Take a seat

Q: What does this bus stop say?


A: Get comfy, you'll be waiting awhile.

Just kidding. I have no idea how long the wait is. I was driving. But this looks much prettier on the street corner than a regular bus bench!

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One step away from a loaded gun

I was riding up a crowded escalator today and I was jammed up against two cops in front of me. I looked up and this was my view.


I have to admit, it made my stomach turn just a little bit. I'm not sure I've ever been so close to a loaded (or unloaded) gun before. I know that there was no danger, that it wouldn't just accidentally go off right there on the escalator but part of me couldn't wait to get away from it. That was enough to make my skin crawl for the rest of the morning.

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Confusion: my most frequently visited state

Do you ever get into an elevator and automatically press the button? And then realize you've pressed a button for a frequently visited floor in another building? And then press the "right" floor only to realize you've done it again? No? You haven't done that?


I would say that I haven't either, but that would be a lie. I totally pressed 18 and then 7 when I really meant to hit 4. Good going, SZQ.

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Hello, New Favorite Television Show

It's incredible.


Who's seen it?

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What's wrong with this picture?

Do you see anything out of place here?


Snow! On 22nd Street! I have no idea how it got there or why it was there but it was real snow! I was walking home from the office (yes, on Sunday night) when I said to myself, "Step over the snow at the curb, you're not wearing waterproof shoes." I got about four steps beyond the curb and did a double take. "Snow?!" I looked back and sure enough, there was snow along the curb from 22nd to 23rd Street all along Broadway. Only in NYC, folks.

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Not the most scenic corner

In a city with elaborate architecture that's surrounded by water and breathtaking views, the last thing I expect to see is this:


Someone painting the corner of 23rd Street and 3rd Avenue. I obviously wasn't paying very close attention this afternoon when I snapped the picture because I didn't see the bus roll in. But there's nothing worth painting behind that bus! Now I guess I could admit that there's everyday beauty in the city and that this corner epitomizes city life: a bus stop, a corner bodega, cabs whipping cross-town, pedestrians trying to beat the light as they hustle across the street, chain-smoking students from the SVA carrying around canvases. I'd love some city art for my apartment but this probably but this corner isn's something that I want hanging on the wall of my UES penthouse. Hey, I'm collecting art for the future!

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Fashion Faux Pas Friday

There seem to be quite a few names for slippers: house shoes, bedroom shoes, etc...And none of them mention Madison Square Park as an appropriate place to wear them.


But yet that's what I saw tonight walking home from work. It's not like they were even remotely shoe-like. They were clearly slippers. Like the ones they give away at hotels. 3 star hotels.

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Sleepy Piglet

We went to our boss' house today for a team "off-site." And she had the best little statue on her mantle.


It's a sleeping piglet! How cute and perfect for me!! Must get one. Stat.

After the meeting, I met up with a friend in Brooklyn. After a little miscommunication, we ended up looking for each other on opposite sides of town (note to self: if you're at a chain restaurant, always mention which location). We decided to meet halfway but to get there, we had to venture through a rather different area of the Bk. One of the areas I passed had a dilapidated school bus that is currently functioning as an apartment. Hey- it's certainly bigger than some Manhattan studios. I would have taken a picture but they didn't have their shades drawn...

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Really, Whole Foods?

I completely forgot to blog about this yesterday. Not sure how that happened!

Anyhoo, I was at Whole Foods picking up a few things for a potluck event when I encountered this:


Twizzlers. Approximately twelve of them. For over $3.00. Ridiculous!! Whole Foods, even you can't get away with that.

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OG

For roughly three years of my life, OG stood for one thing and one thing only: OnGossamer. An intimate apparel brand. But for the last five months, OG has had a new meaning: Olive Garden. And today, I convinced someone to go there with me. And what did we eat?


The endless soup, salad and breadsticks, of course! We tried two different bowls of soup, a few large bowls of salad and several breadsticks. And it was good! A true bargain at $8.95!

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He can't hear you but we can!

I had an out of state experience tonight and met my cousin at the Melting Pot in Hoboken. We were pleasantly surprised by Ladies Night Out- a three course meal for $20 each! We'll be there every Monday for that deal! But...the people sitting next to us were awful!


See her open mouth? That's how it was. All night. Let's call them "Janet" and "Chris." Chris was definitely his name but we never did catch hers. Anyway, "Janet" yelled at Chris the entire meal. We're not sure if he was hard of hearing, or she just had a naturally loud voice, but as we savored every course, I kept hearing about theirs. Things we overheard:

"Chris, duck is like chicken, you need to cook it thoroughly!" (Who gets duck at The Melting Pot?

"Chris! There's not much goat cheese in this ravioli, is there?" (Ditto statement about The Melting Pot above.)

