Jersey and (another) Blond Moment

Whew, Sunday night has arrived and I'm exhausted! Friday I had a follow up doctor's appointment to get my eye checked out after last week's painful steroid injections (Chalazion, see earlier blogs). I'm happy to say that the prognosis was good and they have all but disappeared, in part because of my dedication to good eye hygiene -whatever that means! Unfortunately, while the steroids did achieve their intended purpose in dealing with my eye-lid, I have not noticed a significant increase in my muscle mass....

Friday night, after eating some leftover penne vodka that I had whipped up earlier in the week, I met up with my former roommate Alan, who has his new apartment about a mile down the road from me. I knew it would end up being a late night when we didn't even meet up until 10:00pm! His girlfriend was coming into town, so we chilled at his place and had a few tasty beverages while we were waiting. Well, she didn't get into town until about midnight, so it was definitely going to be a late one. We headed to the Upper West Side to a place called MOD, which was right up my ally and lived up to its branding as a place Austin Powers would hang out - psychodelic colors, wide variety of music, and a good atmosphere. Groovy, baby! We left there at about 3:00am, so a good time was had, for sure...

Saturday was dedicated to sleeping in and doing some chores around the apartment. I caught some of the Olympics at Paul and Cathy's and performed my duties as the toll-free tech support line for some people back in California and here in the city. Got spyware (annoying pop-ups with ads)? Get Spybot or Ad-aware.

Saturday night I had planned on taking it easy, but I had told my buddy Sean that I'd head over to Hoboken, New Jersey with him to check out the scene. This is hard to explain, but suffice to say that New Yorkers are often confused when I tell them that I voluntarily went to Jersey to hang out for an evening. Jersey is NOT New York, in fact it's quite the opposite. It's a standard, SUV and mini-van-drivin', burger- and chain-restaurant eatin', Abercrombie & Fitch -wearin', city-traffic-hatin', Caucasian American state, not the Euro-styled, diverse city that is NYC.

I have heard good things about Hoboken, so I figured that it at least deserved a reconnaisance mission. It pretty much lived up to it's expectations as a city where 20-somethings from Jersey and Pennsylvania congregate to in order to save some cash and have a good night out. It was kind-of like San Luis Obispo on a much bigger scale. According to some Jersey residents, Hoboken has more bars per-square-mile than any other city in America. I'm not sure how true that is, but there were lots of place to go, for sure. We hung out at a place that had a live band and enjoyed a few $2 Miller-Lite drafts for the evening. There were definetely some cute 20-something felines there, so I had a good time shooting the breeze and earned the nickname "the Ice-breaker" from the guys I was hanging out with. I guess that's a good thing :o/ !! I was well on my way to adding another set of digits to my cell-phone before disaster struck me (as usual) and I bumped into my friend Sean's arm, causing him to drop the glass of wine he was holding and distributing glass shards into "Sonya's" open-toe shoes. Oops. That didn't go over too well with her (and especially with her friends), freeing up that reserved space in my cell phone's phonebook. Game over.

Today was a beautiful day, one of the best we've had all year. Mid-to-high 70's, clea, blue sky, not a drop of humidity. An excellent day to head down to Greenwhich Villiage for a 1:00pm brunch. I haven't spent much time on Hudson Ave. down there, but I plan on enjoying that area much more frequently now that I've discovered how wonderful it is. Thou-shalt visit me, and thou too will enjoy how wonderful Hudson Ave. and Greenwhich Villiage is.

Congratulations to my friend Ewa on her engagement! I look forward to attending your wedding in Poland next year :o) !!

Ta ta for now....

(P.S. Daniel Calandrino, if you're out there, what's up with your email address? Did you change it? I keep getting emails returned to me)