Transportation Etiquette

Due to the nature of my ward* boundaries being really ridiculously small I tend to run into a bunch of people I know on the commute to and from work. This is usually fine and kind of fun. But that's not always the case.

So, here is my short list of transportation etiquette:

1. If I'm reading my book say hi if you want to be polite but don't talk to me. I won't be offended if you don't talk to me. Heck, I won't even be offended if you don't say hi.
2. Don't ask me what I'm reading. And when I tell you what I'm reading don't ask me about it. I'd probably just rather sit/stand there and read my book (I actually probably already saw you and kept reading my book because I didn't feel like talking). 
3. If we're sitting across from each other on the bus, don't ask me about my day, my job, what I'm doing this weekend etc. I will answer you, but my answers will be short and clipped. Why? Because we're too far away and I'm not just telling you what I'm doing, I'm telling the entire bus (did you notice the bus is really quite?) and I don't want a busload of strangers hearing my personal business.
4. If you sit or stand next to me I don't mind talking (if I'm not reading my book), but please keep your voice down. Like I said before, I still don't want the entire bus or metro car hearing what we're talking about. They don't need to know my business. They don't need to know you thought my Relief Society lesson in church the day before was good. And they don't need to hear that we were disappointed there weren't more guys at the Valentine's dance. And they definitely don't need to know where I work.

If you follow these simple steps, we can have a great commute and I won't dread the next time I see you on the bus/metro. And I'm sure all the strangers on our commuting route will probably appreciate it too.

*Mormon speak for our church congregation.

Awkward NYC Moments

• After seeing The Hunger Games, we got a little confused on which way to exit the theater. This led to some random guy latching onto our small foursome. He stopped when we stopped. Tried joining the conversation by asking where we were headed. Hovered around our group as we regrouped and tried to figure out where we were going. Followed us as we attempted to loose him in the crowd still exiting the theater, and later circled us (widely) as we waited for some of Jessie's friend who also saw the movie at the same theater. As we met her friends, the guy still hovered close to our group, not close enough to listen to our conversation, but close enough that we were aware he was keeping tabs on us. Creepy. (Is it important to mention he was a short, chubby-ing, balding, white, 30 something year old? Helps with your mental image? There you go.) Luckily Jessie's friends came, the guys basically told our stalker to scram, but we were still creeped out and walked Sarah all the way to the Subway.

Creepy McCreeperson is just outside this photo. Not kidding.  (Just picture him where that person in periwinkle is.)

• Friday night Lisa and I found ourselves at Max Brenner for dessert. We outdid ourselves (oh, maybe it's also worth mentioning Lent was put on hold for the weekend?) and got much more dessert than we needed. What we also got was a table in between two couples. A table like they have in that scene on Valentine's Day (terrible movie). And it was awkward. I tried to tune them out because that's what I do when I feel uncomfortable. 

• Saturday night we tried for the second, unsuccessful time, to get Newsies tickets in the lottery. As we got in line (with high hopes, though not as high as the previous night) for tickets some young, hip guys were in line before us and I made a joke. It should be noted that I almost always think my jokes are funny. I generally get laughs at my jokes. Well, at least I get courtesy laughs. Well, my joke to these guys consisted of me telling them they should get out of line because they probably wouldn't get tickets anyway and if they did, the odds for me would be better. If there were crickets in NYC you would have heard them. Well, crickets and my nervous awkward laughter. I was teasing, joking, didn't expect them to actually get out of line! They should just laughed and said something like, "tough luck! we're getting tickets!" It would have been fine and probably funny. Instead they just turned around and didn't do friendly we're-all-standing-in-line-for-the-same-thing-and-we'll-be-temporary-friends-but-secretly-we-hope-your-name-doesn't-get-chosen banter. On second, close, examination, I realized they were dressed too fashionably hipster and were probably gay and were probably afraid of my sad and pathetic semi-flirting. And yeah, I felt stupid.

who wouldn't want to see this?? no wonder everyone in town was in line.

Couldn't see Newsies so we settled for a JoBro instead.  Totally worth it.

I find myself feeling awkward frequently. 

Congratulations. You made it to the end of this long post.

The end.

Laduree

It's like I died and went to heaven deliciousness. I've heard stories about the tastiness of Laduree macarons but I've only had the imitations. So when I heard the famous French pastry shop opened a location on the Upper East Side I knew a trip across Central Park needed to be made.

And seriously, how can these little cute, delicious-ness of packed flavor chewy cookies not make any and everyone happy. It was hard not to devour them all post lunch. Totally worth it. I'm officially sold and now am going to learn to make mediocre imitations.

(Oh, and our favorite flavors? Vanilla, Coconut, and Caramel with Fleur de Sol.)

ps. I added a picture of us post Hunger Games to the last post. HERE.

NYC BOUND!

