Ending a Collection

Shot glasses. Those little cylindrical glass houses for shots of alcohol. One of the most cliche collections a person can have, IMO, and I say that as someone whose been collecting shot glasses for almost 10 years, sadly. But (un)sadly, I’ve finally stopped. In Gdansk, the moment presented itself for me to obtain a third Polish shot glass and I said no. Part of me is afraid that I’ll look back someday and be sad that my shot glass collection is incomplete from the time I spent in Poland.

In reality, I know that I’ll probably never use the two that I bought and in a few months (or weeks, or days) I won’t care, at all. In fact, I’ll be happy that I didn’t buy another souvenir to clutter up my cabinet. I have too many already.

I have shot glasses from London, Oslo, Krakow, Warsaw, Tallinn, Rome, Venice, Jamaica, Miami, Puerto Rico, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hollywood, San Diego, San Francisco, Prague, Portland, Seattle… among other places.  

The way I look at it is that when I didn’t buy a shot glass in Gdansk, I officially ended my collection. It’s been a good run though, but I can count on one hand how many times they’ve been used, so it’s not worth it in the long run. Anyone have any good ideas for displaying shot glasses though? I’d be open to hearing them for sure!

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Week 1 (or What My Exercise Schedule Actually Looked Like)

I wrote last week about mixing up my work out schedule and including a rest day or two because those might actually be important. Here’s what I’d anticipated it might look like:

Monday: Ashtanga/Iyengar Yoga
Tuesday: Running + sit ups
Wednesday: Running + sit ups + Ashtanga/Iyengar yoga
Thursday: Running + sit ups
Friday: Rest?
Saturday: Vinyasa
Sunday: Rest or Run?

But here’s what it actually ended up looking like:

Monday: Yoga (85 minutes)
Tuesday: 50 sit-ups, running (22 minutes)
Wednesday: 50 sit-ups, arm weight exercises, yoga (85 minutes)
Thursday: Running (20 minutes)
Friday: Yoga (65 minutes)
Saturday: Unintentional rest day
Sunday: Yoga (30 minutes)

With trips out to Long Island and Westchester this weekend, I ate tons of food so now I’m going to try to get back to health eating. Today I think I’m going to yoga and then I’m going to also run. Now where’s my Inspiralized cookbook…

Maryland Mother Arrested for Leaving 8- and 9-Year-Old Home Alone While She Picked Up Takeout

Um, what? The next generation of kids are going to be so helpless they won’t be able to wipe themselves. The cops also acted like assholes. If they really felt like she was in the wrong, give her a stern talking to – not handcuffs. 

Maybe this woman needed a break and also got a coffee. (I would need All Of The Coffee Breaks if I had an 8 and 9 year old.) Maybe the restaurant took a long time with the food. Either way: if you can’t leave your 8 and 9 year old kids home for 45 minutes without having to worry that they’re going to burn the vacation rental down, you probably shouldn’t have had them. 

But she wasn’t worried. Maybe she wasn’t a helicopter parent – obviously, I mean, she wasn’t. It was the cops who needed to mind their own business. If she’d left them along for 6 hours, or a day, I could see someone saying something. But 45 minutes? GFY. She should’ve told them there was probably a 4 year old with a shotgun somewhere near by that was maybe more concerning, but she was south of the Mason-Dixon, so they probably wouldn’t have been all that concerned.

My brother, who will be 21 in December, came into the city on Sunday to grab lunch with J and I and meet Playbill (obviously this was more important lunch). He was taking the train to Penn Station and my mother (a very proud self-proclaimed helicopter parent, sigh; it’sawonderIturnedoutsowell) wanted me to meet him at Penn Station because she was worried that he wouldn’t be able to figure out the subway. The subway route, btw, is taking one train uptown for a handful of stops and getting out on my corner. 

I wanted to tell her that if he can’t figure that out then she shouldn’t take him back to school next week because there’s no hope. But I didn’t. I just said no, that he could figure it out. 

And guess what, the almost-21-year-old figured out how to taking one fucking subway by himself to a designated stop. Golf claps. Seriously, parents of America, calm the fuck down. European parents are laughing. 

Maryland Mother Arrested for Leaving 8- and 9-Year-Old Home Alone While She Picked Up Takeout

Five Days in New Orleans

Sorry for the silence! After five days in New Orleans with Kristen, my sinuses freaked out and I was busy back at work, so, Tumblrs, sorry, you took a back seat. BUT! New Orleans is an amazing city. When Tennessee Williams said “There are only 3 cities in America, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland,” he was not lying. So much history and art and music. The architecture is beautiful there. I was astonished. It’s also one of the most haunted cities in America. It’s ALSO cheap as hell. My beer at the hotel bar was $7.50 (RIGHT?). 

Kristen and I went on a ghost tour, got lots of beads (it was the verrrrry beginning of Mardi Gras), went to Frenchmen Street, drank Hurricanes at Pat O’Briens where they were invented, saw the shitshow that was Bourdon Street, got very sloshed at times, went to Cafe Du Monde for the coffee, listened to jazz at Spotted Cat, and ate lots of amazing food (Herbsaint and Three Muses – GO). And we walked an entire parade route down Dauphine Street (we only caught up the tail end of it, unfortunately) and saw lots of the Bywater.

