Bag takes Manhattan

To begin this story, let me introduce today’s main character: bag.  Bag is a 19 inch rolling tumi suitcase.  He’s cute, small, black with a big white scuff mark on the front and very portable.  I feel like at this point bag should have a real name, like frank or melvin, but alas, he’s still bag.  And he is most definitely a man.  I’d say this because he was dragged all over nyc in the pouring rain and freezing cold and didn’t complain not even once, but that would be sexist.  Instead let’s go with because he allows me to drag him up and down flights of stairs, bang, push, shove and punch him and he is always there for me whenever I need him.  Clearly no woman would put up with that behavior.

So bag accompanied me Saturday morning very early when I flew from Boston to NYC.  Bag was not especially happy with me as I crammed him so full of stuff even his outside pockets were begging “please no more” but he was trooper none the less.  Let’s go through Saturday’s itinerary:

• 9:30 – Delta shuttle BOS – NYC
• 11:30 – Brunch at favorite brunch place with hoodlum and hoodlum’s new boyfriend
• 2:00 – Start getting ready for cousin’s engagement party
• 4:00 – Go see the Rockette’s Christmas Extravaganza Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall
• 6:30 – Finish getting ready for cousin’s engagement party
• 8:00 – Actually attend cousin’s engagement party

Saturday was clearly going to be a busy day.  In actuality, the events of Saturday went a little differently.  See when I left Boston it was reasonably warm outside so I brought my lighter jacket.  When I got to NY, that was clearly not the case.  It was cold and freezing and raining and miserable.  That’s right, cold and freezing.  So I did what any insane non-thinking person would do 3 weeks before Christmas in the busiest city on earth, I decided that after brunch, bag, the hoodlum, hoodlum’s new boyfriend, and I would go to Macy’s and buy me a coat.

We should probably pause here for a minute and recap.

3 weeks before Christmas the person who has panic attacks with large crowds decided it was a good idea to go to the most famous location of the most famous department store on earth to search for a winter coat, which just so happens to be on the same floor as santa’s workshop.  If being stuck in the middle seat on a 15 hour flight to Japan next to a man with sleep apnea isn’t hell, this certainly is.

Oh and I brought luggage.  Nothing makes pushing through crowds easier than bringing luggage.

In actuality it wasn’t that bad.  Hoodlum’s BF carried bag and I found a coat (it’s cute and black and I’ve been looking for a new coat for a while) and bag got to see Macy’s at Christmas time, a treat for all NY tourists.

Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of Bag at Macy’s, but trust us he had a good time.

Then team awesome went to get ready for cousin’s engagement party and due to some scheduling mishaps on my part didn’t quite leave enough time for bag to go play at my friend’s house where I would be spending the night, so bag joined us at Radio City as well.

It was at this point that we realized bag was getting the full New York Christmas treatment.  Macys and Radio City?  All we needed was a camera and Tumi’s Christmas ad campaign could be complete.  In fact I think we should suggest that for next year and I’m trademarking that now so if they do it they totally owe me money.  I’m pretty sure claiming a trademark isn’t the same thing as actually having rights, but maybe i’ve shown intent to trademark or something like that and it would work.  Anyway, I digress.

So bag came to Radio City and for the first time in many many years the Hoodlum and I got the joy of experiencing the Radio City Christmas Extravaganza.  See don’t let our names fool you, or our religion for that matter, we LOVE christmas and we LOVE being cheesy and we LOVE The Rockettes.  The show was awesome… tap dancing, big numbers, the nutcracker performed by teddy bears, santa, toy soldiers, you name it they had it.  And the whole thing was great…. until the end.  That’s when they brought Jesus out.

Now I know you’re thinking, it’s a Christmas Extravaganza, of course they brought Jesus out.  But truthfully I thought this was an ode to Santa and Jesus is my least favorite part of Christmas. I’m Jewish!  I didn’t come here to see Jesus, bring me back Santa!!  So Jesus comes out and they all start bowing to him and camels walk across the stage and wise men and all that.  The whole thing seems to go on forever, I tell my sister that thank goodness it’s not an Easter Spectacular, that would be messy and thankfully they return to Santa very shortly.

