What happens in the Hampton's...

...is this:

and this.

That is a man holding a cat on the beach, followed by a giant beaver chillin at the bar we were at. No big deal, just an average day in the life of LUNATICS.

Uvas Congeladas

If you don't know about this, now you do. Frozen grapes are amazing and you should go buy some and freeze them RIGHT NOW.

BF's room mate had a container of frozen grapes recently, which is how I discovered this amazing treat. Apparently other people knew about it also (I was just left out of the loop, clearly) because when I raved about it to JP and HA (room mates) they seemed to already know. Why did no one tell me about this until now!?

Last night we went on a roomie grocery shopping trip, and I bought a bag of grapes with the sole intention of freezing them, and freeze them I did.

So JP and I are sitting on the couch munching on grapes, she's watching tv, I'm looking at this weeks New York Magazine, when what do I see?

Frozen grapes. Guess me and the editor's over at New York were both late on the memo.

Better late than never, though, right?

TC: Interior Designer

Don't get confused. TC are my initials.

This past week has been quite interesting for me. After years of not knowing what career path I want to venture down, I've finally settled on something that seems so obviously right for me that I wonder how I missed it for so long. I've always been interested in fashion, but in the sense of matching colors and fabrics, figuring out what textures and patterns work best with each other, and then finding other things that compliment those combinations. I was never able to translate that into wanting a career in fashion, because everything about the fashion industry is entirely unappealing to me. The people, the culture, the lack of eating...

Those things, combined with my semi-recent move and enjoyment of decorating my bedroom, led me to interior design. I want to make your house sparkle. Literally. (Don't worry, I won't throw glitter all over your living room. I'll confine it to a basement bathroom.)

Thinking about it now, it seems so incredibly obvious that I'm not sure why it has taken me 25 years to figure out that this is what I want to do.

Whatever the rhyme or reason, I've figured it out. AH-HA my friends! Ah-ha. An interior designer I shall be.

sorry, no pictures in this post. But you can be damn sure that when I start going to school (hopefully in September) I'll be posting plenty of pictures of my projects.

And the beat goes on

Hi there.
It's been a few days (weeks) since I've written, I know. Sorry. Before I get to what I'll be writing about, I feel I should update you on the shoe situation I was experiencing the last time I wrote. The shoes WERE, in fact, for me. They were left in my room by HA, my room mate who has funny initials. They were given to her by a friend who was clearly mistaken or entirely uninformed about her shoe size. bad friend.
So anyway, HA figured they would fit me because she knows my shoe size (good friend) so she left them for me as a gift in my room. THANKS HA!

After thought:
I don't actually have a clue which friend of HA's gave her the shoes, but she's probably not really a bad friend. But she might be. But maybe not. It's hard to say.


On to the next:

I spent three GRUELING days at Jury Duty last week. I don't want to get into the details of it, because I tried writing about it last week and everything I wrote ended up reading like an angry rant in an op-ed piece about how lackadaisical our justice system is.

So instead I'm writing about what I saw after I was dismissed from day two of Hell.

I spotted this first. It piqued my interest not only because I am a horseback rider and it is (clearly) a horse-drawn carriage, but because, well, what the hell was a 1920's stage coach doing on the streets of TriBeCa?

That's when I looked over and saw this:

It's a mock 1920's New York City street, set up in an ally. A woman standing next to me inquired as to what was being filmed. Turns out it was Boardwalk Empire, The HBO show about Atlantic City in the 20's.

It was quite a sight to see, almost a glimpse into what life would have looked in New York at that time. Although it wasn't real, and aside from the camera's and crew, it was a convincing scene. So...I guess it's a job well done for the set stylists.

Here's another picture that I took:

Seeing this was by far the highlight of that week. Not too shabby, eh?

Things that make you go "hmm".

These shoes make me go "hmm" for a few different reasons:

1. They were in my bedroom when I got home this morning from BF's house.

2. They are not mine.

3.They look like the type of shoes one could purchase on the street in Asia, but have a rubber sole with an American seeming brand name imprinted on the bottom, which is contradictory to Asian authenticity.

4. Both of the girls I live with wear a size 7. I wear a size 9. The shoes fit me.

5. They are facing away from the wall (which is directly behind where they are resting), which implies that someone placed them there, as opposed to sliding them off their feet. If they slid them off, they would be facing toward the wall.

Which brings me to my final conclusion:

6. They must have been placed here on purpose, and are intended for me to have (how nice!). But it still begs the question...WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?? Hmm.

Another lesson in Manicures

About a week and a half ago I got a gel manicure, which is apparently the best new thing since sliced bread. OPI Axxium is what the product is called. I work with a girl who loves these gel manicures, so hearing about someone's first hand adoration (and not just reading about it in a magazine) convinced me to try it. They say it's supposed to last for over 2 weeks, which is a feat when you work in a restaurant, especially a bar. I'm lucky if I go chip free for 2 days with a regular manicure.

So I get the manicure. The colors are slim-pickings, and I end up choosing a demure pink that under no other circumstances would I ever voluntarily put on my nails. Maybe if I was attending a wedding or meeting a significant other's parents for the first time, but aside from being appropriate for those instances, this color sucked. I feel pushy and rude changing my color choice halfway through the manicure process though, so I stuck it out. Whatever. After an hour, I have a shiny new manicure.

Fast-forward a week and a half...

My index and middle finger are entirely lacking in polish. This is because the gel PEELED off. Literally, in one big piece, peeled off. And as you'll notice, my pinky nail is in severe danger of losing it's polish also.

Remember being a little kid (girl) and having that plastic-y nail polish that was non-toxic? it would come with those little make-up kits. And it would peel off as soon as it was dry. THIS IS THAT.

Ok, it's not the same as that non-toxic junk kids play with, but the result is the same. And now, instead of just being able to wipe the rest of this disaster off with nail polish remover, I have to go to a nail salon and soak it off in acetone.

I will not be getting another gel manicure. Ever.

Rainy Day(s)

It has been raining in New York, non-stop, for the past 4 or so days. Yesterday morning, at about 7:30, there was a crack of thunder so startlingly loud that it woke me from a deep sleep and, excuse my language, scared the shit out of me. I'm not generally fearful of lightning and thunder, but this was just ridiculous. Along with the deafening thunder, the sound of the heavy rain pelting against my open window made me feel certain that my room was quickly filling up with water. Why did I leave that window open so wide!?

My room was not filling up with water. My blinds were barely even drizzled on. But in that discombobulated 7:30am moment, death by drowning seemed plausible.

This is a screenshot of the weather forecast for the next week. I took it with my phone about 10 minutes ago. It entails rain, clouds and oh, thunder storms. Fantastic. I'm so excited. The few days prior to this looked exactly the same. I wonder what the rest of next holds in store for us.

As luck would have it, I own a fabulous pair of Hunter Wellington rain boots. I adore these things and wear them often enough to have made them worth the $100 I spent on them. It rains and snows often in New York (if you're not familiar) so they come in handy. Usually, though, we don't get two weeks straight of rain. But, because we are in the midst of it right now, it should come as no surprise that my rain boots have been at BF's house (waaaaay out in Brooklyn) for all of it.

I'm at his house today for the first time in a couple of weeks. We usually opt for my apartment. (To avoid being waaaaay out in Brooklyn). And this is what my sad, lonely, dry, deprived of rain boots looked like this morning:

Sorry boots. But I promise with every ounce of my being that there is plenty of rain ahead in the next week. You shall be worn, and soaked until you make that little squeaky noise you so enjoy making.

Oh, what's that I hear?
Just the sound of the rain starting again.