Vermont and 2011

'Vermont must be beautiful this time of year, all that snow' - White Christmas

Greetings from vermont (again). Up near Burlington/Smugglers Notch for the holiday and weekend with Rowena and a few of her friends for a house party, and for the record, it is beautiful up here with all this snow. I jumped at the chance to get out of the city - particularly since we won't be throwing our customary new year's party this year - and VT/NH/New England is my preferred NYE locale anyway.

We're staying in a cozy, log cabin of a house and I just can't get over how beautiful the barns and fields are with the snow. Amazing.

Another year drawing to a close and looking at 2011. I'm excited - already have lots to look forward to and I'm feeling pretty content with who I am and where I'm going. 'Too much to see waiting in front of me and I know that I just can't go wrong.' Raise a glass tonight to old friends, good times, and all those yet to come in the new year wherever you are.

Off to ski at Smuggler's Notch for the fifth time in my life!

--
Sent from my mobile device

twitter tidbits

since i'm much better at updating my twitter account than i am at updating this blog, and a fair amount of my readers don't follow me on twitter, i've decided to periodically post tweets of interest here. these will be occasionally be accompanied by more of an explanation than is possible given twitter's 160 character limit.

'there can't be good living where there is not good drinking' - ben franklin. quote on the wall at dead poet on the upper west side (aka my new favorite bar)

'the john tilton theory - there's a lot of bullshit laws out there and we don't have to follow them' - my dad over christmas. basically sums up his approach to life.

was thinking about it and i'm possibly the only person i know whose parents are pressuring them NOT to go to bschool. hmmm.

'she had cocktail in hand and confetti in her hair' - kate spade ad. feels like this describes me pretty well.

discussion ensued during trip back to the cape about the new england propensity towards white lights over colored xmas lights. we decided this must be b/c of the puritan spartan approach to life decrying all 'those sinful, gaudy, colored Calvinist lights!'

got asked if i was an actor on two separate occasions last week. what is the universe trying to tell me?

laurak: everyone loves house parties. me: and slinkies

The real estate value of Central Park was estimated by the property appraisal firm, Miller Samuel, to be $528,783,552,000 in December 2005 - wikipedia article on central park

will: you're a keyboard kind of girl

what have whales (or at&t) done for you lately?

thought this was a really well done ad

coastal christmas

merry christmas! am hanging out on the cape, waiting for my sibs to wake up. gone are the days where we had to wait until 7:30 to wake up mom and dad. now they have to wake up the kids to have christmas. oh the times have changed.

got to the cape on tuesday night - was able to catch a ride with one of the guys on my kickball team. his grandmother lives literally 2 miles down the road from my house and he drove me directly from nyc to the fox hole. talk about starting off christmas on the right foot.

have had a quiet couple of days, filled with reading (every time i come home i reread the harry potter series) and napping and quiet contemplative moments. the cape got hammered with a nor'easter on mon/tues, so there's a nice cover of snow on the ground, beaches and marshes. the cape is a pretty great place in the summer, but it's just as beautiful in the winter.

one of my sisters didn't come home this year, she's spending the holiday with her boyfriend in oklahoma. so it is not only the wake up call timing that's changed.

you may recall that last year at christmas my family had just gotten a puppy. she's much bigger this year, and she doesn't look as much like a bear cub, but the nickname has stuck (sasha bear) and i've changed the lyrics of 'last christmas' to reflect the fact she can now go up and down the stairs (last year we had to carry her):

'last christmas she couldn't go down [the stairs]
this christmas she goes all around [the house]'

that's as far as i've gotten.

been especially thankful this christmas for family and friends. not that i haven't been in the past, but as things change and people get older, it seems especially important to take the moment to recall the special people in my life, and know that even if we aren't together, i'm thinking of you and am grateful to have you in my life. (yes this means you!).

and last but not least, today is jimmy buffett's bday. happy birthday jimmy!

heavy fuel

'Last time I was sober, man I felt bad
Worst hangover that I've ever had' - Dire Straits

Tis the season of holiday parties, and this week was full of them. Tuesday got together ith the old coworkers to hit up Rudy's. Had a delicious beer with bourbon in it - winter's bourbon cask ale. the top of the tap was a snowman with sunglasses on - should be easy for interested parties to recognize. Have become friends with the bartender at Rudy's and he gives us food (pizza and banana cream pudding!) And takes away my bberry when I'm doing things I shouldn't.

