Actual going out doing real life things with friends!
So I've barely had much time to myself over the past week - I have done something every single day since Thursday (I wrote this on Wednesday during the day, that evening I did just sit at home and FFA at _extreme and read tennis fanfic and watch TV. Tonight Katie is over to hang out but she's on the phone). I usually try not to be busy 6 days in a row, I like to have some days to chill out, but it's been fun and not too crazy.
Thursday my much beloved friend Courtney was visiting for the night! She just got back from a year teaching in American Samoa - one of the smaller, outer islands. And she was in NYC to take her girlfriend to the airport and thought she'd visit her friends in Brooklyn on the way out.
So on Thursday we met after I got out of work near St Mark's Place, because I already had plans with my friend Alison from work to go to this bar that has board games and play Sorry. Courtney & I got there first and it was really crowded, but they had ESPN on so I FINALLY actually got to see the end of the Isner-Mahut match. I feel like I didn't even get to watch any previous-day highlights Wednesday night, maybe I wasn't fully on board and I'd just discovered a new BBC West End casting reality series, that aired this spring and was casting Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and was roaring through videos of those performances.
Well, the point is whenever there was tennis on screen I was just ignoring everything that was going on around me and gluing my eyes to it. Courtney was very understanding!
However, as the place was so crowded we couldn't play sorry, so once Alison showed up (with our friend Vivek who is the one who took care of me on the horrible alcohol day that I've named Vomitfest 2010) we head out and were going to go to our shuffleboard place but didn't really feel like it, I felt more like darts & Alison agreed. But on the way there we ran into a friend of Alison's who's a regular at the shuffleboard place and said the owner had another bar, closer to the subway, that was big and chill and had darts. AND IT DELIVERED!
I had some drama with the bartender who didn't believe that I'd paid and put my drink on Courtney's tab because of some confusion and then was obnoxious about it and finally bitterly paid me back out of her own pocket, even though I wasn't fucking lying about having left 6 dollars on the bar, for god's sake! Like, we went over and said "Oh, excuse me, did you put my drink my friend's tab? Because I paid for it in cash at the time." And she said "No, you didn't!" WHAT THE FUCK? Way to outright call me a liar, you turd. Maybe if you fucking picked up the money as people paid you would be on top of what was happening at your bar. Yes, I know we discussed me putting it on her tab and I understand that you were confused, it is totally understandable. BUT I PUT MONEY DOWN AND WHEN I SAY I DID, DO NOT OUTRIGHT SAY I'M LYING TO YOU. Ugh.
However, I won two games of darts after trailing all game and it was a really nice, chill place so we'll probably go back anyway. XD
Then on Friday Katie was going to be in the City to get dinner with David and a friend but they were doing something else first so we were meeting for a bit. Then as I was leaving work, friend!Corey called and said she got out of work an hour and a half early and did I want to hang out for a bit? So Katie and I met up with Corey in Battery Park, and it was a lovely night! Katie had to leave soon but Corey and I hung out for a few more hours - she ALSO got excited about the Epic Marathon Tennis Match!! So that was awesome. And she took pictures of tourists with the Statue of Liberty in the background and a Japanese tourist gave us both peppermints!
Then Corey needed to go home for dinner, and she invited me to come with her but I didn't feel like going all the way up to the upper west side only to have to haul myself down to Brooklyn later. Except I didn't feel like going home just yet. But Vivek had previously invited me to dinner (me and Courtney, but I declined because of Katie & Corey and also because I didn't feel like going to dinner just with him, it would be too much work to keep up a conversation since we don't know each other that well yet) and then do something with Alison later. So Alison had said she would update me so before I got into the subway I called her. And she wasn't sure about what she wanted to do but she felt like doing something so I suggested we just get a couple of drinks!
It was an excellent suggestion, if I do say so myself. There's a place with outdoor seating near my work so we sat and chatted about the internet and friendship and interests (I HAVE SO MANY INTERESTS) and how the three interact. We were there for a few hours and I delicately nursed one drink, yay me, so classy.
And then Alison decided to join Vivek in Brooklyn so I talked her into taking the R with me to get to the F, but it was. . . 9:30PM or something at that point and I hadn't eaten and wanted to be chill so I just went home.
