NYC: Version 1.0
[juicy details omitted]
Tuesday morning I woke up and took a train into the city to visit my grandmother. I always forget how nice it is to visit her. She's really a stimulating woman and so forward thinking, especially considering she's 83 years old. She was the UN Representative for the National Council of Women USA and the Council's President. She served as an active member of the Women's Advisory Committee on Poverty in the US Office of Economic Opportunity and participated in the development of the International Peace Academy. She also worked on numerous campaigns, co-founded Trickle Up with my grandfather, a non-profit organization that helps people help themselves out of poverty, currently operating in 26 countries, and she had two daughters and raised them well, which blows me away. This is the kind of woman I would like to be. (Although I'm already behind. She married at 18 and graduated from college when she was 19.) I told her about school and what's going on with me and what's been going on and what I'm working on right now and stuff like that. She was very supportive, offering a little advice and a lot of encouragement. And I absolutely adore her for not making me feel inadequate at all for not taking the typical route life. I gave her some information on The Institute for Civility in Government, which is Lucas' dad's super cool non-profit organization. Although, my mother later reminded me that her eyes aren't as good as they used to be, so she doesn't do as much reading. Ideally, she'd be able to help the Institute out in some way. So we ate veggie burgers and talked and had a grand time and by the way, my grandmother has the most awesome terrace ever because it's all blooming and beautiful and it's this spectacular garden in the middle of the city and it overlooks the Hudson a little because she's in the penthouse and wow this is an incredible run-on sentence. She suggested that I look into doing some work for Save the Children, which seems like a great idea to me. Apparently, Save the Children thinks that my grandfather was just the cat's meow because he was the President for a while and she said that if I "wrote a note to Charlie [McCormick], the current President and tell him that Glen was your grandfather," I'd probably find myself with at least something to do. So I'm definitely going to do that.
After lunch I kind of just wandered around Manhattan, which was really nice and very interesting. I found a pair of shoes that I absolutely fell in love with and definitely would've bought had I had the money on me. Like, I liked them enough that I see another trip to the city in the near future as a definite possibility. (Only because I got my income tax check in the mail right after I got home.)
Oh! I saw the Naked Cowboy! Only when I first saw him I didn't know who or what the Naked Cowboy was and I was a little confused as to why there was a man with long hair and a cowboy hat standing essentially in the middle of the street wearing only a pair of tightie whities, playing a guitar and apparently singing, too. It wasn't until later when I described this scene to Cat (catricya) and she said, "Oh, that must've been the Naked Cowboy," that I realized that he's somewhat of a normal phenomenon.
After stopping by Sacred Tattoos in NYC to talk to Brian the Piercing God, I finally managed to get a hold of Cat and headed to her place.
(Tangent: Brian said that my vertical labret was pierced at a weird angle, which is causing irritation to the piercing, which might mean I'll have to take it out. Moral: Don't let random piercers pierce you. I should know this by now.)
I got to Cat's apartment and somehow we decided that making hummus was an excellent idea. We ended up with like a huge vat of the stuff, which turned out quite well, I might add. And it was later used as a bribe for free drinks from one of Cat's bartender friends. After a few drinks at Cat's we went to Buttermilk, hung out there for a while, which was a grand time, and then briefly made a stop at Bar 4. I got to meet Cat's girlfriend Laura, but not for very long and I wish I'd gotten to hang out with her/them a little more.
I ended up staying in NYC longer than I planned. I didn't get home until late Wednesday night.
Getting home was sort of interesting. Somehow I managed to take the subway a few times and not get lost or get on the wrong train once. When I finally got to Stamford at around 1:30 AM, where my car was parked, I discovered I didn't have enough money to pay for the parking ticket thingie to get out of the parking garage. I had planned on cashing a check from my cousin when I was in the city, but that didn't work because the check was from Wells Fargo and apparently that's a southern bank, so yeah. Anyway, Alex was my hero and he drove half an hour in the middle of the night to bring me money so that I could go home. When I finally got home I was so disgusting and grimey from spending two days in the city wearing the same clothes and yuck that I couldn't not shower. So I showered, collapsed in my bed around 4, and woke up at 6:30 to take 33 (The Plumber's roommate) to court on an outstanding speeding ticket. Oh man that was fun. I can't even remember the last time I functioned on so little sleep. It didn't really help that the night before I slept for about 4 hours. But I got home safe and whatnot and it was definitely good times.
This is where the [juicy details omitted] part of the story ends.
Also, my brother will be in town today. He's actually in NJ for some Navy thing and he's making a short stop here. It'll be good times. One night (hopefully) isn't long enough for me to get pissed at him.
