I'm hoping that this post will help me fall off the wagon when it comes to not writing, and with the events recently I think it's time! The last two weeks have been pretty bi-polar around here. The phrase circle of life is very cliche (thanks, Lion King), but it really has hit me like a capoeira roundhouse recently.
Two weeks ago today, I attended the first funeral visitation in my life. I've been pretty lucky up to this point in dealing with the ends of life, i.e. I have not had to deal with it! My co-worker's wife passed away after about five years of battling lung and brain cancer, and although I didn't ever have the chance to meet her, just attending the visitation was fairly traumatic to me. I was confronted with feelings that hadn't really hit me before, but I put on a brave face and got through the visitation unscathed. But I felt like I had totally disrespected the experience by trying to be wooden with my emotions and dwelled on it for the rest of the evening, trying to understand the pain and loneliness that my coworker would be going through, knowing that they had no children and by his stories in the past how much he had loved her. I had a really hard time with it all night and actually lost quite a lot of sleep over it. I attended the funeral mass the next morning and felt like I was able to connect a lot more to my emotions and, thankfully, that awarded me with a sense of closure that was missing the day before. It made me think a lot about my relationship with my wife and how lucky I am to have someone that I can talk to and experience life with, although she was out of the country for the past month!
Fast forward just two days later, and the point hit home when I was told that my own grandmother had passed away after years of battling her cancer while waiting for Erika at the airport. I don't know if it was better or worse that I had gone through so much in the previous few days, but I definitely felt farther away from my family than I had for a long time. I yearned to be back in California and since I had moved to New York I knew that this day would come, especially recently as hospice had been coming to her house to let her go painlessly and peacefully. No matter how prepared you think you are for this event, and knowing that it's going to happen soon, knowing that you won't be able to have a conversation about their life with them again is hard, obviously. I definitely feel like I missed out on being there at the end, but I hope to find some closure for this event at Christmas time when I can be with my family and visit my grandma for the last time. I won't forget her voice and my memory of her will always be of her healthy years when she swing danced with me on the family ranch so many years ago!
As chapters end, so chapters begin. After six weeks of talking to my in utero "daughter" and wife over Skype, we found out that "she" was actually a he. If the ultrasound technician can't really tell the gender of your child, isn't it better that they say "we don't know yet" rather than "we think it's a girl, but we can't guarantee it yet"? It's going to take a while for me to come around to him being around in the belly, but like the doctor said, of course I'm happy it's a boy :o) . It's fun to think about all of the permutations that our child could have, but of course I assume that he will have olive skin, be handsome (i.e. look more like his mother), blue eyes, and thick blonde hair, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be his biggest fan even if he looks like a little cholito from South America :o).
We're in fully baby prep-mode around here and are beginning to think about baby journals. We looked at some at Barnes & Noble but they just seem to artificial and lack the personal touch, so we are thinking about going the creative route with making our own. Having done some research, I think it's going to be a lot of work, but if I'm going to be documenting it on paper and in pictures, I think I can at least do it online via my blog as well! Maybe I need a new blog :-$??? We'll see about that. In any case, if anyone has experience with scrapbooking baby journals, by all means let me know!
In other news, there is a lot going on with our friends. Alan and Andrea just had baby boy number two! Melissa and Jonathan have begun planning their wedding for next summer - in Aruba! Priya and Manny are engaged and are planning their wedding for next summer - in Jamaica (rumors)! Yinety and David are engaged and I can only assume that they are planning their wedding for next summer as well - in the Dominican Republic! Thanks a lot folks, couldn't you at least space your weddings out a year, or are we going to have to move down to the Caribbean for the summer? Not to mention Sean and Roberta's potential "wedding" in Italy - next summer. When else??
Season's greetings to everyone, stay in touch!
J. Riley, send in those baby journal ideas all of you Martha Stewarts out there!
Showing posts with label Married Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Married Life. Show all posts
Friday, December 03, 2010
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Ambitionz as a...Drivah?
Since I'm half-baked at the moment (my favorite B&J froyo), I figure that I can dedicate a blog title to the great, late rapper Tupac Shakur, who was a visionary, who sought change, and died trying. But he didn't change his lifestyle enough and was eventually gunned down after getting involved in the east/west hip-hop gang wars. I suppose Tupac was named after the last Peruvian Inca Tupac Amaru, who resisted change until the end and eventually succumbed to the Spanish conquistadors, who tied each of his limbs to a horse, and then unleashed the horses, who tore his body literally apart in front of the remnants of the Incan empire in their capital city of Cusco. Visuals aside, both Tupacs resisted the change that was necessary to survive.
Although not quite so extreme, there's gonna be some change in my life to come, and regardless of the outcome, there will be a car involved, and I will be a "drivah". I spent the last four days of last week up in Massachusetts with my mom, sister, and wife and became reacquainted with relatives, checked out some of the tourist hot-spots in the state and region, and spent some time in a great city and it's charming residential areas. I thought I had a rough sketch of my future residence in California, but Boston wooed me with it's perfect weather, it's urban and academic atmosphere, it's houses with marvelous and historic character, it's New England charm, and so many wonderful distant relatives of mine. I'm not sure if I can say that this has thrown a wrench in my plans, but it is an intriguing option that appealed to both of us. Of course, ask me in six weeks when it starts snowing there, and things can change in a hurry!
I'm at a cross-roads in my family life, and things are just not falling into place perfectly. But can they? I'm not so sure they can. No matter where I end up, I will miss everything that New York City offers. I've been saying for a while, why stay here when I can't enjoy everything it has on offer? But we do enjoy so much of what it offers with it's melting pot (or at least a salad!) environment that I take for granted until I visit somewhere that doesn't offer that to the same degree (like Boston). Public transportation is the best thing ever invented, but in seven months it's going to turn into a huge pain in the ass.
And where do I go from here? Just today I had a conversation with someone who had moved recently and whose children missed their old neighborhood, it's shopping centers, it's bread (??), and other things like that. It seems so easy just to pack it up and move out to California, but things will be so different there! We will miss walking to the grocery store and being able to buy almost any ingredient that we want. We will miss having every clothing store in existence a mere 30 minute subway ride away. Of course, we will have family there, which is a huge, huge bonus that can't be measured. What about moving to Boston? We would be in a charming environment, have to deal with snow and more of the same weather that we deal with now, and uncertainty as to whether family bonds could be established after thirty three years of neglect. But at least the option is there and we could settle into something and establish a home that would be our own. And then there is always international destinations like Peru, where we would have countless family members, certain employment for Erika, fresh fruit, vegetables, and all types of food from neighborhood markets. The language issue and the culture change wouldn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't know too many people (which Erika has had to deal with here as well!), my profession would most likely have to change, and I would need to deal with the crime and pollution that Lima offers. We could even stay more or less local and relocate to Long Island or (gasp!) dirty Jersey. We would be able to maintain some form of relationship with our current environment and our friends, but we know absolutely nobody in those outer regions and would be just as far (or farther) from our family then we are now! So, there is no perfect scenario, but what is certain is that there will be change in store in the future.
On the other fronts, it seems like Erika is progressively getting better and starting to feel human again, though it could change at any moment! I've been delving into my local libraries and reading some great books, such as "Born to Run", "Freakonomics", "Shadow of the Wind" (a good read before and after Barcelona!), "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman", and a few others that I've already forgotten. The idea of getting an eReader is becoming more appealing to me, especially as I've discovered that I can actually check out eBooks from the library. One of my biggest issues with the eReaders is that I don't want to have to buy books. I don't buy them now, I'm never going to read them again most likely, so why should I pay $10 for a book? But if libraries, an tax-paid-for asset that many people don't take advantage of enough I think, can rent me a book for a Nook (sorry Kindle and iPad fans), that has some appeal. Of course, I don't really have an issue with carrying a book now, so I really don't see any reason to buy an eReader in the first place! But it would be nice for trips.
J. Riley, I have to admit defeat - I most likely won't finish Barcelona and Germany! Maybe I'll publish some cliff notes!
Although not quite so extreme, there's gonna be some change in my life to come, and regardless of the outcome, there will be a car involved, and I will be a "drivah". I spent the last four days of last week up in Massachusetts with my mom, sister, and wife and became reacquainted with relatives, checked out some of the tourist hot-spots in the state and region, and spent some time in a great city and it's charming residential areas. I thought I had a rough sketch of my future residence in California, but Boston wooed me with it's perfect weather, it's urban and academic atmosphere, it's houses with marvelous and historic character, it's New England charm, and so many wonderful distant relatives of mine. I'm not sure if I can say that this has thrown a wrench in my plans, but it is an intriguing option that appealed to both of us. Of course, ask me in six weeks when it starts snowing there, and things can change in a hurry!
I'm at a cross-roads in my family life, and things are just not falling into place perfectly. But can they? I'm not so sure they can. No matter where I end up, I will miss everything that New York City offers. I've been saying for a while, why stay here when I can't enjoy everything it has on offer? But we do enjoy so much of what it offers with it's melting pot (or at least a salad!) environment that I take for granted until I visit somewhere that doesn't offer that to the same degree (like Boston). Public transportation is the best thing ever invented, but in seven months it's going to turn into a huge pain in the ass.
And where do I go from here? Just today I had a conversation with someone who had moved recently and whose children missed their old neighborhood, it's shopping centers, it's bread (??), and other things like that. It seems so easy just to pack it up and move out to California, but things will be so different there! We will miss walking to the grocery store and being able to buy almost any ingredient that we want. We will miss having every clothing store in existence a mere 30 minute subway ride away. Of course, we will have family there, which is a huge, huge bonus that can't be measured. What about moving to Boston? We would be in a charming environment, have to deal with snow and more of the same weather that we deal with now, and uncertainty as to whether family bonds could be established after thirty three years of neglect. But at least the option is there and we could settle into something and establish a home that would be our own. And then there is always international destinations like Peru, where we would have countless family members, certain employment for Erika, fresh fruit, vegetables, and all types of food from neighborhood markets. The language issue and the culture change wouldn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't know too many people (which Erika has had to deal with here as well!), my profession would most likely have to change, and I would need to deal with the crime and pollution that Lima offers. We could even stay more or less local and relocate to Long Island or (gasp!) dirty Jersey. We would be able to maintain some form of relationship with our current environment and our friends, but we know absolutely nobody in those outer regions and would be just as far (or farther) from our family then we are now! So, there is no perfect scenario, but what is certain is that there will be change in store in the future.
On the other fronts, it seems like Erika is progressively getting better and starting to feel human again, though it could change at any moment! I've been delving into my local libraries and reading some great books, such as "Born to Run", "Freakonomics", "Shadow of the Wind" (a good read before and after Barcelona!), "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman", and a few others that I've already forgotten. The idea of getting an eReader is becoming more appealing to me, especially as I've discovered that I can actually check out eBooks from the library. One of my biggest issues with the eReaders is that I don't want to have to buy books. I don't buy them now, I'm never going to read them again most likely, so why should I pay $10 for a book? But if libraries, an tax-paid-for asset that many people don't take advantage of enough I think, can rent me a book for a Nook (sorry Kindle and iPad fans), that has some appeal. Of course, I don't really have an issue with carrying a book now, so I really don't see any reason to buy an eReader in the first place! But it would be nice for trips.
J. Riley, I have to admit defeat - I most likely won't finish Barcelona and Germany! Maybe I'll publish some cliff notes!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Minor IVF Update
Putting Europe aside for a moment, we received news last week that the Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis lab has completed it's setup - in more or less a month. Not bad considering they told us it would take up to eight weeks to have it all ready. We shortly thereafter received a phone call from the NYU Fertility Clinic that we are working with asking us if....we are ready for the next step! And that we had to come in THAT AFTERNOON for a meeting with the head nurse to show us how everything works from then on. I was expecting an hour long meeting, but it turned into like a three hours deal with a few other couples going through all the details.
It would have been nice to have like two weeks to mentally prepare for all this, but the very next day we were told that we had to order all of the needles (30+), pills (3 types), and a delicious cocktail of half a dozen hormone medications that Erika will be injected with by your's truly (joy!) over the next month, all of which had to be shipped with Fedex Priority overnight shipping.
Looking at the pharmacy's website, one of the medications alone was going to cost close to $800 and I was hoping that insurance would cut that down a bit, but by how much I didn't know. When Erika told me the pharmacy called and quoted us $780 for the whole package, I was relatively pleased and was mentally prepared for that. When the package arrived at 11:00am the next morning, the total for the bill was listed right there as a whopping...$78!! I was speechless - and immediately ordered my new Canon SD940IS camera that will replace our busted SD800 that served me so well over the last few years.
So, that was quite a stressful few days. However, after a sleepless first night, the stress was released over the weekend by indulging in four wonderfully delicious World Cup games :o).
To conclude, if everything goes well, there will be a bun in the over by the end of July!
J. Riley, speechless!
It would have been nice to have like two weeks to mentally prepare for all this, but the very next day we were told that we had to order all of the needles (30+), pills (3 types), and a delicious cocktail of half a dozen hormone medications that Erika will be injected with by your's truly (joy!) over the next month, all of which had to be shipped with Fedex Priority overnight shipping.
Looking at the pharmacy's website, one of the medications alone was going to cost close to $800 and I was hoping that insurance would cut that down a bit, but by how much I didn't know. When Erika told me the pharmacy called and quoted us $780 for the whole package, I was relatively pleased and was mentally prepared for that. When the package arrived at 11:00am the next morning, the total for the bill was listed right there as a whopping...$78!! I was speechless - and immediately ordered my new Canon SD940IS camera that will replace our busted SD800 that served me so well over the last few years.
So, that was quite a stressful few days. However, after a sleepless first night, the stress was released over the weekend by indulging in four wonderfully delicious World Cup games :o).
To conclude, if everything goes well, there will be a bun in the over by the end of July!
J. Riley, speechless!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Meet The Cuevas
Unlike Meet the Parents/Fockers, the sequel of Meet the Cuevas in San Marcos, Cajamarca, Peru was actually better than the first one that was released about a year and a half ago. It was certainly different than the first trip, especially considering the fact that I was picked up by Erika's dad and spent the first night at Erika's aunt's house without her around. And of course, no one speaks English so it was certainly a big challenge for me to communicate. But the challenge was met and I was dominate with my Spanglish, dropping some jokes and getting some laughs out of everyone. It was challenging, but I proved again that when Erika isn't around to translate, I can drop it like it's hot!
Among some new bad words, one thing that I did learn or was reminded of was the fact that Inca Kola, a staple of every meal in Peru, contains caffeine. To demonstrate my reaction to caffeine, on the rare days that I am sleep walking to work and cannot wake up, I put literally 1.45 inches of coffee in a cup and I'm wired for hours. So drinking ample amounts of Inca Kola at about 11:00pm and *not* following it up with equal parts of beer or liquor of some kind (which I was actually hoping for), means only one thing: insomnia. The Inca Kola, plus stressing about waking up late for our 5:00am flight, plus airplanes flying about 50 feet over the house as they come in to land (*much* louder than I remember at our house when the military planes would be pulling into Moffet), plus the usual orchestra of animals at night leads me and a rock-hard, 25" high pillow that was putting my spinal chord at risk of snapping led to zero sleep at night. Zero! That's the way to start a trip after flying all day and having a full half day more of travelling ahead of me!
So, with the trip off to a bad start, I headed to the airport the next morning with Pancrita (her dad's nickname that nobody can explain the meaning of), and had a pretty uneventful flight to Cajamarca. We took the taxi to the bus depot (garage) and were met there by Erika and her Mom, who woke up at 3:00am to take the bus to Cajamarca and meet us. Now that's some dedication! I was a walking zombie however and was just looking forward to getting on the bus and passing out. However, these buses are built for the little Peruvians, not strapping white-folk like me. Thing of those 1980s Toyota minivans (narrow, tall), expand the size by 50%, add about 35 seats, and you've got the Peruvian Combi. The seats are not plus leather, but basically springs covered by vinyl and 10" of leg room. Somehow, the Peruvians are soldiers and have no problem with these things, and in my past life I would relish the authenticity of such means of travel. But, I'm getting old and not having any leg room isn't cool, so I told Erika this is the *last* time I'm taking a Combi on a this two hour road-trip to San Marcos.
Well, once I made it to San Marcos, I was golden, and the few days I spent there were splendid and I was spoiled to life's full-extent. Does Justin want some breakfast? Yes please. Does Justin want some Ecco to drink? Yes please. Does Justin want to drink some beer with the men of the house, sharing a pixie cup? Yes please. Does Justin want some spicy, fried testicles from the sheep that was just butchered out back? Why not. Does Justin want to eat some Cuy (Guinea Pig)? Ummm, okay it's already spread-eagle and beheaded on my plate, so I guess so. Does Justin want some home-brewed 50-proof moonshine that can take paint off walls and that's sold in reused Sprite bottles or some chicha (a warm, frothy, full textured liquor made from fermented corn)? I think I'll stick with the beer and sheep testicles, thanks though!