Last year two of my coworkers read The Hunger Games. I was thrilled because I had finished them all about six months prior. They devoured the books and we found ourselves emailing throughout the day about what we thought and how we felt about the books. Then next thing I knew, they were moving away to New York. Well, one of the girls sent out an invite for our work calendars to see The Hunger Games Midnight Showing March 23, 2012. I kind of laughed, accepted the invite and thought to my self, "Like that'll actually happen."

Well, people, it's here.

And Lisa and I are on a bus happily reading our HG inspired mags on our way to meet them in Manhattan where they will be saving us seats (or spots in line) for our theater. And I am so thrilled I might not be able to take a nap.

POST EDIT:

I figured I'd give the movie rating. We love love loved it. I thought the movie was fantastic. I loved the scenes that were provided to round out the story on the screen (ie the control room stuff) and was so thrilled with the movie. Totally worth it. Here we all are post movie all excited with our US Weekly magazine.

Hair Cut and Cake

Last night I got myself a new haircut by my favorite hair cutter (roommate Lisa) and then while she was cutting my sister Jess's hair I stuck around to chat obviously. Jess told me that as she left the house her husband, Michael, hinted that he would be ok with her coming home with a treat. I thought for a second what I could whip up for a treat for my favorite (and only) brother-in-law and came up with this:

Actually, here's the secret: I had a cake in the freezer from like a month ago. I just whipped up the frosting. But it was awesome frosting: Vanilla Bean Sour Cream Frosting. Thanks to my African vanilla beans (carried lovingly by a coworker home from her work trip to Tanzania) and thanks to the extra sour cream I found in the fridge, and thanks to the single layer of chocolate cake I had sitting in the freezer just waiting for a special occasion. (Clearly Michael merits a special occasion-- he also tells me everything I make is delicious so my pride gets a hold of me and I want to send Jess home with treats for him.)

And here's my haircut:

It's really not that different, but I kind of have some bang-y/fringe-y/swoop-ies again. That and my hair curled real nice today.

And today is also my first bare-legged day in what feels like six months. And I'm wearing sandals that have been under my desk for just as long. It feels awesome.

Tourist?

This morning a man wearing a too tight red polo, tucked into his belted jeans started talking to me on the metro. He was talking loud, MUCH too loud for the metro. Everyone was looking at us. He was commenting on the rocky driving of our train driver and how it might be better if they change the name from DC Metro to DC Dominion (after I'm assuming King's Dominion amusement park) because then they could raise the prices of public transportation and people would pay it because it's a ride not just transportation. He laughed really loud. I politely smiled and nodded. Couldn't he see I was trying to read my book?

We stopped at the next stop and I moved to an open seat to make room for people boarding the train.

The man continued to chat it up with everyone. He commented on people squeezing into the train, wondering if they were all going to be able to get on. He commented on the people who couldn't get onto the train and had to wait on the platform. He commented on the weather, the day of the week, the amount of people etc. You name it, he probably commented on it. He was loud, and friendly, and just a little obnoxious.

When we got off the train I couldn't help wondering if he was a tourist or maybe just a little "not all there". (Bless his heart.) As he ran across Pennsylvania avenue and into the National Archives, I concluded he was a "not all there" and either really likes the archives or is an employee there.

Then I realized how rude my internal monologue was. Tourist or mentally handicapped? How did those become synonymous? Well, this morning they were.

So, I guess moral of the story is: Don't talk to strangers on the metro. Unless of course you are an actual tourist but then we can usually spot you a mile away anyway*, and will politely smile and nod.

*It's like there's a uniform. And the guy this morning was definitely rockin' the uniform. Though he must have left his fanny pack at home.

Dzień Kobiet

Today is Dzień Kobiet or in English, International Women's Day. Google knows it (it's on their google header for the day:

But did you know it? And I'm assuming like 99.9% of the people who read my blog are women so I'm letting you know. 


I had never heard of Dzień Kobiet until my mission. We went out to eat for lunch and I remember my companion and I were handed flowers. I had no idea why we were given flowers, so I asked and was told it was Women's Day. Then I looked around and saw all the women in the restaurant had flowers. 


Why don't we celebrate this in the US? I think we should. We could all use a little more validation in our lives.


On a more serious note, yesterday at work in honor of today they were showing a film called Pray the Devil Back to Hell. It follows the Liberian Civil War and how instrumental the women of the country were in convincing the men to have peace talks. Many of the women interviewed in the film won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for their non violence. I keep thinking about the film and I highly recommend seeing it if it's ever an option.


Anyway, HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY all! I hope you treat yourself to something nice. New earrings, frozen yogurt, flowers, or all of the above.


POST EDIT: I just finished reading Leymah Gbowee's speech after she won the Nobel Prize. (She was the organizer for the women of the Liberian Civil War.) And it's such a great speech. Read it HERE.

