After Work

Famous person at the LPC alert! Highly esteemed director Ang Lee deigned to introduce his new movie Taking Woodstock at the 7:40 show tonight. He walked by me! Eee! I was taking some girl's order, and I totally interrupted her in the middle of her popcorn deliberation and was like HOLD ON SHUT UP IT'S ANG! and she was not as fangirl as I would have expected. We were sold out of that show, and to further compound the delicious scents of Polident and Aqua Net in the theater, the air conditioning broke halfway through. Heh. People were unhappy, to say the least.

And a skim milk had its NYC sell-by date today, so I was a lucky lady who now has a quart of milk in her fridge. Pudding!

Oh, speaking of milk, I tried to make Cream of Wheat for breakfast today at Mark's and ended up with Soup of Wheat. I have no idea what happened, except that maybe I should have been a tad more exact on my liquid-to-wheat ratio. Next time, perhaps. It was still good, just not congealed at all.

And ugh ugh ugh, let me just tell you how much I disapprove of any roommate who skips on out of town with not so much as a by-your-leave and thus ends up forcing ME to help clean the gross kitchen so that pictures can be taken for a new-roommate Craigslist ad. Thanks a bunch, Will. More like won't, am I right?

Right now I'm kind of missing Daniel but not enough to want to give up his sweet, wonderful bed. Did I mention that his pillows are hypoallergenic? Oh yes.

Ooh ooh ooh, I managed to cordon off a week of life to come home to Pittsburgh. We're taking the bus (!) for six and a half hours from Canal Street to Oakland. Although given my colorful history with Chinatown buses, we'll probably be four hours late and break down in King of Prussia. Then I'll hitch a ride on the local boxcar and meet some colorful yet kindly characters en route.

Some girl stuck a temporary tattoo on my arm last weekend at Monster Mania and it is still tenaciously holding on. I tried to scrub it off with soap in the shower but this thing will not budge. It used to say "7 Deadly Sins" with the website URL underneath but now the 7 is all worn off and the site name is practically illegible. Where's my Goo Gone?

Mania...

Because I am dumb and don't learn new tricks, I took a nap today after getting home from the library and taking a shower. And now it's 1:47 in the morning. But the nap felt soooo good!

Oh, but it's been a busy week! Travis is in town until next Tuesday and we went out for margaritas at noon a few days ago. Our big major plan was to get over to the Met and see the Bacon exhibit (sadly, not of real bacon) but surprise, boo, the exhibit closed on Sunday. Lame. So we kind of puttered around the area until I got too hot and cranky and took an extremely tardy bus home.

I was in some kind of weird funk all yesterday morning (it's because our little lamb is in Switzerland and I know I will miss him bunches) but by work I snapped out of it. Do you know what? It's probably the tasty iced coffees. Anyway, I made like three dollars in tips because we haven't had any new movies in forever. I got word that we aren't getting anything else on Friday, either. Great. But I do get a lot of reading done.

And then today I had ye olde mystery shoppe at, uh... Austin's. It was the 27th and Park location, which is not quite as nice. However, they are the sushi-offering one, which is fantastic because their Thai tuna sushi is indescribably delicious. This shop required five pictures so Mark and I had to scurry to the bathroom with his iPhone to be all stealthy about taking pictures of debris on the floor.

I've had a ton of shops lately!

Oh oh oh, and I have to get up somewhat early tomorrow morning because Mark and I are taking the train to New Jersey! Fancy! We're stopping at the stop near Yardville and his sister Heather is going to pick us up and you will not even guess where we are going for lunch. All right, I'll tell you - PIZZA HUT! Huzzah! Ohhh man, it's been way too long. I was telling Pat, I recognize that there are probably a million pizza places that are objectively better than the 'Hut, but I will have none of them. Mmmm.

And then after that madness, we're going to the Monster Mania convention at some place in Cherry Hill. Mark's staying over to hang out with some of his friends but I am playing the responsible girl and coming back early since I have to work on Saturday and Sunday.