Then Saturday morning I had people coming to take care of my peeling paint (tragically missed the exterminator somehow, fml) so I hung out with them and watched the first football match. . . Honduras v Paraguay? I can't even remember, I'm afraid. They were impressed that I was watching though. XD
Then at 2 my aunt came to pick me up and we went out to my parent's house for a birthday bbq thing. Sadly we got stuck in traffic so I only got to a TV towards the end of the Ghana match, but luckily my cousins had it on. We were all very solemn. :/ Poor kids. My cousins and uncle were impressed with my football knowledge, though! I knew that there were two 15 minute, non-sudden death overtime periods and THEN penalty kicks! What I did not know is what was up with the 2 15 minute things. Now I know that it's to switch sides, but at the time I thought maybe there would only be 1 period if someone scored. Still, I was actually more on top of it than any of my sports fan relatives, so that was cool.
BBQ was fun, but kinda hot, and also I attract bugs and my parents' yard has a lot of mosquitoes. I'm still itchy. But I got to see some relatives who have moved to Wisconsin and Seattle so that was really fun. Then Katie and I and the cousin from Seattle and his wife (who is pregnant!!) spent the night but while everyone (else) was playing Hearts we had a blackout. I came down to hang out and they continued playing by candlelight.
My parents have AC and I don't so we were spending the night there to enjoy it but I actually didn't sleep well because I was really cold!! But too sleepy to get up and get a blanket. It was a bad scene. Dad drove me home on Sunday and I took a nap and then was just HOT ALL AFTERNOON AND EVENING. Oh well. I wasn't too hot to use the computer, I have a nice little platform thing for my laptop. And I ordered sushi. Tonight I have to clean up some though, while it's cool. . .
OK so that was the weekend. Then yesterday it was still hot so I suggested that Corey and I get dinner since neither of us have AC. I could face being at home but I couldn't face cooking, and I was happy to delay being in my steamy apartment. (It could be a lot worse. I have great cross-breezes and two fans in both the living room and my bedroom. I've been sleeping ok thus far - knock on wood - and I'm not so hot that I'm just utterly miserable, but I'm way too hot to be able to function or move.) So luckily she was free for dinner - only night this week!
I got out of work earlier than her and didn't have my cell phone and she had a meeting that we weren't sure when it would get out, so we planned that I'd go to her office at 6:30 or so, which is almost 2 hours after I get out of work. I did some birthday shopping for Katie, and then killed some time in a tiny used book store. I keep forgetting the name but Corey just emailed me about it (she had to go back to get my umbrella, which I'd forgotten) and it is Alabaster Books. It was neat, and I just sort of squatted on the ground and poked at their religion books. And I felt like I should buy something and I'd been by the CDs earlier and spotted the soundtrack from Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I'd had some songs from it before and loved the discotastic awesomeness but I somehow lost the songs! So I was happy that I was actually able to buy something - that I wanted! And I haven't bought a CD in ages, and the proprietor was very excited that someone was actually buying a CD. XD
Corey and I went to the Chat and Chew diner, which was fun and charming and air conditioned, and she summarized the highlights of the the Mysteries of Udolpho for me. WAAAAAAAAAAAY better than reading it, actually incredibly entertaining and hilarious. We were cracking up and the people at the next table probably were fairly confused.
And then yesterday I went to Katie's house, because she didn't have class and I wanted to spend the night in her air conditioning. XD I'm like an AC scavenger in the summer, it keeps things interesting.
Well, that turned out to be the BEST IDEA EVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEER!!! Because when we were on amazon buying each other curling books for our birthdays, she also found the complete 6 disc DVD set from the CBC of Canada's 2006 Torino Olympics experience! This includes a disc of curling, at which one of my favorite teams won the men's gold medal! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. We'd seen the curling disc only available at a sports poster warehouse place but it got bought before we could get to it. I ended up quite bitterly disappointed over the whole thing, because the team changed their line-up and I really wanted to see that team in action and didn't think I'd ever be able to. Then Katie, without telling me, found the ENTIRE thing for sale on Amazon from some guy in the midwest, for almost no money! And it had just arrived yesterday!
IT WAS AWESOME!! She also got the book about the team that came out after the Olympics, which was endlessly hilarious, and a book by Colleen Jones, a legendary Canadian curler who did NBC commentary at this Olympics and who we adore. OH MY GOD. I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ANY OF THIS AND I WAS SO EXCITED!! I swooned and fell to the floor with delight and shrieked a lot. Oh my god!! AWWWWWWESOME!!
