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Today I went to the Jimmy Choo sample sale during lunch with my coworker Andrea. And by went, I mean we took one look at the heinous line that stretched all the way up 18th street, along 6th Ave, and half way down 19th street and promptly decided to go to Bed Bath & Beyond instead. Jimmy Choo’s for $75? No, thanks. Travel size deodorant for $1.99? Oh, hell yes!
For the past two days I have either slept through my morning alarm or somehow managed to set it for a completely incorrect wake-up time. ALL of this is AirCanada’s fault. Seriously. I’m not positive why the AirCanada travel gods decided my vacation to Sicily was going to be my judgment day, but they did and they carried out their wrath with a holy vengeance. You see, first they failed at getting my bag to arrive in London with me even though I physically took myself off my connecting flight from Toronto to London to go ass-backwards through the Toronto airport to re-check my luggage because I realized on my flight from NYC to Toronto while reading the airport mumbo jumbo written on my ticket that my bag had been “short tagged” and would almost certainly be hanging out on the Toronto baggage carousel like a loitering teenage HOODLUM. Then they routed all of my calls to India where I was told complete lies about the location of my bag. Here is one conversation I had with AirCanada India during my stay in Sicily:
AirCanada India: blah blah blah it’s on its way blah poop blah just wait 10 to 20 minutes.
Me: WAIT, what? 10 to 20 minutes?
AirCanada India: Your bag will be there soon.
Me: Did you just say 10 to 20 minutes?
AirCanada India: Uhh Yes. Your bag will be there soon.
Me: In 10 to 20 minutes? That doesn’t make any sense. How do you know that?
AirCanada India: Ummm I don’t know. It’s written in Italian.
Me: … and you don’t speak Italian, do you?
AirCanada India: No.
Thank the good, gracious, please don’t ever spite me like this ever again travel Lord that I didn’t wait 10 to 20 minutes, because my bag was not actually delivered until several days after that conversation which was just 2 days before the end of my vacation. Inside my bag was everything I had packed. All the clothes I had spent the past 3 weekends fighting for at endless New York sample sales, all the American treats I packed for my sister, all the purses, shoes, jewelry, travel toiletries – everything was perfectly in tact. Even the lavish bottle of champagne my boss gave me for Christmas that I’ve been saving for the perfect occasion was still tucked neatly between my summer dresses and evening jackets just as I had left it. There was, however, one really lovely surprise. As I dug deeper, I soon discovered that all of my underwear (yes, just my underwear) was dripping wet which subsequently created a powerfully dark, damp, death basket for my battery powered alarm clock. That’s correct. AirCanda killed my alarm clock and now I’ve been pushed, against my will, into a completely foreign cell phone alarm clock universe and I feel scared and alone. Scared and alone.
RIP battery powered alarm clock.
I miss you everyday.
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Before I even got into the office day, this email was just hanging out in my inbox:
To: The Entire Office
Subject: Lunch Today
We are ordering from Blue Smoke to have a belated celebration for administrative professional day. Food should be here at around noon. Yum.
In case you are unaware, Blue Smoke is one of the top 5 BBQ joints in New York City and just so happens to be directly across the street from my office. It’s beautiful. It’s delicious. It’s messy. And for some reason the partners LOVE ordering it to-go when times are tough and the office energy starts to gain a few too many lbs on the craaazay scale. Oh! I also made a totally gigantic (and fabulous) binder today. Let’s just say it’s been a pretty fantastico Friday.
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East Coast 4 life.
