Merry Christmas! I'm done baking ;)

Merry Christmas/happy holidays/all that jazz. MN is a snowy crazy place, as expected. It was 20 degrees today and it's supposed to reach 30 tomorrow. Whoa, heatwave. I've spent a great deal of time just hanging out either with friends or House. House on TV, yes that House.

I hung out with A. (J was also present), M and S a few days ago. I was explaining how I would have to disown my unborn future kids if they told me they were republican creationists. The others laughed, but sort of agreed with me. A. replied 'Well, I believe in God and I also believe in dinosaurs.' Wouldn't that be an awesome t-shirt? I kind of want that on a t-shirt. Makes me want to create a top ten list of t-shirt ideas.

10. I believe in God and I believe in dinosaurs.
9. That's what she said.
8. Only true New Yorkers know that people living anywhere else must be kidding themselves.
7...
Ok, I'll finish or revise the list later.

Baking. Oh baking. I want full and fantastic kitchen more than anything. Professional grade stove/oven, stainless steel cookware and a full espresso machine/bean grinder/steamer. My parent's don't have much of an interest in all of that, but their kitchen is a few times bigger than anything you could find in a NY apartment, so I baked to my little heart's content yesterday. Pumpkin bars and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were made. But, I'm certain to spend more time in front of the oven in the upcoming weeks. I need to get it all out of my system before I start gettting busy again.


I'm getting into crunch time. Decisions, decisions... Three days and I'll know what the future will hold for me in the next year.

Finished off the Adventskalender instead of dragging it to MN...feels a little sacrelig...but it was lecker!

Tuesday was perfectly 'holidayed' for my taste. I rushed around finishing things up and cleaned up my desk before I headed out for the holiday break. The annual team gift exchange brought a familiar X rated touch that is almost trademark of the group and I love it. I couldn't work with anyone else...ok, I could, it just wouldn't have the same amount of craziness and amusement. We followed it up with some bowling all while I hoped the snow would cease so I could get out of JFK.






Luckily, the precipitation did cease. I arrived in Minnesota. I experienced the softest landing of a plane that I can remember. As a true Minnesotan reminder of where I live, the plane pulled up to an alternate gate because the original gate was frozen shut.

Every time I leave New York, I miss it. It's an inevitable and reliable feeling that occurs within 48 hours of departing from the city. Here is the trigger this time. I was watching 'Keeping the Faith' this morning and Edward Norton says* "...the true New Yorkers' secret belief is that people living anywhere else had to be, in some sense, kidding themselves." Three years ago I didn't understand how a dirty, crazy, expensive, big city could be so captivating and attractive. I catch scenes in movies and know the places they shot it- places I walk through casually. Celebrity sightings are something to tiredly nod at or to believe it was meant to be, depending on the person - either way, it's an unalienable right in a common place kind of way. As I've said so many times before, NY and I have a love-hate relationship. I love to hate it. I hate to love it.

*It came from either from Woody Allen or John Updike (describing Henry Bech. I tried looking up the actual origin and can't seem to trace it...also, excuse my very loose restated interpretation of the quote...

Tis the Season...

So, before I ran into Jemaine (:::swoon:::) on Sunday, I had a funny Saturday. Since I'm infamous for making a long story longer, I'll expand on this one too.

Last year after sleeping over at M.'s (which sounds like a scandalous story, but really isn't...it was more annoying than anything and I'll talk about it another day) after a crazy night out we went down to Yucca for brunch. Yucca has since been my favourite brunch in all of NYC. Partially because of the spicy Bloody Mary's and mostly because of what I saw that morning. I was sipping on the spicy delicious beverage when I saw a Santa walk by. Crazy, but I suppose it is NY and a Santa is bound to walk by. Then a Christmas Tree walked by followed by another Santa. My friends and I stood up and tried to see over the random cars parked between us and Tompkins Sq. Park where hundreds of Santas stood. Yes my friends, SantaCon.

This year, SantaCon imposed itself on NYC last weekend. A few of us headed down to South St. with some reindeer antlers ready to see a few Santas. We got some stares on the subway because we busted out the antlers on the train to do our preparation. As we got out of the train and into the station, about 10 Santas emerged from other train cars... When we got above ground, it was like a movie: tacky red and white velour and fluff were coming at us from every angle. I felt so underdressed. I had a huge red and white deficit going on with my outfit, but I was just too amazed at all of the Santas to be too concerned.