Being spoiled doesn't come cheap or easy in these parts and life isn't easy, though. These people are hard-working honest folk. I was once asked, "what do they do for a living?", to which I responded, "They just live". The women spend the day butchering the guinea pigs, free-range hens, or whatever other animal is going to be eaten, they collect peppers that are rampantly growing above the "shower", they collect herbs that are growing in between the "choclo" (Peruvian corn) stalks to spice Caldo Verde (a rich, green soup), etc. They take the animals (goats, pigs, sheeps, etc) out to mow down the brush growing everywhere on the farm. And, I had the wonderful opportunity to do some manual labor of my own along with Erika and her dad by knocking down the ripe "talla" off the tree and collecting the red pea-like-pods off the ground, which is painstaking on the back, knees, etc. The talla is collected and sold to collection agents that use the inside of the pods for making oil and red make-up.
Being Native American, I've long held the belief that I am immune to poison oak (which I have never contracted). But it doesn't start with poison oak; I am also immune to mosquitoes! People are always getting bit by mosquitoes and other small bugs and I never get bit. Despite my insistence on this FACT, Erika said I should put some repellent on because the mosquitoes were ravenous for human blood and I should put some jeans on. But it was way too hot to do manual labor in jeans, and I'm immune, right?
Soooo, it turns out I'm not immune. My upper body wasn't touched (except for some cyst-sized bites on various fingers - how the hell did they bite me without me seeing?). But my legs were dominated by the bastards. I counted 59 bites on my legs alone. Holy Jesus (Hey-Sus). I really don't think they were mosquitoes, cuz I didn't see any even touching me, but the swollen welts and gaping wounds on my legs told a different story. Maybe it was some other exotic bug that my people never built up a resistance to, unlike the Incas (especially since they didn't itch at all). All I know is that I'll be using more caladryl than soap for the next few days!
The main event for the trip was me becoming The Godfather. Our god-child Jimena, who is an adorable seven year-old with beautiful eyes (she'll be stunning some day I think) had her baptism on Saturday morning. Those of you in attendance at my wedding know how my Spanish goes in front of the priest. Well, this was even worse. I was mis-informed on what I was going to be saying to the priest, but likely I didn't have a microphone thrust down my throat, so I just nodded, mumbled, and avoided the glaring eyes of the priest as we went through the quick ceremony. Not my fault! Like I said, I was misinformed by everybody.
Unlike the short ceremony, the part was OFF. THE. HOOK. I lasted a few hours before I passed out in my room, but this party when twelve full hours and there was definitely high amounts of intoxication involved. These guys can certainly DRINK - and DANCE! I got dragged out quite a bit by my "comadre" (Jimena's mom), much to my embarrassment, but I had some fun. The family was trying to put me on a pedastool for travelling so far, but that was definitely uncomfortable and I just wanted to be treated like everyone else. I didn't need a metal fork to eat my sheep testicles. I didn't need a chair to put my plate of butterflied guinea pig on. I just wanted to blend in with everyone else, though physically that was clearly impossible!
At the end of the night, after my little napster, I re-joined the party and before I knew it it was mid-night and that means - Erika's birthday! So the party was definitely not done and in walked three really drunk mariachis - Cajamarca style, wearing the traditional Cajamarca sombreros and bellowing out mariachi songs. It was hilarious because they were so drunk and singing along with each other along with a guitar. They also lit twenty-four massive fireworks (one for each year of Erika's life ;o) that boomed outside, it was great! Everyone likes mariachis, even in Peru!
Despite my ear being attacked by a bastard of a mosquito and getting zero sleep again on the last night (true to tradition), the trip was really a good time. Unlike in Hollywood, the sequel was most definitely better than the prequel!
J. Riley, and the Combi ride on the way back to the airport? We took a taxi this time. The best $25 I spent in my life :o).
Among some new bad words, one thing that I did learn or was reminded of was the fact that Inca Kola, a staple of every meal in Peru, contains caffeine. To demonstrate my reaction to caffeine, on the rare days that I am sleep walking to work and cannot wake up, I put literally 1.45 inches of coffee in a cup and I'm wired for hours. So drinking ample amounts of Inca Kola at about 11:00pm and *not* following it up with equal parts of beer or liquor of some kind (which I was actually hoping for), means only one thing: insomnia. The Inca Kola, plus stressing about waking up late for our 5:00am flight, plus airplanes flying about 50 feet over the house as they come in to land (*much* louder than I remember at our house when the military planes would be pulling into Moffet), plus the usual orchestra of animals at night leads me and a rock-hard, 25" high pillow that was putting my spinal chord at risk of snapping led to zero sleep at night. Zero! That's the way to start a trip after flying all day and having a full half day more of travelling ahead of me!
So, with the trip off to a bad start, I headed to the airport the next morning with Pancrita (her dad's nickname that nobody can explain the meaning of), and had a pretty uneventful flight to Cajamarca. We took the taxi to the bus depot (garage) and were met there by Erika and her Mom, who woke up at 3:00am to take the bus to Cajamarca and meet us. Now that's some dedication! I was a walking zombie however and was just looking forward to getting on the bus and passing out. However, these buses are built for the little Peruvians, not strapping white-folk like me. Thing of those 1980s Toyota minivans (narrow, tall), expand the size by 50%, add about 35 seats, and you've got the Peruvian Combi. The seats are not plus leather, but basically springs covered by vinyl and 10" of leg room. Somehow, the Peruvians are soldiers and have no problem with these things, and in my past life I would relish the authenticity of such means of travel. But, I'm getting old and not having any leg room isn't cool, so I told Erika this is the *last* time I'm taking a Combi on a this two hour road-trip to San Marcos.
Well, once I made it to San Marcos, I was golden, and the few days I spent there were splendid and I was spoiled to life's full-extent. Does Justin want some breakfast? Yes please. Does Justin want some Ecco to drink? Yes please. Does Justin want to drink some beer with the men of the house, sharing a pixie cup? Yes please. Does Justin want some spicy, fried testicles from the sheep that was just butchered out back? Why not. Does Justin want to eat some Cuy (Guinea Pig)? Ummm, okay it's already spread-eagle and beheaded on my plate, so I guess so. Does Justin want some home-brewed 50-proof moonshine that can take paint off walls and that's sold in reused Sprite bottles or some chicha (a warm, frothy, full textured liquor made from fermented corn)? I think I'll stick with the beer and sheep testicles, thanks though!
Being spoiled doesn't come cheap or easy in these parts and life isn't easy, though. These people are hard-working honest folk. I was once asked, "what do they do for a living?", to which I responded, "They just live". The women spend the day butchering the guinea pigs, free-range hens, or whatever other animal is going to be eaten, they collect peppers that are rampantly growing above the "shower", they collect herbs that are growing in between the "choclo" (Peruvian corn) stalks to spice Caldo Verde (a rich, green soup), etc. They take the animals (goats, pigs, sheeps, etc) out to mow down the brush growing everywhere on the farm. And, I had the wonderful opportunity to do some manual labor of my own along with Erika and her dad by knocking down the ripe "talla" off the tree and collecting the red pea-like-pods off the ground, which is painstaking on the back, knees, etc. The talla is collected and sold to collection agents that use the inside of the pods for making oil and red make-up.
Being Native American, I've long held the belief that I am immune to poison oak (which I have never contracted). But it doesn't start with poison oak; I am also immune to mosquitoes! People are always getting bit by mosquitoes and other small bugs and I never get bit. Despite my insistence on this FACT, Erika said I should put some repellent on because the mosquitoes were ravenous for human blood and I should put some jeans on. But it was way too hot to do manual labor in jeans, and I'm immune, right?
Soooo, it turns out I'm not immune. My upper body wasn't touched (except for some cyst-sized bites on various fingers - how the hell did they bite me without me seeing?). But my legs were dominated by the bastards. I counted 59 bites on my legs alone. Holy Jesus (Hey-Sus). I really don't think they were mosquitoes, cuz I didn't see any even touching me, but the swollen welts and gaping wounds on my legs told a different story. Maybe it was some other exotic bug that my people never built up a resistance to, unlike the Incas (especially since they didn't itch at all). All I know is that I'll be using more caladryl than soap for the next few days!
The main event for the trip was me becoming The Godfather. Our god-child Jimena, who is an adorable seven year-old with beautiful eyes (she'll be stunning some day I think) had her baptism on Saturday morning. Those of you in attendance at my wedding know how my Spanish goes in front of the priest. Well, this was even worse. I was mis-informed on what I was going to be saying to the priest, but likely I didn't have a microphone thrust down my throat, so I just nodded, mumbled, and avoided the glaring eyes of the priest as we went through the quick ceremony. Not my fault! Like I said, I was misinformed by everybody.
Unlike the short ceremony, the part was OFF. THE. HOOK. I lasted a few hours before I passed out in my room, but this party when twelve full hours and there was definitely high amounts of intoxication involved. These guys can certainly DRINK - and DANCE! I got dragged out quite a bit by my "comadre" (Jimena's mom), much to my embarrassment, but I had some fun. The family was trying to put me on a pedastool for travelling so far, but that was definitely uncomfortable and I just wanted to be treated like everyone else. I didn't need a metal fork to eat my sheep testicles. I didn't need a chair to put my plate of butterflied guinea pig on. I just wanted to blend in with everyone else, though physically that was clearly impossible!
At the end of the night, after my little napster, I re-joined the party and before I knew it it was mid-night and that means - Erika's birthday! So the party was definitely not done and in walked three really drunk mariachis - Cajamarca style, wearing the traditional Cajamarca sombreros and bellowing out mariachi songs. It was hilarious because they were so drunk and singing along with each other along with a guitar. They also lit twenty-four massive fireworks (one for each year of Erika's life ;o) that boomed outside, it was great! Everyone likes mariachis, even in Peru!
Despite my ear being attacked by a bastard of a mosquito and getting zero sleep again on the last night (true to tradition), the trip was really a good time. Unlike in Hollywood, the sequel was most definitely better than the prequel!
J. Riley, and the Combi ride on the way back to the airport? We took a taxi this time. The best $25 I spent in my life :o).
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
In An Effort To Catch Up....
For once, I've actually been too busy to blog! Let's see, what's going on around here:
- In an effort to become cultured, we decided to go see a ballet at the NYC Ballet, which was also Erika's (belated) Valentine's Day present. As much as I mockingly "ooohhhed" and "awwwwwed", I couldn't really get into it. I'm not really sure what to look for when they are prancing and dancing around the stage. Some of it was cool, but I have a feeling that it has a lot to do with the classical music that the orchestra is playing. Classical. You know, that extremely cranial music style that people force their kids to listen to in order to increase their intelligence. Obviously, I didn't have that kind of training and clearly don't understand how to "interpret" the music like some of my neighbors at the ballet! But it was fun - considering I had a nice little discount.
- In an effort to become dehydrated, Paul and I visited the Russian Turkish Bath House. Despite the name, it's not a typical "bath house" that you would think exists in liberal NYC. In any case, my skin got as crispy as the porchetta sandwich that we enjoyed afterwards while we went between seven different saunas and steam rooms with a dips in an ice pool in between. Not only that, but we got to enjoy a public beating with a bushwhacking (literally) Russian who beat us down with oak branches/leaves in the Russian sauna. The oak leaves apparently open your pores even more, which was clearly the case as my skin was synged and fried by the time I was done. Throw in some warm water, a soapy paint brush (olive-oil soap!), and (what felt like a ) a bejewled, Michael Jackson-style, glove that rubbed the complete epidermis off of my back (and scabbed up a few of my moles :o/ ), and the "platza" massage was a wrap!
- In an effort to explore Brooklyn and some of what's on offer,we enjoyed some legit Trinidadian food in Crown Heights/Bed-Stuy at Trini-Gul, which was recommended to me by a guy I know from Grenada. We tried out some tasty roasted goat that was coated in spices from the islands, some curry potatoes, and a "bake and shark", which was like a fried pita bread with breaded and fried shark meat. And some of the hottest hot sauce I've ever had the pleasure of trying!
- In an effort to check out the highly-acclaimed Brooklyn Museum (by said Grenadian), we met up with some of Erika's classmates and teachers for a Target First Saturday. Free entrance to the museum with some Haitian music that clearly was influenced by similar cultures as Brazilian samba music and, later, a full on party on a massive dance floor in the middle of a museum. It would have been awesome to hang out at, except for the fact that my feet were killing me because my latest Pumas don't exactly use comfort as one of their stand-out features and we had been walking around since 2:00pm. The next event is on my calendar for May, however, and I will attend and I will dance!
- In an effort to finally let Erika see some of the touristy sites in the city, in particular from 67 floors up, we hit the Top of the Rock up last Sunday. The view from there isn't as impressive as from the observatory on the Empire State Building, with the exception of the fact that you can actually see the Empire State Building from there. The weather was crystal clear, spring-like, and there was absolutely no crowd or line at the entrance.
- In an effort to enjoy a Snow Day (when I get to work from home), For one of the first times we ventured out into the fresh powder at our local sculpture park on the river, armed with a camera and some waterproof boots. It was pretty nice since it was dead quiet, nobody was in the park, and it just kept on snowing. We built a nice little snow man until I started not being able to feel my hands. I'll that one to the list for next winter - if I'm still here!
- In an effort to use my Justin-branded urban cowboy boots, we met up with Paul and Jeff to enjoy some boot-stompin', ass kickin' hipster bluegrass music downtown. We had seen the Hackensaw Boys a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This time around was good because I got to take a picture with my favorite member of the band, but they were missing their redneck percussionist (who now lives in California, ironically) who used to play the spoons, pots, pans, metal trash-can lids, etc.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
The Seven Days of (Post) Christmas
I've had some busy trips in my lifetime, but the last seven (eight, now) days have been a whirlwind!
Last week I was down in Peru for Christmas. Christmas is done a lot different down there, with the 24th actually being the day of celebration. Or night, rather. All of the events commence at midnight, starting with watching and launching fireworks from the roof of Erika's house. She has quite a view of the city form the top of her house and just about everyone in Lima is launching fireworks, so it was a crazy light show. Most of the fireworks weren't grandiose and massive like they are on the 4th of July, but the sheer number of people launching them made is impressive.
Following fireworks, we went downstairs and opened up presents and finished up with dinner. By the time we cracked and finished the bottles of celebratory champagne and finished off the plates and plates of turkey, applesauce, Arabic rice, fruit salad, and washed it down with hot chocolate, it was 3:00am! The four bottles of champagne did their job and I passed out really quickly at night!
The next day (the 25th) was a traditional ceviche lunch and several hours of napping :o). Overall, Peru was a pretty relaxing time with just two days that we spent out - one day getting dental work done (two cavities filled and one x-ray: $70), getting hair cuts/coloring (my first "real" hair-cut that was actually styled), and another day that involved Erika getting all of her beauty salon work taken care of while I went to a movie and watched some soccer in the dining area of the mall. Luckily, the films aren't dubbed in Peru, they use subtitles so it was no problem for me!
We took our usual red-eye flight back to New York on Monday night to conclude our short six day trip. The flight was alright except for all of the stupid rules they imposed on the passengers thanks to the retarded terrorist. I don't mind having my whole body fondled and all of my luggage getting searched before getting on the plane (again). But what was stupid was that the flight was freezing and I actually had to use two blankets to keep warm while I was sleeping. And they woke me up an HOUR before we actually landed and took our blankets away! And they wouldn't let us stand up to get sweaters out of the overhead compartment or go to the bathroom. What does that accomplish? Nothing, in my opinion. Turn up the heat and keep the f-in blankets and let me sleep! Then, they turned off the in-flight entertainment forty-five minutes before we landed. I wouldn't have cared if I was SLEEPING, but they had already done their best to wake us all up. If I wanted to blow up the plane with a bomb in my boxers, I still had the six hours of the flight to do it, not just when we are landing.
After leaving our sandals, shorts, and t-shirts behind in Peru, we landed and left the airport at 8:00am and were almost knocked over as soon as we stepped outside the airport. Probably 50mph winds and 18 degrees (that would be Fahrenheit) blasted us and it was a rude-awakening for us that we were back in NYC! The only benefit that I got from this was that I was AWAKE, REALLY AWAKE by the time we got home!
