Layers

Hockey games are fun! Hockey games are cold! Here's how I go to the Ranger Game.

Period 1: Sweater and scarf, like any normal, fashionable human being.

Period 2: Add a hoodie, keep my hands in my pockets, put my hood up.

Period 3: Put on my hat and coat and gloves. Warmth over fashion every time.

If we go outside, though, I'm super prepared. Like if Eddie and I decide to go see Macy's windows, we're cold but I'm already bundled up.

Eddie's Santa Doppleganger

We look so cute together.

Train Time!

One year when I went to Fresh 102.7 in the Park for a free outdoor summer concert with D and T, we almost melted because it was over 100 degrees even after the sun went down. You know, the type of night when you sit without moving and still sweat. It was gross. Fun but gross.

A fun and not gross time is Fresh 102.7's Holiday Jam! It's in the winter! It's indoors! Yeay!

Eddie and I went to see Train because seeing Train at a smaller venue is the best way to see train. We were at the Hammerstein, not in the general admission stand in a crowd part, but up in the balcony with the ancient seats part. I actually wouldn't mind paying a few dollars more for them to upgrade their seats to be not broken.

With a chill in the air, we walked from Penn to Hammerstein in under three minutes and didn't have very long of a wait outside. As a bonus, we got FREE stuff! We got laminates that said Holiday Jam and had a coupon. We also got bracelets that lit up. The guy handing them out was like, Do you want one?

Want one? I want all the ones!

O.A.R. opened the show. There was one guy in the back up band we really enjoyed who was in the spotlight because he's from New York and it was his birthday. We liked him because he was dancing and putting on his own show. A lot of the crowd who was cheering seemed to be fans who travel to see them and they knew every song. We knew some of the songs and the rest were entertaining.

James Bay was up next. We thought it was going to be a little sleepy because he sings "Let It Go," not the song from Frozen, but the one by, well, him, and it's slow. Apparently, we don't know his music very well. He put on quite the upbeat frenetic show and then he sang "Let It Go." Then he covered "Proud Mary" and I kept insisting Tina Turner was going to come out as a surprise guest. She did not. Still, good cover.

Right after his set was done, a fight broke out in the crowd. Let me say that again: a fight broke out at the Holiday Jam after James Bay. Seriously, know your place, fight-pickers. It was a short fight. It was stupid.

Then it was time for Train. The members of Train are all clearly thankful for being able to play music, and they are clearly having fun. They played mostly known songs and they included the new "Play That Song" that a lot of people already know. Pat Monahan then said that the bassist was going to sing a song. But there was also a special guest! Nope, not Tina Turner. Sorry. But it was Matt Nathanson! So close!They all sang David Bowie's "Pressure" and it was phenomenal.

Free stuff. A bonus Nathanson. This is what the holidays are about.

We Know Stuff When We Pay Attention To Stuff

Another glorious night of trivia at Sip This! So glorious because I put together a spectacular team (which, might I remind you, is my job--to put the team together), and this team did not come in last!

The topic: Marvel, mostly movies but some comic books

The plan: Read wikipedia daily to learn everything there is to know about Marvel. Look on YouTube to learn about Marvel (and then stop watching because it's just way too complicated). Read IMDB for everything about all Marvel movies. Look up all of Stan Lee's cameos. Go see Doctor Strange. Write as many words on the answer board as possible so that one word might be the right answer.

After a month and maybe twenty pages of notes, I was prepared! Eddie was prepared because he has the ability to watch a movie and remember a lot of stuff about it simply by watching it.

Sidenote: When I watch a movie, I don't know any of the characters' names, and I pretty much forget almost everything it was about except whether or not I enjoyed it. I need to start eating peanuts or whatever it is that makes your memory better.

Also on the team were D and F. D doesn't pay attention to pop culture anything, so this was not her forte. F said he knew some stuff. Some stuff is better than no stuff, so our team was solid!

When Eddie and I walked into Sip This, he told me we'd already lost. He saw someone wearing a Captain America jacket in the back. Maybe it's just a fashion choice. Maybe he doesn't even know it's Captain America. Plus, Captain America is on our side because that's the movie we watched on our honeymoon when the weather took a turn towards torrential downpours, so, you know, that matters.

