Censored!

I don't blog about work. It's sort of an informal agreement I've made with myself, like don't sleep in your contacts and don't contract a venereal disease. It would be bad.

But lately it feels like work is so much of what I'm doing with my days that I'm not sure how I can blog without bringing it up.

Still, I'm going to try. So let's all enjoy this story about a nutty Brit and his banking antics. God, I love the BBC.

Animal House

Rob took care of our neighbor Eric's dog, Josh, this weekend and when I got home from Chicago, it was like Josh had always lived with us.



Smokey, slightly thrown off by this intrusion, felt the need to exert his authority over the apartment by ferociously helping himself to Rob's piece of pizza.



Also, though my efforts to get her into a baking dish went completely ignored, Emma did sit on a tote bag.

Tasteful! Fun! No strippers!

My sister, friends, aunts, cousin, and mom threw me a fabulous bachelorette party in Chicago on Saturday. Below, our day in pictures (mostly because I'm still hungover.)

And just like that, I'm a child

I was on the phone with my dad tonight when he asked me to guess what city--in the entire world--has the most millionaires. My first guess, New York, was not correct. Neither were London, Dubai, Tokyo or any number of other cities I came up with.

He gave me the option of asking yes or no questions.

"Is it in Europe?" I asked. The answer was yes. And therein began a very confusing conversation which, sorry to rush to the punch line, ended with me realizing that MOSCOW is actually an Eastern European city. I'm sure all you smarties out there already had this info, but let me just say, when your dad is a retired geography teacher and you can't tell him the boundaries of Europe on a standard phone call, it leaves you feeling none too bright.

As I approached the apartment, I saw Rob and our friend Eric pulling in from a bike ride. I asked them the question. They started with New York, Riad, Tokyo, Beijing.

"It's probably in Asia," Rob said, thinking out loud.

"Is that a question?" I rushed in. "Is that a yes or no question? Ask me, as a yes or no question, if it's in Asia."

Eric started to laugh. "I was like this, too, " he said. "When I was 12."

Proof of Life

Rob and I have a storage unit next door to our apartment, a room that--without exaggeration--can be accurately referred to as a death trap. I went there this evening to look for my birth certificate, which I apparently need in order to get a marriage license in New York.

Our storage unit is not small. We've upgraded from two crawl spaces to an entire room that is filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with...I don't really know what. But what I was looking for was a very specific box, one that contains letters, cards, photos, concert tickets and other memorabilia I have collected since high school. I was pretty sure that if I had my birth certificate, it would be in that box.

So of course the box was across the room, at the very top of a stack of other boxes and a cat carrier. I climbed onto various suitcases and plastic bags of clothes no one ever needs to wear, finally discovering the sturdy surface of an old wooden table. As I stood on tiptoe and lunged for the box, I was suddenly certain that I was going to fall, crack my head open and win a Darwin Award for being the idiot who died while looking for her birth certificate.

When I gracefully (you can't prove it wasn't graceful) liberated the box from its perch, I sat with it on the floor of the building, and spent half an hour looking through the things I have decided to keep: airmail cards sent when I lived in Paris, notes tightly folded in the way only high school girls can fold notes, a blue raspberry Airhead in its wrapper, letters I never sent, and a typed letter from my brother--mailed to me when he was 11 and I was in college--that unexpectedly caused me to burst into tears. Also my social security card: no real visceral reaction to that one.

The birth certificate was nowhere to be found, but it's a big room and I'll visit again. There should be plenty more opportunities to maim myself in a freak storage accident. In which case, I bequeath the memory box to my sister and the cat carrier to Rob.

Excessively girly post

Not to get all Daily Candy, but there is a new boutique on the Lower East Side called Mint Julep. It just opened last week, and if you like fun dresses, bags, and jewelry, you should definitely go check it out.

This is their first New York store (it originated in Boston) and they have lots of great stuff. Including a bit too much of my money. I could hear my better judgment ordering me to put down the purple dress. You will never wear it. It's too short. But it wasn't powerful enough to overtake a relative newcomer: my honeymoon voice. That sucker's loud. And semi-irrational.

Still, I stand by my recommendation. A very cute store, with a helpful staff, and tissue paper covered in popsicles. And despite my comment above, most of their merchandise is fairly affordable. Moreso when you don't try to buy it all at once.

Blame Facebook

I have a new obsession, and it’s one that I am not happy about. After much urging, encouragement, and some derision from friends who are on Facebook, I decided to join. And it is addictive in the way that I was told it would be. Friends are coming out of the woodwork. In the past week, I have gotten messages from my future niece, three former best friends who I haven’t seen in years, the guy I walked to kindergarten with, a guy I dated in college, and my old drug dealer. (Kidding. Or am I?)

It’s fun, but it’s also slightly overwhelming. And it doesn’t translate to lots of attention for this here blog. I’m going to have to work on that.

