Aquarium

I took the following 3 pictures within the span of one minute:

What is the first thing you see when you look at each picture? (You may have to enlarge to participate in this exercise).

The fact that I'm even posting these pictures is due to my hobby of people watching. When taking these shots, the goal was to get a picture of the Aquarium stop on the T and my first glimpse of the waterfront. Instead, as I looked at the photos after uploading them to my computer, I found myself focusing on the kid looking down at his shirt and the other kids in their 3-D glasses. Oh, to be a kid again. Then again, I did see Polar Express in IMAX 3-D 2 Novembers ago. Oh my goodness, was it really that long ago?! Where has the time gone!?

Probably doesn't help that I don't sleep... going to bed after reading some more of the Da Vinci Code...

All of that was a tangent...

Anyway. The T station is there. The waterfront is there. It's all nice and pretty. But I want to know what was going on with that kid's shirt. Did he drop something on it? What was going on that he was looking down at the bottom of his shirt while walking? Granted, he probably walked like 5 feet between photos. But it's two separate photos, so it feels like a longer time span to me. :) And there I go, comparing time and space when they're two separate things...

Time for sleep before I keep babbling!

Wonderland

On our Memorial Day weekend trip to Boston, we stayed in the same hotel as the rest of Alvin's team. We would have preferred to be in the middle of Boston, but ended up out in Revere. The hotel was nice (the fluffy bed with tons of comfy pillows...mmm), but the only other highlight (other than Taco Bell... haha) was being able to say that I was taking the train to Wonderland.


And yes, I like the movie.

Wonderland. :)

Donuts

I crave donuts.

 

Every day for the past week that I have been at work, I have sat here craving a donut.

 

Last week, I had a donut for breakfast, so I don't know why I still want a donut.

 

Time to go look through my desk drawers for cookies.  I hope I still have one left.  Otherwise, I will end up going down the block for a donut...

Legal Sea Foods

Last night, on our first night in Boston, we went for dinner at Legal Sea Foods.


We had just come from the registration location for the basketball tournament, so we went to the Park Square location. The decor was great, and when we went to the bathrooms on the lower level, we realized that level was also really nice. There's this great looking wine cellar that looks like it would be nice for a party.


Alvin got a key lime smoothie and I got a lemonade-crimson berry tea, and then we started out with some fried calamari. They offered it in 2 styles - a Thai style with peanuts and pineapples, and a Rhode Island style with hot peppers and garlic. We got the Rhode Island style and it was pretty good, although Alvin mentioned that the peppers themselves didn't add a lot to the dish. The calamari, flavored with the peppers, was pretty good.


Alvin and I both had similar entrees - wood grilled fish in a Shandong style sauce - although he got seared tuna and I got salmon. We both got rice, but then I got snap peas and he got seaweed salad. The food was excellent, and our waiter was really great. Some of the online reviews for this location seem to just be okay, but we had a great experience. The food tasted good, the service was good, the decor was nice... no complaints and a very nice dinner.


Alvin got a profiterole for dessert. He had a good quote about it, but he's sleeping right now and I want to quote it right. Another time. But the profiterole, before Alvin styled it with the chocolate sauce, is pictured here.


Excellent dinner on our first night in Boston. Yum for good food!

Naptime

FYI: I fell asleep right after I wrote that last post.

Oops.

Beds

I love that hotels are starting to care more about the beds they have in their hotel rooms. The Heavenly Bed really is as good as Westin says it is. And this Four Points Four Comfort bed is pretty good too. I love fluffy beds with tons of pillows that you just sink into. It's lovely.


And it seems like along with nice comfy beds, the hotels are upgrading to curved shower curtain rods. Also a good move.

Alvin's team won all 3 of their games today. Yay!

Bed is so comfortable that I've been falling asleep writing this post!

Hello from Revere

Hello from Revere, Massachusetts and happy Memorial Day weekend!

Even though the drive from NYC to Boston isn't horribly long, we spent most of the day driving. We got stuck in a lot of traffic...


... but the Mass Pike wasn't even the worst part. The absolute worst traffic sections on this road trip all came during the first part of the Connecticut drive, around Stamford and New Haven. The crawling was terrible, but at least they have those signs to warn you that the traffic is going to suck.