Wed night mulley and I trekked to Battery Park City for vin's friend sam's holiday party. We loved the space and the view but not the hike from the UWS. Saw Vin's brother vik and discussed the questions that really matter - vibrators or sex and definition of a slut.

Last night I crashed a holiday party with the old coworkers at a warehouse in DUMBO (aka Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Kind of cool down that way with the bridges overhead and the water but I was afraid I was going to die as it was warehouses everywhere and deserted and i didn't know where i was going but i made it to the location and enjoyed the open bar for several hours, though they had run out of whiskey by the time i made it which isn't something that happens too often. usually you're stuck with beacoup left over bottles of jameson that no one wants to drink.

you may realize that this blog post is not entirely uniform, as i typed half of it on my blackberry while hanging out in chinatown waiting for my sister to get in on the fung wah bus. my 'w' key on my blackberry doesn't really work anymore - so if letters are missing it's most likely a 'w'. you wouldn't think that 'w''s are all that important, but as boxa and i liked to do in college, if you start thinking of words that start with 'w' you'll discover there are a lot. i present for your consideration the sesame street classic 'wanda the witch (brought to you by the letter 'w')'.

anyway - my sister (the youngest one) is here visiting for the weekend which i am quite excited about. she's never really been to nyc and we have lots of festive things planned including an afternoon of holiday decoration/nyc cliche activities (think fifth ave and 30 rock xmas tree) and then we're going to the nutcracker tonight. hooray for the holiday spirit.

also the five year anniversary of this blog was officially december 16th (first official post here.) seeing how the average lifespan of a blog is 6mths, that's a damn long time to have been publicly posting about my life. but as i've often waxed poetic, this blog is an outlet, an audience, and a chronology of events in the real world and i'm glad it's still something people want to read. here's to you sd4life!

that's the scoop! you heard it here first.

xwords

‎totally agree with this:

"[Crosswording is] imagination, it's inference, it's guessing; and much of it is happening subconsciously. It's all about you, using your own mind, without any method or schema, to restore order from chaos. And once you have, you can sit back and say, 'Hey, the rest of my life may be a disaster, but at least I have a solution!'"

being bored in class and having a copy of the d's crossword puzzle has nothing to do with it. ;-) hat tip to will for the quote

Christmas is

My grandmother has saved a lot of my thank you notes and letters over
the years. as I like to tell my mother - I was well brought up and
ALWAYS write thank you notes (don't you? If you ever come visit my
parents a thank you note is the surest way to be invited back). Anyway
- sitting here reading the stuff she's saved and found the following.

There's no date but its written in cursive so I must have been older
than 3rd grade at least.

Christmas is:
Families decorating a tree with ornaments and lights. It is a time for
caroling parties and candles in the window. It is a time for families
to be together and to have your grandfather read you 'The Night Before
Christmas'. Christmas is a time to go to church and hear bells ringing
and to go to your grandparent's house after. It is a time to bake
cookies, pies and gingerbread men and to hang stockings. It is a time
for people kissing under mistletoe and presents with bows. Christmas
is stars in the sky with very light snow. It is a time when Santa
comes down the chimney. I love the way we have Christmas.

--
Sent from my mobile device

sunshine state

greetings from the not-so-sunny sunshine state! seriously it's raining and like 45 out. december is pretty hit or miss. hopefully it'll warm up for the weekend - i want just one beach day please!

continuing my whirl-wind tour of the east coast, i am down visiting my grandparents for a couple days. it's a rough time to be out of the office as the end of the year is fast approaching and it seems people at my company are really not going to be around much through the end of the year, but sod it. i hate being out of the office when other people are working - just feels like i'm doing something i shouldn't. but answering emails from my grandmother's couch is vastly preferable to my desk, so i'll deal.

alert readers will already know that i'm super close with my grandparents. oldest grandchild means we've always had a special bond, and i lived with them down here when i was in college junior winter. they're getting older (not surprising) and it's tough to see them moving much more slowly than they used to, especially my grandmother. she's still very with it and wants to be active, but has had a leg issue for awhile now that's kept her from driving/walking very much, and i know it's hard for her. they live by themselves, though frequently have company, but i'm realizing how difficult things that used to be easy for them are now. i guess this is part of me getting older too, but i'm very aware of this these days, and it's only one of the reasons i'm really glad i can spend time with them this trip.