"When we went to the fondue restaurant in Paris, they didn't give directions like they do here at The Melting Pot. I kept telling my friend she was doing it wrong!"

We busted out of there after our flambeed Chocolate Chip Oreo fondue. How is it that in the whole huge restaurant, we got stuck next to the crazies? When I looked back as we were leaving, I'm fairly certain that Chris looked jealous of our departure.

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A new Park Avenue icon

The Gansevoort Park opened earlier this fall. And every time I walk by it, I think it's a neat looking building. And then I passed it tonight in the dark.


How cool! Love that purple stripe up the side. In a stretch of Park Avenue that's relatively devoid of personality, the Gansevoort Park is a welcome addition! It's getting a bit too chilly now but I can't wait to go for drinks on the roof next summer! Is that really only seven months away?

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Why is this weird?

This is not an uncommon occurance.


So why do I want to giggle every time I'm seated next to a dude at the manicure bar?

Yes, I know it's Saturday, not Sunday. I got this coming week's mani a day early because I couldn't stand the state of my nails for even one more day.

I'll probably be all thrown off tomorrow but I'm sure I'll find something else to do.

And in case you're curious, Siberian Nights. I couldn't find Russian Navy.

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Dorm sweet dorm

Was it really ten years ago that I arrived at NYU and moved into the Brittany Residence Hall? Passing by there tonight, I remembered the details as if I arrived yesterday.


Staring up at the lit windows, I was thinking about the day my freshman roommates and I decorated for our first holiday season away from home. We bought lights from Duane Reade and hung them in the windows. And then we rushed downstairs to see how they looked from the street. Afterwards, we went to Silver Spurs for some sweet potato fries. I skipped Silver Spurs tonight, but I did stop to admire Brittany and think about the little freshmen, decorating for their first holiday away from home. And I realized, for me, just how long ago that was.


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The metal above us

They put up scaffolding In front of the building next door to the office this week.


And I hate scaffolding! I pretty much refuse to walk under it. The detour takes me an extra minute to walk to work in the morning. Unacceptable!

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Barefoot in a bar

Don't worry, I wasn't the barefoot one.


Stopped in at Pizza Pub to grab a slice on my way home from work and this guy had made himself comfortable at the bar. What you can't tell is that the restaurant was pretty packed. What a weirdo!

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I saw the sign

And it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign.


The sign that I better start training for this marathon. Ugh! What was I thinking?!

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Soapy cupcakes

We had a bit of a birthday celebration at work today complete with cupcakes. They were so cute. And beautifully decorated.


But they tasted like soap scum. Really. The after taste was like when you're rinsing your hair and you get a mouthful of shampoo. I will NOT be going back to the Cupcake Cafe. I'm sticking with Buttercup (or Sugar Sweet Sunshine or Magnolia or Billy's) from now on!

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Oh Sunday

Sunday is traditionally Asian food and manicure night for me. But I had sushi last night and Chinese for lunch so I didn't need it again tonight. So my schedule got all turned around and switched up and I didn't get a manicure either. And now I'm starting the week like this.


Attractive, right?

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Meals on Wheels...

...Manhattan style.





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A visit to the Ex Lax Factory

Yep. That's what I did tonight. I visited the (former) home of Ex Lax.


The old factory in Brooklyn has been turned into luxury condos. We had a work party there tonight (in a coworker's apartment) and it was pretty cool. I'm still hiccuping.

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Ahhh, Brooklyn

I spent the day at our office in Brooklyn. It's like a different world over there in the Navy Yard. We had to stop by the management office to pick up new ID badges and saw some unusual office decor.


Classy, right?

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The sign

This morning was quite stressful (what morning isn't?). I got up (extra) early to rush into work before my team's off-site meeting at the Ace Hotel started at 9. I raced through a bunch of emails, crammed in a few conversations and flew out the door. Of course I realized I forgot a bunch of things at the office but kept going anyway. I arrived at the off-site frazzled and overwhelmed. I dropped my stuff off at our table and went downstairs to the restroom to wash my hands and gather my thoughts. And on my way back up, it hit me.


A sign from above. And everything today was, indeed, alright.

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Election Day

It's Election Day in NYC and there was a voting station set up on the first floor of our office building.


But I didn't stop in. Why? Because I'm still not registered to vote. I need to take care of that. Stat.

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I'm almost there...

As the end of my year of blogging approaches, I am feeling less and less inclined to blog every day. I'm not seeing interesting stuff. Or I'm just not interested in the stuff. I don't know which. I am so much busier now than I was before. But wasn't the whole point of this experiment to take notice of the small stuff even when I'm crazy busy and mixed up with the big picture? From today on, I'm committing to 59 more days of blog content that is new, stimulating and note-worthy. Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be more challenging than the first 306 days??