So the story from NYC to New Haven was traffic... but the story from North Haven to the Massachusetts border (and then, half of the ride through the Boston area) was pouring, pouring rain...


The visibility was horrible during a lot of the Connecticut ride, but I didn't take any pictures of it. So, so rainy...

So, including a half hour or so stop for lunch, it took about 6.5 hours to get here. It's not supposed to take that long!

Anyway, I hope everyone's having a happy Memorial Day weekend. I may post more pictures later, but for now, enjoy these!

Some More

A couple more quizzes, one of which is okay and the other of which could not be more off.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

The feeling... not so accurate. Famous for... not so accurate, especially the neat freak part. I wish I could be, but I just get distracted, or lazy, or busy, or cluttered, or... well, all of the above. How I live my life... a little more accurate, especially the odd passions part. If you know me, you know I might have some odd passions. ;-)

You Are Pork

You like to think you're the other white meat, but many people don't want anything to do with you. You probably smoke. And it's likely that no body part of yours is off limits.

What Kind of Meat Are You?

I don't think so!

I don't eat pork. I don't smoke. I mean, where the heck did that come from? The quiz asked me if I could be a vegetarian, and I said, YES, only if I could also eat fish. Is fish pork? I think not.

Anyway. Don't really feel like saying much more about this anymore. Yeah.

Opening Weekend

I'm an opening weekend person, so I wish I could see this movie this weekend. But since we're on a mini-trip, it will have to wait for another day!

You Are Cyclops

Dedicated and responsible, you will always remain loyal to your cause. You are a commanding leader - after all, you can kill someone just by looking at them. Power: force beams from your eyes

Which of the X-Men Are You?

Foxwoods

Is it just me or do other people see something a little odd about this billboard?

Salada and Spouts

A couple of quick quizzes before going to bed:

Your Ideal Pet is a Cat

You're both aloof, introverted, and moody. And your friends secretly wish that you were declawed!

What's Your Ideal Pet?

I don't think so... I am so not a cat person! (Besides the allergies...)

You Are Sky Blue

Dreamy and creative, you the potential in everyone ... and everything! And while you strive to have an ideal life, you are pretty mellow about it. You know your time will come.

What Color Blue Are You?

I assume it's supposed to be that I "see" the potential in everyone... I like most shades of blue, so this works for me!

Today I had Salada White Tea with Green Tea blend. I had a cup of this on my initial tea sampling weekend, and thought it was okay. It tasted weaker today. I think it's getting near the time to have some more chai. Maybe tomorrow morning it will be time for chai. I need something to wake my brain up these days. I mean, today, I put together a whole packet of stuff to bring home to do for work, and then proceeded to leave it on my desk and not pack it up. What's wrong with me?!

Oh well. Did some other work, watched last Thursday's Without a Trace (I thought for sure that the ending would be the opposite of what happened), and the second half of The OC season finale. Should be interesting to see how they start up S4.

Ooh, Weather Channel showing a waterspout in Marathon, FL. Those things are crazy looking!

Off to bed... if I can stop coughing...

Restaurants

I haven't had much of an appetite lately because I've been sick, but today I had lots of yummy food.

We had a lunch CLE and the person who organizes this CLE always tries to get lunch food that's better than our normal CLEs. (And we definitely appreciate it!  The normal cafe stuff isn't terrible, but it can get a little boring).  One time we had Thai food and rice pudding.  Today we had Pampano tacos.  I love the chicken tacos.  Add in some guacamole, rice and pico de gallo, and mmmmm.  I only wish the Pampano Taqueria were on Seamless Web.

Dinner was a closing dinner at The Modern, the restaurant in the MoMA.  The appetizer was marinated yellowfin tuna and it looked and tasted great.  Everything was on the simple side, but very solid.  I was confused by the fact that my salmon entree came out with a frothy soap-like sauce, but it was champagne sauce.  It was definitely good though.

Let's see what type of tea I try tomorrow at work. :)

Teascapade

I have talked about tea a lot lately.

 

So let me give you some background.

 

Until my tea drinking binge last week, I haven't had much tea since I went to Hong Kong way back in August.

 

I was like tea-d out.  I had tea with every meal in Hong Kong.  Don't get me wrong, it was good tea.  But how much tea can a person take, with only small doses of Tsingtao inbetween?