Stupid Things I Did

For some odd reason I feel the need to post stupid things I've done, or maybe just silly things I've done. But either way they're usually kind of stupid silly instead of literally stupid, although maybe sometimes they're just a little spacey. I can be spacey sometimes.

Ok! Onto the list:

1. So, for clarification, I have a badge for work that gets me: into the building without going through metal detectors; into the space designated for our agency (I have to wait for the heavy duty plastic barriers to open first); and into my office space, or any other office space in the agency (well, except for the head honcho, our administrator's office, and stupidly once when I had only been working here for like a month I tried to get in there... long story). So, I have this badge, it's really important. Saturday I got a new purse. I switched a handful of stuff into my new purse but left the other one relatively untouched. Monday morning when I was a good 12 minutes away from home and 3 minutes away from the Metro I realized I forgot the badge, the oh so important badge, in my old purse, at home. I didn't leave the office almost all day because the temporary badges they give us are paper, and they don't get me into anywhere. So I have to wait and wait and wait in the hall after returning from the restroom until someone comes around to open the door for me. Stupid.
2. Tuesday morning I was putting on my makeup and luckily remembered that I needed to grab my badge out of my old purse to put it in my new purse so I wouldn't feel like a leper without her badge. Unfortunately my badge wasn't in my old purse's badge pocket. I looked in every pocket trying to find the badge. I panicked for about 2 seconds before I thought that maybe, just maybe I was awesome and had already moved my badge to new purse. And you know what? I found the badge in new purse, where I can only assume, I moved it on Saturday when I switched all things important to my new purse.
3. So what does that really long story tell you? I had my badge with me all day Monday.

and here we have gabbi the cat sitting on my lap... i'm sure for animal haters everywhere you're totally grossed out and disgusted by this picture. i feel like this picture might actually be a little creepy with the cat staring right at you or something. if it's creepy, whoops! not my intent. or is it...? now that i'm not a cat hater...

Unrelated to the stupid things I've done, cat/house sitting ends today. I'm going back to my real life (because this has been pretend life obviously). I won't be able to sit on the couch for hours uninterrupted (except by a nosey little kitty who just wants to be petted); or be able to listen to my book on tape while cleaning and cooking without feeling rude; or climb in bed at 9:30 and not be worried I'll be woken up, or embarrassed if someone finds me asleep at 9:45 (happened twice this week); and lastly, I think I'll actually miss having the cats around. (Minus the litter box, gross.) But, I've decided I don't hate cats anymore.

I also purchased a Groupon just now that's going to help me GRE prepare. Check it out, it's still available for purchase for the next two days...

Cooking

I've been trying to cook more and cook healthy meals. It's been really helpful for me to be able to come home at night, feed the cats and then get to cooking something simple and delicious while listening to my audio book. I'm really into soups right now because they're easy to make and last a few days. Lisa came over yesterday and I felt like I was giving her a cooking lesson because she was a fantastic sous chef and kept asking what she should do next.

We ended up with a colorful meal that our former roommate Debbie would have been very proud of: tomato bisque (really good, worth making), and pork chops with green beans and mushrooms (pictured).

(picture snapped by Lisa while cooking last night)

Things I'm Not Good At

Now that might sound like a really strange, self criticizing title, but hang with me here, it's not things I'm legitimately bad at like saaaayyyy, playing the piano, shooting three pointers, or painting (but those are things my sisters are good at), these are simple, easy things that seem really ridiculous that I'm not good at.

1. knowing my left from my right. I ALWAYS give people the wrong directions. Even though I'm really good at directions and knowing where I am and rarely getting lost, I still tell people my house is on the right side of the road when I clearly and thinking left.
2. cooking rice. How can someone be bad at cooking rice? I don't know, but I am. I rarely eat rice because cooking it stresses me out. Give me a multi-flavored cake, no problem. Throw a recipe I've never made before at me? That sounds exciting. But rice? Have someone else cook it. Except tonight where I'm making THIS, THIS, and THIS for dinner with my roommates and rice needs to be served.
3. not talking during class. I can't help it. It's a curse. My kindergarden "Indian Native American" Name was Little Babbling Brook. I've been chatty my whole life. And I especially cannot stay quite in church.
4. scooping litter box waste. Still can't do it. I'm still gagging. I bought gum, I plug my nose, I close my eyes (bad idea), and I still gag so hard I think I'm going to loose my last meal. So, I was a bad cat mama and didn't clean out the box for a few days. (Ok ok ok, like five days. Oops, that's kind of a really long time.) Well, they should be grateful, I went above and beyond my duty as a cat sitter and cleaned out that blasted litter box. I gagged once (more like a dry heave really) and then was done! Hoorah for me!

And for something I'm good at.

1. I can juggle. Thank you elementary school P.E.

What random things are you not good at? Or are good at?