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Yesterday was Secretaries’ Day and EARTH Day. Clearly, fantastic secretaries (especially these lovely ladies) make the world go round. Since it became painfully obvious throughout the day that the office was a total ghost town, I decided to take matters into my own hands. On the fly, I used my lunch break to organize a celebration for this momentous occasion awesome-style with fruit, chocolate, sparkling pink lemonade, and Aretha Franklin’s R. E. S. P. E. C. T.
ooo What you want? (copies?)
ooo Baby, I got (your copies)
ooo What you need (more copies?)
ooo Do you know I got it (your copies)
ooo All I’m askin’ (oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were on the phone)
Is for a little respect when you come home… just a little bit
Saturday, April 19. Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Saturday, April 18 was one of the reasons I moved to New York. The city was gorgeous, sunny, exciting, without any limitation whatsoever, and practically begged us all to have a damn good time. I somehow found myself hopping from Hudson River bike riding to Central Park sunbathing to Brooklyn flea marketing to Fort Greene lounging all before sunset (hopefully making Time Out NY more than proud). Also, I have a pretty good feeling that if a randomly sunny spring day can prove to be this successful, summer is gonna blow my mind.
uh huh. ooooooh yea. one more time. nyc byob style.
Wow. Seriously. Wow. I just got back from a week-long Sicilian adventure with my sister (she’s the lovely lady giggling with a lobster, not the child stabbing a jelly fish) and I’m officially obsessed. While I will never ever ever ever fly AirCanada again (a very long story involving almost all the employees at the Toronto airport, countless conversations with Indian call centers, a few tears, and a whole lotta borrowed underwear), the trip was beyond awesome. I’m currently missing Michele (pronounced Mee-Kell-eh, a dude to my surprise), the fabulous owner of the Isoco Guest House, like WOAH and I can’t stop smiling since my brain feels totally unmushy, maxing out with soo many funnies and funtimes. Unfortunately, I’m still a little hazy and jet-lagging hardcore, so a more detailed and adventure-laden post will have to follow later. For now, please enjoy the 4 course photo-meal I threw together with a few bits and bops that were just laying around. It’s seafood. See? Food!
{As I’m packing for Sicily, Patrick borrows my superglue to try to fix his MacBook}
patrick: hey amy, wanna play a game?
amy: yeah!
patrick: let’s glue our pinkies to our thumbs and-
amy: ahh no!
So tomorrow I leave for London to meet up with my sister and then we’re going on a week-long vacation to Sicily, Italy. Since our childhood was filled with vacations to places like Los Angeles, CA and Houston, TX to visit our [feuding/crotchety/judgmental] relatives, real vacations to places outside of our [weirdo] family tree make me wanna speak in Superhero. Zoinks! Kablam! Zooooom! Kapowow! As you can see by my pedicure and my [unopened] Lonely Planet: Sicily guide, I’ve done quite a bit of planning.
Wabamo! Yuck! (“Wish me luck!” in Superhero)
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I love riding the subway. love. love . love. So many exciting things happen while riding the subway. Like losing my balance! and staring at strangers! and listening to disembodied voices reminding me that unwanted touching in the subway is sexual harassment and should be reported! My usual train of choice during the workweek is the R/W from Times Square-42nd Street (Hell’s Kitchen hates to admit that it’s subway stop is Times Square-42nd Street, but it is and we all just gotta deal with it) to 23rd Street.
Today, however, started off spontaneously (last night I forgot to turn on my fast clock alarm) forcing me to make some serious last minute morning decisions (do I have enough time for my friday swim? no? something else then? what? it’s raining? straight hair? no? aggghhhh think faster!). This rapid-fire whoosy whats-its switcheroo to my constant, unchanging, totally awesome morning routine resulted in me not only bringing a caravan of curly hair products, a blow dryer, and a diffuser to the gym, but also deciding to revert back to my super old school subway route (the 7 to Grand Central followed by the 6 to 28th St) since last leg of the trip dumps me right in the basement of my office building. (more like awesome building). oooohhhh zing!
Anyways, I only stopped taking this route after I realized if I took the R/W to 23rd Street I wouldn’t have to transfer and I would get to walk through Madison Square Park that has, in my most humble opinion, the GREATEST DOG RUN IN THE WOOOORLD. These dogs are the dogs that dog dreams are made of. They’re HUGE (I think partly because they live in multi-million dollar converted lofts in the Flatiron District and have lots of space to drink their milk and grow big and strong). They also make the beginning and end of my work day a bazillion multi-million times better. Did I mention I LOVE DOGS? Cause I do.