But the day was not done. Later in the afternoon, Sean and Roberta were getting married, and we were going to be the witnesses! It made sense since they actually met at my birthday after we had introduced them together. So Erika and I got dressed up for the City Hall and while we were waiting for them, I was actually thinking about it. I have no idea what a city hall wedding with Sean (the guy who started his own company and dressed in very expensive suits, had a one foot beard for about a year, and who liked to spend a lot of money) and Roberta (completely altnerative life-style Italian, artist, who wears no makeup) would be like. Would they show up in a Limo, a cab, or via subway? Would they dress up for the event in expensive clothes, completely casual, or with some funky outfit? It could have been anything. It turns out that Erika and I
overdressed for the occasion and they actually wore the same casual clothing that they wore when they met each-other!
The wedding went smoothly and quickly, and now I have one-less single friend! Yay! So, let the outrageous celebrations begin! We tried to go to Balthazar, one of the great French institutions of SoHO for dinner but their list was already full for the night. Sean and I went to buy some champagne and he spent $300 on two bottles of it - yikes! With Roberta being preggers, the three of us went ahead and drank a bottle of champagner at their house since it was FREEZING outside. Not having eaten anything all day, we decided to hold off on the second bottle and went to have dinner. Since they lived around the corner from Balthazar, they actually had a "secret" number to call and we got reservations for an hour later!
We had a fabulous dinner at Balthazar. Wow, what a meal it was. Being in a place like that makes you really feel like you're living the life, with the French wine recommender, the Northern African-French waiters at your beck-and-call, and drinking French bottles of wine from 1988. It was actually quite outrageous, but what the hell, it was Sean and Roberta's wedding and they knew had to live it up!
We had a great time together with them as we always do and the topic of New Years Eve came up. They were going to Washington DC to attend a New Years Party at one of Sean's client's house and invited us to go. The thought had crossed our minds briefly, but the money situation has been tight lately and I kind of decided we better not go, espsecially since the party's theme was "Leather and Lace" and I had neither. Then, they said we could stay at their hotel, which happened to be across the street from and with a view of the WHITE HOUSE (!!!) with them if we wanted and that H&M had leather goods for cheap and most of the museums and sites were free. At that point, it was ON!
The next day (the day before New Year's Eve), I got online and booked $42 round/trip tickets on MegaBus for Erika and I to DC. I couldn't believe that they weren't sold out, but having heard stories about some of these cheap buses, I was really nervous. MegaBus supposedly had nice buses, free in-route Wi-Fi and power supplies, so it sounded like it was worth a try. I also booked a 3.5 star hotel for $70 a night right on Hotwire.com around the corner from Sean's (since they were only staying two nights and we wanted to stay for the weekend).
The bus ride organizing was my worst nightmare. We got to the pick-up spot and there were probably 1000 people there waiting for different routes and the word from the people there was that everything was way behind schedule and that they had oversold the tickets earlier in the day. And it was FREEZING cold outside still. So we stood around and watched as buses took people away little by little until our bus finally arrived (about an hour late). We didn't really care if we'd arrive late, we just wanted to get on that bus because it was warm and we had a nice hotel waiting for us.
Well, to make a long story short(ish), we made it on the last bus! The ride was super easy, except that being on top of the double-decker luxury liner got us kind of woozy with the rocking motion from the terrible roads and the power sources weren't working at all. I was super psyched up for the trip though and it brought back memories from my 8th-grade spring break trip with the school, the last time I went to DC. I couldn't sleep I was so pumped up (and maybe from the two sips of coffee I had while waiting for the bus) so I so I went ballastic on my little notebook (in the dark):
"My head pressed firmly
against the artificial
substance
I ponder, like a 12 year-old
with his new luggage and
a deposit in place
Things, certainly they
have changed in 20
years, but somehow,
they are still the same.
1991 coaches had no power
source that threatened the
vitality of Google phones and
laptops. It had ideas, excitement
and a thirst for exploring
the agenda presented inside of it.
I'm Prepared,
like the agenda, but a chasm
now exists. Backpack, loaded
like the Christmas suitcase,
is the key to the weekend.
The memories still exist, though
this time there will be no
cool crowd nor mall lunch
specials."
J. Riley, next up: Washington DC highlights and lowlights!
Last week I was down in Peru for Christmas. Christmas is done a lot different down there, with the 24th actually being the day of celebration. Or night, rather. All of the events commence at midnight, starting with watching and launching fireworks from the roof of Erika's house. She has quite a view of the city form the top of her house and just about everyone in Lima is launching fireworks, so it was a crazy light show. Most of the fireworks weren't grandiose and massive like they are on the 4th of July, but the sheer number of people launching them made is impressive.
Following fireworks, we went downstairs and opened up presents and finished up with dinner. By the time we cracked and finished the bottles of celebratory champagne and finished off the plates and plates of turkey, applesauce, Arabic rice, fruit salad, and washed it down with hot chocolate, it was 3:00am! The four bottles of champagne did their job and I passed out really quickly at night!
The next day (the 25th) was a traditional ceviche lunch and several hours of napping :o). Overall, Peru was a pretty relaxing time with just two days that we spent out - one day getting dental work done (two cavities filled and one x-ray: $70), getting hair cuts/coloring (my first "real" hair-cut that was actually styled), and another day that involved Erika getting all of her beauty salon work taken care of while I went to a movie and watched some soccer in the dining area of the mall. Luckily, the films aren't dubbed in Peru, they use subtitles so it was no problem for me!
We took our usual red-eye flight back to New York on Monday night to conclude our short six day trip. The flight was alright except for all of the stupid rules they imposed on the passengers thanks to the retarded terrorist. I don't mind having my whole body fondled and all of my luggage getting searched before getting on the plane (again). But what was stupid was that the flight was freezing and I actually had to use two blankets to keep warm while I was sleeping. And they woke me up an HOUR before we actually landed and took our blankets away! And they wouldn't let us stand up to get sweaters out of the overhead compartment or go to the bathroom. What does that accomplish? Nothing, in my opinion. Turn up the heat and keep the f-in blankets and let me sleep! Then, they turned off the in-flight entertainment forty-five minutes before we landed. I wouldn't have cared if I was SLEEPING, but they had already done their best to wake us all up. If I wanted to blow up the plane with a bomb in my boxers, I still had the six hours of the flight to do it, not just when we are landing.
After leaving our sandals, shorts, and t-shirts behind in Peru, we landed and left the airport at 8:00am and were almost knocked over as soon as we stepped outside the airport. Probably 50mph winds and 18 degrees (that would be Fahrenheit) blasted us and it was a rude-awakening for us that we were back in NYC! The only benefit that I got from this was that I was AWAKE, REALLY AWAKE by the time we got home!
But the day was not done. Later in the afternoon, Sean and Roberta were getting married, and we were going to be the witnesses! It made sense since they actually met at my birthday after we had introduced them together. So Erika and I got dressed up for the City Hall and while we were waiting for them, I was actually thinking about it. I have no idea what a city hall wedding with Sean (the guy who started his own company and dressed in very expensive suits, had a one foot beard for about a year, and who liked to spend a lot of money) and Roberta (completely altnerative life-style Italian, artist, who wears no makeup) would be like. Would they show up in a Limo, a cab, or via subway? Would they dress up for the event in expensive clothes, completely casual, or with some funky outfit? It could have been anything. It turns out that Erika and I
overdressed for the occasion and they actually wore the same casual clothing that they wore when they met each-other!
The wedding went smoothly and quickly, and now I have one-less single friend! Yay! So, let the outrageous celebrations begin! We tried to go to Balthazar, one of the great French institutions of SoHO for dinner but their list was already full for the night. Sean and I went to buy some champagne and he spent $300 on two bottles of it - yikes! With Roberta being preggers, the three of us went ahead and drank a bottle of champagner at their house since it was FREEZING outside. Not having eaten anything all day, we decided to hold off on the second bottle and went to have dinner. Since they lived around the corner from Balthazar, they actually had a "secret" number to call and we got reservations for an hour later!
We had a fabulous dinner at Balthazar. Wow, what a meal it was. Being in a place like that makes you really feel like you're living the life, with the French wine recommender, the Northern African-French waiters at your beck-and-call, and drinking French bottles of wine from 1988. It was actually quite outrageous, but what the hell, it was Sean and Roberta's wedding and they knew had to live it up!
We had a great time together with them as we always do and the topic of New Years Eve came up. They were going to Washington DC to attend a New Years Party at one of Sean's client's house and invited us to go. The thought had crossed our minds briefly, but the money situation has been tight lately and I kind of decided we better not go, espsecially since the party's theme was "Leather and Lace" and I had neither. Then, they said we could stay at their hotel, which happened to be across the street from and with a view of the WHITE HOUSE (!!!) with them if we wanted and that H&M had leather goods for cheap and most of the museums and sites were free. At that point, it was ON!
The next day (the day before New Year's Eve), I got online and booked $42 round/trip tickets on MegaBus for Erika and I to DC. I couldn't believe that they weren't sold out, but having heard stories about some of these cheap buses, I was really nervous. MegaBus supposedly had nice buses, free in-route Wi-Fi and power supplies, so it sounded like it was worth a try. I also booked a 3.5 star hotel for $70 a night right on Hotwire.com around the corner from Sean's (since they were only staying two nights and we wanted to stay for the weekend).
The bus ride organizing was my worst nightmare. We got to the pick-up spot and there were probably 1000 people there waiting for different routes and the word from the people there was that everything was way behind schedule and that they had oversold the tickets earlier in the day. And it was FREEZING cold outside still. So we stood around and watched as buses took people away little by little until our bus finally arrived (about an hour late). We didn't really care if we'd arrive late, we just wanted to get on that bus because it was warm and we had a nice hotel waiting for us.
Well, to make a long story short(ish), we made it on the last bus! The ride was super easy, except that being on top of the double-decker luxury liner got us kind of woozy with the rocking motion from the terrible roads and the power sources weren't working at all. I was super psyched up for the trip though and it brought back memories from my 8th-grade spring break trip with the school, the last time I went to DC. I couldn't sleep I was so pumped up (and maybe from the two sips of coffee I had while waiting for the bus) so I so I went ballastic on my little notebook (in the dark):
"My head pressed firmly
against the artificial
substance
I ponder, like a 12 year-old
with his new luggage and
a deposit in place
Things, certainly they
have changed in 20
years, but somehow,
they are still the same.
1991 coaches had no power
source that threatened the
vitality of Google phones and
laptops. It had ideas, excitement
and a thirst for exploring
the agenda presented inside of it.
I'm Prepared,
like the agenda, but a chasm
now exists. Backpack, loaded
like the Christmas suitcase,
is the key to the weekend.
The memories still exist, though
this time there will be no
cool crowd nor mall lunch
specials."
J. Riley, next up: Washington DC highlights and lowlights!
Monday, October 19, 2009
We've Got Worms
Actually, they are more like visitors. After not having anyone visit me in the last few years after the initial rush, Summer and Mom & Dad have all visited us in lovely Astoria. Now, we've got Vas confirmed on a flight to come here for a week during Thanksgiving (my second Thanksgiving since I've been here, and my first where I can actually eat solid food) and on Saturday, Leif said "Hey what are you doing next weekend? I think me and my girlfriend will fly out to visit next week if you're around!" Uhhh...OF COURSE! It's about time! Anyone else? I would love to have to actually put a calendar to use to fill the vacancies on our futon!
If you're thinking about visiting us anytime soon, it is probably better for you to consider coming sooner rather than later because we've been having some interesting conversations in our household lately. Specifically, around the thoughts of the option to move to the Cincinnati region. WTF? I don't even know if it is an option, but I think that it may be. It won't be happening anytime soon, but you really just never know. For once in my life, I'm trying to think long term, but at the same time trying to appreciate the now and thinking about everything in between...
This past weekend, I was a volunteer at a kids soccer coaching clinic up in Harlem. It sounded like the perfect kind of gig for me, inspiring youths to take up the beautiful game and eschew other lame American sports like American Football ;o). It had so much promise, but it was actually one of the worst volunteer experiences I've had. Not because the kids weren't awesome, because they were. More so because the volunteers had a penchant for proving to everyone that they were awesome soccer players. Bragging about the position they played, how they used to take penalty kicks, and kicking the ball as hard as they could at the teenage goalkeepers, while "playing" with the under-10 kids.And the two teenage goalkeepers were so inspired to prove that they were awesome that they would block every single kick anytime one of the little kids tried to kick the ball. Clearly, there were some egos that needed to be massaged. It was definitely not about the kids, and that's just lame. By the way, I have a hard time just kicking the ball without falling down, so I certainly didn't have any point to prove to anyone :)!
Today I brought in awesome bagels from the local bagelria to work as part of the October birthday celebrations that we have. At the coordinator's request, I bought two dozen, plus the bagelria gave me four extra for free. There's only like 12 people in my group, so it was clearly a ridiculous amount of massive, warm bagels, so I thought I'd give one to the homeless guy begging for money on the subway stairs. He looked at me and said "I don't want THAT!" I said okay and put it back in the bag before he said "Fine, I'll take it". Yo, man, don't do me any favors just because you can't buy booze with a freakin warm, delectable bagel!
J. Riley, Vas and Susyash, I haven't seen any blogs in the required time, so this will continue to be the short feeds. You scratch some words on your blog, and I'll scratch mine! I'm waiting....
If you're thinking about visiting us anytime soon, it is probably better for you to consider coming sooner rather than later because we've been having some interesting conversations in our household lately. Specifically, around the thoughts of the option to move to the Cincinnati region. WTF? I don't even know if it is an option, but I think that it may be. It won't be happening anytime soon, but you really just never know. For once in my life, I'm trying to think long term, but at the same time trying to appreciate the now and thinking about everything in between...
This past weekend, I was a volunteer at a kids soccer coaching clinic up in Harlem. It sounded like the perfect kind of gig for me, inspiring youths to take up the beautiful game and eschew other lame American sports like American Football ;o). It had so much promise, but it was actually one of the worst volunteer experiences I've had. Not because the kids weren't awesome, because they were. More so because the volunteers had a penchant for proving to everyone that they were awesome soccer players. Bragging about the position they played, how they used to take penalty kicks, and kicking the ball as hard as they could at the teenage goalkeepers, while "playing" with the under-10 kids.And the two teenage goalkeepers were so inspired to prove that they were awesome that they would block every single kick anytime one of the little kids tried to kick the ball. Clearly, there were some egos that needed to be massaged. It was definitely not about the kids, and that's just lame. By the way, I have a hard time just kicking the ball without falling down, so I certainly didn't have any point to prove to anyone :)!
Today I brought in awesome bagels from the local bagelria to work as part of the October birthday celebrations that we have. At the coordinator's request, I bought two dozen, plus the bagelria gave me four extra for free. There's only like 12 people in my group, so it was clearly a ridiculous amount of massive, warm bagels, so I thought I'd give one to the homeless guy begging for money on the subway stairs. He looked at me and said "I don't want THAT!" I said okay and put it back in the bag before he said "Fine, I'll take it". Yo, man, don't do me any favors just because you can't buy booze with a freakin warm, delectable bagel!
J. Riley, Vas and Susyash, I haven't seen any blogs in the required time, so this will continue to be the short feeds. You scratch some words on your blog, and I'll scratch mine! I'm waiting....
Monday, October 05, 2009
Dishing Out the Truth About Ikea
First off, congratulations to Summer on her accomplishment!
Last year before I moved into my new apartment, I went on a mad shopping spree to buy stuff for my apartment - you know the essential stuff like a futon, a table, dishware, energy-saving lightbulbs, etc. It was my first experience, but I was amazed at how cheap the stuff was there and, really, how some of the stuff is actually pretty decent quality. The "silver"ware has been great. Despite finding some phantom screws underneath it, nobody has sat on the futon and crashed to the floor (where the hell did those screws come from, anyway?), and even the dishware has been surprisingly sturdy and shatter-resistant (despite my utter clumsiness and lack of a grip with my rubber gloves on while washing them).
So imagine my surprise when yesterday I discovered the following....ON THE SAME DAY, within hours of each other:
It's been an exciting week and half since we last talked. I had my birthday party at the German beer garden, which went off exceptionally well and without anybody getting arrested for dancing on the tables or other drunk and disorderly conduct. The place was surprisingly packed by about 6:30 on a Friday night, which is just way too early. I guess the hipsters living off their trust funds don't really have to go to work, so they just leave their artist studios when they feel like drinking liters of beer on the first night of Oktoberfest. But I digress (and mock).
We engaged in a battle with a neighboring group for control of one of the large "beer banken" and eventually won when their soldiers started standing and loitering, at which point we flanked their position and gained the high ground so that all of our soldiers could settle in for the evening with hard tack (also known as tasty sausages, fries, and an assortment of delectable mustards [thanks Paul!!]), beverage sharing, and jovial music. Have I been reading too many Civil War novels since Gettysburg? The beer garden was great, although it might have been a little too "hip" for me and despite the genuine beverages and food, I think I prefer the aura of the Czech beer garden in Astoria a bit more for a regular visit. But it was a nice change of scenery for a Birthday.