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As seen from above. Or below.

There's a mirror on the ceiling of the elevator at the Waldorf.


And there were are. From below looking up. Dinner at Shun Lee, fro yo at 16 Handles, great Sunday night. Now back to the grind...

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Are you or aren't you?

You know those few days leading up to Halloween when you see people all dressed up and you wonder if they're in costume or dressed normally? Well those days have arrived in NYC. The streets are filled with people rushing around and I want to stop at least one out of five and ask if it's a costume. But for fear of being shot, I haven't whipped out my camera or asked anyone (yet). This holiday really brings out the crazies.


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Spotted: On Madison Avenue

This was yesterday. But I was having problems with Blogger and went to bed early.


Looked to be some kind of bootcamp. But it was 2pm. Why weren't all these people at work?

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Bad Nooz Sooz

There were a few years in a row when I witnessed awful stuff on my birthday. This year I managed to escape that tradition. Unfortunately this morning, still in my birth month, I saw an awful accident on my way to work. A cab jumped the curb on 23rd and Park, running into a number of pedestrians and the newsstand. The same man I've bought stamps from outside of Hallmark for years was splayed out in the middle of the sidewalk, shoeless, bloody and not moving. The newsstand, once a shiny metal and glass hut, was shattered into millions of pieces and tossed in every direction. While I felt awful for him, and couldn't take my eyes off the scene, I had to feel incredibly thankful that it didn't happen two minutes later when I could have been passing that very spot. How often do we all narrowly miss life threatening accidents like this? Was it fate that I went back inside this morning for the umbrella that I didn't even need? Or that I decided to watch that extra two minutes on the Today Show before rushing out the door? It's been on my mind all day. As much as I try to be aware of my surroundings and alert when I'm in public, it's scary to think that these things happen in a split second, leaving us, more often than not, with very little time to react. I'm thinking tonight about the man who consistently overcharged me for stamps. I'm wondering where he is tonight, if he's ok and if he'll ever have the opportunity to rebuild his glass castle full of magazines, newspapers and the best candy selection easy of Duane Reade. Passing by his spot, the only thing that remains is a pile of boxes and the memory of $0.50 stamps.


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Foggy midnight

Love the Credit Suisse building.


And love a foggy night.

Record long day at work and nothing to show for it except for a sneak peak at something super exciting that's launching soon. I didn't think it was possible to be anymore excited about our business. But tonight got me there! So much so that I didn't even care that the clock on the CS building said 12:50am as I was trudging home.

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Creepy!

I was walking down the hallway at work today and saw this:


Turns out it's not real. Just part of our extensive Halloween decorations. More pictures to come tomorrow.

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Lost cow

I walk up Broadway several times a week. But tonight I caught sight of something new.


No one would call me the most observant person around, but I think I would have noticed this guy if I had seen him before. I wonder where he came from. And when.

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Not this one

I'm home on the couch tonight (with an ear ache) and indulging my inner TLC junkie: Sister Wives, the Duggars, Kate Plus Eight...the usual suspects. I tend to become engrossed in these shows fairly quickly, picking up a new one every few months. But not next month. Because this is what's coming up:


I mean, I love to laugh at her as much as the next person but I don't think I'll be tuning in...

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5th one's the charm

I'm approaching my fifth (month) anniversary at GG and in celebration, I got my fifth desk!


Due to some fairly imminent corporate shuffling, I'm reasonably certain that there will be a sixth, but for now, I'm making myself at home. And this time, I put a tracking device on my chair. Ain't no one gonna be jackin' my seat!

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Big night out

We had a team outing tonight. It was fun to see everyone out of the office. Especially those I don't work with on a daily basis.



What were we celebrating? Our 500th employee, of course!

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Productive (!!!!!) Day (!!!!!!)

Let me preface this by reminding everyone that I tend to avoid caffeine. Like the plague. It torments my sleeping pattern for days at a time and makes me feel jittery and miserable in general. But this morning it was super cold out when I walked to work (in the dark) and when I (finally) got inside, all I wanted was a hot beverage. And for some reason, I decided to make some coffee. I set up my day while I waited for it to brew and then poured myself a steaming mug-full. (And I microwaved my (whole) milk so that it wouldn't cool down the coffee.) I added two Spelndas and went back to my desk with my concoction. I let it cool for a minute (the purpose of cold milk?) and then took a sip. Oh it was delightful. It was incredible. I was in love from my first taste. I finished the mug and then poured myself another. I might have had a few more and before I knew it, I was still the only one in the office and the pot looked like this.



