Since I last blogged. Where did July go? I'll tell you--in a blur of traveling and hostessing. The first weekend in July I spent out on Long Island, unfortunately not going to the beach as much as I'd planned. Consequently, it is end-of-mid-summer and I am still as pale as the day I was born. Ok, well actually I was a little yellow when I was born. So I'm paler than that. Sad. Must work on this.
The next weekend, I spent at the newlyweds' house, at an awesome party. Em & M had a bunch of booze leftover from the wedding, so, naturally, they needed to throw a bash (or as my mom would say, "drinking party") to get rid of it. Happily, despite the copious amounts of beer and alcohol consumed that weekend, they still have a mountain of it left. So, come mid-August I will be back in MD for another legendary party (well, definitely to the party, hopefully to the legendary).
The next weekend, Em, M and A traveled to my place for the weekend. On Friday we opted for a typical New York City Friday night. Best. Night. In. NYC. Ever. We started out at SoHo Park (thanks, Caitlin Carlson for cluing me into that one) where we sat outside, which looked less like "outside" than the inside did, due to the restaurants' theme of Park (benches, trees, twinkle lights) and had awesome burgers and tried fried zucchini (better than fried pickles).
Then we walked across the street to Delicatessen. They had a speak-easy style bar downstairs which, unfortunately was only open for about 10 minutes after we got there. So we moved into the glassed-in courtyard and got to lounge on padded benches while looking up at the buildings surrounding us. We ended up at Eight Mile Creek, an Australian restaurant with pub below decks. The last time I was there, I legit felt like I was in the bush. It was dingy and empty and I heard Australian accents as I went down the stairs. This time, it was absolutely packed and pounded with hip hop beats. And Lady Gaga, of course. We saw that guy from that movie--you know the one? Yeah, I didn't really either. Good job, Mike for pointing him out. Turns out his name was Josh Gad, and he was the dorky friend in "21" and the dorky brother in "Love & Other Drugs" (sidenote: saw that with my parents. BAD MOVE). So anyway, he was gladhanding some patrons, but left soon after we got there. Too bad, because I bet I could've gotten him to buy at least one of us a drink.
We left the pub at around 2, got into a cab back uptown, in which we had some excellent adventures--me tipsily shushing Mike when he mentioned too loudly that he didn't think our cabbie spoke English and venturing across the unfortunately-named intersection of Dyckman St and Seaman St (just one block from Cummings).
Other adventures followed that weekend. Short version: big whales, John Lennon, ghosts and homemade Oreo milkshakes. Good times.
This past weekend, my mom came to visit to a. bring me more stuff for my apartment and b. help celebrate my birthday. After this weekend, my apartment looks awesome, and I finally feel like I live here. Y'all should come see.
Also after this weekend, I am 23. Boo- to the ya. Andrew came early yesterday to go to church and brunch with us. Then, after my mom left, he took me to dinner at Bleu Evolution on 187th. Cool atmosphere. Bordello-meets-grandma's attic. Andrew didn't realize what a bordello was when he picked the place. The red velvet curtains, fish-netted leg lamp and my extensive vocabular-ical knowledge (yes, my vocabular-ical knowledge is so vast, it includes the word "vocabular-ical") quickly brought him up to speed.
A quick recap of birthday loot before I go: from my parents, sibs and sib-in-law, a kick-butt bistro table for my kitchen. I now have a place to prepare dinner! And it is super cute: a red and orange tile table with a flower design and two matching chairs.
From Andrew, a canvas wall-hanging made from a photo I took. He picked one of my PODs (which, I know haven't been posted since a really long time ago) and turned it into a real piece of art. It looks awesome--almost semi-professional. It was super thoughtful and really unique. And it's doubly awesome because it means maybe I'm getting the hang of this photography thing!
So that's about it. A really long excuse for why I haven't blogged in almost a month. I'll try to be better about that, especially since I'm considering starting a new blog. Stay tuned!