in other, happier, less serious news, i had a great trip to dc last weekend for the inquiring minds. was wonderful to catch up with aida - in arlington, va you can live in the penthouse of a complex, with a pool, parking space AND a bar within walking distance where you can get 5 drinks for $20 bucks. (said bar is the 'tortoise and the hare', motto: hop in, crawl out). something to be said for virginia!

aida and i did brunch with lingley and then bummed around dupont circle/lingley's apt sat morning, including three separate trips to ann taylor loft, when the girls decided the jeans i had packed were not the right kind for the top i had bought for dinner saturday night. met up with the boy saturday afternoon, and i am happy to say that it was really fun. surprisingly wasn't all that awkward - we had lots to talk about - went for a constitutional in the park near his apartment, out for a great dinner at 'birch and barley' and then a couple drinks at 'cafe st. ex' (named after the author of the 'little prince') where we did a bunch of whiskey shots with the bartender (oh my). really glad we decided to do it and it's always nice to talk to someone who doesn't already know your life story. not sure what's next, but good stuff all around.

monday night was the dartmouth club holiday party. mulley came to help out, and we had planned to watch the patriots/jets game at a bar afterwards. 9:30 rolled around, and the party was still going pretty strong, so we joined slaine, dax and some of the other merry-makers down in the bar room of the yale club to watch the game. ended up drinking several dirty martinis (trouble!) and sleeping in the grammercy apartment of a yale '98. there is something to be said for boys over 30, and that thing is amazing apartments. seriously - gorgeous. this kid's name pretty much sums up the entire experience, but i can't post it here in the interest of protecting the guilty. his last name is related to the 'little house' books and his name for short is a color. that ought to give you an indication. we're supposedly having dinner next week - i'll report back.

that's the word from florida. have christmas trees to set up, and doorbells to fix for my grandparents. such is the price of admission. :)

smiling's my favorite

chelsea market, where my office is, has many delicious food options and baked goods to choose from, but is not at all conducive to being hungover. all i want is greasy chinese food and diet coke and i have to walk two avenue blocks to get those things so i'm miserable and making do with spring rolls from chelsea thai.

the reason for today's hangover is heavy drinking last night (thank you captain obvious). vin's been working from nyc this week so there have been lots of delicious dinners and replays of the 'five day cocktail party' we did for my birthday last march.

we went to 'flex mussels' in the old hood when vin and vik, her brother who has just moved to nyc from boston (yay!), got in to to town on sunday. tuesday we went to 'back forty' in alphabet city where they had just gotten (captured? acquired?) a 450 pound elk, so elk was on the menu (i had elk sausage and risotto - pretty good!). really cute place - highly recommend.

after dinner we met up with a bunch of people at mcsorley's. i adore mcsorley's - perfect place for rounds of cheap beers in mugs (they only have dark or light beer), communal table sitting and being rowdy and loud with friends. despite these admirable qualities, no one ever wants to go, so i was selfishly glad vin wanted to go too.

last night we went down to tribeca to hang out after work. started at 'puffy's tavern' where they served you a personal pan cheese or pepporini pizza that they made in the bar (awesome) and then headed over to 'reade street pub' to meet up with some of vin's coworkers. they had a great guitar player who could play everything from billy joel to oasis to jimmy buffett. i got up there and sang 'son of a son of a sailor' with him to the crowd's dismay and my delight. we also asked him to play hall and oates 'you make my dreams come true'. he said he knew the song but not the words, so we looked them up on an iphone and i stood up there and sang/held the phone so he could sing the words. together we successfully performed the song (teamwork!) and if you haven't seen the 'you make dreams' montage from '500 days of summer', you should watch it now. guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

steger was out and about too - she's interviewing for jobs in nyc and san fran (selfishly hoping that she ends up in nyc) and we sent her and vik home with mulley to sleep, though vin insisted she and steger could fit on our love seat of couch (no way). didn't get to bed last night until 3, and vin and i have been staying up chatting the last few nights, so am very sleepy as well as hungover, but it's been a ton of fun so i can deal. besides - it's my own damn fault.

tonight i'm going down to dc to see aida who i haven't seen in maybe a year? and then tomorrow is my extended date, which i am quite looking forward to. went on a mini shopping spree on wednesday in preparation, but i'm excited for fun, dc at holiday time, and hanging out. anything else is an added plus. ;-)