Tuesday morning I woke up and took a train into the city to visit my grandmother. I always forget how nice it is to visit her. She's really a stimulating woman and so forward thinking, especially considering she's 83 years old. She was the UN Representative for the National Council of Women USA and the Council's President. She served as an active member of the Women's Advisory Committee on Poverty in the US Office of Economic Opportunity and participated in the development of the International Peace Academy. She also worked on numerous campaigns, co-founded Trickle Up with my grandfather, a non-profit organization that helps people help themselves out of poverty, currently operating in 26 countries, and she had two daughters and raised them well, which blows me away. This is the kind of woman I would like to be. (Although I'm already behind. She married at 18 and graduated from college when she was 19.) I told her about school and what's going on with me and what's been going on and what I'm working on right now and stuff like that. She was very supportive, offering a little advice and a lot of encouragement. And I absolutely adore her for not making me feel inadequate at all for not taking the typical route life. I gave her some information on The Institute for Civility in Government, which is Lucas' dad's super cool non-profit organization. Although, my mother later reminded me that her eyes aren't as good as they used to be, so she doesn't do as much reading. Ideally, she'd be able to help the Institute out in some way. So we ate veggie burgers and talked and had a grand time and by the way, my grandmother has the most awesome terrace ever because it's all blooming and beautiful and it's this spectacular garden in the middle of the city and it overlooks the Hudson a little because she's in the penthouse and wow this is an incredible run-on sentence. She suggested that I look into doing some work for Save the Children, which seems like a great idea to me. Apparently, Save the Children thinks that my grandfather was just the cat's meow because he was the President for a while and she said that if I "wrote a note to Charlie [McCormick], the current President and tell him that Glen was your grandfather," I'd probably find myself with at least something to do. So I'm definitely going to do that.
After lunch I kind of just wandered around Manhattan, which was really nice and very interesting. I found a pair of shoes that I absolutely fell in love with and definitely would've bought had I had the money on me. Like, I liked them enough that I see another trip to the city in the near future as a definite possibility. (Only because I got my income tax check in the mail right after I got home.)
Oh! I saw the Naked Cowboy! Only when I first saw him I didn't know who or what the Naked Cowboy was and I was a little confused as to why there was a man with long hair and a cowboy hat standing essentially in the middle of the street wearing only a pair of tightie whities, playing a guitar and apparently singing, too. It wasn't until later when I described this scene to Cat (catricya) and she said, "Oh, that must've been the Naked Cowboy," that I realized that he's somewhat of a normal phenomenon.
After stopping by Sacred Tattoos in NYC to talk to Brian the Piercing God, I finally managed to get a hold of Cat and headed to her place.
(Tangent: Brian said that my vertical labret was pierced at a weird angle, which is causing irritation to the piercing, which might mean I'll have to take it out. Moral: Don't let random piercers pierce you. I should know this by now.)
I got to Cat's apartment and somehow we decided that making hummus was an excellent idea. We ended up with like a huge vat of the stuff, which turned out quite well, I might add. And it was later used as a bribe for free drinks from one of Cat's bartender friends. After a few drinks at Cat's we went to Buttermilk, hung out there for a while, which was a grand time, and then briefly made a stop at Bar 4. I got to meet Cat's girlfriend Laura, but not for very long and I wish I'd gotten to hang out with her/them a little more.
I ended up staying in NYC longer than I planned. I didn't get home until late Wednesday night.
Getting home was sort of interesting. Somehow I managed to take the subway a few times and not get lost or get on the wrong train once. When I finally got to Stamford at around 1:30 AM, where my car was parked, I discovered I didn't have enough money to pay for the parking ticket thingie to get out of the parking garage. I had planned on cashing a check from my cousin when I was in the city, but that didn't work because the check was from Wells Fargo and apparently that's a southern bank, so yeah. Anyway, Alex was my hero and he drove half an hour in the middle of the night to bring me money so that I could go home. When I finally got home I was so disgusting and grimey from spending two days in the city wearing the same clothes and yuck that I couldn't not shower. So I showered, collapsed in my bed around 4, and woke up at 6:30 to take 33 (The Plumber's roommate) to court on an outstanding speeding ticket. Oh man that was fun. I can't even remember the last time I functioned on so little sleep. It didn't really help that the night before I slept for about 4 hours. But I got home safe and whatnot and it was definitely good times.
This is where the [juicy details omitted] part of the story ends.
Also, my brother will be in town today. He's actually in NJ for some Navy thing and he's making a short stop here. It'll be good times. One night (hopefully) isn't long enough for me to get pissed at him.