 

Of course, I was doing this to try not to get food poisoning like all the other times I went out to Asia.  I figured tea + alcohol would work, since last time, my dad didn't get sick, but my mom and I did, but he had avoided cold drinks.  Other than beer.  I think the hot drinks + alcohol + yogurt did end up helping, but this is a tangent.

 

Back to the tea.  Tea morning, noon and night for a week and I came back to the States and didn't really want to have all that much to do with tea.

 

Fast-forward from August to May.

 

I am suffering from horrible allergies.  I've had allergies since I was like 2, and tried half the therapies out there including shots, but this season is killing me.  I thought I was coming down with a horrible sickness after last night's coughing fit, but this morning, the doctor assured me it was just a really, really, really bad case of allergies.  Another semi-tangent.

 

So last week I started drinking tea and lots of soup, because I had been out sick one day a little feverish and the like.  I needed to get better!  And even though I was feeling sick, I guess it's been a healthier "lifestyle" because of it, and I don't mind.  [Stop with the darn tangents!]

 

The only firm-supplied tea at work is plain Lipton.  I drank it for a WEEK.  I was getting pretty sick of it, but what was I going to do? I wasn't going to bring my only box of genmai-cha from home to work.

 

So when we took my grandmother out for Mothers Day, I went to the store to go look for some tea.  I ended up getting some genmai-cha but unfortunately, it's not individually sized bags and only pot sized bags, so I will probably have to go to Chinatown and pick up some Yamamotoyama at some point.  I love that stuff. [TOPIC.]

 

I also got half of my mother's collection that she no longer wanted, and bought some tea from Marshalls and Stop and Shop.

 

So now I have been trying all different teas, and of course, blogging about it here, because otherwise I will forget what I like and don't like!  Monday was this chai green tea made by Stash that I got from Stop and Shop and it was fragrant and smooth and mmmm.  Tuesday I was drinking this assam tea by Ashby's.  It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't chai.  But I don't really know what assam tea is.  Can someone who has been tolerant enough to make it this far down the post enlighten me?

 

That brings me to today.  I decided to start off with these bags of tea made by Twinings that my mom gave me, and picked out Lapsang Souchong tea.  What's in that? (Again, please, a patient person, please help.)  I haven't actually tried it yet, but was compelled to post because it smells just like these country bacon grits that I used to make when I was much younger.

 

And now, 40 minutes later... since this post has been sitting for 40 minutes... the tea's not bad, but the bacon flavor still confuses me.

 

Someone who knows something about tea please help!

Trifecta

In three's...

 

Dinner delivery person called to tell me the food was in the lobby.  I went downstairs, waited for 10 minutes, no one showed.  After calling the place, they came back, but still.

 

Downstairs on the construction floor, they haven't stopped drilling.  I am going out of my mind.

 

Because on top of that, I'm feeling really sick.  After the coughing fit where I thought I was going to collapse, I realized I felt a little feverish.  Great.  To the doctor I must go tomorrow.

 

Sigh.

So Totally Sick

After days of 4-5 cups of tea, I am only on my second cup of tea for the day.

 

And I just had a major coughing fit where I felt like I was going to keel over choking.

 

I guess the tea has made me feel less sick than I really am....

 

I was supposed to go to the doctor days ago...

 

Or maybe the lack of tea is making me sick again.

 

Sigh.

Chai Green Tea

Last night at Stop and Shop, I bought this chai green tea to bring to work.  It's pretty good; I absolutely love how good it smells and it makes the whole office smell good.  The first cup is fantastic.  It gets a little weak for subsequent cups, especially after cup #2, but the first cup is just wonderful.

 

Of course, I made this comment to both my mom and Alvin and at the same time, they both had the same reaction.  "One tea bag should only work for 2 cups!"  But there was that genmai-cha bag that I used like 4 times yesterday.  Then again, those mugs were smaller.  Maybe that had something to do with it.

 

Mmmm.... chai.

Lamps

The streetlight outside my bedroom window just went out a couple of minutes ago.  I was sitting there and all of a sudden everything had gone from orangey to blue, and once I figured out that it wasn't something wrong with me, I realized that the lights were out.  I guess this makes it officially morning.  Maybe I should go work out.  Yeah, in my allergy state, that would be a fantastic idea.