Now, the show is over and we are already dressed for the party and have some time to kill and ideally would like to give bag a home before the party starts so obviously we head to wine bar.  I really don’t know how you didn’t see that one coming.

So we head to a wine bar in Chelsea, bag joins because again scheduling mishaps have prevented him from finding a home and what trip to NY would be complete without a stop in a wine bar.

We enjoy our wine and then at the last second when it really looks like bag is about to experience it’s first engagement party, the stars align and bag goes to the apt.

The hoodlum and I continued on without bag to the party, and we had a lovely time.

The moral of this story is if you are as bad at scheduling as I have become, make sure that you befriend a very small portable bag, and make sure you treat him well.  You never know when he’ll have to take Manhattan…

Read Full Post »

Oh, the places you’ll go

Status Update: In the spirit of holding myself accountable I need to do this, although it is frankly horribly embarrassing. Jobs: 0, Gym: $40/visit, Alcohol: none.  bad bad bad

I’m currently between graduations.  Between jobs, between graduations, between meals, I seem to like resting in a state of in between.  Anyway, my brother graduated this past weekend from college and my sister graduates this week from law school.  What does this mean for me?? Lots of nice dinners, some boring speeches hopefully trickled with the occasionally inspiring one, and some more reflection.  Because let’s be honest here, if there is anything my life has been lacking over the past year it has been self reflection.

There are two major components to a graduation: the gift and what’s next?

As someone who has spent the last 6 months out of work, I know better then to ask what’s next?  Unless of course you know for sure this person has something lined up, it’s like asking a non-pregnant women when she’s due.  Good try at polite small talk, epic fail, better luck next time.

Now on to the gift.  A graduation gift is a tricky thing.  It needs to be meaningful, memorable, appropriate and shouldn’t be too cheesy.  The classic graduation gift is Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go which is uber cheesy (that’s right it’s so cheesy I had to bust out the French).  But, considering my brother’s childhood affinity for Dr. Seuss it’s not a bad gift.  Although I’m fairly certain since they have not come out with a Wii version of the book, it would just become another thing to move, thereby adding to the clutter (the opposite of a good gift.)  So that one was nixed.

For the record, I love that I can think out my brother’s graduation gift out loud on this blog since there is a roughly a 0% chance that he’ll read it.  Although there is a good chance his girlfriend will, crap, me and my big mouth.  Do you know what would be cool? If you could do some kind of online scavenger hunt.  You start here, I’ll write some riddle me this type clue which sends you to another site to find the clue.  Have those been invented yet?  Because if not I’m patenting them right now.  I’m a total genius, what better way to get through the work day than an online scavenger hunt.  (Btw, I’m fully aware it’s a good thing I think that I’m a genius, since that sentiment is not shared by many.)  Ok my genius aside…

So back to the gift.  So I do what anyone would do in search of an insanely personal specialty gift for a loved one, I checked the graduation gift guides posted throughout this wonderful world wide web of ours.  Here’s what it found.

1. Money – duh if I had any I would give some, next
2. A palm pilot – not exactly sure when these lists were written, why don’t I give him a VCR while I’m at it
3. An engraved clock – we’ll file this under clutter
4. A nice pen – Again clutter, only easily losable clutter aka a total waste of money

The list continued on in this way.  You mean the internet isn’t the best source for discovering a personal gift?  I still maintain it is, the lists were just bad.

So in the end we decided on nice cuff links and a custom fit dress shirt from Proper Cloth so he’ll look real good in interviews and within no time will make dreading what’s next a thing of the past.  Isn’t that what graduations are all about anyway?  Inspiring the future, one graduate at a time….