And holy hannah! People talked about how Mark Nichols, who was throwing third rocks and who is ADORABLE!! was definitely the MVP of the gold medal match but I didn't even understand. Russ Howard, legendary curler who the boys from Newfoundland & Labrador brought on to call the game and throw second rocks, was missing a few shots, and so was Brad Gushue - usually the skip but still throwing fourth stones. Whereas Mark Nichols. Was making. Everything. And these were not easy shots, these were ridiculous shots!! Oh my god!! He curled 97%! NINETY SEVEN PERCENT!! 90% is REALLY good. NO ONE CURLS NINETY SEVEN PERCENT!! Brad and Russ both curled in the 70s. Sexy, newf-accented lead Jamie Korab also curled well but it's not as hard for the lead to get a high percentage, he didn't have to do the crazy beautiful double take-outs that Bam-Bam (as Mark Nichols is known) did. HEARTS IN MY EYES.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I gained a new love for Brad Gushue, whose mom was sick with cancer and couldn't go to Torino. I didn't know this! He was so emotional after talking to her, even for the Olympics it seemed extreme and I was all "what is going on??" and Katie was like "Uh, Laura, his mom is sick" and I was like "I'm a terrible person." So then we watched everything again (we watched a segment with a clip of the interview in it before watching the entire game) and I was able to really appreciate the moment and got totally choked up. Awwwwww. And Bruce Rainnie was interviewing him, right after he'd gotten off the phone with his mom, and Brad was so choked up he could barely speak and Bruce (who now does curling commentary) was all "it's ok, you're doing great" and omg it was so sweet.
They were the first athletes from Newfoundland and Labrador to win an Olympic medal! And except for Russ, they were all around 26 years old. And there were two members of the team from Newfoundland and two from Labrador (one of them was the 5th, he stepped aside so that Russ Howard could help them out which was VERY classy and selfless) and the whole province embraced them! NFLD isn't a curling province at all but AWESOME Premiere Danny Williams closed the schools early so everyone could watch the final, and the book had a whole section of little stories about how people did everything they could to watch the game and remembering what it was like. And a section about how many many hundreds of people were waiting for the team at the airport even though they arrived at 2 AM. ::sniffles:: This is why I love this team so much. When he's not being heartbreakingly sweet after winning the Olympics, Brad can be a bit. . . awkward. I love Bam Bam and Jamie Korab loads, but I also love the whole story about them coming out of NFLD and winning the gold medal and the province being so proud and naming streets after them and putting up signs celebrating them in their hometowns and it's so beautiful. ::sigh::
So that was Tuesday. XD
No plans for the rest of the week, though! And it's supposed to be cooler for a couple days before it hits 90 again. DX
Thursday my much beloved friend Courtney was visiting for the night! She just got back from a year teaching in American Samoa - one of the smaller, outer islands. And she was in NYC to take her girlfriend to the airport and thought she'd visit her friends in Brooklyn on the way out.
So on Thursday we met after I got out of work near St Mark's Place, because I already had plans with my friend Alison from work to go to this bar that has board games and play Sorry. Courtney & I got there first and it was really crowded, but they had ESPN on so I FINALLY actually got to see the end of the Isner-Mahut match. I feel like I didn't even get to watch any previous-day highlights Wednesday night, maybe I wasn't fully on board and I'd just discovered a new BBC West End casting reality series, that aired this spring and was casting Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and was roaring through videos of those performances.
Well, the point is whenever there was tennis on screen I was just ignoring everything that was going on around me and gluing my eyes to it. Courtney was very understanding!
However, as the place was so crowded we couldn't play sorry, so once Alison showed up (with our friend Vivek who is the one who took care of me on the horrible alcohol day that I've named Vomitfest 2010) we head out and were going to go to our shuffleboard place but didn't really feel like it, I felt more like darts & Alison agreed. But on the way there we ran into a friend of Alison's who's a regular at the shuffleboard place and said the owner had another bar, closer to the subway, that was big and chill and had darts. AND IT DELIVERED!
I had some drama with the bartender who didn't believe that I'd paid and put my drink on Courtney's tab because of some confusion and then was obnoxious about it and finally bitterly paid me back out of her own pocket, even though I wasn't fucking lying about having left 6 dollars on the bar, for god's sake! Like, we went over and said "Oh, excuse me, did you put my drink my friend's tab? Because I paid for it in cash at the time." And she said "No, you didn't!" WHAT THE FUCK? Way to outright call me a liar, you turd. Maybe if you fucking picked up the money as people paid you would be on top of what was happening at your bar. Yes, I know we discussed me putting it on her tab and I understand that you were confused, it is totally understandable. BUT I PUT MONEY DOWN AND WHEN I SAY I DID, DO NOT OUTRIGHT SAY I'M LYING TO YOU. Ugh.