Yes. Empty. I have absolutely (!!!!), positively (!!!!!) been vibrating all day. But at the same time, I've been so incredibly productive that I think I might do it every day. Unfortunately, a well-wishing colleague doesn't feel the same way about my caffeine binge and she's declared that she's coming in early to moderate my coffee consumption. I'm going to trick her though- I'll stop at 'bucks on my way in, grab a venti and finish it before I come inside...I'll be a full drink ahead of her. It's nice to be smart.

Gimme a break!

I took a break from work tonight to attend a yoga class. Instead of relaxing me, it made me more stressed out. And now I'm back at work and feeling unproductive. Taking a break was supposed to be a good thing. This could not have gone any worse. Ugh! Guess I shoulda gone with a Kit Kat Bar.


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Limoncello with "Joe" and "Barbara"

I went to dinner tonight with my friend (and her dog). (Because of the dog) we sat outside. Just inside the window was a big table with a group of about twelve people.


That's only half the table. But anyway, we kept looking in at this bunch and trying to figure out how they knew each other. Finally, I made up a story that it was Joe's retirement party (he's the one on the far right in the blue shirt) and they were all sending him off. There was a woman on the other end of the table and I named her Barbara and pronounced her Joe's secretary of 30 years. She's been the cornerstone of his career, following him from a previous job and helping him launch this successful business. She also organized the dinner. Anyhoo, My friend very sweetly ordered a fabulous dessert for my birthday.


And the waiter brought it and sang and it was very sweet. And Joe, Barbara and the crew cheered from the inside. I looked in and they waved us down to their table for after dinner drinks. I returned the wave but declined the invitation because let's face it, as much as we "knew" about Joe and Barbara, we didn't really "know" them. We ate our dessert (yum!) and got our check. As we were fixing to leave, "Barbara" came up to the table with a limoncello for me! Whew, that was a strong drink. We started chatting with her, showed her the picture we took of her table and told her the story of Joe and Barbara and the reason behind their dinner. She laughed hysterically and told us that basically they were with Ally Bank and some software company was taking then out to dinner as a sales call. Turns out that she was just there with her husband, her name isn't Barbara and she doesn't even know Joe!

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There's a first time for everything

JetBlue is definitely my favorite airline.


They serve good snacks (for free!) and every seat has DirectTV. This afternoon, I enjoyed an SVU Marathon at 30,000 feet. Upon landing, I was so engrossed in the show that I found myself wishing for another 40 minutes in the air! It didn't hurt that I was cozy in my blanket, I had an empty seat next to me and I was in a row with extra leg room. All in all, it was a heavenly flight and a very relaxing end to a quick weekend away.

Have a good week, Blogosphere!

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Happy Hhalloween!

Still two weeks early but at least these decorations are more timely than the Christmas tree and snowman on 23rd Street.


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Fashion Faux Pas Friday

It's a top hat. Covered with thick white lace. Someone should tell her Labor Day has passed.

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Rain, rain, go away!

It seems to be monsoon season in NYC.


And I'm over it.

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An out of borough experience

I met up with a friend tonight and we took a short trip across the river to...The Melting Pot! I'm not sure if it was our outfits (urban chic) or attitudes (we scoffed at the uncivilized large group at the front), but they seated us in the wayyyyy back of the rear room. A little out of the way, it was quite a nice spot. We ate (cheese, meat and chocolate) and drank (me: beer, her: wine) in relative peace...until karraoke started. Yes. I said karraoke. Wednesday night is apparently karraoke night at the Hoboken Melting Pot. Or perhaps at all Melting Pots! But there we were, enjoying a quiet meal and catching up when all of a sudden, bam! George Michael's "I never wanna dance again" came on. And let me tell you, after that man's rendition, George is promising to put all his shananigans on hold if this man promises never to sing another one of his songs again. I captured a video, but Blogger won't let me post it. So here's a visual.


Unfortunately this picture doesn't show the bottom of the room. The entire crowd was wearing sensible shoes. Enough said.

The restaurant felt so bad for us that they brought out a complementary bottle of ice wine. It made me want to puke. But it's the thought that counts, right?

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It's fruit juice

Or sangria.


You decide.

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What not to wear...

...when it's a "holiday" and you don't think that anyone will be at the office.


Because if you do wear it, and stroll in at 10am, you're guaranteed that the rest of the office will already be there and will glare at you when you walk in under dressed. Everyone including senior management. Happy Columbus Day, Bloggy Buddies!

Spotted: In Manhattan

Absolute Brooklyn!


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If only I had four quarters!

Then I could buy a chewable toothbrush.


As seen in the bathroom at Regal Cinemas in Union Square. What will they think of next?

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A bit early

During one of my four walks between offices today, I noticed someone new in Madison Square Park. I'd never seen him before. At least not this year.


I stopped to stare. And then I turned around and saw this:


Really? It's October. Not even in the double digits. This is unacceptable. I demand an explanation.

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Funny

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