Chinatown Bakeries

Since Daniel and I have become walking fiends of late, we decided to make the trip down to Chinatown for some dim sum yesterday on foot. It's far. Really far. We trekked crosstown to Park Avenue first and then just followed that down until it became 4th, and hit Bowery and made a left on Elizabeth and boom, we were there. It took about two hours.

And luckily for us, the dim sum was excellent. But before we went there we stopped at this bakery and I bought a cupcake for 70 cents and a mini coconut pie for 90 cents. The pie was a bit dry but the cupcake was spongy and tasty. Really, Chinatown bakeries are where it is AT. We stopped by the Silver Moon bakery right before getting home yesterday and Daniel wanted to try one of their macaroons just for the heck of it. One tiny, one-inch-diameter macaroon was $1.75 or something outrageous. He didn't even like the filling. I ate probably about $1.50 worth of it.

I have to open at work tomorrow and I checked the weather forecast: they are predicting 58 degrees and sunny. That's good news. The bartender doesn't get in until 3:00 and sometimes the manager isn't there until 5:30. Bringing a book!

Right now, I'm waiting for Suzy to get all dressed since I'm accompanying her on her job hunt (she and Kitcheonette parted ways, sadly) and she is accompanying me on my walk down to Times Square.

She just got back from London yesterday, which is a shame because I was beginning to enjoy a real bed.

And I don't know what was going on last night, but I had some crazy manic nesting impulse to clean and organize my bathroom, which lead to culling all of my makeup/lotions/bath gels/medicine from around the apartment and separating them appropriately and putting duplicates in their own bag. I think part of this was due to the fact that Eric the Cleaning Guy is coming tomorrow and I was a bit ashamed of the sorry state of the living room. I'm going to have to leave for work an hour earlier than I normally would because he makes me so uncomfortable. I have no idea why, but my hunch is that a) he's about 70 years old, and I get nervous talking to older men, and b) it's awkward for me to be a lazy oaf hanging out at the apartment while some poor guy is doing my dishes, and c) I'm embarrassed about the grime and dirt that builds up over the course of the month.

So what else is going on this week? Well, work tomorrow of course, and probably a lot this weekend. I have a mystery shop with Daniel on Thursday on the Upper East Side, and a jury research study on Wednesday night. There's a collaborative assessment assignment due for one of my classes on Friday that I could have done more about by now. Hm.

TV

I just laughed my head off during an episode of Murder, She Wrote. I had put it on pause while I was getting dressed and it always gets a little wonky when you resume it, but this time one of the characters was saying "you only spent a week in Vietnam-nom-nom-nom-nom" because the audio kept skipping. Hee!

It's the little things in life, really.

Employment

So, I finally (FINALLY) got a job, down at 84th and Amsterdam. It's a serving position at a restaurant that I don't want to name, first because it's the most ridiculous name ever and I'm embarrassed of it, and secondly because I don't want them to Google me and be like HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE US YOU INGRATE and fire me on the spot.

But let it be said, any place that has "swanky" in the name is, most decidedly, not swanky. It didn't look terrible, though.

Coincidentally, Pat only yesterday had this same place recommended to him by a coworker who is living in NYC. And, in great news, he'll be moving to the city from Pittsburgh to do a rotation at the end of April. Welcome, Pat!

I hope it works out; I'm somewhat concerned about my complete and utter ignorance of the restaurant service industry. I've done a lot of food service in my time (hello, Carmike; hello, Penn State) but never with alcohol or tips or anything (unfortunately). The dress code: all black. Maaaan, I don't know what I am going to do. This will be rough.

They started me tomorrow at 4:00 and have me working Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Sink or swim. I even told them straight up that I would be going home on the 8th. Dad, I think it's very clear which daughter loves you more.

Right now, I'm at St. John's in the cafeteria and wow, I never realized how busy and happening this place is during the day. There's this old guy sitting a few tables over and he went outside for a smoke break and lit up a pipe. Hee! Then he had to tamp it down when he was done and bring it back inside and the back half of the cafeteria smelled like a cigar den for a short while.

Suzy went on an impromptu trip to London a few days ago and I was left with the very serious and dignified position of watching her cat. Luckily for me she has a real bed so I've been having kitty sleepovers and stretching out in a way that I haven't been able to do in nine months. She has the most amiable cat in the world; I can pick her up when she's all stretched out and act like she's kitty Superman and she doesn't even care! I'd lose a pint of blood if I ever tried that with Kitty.

Daniel and I went out to the West Side Market last night because I wanted to pick up grapes and grapefruit and of course we started salivating over the cookies and muffins and prepared baked goods. We were on the cusp of getting this Italian chocolate cake but Daniel's cooler head prevailed and instead we got the Skinny Cow caramel ice cream cones. I couldn't even wait for Daniel to pay for them and opened the box as soon as the cashier scanned it. I grabbed one of the cones and headed outside so I could begin to enjoy (it was wonderful). Apparently, after I left the cashier told Daniel "um, that woman just took one of your ice cream cones". Like we were complete strangers who just happened to be standing in line together and making bad jokes. He should have been like, "Apprehend her!" and pretended like he'd never seen me before.

Grapefruit is still 5 for $2.00. Amazing prices! Grapes are on sale for 99 cents a pound. Green grapes, at least.

Continuing with my timid foray into the culinary world, I have started to make my own soup. This is good news for several reasons: it knocks the price per serving down to like, a quarter; I don't have to make the trip to Target; and I don't have to lug those heavy cans all the way home. The ingredients are a packet of low-sodium chicken bouillon, four cups water, and a cup of green beans and a cup of spinach (frozen). Then some salt and pepper and herbs, and a bit of couscous.

