bear

I've been busy the last little while! November update first.

( New York: meandering through Manhattan on a perfect fall day, foliage, serendipitous Brompton test ride, C Pam Zhang reading, finally went up the Empire State Building after 27 years?! )

( Boston: bagel delivery service, proper trains, finally getting to ride the Community Path Extension, never enough time with friends )

( Stravinsky tech week )

( Monterey: Hyoun runs, I find all the good food and the last remaining bookstore in Carmel, you all are shocked )

And amid all this sleep-deprived timezone confused chaos, I may have gotten into overenthusiastic bikesplaining mode with a friend of a friend on Facebook re bike infrastructure, and only realized after the fact that said person was somebody I'd gone out on a couple of dates with back in the day (🔒). ROFLMAO. Hyoun cracked up listening to me come to this realization in realtime. Me: "What, you'd been reading my LJ for three years by the time we got together and you knew me for years before that, you knew what you were getting into!" H, smiling fondly: "Sure did." Some things have changed, but clearly some things remain the same. :D

I *thought* this was going to cover November, but we're already past the 1500 word mark and I'm only up to November 13; Thanksgiving next time, I guess!

Kalbi and bulgogi Friday night, tapas at Blue Ginger Saturday afternoon, a clambake at Meghan and Ken's wedding Saturday night, and a pig roast at a blues bar Sunday night? Add up to an awesomely foodie weekend, but also Feeling. Very. Full.

( pictures from Meghan and Ken's wedding )

Finally caught up on picture galleries! :)

Subjects include:
- the booze cruise
- 17-mile drive
- the monterey bay aquarium
- my 10-year high school reunion
- dania and jp's wedding

Yes, I took over 400 pictures in the last nine days. Yes, my camera is currently being held together by a ponytail holder. *grin*

( the promised trip update )

Took a couple of days to recover, and then Saturday was Meghan's 30th, and my first ever "booze cruise." And as I predicted to kazulrw, I spent all of my time running around taking piccies and none of my time actually consuming alcohol. Hee! But it was actually quite fun - there was a rockabilly cover band, and yummy little appetizers, and a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean. Then Friendly's with melissaagray and fes42 and stranger78, Apples to Apples at the afterparty, and then driving down Route 1 at 3 am. You're only as old as you feel!

Yesterday, I made the mistake of dairy when it was both 95f out and the first day of my period. So hyounpark brought me Tylenol Flavor Creator, since I can't swallow pills, and my god, this is like EXACTLY what I was hoping for as a kid. Granted, I also thought I'd be the one to invent it (since "normal people swallow pills" and thus nobody cared about making medicine taste tolerable), until I couldn't wrap my head around the chemistry involved, but still! I am going to be very sad when litigious American society eventually runs this product off the market because some idiot didn't keep their medicines locked away firmly enough, and their kid drinks an entire bottle and has to go to the hospital and the parents don't dare show weakness by assigning any amount of blame to themselves.

Anyway, it's funky. I thought it would be some sort of clear syrup that you mixed flavor crystals into, but it's a cherry-based syrup, and you get a bunch of flavor packets with the package. You pour out the syrup dosage into the measuring cup, then dump the flavor crystals directly on top, and then chug immediately. On reflection, I'm honestly not 100% sure this is actually kid-oriented, because I felt like I was doing a shot. True, I needed to take the full three teaspoon dose, and most kids will be fine with the recommended 1-2 tsp, which is much more "sip" and much less "down the hatch!"

So yes, that's how we spent our first anniversary, building furniture (well, okay, I watched) and me semi-loopy on new drugs. *snicker* We'll make up for it later, but tonight is girly night!

glad to see theducks made it home safely :) i had a rockin' time and i'm glad i *finally* got to meet you :)

bus ride home was fairly boring - stuck at customs longer than expected because the bus driver let a guy on the bus who didn't have enough money to pay for his bus ticket, so he was just going to leave him at the border, but the customs guys weren't too happy with that and made us take him down the road to some other random little border town :) the customs dude laughed at how much chocolate i was bringing back. i swear that's my key to getting through security and customs as easily as possible - a bag of canadian choccy or a box of mike's cannolis. or else having xf figurines on the dashboard (NOT doing saucy stuff, just, like, lots of them there) :)

and went straight from the bus to harvard square to meet up with dania and sarah and dan for dinner @ veggie planet. mmm. and choccy at burdick's. mmm. :)

and then went home flopped at my desk checked email and wrote all that xf nostalgia stuff.

and watched the last 45 seconds ;)

and now ... i'm back at work. bah. still thinking en français, too.

*

a vignette inside a tim horton's in montreal, starring me, theducks, and the non-english speaking quebecois counterperson.

moi: je veux quelques beignets ... quelques 'timbits.'
nesqcp: ah, ouais. combien? vingt?
moi: ah, non, c'est trop de timbits. je voudrais ... eu ... tous les timbits.
nesqcp: *tous*? [there were several hundred timbits in the various bins] il y a seulement vingt dans un sac.
moi: non, pas *tous*, mais ... un de tous!
nesqcp: [stares]
moi: je voudrais sept timbits. il y a sept timbits, et je voudrais un de tous les sept types de timbits.
nesqcp: [still confused]
moi: je voudrais un timbit hollandaise, un timbit cerise, un timbit chocolat ...
nesqcp: ah! [retrieves one of each kind of timbit]
[theducks decides not to order after seeing what i went through ;) ]
[we exit. i am munching on the timbit cerise when the damn french word for each hits me like the swinging door.]
moi: CHAQUE, dammit!
[theducks jumps.]

9:40 am: Bagpipes start blaring "God Bless America."
9:45 am: Hundreds of people start cheering. Someone announces on the PA about a marathon. I assume they're talking about my sleep marathon, and that I'm really still asleep and dreaming, and attempt to go back to bed.
9:50 am: A loud bass belts out the Star Spangled Banner.
9:55 am: They blast Gettin' Jiggy Wit It over the PA. This is just the *beginning* of the "inspirational songs for runners" mix--over the next couple of hours, even more music is blasted towards my window, including a crapload of overly bright and cheesy uber-patriotic songs.
11:57 am: I'm still cranky because I haven't gotten to go back to sleep because of the stupid marathoners and other loud annoying people outside my window since 9:40 am this morning when I haven't been to bed before 4 am the last two nights.

BAH.

texts from me to angela:
* hon, it's a VERY GOOD THING you stayed at ingrid's last night
* i got woken up at 9:30 am by BAGPIPES blaring god bless america
* and then hundreds of people cheering
* and a very.loud.bass belting out the national anthem
* and now they're blasting "gettin' jiggy wit' it." OVER SPEAKERS.

before that, though: emily is my hero, driving through downtown boston traffic! she and mel and i went down to new haven friday night to hang out with christina and michelle and party with actually hot med students, indeed! "you're right. the hallway IS naked!" and then last night, back in boston, taking over the cottonwood for girly night with ingrid and sarah and dania and angela and susannah and dreux and bianca (and brent and yamuel and dan).

and iming with grace (get yourself up to boston soon, hon!) and mak!

10/08/2006: Five years later, I'm sitting on my old front stoop, at around the same buttcrack-of-dawn hour, waiting for hyounpark to cross the finish line on this same half-marathon. Good god, how things change.