Is there anything better than live music?

Rob and I are back from a Wilco show in Brooklyn. The venue was a pool. Or, it used to be a pool before they turned it into a fantastic place to see a concert outdoors. If you ask Rob about it, he'll tell you that we had to wait in line to get into the show. Then we had to wait in line to get tickets to buy beer. Then we had to wait in another line for the actual beer. But I think after he says all that, he'll tell you that he really liked the show. So there you have it. Reading this blog is just like having a conversation with Rob. I will post later about his reaction to that statement.

Anyway, at McCarren Park Pool, the audience stands in what was once the pool and watches as the band plays from an elevated stage. It's small enough that there is not a bad location to stand. We opted for a side area, where we watched a hipster mom and dad dancing with their three bleach blond daughters. The youngest one was passed out the entire time, even when being handed from parent to parent. I watched them, thinking how sweet it was that this family was enjoying the show together, spinning around and hugging each other. That was when the dad decided to lie on the ground for a while.

I was not there to judge.

Wilco was excellent. They are the type of band that is better live. Between the music, Brooklyn Lager, proximity to the stage, gorgeous weather, and running commentary of the Drew Carey look-alike next to me (who was there to judge), I was in a very happy place.

So I'm disappointed to say that Brooklyn will be turning the pool back into an actual pool, and ceasing all concert operations. Really, it's a great place to see a show and it's a shame that the neighborhood kids have to go ruin that, what with their "need for outdoor, healthy activity." They're so immature.

Rob time

I'll be in Boulder, CO for work for a couple of days, which is nice because I get to see my friends Natascha and Steve. They've lived there together for several years, long enough to be considered common law spouses, though they are officially getting married next year.

I asked Rob what he was going to do while I was gone and his eyes seriously lit up.

"It's going to be an Olympics smorgasbord," he smiled.

"You could pretend to be a little less excited that I'm leaving," I told him.

"I could," he agreed.

In other news, I am going to see if I can get Emma to sit in a baking dish. More to come on that.

You know you're boring when...

You know you're boring when the most exciting thing ever is an episode of Heroes on DVD. And then it ends and it's almost nine and the following conversation takes place.

Rob: Go get another one.

Me: At Blockbuster? It's almost nine.

Rob: Go.

Me: No. You go.

Rob: Ok, I'll go, but only if you clean everything up [from dinner]

Me: Deal.

Rob: That includes the cat vomit in the bedroom.

Me: There's cat vomit in the be...never mind. Just go. We're running out of time.

As if stabbing him repeatedly wasn't enough

I went out for drinks with friends tonight and in the midst of catching up on new apartments, new jobs, and other major change, Hannah felt the need to bring up this story. And I couldn't help it, I also had to share.

I know, I'm sorry.

All in the family

We had a serious family weekend here in NYC, including Rob's sister, her husband, their two kids, and 3 other families that they were traveling with. On Thursday night, when Rob was conveniently on a "business trip" to California, I met up with the whole gang for dinner. I had, in what I thought was hyperbole, told a friend I was having dinner that night with 15 people. It was, in fact, 20. And that is no exaggeration. There were 11 adults and 9 children. I honestly didn't know there were places in New York that could fit that kind of crowd. But there are and, in case you're curious, they're all in Times Square. Where relaxation goes to die.

Rob returned on Friday and after a smaller dinner (a mere 7 people), we brought his niece and nephew (ages 14 and 13) back to our place for a sleepover. They were both falling asleep around 12:15am during an episode of Heroes, but as soon as I turned the TV off and sent them to bed, they somehow discovered their second (or fifteenth?) winds and for the next half hour we listened to their hysterical giggles, screeches of "Jade just sharted!" and calls for "Uncle Robbie" to come and mediate their disputes.

Jade and Grant are unusually tall kids. At 14, Jade is 5'11". Grant is 6 feet. I so love to take pictures with them. Jade says they look like monsters next to me, but I think they are tall and beautiful and I am just the undersized human hovering near their armpits.

The funny thing about their height, though, is that it makes people treat them as though they are much older than they are. Jade got a caricature drawn of her on the street while she was here and the guy drew her in a small, tight, short black dress with huge boobs and her hand on her ass. The kid wears braces. Hello. Get her hand off her ass and put a t-shirt on her (which, incidentally, is what she was actually wearing.)

Today at lunch Jade asked why New York is called the Big Apple. Rob said he thought it had something to do with a brothel run by a woman named Eve. The kids both looked kind of confused, so I asked it they knew what a brothel was.

"Um, like a fight?" Jade asked.

"I think it's a meeting," said Grant.

Their dad turned to Rob. "Go ahead, Uncle Robbie. Explain this one."

Rob fumbled around, describing what a Madame did, before finally using the word "whorehouse." It was a bonding moment, I think.