However, I won two games of darts after trailing all game and it was a really nice, chill place so we'll probably go back anyway. XD
Then on Friday Katie was going to be in the City to get dinner with David and a friend but they were doing something else first so we were meeting for a bit. Then as I was leaving work, friend!Corey called and said she got out of work an hour and a half early and did I want to hang out for a bit? So Katie and I met up with Corey in Battery Park, and it was a lovely night! Katie had to leave soon but Corey and I hung out for a few more hours - she ALSO got excited about the Epic Marathon Tennis Match!! So that was awesome. And she took pictures of tourists with the Statue of Liberty in the background and a Japanese tourist gave us both peppermints!
Then Corey needed to go home for dinner, and she invited me to come with her but I didn't feel like going all the way up to the upper west side only to have to haul myself down to Brooklyn later. Except I didn't feel like going home just yet. But Vivek had previously invited me to dinner (me and Courtney, but I declined because of Katie & Corey and also because I didn't feel like going to dinner just with him, it would be too much work to keep up a conversation since we don't know each other that well yet) and then do something with Alison later. So Alison had said she would update me so before I got into the subway I called her. And she wasn't sure about what she wanted to do but she felt like doing something so I suggested we just get a couple of drinks!
It was an excellent suggestion, if I do say so myself. There's a place with outdoor seating near my work so we sat and chatted about the internet and friendship and interests (I HAVE SO MANY INTERESTS) and how the three interact. We were there for a few hours and I delicately nursed one drink, yay me, so classy.
And then Alison decided to join Vivek in Brooklyn so I talked her into taking the R with me to get to the F, but it was. . . 9:30PM or something at that point and I hadn't eaten and wanted to be chill so I just went home.
Then Saturday morning I had people coming to take care of my peeling paint (tragically missed the exterminator somehow, fml) so I hung out with them and watched the first football match. . . Honduras v Paraguay? I can't even remember, I'm afraid. They were impressed that I was watching though. XD
Then at 2 my aunt came to pick me up and we went out to my parent's house for a birthday bbq thing. Sadly we got stuck in traffic so I only got to a TV towards the end of the Ghana match, but luckily my cousins had it on. We were all very solemn. :/ Poor kids. My cousins and uncle were impressed with my football knowledge, though! I knew that there were two 15 minute, non-sudden death overtime periods and THEN penalty kicks! What I did not know is what was up with the 2 15 minute things. Now I know that it's to switch sides, but at the time I thought maybe there would only be 1 period if someone scored. Still, I was actually more on top of it than any of my sports fan relatives, so that was cool.
BBQ was fun, but kinda hot, and also I attract bugs and my parents' yard has a lot of mosquitoes. I'm still itchy. But I got to see some relatives who have moved to Wisconsin and Seattle so that was really fun. Then Katie and I and the cousin from Seattle and his wife (who is pregnant!!) spent the night but while everyone (else) was playing Hearts we had a blackout. I came down to hang out and they continued playing by candlelight.
My parents have AC and I don't so we were spending the night there to enjoy it but I actually didn't sleep well because I was really cold!! But too sleepy to get up and get a blanket. It was a bad scene. Dad drove me home on Sunday and I took a nap and then was just HOT ALL AFTERNOON AND EVENING. Oh well. I wasn't too hot to use the computer, I have a nice little platform thing for my laptop. And I ordered sushi. Tonight I have to clean up some though, while it's cool. . .
OK so that was the weekend. Then yesterday it was still hot so I suggested that Corey and I get dinner since neither of us have AC. I could face being at home but I couldn't face cooking, and I was happy to delay being in my steamy apartment. (It could be a lot worse. I have great cross-breezes and two fans in both the living room and my bedroom. I've been sleeping ok thus far - knock on wood - and I'm not so hot that I'm just utterly miserable, but I'm way too hot to be able to function or move.) So luckily she was free for dinner - only night this week!