Mark broke down and purchased a kitty bed which Levi loves even though it's a bazillion degrees. He's not a smart cat, but we like him anyway.

Sooo...

...it's been a while, huh? Well, don't worry, nothing big happened. It's hot here. And muggy. Pretty soon I'll be all, "too darn cold and windy!" but we have a month or two before that happens.

Daniel's sister and her husband have been here for the last week, which I thought would be the longest week ever but they're both super cool and it hasn't been bad at all.

Since it's 12:17 on Tuesday morning and my brain is mush, let me just post up some pictures that I took using Daniel's spiffy new camera. Somehow I managed to take a lot of demonic cat pictures. Enjoy this extra-special glimpse into my life...










Levi loves the dollar store fish-on-a-stick that his kitty gramma brought all the way from Pittsburgh for him.














He started to overheat after awhile and made a weird panting sound, so we figured that this was a good time to stop.























He indeed is our preferred pet.











Big sexy! This is the most seductive cat picture I've ever seen.



















The Time-Traveler's Wife was playing in the big fancy-schmancy theater at the AMC on 67th. Too bad the movie didn't live up to the cool decor.




Yeah, the lights were fancy but our apartment has sconces.







Oh, old guy feeding pigeons.








Insert fart sound here.


























Mark's sister Heather came into town on Friday night because her husband was recording or something in a studio.









































It was smoky when he tried to cook the other day.










Note: do not try to cook potatoes and onions at the same time in a wok. It doesn't work.







At work:

The salmon sandwiches are big sellers.











I always think I'm going to like salmon when I smell it because it's kind of salty, but it's always gross.






We recently had to drop the price of muffins from $2.50 to $2.00 because they weren't selling and we'd get these incredibly old, stale muffins. Then they sold less. Now they're back up again.




Danish coffee cake. Of all the pastries, I try this one the most often because Alam gives me the crusty ends when he cuts up the loaf.





Oh look, Alam and the crusty ends! Those soon ended up on my plate.







Whenever anyone asks for recommendations I pimp out the toffee brownies. Mmm.







Weekly shipment.











I'm both sickened and entranced by movie theater popcorn.








The owner's daughter painted this way back in the early 1990s and it had been there since.







Oh, there's Emile! She's from Ethiopia and taught me to say "bad!", "excellent", "thank you", and "shut up!" for both women and men.






The espresso/cappuccino machine was on the fritz the other day (gasp!) so trusty Alam had to come in with his steamer and steam off all the gunk that accumulated on the inside parts.




We always start with a dollar in the box so people will be compelled to donate likewisely. This was a slow, sad morning.









The trusty George Foreman grill that we use to toast the cheese sandwich.






These are the roots of the flowers that are delivered every week by some local company. It's a nice touch.









One of our fridges was broken for the longest time so there was only half the normal amount of bottled water. If you think people won't line up for ages to spend $2.50 for water, you are incorrect. They do so gladly. Anyway, Vitamin Water took pity on us and sent a new fridge.


I love these posters, don't get me wrong, but I still don't get why there's a fish skeleton in the background. Is fish a particularly hazardous food? Maybe cut-up hot dogs would be more appropriate.







Ew. This wasn't even a not-good picture. It looks like this in real life. Nasty and unappetizing.






This is the staple of my day, the soda water.


























And steamed milk for my cappucinos.








And the coffee so I can make my delicious iced coffee. Want to know my secret? Of course you do. See, you take two Equal packets and put them in one of two cups that you have expressly put out for this purpose. Then you add a half cup of regular coffee. Stir with red stirrer. Then about three tablespoons of half and half and stir again. Then, pour back and forth into the other cup, which is filled with ice. When the ice starts to melt, add more ice and serve.

Delicious.


Oh yes, I had to pee so badly the other day and there was a freaking cockroach in the stall. It took all of my professional demeanor not to 'forget' I saw it and go outside and get Francesco and wait for some woman who was taking forever to get out of the bathroom so that he could sweep up the offending bug.



FIN.