You can probably imagine, then, why it takes seriously awful/dangerous weather conditions (like drizzling!) for me to take the 7 to the 6 instead of a one-stop shop on the R/W (with dogs!). While I was thoroughly displeased as I hopped onto 7 this morning, the corrected “If you see something, say something” poster hanging in my subway car made the trip downright pleasant. Thanks, unruly tweens. You’re awesome. Except when you’re not…awesome.
there’s no place like the 25th floor…
there’s no place like the 25th floor…
there’s no place like the 25th floor…
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The view from my cubicle makes me swoon.
daily.
weekly.
9 to 5-ly.
seriously.
RESPECT – Aretha Franklin (2:29)
sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…
Activity: Make sock puppets and then mail them to myself or someone with the initials ME. or both! with a note! about RESPECT! zing! I wonder what Matt Edwards is doing right now…
Length: 2 hrs and 29 min
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A Groovy Kind of Love – Phil Collins (3:28)
Wikipedia says that Collins recorded this song for the film “Buster.”
Activity: Come up with a DIY recipe for Dairy Queen’s totally awesome Buster Bars. Use a fruity, Tom Collins-esque ice cream as the Buster Bar “philling.”
Length: 3 hrs and 28 min
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Trusted – Ben Folds (3:36)
It seems to me if you can’t trust, you can’t be trusted.
Activity: Obvs – trust falls with boys named Ben. Depending on how many Bens I know, it might be necessary to make a folded finger box thingy to help me decide which ones to invite to Trust Fall 2009.
Length: 34 min
![spears and [l]imes](https://i0.wp.com/ilikeyoulikeyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/spears-and-limes.jpg?resize=600%2C194&ssl=1 "spears and [l]imes")
“working? that’s the new rich!”
– as proclaimed by one of Dan’s many Bikram instructors
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This picture of my big sister Jenny (she’s the one not eating candy) and me was taken in Stanley and Honey Epstein’s living room in Houston, TX. In order to open their garage door you had to know the secret password (open sesame) and be able to say to it at just the right time (approxamitely 2-3 seconds before Honey would hit the red button on the garage door opener). This photo makes me feel awesome and tingly. So does this article my sister sent me:
patrick: amy, i’m really sorry, but i accidentally ripped up all the [rent] checks.
amy: {heart leaps out of chest}
patrick: just kidding! april fools! they’re off in the mail. have a great day and see you later!
It’s been almost one year since I graduated college. And while there are many many things that I definitely do not miss (homework, packing up all my belongings every 9 months, a capella), I sometimes wonder if my brain is getting mushy. You know, like an under-used muscle or a cucumber past its expiration date or a pretty big pile of poo. So one day on the R/W, after a totally brainless day at my entry level 9-5, I used my mushy brain to think about its mushyness and ended up with at least one decent solution. I call this game “what would my ipod do?” and here’s how it works:
Rules:
1. Turn on iPod
2. Play songs in Shuffle Mode
3. Spend an entire day doing things based solely on the randomly selected song
4. Length of the activity/decision should also be inspired by the length of the song
5. No skipping songs. Use your imagination, okay?
6. Game ends when the day ends
For instance, if I followed these rules based on what was playing on my walk to work this morning, my day would probably start off like this:
“Your Song” – Elton John (4:05)
I don’t have much money… = something cheap
Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen… = something sweet that starts with the letter “i” or is kinda Asian or both
Activity: Get ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory!
Length: 40 min and 50 sec (includes travel time)
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“Michael” – Franz Ferdinand (3:21)
Activity: Go to the children’s section of a bookstore and read “The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf to whomever will listen. Afterwards, quiz the children about the story, but only address them as “Michael” or “Franz.”
Length: 32 min and 10 sec (does not include travel time)
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“Goodnight and Go” – Imogen Heap (3:52)
Activity: Steal “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown and go.
Length: 3 min and 52 sec
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and so on.
and so forth.
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