedonistic place. everything is SO CHEAP (4 pesos to the US dollar) that it's like why not have another bottle of wine? had amazing three course steak meals with two bottles of wine for $20 dollars american. forget miami beach, i'm going to ba.
  
• american music EVERYWHERE. and good american music too. we were in a cab and heard 'one hand' by alanis morsette. when was the last time you heard that on the radio? (i'm thinking 6th grade) also heard britney's new '3' song in (relatively) rural argentina. music may just be the universal language.
  
• buenos aires is different from other foreign cities in that there isn't really one main tourist attraction ala paris or rome. we just walked and ate, walked and drank (coffee/wine), walked and shopped - lather, rinse repeat. absorbed the local culture, etc.
• amazing AMAZING food. incredible steak, pastries, desserts, drinks. had a brownie with dulce de leche in it and a cappacino for breakfast. walked miles and miles through a sketchy part of la boca for amazing steak at this hole in the wall. apparently that's where U2 went for an 'authentic argentinien meal. we figured that they prob got a ride there instead of walking like we did. had delicious white sangria with pineapples, bananas and peaches. most of our pictures are of food. :)
  
• i now have a coffee habit. i liked coffee for the taste before, but even a simple cafe americano was like heaven. another cappacino please! vin really wanted ice coffee, which seemed impossible to order, as the concept of cold coffee at a place other than starbucks isn't understood. finally nailed it with a 'cafe con leche, sin sugar, y llayo' order.
  
• as i said before, none of us spoke spanish (rather latin and french) which i didn't think would be a problem, but it turned out to be harder than we expected. would order things in restaurants and have no idea what we were really getting. lots of hand gestures, blank stares and 'no habla ingles'. people really didn't speak english down there, but everyone did their best to help, and it really highlighted how you're reliant on the kindness of strangers b/c there was nothing we could do but hope for the best and trust people.
• my blackberry didn't work down there (didnt realize how way far down you are when you're there) so i didn't have internet for a week. given how connected i am, it was a bit of a withdrawal to not be on gtalk 24-7 or even be able to wikipedia something when the impulse struck (have a pretty long list of things to look up), but i suppose it was good to be totally detached for a few days. allowed me to really relax without worrying about what was going on at home.
  
• had a couple of bouts of drama with our hotel and rowena left her atm card in an atm so we had to call the states a couple of times. fortunately, there was a bodega of sorts with a phone booth up the street, so we spent a fair amount of time chatting with the guy behind the desk while we were on the phone. taught him some english ('sugar fix' - oh like 'sugar repair'. si), he taught us some spanish, told us we talked really fast and i told him 'bona fortuna' on the soccer match (latin for good luck. later learned via subtitles that good luck is actually buena suerte in spanish).
  
• speaking of subtitles, the movies on tv down there were fantastic. of course they all had spanish subtitles, but was able to knock out a ton of movies like hot rod, love actually, transformers, bridget jones, se7ven, and others. why aren't movies like that on tv in the states? even got to watch an episode of 'ghost whisperer'! was v. useful for learning spanish as well.
  
• dogs everywhere. not that different from nyc, but these weren't all little dogs. saw lots of golden retrievers, german shepard mixes, etc in amongst the fru fru dogs. and you see people walking multiple dogs here in nyc, but down there you'd see 15 dogs being walked by one person. how does that work?
  
• had gorgeous weather - sunny and 80 - so soaked up some sun and warm winds, except for the day we went to the waterfalls (see below) when it rained a cold rain for the entire day. typical.
  

at the end of our trip we flew to the argentinine/brazil border to see the waterfalls of iguazu. if you've seen jurassic park 3 and the scene with the perydactyls then you'll know what it was like: all sorts of metal walkways on the edges of the waterfalls that got you right up close to the top or the bottom of the falls and through the jungle. i swear a dinosaur was going to pop out at any second.

we also went to an expat bar in san telmo in ba called gibraltra. they had a bunch of quotes painted on the wall (my kind of place) including this gem: 'beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.' amen. and the motto for our new pong table.

so folks, that's the quick and dirty. glad to be back, can't believe thanksgiving is next week and christmas is coming up. they're putting up the tree at 30 rock. doesn't feel like it's time for this, not the least because it was so hot down in buenos aires, but they don't call it the most wonderful time of the year for nothing.

late for work. over and out.

and the southern cross

well kiddos, today's the day. heading down to buenos aires tonight. in the words of 30 rock, it will be a friendship AND a learning adventure, as i'm going with my coworker and vin's meeting up with us tomorrow. the learning part comes in that i don't know too much about south america (that just sounds so cool btw), and none of us speak spanish, but if you're like me and didn't know anything about buenos aires before i started reading up on it, i would suggest this article on wikitravel. just don't print it out, as it's 47 pages. i may or may not have printed it out 3 times by accident at work on thursday.

we're spending five days in buenos aires and then flying to iguazu to see the waterfalls on the brazillian/argentinian border for two days. it's spring/early summer down there and should be pretty cool - it seems that everyone and their brothers has been to argentina recently - got plenty of good tips and info from coworkers and friends. am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact i'm going out of the country and that we'll be gone for a week and a half. have not packed a bit and the flight's at midnight.

