Levy Comes Home

No time for proper writing today, as I have work in t-minus one hundred minutes and am not wearing pants yet, but I had to get some pictures of the new kitty up. Don't even START me on how adorable he is.

He's adorable.

In possibly related news, I'm sneezing my head off. I think it's a sinus infection, though.


Leviathan and one of his two brothers, either Tres or Cuatro. The vets wanted T and C to go as a pair, so we took Dos. They all loved that ferrety hammock.





He peed on the way over. Luckily it was a temporary loan cat carrier from the vet, so I just rinsed it out in the shower.





Hee, kitty prints!








Video action: dark, dark video of cat + foot, then a much better one of how you can see his stripes in the light as well as an fascinating anecdote involving a squirrel.

He was a little skittish at first and didn't want to come out from behind the couch, but now he's all over the place. In particular, he loves rubbing his paws against the nubby Target couch.










This cat has like, hyperactive paw disorder. He's always stretching them out and clawing at things. The vets clipped his nails before we left, though, so he doesn't do any damage.












He likes to shake hands!








High five!








One thing that kind of freaked him out the first day was the TV, because he obviously hadn't seen one before. But now, it's hypnotizing.




Goodbye!

Picnicky Times

Happy memories, everyone! This weekend went by incredibly quickly. First there was Friday, and I don't remember a thing about what happened, then there was Saturday with a double shift at work and then some karaoke, then Sunday with a New Jersey cookout and then Monday with a picnic in the park.

And now it's regular times again.

Because I'm a silly goose, I forgot to take any pictures of the actual cookout on Sunday. But I did manager to take one of Heather's cat Spike. He was a big bundle of love.



Hee. The advertisement at Duane Reade was upside-down. !Mom.









Oh, I remember now. We walked to Chinatown and got pastries on Friday. Cute! The tiramisu was also quite good.





And pork for dinner! I bought these super-cheap cutlets from Fairway the other day and wasn't really sure what to do with them so I decided to go bold and bread them. They were delicious!



I handled the cooking and the couscous; Mark took control of the three separate breading stations. He breads like a champ!








I made up for my paucity of photos on Sunday by taking a million yesterday.

Suzy managed to grab a spot in a clearing by noon, so we had this whole little area to ourselves.






On and around the rock there is Diet Coke, Coke Zero, blue corn chips, Camembert, Delice de France goat cheese, salsa, ginger ale, Trader Joe's shiraz, some white wine, cold cuts, grapes, fruit salad, blackberries, lemon cake, oatmeal cookies, spicy pepper chips, other grapes, hummus, pitas, baba ganoush (which tasted like barbecue sauce, prompting us to call it barbeganoush), some guacamole sandwich... and more food that I can't remember anymore. But it was all good. Oh, there was some chocolate.

A big surprise was that she spent two hours the previous night filling up water balloons. A bigger surprise was that one exploded in her lap during conversation.




















Mark's roommate Will got comfortable on the beach towels.








I have no idea what was going on with the camera. Art! That's what!







Mark and I, pre-water balloon fight.








More people on the blanket. Daniel looks especially fey.








Lucky!

















You can't see it, but Mark's pointing to his fierce bicep scar. Grr!







This week ahead consists of work, interning, more work, possible Medieval Tymes, and sleeping. There's also a Very Exciting Event that may or may not happen soon, and rest assured that I will be posting when (or if) it does. Be on the lookout!

(Because I am terrible at secrets, here's a cell phone camera-quality hint, with floppy arms!)

Karaoke Times

More recent celebrity sightings: Bruce Willis + wife getting a cab outside Lincoln Center, and Henry Ian Cusick (a.k.a. Benjamin Linus) on 72nd street. Unfortunately, neither were witnessed by me and I had to hear about them secondhand.

They're no Ron Rifkin, heh.

This was Central Park from a few days ago.











It was unusually wonderful outside yesterday so instead of following my normal plan of slumping around the apartment, Travis and I walked all around the park and heard not one but TWO jazz bands.


And then, the merry-go-round was playing such hits as "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" and "Downtown". I want my own personal calliope theme music.

We stopped by the softball fields to watch some of the amateur leagues playing and oh wow! Guess who takes over on Thursday afternoons? Broadway! First we saw "The Lion King" battle "The Little Mermaid" (team cheer: GO FISH!), and then the "9 to 5"ers took on, I believe, "Avenue Q". I also saw some warmup players from "August: Osage County".

Q: Which team was always late to practice?
A: "Waiting for Godot".

Terrible joke.