This past weekend was an interesting one. It started off the way the best weekends always start off - with an evening full of movies ("Che II" in this case) and technical support! Nana got herself a shiny new computer and despite an initial setback of "Boot device not found" (not something that you want to see ever, especially the first time you boot up your computer) Frata quickly mastered English with an Indian accent and then the art of the computer's innards and they had the computer up and running and ready for system restoration from Your's Truly's Technical Support (highly recommended, by the way. Look them up). I got mischievous and accidentally disconnected myself from my Teamviewer remote access to their computer, but I got everything working by Sunday.
Saturday we enjoyed a few hours of Bachata and Merengue classes (look out sketchy Jackson Heights discos!) followed by a downpour and a road trip to Trader Joe's to stockpile our food for the next few days (chips)/weeks (cheese)/months ($0.67 beers). At night, we were graciously invited to check out the Royal Manhattan Triumvirate's (that would be Paul, Cathy, and D) favorite singer Brandi Carlile - live and in concert at the visually and acoustically beautiful Beacon Theater. A highlight of the performance that only someone like my dad could truly appreciate was when the whole band moved to the front of the stage, in front of the monitors and sound equipment, and performed a song that the entire theater could hear christal-clear. The show was very impressive and I give Paul, Cathy, and D a thumbs-up on their musical tastes after that show!
J. Riley, and now, back to my regularly scheduled activities of reading Civil War novels (I'm on the Last Full Measure after reading Killer Angels) and studying up on my 2010 health and welfare benefits.
Last year before I moved into my new apartment, I went on a mad shopping spree to buy stuff for my apartment - you know the essential stuff like a futon, a table, dishware, energy-saving lightbulbs, etc. It was my first experience, but I was amazed at how cheap the stuff was there and, really, how some of the stuff is actually pretty decent quality. The "silver"ware has been great. Despite finding some phantom screws underneath it, nobody has sat on the futon and crashed to the floor (where the hell did those screws come from, anyway?), and even the dishware has been surprisingly sturdy and shatter-resistant (despite my utter clumsiness and lack of a grip with my rubber gloves on while washing them).
So imagine my surprise when yesterday I discovered the following....ON THE SAME DAY, within hours of each other:
- A large chip off the edge of one of my big plates
- A small microscopic chip (though surely capable of giving me a bloody lip, I'm sure) off the edge of one of my glasses.
- A crack on the handle of one of my mugs.
It's been an exciting week and half since we last talked. I had my birthday party at the German beer garden, which went off exceptionally well and without anybody getting arrested for dancing on the tables or other drunk and disorderly conduct. The place was surprisingly packed by about 6:30 on a Friday night, which is just way too early. I guess the hipsters living off their trust funds don't really have to go to work, so they just leave their artist studios when they feel like drinking liters of beer on the first night of Oktoberfest. But I digress (and mock).
We engaged in a battle with a neighboring group for control of one of the large "beer banken" and eventually won when their soldiers started standing and loitering, at which point we flanked their position and gained the high ground so that all of our soldiers could settle in for the evening with hard tack (also known as tasty sausages, fries, and an assortment of delectable mustards [thanks Paul!!]), beverage sharing, and jovial music. Have I been reading too many Civil War novels since Gettysburg? The beer garden was great, although it might have been a little too "hip" for me and despite the genuine beverages and food, I think I prefer the aura of the Czech beer garden in Astoria a bit more for a regular visit. But it was a nice change of scenery for a Birthday.
This past weekend was an interesting one. It started off the way the best weekends always start off - with an evening full of movies ("Che II" in this case) and technical support! Nana got herself a shiny new computer and despite an initial setback of "Boot device not found" (not something that you want to see ever, especially the first time you boot up your computer) Frata quickly mastered English with an Indian accent and then the art of the computer's innards and they had the computer up and running and ready for system restoration from Your's Truly's Technical Support (highly recommended, by the way. Look them up). I got mischievous and accidentally disconnected myself from my Teamviewer remote access to their computer, but I got everything working by Sunday.
Saturday we enjoyed a few hours of Bachata and Merengue classes (look out sketchy Jackson Heights discos!) followed by a downpour and a road trip to Trader Joe's to stockpile our food for the next few days (chips)/weeks (cheese)/months ($0.67 beers). At night, we were graciously invited to check out the Royal Manhattan Triumvirate's (that would be Paul, Cathy, and D) favorite singer Brandi Carlile - live and in concert at the visually and acoustically beautiful Beacon Theater. A highlight of the performance that only someone like my dad could truly appreciate was when the whole band moved to the front of the stage, in front of the monitors and sound equipment, and performed a song that the entire theater could hear christal-clear. The show was very impressive and I give Paul, Cathy, and D a thumbs-up on their musical tastes after that show!
J. Riley, and now, back to my regularly scheduled activities of reading Civil War novels (I'm on the Last Full Measure after reading Killer Angels) and studying up on my 2010 health and welfare benefits.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Summer Starts....Now!
Scientists haven't figured out why yet, but lately I've been....motivated. It's really weird. I am not sure what it was that flipped the switch for me - among other things, it could have been the realization that I will most likely live until I'm only 60, it could have been the wife telling me that I should try to accomplish more things with my plethora of free time, it could be the start of summertime in Astoria, or it could have been the new book that I'm reading that has opened my eyes and my mind to what is there for me to experience.
So on the weekends, I've started exploring my living environment - destination unknown. Well, that's not totally true. Last weekend, out of sheer boredom, I decided that I had to experience an article that I read when I first moved to this hood: The Top 5 Sandwiches in Astoria. Sandwiches? Really? It sounds kind of boring in light of the fact that we live in a crazily diverse area, but I decided that it would be a worthwhile adventure to undertake on a beautiful weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't start until Saturday evening on the 4th of July, so I only got through two of them - last weekend. The first one I hit was the one with the most consonants and the fewest vowels on the list: Cevapdzinica Sarajevo. Apparently Google Maps can't figure out our weird hyphenated addresses any better than me, so it was quite an experience finding this place. Was it worth the journey? Yes, because I got to see a new neighborhood and found some cool looking places to hang out and eat. But the Cevapi were a little bit fatty/greasy for my taste. But at least it was interesting!
The next day, I was going to hit up Sal, Kris & Charlie's Deli on my way to the park after stopping by the office to pick up my sunglasses. On my five minute walk to the office from the bus, I came across a gem among the chop-shops and warehouses that line the roads near my office: A newly opened dance studio that has lessons nightly on Latin dancing! Wholly crap, I had totally been thinking about taking some lessons with Erika when she gets back, and this place is like 5 minutes from work with reasonable rates and probably no customers! More on this later...
So after snatching my glasses, I headed to the deli to get me a monster 'which. I was cracking up because this deli is just that - a typical New York bodega-style deli, but they were packed with customers ordering artery clogging meat between two slices of bread. This thing probably had more calories than I had eaten in a week but, you know, I didn't really care! For the first time, I had a sandwich in my hands that brought me back to the epic meals I used to eat on the weekends in SLO-town during college. I mean, look at this thing!
Anyway, after spending the day basking in the sun and digesting five pounds of processed meat, cheese, and bread, I came home with my next mission in mind. The community college next to my office offers Spanish conversation courses that I neglected to enroll in a few months back due to me being lazy and assuming that I shouldn't have to pay for something that Erika can do for free. I found out how well that worked when I went to Peru last month and was more mute than at any period in the past! So I checked into it again and found that a class that offers two hours of lessons two days a week is going to be starting in August. I figured that I could enroll in Spanish II since I'm not completely hopeless in Spanish, but Erika insists I need to enroll in Spanish I. I guess I should have figured that out after being out of my league in the free classes I took in the past :o/ .
So, this summer is shaping up nicely. I took my first Salsa class last night (free every Thursday night) and, as expected, I was the only student who showed up. This place is fresh off the boat, so that didn't really surprise me. But it turned out to be brilliant - personal classes are normally expensive and I got a lesson customized to me! I was actually surprised at how my limited knowledge of the basic salsa step and rhythm carried over to the moves that I learned. I had an awesome time though and pretty much quadrupled the number of steps and moves that I can break out on the dance-floor now :o). Erika and I will certainly be attending a plethora of these classes starting Sunday!
Of course, I'm going to have to try to fit those classes in between the other events going on this summer, though, such as the free movies in the parks that are starting this week. Free mainstream DVDs in Astoria Park on Monday nights followed by independent foreign films at Socrates park on Wednesday nights. So it looks like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights are scheduled. We've gotta take Salsa lessons somewhere in between, though!
The J. Riley, taking full advantage of the summer this year!
So on the weekends, I've started exploring my living environment - destination unknown. Well, that's not totally true. Last weekend, out of sheer boredom, I decided that I had to experience an article that I read when I first moved to this hood: The Top 5 Sandwiches in Astoria. Sandwiches? Really? It sounds kind of boring in light of the fact that we live in a crazily diverse area, but I decided that it would be a worthwhile adventure to undertake on a beautiful weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't start until Saturday evening on the 4th of July, so I only got through two of them - last weekend. The first one I hit was the one with the most consonants and the fewest vowels on the list: Cevapdzinica Sarajevo. Apparently Google Maps can't figure out our weird hyphenated addresses any better than me, so it was quite an experience finding this place. Was it worth the journey? Yes, because I got to see a new neighborhood and found some cool looking places to hang out and eat. But the Cevapi were a little bit fatty/greasy for my taste. But at least it was interesting!
The next day, I was going to hit up Sal, Kris & Charlie's Deli on my way to the park after stopping by the office to pick up my sunglasses. On my five minute walk to the office from the bus, I came across a gem among the chop-shops and warehouses that line the roads near my office: A newly opened dance studio that has lessons nightly on Latin dancing! Wholly crap, I had totally been thinking about taking some lessons with Erika when she gets back, and this place is like 5 minutes from work with reasonable rates and probably no customers! More on this later...
So after snatching my glasses, I headed to the deli to get me a monster 'which. I was cracking up because this deli is just that - a typical New York bodega-style deli, but they were packed with customers ordering artery clogging meat between two slices of bread. This thing probably had more calories than I had eaten in a week but, you know, I didn't really care! For the first time, I had a sandwich in my hands that brought me back to the epic meals I used to eat on the weekends in SLO-town during college. I mean, look at this thing!
Anyway, after spending the day basking in the sun and digesting five pounds of processed meat, cheese, and bread, I came home with my next mission in mind. The community college next to my office offers Spanish conversation courses that I neglected to enroll in a few months back due to me being lazy and assuming that I shouldn't have to pay for something that Erika can do for free. I found out how well that worked when I went to Peru last month and was more mute than at any period in the past! So I checked into it again and found that a class that offers two hours of lessons two days a week is going to be starting in August. I figured that I could enroll in Spanish II since I'm not completely hopeless in Spanish, but Erika insists I need to enroll in Spanish I. I guess I should have figured that out after being out of my league in the free classes I took in the past :o/ .
So, this summer is shaping up nicely. I took my first Salsa class last night (free every Thursday night) and, as expected, I was the only student who showed up. This place is fresh off the boat, so that didn't really surprise me. But it turned out to be brilliant - personal classes are normally expensive and I got a lesson customized to me! I was actually surprised at how my limited knowledge of the basic salsa step and rhythm carried over to the moves that I learned. I had an awesome time though and pretty much quadrupled the number of steps and moves that I can break out on the dance-floor now :o). Erika and I will certainly be attending a plethora of these classes starting Sunday!
Of course, I'm going to have to try to fit those classes in between the other events going on this summer, though, such as the free movies in the parks that are starting this week. Free mainstream DVDs in Astoria Park on Monday nights followed by independent foreign films at Socrates park on Wednesday nights. So it looks like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights are scheduled. We've gotta take Salsa lessons somewhere in between, though!
The J. Riley, taking full advantage of the summer this year!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Home Alone Part....n
I've lost count.
Erika has taken off down to Peru to help her mom out with some stuff, so I'm home alone again. This is giving me time to work on all sorts of nerdy stuff on Linux and doing some self-realization with the help of an excellent, easy to read book called A New Earth.
I've been doing all sorts of work on my - I mean Stefan's - new server. I was working on it enough to have a to-do list of about 25 things and after getting the most useful stuff done, which was amazingly easy, I hit a road-block in terms of my motivation (and the fact that I don't have Stefan's firewall's password). With Erika gone and our laptop with her, I've attacked the latest laptop that we're importing to Peru (that goes with me) with a vengeance by deciding to run Linux on it, instead of slow Windows. The great part about this is that I can actually run a fully-functional version of Linux without actually installing it on the hard-drive, using just one CD. I'm sure the majority of my readers are eagerly waiting for instructions on how to run Linux on THEIR computers without installing it, but I'll resist the urge to preach to everyone about the ease-of-use, performance, the security, and the power of running such a wonderful Operating System by just burning one CD and booting off of it - unless you email me.
After listening to his podcast, I decided that I should borrow the book by Eckhart Tolle called "A New Earth". After reading the first ten pages, I decided this is a book that I must own, so I went online and purchased one for $5 on half.com. Great investment. I don't even know where to start with this book, but suffice it to say that I've learned so much about myself and my thoughts and things that need to change in the first ten pages that I'm sold....
J. Riley, working from home today due to suspicious cough and headache. No other flu signs, I think it's just a common cold. Hope they let me off the plane in Lima next week!
Erika has taken off down to Peru to help her mom out with some stuff, so I'm home alone again. This is giving me time to work on all sorts of nerdy stuff on Linux and doing some self-realization with the help of an excellent, easy to read book called A New Earth.
I've been doing all sorts of work on my - I mean Stefan's - new server. I was working on it enough to have a to-do list of about 25 things and after getting the most useful stuff done, which was amazingly easy, I hit a road-block in terms of my motivation (and the fact that I don't have Stefan's firewall's password). With Erika gone and our laptop with her, I've attacked the latest laptop that we're importing to Peru (that goes with me) with a vengeance by deciding to run Linux on it, instead of slow Windows. The great part about this is that I can actually run a fully-functional version of Linux without actually installing it on the hard-drive, using just one CD. I'm sure the majority of my readers are eagerly waiting for instructions on how to run Linux on THEIR computers without installing it, but I'll resist the urge to preach to everyone about the ease-of-use, performance, the security, and the power of running such a wonderful Operating System by just burning one CD and booting off of it - unless you email me.
After listening to his podcast, I decided that I should borrow the book by Eckhart Tolle called "A New Earth". After reading the first ten pages, I decided this is a book that I must own, so I went online and purchased one for $5 on half.com. Great investment. I don't even know where to start with this book, but suffice it to say that I've learned so much about myself and my thoughts and things that need to change in the first ten pages that I'm sold....
J. Riley, working from home today due to suspicious cough and headache. No other flu signs, I think it's just a common cold. Hope they let me off the plane in Lima next week!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Geek Squad
Stefan and I (mostly "I") have been working on some "special projects" on my - I mean Stefan's - new Linux box. We've got the photo galleries working, I've learned about the exciting world of virtual domains with Apache, and I recently approved Stefan's shopping list of items that he's going to purchase for his other computers. I like how this relationship works: Stefan tells me what geeky tools he wants, I approve, he buys it. I tell Stefan what I geeky tools I want, I approve, and Stefan buys it. Last night, I approved his purchases of several new massive hard drives for several computers, enough to run a small company with. On my part, I plan on putting this equipment to use. Some special projects, most of which are for research and learning reasons only, that I have on my Todoist to-do-list:
In other news, I spent an hour and a half over the past 24 hours listening to a conversation on Oprah ("Harpo" backwards) with a guy named Eckhart Tolle about his book (actually, the first chapter of his book; it's a 9-part series). I also spent at least one hour at work discussing his ideas with a co-worker at work today. I haven't been much of a spirtual thinker the last few years, and I continuously rejected my co-worker's suggestion to listen to these podcasts for several months because usually this kind of stuff makes me fall asleep - FAST. Those of you who know me know that I think these New Age type people are total wack-jobs, but this Tolle guy is bring up some damn interesting things to think about. If anybody is interested, download the report on his first chapter and spend an hour and a half listening to it and thinking about it. It's a lot easier than I thought. The other chapters (which I haven't got to yet, but I'm fascinated with) can be found at the bottom of this page.
J. Riley, The fingers in my hand have been tingling a lot today. I should probably be concerned about this, considering my myotonic dystrophy :o/
- Lock down the Linux box
- Configure remote access to his Ubuntu GUI for my special project use.
- Configure a secure email server with encrypted logons and attempt to setup Horde IMP email on it.
- Configure a MUX (is that the right term? "Backup") e-mail server.
- Create a PHP and MySQL-powered DVD/Movie library web application for Stefano
- Setup remote backup/rsyncs between about four computers in three locations.