I think next time I make it I will skip the couscous, because I couldn't really tell it was in the soup.

I'm writing so profusely because I am trying to avoid doing real work. Actually that's not true; I just finished my memo to an imaginary principal trying to convince them that the library media specialist should be included in assessing students. Why would anyone do this in real life? Let me shirk all the responsibility I possibly can!

Back on my Game

It's on! Pictures! A day in the life! Daniel and I decided to take the subway down to South Ferry (because he's my southern fairy) which is the bottom tip of the island of Manhattan. Originally, we were just planning to walk around Wall Street and Battery Park and check out the sights and then come home. Well, since we have become such intrepid walkers of late not only did we weave around downtown we walked home. That's right. Up to 107th and Broadway. That's about ten miles. It's not as bad as you'd think.

What did we see on our journey?

The shrine of Elizabeth mumblemumble, the first American female saint!









Had I been so inclined, I could have paid $1.00 to press a button.







It was about as realistic as you would expect from a light bulb in a plastic cylinder.















I have no idea what this guy was selling, but I love love love when people are semi out of costume and doing normal people things.





The Wall Street bull. That woman looks like she is contemplating climbing on top of it.






Strangely enough, there is like this Irish pub alley that was jam packed with young folk ready to drink their cares away. This was at about 2:30 PM, on a Saturday.













The only flowers out at this point were brown and dead.


















When you order anything in this restaurant, they tell you to get in the friggin' kitchen and make it yourself.





Avenue of the Finest.... what? Parking meters? Car thieves? Turns out, it's New York's finest... police officers.





Right under the Brooklyn Bridge there were a ton of street kids using the ramps.






Now we're into Chinatown and their massive live seafood displays.







Weird looking shrimp.

















He's watching you... always watching...







Babe?!?








Where's Daniel?








He was very, very invested in this mah-jongg game.







We stopped at a bakery even though we didn't have the best of experiences last time we went to one. I got this custardy pie looking thing. The greenish part on top was like really firm jello. There was vanilla cake underneath.



Panda cupcake! Words cannot describe this goodness. There were sprinkles on the outside, and the middle was vanilla cake with icing in between two layers. Then, there was the face hard shell, edible, and underneath was this soft butter icing. Mmmmm... it haunts my dreams.

Sadly, Daniel's experience was not quite as good. He picked up this cakey thing in plastic and asked the counter lady if it was angel food cake. She enthusiastically agreed that it was. He purchased said cake. It tasted like salty pork.

Near Union Square. This statue has probably gotten a million times more attention than it would have on the ground.





This was across the street from the U.N. building (I almost typed 'Model U.N. building).







There was a beautiful apartment building in midtown that had a fountain.







Closer-up of the fountain.








I love lighting stores, and I want a crystal disco-ball lamp.








Sparkles!








We walked home through Central Park and stopped by Belvedere Castle. For some reason, neither of us had seen this thing until last week.




There was a rustling on the path, and surprise! Raccoon! It was digging all over the place probably looking for food.





We disobeyed the posted signs and gave it a bit of dried pineapple. So cute!







This was pretty.











Daniel is brazenly flaunting the rules!







Right now, I'm sitting near one of the food service places at Columbia and there's this guy behind me that is having this bizarre, personal phone conversation that is basically him rambling on and on about his family and his issues and whatnot. It could be a therapy session. After about fifteen minutes of listening to this I'm not entirely sure that he is actually talking to anyone as there is no break in conversation. I want to turn around to see if he's on the phone or just talking to the wall. Let me be subtle....

Hm, yes, it looks like he's using Skype or something and talking to someone online. But it can't be a very rewarding conversation for the person on the other end.

There's a guy in front of me who just took out a Styrofoam container of some kind of Chinese dumplings and they smell amazing. I want to ask him where he got them but he is listening to music and I don't want to interrupt his reverie.

New York has been good lately, except today it was rainy and the bottom of my pants are soaked through. It went up to about 68 yesterday afternoon. The flowers are coming out!

Wow, this guy behind me is so weird and loud. I wish he would take it somewhere else. Thirty minutes later and he is still talking. Now he's snapping his fingers. Apparently his mom is "anti-male".

[note: it's been over an hour and he hasn't stopped. Man's got problems, yo.]

[direct quote: "I just don't feel like I'm a prophet... I mean, I have prophetic insight.... I don't want to be weird, but I feel like God's been training me, and telling me that I've graduated from church and I see that every place outside of four walls, that's like my church. That's like, my pulpit is the Earth.. and whoever I'm around, you know, and there's a flow. I don't understand it, and I could be wrong, but I feel like there's a graduation that I haven't understood... (loooong silence)]

!!!

We have internet!

INTERNET!

INTERNET!

And it's glorious.

Snow Day

Snow! Lots of it! Schools were canceled today so there are all of these youngsters walking the streets. I saw sleds.

I walked up and down Broadway for awhile today looking for jobs and let me just tell you, times are tough. Starbucks isn't hiring. Starbucks isn't hiring. This is bad news.

Laura came up this weekend, which was a fun time, and we managed to pack about two weeks worth of excitement and sightseeing into two and a half days. We went on the Staten Island ferry and immediately came back again (Daniel and I determined that there was nothing of interest there a few weeks ago). We went to a museum. We saw a UCB theater show. It was cold outside. We toured Central Park. The swans are no longer there. We met up with Steve, who was our classmate and amicus in Latin class for several years running. We had some good Thai food. Checked out the Crocodile Lounge and saw a very tall man who almost hit the ceiling.

Since I am gainfully unemployed, today is being spent by going over both classes and finding out what I haven't done. This should be fun. St John's was closed today, and if I don't have class tomorrow this will mean that I only have 3 classes in one semester for my school library media class.