in other, non-travel news - last night was hopper's bday so a big bash ensued for that. found a bar that had great music and a decent dance scene created by us. lots of shots of cake batter, or as some know it, birthday cake - been eating too much ben and jerry's.

and december is shaping up to be a fantastic month in that everyone wants to come to ny! boxa will be here for two weekends on med school interviews, linsalata just checked in to say he'll be in the city, christine is coming down and my sister claims she wants to come visit sometime when i'm not here. to be fair, december is the best month to be in nyc. it's the only month that i don't have plans to leave. :)

so it'll be radio silence on sd4life for a bit - you're going to have to get your story fix elsewhere. catch you on the flip side!

true story

me: booi love the vineyard vines totes

  but they really don't hold up

3:05 PM linsalata: that may be because you live out of them 2 - 3 weekends a month

 

 linsalata: and store them in the corner of bars

 

3:06 PM linsalata: until you can find a place to sleep

punk. =P

opened my work bag to get a hair elastic and discovered the 20 nyc condoms i acquired from the bar last night. they were sitting in a plastic pumpkin on the bar and having just wrapped up halloween, everyone's first thought was 'candy' so we all grabbed a big handful (greedy i guess) only to discover we were wrong. got some strange looks from the bar patrons, but condoms are expensive and i like free.

i also like impromptu dance parties, like the one that ensued last night. went out to meet up with charlie's kickball team, all of whom were in fine form. played some flip cup and beruit and rocked out to 'like a prayer'. in the paraphrased words of 'wet hot' - 'god. am i in the sigma delt basement or something?' pretty darn close. :)

all hallows eve

listening to a little taylor swift while i try to get my life in order so i can leave the country for a week. have zero voice. none. gone completely. and i know i lose my voice with alarming regularity, but this is abnormal, even for me. haven't been able to talk properly since friday. the irony is that i feel 100% fine, esp compared to last week. i just sound worse. and i can't sing. that's the worst part.

halloween was a total blast. went and hung out with the work folks friday afternoon - picked up one of those 'glasses/eyebrows/moustache/nose' disguises on the way to the bar, which came in handy throughout the weekend - met up with some of the d '08s post until ceppos got here, had picked up some 40s so she could catch up and we went to hang out a random apt party in hell's kitchen. these kids had this MASSIVE apt (that's hell's kitchen for you) and a huge rooftop that you accessed by climbing straight up a ladder - heights + climbing + drinking + roller skates (for some) = dumb idea - but we vocally reiterated the no death rule and no one in our party was maimed. seriously, this rooftop was big enough to play harbour on, but then again, so was their living room.

lazed about sat morning and got our halloween acts together. ceppos was being carmen sandiego (cue the acapella) and i was reutilizing my captain's hat, acquired during kit's bachelorette party and a big hit at jimmy buffett, to be a sailor of sorts. or the captain from 'jaws'. went around saying i needed a bigger boat.

met up with ashley for the pub crawl, which was less of a crawl in that you could go wherever during certain times - no need to travel with the rest of the group. vin came to meet us and made the wise decision to forego napping and a costume in favor of partying and what later turned into whiskers, thanks to kendra's eye pencil - all make up that was necessary for her unicorn costume. mulley also joined in the festivities, dressed as a chorus girl from chicago (the musical, not the city).

traipsed around 2nd avenue from bar to bar, finally ending up at hook and ladder where ceppos and i proceeded to run table, while vin and ashley drank chartuese (both a color and a strange potent alcohol). apparently i also proceeded to make out with some boy i had just met mid-pong game, which prompted hopper to declare rule number 2 of hook (after rule number 1: don't talk about hook), 'no making out with guys you met 5 minutes ago WHILE YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PONG GAME.'

was dragged away from the boy to go up town to yas's halloween fiesta. after a quick stop in the grocery store where we giggled and ran after ceppos who was buying beer, we showed up at the fiesta, and quickly made it happen. i ate a lot of bread sticks, pumpkin tarts and pizza bites, did my best to improve the music situation (the bad girl's guide to the party life suggests byomusicing for situations such as those), and generally was ridiculous.

attempted to go to stumble inn when the booze ran out, but was stymied by long lines and pouring rain, so we went to brother's jimmy's, where we apparently made such an impression that the bouncer the next day when we went back for vin's trophy which has gone missing and ceppos's credit card remembered us perfectly. this was an extremly crowded bar btw. clearly we can never go there again and somewhere on the ues, someone has found a trophy that says 'i like winners'.

at bro jimmy's i suddenly found myself caring for a very drunk '09 on the track team with my bro which quickly got old, so i walked him 5 blocks north and left him outside a bar with the '08 sig eps who i felt had more invested in his well-being than i did, even if i didn't want to leave him on a corner, before walking home to find ceppos and passing out, after many many hours of successful drinking.

sunday we spent being hungover wastes of life, while alternatively running all over the upper east side with celeste to cheer for cody who ran the nyc marathon. also attempted to talk to boxa on the phone, but aforementioned voice situation made communicating via phone difficult. i did, however, talk with kevin, who was hanging out in la with megh. kevin and i caught up on life and began preliminary planning for new years and my 27th birthday in march (aka kevin claims he's coming).

so. ridic weekend, so fun. next up - hopper's bday, and psyched for an adventure in the southern hemisphere - we leave on sunday!