In other news, I spent an hour and a half over the past 24 hours listening to a conversation on Oprah ("Harpo" backwards) with a guy named Eckhart Tolle about his book (actually, the first chapter of his book; it's a 9-part series). I also spent at least one hour at work discussing his ideas with a co-worker at work today. I haven't been much of a spirtual thinker the last few years, and I continuously rejected my co-worker's suggestion to listen to these podcasts for several months because usually this kind of stuff makes me fall asleep - FAST. Those of you who know me know that I think these New Age type people are total wack-jobs, but this Tolle guy is bring up some damn interesting things to think about. If anybody is interested, download the report on his first chapter and spend an hour and a half listening to it and thinking about it. It's a lot easier than I thought. The other chapters (which I haven't got to yet, but I'm fascinated with) can be found at the bottom of this page.
J. Riley, The fingers in my hand have been tingling a lot today. I should probably be concerned about this, considering my myotonic dystrophy :o/
Monday, May 18, 2009
Pondering Relocations...
Last weekend, Erika and I embarked on a trip out to California for Faryn's graduation! The whole family was gathering, so I knew it would be a great time to hang out with everyone again and get to introduce Erika to Southern California and its peaks and pits. I feared the worst: that she would opt to stay in San Diego and let me go back to New York alone!
In an optimization strategy, we decided to stay for five days and try to get as much done as possible in such a short amount of time. As well as the graduation festivities, the clan planned outings to the Getty Center in LA and a chance to nurse the graduation hangover with a day at Disneyland, followed by a lovely tour of LA (barf), and a few days down in San Diego.
And the trip was grand. The Getty Center was more than I imagined that Los Angeles could muster in terms of culture (note: I openly discriminate and am prejudiced against the megatropolis of LA). Open-air, wonderful views of the city, world-class art, fresh creeks, florist sculptures, and architectual exhibits abounded at the Getty Center - it was everything that I imagined LA wasn't. My only regret was that we didn't have enough time to spend there as Graham, Erika, and I drove up from San Diego in the morning and there was traffic and Faryn's big event to attend/experience in the afternoon.
I remember my college graduation day. I wanted to see everyone before I left town and on graduation day, but there just wasn't enough time. Like myself, everyone had visitors in town and each person had there own events to attend. I remember my roommate Ryan and I having a low-key barbeque or pot-luck of some sorts at our apartment. But it was just a crazy day with the ceremonies, seeing people for the last time, and hanging out with all of our visitors.
I suppose Faryn's graduation was a similar experience for her! We unloaded and changed in the hotel and rushed to her apartment to find her in amongst her boxes doing her hair and her roommates still packing. We had rushed there thinking we were going to be late for her department's congregation at the school, only to find out later that the event didn't start for another hour and a half and was really just a place to go eat some fresh fruit and delicious sun-warmed cookies, all of which I ate way too much of. But we hung around there with Faryn as she said hi to her departmental friends.
After an early dinner of Greek food near the campus, we went back to the stadium to catch the graduation ceremonies and witness the honoring of EIGHT HUNDRED students graduating. Yes, all of their names were read outloud :o) ! We had giggled in sympathy for Erika when she said that her graduation from college was two hours long, but this event turned out to eclipse that by at least 30 minutes! But, there were some memorable moments such as the tossing of tortillas by the students (???) and some racial epithets (is that a word?) by one of the speakers (classy). But at least there were plenty of interesting costumes for the guests at this event: girls with skirts barely covering their undies, terrible bleach-blondes, and the now infamous curly-black-hair mulleted guy with elf-en pointy-toe shoes five sizes too big and a bad case of slacks that were too tight and non-existent underwear. Why I didn't capture this character in digital photos, I don't know!
After graduation, we drove around Pasadena looking for a place to celebrate and settled on a sushi joint were dad proceeded to lead us to a happy place with saki-bombs! We ate some pretty good sushi at the place too, props to Summer for her selections right up my alley! I gotta say, Pasadena is a pretty nice place with loads of clubs, bars, and restaurants. I don't think I had ever been there before, but I would definitely return if I was unlucky enough to find myself in LA in the near future.
We crashed hard that night, it was a long day after a six-hour flight the night before and about five hours of sleep. It helped that the Hampton Inn we stayed at was much, much nicer than the one I stayed at for a week in Columbus, Indiana back in the day!
Sunday was the triumphant return to Disneyland for the first time since about Junior High for me, and Erika's first time at a Disney location! We met Graham, Brie, and the kids there and about five pictures in, our camera broke. As Summer would say: FAIL! Lucky for me, I have a sister that, ahemmm, "offered" her camera to me to use for the day.
Disneyland was great. It was everything that it was the first time I went with my grandparents when I was eight years old. My dad attempted to support his veto of excessive purchases of gifts for my niece by asking us what we bought on that first trip. All I remembered at the time was a new wallet and $20 (!!!!) that my grandparents gave me and my brother. I think I lost some of the money (not for the first time), but I definitely remember buying a toy musket-style rifle from somewhere in Frontier Land! We did all the rides there, some with the kids, and some later on without, and they were still great. It's A Small World was interesting despite not changing in 50 years (they even have Peruvians!), they scored big points with Pirates of the Caribbean, and of course the roller coasters like Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and the Thunder Mountain train ride. Those rides don't need to change! The only one that was lame was the Haunted House. At least put something spooky in there!!
We did about 14 hours at Disneyland before we shut the place down. We could definitely have used a second day at the Disney properties to get the full experience, and that probably would have been a better idea than trying to show Erika LA on Monday morning after dining and saying goodbye to the North-bound part of the Haines train. LA was a disaster. Armed with my trusty AAA map provided by the hotel, we headed out to try to find film studios and Hollywood. And I was provided with the first sign of disaster quickly after departure from the hotel. I GOT LOST TRYING TO FIND THE HIGHWAY FROM DISNEYLAND! This is not an easy thing to do people, but I managed it. I was so stressed out driving through LA and didn't manage to find the exits I hoped to find to the studios. So, I got off the highway to turn around and found out that there was no entrance back onto it.
My head was turning red and I could feel the steam starting to whistle out of my ears. Eventually, two hours later, we found lovely Beverly Hills and I mellowed out (a little bit). Hey, we're on Sunset Blvd, this is the right way to Hollywood, right? Yea, right down to seedy-town, Hollywood. Luckily, I used the phone-a-friend lifeline and was rescued with some directions to the star-walk. It was under-impressive (as I expected), but Erika was trying her best to not slap me in the face with my wonderfully negative attitude the whole time. She was disappointed that we weren't doing a studio tour (my fault I guess), so I attempted to satiate the situation with tickets to the wax museum, Guiness Book of World Records, and Ripley's Believe It or Not. Some of the things at these places were interesting, but I was itching to get out of LA and head to San Diego.
Ahhh...San Diego. I was immediately relaxed when we pulled into In 'N Out (after passing too many in LA) and chowed on the greatest burgers in the world. We hung out with Brie and Graham at night, relaxed some more, and slept in the next morning at our hotel by Moonlight Beach. Auntie Jude came by in the morning and we mosied on down to the beach at about noon and enjoyed the patches of sunshine and warmth there. I took a dip in the water for a while and just enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere. Auntie Jude said, "Justin, you guys have to move here".
After Auntie Jude departed, we went back to the hotel and showered and looked presentable for lunch at Encinitas's fantastic Peruvian restaurant Q'ero (the artists formerly known as Amici's) with my old friend Russell and his family. Russ spent two years of his youth in Ecuador, so it was fun to hear his old stories of Ecuador and compare it with Erika's Peru. Q'ero did a good job of reigniting Russ's sensory agents with their flavor and atmosphere, things he hadn't experienced since he left Ecuador nine years ago. At the end of the relaxing meal and the climactic tres leches cake (best Erika has ever had, I might add), Russ said, "J, you should move out here. No, you HAVE to move here."
We walked through Encinitas afterwards, doing some window shopping and Erika did some beauty products shopping before we arrived at Swamy's surf-spot, where we parked it on the benches and enjoyed the sunshine and the surfers on the cliffs before us. We planned on walking up to Graham and Brie's a little bit later but were saved when they called us to find out where we were. Graham was roasting up a carne asada tri-tip, so we met up with Brie and did some grocery shopping at the lovely gourmet Seaside Market before heading up the hill for dinner.
Dining on Graham's food is on my list along with Mexican food and In 'N Out when I'm in SD. Despite the late lunch, the food was great as always and we hung out, watched some reality TV and basketball, Erika and Brie shared wedding albums and stories while I was in heaven setting up Graham's new Mac with remote access (!!!) . It was just so relaxing, possibly aided by the fact that the kids were asleep already :o) . Brie said to us, "It would be so great if you guys moved out here!"
On our last day, we took Ellie to Sea World with us. It's tough being so far away from everyone, so we thought it would be a great idea to spend some time with the newest 3-year-old adult of the family. Surprisingly, Brie had no objections for us taking her off her hands for the day ;o). Not surprisingly, Ellie already had the map at Sea World memorized and the first thing she wanted to do was....? The pet show? No. Shamu? No. Penguins? No. SHARKS! I think that's pretty bad ass that my three-year-old niece wanted to go hang out with the sharks. Well, we did hang out with them after we rushed to see the Dolphin Show. She also wanted to touch the sting-rays. The idea sounded good to her, but she wasn't quite comfortable actually touching them. We also went on the newish Wild Arctic Ride, which Ellie barely passed in order to ride. I felt a little bit dizzy on the ride and was worried about her, since it was pretty scary and violent. Afterwards, she said "That was so fun!!!!" I was slightly naseus :o). We hit almost everything during the blissfully blistering hot day in Mission Bay and Ellie was destroyed by the time it was time for us to leave. She actually fell asleep in the stroller in the parking lot on the way back to the car, how's that for timing?
Finally, to cap the trip, we filled up Graham's fish water tanks with fresh ocean water and watched the surfers before hitting up a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place to check off the last box. We drove around downtown a little bit before heading to the airport to our red-eye flight. As expected, Erika loved San Diego as much as I did (like always). I woke up the next morning to rain in the sky and grey New York and Erika and I both thought, "We need to move to San Diego".
J. Riley, looking forward to the economic recovery, cuz I need a job in SD.
In an optimization strategy, we decided to stay for five days and try to get as much done as possible in such a short amount of time. As well as the graduation festivities, the clan planned outings to the Getty Center in LA and a chance to nurse the graduation hangover with a day at Disneyland, followed by a lovely tour of LA (barf), and a few days down in San Diego.
And the trip was grand. The Getty Center was more than I imagined that Los Angeles could muster in terms of culture (note: I openly discriminate and am prejudiced against the megatropolis of LA). Open-air, wonderful views of the city, world-class art, fresh creeks, florist sculptures, and architectual exhibits abounded at the Getty Center - it was everything that I imagined LA wasn't. My only regret was that we didn't have enough time to spend there as Graham, Erika, and I drove up from San Diego in the morning and there was traffic and Faryn's big event to attend/experience in the afternoon.
I remember my college graduation day. I wanted to see everyone before I left town and on graduation day, but there just wasn't enough time. Like myself, everyone had visitors in town and each person had there own events to attend. I remember my roommate Ryan and I having a low-key barbeque or pot-luck of some sorts at our apartment. But it was just a crazy day with the ceremonies, seeing people for the last time, and hanging out with all of our visitors.
I suppose Faryn's graduation was a similar experience for her! We unloaded and changed in the hotel and rushed to her apartment to find her in amongst her boxes doing her hair and her roommates still packing. We had rushed there thinking we were going to be late for her department's congregation at the school, only to find out later that the event didn't start for another hour and a half and was really just a place to go eat some fresh fruit and delicious sun-warmed cookies, all of which I ate way too much of. But we hung around there with Faryn as she said hi to her departmental friends.
After an early dinner of Greek food near the campus, we went back to the stadium to catch the graduation ceremonies and witness the honoring of EIGHT HUNDRED students graduating. Yes, all of their names were read outloud :o) ! We had giggled in sympathy for Erika when she said that her graduation from college was two hours long, but this event turned out to eclipse that by at least 30 minutes! But, there were some memorable moments such as the tossing of tortillas by the students (???) and some racial epithets (is that a word?) by one of the speakers (classy). But at least there were plenty of interesting costumes for the guests at this event: girls with skirts barely covering their undies, terrible bleach-blondes, and the now infamous curly-black-hair mulleted guy with elf-en pointy-toe shoes five sizes too big and a bad case of slacks that were too tight and non-existent underwear. Why I didn't capture this character in digital photos, I don't know!
After graduation, we drove around Pasadena looking for a place to celebrate and settled on a sushi joint were dad proceeded to lead us to a happy place with saki-bombs! We ate some pretty good sushi at the place too, props to Summer for her selections right up my alley! I gotta say, Pasadena is a pretty nice place with loads of clubs, bars, and restaurants. I don't think I had ever been there before, but I would definitely return if I was unlucky enough to find myself in LA in the near future.
We crashed hard that night, it was a long day after a six-hour flight the night before and about five hours of sleep. It helped that the Hampton Inn we stayed at was much, much nicer than the one I stayed at for a week in Columbus, Indiana back in the day!
Sunday was the triumphant return to Disneyland for the first time since about Junior High for me, and Erika's first time at a Disney location! We met Graham, Brie, and the kids there and about five pictures in, our camera broke. As Summer would say: FAIL! Lucky for me, I have a sister that, ahemmm, "offered" her camera to me to use for the day.
Disneyland was great. It was everything that it was the first time I went with my grandparents when I was eight years old. My dad attempted to support his veto of excessive purchases of gifts for my niece by asking us what we bought on that first trip. All I remembered at the time was a new wallet and $20 (!!!!) that my grandparents gave me and my brother. I think I lost some of the money (not for the first time), but I definitely remember buying a toy musket-style rifle from somewhere in Frontier Land! We did all the rides there, some with the kids, and some later on without, and they were still great. It's A Small World was interesting despite not changing in 50 years (they even have Peruvians!), they scored big points with Pirates of the Caribbean, and of course the roller coasters like Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and the Thunder Mountain train ride. Those rides don't need to change! The only one that was lame was the Haunted House. At least put something spooky in there!!
We did about 14 hours at Disneyland before we shut the place down. We could definitely have used a second day at the Disney properties to get the full experience, and that probably would have been a better idea than trying to show Erika LA on Monday morning after dining and saying goodbye to the North-bound part of the Haines train. LA was a disaster. Armed with my trusty AAA map provided by the hotel, we headed out to try to find film studios and Hollywood. And I was provided with the first sign of disaster quickly after departure from the hotel. I GOT LOST TRYING TO FIND THE HIGHWAY FROM DISNEYLAND! This is not an easy thing to do people, but I managed it. I was so stressed out driving through LA and didn't manage to find the exits I hoped to find to the studios. So, I got off the highway to turn around and found out that there was no entrance back onto it.
My head was turning red and I could feel the steam starting to whistle out of my ears. Eventually, two hours later, we found lovely Beverly Hills and I mellowed out (a little bit). Hey, we're on Sunset Blvd, this is the right way to Hollywood, right? Yea, right down to seedy-town, Hollywood. Luckily, I used the phone-a-friend lifeline and was rescued with some directions to the star-walk. It was under-impressive (as I expected), but Erika was trying her best to not slap me in the face with my wonderfully negative attitude the whole time. She was disappointed that we weren't doing a studio tour (my fault I guess), so I attempted to satiate the situation with tickets to the wax museum, Guiness Book of World Records, and Ripley's Believe It or Not. Some of the things at these places were interesting, but I was itching to get out of LA and head to San Diego.
Ahhh...San Diego. I was immediately relaxed when we pulled into In 'N Out (after passing too many in LA) and chowed on the greatest burgers in the world. We hung out with Brie and Graham at night, relaxed some more, and slept in the next morning at our hotel by Moonlight Beach. Auntie Jude came by in the morning and we mosied on down to the beach at about noon and enjoyed the patches of sunshine and warmth there. I took a dip in the water for a while and just enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere. Auntie Jude said, "Justin, you guys have to move here".
After Auntie Jude departed, we went back to the hotel and showered and looked presentable for lunch at Encinitas's fantastic Peruvian restaurant Q'ero (the artists formerly known as Amici's) with my old friend Russell and his family. Russ spent two years of his youth in Ecuador, so it was fun to hear his old stories of Ecuador and compare it with Erika's Peru. Q'ero did a good job of reigniting Russ's sensory agents with their flavor and atmosphere, things he hadn't experienced since he left Ecuador nine years ago. At the end of the relaxing meal and the climactic tres leches cake (best Erika has ever had, I might add), Russ said, "J, you should move out here. No, you HAVE to move here."