Trivia started with a question that may as well have been in Japanese because I didn't understand anything it was asking. Then F said, It's Guardians of the Galaxy. I was like, oh, yeah, the one movie I decided not to pay attention to. And so the next two questions were also foreign because they were about the same movie.

Then it took a turn. There was a question and I knew I knew the answer. I wrote it down. We got it right. A point! We got a point!

And on it went. We got a few right in a row. Then we made up a really good answer for a bonus question: What does Jarvis stand for? I could tell you that Jarvis was in the Royal Air Force, but I couldn't tell you what it stood for, so I came up with Just for the J. And then we all added in words. Turns out, we got pretty close, as noted the trivia host. No points for close.

In an attempt to earn points on wrong answers, I took to waving my hand in front of the answers like one of Barker's Beauties. I also waved around the whole board, to which the host replied, That's not working but if you flip it around and do tricks, then maybe. I did not flip the board around for fear it would hit someone in the head.

I also tried smiling really hard and keeping the wrong answer up, which simply led to the host shaking his head "no."

Eddie completed his self-imposed task of getting one answer right. He knew the thingie the Hulk spoke to was called Blue. Then he exceeded expectations during the written portion.

Yes, there was a written portion! They gave us the super hero name and we had to fill in the real name and then the actor name. For any actor I didn't know, I wrote Zach Effron because, you know, why not. Also, I now know his name is spelled Zac Efron, so even that was wrong. There were two or three heroes we'd never even heard of. For those, I made up alliterative names like Bill Bobins and Ned Nevers because most real people names of superheros are alliterative i.e. Peter Parker and Wade Wilson (Spider-man and Deadpool).

The last round was about the comic books, and the final question was about the sinister six, and I knew I had the answer written down on one of my many pages of notes, and I knew that Doc Ock was one of them. So we wrote Doc Ock and then a bunch of other names that may or may not have been actual names of comic book characters.

When all the points were tallied, we came in fourth out of six. Actually, we tied, which according to the host meant there was no last place because no one came in sixth. Sure, I'll go with that. We got 22 points. The winning team got 77. Hooray for mediocrity!

The best part about throwing myself fully into the Marvel world was that it's going to be really helpful for my next poetry collection. The one coming out in March is Liberating The Astronauts, which leans towards sci-fi and science. The one I'm planning after is moving towards superheroes, at least in part. Geekery and poetry and trivia--it all falls into place.

Finally, whenever I start to put a team together, I get a lot of suggestions for trivia in the future, like, I'll be on the team if they have this kind of trivia. So, here are the suggestions even though I have no control over trivia topics:

1. Chinese History
2. History in general
3. War history
4. Cars, as in the automobiles, not the movie
5. Another Seinfeld
6. Another Disney
7. The Big Bang Theory
8. Music
9. Indiana Jones

My only suggestion is me winning.

I'm Cuuuute! And Cooooold!

The Rangers home opener came with a blue carpet pre-game spectacular starting mid-afternoon. Eddie and I got there maybe an hour before the game and still caught a few of the old players walking through and being interviewed. There was a lot of waiting around, but also a lot of excitement. When the sun started setting, I started to get chilly, so we decided to find one of the new entrances to the Garden to go inside since we'd come outside.

Sure, go ahead and stand right in front of me.

Finding the new entrance was easy because we were wearing Rangers gear and I made a friend. We were walking down the street near Nick + Stef's restaurant and we heard "You two, over here! Right over here!" A guard at the door waved to us, very excited. He might have been 87, give or take a year. We got closer and he pointed at me and shouted, "You're cuuuuuute! She's cutttte!" Eddie was laughing and I said thank you and he kept it going as we went through the door and up the stairs: So cuuuuuute! You've got a cute one!!!!

I don't care how old I get. Cute is cute. I'll take it.

Where we went in, there were no crowds, barely any lines, and we found our seats right away. They were too close.