I got out of work earlier than her and didn't have my cell phone and she had a meeting that we weren't sure when it would get out, so we planned that I'd go to her office at 6:30 or so, which is almost 2 hours after I get out of work. I did some birthday shopping for Katie, and then killed some time in a tiny used book store. I keep forgetting the name but Corey just emailed me about it (she had to go back to get my umbrella, which I'd forgotten) and it is Alabaster Books. It was neat, and I just sort of squatted on the ground and poked at their religion books. And I felt like I should buy something and I'd been by the CDs earlier and spotted the soundtrack from Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I'd had some songs from it before and loved the discotastic awesomeness but I somehow lost the songs! So I was happy that I was actually able to buy something - that I wanted! And I haven't bought a CD in ages, and the proprietor was very excited that someone was actually buying a CD. XD
Corey and I went to the Chat and Chew diner, which was fun and charming and air conditioned, and she summarized the highlights of the the Mysteries of Udolpho for me. WAAAAAAAAAAAY better than reading it, actually incredibly entertaining and hilarious. We were cracking up and the people at the next table probably were fairly confused.
And then yesterday I went to Katie's house, because she didn't have class and I wanted to spend the night in her air conditioning. XD I'm like an AC scavenger in the summer, it keeps things interesting.
Well, that turned out to be the BEST IDEA EVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEER!!! Because when we were on amazon buying each other curling books for our birthdays, she also found the complete 6 disc DVD set from the CBC of Canada's 2006 Torino Olympics experience! This includes a disc of curling, at which one of my favorite teams won the men's gold medal! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. We'd seen the curling disc only available at a sports poster warehouse place but it got bought before we could get to it. I ended up quite bitterly disappointed over the whole thing, because the team changed their line-up and I really wanted to see that team in action and didn't think I'd ever be able to. Then Katie, without telling me, found the ENTIRE thing for sale on Amazon from some guy in the midwest, for almost no money! And it had just arrived yesterday!
IT WAS AWESOME!! She also got the book about the team that came out after the Olympics, which was endlessly hilarious, and a book by Colleen Jones, a legendary Canadian curler who did NBC commentary at this Olympics and who we adore. OH MY GOD. I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ANY OF THIS AND I WAS SO EXCITED!! I swooned and fell to the floor with delight and shrieked a lot. Oh my god!! AWWWWWWESOME!!
And holy hannah! People talked about how Mark Nichols, who was throwing third rocks and who is ADORABLE!! was definitely the MVP of the gold medal match but I didn't even understand. Russ Howard, legendary curler who the boys from Newfoundland & Labrador brought on to call the game and throw second rocks, was missing a few shots, and so was Brad Gushue - usually the skip but still throwing fourth stones. Whereas Mark Nichols. Was making. Everything. And these were not easy shots, these were ridiculous shots!! Oh my god!! He curled 97%! NINETY SEVEN PERCENT!! 90% is REALLY good. NO ONE CURLS NINETY SEVEN PERCENT!! Brad and Russ both curled in the 70s. Sexy, newf-accented lead Jamie Korab also curled well but it's not as hard for the lead to get a high percentage, he didn't have to do the crazy beautiful double take-outs that Bam-Bam (as Mark Nichols is known) did. HEARTS IN MY EYES.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I gained a new love for Brad Gushue, whose mom was sick with cancer and couldn't go to Torino. I didn't know this! He was so emotional after talking to her, even for the Olympics it seemed extreme and I was all "what is going on??" and Katie was like "Uh, Laura, his mom is sick" and I was like "I'm a terrible person." So then we watched everything again (we watched a segment with a clip of the interview in it before watching the entire game) and I was able to really appreciate the moment and got totally choked up. Awwwwww. And Bruce Rainnie was interviewing him, right after he'd gotten off the phone with his mom, and Brad was so choked up he could barely speak and Bruce (who now does curling commentary) was all "it's ok, you're doing great" and omg it was so sweet.
They were the first athletes from Newfoundland and Labrador to win an Olympic medal! And except for Russ, they were all around 26 years old. And there were two members of the team from Newfoundland and two from Labrador (one of them was the 5th, he stepped aside so that Russ Howard could help them out which was VERY classy and selfless) and the whole province embraced them! NFLD isn't a curling province at all but AWESOME Premiere Danny Williams closed the schools early so everyone could watch the final, and the book had a whole section of little stories about how people did everything they could to watch the game and remembering what it was like. And a section about how many many hundreds of people were waiting for the team at the airport even though they arrived at 2 AM. ::sniffles:: This is why I love this team so much. When he's not being heartbreakingly sweet after winning the Olympics, Brad can be a bit. . . awkward. I love Bam Bam and Jamie Korab loads, but I also love the whole story about them coming out of NFLD and winning the gold medal and the province being so proud and naming streets after them and putting up signs celebrating them in their hometowns and it's so beautiful. ::sigh::
So that was Tuesday. XD
No plans for the rest of the week, though! And it's supposed to be cooler for a couple days before it hits 90 again. DX