We walked through Encinitas afterwards, doing some window shopping and Erika did some beauty products shopping before we arrived at Swamy's surf-spot, where we parked it on the benches and enjoyed the sunshine and the surfers on the cliffs before us. We planned on walking up to Graham and Brie's a little bit later but were saved when they called us to find out where we were. Graham was roasting up a carne asada tri-tip, so we met up with Brie and did some grocery shopping at the lovely gourmet Seaside Market before heading up the hill for dinner.
Dining on Graham's food is on my list along with Mexican food and In 'N Out when I'm in SD. Despite the late lunch, the food was great as always and we hung out, watched some reality TV and basketball, Erika and Brie shared wedding albums and stories while I was in heaven setting up Graham's new Mac with remote access (!!!) . It was just so relaxing, possibly aided by the fact that the kids were asleep already :o) . Brie said to us, "It would be so great if you guys moved out here!"
On our last day, we took Ellie to Sea World with us. It's tough being so far away from everyone, so we thought it would be a great idea to spend some time with the newest 3-year-old adult of the family. Surprisingly, Brie had no objections for us taking her off her hands for the day ;o). Not surprisingly, Ellie already had the map at Sea World memorized and the first thing she wanted to do was....? The pet show? No. Shamu? No. Penguins? No. SHARKS! I think that's pretty bad ass that my three-year-old niece wanted to go hang out with the sharks. Well, we did hang out with them after we rushed to see the Dolphin Show. She also wanted to touch the sting-rays. The idea sounded good to her, but she wasn't quite comfortable actually touching them. We also went on the newish Wild Arctic Ride, which Ellie barely passed in order to ride. I felt a little bit dizzy on the ride and was worried about her, since it was pretty scary and violent. Afterwards, she said "That was so fun!!!!" I was slightly naseus :o). We hit almost everything during the blissfully blistering hot day in Mission Bay and Ellie was destroyed by the time it was time for us to leave. She actually fell asleep in the stroller in the parking lot on the way back to the car, how's that for timing?
Finally, to cap the trip, we filled up Graham's fish water tanks with fresh ocean water and watched the surfers before hitting up a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place to check off the last box. We drove around downtown a little bit before heading to the airport to our red-eye flight. As expected, Erika loved San Diego as much as I did (like always). I woke up the next morning to rain in the sky and grey New York and Erika and I both thought, "We need to move to San Diego".
J. Riley, looking forward to the economic recovery, cuz I need a job in SD.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Wedding Blog: Wedding Day
The day I was to be married, Saturday, February 14th, 2009, I woke up in the middle of the night in a deep sweat. Was I sleepless, tossing and turning in bed, nervous about the wedding? No, what woke me up was the sounds of my roommate tossing his cookies in the bathroom. I felt really bad for him at that time and checked to make sure he was going to survive at least through the wedding. And the room, despite the fan being on, had no air circulation whatsoever, so it was hot as hell. Another big "plus" for the hotel we were staying at :o/ . I quickly fell back asleep, however, once Stefan confirmed that he was feeling five pounds lighter and marginally better than when he had gone to bed.
My alarm clock was set to go off at 8:30am and it went off to my annoyance. I got up, took a "shower" (lukewarm water dripping from a "shower head" in the bathroom :o| ), and then headed over to the grocery store to pick up some drugs for Stefan, since I knew it was going to be a rough day for him. I also picked out a cheap twist-off-cap bottle of white wine that would be used as my anesthesia prior to the wedding ceremony.
I was amazed that at this hour in Miraflores, the streets were completely empty and the only people out were the gardners grooming the parks. I was pretty surprised, but didn't think anything else about it since this is also the case in New York City on the weekends. The city doesn't move until noon. This is Latin America, afterall, the clock is on "island time".
Anyway, I got back to the hotel, fed Stefan some cheap South American pills that I hoped would help, and checked the time. It was 7:45am. Son of a bitch. The alarm clock on my cellphone has had a bug since the day I bought it. Even the my 7:00am alarm is set to go off on Monday-Friday only (for work, obviously), it goes off on the weekends as well. Tell me that THAT'S not annoying :o| . So, I had some free time to waste before everyone else got up to go to breakfast.
After piddling around on the computer downstairs, the masses woke up and we went to our Cafe Manolo for breakfast, like we did every day. I felt pretty zen-like that morning, and that was before I started on the bottle of wine, which was opened after breakfast about an hour before the noon ceremony while I was getting dressed. There's no good, plausible reason to feel nervous in front of 150 people while you are getting married in a foreign language when wine is cheap and readily available to any paying customer at the local grocery store. It woked during my civil wedding, and it worked at this wedding as well, so a few glasses (or gulps from the bottle, as in my case) of it before a wedding comes highly recommended from your's truly.
Anyway, the phone rang and I was beckoned downstairs by the photographers. They wanted to go up to my room to take pre-wedding pictures and I said "uuhhhh....that's not a good idea", and not only because my roommate had been throwing up all night. The rooms in this hotel are not what you want plastered as your background through sickness and health until death do you part. Of course, downstairs had an authentic vintage look going on that would work well in the East Village in some hipster cafe (think "DT-UT", New Yorkers), but it was that: authentically vintage. As-in, dark, ratty couches, ancient computer, torn up walls, bad carpet, etc. But still, it was better than the rooms and, in fact, it turned out pretty nice in the pictures. I looked like a British aristocrat in my library or study, so that worked out well.
Somebody was supposed to pick me and my parents up in a black car while the bus was transporting our guests to the church, but I didn't really know who it was going to be, when they were coming, or whether they planned on taking me hostage on my wedding day, but sure enough, a nice fellow came and somehow communicated in Spanish to me that he was there for us (and was going to take us to the church). The bus also arrived on time and everything seemed to be in order. It was almost too efficient and unstressful for me to believe.
When we got in the car, the driver gave me the cue card of the things (in Spanish) I was supposed to say in the church so I had the first cram session that I've had since I graduated from college to try to pronounce the words in front of me, whether I knew what they meant or not ;o) (actually, I did know what they meant; basically the same as in English).
We got to the church pretty early, so we were all just hanging out and trying to stay cool. I wasn't really sure how everything was supposed to proceed, but I figured that our wedding planner should be involved at some point and tell us when to get started. About thirty minutes later, she showed up and quickly threw some flowers on us gentlemen, handed the bridesmaids their boquets, and then got everything started. One of the groomsmen was Erika's cousin's husband that I knew and he was trying to tell me something, but I kept telling him to go talk to the wedding planner because he needed his flower. It turns out that two of the bridesmaids didn't turn up on time, and he was trying to tell me (I think) that he didn't need a flower since his bridesmaid partner wasn't there. Of course, I didn't realize that this was the case until he and Stefan walked down the aisle together, mano-y-mano sans bridesmaids.
So the wedding ceremony music started while I was chilling down at the first pew, enjoying the lingering effects of the two cups/gulps of white wine I had drank two hours before. Erika had arrived and was quickly ushured down the aisle by her dad, and then it was game on. Naturally, she looked stunning and was more nervous than me, but that might have been the wine. She ever whispered to me during the ceremony, "Haines, you smell like alcohol". Who, me? ;o)
The ceremony went as ceremonies go, which was good considering the words that I had to read from the priest were actually DIFFERENT than my cue card had been. That could have been bad if he hadn't held the book up for me! I followed Erika's lead with the whole standing up, sitting down, standing up, kneeling down that is involved in Catholic churches. The only awkward part was that he pronounced us man and wife and I thought I got to kiss her then. But then he kept talking and I asked Erika, "Wasn't I suppsed to kiss you?" She thought I was supposed to as well, but the priest kept talking and I was thinking how strange it would be to have a wedding ceremony without that pinnacle moment. A few minutes later, the priest said something, Erika grabbed me and said, "Kiss me!" and that was that!
After the wedding, we had personal pictures and were congratulated by everyone outside the church. One unfortunate thing is that I had gotten a new pair of glasses the week before that didn't tint when I was outside in order to show off my beautiful blue eyes (not!) and not have wedding photos with moderately-tinted "Hello, I'm Justin and I am a child molestor" glasses. This worked out well, except that it was like 1:00pm in the middle of the summer, and the sun was BRIGHT! Unfortunately, in some of the pictures, there is a hint of grimace on my face: Not because I now had a ball-and-chain, but because of the sun that was scorching my retinas. Sun glasses would have been a good idea, I guess....
Then, it was off to our Benz to whisk us away for some pictures. It was nice and and cool inside there and we found a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us, which was a wonderful touch and definitely appreciated in order to hydrate us for the long photo sessions in a nearby park and in the photographers studio before we got to the reception. We didn't get there until almost three o'clock though, so people were eating, drinking, and being merry (especially Erika's best friend, who was righteously sauced beyond recognition when we got there and throughout the whole night. Well done! :o) by the time we arrived.
We did our wedding dance (a Waltz that we got one and a half steps into before we gave up), danced with relatives, sisters, mothers, etc, (during which we fended off Erika's best friend from interrupting) and toasted each of the tables with champagne before we got to sit down to eat something, with a plate of food magically put on my table setting by some unknown persons. I scarfed down my food (which was surprisingly good for a buffet) and enjoyed being at the center of attention for the rest of the night. I don't remember the exact order of things, but we:
Multimedia evidence:
J. Riley, obviously words won't do it justic, but it was a great wedding.
My alarm clock was set to go off at 8:30am and it went off to my annoyance. I got up, took a "shower" (lukewarm water dripping from a "shower head" in the bathroom :o| ), and then headed over to the grocery store to pick up some drugs for Stefan, since I knew it was going to be a rough day for him. I also picked out a cheap twist-off-cap bottle of white wine that would be used as my anesthesia prior to the wedding ceremony.
I was amazed that at this hour in Miraflores, the streets were completely empty and the only people out were the gardners grooming the parks. I was pretty surprised, but didn't think anything else about it since this is also the case in New York City on the weekends. The city doesn't move until noon. This is Latin America, afterall, the clock is on "island time".
Anyway, I got back to the hotel, fed Stefan some cheap South American pills that I hoped would help, and checked the time. It was 7:45am. Son of a bitch. The alarm clock on my cellphone has had a bug since the day I bought it. Even the my 7:00am alarm is set to go off on Monday-Friday only (for work, obviously), it goes off on the weekends as well. Tell me that THAT'S not annoying :o| . So, I had some free time to waste before everyone else got up to go to breakfast.
After piddling around on the computer downstairs, the masses woke up and we went to our Cafe Manolo for breakfast, like we did every day. I felt pretty zen-like that morning, and that was before I started on the bottle of wine, which was opened after breakfast about an hour before the noon ceremony while I was getting dressed. There's no good, plausible reason to feel nervous in front of 150 people while you are getting married in a foreign language when wine is cheap and readily available to any paying customer at the local grocery store. It woked during my civil wedding, and it worked at this wedding as well, so a few glasses (or gulps from the bottle, as in my case) of it before a wedding comes highly recommended from your's truly.
Anyway, the phone rang and I was beckoned downstairs by the photographers. They wanted to go up to my room to take pre-wedding pictures and I said "uuhhhh....that's not a good idea", and not only because my roommate had been throwing up all night. The rooms in this hotel are not what you want plastered as your background through sickness and health until death do you part. Of course, downstairs had an authentic vintage look going on that would work well in the East Village in some hipster cafe (think "DT-UT", New Yorkers), but it was that: authentically vintage. As-in, dark, ratty couches, ancient computer, torn up walls, bad carpet, etc. But still, it was better than the rooms and, in fact, it turned out pretty nice in the pictures. I looked like a British aristocrat in my library or study, so that worked out well.
Somebody was supposed to pick me and my parents up in a black car while the bus was transporting our guests to the church, but I didn't really know who it was going to be, when they were coming, or whether they planned on taking me hostage on my wedding day, but sure enough, a nice fellow came and somehow communicated in Spanish to me that he was there for us (and was going to take us to the church). The bus also arrived on time and everything seemed to be in order. It was almost too efficient and unstressful for me to believe.
When we got in the car, the driver gave me the cue card of the things (in Spanish) I was supposed to say in the church so I had the first cram session that I've had since I graduated from college to try to pronounce the words in front of me, whether I knew what they meant or not ;o) (actually, I did know what they meant; basically the same as in English).
We got to the church pretty early, so we were all just hanging out and trying to stay cool. I wasn't really sure how everything was supposed to proceed, but I figured that our wedding planner should be involved at some point and tell us when to get started. About thirty minutes later, she showed up and quickly threw some flowers on us gentlemen, handed the bridesmaids their boquets, and then got everything started. One of the groomsmen was Erika's cousin's husband that I knew and he was trying to tell me something, but I kept telling him to go talk to the wedding planner because he needed his flower. It turns out that two of the bridesmaids didn't turn up on time, and he was trying to tell me (I think) that he didn't need a flower since his bridesmaid partner wasn't there. Of course, I didn't realize that this was the case until he and Stefan walked down the aisle together, mano-y-mano sans bridesmaids.
So the wedding ceremony music started while I was chilling down at the first pew, enjoying the lingering effects of the two cups/gulps of white wine I had drank two hours before. Erika had arrived and was quickly ushured down the aisle by her dad, and then it was game on. Naturally, she looked stunning and was more nervous than me, but that might have been the wine. She ever whispered to me during the ceremony, "Haines, you smell like alcohol". Who, me? ;o)
The ceremony went as ceremonies go, which was good considering the words that I had to read from the priest were actually DIFFERENT than my cue card had been. That could have been bad if he hadn't held the book up for me! I followed Erika's lead with the whole standing up, sitting down, standing up, kneeling down that is involved in Catholic churches. The only awkward part was that he pronounced us man and wife and I thought I got to kiss her then. But then he kept talking and I asked Erika, "Wasn't I suppsed to kiss you?" She thought I was supposed to as well, but the priest kept talking and I was thinking how strange it would be to have a wedding ceremony without that pinnacle moment. A few minutes later, the priest said something, Erika grabbed me and said, "Kiss me!" and that was that!
After the wedding, we had personal pictures and were congratulated by everyone outside the church. One unfortunate thing is that I had gotten a new pair of glasses the week before that didn't tint when I was outside in order to show off my beautiful blue eyes (not!) and not have wedding photos with moderately-tinted "Hello, I'm Justin and I am a child molestor" glasses. This worked out well, except that it was like 1:00pm in the middle of the summer, and the sun was BRIGHT! Unfortunately, in some of the pictures, there is a hint of grimace on my face: Not because I now had a ball-and-chain, but because of the sun that was scorching my retinas. Sun glasses would have been a good idea, I guess....
Then, it was off to our Benz to whisk us away for some pictures. It was nice and and cool inside there and we found a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us, which was a wonderful touch and definitely appreciated in order to hydrate us for the long photo sessions in a nearby park and in the photographers studio before we got to the reception. We didn't get there until almost three o'clock though, so people were eating, drinking, and being merry (especially Erika's best friend, who was righteously sauced beyond recognition when we got there and throughout the whole night. Well done! :o) by the time we arrived.
We did our wedding dance (a Waltz that we got one and a half steps into before we gave up), danced with relatives, sisters, mothers, etc, (during which we fended off Erika's best friend from interrupting) and toasted each of the tables with champagne before we got to sit down to eat something, with a plate of food magically put on my table setting by some unknown persons. I scarfed down my food (which was surprisingly good for a buffet) and enjoyed being at the center of attention for the rest of the night. I don't remember the exact order of things, but we:
- ...had Erika's 9-year-old cousin perform a Marinara dance or two for us with her dance partner. She competes nationally in this dance and it's unbelievable that kids can dance like this!
- ...danced to Latin music all night (all-good, despite my requests for some gringo and samba music).
- ...brought out "cotillon" (costume hats, ties, balloons, etc.) when people started getting tired, which made the party CRAZY on the dance floor.
- ...busted out Cuban cigars (thanks Stefan) that I had a few puffs on before it got handed on to someone else for the rest of the fire (Faryn maybe?).
- ...dealt with intoxicated bridesmaids trying to take advantage of Stefan in his feeble state.
- ...had great interaction between Peruvians and gringos, especially at the end of the night when my sisters and her friends started drinking one-liter glasses of beer :o)
- ...unfortunately had the music shut off at about 9:30 because we were at a private residence and everyone was drunk enough anyway :o)
Multimedia evidence:
J. Riley, obviously words won't do it justic, but it was a great wedding.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Back Online
I just got back home to Lima and am recovering from my wedding, honeymoon, etc. and will share some stories about it all when I feel like it. I get home this weekend on Saturday night, so I will have some time to write about some stuff on Sunday - my day of rest before returning to the boredom of everyday work! Some quick notes about everything though;
So, stay tuned. Pictures and videos will have to wait since my camera is staying in Peru for one more week with the lady of the house!