Too close means a few things:

1. It's cold.

2. When the puck hits the glass, it looks like it's coming towards your face.

Too close.

Also, the level we were on didn't sell waffle fries, so we had to take a long trip around MSG to find the waffle fries and then had to take the long trip back. The trip isn't so long that it's not walkable. I'm talking long because we took some time trying to figure out how to go up and then how to come back down. Escalators. Stairs. Doors. Lines. Navigating the Garden takes some skillz.

Before the game, they had a ceremony for the Rangers celebrating 90 years. For that, the seats were good.

The game started. We were excited. I was cold. The game got more exciting. I got more cold. By the time the third period began, I'd stopped talking and moving because I was frozen in place.

The Rangers won. Yeay! A small price to pay for a freezer headache and finger frostbite. Yes, it was that cold.

Pre-frozen cuteness

I tried again. I love going to hockey games, so I sucked it up and went again, and this time, we were sitting in Eddie's season tickets seats. These seats? Were too close. I think there's a vent that's directly straight towards my face, and if I move, it moves with me. I'd come prepared. I'd layered up with a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie pull-over.

Between periods, we left our seats to roam. It was a little warmer out there. However, by the end of the second period, I was an ice berg. We went into the store, and that, too, was cold. One of the sales people pointed out, "You look cold." That's far from cute, now isn't it.

We went back in to watch the third period. The game was really fun and exciting (despite the jerk who was a row ahead of us who was screaming all drunken nonsense to the players who couldn't hear him). I put my hood up. Then I proceeded to slowly wrap the hood halfway around my face. The Rangers won. Yeay! I got to leave. Yeay!!

So here's the plan. Next time, I'm wearing long sleeves, a hoodie, gloves, a scarf, and a hat. I am not joking. Third time's a charm. Plus, I'll look adorable.

Another Virgo Day

From Bing

I had to work on my birthday. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but I haven't worked on my birthday in I can't remember how long. I went in early to take a workshop in how to use a system I already know how to use (incidentally, I screwed up something on that same system this past week--woopsie). Then I taught.

When I came home, I found balloons in different rooms and happy birthday signs
and a card and a gift bag with bubbles in it. Does my husband know me or what? (Also, I have the wish list of a two year old).
 
When he came home, I squealed about all my balloons and signs and bubbles. Then we headed to Beginnings, a book-themed restaurant in Atlantic Beach. We had to pay a toll to go over the bridge because I couldn't remember how to avoid the bridge. This was so dumb.

Anyway, the restaurant has the best waitstaff in the history of restaurants. Also, the best decor.

For $75, you can attend a food and cocktail pairing of five courses based on a book theme!

Any menu with a typewriter is a menu for me.

Random London phonebooth

 

The check comes in this! It makes you excited to pay!

Author portraits

I've been getting kind of courageous lately, sipping some beer and booze here and there. Beginnings has cocktails named after literary things. I had to drink. I had a DaVinci Code. It was amazing.

Also amazing was the food. And the dessert.

My husband could be a professional dessert photographer. This is peanut butter goodness with a fried banana, nuts, and chocolate and more nuts.

Posing for prom, apparently

 We went to my parents afterwards to open presents (I like presents) and eat cake but we didn't actually eat the cake because I had already eaten the dessert at the restaurant and neither of us likes ice cream cake. I blew out candles, though, because, again, I am a child.

Then, the next day, I got mini cupcakes at work because my colleague who ran the workshop found out it had been my birthday and decided that cupcakes make a birthday better. Yes, yes they do.

Freebie Collection Day!

Right after my birthday, I travel around to various stores, collection my free birthday things that I've been offered through signing up for newsletters and joining free VIP clubs. I love this day, Freebie Collection Day. Eddie thinks of it more like Anxiety On The Verge Of A Heart Attack Day. His ideas about free stuff and my ideas about free stuff differ a little bit.

On my actual birthday, I went to Dunkin Donuts on my way to work and got a free iced green tea.