We were in front of the Christmas tree that sits in the middle of all of the shops and watched some Santas singing and doing Capoeira...And as we walked past the tree we saw the hundreds of Santas that were hidden behind it...The vastness of Santas was mystifying. The sheer numbers are easy to see, but the infinite types were impressive.

Pimp Santa...
Scottish Santa...














And even one of 'Santa's Helpers'...

Stalked Jemaine Clement, then he followed us around.

Long haul flights are a love/hate situation for me. The only 'hate' is obviously the very long amount of time cooped up in an airplane that will never have enough space. The 'love' is having enough time to fall asleep for more than 15 minutes and to catch up on some shows. For me, a trip to Asia = catching up on Flight of the Conchords. A friend of mine sent around a video of the guys doing Business Time about a year ago and I've been a fan ever since.

I waited for M. yesterday in the lobby of MOMA and alternated between looking through old messages on my phone and scanning the room of museum goers. I look up and see this guy walk by with his girlfriend. OMG. It had to be Jemaine Clement from FotC! I follow him into the MOMA store and start looking at random gadgets at the kiosk next to him. I pick up a paper robot kit and look past it and directly at the guy in thick black rimmed glasses with a black knit hat instead. I couldn't quite tell if it was him or not. Actors tend to look a little different on TV than in real life... M. showed up so I pulled her into the store and we both picked up random accessories and looked past them at this guy. I looked up his height on Wikipedia and it said he should be 6'1", so I tried to estimate if he was tall enough. In the end, M. said "No, it's not him...the lips are different, just look at his face..." I agreed and we headed upstairs to wander our way though the museum.

We walk through the architecture room and over to the railing that overlooks the big lounge space. I take a few shots of the crowd and look to my right to see the other museum goers walk past us and there he is! 6'1", dark rimmed glasses, dark tossel-headed Jemaine. The real one! The guy in the store was just a guy who looked eerily like the real Jemaine that was standing in front of me. He walked past us and into the architecture exhibit. I forced M. to follow him with me. After about two minutes of looking at bogus models of buildings and thinking of the coolest way to talk to him, I finally convinced myself to walk over to him and say "Hi, sorry to bother you, but I really love your show, just wanted to let you know..." He awkwardly replied "Oh, thank you very much..." His New Zealand accent confirmed it was him. Then I had to follow right behind him to get to M. Awkward! M. and I head out of that exhibit and moved into the next room. Then we noticed Jemaine was on the same museum route we were on. We followed each other from floor to floor. It just became more and more awkward because I was the girl who walked up to him and said 'Hi!'...and he knew I knew he was Jemaine. So, we avoided and ducked past each other from room to room, floor to floor.

The only way I could have upped the ante in awkwardness would be to sit next to him on a plane while I caught up on episodes of Flight of the Conchords...

Week is almost over...phew. One week until Minnesota!

I have been driving myself crazy with the help of miscellaneous extraneous factors. Work was about 75% of the extraneousness and 25% is/was/will always be the regular life administration.

So, Work. I've been worrying and thinking about my job and life for the past few weeks and it all came to a head two days ago. Basically, I need to decide my next step. The easier choice for me is the crazier choice if any outsiders to my life saw the options. To be honest, it's the choice I'm leaning towards at the moment. It gives me a chance to further live out the life I describe/aspire/see myself living. It's a bit rogue, exciting and allows me to be foreign. M. said a few months ago that I '...love to be the foreigner.' And, I do. I also like being nomadic and mobile. A few more weeks and I'll have this settled. The second part to work was that a lot of my friends at work were let go. So, while I was stressing over the official chance at a new period of life, they were getting notified to leave. I've literally never experienced anything like that. I walked into the office and it felt toxic. The air, the people and the space all seemed toxic. Everyone knew what was going on. It wasn't until the next day that the air cleared and everything seemed normal again. It was an awful experience to witness, but it was good to see. It was good to see how people are affected. How difficult it is and how it's not something anyone can take lightly however, it also needs to happen sometimes.

I'm glad this week is finally ending, and now I'm only a few days away from Minnesota! I discovered a new brilliant pastry at my favorite stand in the Union Square Market - the Apple Tart. It sounds normal. Apple, pastry, done. But, no. I swear it is so much more than a standard pastry. This pastry helped me get through this week. The apples are great- baked and tender but not too mushy. The pastry is sprinkled with raw sugar and tastes like real butter in every bite. If I become obese because of this, I'll get there happily. This is a pick of a fantastic pastry stall in Borough Market, London to help you visualize my obsession with pastries.