Flashback

In my last (long, sorry) post, I ended by saying I was going to go figure out what I was doing a year ago.

One year ago, I went to the grocery store for an hour, was studying and reading a packet, went to yoga and was planning to watch Angel, Survivor, The OC, Apprentice and Without a Trace later that day.

Two years ago, I'm not sure what I was doing. I would guess studying, but I don't know what else. I missed a day (old blog, not this one).

I complained a lot about school, and I still don't miss the homework, the forced reading, the papers, the studying for exams and any of that. I miss free afternoons, naps, regular yoga classes (since I don't belong to a studio/gym with yoga right now, and have missed our firm biweekly classes for a couple of months) and real grocery stores. I think Barbri without the bar exam looming is such an ideal schedule. 9 to 12 in class, then lunch, gym, reading blogs and a few hours of TV, dinner (back then when I cooked at home instead of constant delivery) and some outlining. (But none of that preparing for class, getting called on, etc. that tormented me in law school.) Now if I could do that and not have to be preparing for a bar exam, that wouldn't be so bad. :) After all, I justified a good amount of that TV by "studying" through Law and Order. I guess it wasn't totally ineffective either. ;-)

(The number of hours of L&O that I watched while studying for the bar accounts for the fact that I have probably watched less than 10 full hours of L&O since the bar...)

Now it's really getting much lighter outside. Still raining though. I haven't been so happy to see rain in a long time.

Sneezy

Yes, you're reading the timestamp correctly. I'm posting and it's somewhere around 5 am.

It's been busy at work lately. A lot of running around, such that I can't really sit at my desk and enjoy my last week of non-officemate office. I haven't even played the radio for the past couple of days, which is something I really should do since I won't be able to do it sans headphones for the rest of the summer starting next week.

But no, I'm not posting at 5 am because I just got home or anything. Got home around 11:40 or so, but it was too late to take Nyquil if I wanted any chance of getting up in the morning, so I just took Allegra.

For those of you lucky LUCKY people who do not have spring allergies (and I have never in my life known what it felt like to be one of you people), this has been an exceptionally bad season. So bad that I actually got sick (see sinuses post just before this one and other posts in my head that never made it to the blog) from my allergies turning into something worse. It's currently pouring outside which I am incredibly thankful for, but I'm not sure how my allergies got so bad tonight when the weather is currently suppressing all that disgusting pollen.

Yes, I'm posting at 5 am because my allergies woke me up.

Ever since just before the really big closing (so probably since the last few days of April, basically a few days after I got back from vacation - which by the way I had no symptoms before vacation, nothing like getting back from the desert to make your allergies fly off the handle), I haven't really slept through the night. I can count the total number of times that I slept through the night and didn't wake up sneezing or congested (enough to wake me up), or slept through the night with no leg cramps (the latest and greatest) on one hand. Well, really two fingers. That's right - almost 2.5 weeks and 2 nights. Agh!

Tonight's game was wake up at 4 and sneeze every 30 seconds for 20 minutes. Fun!

I finally got it to stop by soaking the offending side of my sinuses in saline solution for about 10 minutes and now I'm listening to the cars drive by in the rain as I take lots of vitamin C. I thought about making tea, but I don't want the whistling of the kettle to wake everyone up. All I've been doing is drinking tea at work for the entire week. I am going to float away.

I know this is way too much detail for my allergies and no one cares, but it is 5 am, I tend to babble late at night and I haven't posted in so long that all I want to do is type.

There is a lot I have wanted to post about. The margarita car I saw this morning (well, I guess it's now yesterday morning) on the way to work. I think it was a Grand Marnier car, and it had a big lime on top, and was supposed to look like the top of a margarita. It amused me, but mostly it just made me want to drink cocktails on the beach.

How less than a week after they announced that Junior's was coming to Times Square, they were doing interviews in the outdoor seating area of an Italian restaurant that has been closed down for quite a while (the signs said "temporarily closed") and which I had wanted to go to with the summers. And 2 days later, the signs are up and the lights are on announcing Junior's location.... but if anyone were to get excited and follow the signs, they're still doing construction and the awning still bears the name of the Italian restaurant.