J. Riley, and I´m spent!
- I was thrilled that those of you who attended the wedding came! I had a great time and I don´t think that the wedding could have gone any better. You can blame Erika for that, she spent a lot of time getting things ready! In my unbiased opinion, it was better than I expected and the best wedding I have been to!
- We did a couple tours around Lima to show some sites to the gringos and I think it worked out well that way. Renting a bus was definitely the way to go, especially since people got to sit next to new people and by the end of the day trips, everyone knew everyone else, which was just perfect.
- Like always, I had a lot of fun in Brazil, though the trip was definitely different in style to the other trips. Daniel and Kelly and their family were excellent hosts and showed us Sao Paulo, the Carneval parade in Sao Paulo (AMAZING!), and the beach town of Peruibe, where we spent hours talking by the pool, drinking beers, barbequing, trying to find places not overwhelmed by Paulistan tourists (impossible during the Carneval holidays), and walking through the flooded streets up to my knees (or higher)
So, stay tuned. Pictures and videos will have to wait since my camera is staying in Peru for one more week with the lady of the house!
J. Riley, and I´m spent!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Believe It or Not...
First, some administrative information regarding the wedding next year. Erika has gotten ahold of the manager of a very nice, local hotel chain in Lima (Miraflores), Peru (Casa Andina for you Googlers) and has gotten a verbal agreement for a 15% discount on hotel rooms for guests to our wedding. They have three local locations including a 3-star, a 5-star (for Sean), and one a little outside of central Miraflores that I've stayed at. Erika calls it "normal star", whatever that means :o). In any case, that is one option and if you want to make a reservation there, you should send me an email so I can give you the manager's email address so you can deal directly with him. He speaks English, of course.
For the stingy crowd (people like me), there is another hotel in Central Miraflores next to the park called La Casa de Sanchez. There's no discount there, but the prices are pretty good already. If I was traveling, I would stay here. But Casa Andina hotels are really nice (and more expensive) and, a crucial dealmaker, has wireless internet :o).
A third option is to check Craigslist for Peru and rent an apartment in Miraflores for like $35 a night. That is what I am doing and typically have done in the past. It's hard to beat that price and you can have your own oceanfront view from your bedroom, overlooking Lima, and a full kitchen, internet, cable TV, etc.
J. Riley, check out my new "Reactions" below - I totally copy-catted Summer
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Avergonzado!
So I'm taking these free Spanish classes at a local church to get an hour of practice in every week. Two weeks back, at the first class, I sat in on the intro class since Erika is convinced I am a beginner. After learning how to count from one to ten and learning how to pronounce the letters of the alphabet (zzzzz for me), the teacher determined that I could attend the more advanced class following the beginner (I didn't know there were two levels). The advanced level was about right and I was still one of the more "fluent" students in that class.
So this Monday roles around and I head out to class, strutting my stuff, listening to my iPod, knowing that I was the cool advanced guy in class. I walked into class and soon learned that I was not the cool guy cuz I couldn't understand anything the teacher was saying and was pretty much lost during the whole hour. Not to mention that everybody else in class was waaay more advanced then me. I assumed it was because the teacher didn't speak as clear Spanish as Erika. Peruvians all say that they speak clear, proper Spanish whereas most other countries' Spanish is kind of dirty, like Spanish from Mexico. I mentally determined that my teacher was from Guatemala (I have no reason why) and that is why I couldn't understand her. Then, later in class she mentioned that she was from PERU!
I guess my Spanish is just terrible :o/
J. Riley, I gotta get Erika speaking to me more. This is avergonzado, or embarrassing!
So this Monday roles around and I head out to class, strutting my stuff, listening to my iPod, knowing that I was the cool advanced guy in class. I walked into class and soon learned that I was not the cool guy cuz I couldn't understand anything the teacher was saying and was pretty much lost during the whole hour. Not to mention that everybody else in class was waaay more advanced then me. I assumed it was because the teacher didn't speak as clear Spanish as Erika. Peruvians all say that they speak clear, proper Spanish whereas most other countries' Spanish is kind of dirty, like Spanish from Mexico. I mentally determined that my teacher was from Guatemala (I have no reason why) and that is why I couldn't understand her. Then, later in class she mentioned that she was from PERU!
I guess my Spanish is just terrible :o/
J. Riley, I gotta get Erika speaking to me more. This is avergonzado, or embarrassing!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
While I'm At It...
Did I tell anyone that I went to Charleston, South Carolina two weekends ago? I bet you knew if you were on Facebook and you saw all of my pictures. Or if you have a Google account and happen to have me listed as a Favorite in your Picasa and saw that I just posted pictures.
So, yea, I had the first vacation I've had since February, not including my trip to Cali for my wedding. That's a long freakin time for me to go without taking a major trip! And a domestic vacation - I don't even remember the last domestic vacation I took.
This doesn't really count as a "major" vacation, but it was one anyway - and a damn good one, at that. Does anyone even know anything about this city? I certainly didn't, but came home with a thirst for history books on this city, because it was magnificent. It was Jeff's wedding that weekend and since his wife comes from an aristocratic city, we figured it would be a great one to attend. Plus, Paul, Cathy, Ryan, and his Peruvian wife - good friends with my wife, and in fact how I met mine! - were all attending!
Being tight with the wallet these days, we flew into Charlotte, North Carolina (ironically the city were the acquisition target of the bank that I'm working for is located), rented a car, and drove three hours South to Charlotte. I was thinking that it would be all scenic since it's fall and I knew there were lots of trees. No, it was just solid green, since I guess it rains a lot and is semi-tropical in those parts.
Funny story about South Carolina that maybe you haven't heard. Erika had actually been to South Carolina seven years ago when she came to the States to work at some ski resort for a few weeks. She shows up at the ski resort with her Peruvian friends, doesn't speak a lick of English, but finds out that the Russian owners/coordinators of this "job" actually take the workers' passports and lock them in huge communal bedrooms at night with no access to phones or anything. Well, she and her friends decided to escape right after they got there and took their luggage and started walking down the road to nowhere, since they were in the mountains. They ended up getting a ride from a guy who took them to a hotel in town and paid for their room, brought them food, etc. until they could get the hell out of dodge. Somehow, the Russians found them there and the guy who picked them up happened to be coming to the hotel to check on them and more or less "saved" them again.
So Erika was checking out the map but had no idea what city she stayed in and stuff, but told me that it was on "Jackson Heights" Avenue (JH is a neighboring neighborhood that has lots of Latinos, and is the location of the infamous "putaria". Sure enough, we came across an exit for a Jackson Avenue (close, Erika :) and it was actually the place where she had been seven years ago! We took pictures of her hotel there, of the $5 Chinese buffet place they ate at everyday, etc. before eating some South Carolina (mustard-style) BBQ (tough choice, that or a million other chain restaurants).
Anyway, we made it to Charleston and checked into our hotel shortly before Ryan and his wife arrived. It was raining of course, but we all decided to attend the "cocktail party" at one of Jeff's in-laws many houses in downtown Charleston. And what an amazing house it was! We had a few beers and then headed to the bar/restaurant area to get some real food. The four of us ate at a Brewery nearby the upper-echelon bar that Jeff parked his party at and experienced absolutely phenemonal food, one of the best meals in my life. They were encrusted scallops over grits with a bunch of veggies that was just to die for. I don't know how else to explain them because the taste and textures were very complex and the golden palate was pleased, indeed.
The next morning, we went on a Patriot tour of Charleston to learn about it's role in the Revolutionary War, which I didn't even realize happened down there. Apparently Charles Towne, as it was known, was one of the richest cities in the colonies and according to the guide, more battles were fought in Charleston than in any other place in America. Interesting fact...
So we saw tombs of our founding fathers, we went to churches that Washington himself went to, we saw landmarks, toured the Exchange that 3/4 of all slaves in the US went through, learned about South Carolina's pirate problem with Blackbeard and the others, etc. etc. before finding a divey, but local, bar to eat at for lunch. The tour was interesting, but there were more places to see in the beautiful city with horrible weather at the time. We walked along the ocean-facing street to watch the waves crash against the sea-wall with beautiful, Victorian mansions overlooking all the way down to the battery park that had cannons used to defend the city and beautiful, huge, oak trees. It was just breathtaking, this city.
We decided to buy a ghost package for the night, featuring a ghoulish theater and ghost carriage tour since evereyone else was going to the rehearsal dinner. The theater show was pretty creepy and very well done. Usually those things are kinda childish and boring, but Erika screamed out loud at one point when a loud ghost cry screamed behind us. It's a good thing her big husband was there to comfort her. Or was it the other way around ;o) ?
The carriage tour was a joke since nobody was at the carriage departure site. We decided to use it on Monday morning instead and headed down to meet up with the rest of the group who were eating downtown. We ate at a crab-joint with live music next door while waiting for them to finish. I love me some crab, but not so much blue crab. They're tool small and it takes too much effort to get skimpy pieces of meat. I'll stick with Christmas Eve Dungeness next time, thank you very much.
Afterwards, we made a brief appearance at the after party at a nightclub before calling it a night since it was late and I was golfing with the boys the next morning. Golfing with Paul and Ryan behind the Buxtons was a blast, mostly since we had golf carts :) and I managed to hit the ball straight pretty consistently, even if it only went 25 yards. My grandpa would be proud :). I heard stories of Jeff's bachelor party in SLO with the golf-carts with incidents like driving up and down stairs, getting coolers confiscated, etc. etc. Jeff + Coors Light + toys = trouble and a lot of fun :o) . But, he was well-behaved on this day since he was recovering from five days of drinking and getting married later in the day.
After golfing, we met up with the girls who were shopping downtown and we had lunch with Paul & Cathy at a conspiculously named oyster placed called A.W. Shucks. The name alone sent shivers down my neck and I cringed at the thought that this place must be a chain with a name like that. But, I honestly think it was local, since it was downtown, and I in my memories of the place, I will always think of it as local. At least I didn't see it on any of the highway exit signs along with Bob Evans, Waffle House, Shoneys, and Bojangles!
After lunch, back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Most of the pack had to be down there early since they were in the wedding, so Erika and I had some free time to watch TV while I monitored the ocuppied, free PC downstairs so I could learn how to tie a fancy knot, since I can never seem to get it right. Of course, it was ocuppied all night and I ended up with a horrible knot, as you can see in my pictures. Damn you, half-windsor!!! Guess I should practice it more than once a year :o/ .
The wedding was nice, featuring a gospel choir and, best of all, these amazing Sweat-tea vodka and cranberry drinks that I could have drinken all night if they weren't produced in limited quantities. It was probably better that night since I was driving! The wedding itself was held outside an old mansion that was owned by one of the founders of the transatlantic railroad. I'm sure he died a pauper :o| .
After the wedding, of course, everyone went to a complete dive bar around the corner that was occupied by some kids that looked like they were 15 before the artistocracy from the wedding overthrew them. We played some pool, chit-chatted, and had $1.50 drinks for a while before finishing up and heading home.
Monday, we slept in and checked out with Ryan and Lili before going to a place Anthony Bourdain visited called Hominy Grill, which is rumored to be historic, but I'm not sure why. The breakfast was traditional except for my meal, which was traditional shrimp and cheese grits - and tasty vegetables on top. Wow, I was digging the food down south - although the the chainy BBQ experienced a few days prior never did sit right.
We followed breakfast up with a carriage tour of the city that was the highlight and required activity. We had a free-lovin' hipster type of tour guide in his twenties who knew just about everything about everything and had lived in Peru, West Africa, Bolivia, and countless other places. He told us about little details in the houses like the color on the ceiling of the verandas and why they use it, the type of wood used and why the paint was peeling, why houses damaged in the Great Earthquake had steel rods put all the way through the house to the other side, why some verandas had doors and some didn't, and of course who lived in which house.
So, I can't talk about all of the details because we only had three and a half days and could easily have spent a week there, but you get the idea about Charleston. If you have friends in the area (and I know Graham does) or you ever find yourself within driving distance of the city, you should really check it out.
J. Riley, highly recommend Charleston, even if we hardly scratched the surface.
So, yea, I had the first vacation I've had since February, not including my trip to Cali for my wedding. That's a long freakin time for me to go without taking a major trip! And a domestic vacation - I don't even remember the last domestic vacation I took.
This doesn't really count as a "major" vacation, but it was one anyway - and a damn good one, at that. Does anyone even know anything about this city? I certainly didn't, but came home with a thirst for history books on this city, because it was magnificent. It was Jeff's wedding that weekend and since his wife comes from an aristocratic city, we figured it would be a great one to attend. Plus, Paul, Cathy, Ryan, and his Peruvian wife - good friends with my wife, and in fact how I met mine! - were all attending!
Being tight with the wallet these days, we flew into Charlotte, North Carolina (ironically the city were the acquisition target of the bank that I'm working for is located), rented a car, and drove three hours South to Charlotte. I was thinking that it would be all scenic since it's fall and I knew there were lots of trees. No, it was just solid green, since I guess it rains a lot and is semi-tropical in those parts.
Funny story about South Carolina that maybe you haven't heard. Erika had actually been to South Carolina seven years ago when she came to the States to work at some ski resort for a few weeks. She shows up at the ski resort with her Peruvian friends, doesn't speak a lick of English, but finds out that the Russian owners/coordinators of this "job" actually take the workers' passports and lock them in huge communal bedrooms at night with no access to phones or anything. Well, she and her friends decided to escape right after they got there and took their luggage and started walking down the road to nowhere, since they were in the mountains. They ended up getting a ride from a guy who took them to a hotel in town and paid for their room, brought them food, etc. until they could get the hell out of dodge. Somehow, the Russians found them there and the guy who picked them up happened to be coming to the hotel to check on them and more or less "saved" them again.
So Erika was checking out the map but had no idea what city she stayed in and stuff, but told me that it was on "Jackson Heights" Avenue (JH is a neighboring neighborhood that has lots of Latinos, and is the location of the infamous "putaria". Sure enough, we came across an exit for a Jackson Avenue (close, Erika :) and it was actually the place where she had been seven years ago! We took pictures of her hotel there, of the $5 Chinese buffet place they ate at everyday, etc. before eating some South Carolina (mustard-style) BBQ (tough choice, that or a million other chain restaurants).
Anyway, we made it to Charleston and checked into our hotel shortly before Ryan and his wife arrived. It was raining of course, but we all decided to attend the "cocktail party" at one of Jeff's in-laws many houses in downtown Charleston. And what an amazing house it was! We had a few beers and then headed to the bar/restaurant area to get some real food. The four of us ate at a Brewery nearby the upper-echelon bar that Jeff parked his party at and experienced absolutely phenemonal food, one of the best meals in my life. They were encrusted scallops over grits with a bunch of veggies that was just to die for. I don't know how else to explain them because the taste and textures were very complex and the golden palate was pleased, indeed.
The next morning, we went on a Patriot tour of Charleston to learn about it's role in the Revolutionary War, which I didn't even realize happened down there. Apparently Charles Towne, as it was known, was one of the richest cities in the colonies and according to the guide, more battles were fought in Charleston than in any other place in America. Interesting fact...
So we saw tombs of our founding fathers, we went to churches that Washington himself went to, we saw landmarks, toured the Exchange that 3/4 of all slaves in the US went through, learned about South Carolina's pirate problem with Blackbeard and the others, etc. etc. before finding a divey, but local, bar to eat at for lunch. The tour was interesting, but there were more places to see in the beautiful city with horrible weather at the time. We walked along the ocean-facing street to watch the waves crash against the sea-wall with beautiful, Victorian mansions overlooking all the way down to the battery park that had cannons used to defend the city and beautiful, huge, oak trees. It was just breathtaking, this city.
We decided to buy a ghost package for the night, featuring a ghoulish theater and ghost carriage tour since evereyone else was going to the rehearsal dinner. The theater show was pretty creepy and very well done. Usually those things are kinda childish and boring, but Erika screamed out loud at one point when a loud ghost cry screamed behind us. It's a good thing her big husband was there to comfort her. Or was it the other way around ;o) ?
The carriage tour was a joke since nobody was at the carriage departure site. We decided to use it on Monday morning instead and headed down to meet up with the rest of the group who were eating downtown. We ate at a crab-joint with live music next door while waiting for them to finish. I love me some crab, but not so much blue crab. They're tool small and it takes too much effort to get skimpy pieces of meat. I'll stick with Christmas Eve Dungeness next time, thank you very much.
Afterwards, we made a brief appearance at the after party at a nightclub before calling it a night since it was late and I was golfing with the boys the next morning. Golfing with Paul and Ryan behind the Buxtons was a blast, mostly since we had golf carts :) and I managed to hit the ball straight pretty consistently, even if it only went 25 yards. My grandpa would be proud :). I heard stories of Jeff's bachelor party in SLO with the golf-carts with incidents like driving up and down stairs, getting coolers confiscated, etc. etc. Jeff + Coors Light + toys = trouble and a lot of fun :o) . But, he was well-behaved on this day since he was recovering from five days of drinking and getting married later in the day.