Tomorrow I'm going to try and join in on this...

SantaCon NYC. A friend is going to try and pick up some antlers for me tonight. If all goes well, I'll be buddying up with hundreds of festive Santas tomorrow. Tis the season!

T-minus 8 days and counting until I land in the Twin Cities!

I kind of have a complex about staying in one place too long. I think my dream would be to live as a lady of leisure. The things I love involve traveling, eating, photography, reading and journaling. If I only had exemplary skills in any of those areas, I'd have a shot at being a lady of leisure! Perhaps in another lifetime.

This past weekend I walked around LES and some other parts of lower Manhattan with M and S. Good day for graffiti. Here is one of my favourites from Saturday...

This was another favorite of mine...not sure if it is a particular quote from something or not, though.


I got a Spanish Latte from Think (awesome, awesome coffee shop) and it was better than the one's I'd had in the past. Perhaps the intro to the coffee was better this time. A. I was freezing. B. I love the smell of freshly ground coffee beans and espresso drinks, which it did. C. It was less sweet than the last time I remembered having one.

I am on day 9 of my Adventskalender. D sent it over from Munich and it's fantastic, but I could have used about 5 more of them today. I feel bad even thinking about opening the doors for the upcoming days. Seems sacrelig. Being German, the chocolates are brilliant... Here's the calender at day two...

Wondering how my Mumbaikar friends are doing...leave me a message and let me know!

I follow a lot of blogs, especially travel blogs. It seems like my 'blogging friends' are doing their own stories of the Mumbai attacks, so here is my connection.

I was on the treadmill last week staring blankly at the TVs like usual. Walking and watching the normal trash on E! and ESPN. I looked further towards the right to the last TV. CNN rotated clips of India. It's strange to be pulled into breaking news because you recognize the places in the clips before you read the scrolling headlines. I recognized the style: buildings, cars, and graffiti. It was India. It was Mumbai. It was the hotel I stayed in for three weeks from Diwali through Thanksgiving last year. The Taj hotel wasn't my favorite hotel, but it is widely known and worth a visit for history's sake. They showed an empty VT (the Grand Central Station of Mumbai, if you will) with blood pooled on the floor. I remember climbing the stairs into the station and walking across the tiled floor, being pushed and bumped into from every angle as I looked around.

My most recent trip to Mumbai was over the summer during the time of the bombings in Bangalore, which were a much smaller scale than the Mumbai attacks. Even at that time, I wasn't concerned about my safety, although it seemed as if everyone else was. Pulling in and out of 'western' hotels involved guards running mirrors under the car and searches through the trunk. The only point I was slightly worried about dying in an attack was at the airport departing Mumbai. A suspicious package was left near the check-in area I needed to be at. The bomb squad roped the area off and was deciding when and how to remove the package. Had it been a bomb, I had nothing but a velvet rope between me and it. I’m not sure how traveling has made me fearless – dental work without Novocain in Bangalore, eating ‘black’ tofu (you don’t want to know), riding on the top of a Landrover through dunes only holding onto the luggage rack for safety… I guess I’d rather live a little dangerously than miss something along the way. Funny, I haven’t incorporated as much fearlessness in my everyday life!

This was a picture from my trip last year. The Taj hotel is on the left and suffered a significant amount of damage due to the shootings, bombs, fires and hostage situation.




Happy Thanksgiving!

My original plan was to spend Thanksgiving parked on the couch in front of the TV catching up on all of the junk I miss while at work. I was home for a visit at the end of October and already have tickets to go home for the Christmas holiday, so a visit in November seemed like a lot. (A lot of time at home, a lot of $$...) Well, I ran into a friend the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and my plans changed. I was invited to spend the day with friends in the UWS. So, that is what I did. I hung out with former coworkers and their kids. It was actually neat to see. I feel like quite a transplant in NY. I am under the impression that I don't live in NY, I just stay here. So, hanging out in apartment that a family has had for over 20 years is pretty remarkable for me. I asked all sorts of questions about the neighborhood and building was like when they first moved in. All in all, a nice day.

Southbury where it always comes down to 'Automatic Weapons' or 'Chinatown'.

Apples to Apples. Always ends up ridiculous. Need I say more?