When I was on my own, I went into the Louisiana and New Orleans #1 Cemeteries (saw Marie Laveaus’ grave), I went to the World War II Memorial Museum, walked around the French Quarter, the Frenchmarket, and the Warehouse District lots. I drank a $3.50 Shocktop (not happy hour, that’s just the regular price, WHAT). I went to one of the Louisiana State Museums to exhibits on Katrina and Mardi Gras, I went to a yoga class at Reyn Yoga when I was incredibly hung over. I walked up and down Royal Street in the French Quarter a bunch of times listening to the music. I spent a bunch of time in Jackson Square people watching (and listening to music). I ate at the Ruby Slipper and Sylvain (both were awesome!). 

For the first time ever I didn’t really buy any souvenirs. I just didn’t feel like I needed any. I brought coffee back for my office and pralines back for my parents, and lots of beads, but that’s it. 

The people were incredibly nice and there’s so much to do there. I was sad to leave the seventy degree whether for twenty degree weather, but I was exhausted. If you’re going to NOLA, go for 4-5 days for your first time. You’ll never be bored but it won’t be too much. LOTS of pictures below the cut…

Staycations

I haven’t had an entire week off since about July 2012 (before I started my full-time internship in early August 2012). I’m a bit of a control freak and a worrier so I never like to take time off and detatch from work. I had used about five of my twenty vacation days so far when I realized it was late September and I could only carry over 5 of those remaining days, I decided to take this week off and do nothing.

Well, I took this week off, but I didn’t do nothing, technically. I slept in most days to 8am (a good two hours later than I usually sleep!), which was nice. I kept track of my work email on my phone and as far as I could tell, no shit was hitting the fan at all. Which was nice. Very nice.

Movies: I saw two – Cuatro and Gravity (in IMAX 3D). They were both good.

Shows: I saw A Night With Janis Joplin & Bronx Bombers. Both were awesome!

Cooking: I made chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, chocolate chip cookies, butternut squash soup, and this linguine without the shrimp. Because I was lazy.

the beginnings of butternut squash soup

TV: I don’t have cable, but I do have Netflix and I felt called to watch seasons 1 and 2 of Scandal. So I did. It was good, but you had to really be paying to it. I’m looking forward to the next episodes! But damn, Kerry Washington, I wish you wouldn’t have had all that plastic surgery.

Yoga: I made it to six yoga classes. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday (x2), and Saturday. I took four classes with one of my favorite teachers whose classes I can never make (because of timing) anymore. It was awesome. Apparently I have to slow my practice down. A lot. And she taught me how to use a yoga block to give myself a neck massage. Amazing. Below is my heart rate monitor after my most grueling vinyasa class:

Running: I ran twice. Once last weekend (6 miles) and once today (3.2 miles). That’s good enough for me.

Coffee: I drank lots of coffee. I went to Birch, Ground Support, Think, Joe, and Everyman Espresso. I spent too much money at these establishments.

Food: I finally got to try Dakota Bar on 72nd and Columbus with two of my friends last night. I liked it – though it’s incredibly overpriced. The mini-burgers were really good though! I also had lunch with a friend down by his office at Bar Ciccio in SoHo. 

Firsts: I went to my first meditation class tonight. It was awesome. And it cost only $5. It was a thirty minute meditation, followed by a thirty minute dharma talk, and then cookies and tea. It was amazing. They were incredibly welcoming. Check them out here.

Banksy: The incredible and elusive street artist left his mark on the Upper West Side last night so I went right over to see it this morning. Pretty amazing.  My dad was with me and asked me to tell him when he gets arrested. After which he asked me to email him the photo and he put it on his FB wall. 😉

Central Park: And lastly today I spent the afternoon with my dad taking photos in Central Park. We walked around most of the park (except north of 100th, just because we ran out of time), walked through the Whitney, and got lunch at Untitled. My dad had shockingly never seen the Reservoir before, or Bethesda Fountain (even though he did see the original Broadway production of Angels in America (part 1) in the early 90’s!). It was a nice day!

Overall: Not a bad 9 days off.

A Weekend in Maine

I decided a couple of months ago to see if I could go stay with my aunt, uncle, and cousin at their house in Freeport, Maine for a weekend. They said “of course!” I took the train up to Boston on Thursday, where my aunt was in town for business, and we drove back together. Over the past four days I did:

• I learned “Imagine” on guitar, thanks to my uncle.
• Had two jam sessions including multiple guitars, a ukelele, and a mandolin.  
• Went to yoga
• Meditated
• Baked super kick-ass peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars.
• Baked double chocolate chip cookies.
• Cooked Indonesian-style fried rice with vegetables.
• Went to see David Byrne & St. Vincent at the State Theatre in Portland.
• Burned a CD from my family of a ton of Guster songs.
• Shopped: I bought three bras ($47!), jeans from the Gap (originally $60, on sale for $22), and super cute sandals from Bass (originally $90, on sale for $37)… among a few other things.
• Played Clue (yes, the board game) for the first time in FOREVER.
• Two days in a row I slept until the exceedingly late hour of 9AM. 

I had an excellent time. I’ll post pictures of food and the concert later. Now it’s back to real life!