Tag: travel

guess who called me today?



The Heads of State, Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers’ award-winning design and illustration studio, is currently selling 14×14 prints of their limited edition travel posters for $30 (a total bargain, if you ask me).  They’re pretty to max and make summer feel like this old friend calling me out of the blue just to say, “hi! howareyou? imissyou.”
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summer! imgreat! imissyoutoo.

3[7].

Buffalo. [Not] Buffalo, NY

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1.  I am terribly sorry how absent I have been.
2.  My life seems to be playing on the Crazytown [by Butterfly] b-side recently.
3[7].  Thankfully, come Wednesday evening, I will be on a delightfully crowded plane with my best friend Dan to number 37 of the NY Times’ 44 Places to Go in 2009.  He promised me wings and a trip to a bonafide Target.
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I….C..A..N..N..O..T….W..A..I..T….

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1000+ smash hits.

To Cool. Cakewrecks, The Internet.
To Cool. Cakewrecks, The Internet.

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Today, ilikeyoulikeyou welcomed its 1000th smash hit.  In order to celebrate properly I think I shall take a week-long vacation to my favorite spa/cult in the whole wide world . . . tomorrow!

Peace out, girl scouts.
Amy

thanks, in advance.

Officially, I’m confident no more than 3 people read this blog.  Unofficially, I don’t really care so I’m still going to ask these people for major life advice because it’s my blog and I can do whatever the hell I want so just let it go, okay?  Here’s the deal:

1.  I’ve been a paralegal since I graduated college (a year and some change).
2.  I have zero interest in ever doing anything remotely relating to law.  Disgusting.  Gross.
3.  I only accepted the position because I just needed a Jay Oh Be.  Baaaad.
4.  The honeymoon period ended about 2 weeks ago.
5.  Lists should be made in increments of 3, 5, or 10.

If you know me, you know that I’m at my happiest when I’m doing some combination of laughing, writing, organizing, thinking, creating, brainstorming, influencing.  Some might even say, obsessing.  If you don’t know me, you’re probably starting to get a decent idea seeing as how I just described almost all competent yet creative entry level paycheck to paycheck office drones my age still wondering why we were encouraged to graduate from the sublimely sweet comforts of college . . . for this.  Seriously.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know who I want to be.  I don’t know where to go.  It’s like I’ve hit this incredibly terrifying wall built conveniently between myself and my life and it’s leaving me frustrated and jealous and scared and ultimately wincing every time I’m asked what I do for a living.  Comon, do you really care what the answer is slash are you really going to remember any of this conversation, anonymous bar dude standing in my way while I’m trying to take up the least amount of space as I order my overpriced Amstel Light?  Yeah, I didn’t think so either.  I know most of us end up in this head space at some point, but I’m getting pretty fed up with feeling so stagnant and stale and still.  Therefore, I could really use your advice.  Or a giant kick in the ass.  Maybe both.  What do you think?

What should I do?
Who should I be?
Where should I go?

Thanks in advance,
Amy

{Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:  quit your job, don’t quit your job, take a vacation, take a class, take a valium, be an artist, be an ice cream store owner, be a better person, go West, go East, go abroad, go get em’}

oh, here’s to the bus driver.

camp[bus driver]

bus driver.

[bus driver]

oh, here’s to the bus driver that’s with us today.

she drinks and she cusses.

she wrecks all the buses.

oh, here’s to the bus driver that’s with us today…

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I would give just about anything to be a passenger on a hot, sticky bus destined for sleep away camp right now.

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crime and punitions.

Punition. New York, NY (via Paris, France)

Punition. New York, NY (via Paris, France)

All last week, my boss (which I guess is a relative term since technically everyone in the office is my boss) was on vacation in Paris with her family.  From the looks of her fabulous post-vacation glow, she had a particularly lovely time, and upon her return this morning she left a delightful surprise on the paralegal/secretarial credenza.  These cookies come from Poilâne, a renowned French bakery whose founder, Pierre Poilâne, firmly believed in doing as much work by hand as possible and felt that a single baker should take responsibility for his/her loaf from start to finish.  A fellow perfectionist, swoon!  Oh, and the Poilâne cookies my boss shared with us are called “Punitions” which is French for –

. . . wait for it . . .

punishment.

Okay, to be fair, the bakery’s website says the name “comes from a little game Pierre Poilâne’s grandmother used to play [where] she would call over her grandchildren seemingly to punish them and, instead, would open her palms to reveal a handful of butter cookies…”  Seriously, though, I think Pierre might be on to something.  Maybe next time I violate an office policy or lose a highly confidential document I’ll get a perfectly wrapped box of Punitions instead of oh, I don’t know, fired.  Hey, it could happen.  [McWorld!]

blame [air]canada.

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.

totally unmushy.

jelly fish.octopus.really big fish.lobster.

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!

s is for sicily [and superhero].

Kablam!
Zoinks! New York, NY

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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