The fact that the only Idol after Clay whose music I would consider buying (provided that the music was more of the more "melodic" rock than the screaming, meaning I would pick and choose on iTunes) is now off the show, and DialIdol is doing a remarkably good job. Except for, I think, Kellie's exit week, which I actually saw live on TV (non-DVR!) and shouted out in joy. Of course this realization (1st sentence) caused me to go back and look at the websites for the past seasons to see who I was rooting for, because I couldn't remember. And the main reason for this is that I remembered not watching the Carrie/Bo finale because I just didn't care (and because I had no DVR and could only watch one thing live and tape one thing, and there were definitely conflicts), and I couldn't remember at all from last season who I did care about.

Maybe I should go to work early. Wouldn't everyone be shocked... I am so not a morning person. I don't mean go in at like 7. Anytime before 9 might be considered "really early" for me. Besides, I think I have plenty to watch on the DVR. A 6 am Without a Trace viewing would amuse me.

Does Starbucks only leave its lights on inside when it's open? The one I walk by on the way home from work shuts its lights when it's closed. But the Starbucks across the street has its lights on now. Although I guess since it is 5 am, maybe it's open for the morning.

I have nothing else to say right now. But don't talk to me about 24, Lost or Alias, because I am behind on all of those, mostly because it's been so busy that I haven't really been home when they're on and it's so much easier for Alvin and I to breeze through reality shows once I get home. On that note, don't talk to me about Amazing Race either. Top Model is fine, because I read the recaps and already know who's gone, since my Wednesday TV schedule means it gets taped on Tuesdays. And I ended up missing some of the repeats because of the Nets. Is it bad that the reason I was rooting against the Nets was so that Top Model wouldn't get preempted in its repeat showing?

Speaking of TV, the upfronts are coming up soon. :) :) :) I'm so excited (clearly)!

When I was on vacation, I participated in this TV screening program. It was fun (for me)! It was in conjunction with CBS and they were screening shows for their summer programming (I learned this by coming home and googling the shows). One show I was not such a big fan of, but it is still making it to air. If they took our group's suggestions to heart, it might be ok, but if it airs the way we saw it... contact me off the blog if you really want to know what I'm talking about. I don't want to spread bad publicity before something airs (I like to give things a chance), but I'm willing to share in a more private forum.

The other show that I saw in the screening is also making it to air this summer and I will give it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Gameshow Marathon should be a lot of fun. Then again, I love game shows (the TV sort of stayed on GSN the whole day that I was home sick), so I might be biased, but it was a truly fun episode that we watched. And I totally want to win the at-home prizes! (So, if anyone from the network is reading, I am a good candidate for early screening of programs - I will tell everyone I know about things I like!)

Debating if it's better to attempt to sleep for an hour or so, which could make me groggy, or whether I should just tough it out and stay up. Since it appears that, an hour later, the sneezing has finally stopped.

And the sky is beginning to lighten. But my head is starting to hurt.

I will stop bothering you all with my babbling. Hope you've been making it through the night a little more smoothly than I have!

(By the way, how is it already May 12?!? The time since September has been such a blur that I am thinking of forcing myself to write weekly postcards to keep up... after I post this, I am going to figure out what I was doing one year ago. Posting more often is probably a very good bet.)

Sick

My sinuses have declared war on my brain. And everything else too, I suppose...

Peanuts

I haven't been posting because this deal has kept me so busy that I don't usually even sign on to my computer in my own office.  And I spend more waking hours in the conference room than at home.

 

But now that I've commandeered a general computer on the conference floor, I wanted to share my (early) morning walk to work. 

 

First, it must be Mr. Peanut's birthday or something, because outside the Marriott Marquis, there was a guy (or girl) dressed up in a peanut costume with one of those Miss America banners saying Mr. Peanut and a year. So I guess it's his birthday.  And then there were 2 other people holding up a "baby" peanut (forget the exact wording, but the Mr. Peanut was brown and the baby peanut was yellow as were all of the peanut helpers) and lots of top hats.  Oddly enough, the 2 people holding up the baby peanut were holding it the way you would walk with someone who is drunk.

 

Then, I got a free WSJ and accompanying tote bag to celebrate their birthday (either the WSJ or just the online version, I'm not sure).

 

Nice.