Read Full Post »

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Tonight is the first night of Passover, so like a good unemployed daughter I have returned to my parents house to partake in the festivities.  As this is a Jewish holiday, that mainly involves eating (for those of you unfamiliar with how we celebrate.)  To quote my father every year.  They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.  And so the Jewish tradition goes.

During the course of the Passover Seder, we ask the four questions.  Although, the more I think about it, we really only ask one question and call it the four questions.  For a people who pride themselves on education, we should really learn to count.  So the main question is: Why is this night different from all other nights?  And the service goes on to explain Passover traditions like why we eat matzoh, and why we dip celery in salt water, and so on.  But I’ve decided to take this broad question and answer it a different way.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

On this night, I will be eating delicious food in the comfort of my parents house.  Where as normally I’m glued to my couch eating either a trader joe’s frozen rice bowl or sushi takeout.  I think my couch is actually starting to get the imprint of my butt.  I really need to find a job soon…

On this night, I am likely to show up to dinner wearing a prom dress.  See in my haste to clean my ny apt and run to get the bus, I did not leave enough time to think about what clothing I needed to pack and only packed jeans.  In my normal couch sitting life, jeans are more than appropriate (in fact I usually just wear sweats)  but if I’m going to be seeing family friends, “slacks” as my mother calls them, would be much more appropriate.  So I’m forced to go through my childhood closet and rummage through the clothes I’ve deemed too ugly to bring to my apartment and wear something from there.  Which is likely to be a prom dress, bridesmaids gown, or some hideous remnant from the ’80’s.  I can’t wait to see the faces of my parents friends tonight.  No wonder she’s unemployed, look at her!

On this night, I get to explain to my family friends what a smart ambitious girl like me is doing unemployed.  How is this possible?  Surely your previous employer is an idiot! Tuy tuy (that’s me spitting on the ground). Now usually I would dread these conversations.  Like the, How is a girl as beautiful as you not married and the You know, you’re not getting any younger, I’ve grown to hate these conversations, but not this year.  This year, I am a year older, a year wiser, and desperate for an income.  So I plan to “network” aka “whore myself out” to whoever has the best connections, most likely to result in You should call my friend’s cousin Shlomo, he’d love a smart cookie like you in the company.  Normally I would smile and say yes, and never follow up.  But not this year…. Be careful what you offer, this year I might just take you up on it!

So now I need to run to the gym and go help my mom cook.  I wish everyone a Happy Passover and for those who have no idea what I’ve said or why it may or may not be funny, I’ll return to normal commentary tomorrow!

Outfit Update:

Now that I’m actually at my parents house, I have a much better idea how the rest of the evening will play out.  So I go upstairs  to my old room to find an appropriate outfit because I’m too stupid to pack a decent pair of pants.  These are literally my options:

• My bat mitzvah dress
• My prom dress
• My high school graduation dress
• My college graduation dress
• A lilac pair of “retro cut” gap pants.  (In case you were wondering “retro cut” is Gap for “ugly”)
• A long paisley purple skirt that looks like it’s straight out of the Adams family
• The LEI booty black pants I wore in college.  No joke, the pair of pants I wore clubbing every weekend of my freshman year.  The fact that I still have them is frankly amazing

So far my high school graduation dress is winning.  No, I’m not joking

Now on to my sister’s childhood closet

• A camo mini.  Very appropriate for passover dinner
• A strapless tube-like denim dress.  Paris Hilton eat your heart out
• Her black booty pants from college.
• A purple snake skin print knee length skirt.  What is it with us with ugly dark purple weird skirts.

That’s it.  Those are my options.  And the winner is…… My sister’s black booty pants!!!  I’m going to Passover dinner wearing the pants my sister danced her butt off in the clubs in college.  Making mom proud every step of the way.

Pairing the booty pants with a nice top and a pair of my mom’s heels, which are a size too big on me.  So I’m walking like a truck driver and wearing booty pants.  I can hear the whispers from across the room now.  Is that girl wearing bell bottoms??? Shut up!  They were in style then, maybe?  Or we were too young to notice…

Wish me luck!

Read Full Post »