But then we stopped by Cold Stone and split a wonderful amaretto ice cream with a cookie dough mix-in with a chocolate sprinkle waffle bowl. Summer Hours was playing at my theater to rave reviews so we went down to 63rd and slipped in. Well, all that sun and walking and crazy sugar overload took its toll and I was asleep in about ten minutes. Travis tells me that it was a very good film.

This is not THE ice cream that we ate, but instead the one I got on my birthday. It looks similar enough.






And then there was karaoke last night! It's Mark's last day today so he invited us to his swanky ad agency in-house bar (why can't I work anywhere with an in-house bar?) and then we took a cab, fancy fancy, down to the Karaoke Cave near Union Square. Oh, instant fun. I didn't sing but others were putting their heart and soul into it. We finally bid adieu a few hours later after Mark gave a soulful rendition of "Moon River". I still can't hear that song and not think "Moon Beaver".

A very dark picture of the fun times.







But the party was not over, oh no indeed. We hopped by another bar but only had one drink because I was about to fall asleep on the table.

Man, Bil Keane is at it again. And he spelled Saturday wrong!!!! BW

Work Mode

I just finished the second 13 hour work day in a row. I'm quite tired of dealing with things.

Here's what I don't understand: people seem very capable of understanding that they need to specify a size when ordering popcorn, but they'll finish their order with "... and a Diet Coke". Then they look at me. This must happen at least fifty times per shift.

I can do nothing with that order. What size, please?, I implore them, my begrimaced expression barely concealing my desperate frustration. They go "oh, oh!", all startled like, and look up at the price list.

First of all, we serve no Coke products. It's Pepsi town at the LP Cinemas. Second of all, we have large soda dispensers, no soda bottles, and three different sized cups on plain view.

People also ask for a small water with great frequency. We have one size of water. Do most places have more than one size? It's $2.50 for both Evian and Poland Spring. Hint: bring your own water.

Overall, customers are very nice to me. I generally make about twenty bucks in tips on a double shift, which doesn't sound like a lot but when it's not taxed and you get paid seven something an hour, is not too shabby. I use it as bar money so I don't feel guilty about going out so much.

Tomorrow is not a day of rest and relaxation, sadly, but instead I must finish a final evaluation paper for my school library media management class. Lame. Oh, oh! I was able to switch shifts with Mahmoud for my birthday, because he is a kindly man who traded me his Thursday shift instead. I'm thinking recession special picnic in Central Park. Trader Joe shiraz! Movie theater popcorn! Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Cheap Chinatown pastries! Best birthday ever?!?!

PS: the adorable jailbait usher? Still cute. We were talking the other day about what we had done over the weekend and he just took his SATs. Argghh. He bought me Subway for dinner on his break yesterday. Argggh.

PPS: And did I mention that he lived in Italy for a few years and speaks Italian fluently? Do I need to get over this thing like RIGHT NOW? Yes. Yes I do.

Rainy Days

What the deuce is up with all this rain? It's been wet since last Friday, and I just had to walk the 40+ blocks home with naught but a pathetic lost and found umbrella. No celebrity sightings at work tonight, unfortunately. The most exciting thing was that one of the banana breads broke in half while I was transferring it to the storage container and we got to eat it. Whoopie!

Now the rain is pounding the air conditioner and I can tell that it's going to be an earplugs kind of night. PING PING PING, incessantly.

I have concocted this fantastic demi-cappuccino coffee drink that puts me in this super high, wonderful happy mood for about two hours. It's a shot of espresso with half a cup of steamed milk and two Splendas. You have to put in the Splendas first so that they can dissolve well. Yum! I don't even like coffee and I am hooked on this drink.

Pat and I had ye olde mystery shoppe on Monday night at a bowling lane in midtown. It was 'all you can bowl' night for $22, which included shoe rental. The food was pretty good for a reasonable (NYC) price, and we ended up getting a ton of drinks because I was allotted $100 for food and drink and we only spent about $40 on actual food. Mmm. I ate the best cheeseburger I've had for about the past three years (with avocado and bacon on top), but the dessert was pitiful. We ordered the cookies and milk, and in hindsight I should have recognized that the server was trying to talk us out of it by suggesting the Chocolate Insanity instead.

The cookies were terrible! After the first bite, Pat and I looked at each other and just made an ugh face. They were like those soft Chips Ahoy! cookies and only half the plate was warmed. There was this sprinking of powdered sugar on top that Pat figured came from some cokehead sneezing on it. The server came back and I was like, "you can have what's left". When there is ANYTHING left on my dessert plate, you know something is wrong. He was gracious and brought us out the Chocolate Insanity and didn't charge for the cookies. Nice.

And I am proud that I bowled much better than last time. I think I got like a 112, 109, and 105ish. I kept getting 9s, which is the most frustrating score ever.