After golfing, we met up with the girls who were shopping downtown and we had lunch with Paul & Cathy at a conspiculously named oyster placed called A.W. Shucks. The name alone sent shivers down my neck and I cringed at the thought that this place must be a chain with a name like that. But, I honestly think it was local, since it was downtown, and I in my memories of the place, I will always think of it as local. At least I didn't see it on any of the highway exit signs along with Bob Evans, Waffle House, Shoneys, and Bojangles!
After lunch, back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Most of the pack had to be down there early since they were in the wedding, so Erika and I had some free time to watch TV while I monitored the ocuppied, free PC downstairs so I could learn how to tie a fancy knot, since I can never seem to get it right. Of course, it was ocuppied all night and I ended up with a horrible knot, as you can see in my pictures. Damn you, half-windsor!!! Guess I should practice it more than once a year :o/ .
The wedding was nice, featuring a gospel choir and, best of all, these amazing Sweat-tea vodka and cranberry drinks that I could have drinken all night if they weren't produced in limited quantities. It was probably better that night since I was driving! The wedding itself was held outside an old mansion that was owned by one of the founders of the transatlantic railroad. I'm sure he died a pauper :o| .
After the wedding, of course, everyone went to a complete dive bar around the corner that was occupied by some kids that looked like they were 15 before the artistocracy from the wedding overthrew them. We played some pool, chit-chatted, and had $1.50 drinks for a while before finishing up and heading home.
Monday, we slept in and checked out with Ryan and Lili before going to a place Anthony Bourdain visited called Hominy Grill, which is rumored to be historic, but I'm not sure why. The breakfast was traditional except for my meal, which was traditional shrimp and cheese grits - and tasty vegetables on top. Wow, I was digging the food down south - although the the chainy BBQ experienced a few days prior never did sit right.
We followed breakfast up with a carriage tour of the city that was the highlight and required activity. We had a free-lovin' hipster type of tour guide in his twenties who knew just about everything about everything and had lived in Peru, West Africa, Bolivia, and countless other places. He told us about little details in the houses like the color on the ceiling of the verandas and why they use it, the type of wood used and why the paint was peeling, why houses damaged in the Great Earthquake had steel rods put all the way through the house to the other side, why some verandas had doors and some didn't, and of course who lived in which house.
So, I can't talk about all of the details because we only had three and a half days and could easily have spent a week there, but you get the idea about Charleston. If you have friends in the area (and I know Graham does) or you ever find yourself within driving distance of the city, you should really check it out.
J. Riley, highly recommend Charleston, even if we hardly scratched the surface.
Monday, October 06, 2008
High School Remixed
On Friday, I got my usual call at work from Erika, but this time it was a little different as she let me know that she had invited eight people from her class to come to our tiny apartment for a party. I thought that sounded like a pretty awesome idea, especially with the news that we'd be getting homemade Italian food, Chinese food, and sushi. It totally through me back 12 years (wow, that's weird to say) - back to my senior year in high school. Same idea, but different characters and different...beverages. That was my favorite year in high school because Stefan and I befriended tons of foreign exchange students and totally pulled off a coup d'état on the International Club, making it our own social club. We actually had a few parties back then - sans cerveza.
I can actually blame - I mean thank - that club for helping me meet all of my international friends not to mention my wife, who was now throwing a party of her own. But this time, the foreign exchange students came bearing not only food to cook, but three cases of beer and a bottle of vodka! Geez, am I in college again, too ;o) ?
Well, we were in for a treat. Roberta made amazing Italian meatballs and sauce that tasted just like Stefan's grandma's used to taste. We had amazing Asian noodles with vegetables that was so tasty I couldn't stop eating it, despite the fact I ate (bad) Chinese food for lunch. And later we had sushi that her Japanese friend made and brought over. I should have been shoulder surfing when all this was cooked rather than drinking the Sapporo and Asahi that the Taiwanese and Koreans brought. In return, we introduced Roberta to the wonders of American culinary trends - i.e. the street in Jersey that fabricates chemicals that makes things taste like the real thing: Nacho Cheese Doritos. It's hard to imagine life without Doritos, but apparently they don't sell them in the mercaditos in small town Tuscany. Lucky them!
So, as is predictable, cheap watery beers that taste like Coors Light but have foreign names were consumed and soon DJ Jazzy J. Riley had iTunes purring along with the many techno mixes and the guests who had their jackets on ready to leave amazingly didn't go anywhere and soon were dancing along with everyone else :) .
Good times, I'm ready for them to come back again, I want more noodles!!!
Saturday afternoon I got a call from Paul about wanting to celebrate Oktoberfest somewhere in town later that night. Despite being pretty tired still (for some unknown reason) I suggested that we hit up Lederhosen in the West Village for some authentic cuisine and dirndl girls. I Sent Erika home because she was ready to go to sleep after visiting Bed, Bath, and Beyond (which is an annoying store to shop in because they have too many clever gizmos that Erika wants to buy) and Paul and I got to chit-chat for for a few hours before we headed downtown to meet up with the rest of the quartet for some Hefe-Weissen, tasty Spaten, and a plateful of wursts. That place is great, they have some fabulous beers including the elusive German Rauchbier that tastes like smoked bacon. I thought about getting it for posterity (is that the word?) sake after drinking it in Alex's college town, the only place it can be found, but ended up getting Apfelwein, another drink of yor that I don't care for too much but drink because it brings me back.
After finishing up the bier and wurstens, it was off to find dessert on new streets that we probably haven't been before. Amazingly we couldn't find any place that would serve dessert at that hour except a little vanagan that was advertising a Diesel party and giving out amazing (in a high-pitch voice) blueberry cheesecake ice cream cones - for free! We're talking real chunks of cheesecake and real blueberries, people. Too bad all the drunks getting the free scoops couldn't remember it the next day, because god has reserved a special block of brain cells in my cranium to remember that stuff.
After that, we stumbled upon Lips, a theme restaurant/bar that features transvestites singing dirty, nasty, hilarious songs about things like getting sex change operations. It was off-the-wall funny and apparently "Erika would've loved this place judging by her bachelorette party" :o/ . Yes, she would have loved it for sure, cuz it was awesome.
I headed home shortly after that, leaving the others to bound about looking for more booze because the wife was alone at home and I pitied her soul. And because I had a Liverpool game to watch the next morning. It was one of the best games I have ever seen in my life, despite Liverpool's Slovakian ax-murderer defender Martin Skrtel rupturing his Posterior Cruciate Ligament in his knee. Ouch. But Torres did bag a brace and Liverpool came back from 2-nil down to take the game in the last minute. Excellent stuff.
J. Riley, the rest of Sunday was spent looking, unsuccessfully, for a pair of shoes for the wife for the wedding next weekend. How is it possible not to find shoes to match a black dress?
I can actually blame - I mean thank - that club for helping me meet all of my international friends not to mention my wife, who was now throwing a party of her own. But this time, the foreign exchange students came bearing not only food to cook, but three cases of beer and a bottle of vodka! Geez, am I in college again, too ;o) ?
Well, we were in for a treat. Roberta made amazing Italian meatballs and sauce that tasted just like Stefan's grandma's used to taste. We had amazing Asian noodles with vegetables that was so tasty I couldn't stop eating it, despite the fact I ate (bad) Chinese food for lunch. And later we had sushi that her Japanese friend made and brought over. I should have been shoulder surfing when all this was cooked rather than drinking the Sapporo and Asahi that the Taiwanese and Koreans brought. In return, we introduced Roberta to the wonders of American culinary trends - i.e. the street in Jersey that fabricates chemicals that makes things taste like the real thing: Nacho Cheese Doritos. It's hard to imagine life without Doritos, but apparently they don't sell them in the mercaditos in small town Tuscany. Lucky them!
So, as is predictable, cheap watery beers that taste like Coors Light but have foreign names were consumed and soon DJ Jazzy J. Riley had iTunes purring along with the many techno mixes and the guests who had their jackets on ready to leave amazingly didn't go anywhere and soon were dancing along with everyone else :) .
Good times, I'm ready for them to come back again, I want more noodles!!!
Saturday afternoon I got a call from Paul about wanting to celebrate Oktoberfest somewhere in town later that night. Despite being pretty tired still (for some unknown reason) I suggested that we hit up Lederhosen in the West Village for some authentic cuisine and dirndl girls. I Sent Erika home because she was ready to go to sleep after visiting Bed, Bath, and Beyond (which is an annoying store to shop in because they have too many clever gizmos that Erika wants to buy) and Paul and I got to chit-chat for for a few hours before we headed downtown to meet up with the rest of the quartet for some Hefe-Weissen, tasty Spaten, and a plateful of wursts. That place is great, they have some fabulous beers including the elusive German Rauchbier that tastes like smoked bacon. I thought about getting it for posterity (is that the word?) sake after drinking it in Alex's college town, the only place it can be found, but ended up getting Apfelwein, another drink of yor that I don't care for too much but drink because it brings me back.
After finishing up the bier and wurstens, it was off to find dessert on new streets that we probably haven't been before. Amazingly we couldn't find any place that would serve dessert at that hour except a little vanagan that was advertising a Diesel party and giving out amazing (in a high-pitch voice) blueberry cheesecake ice cream cones - for free! We're talking real chunks of cheesecake and real blueberries, people. Too bad all the drunks getting the free scoops couldn't remember it the next day, because god has reserved a special block of brain cells in my cranium to remember that stuff.
After that, we stumbled upon Lips, a theme restaurant/bar that features transvestites singing dirty, nasty, hilarious songs about things like getting sex change operations. It was off-the-wall funny and apparently "Erika would've loved this place judging by her bachelorette party" :o/ . Yes, she would have loved it for sure, cuz it was awesome.
I headed home shortly after that, leaving the others to bound about looking for more booze because the wife was alone at home and I pitied her soul. And because I had a Liverpool game to watch the next morning. It was one of the best games I have ever seen in my life, despite Liverpool's Slovakian ax-murderer defender Martin Skrtel rupturing his Posterior Cruciate Ligament in his knee. Ouch. But Torres did bag a brace and Liverpool came back from 2-nil down to take the game in the last minute. Excellent stuff.
J. Riley, the rest of Sunday was spent looking, unsuccessfully, for a pair of shoes for the wife for the wedding next weekend. How is it possible not to find shoes to match a black dress?
Friday, October 03, 2008
Surprise!
So last week I was getting a year older, turning the big 31. I had told Erika, mostly rhetorically, a few weeks back that she should organize a birthday party for me and my friends, since we haven't all gotten together much lately. She could surprise me with the location. She doesn't know much about the restaurants in New York or how to research them, so early last week I blasted my friends with some spam about how I'd like to get together with them for my birthday and go out to dinner at a self-proclaimed "California" Mexican restaurant. I know better than to eat at Mexican restaurants anywhere outside of Cali since they always seriously disappoint, but this place calls itself legit and I've wanted to try it out. I joked with Erika that I was looking forward to receiving all of the "sorry, I can't make it" emails.
Well, they quickly enough started trickling in, but it was worse than expected. Over the next few days leading up to my birthday, people had school, were traveling for work, going to a hockey game, had a business dinner (typical Sean, scheduling it on a day I told him to reserve), and the best was "School nights are really tough for me to make it to the city", by the father of a child less than a year old 8-| etc. etc. and I was thinking...geez, has my life really dwindled down to this?
Well, luckily, my always faithful friend Melissa was available as was Erika's new Italian friend from school Roberta. It wasn't exactly the crowd that I was hoping for and since everyone else said they could do it the following week, I was thinking of just cancelling. Erika wasn't having any of that since birthdays are HUGE in Peru.
She aptly demonstrated starting at 6:00am in the morning (I usually wake up at 7:15am) by waking my tired ass up and bringing in my birthday cupcake. It was very cute because she didn't have a candle, so she spent almost a whole boxes of matches trying to light a toothpick on fire so that I could blow something out :o) . This was followed by a post-it-note trail that led me around the house until I finally ended up looking in the bottom drawer of the dressor, where she had an awesome new shirt for me. She had apparently been saving all of the money that I had been giving her so that she could buy me a birthday present (other than the Liverpool shorts that I got hooked up with!). I was happy and tired, so she said that we could sleep for another 30 minutes, which we did until her PARENTS called me at 6:45am (5:45AM in Peru) to talk to me and tell me Happy Birthday. And her cousin of course was already there too (she sounded like she just woke up). Geez, do I really deserve all of this??? It was very nice, despite the lack of sleep....
So, I agreed we would go out and try to have fun that night. But, truthfully, I was really bummed that only ONE person would make it. I put on my new shirt and a happy face for the wife though and we headed downtown. We get to the Mexican place, and it was already surprisingly packed. There were some small tables by the windows though, so we asked if we could sit there and have some drinks while waiting for the other person to show up. Of course she gave me the typical attitude that we could sit there but if someone else came before my friends, we would have to vacate. "Are you serious?" was my response, although this is common practice in New York. I didn't care though, it was my birthday damnit! And I was not in the mood to get shuffled around just because we were waiting for one person to show up. "Okay, then there's just the two of us. Can we sit there now?". Of course, no problem. So stupid...
So we're sitting there drinking our drinks and eating chips and salsa when a bigger table opens up in the back of the tiny place and she says we can move back there if we want since the table we were at was basically joined at the hip with the bar and was too cramped. I thought it was strange that she would let us sit at a table that would fit about 6 people, but the place was clearing out a bit so I didn't think anything of it. Melissa finally got there, and I was thinking it was going to be awkward because the table was so big. She would either have to be waaaaaay at the end or be sitting right next to me, which would be weird when the rest of the table was empty.
But alas! Her boyfriend Jonathon made it! Oh good, I was thinking, he's always a fun guy and now the numbers would work well for the table. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad night afterall. But I was confused, with mouth ajar, because then I saw D and Cathy. I was seriously confused. And then Sean, and then Priya, and then Yinety, and then David, and then Rob, and then Sophy. Wholly crap! I just sat there with my mouth open, totally confused. Okay, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I realize that. But how in the world did this happen? Erika, in cahoots with Melissa, totally, totally pulled the wool over my eyes on this one. Awesome! I have the best friends in the world! And the excuses were so on target and appropriate, it couldn't have been better planned. I guess that's what I get for marrying an event planner!
So we had some tasty beverages and decent, questionable Cali-quality food and I got to catch up with everyone that I hadn't seen in forever, so I was in a great mood. After a few drinks and a shot of tequila, a few of us headed down to SoHo to try to find somewhere to continue the party. Erika and Roberta wanted a place to dance, but there wasn't really much in that neck of the woods that we knew for dancing.
I wanted to check out this Bulgarian nightclub that was rumored to be in the area, but we couldn't find it and it was raining, so we decided to follow all of our compasses, and head East. Whereupon, we arrived at the classic nightclub Le Souk. A classic enigmatic, eccentric, and ecclectic spot with belly-dancers, hookahs, Moroccan cuisine, and, downstairs a hot dance floor. Sean had had a few drinks by this point and was ready to party so he popped out the credit card and gave it to the vampire at the door. I'm serious, the bouncer had the vampire teeth, dreadlocks, sunglasses, and black trench-coat - gotta love NYC :) . It was cool being led through the crowds dancing to contemporary hip-hop upstairs by a freakin vampire, down the stairs, through the next crowd, and parking it at a table with a bottle of Ketel One.
We all got our groove on and danced the night away with no worries that night. There were plenty of instances of, as my sister calls them, "shenanigans" as the Italian girl provided a double feature that night by first her losing balance (I have no idea WHY!) while dancing on the couch and face diving the table with the hookah and bottle of Ketel One, leading to the loss of significant amounts of vodka and an army of cleaning crews; and second by engaging in an endless lip lock with Sean by the end of the night. Standard operating procedures for a night out!
We finally got home at around 3:00am. Luckily, I had cut myself off earlier and was feeling fine when we climbed out of the cab. Erika, however, was a different story. Well, "disaster" would be more appropriate :). First, she left her wallet with all of her documentation in the cab (luckily he let us know before he took off so I could grab it) and then dropping my birthday bottle of wine on the concrete - luckily it was strong and resilient and saved for another night!
We woke up four hours later with Erika getting ready for her school before calling it off for the day and me going to work for the whole day. Poor Erika suffered a nasty day though and couldn't keep anything down all day! I think my other half celebrated my birthday more than I did, but it was a legendary, legendary night. It was up there with The first-annual Anti-Valentine's Day!
J. Riley, pictures are available
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