I feel like I just ordered a dessert from Cafe Mozart and have taken my customary two or three bites (with several minutes and frequent sips of water interspersed between each) and have decided that I can't go on. But I'm not talking about overwhelmed palletes and rich desserts here. I'm talking about overwhelming my capactiy for storing information in my head. If I don't get it out of my head right now, it may never make it on paper - I mean on my blog...
So last week we celebrated the final birthday of the year (Paul's) with our customary ritual of picking a ridiculous restaurant to eat at for dinner and not holding back on the feast. Paul's choice was the refined kitchen of Eleven Madison Park, which is located inside the building that houses a prestigious international investment bank and was filled to the brim with people in suits, sport coats, and silk ties - a truly professional "New York" establishment that you see in movies and read about in books. I don't have the same animosity against those "types" as I held when working for my previous employer, but suffice to say that I was not sporting any of those items. In fact, I was probably wearing jeans. And white socks. And a jacket that had oil and paint stains all over it.
Anyway, the feast was really a festivus-for-the-rest-of-us. Although we all enjoyed our meals immensely, I thought D's dish (simple beef short ribs) brought down the house because the meat was amazing and just melted in your mouth like the goat cheese in one of our appetizers. Yummy! Now we can save up our money for the next few months since we have until July before our next outing. Good thing, cuz I'm feeling broke all of the sudden.
I don't suppose feeling broke would have anything to do with the fact that I decided to hold off on purchasing a new digital camera and decided to be more practical and order myself a whole new computer instead. Prices were so low on that day that I couldn't afford not to buy a new one! So, sitting inside my apartment, I have a lovely new Dell computer, my first new computer since my junior year of college. Unfortunately, in an effort to save a few bucks, I ordered the monitor from a different vendor and so my Dell has been sitting here face-less since Friday, just beckoning to be setup and put to good use....storing mp3s or something menial like that. No wonder I've been having problems sleeping lately....
Friday evening, Paul, a co-worker of his (Nadia), and I met up at a Spanish restaurant for our first monthly book-club meeting. We just finished the book "War Trash" about a Chinese POW's experiences in South Korean / American prison camps. Although it got rave reviews from the guy behind the counter at B&N, I frankly found the book mediocre and a bit shallow. But I did learn a lot about the Korean War and the way prisoners camps were run, which appealed to my history appetite. It even mentioned that Czechoslovakian (remember, this is pre-Velvet Revolution!) soldiers helped patrol the neutral zone following the war, so it even appealed to my Eastern Euro appetite.
After our discussion, and tapas and sangria consumption at 1492, we cruised the Lower East Side looking for a suitable location to settle into for the evening. While looking for a live music venue that I'd heard about (and discovering that Google's SMS service was WRONG about an address), we came upon a French cafe/bar called Cafe Charbon that was pretty mellow with some housey-ambient music in the background being spun by a DJ. I totally dug this place for whatever reason, maybe because it was one of those "hidden gems" so prevalent, yet so rarely found, in the LES.
Sunday was my planning and catch-up day. I started it off right with a nice hour-long discussion with Roland in Slovakia, getting caught up on the latest stories of Eastern Euroland and what he's up to in his life. Following that discussion, I began filling my calendar with visitors for spring/summer. Three requests in one day!!! Wow, it's great to be popular ;o) . Alexander's friend Anja sent a reservation request for the end of May and about an hour after I sent her her reservation confirmation code, my bratty sister and her friends dropped the bomb on me that she and her friends were coming at the same time! To be fair, Summer said she was going to come "sometime in May" last week, so I had to bump Anja and make room for the teenagers. I mean the college graduates (that's scary).
Then came the barrage of IMs. First I got to provide remote assistance to the LA region in computer hardware maintenance. After working through some of that and coming to the conclusion that my "Midas Touch" in breaking anything electronic was contagious and that Jeff caught it from me when he was my roommate in Sunnyvale, we both gave up for the day and saved it for (another) rainy day.
While I was talking to Jeff, I got hit with questions about "why is this pirated software not working" from a former colleague of mine. "Don't ask me, you're the computer science student who's going to be working as a hacker in a few months" is what I implied, especially when I saw that my long lost friend from Peru, Vanessa, had just come online. So I started up that conversation and talked to her for a while. Sure enough, reservation request number three for for my apartment in one day! That's a world record.
In any case, I'm excited to have all my friends and family members that are coming to visit. It's not too late for you to come too!!
I couldn't sleep last night because I slept in too long on Sunday morning. I'm an insomniac, and I'm exhausted, especially after the mental strain and stress over waiting for my new 17" LCD monitor :-D . The computer was freshly formatted. It's purring like a kitten. And I'm in geek heaven....
Thanks for you attention,
The J. Riley