The day after my birthday, I went to Starbucks and got a free tall iced caramel macchiato. I could have gotten a bigger size, but with the amount of sugar that drink has, I was fine with the tall. I didn't want to go into sugar shock. When I ordered, I explained that I couldn't find the birthday offer on my app, but it had been there the day before. The cashier wished me a Happy Birthday and said that it would come up when she scanned my card. Then she wished me a Happy Birthday again.

On Freebie Collection Day, I started at Roosevelt Field. I got a free cleanser from Sephora. I had a choice between that and an eyeliner/lipstick combo. I've never had a choice before! The cashier wished me a Happy Birthday twice. This was fun.

I then visited Teavana for a free sample of tea. This is not birthday related. I simply always go there for a free sample. Then I headed over to David's Tea for the same reason. There, I actually bought something. They had travel tumblers on sale, marked down from $10 to $5, and that included filling it with what would be a $4 cup of tea. I paid for it with a birthday gift card, so, you know, free. And now that I signed up with a frequent buyer card, I got another free tea that I can go get, plus another free tea for finishing my profile. Two more await. All free. All for me. I also found that Jamba Juice has free samples, so I tried two flavors there. Yum.

Chatting with the Teavana gal

Being sold by two David's Tea staffers

Up in the food court, I hunted down where I could get a Chock Full O' Nuts coffee. The coupon I had said that I could get a $16 oz coffee in the food court, but there wasn't a Chock Store anywhere. Then I saw that one of the salad places sells that kind of coffee. I asked them if I could redeem my coupon there (while Eddie stood about a mile away from me). The cashier looked at the coupon all puzzled. Then she showed it to a manager. They both came over and told me I had to go to the place outside of La Bottega. So I asked, Even though the coupon says specifically to come to the food court, I have to go to the other place? They said yes. I said, Ok thank you!

Me haggling

Over in the corner, there's a pow wow going on.

So I headed over to the grill across the way that also sold Chock coffee. I showed it to the cashier. She didn't know what to do, so she showed it to the guy flipping chicken on a grill and another guy standing around doing what seemed to be, well, simply that--standing. There was a lot of conversation about this whole coupon. Then someone came out from the back, and they all showed her the coupon. She read it a few times, and then she said, Give her a cup of coffee. It was less of a Happy Birthday coffee and more of a Just give her a coffee dammit, but still, free is free.

We went to Green Acres mall for the second round. I had a coupon for The Pretzel Maker. The deal there is to buy a medium or large drink, and you can get free pretzel bites. Last year, the cashier gave me sort of a hard time, but then gave in. When I approached the counter, Eddie whispered, It's the same woman from last year! I wasn't sure that it was or not, but I was certain that after last year, I'd get my pretzels without a problem. I'd buy my drink with my birthday gift card, and it would all be free.

I showed the cashier my coupon, and she said, I don't know.

How do you respond to that? There was no question asked. The paper clearly explained the whole deal. So I went about explaining the whole concept: I did this last year. I come here, I hand you this coupon, I buy a medium drink, and you give me pretzel bites with it. Just scan the coupon. Look, your address is right here. It's your store. Okay?

She instead told me, I don't know. My manager isn't here.

I said, You don't need a manager.

She looked at the coupon and then asked, Is this your phone number?

I paused for a moment and then responded, No, it's your phone number. Like, for this store.

So then she asked for my phone number. I gave her a fake one because this was getting weird. She then asked what I wanted to drink. I asked for a medium lemonade, which would run me a little over $2. Then she told me the total was $4.69.

I wanted to respond, I don't know, but instead I asked, How is it $4.69 if the drink is only $2?

She was like, I told you I don't know, and waved the coupon at me.

So she asked for my order as if she would accept the coupon and then charged me for the whole order, though I'm not sure what she did exactly because pretzel bites are not $2 also, so the total should have been higher than what she said. I think she was making things up.

I politely took back my coupon and asked that she cancel my order. I went over to Eddie, who was standing about a mile away looking mortified, and told him I couldn't get my pretzels. He told me to write a very strong letter. I said I was already doing so in my head. (later on, I wrote an email to the company telling them that if they put a store on their coupon, they should inform the store of the promotion--the store doesn't have to participate, but then don't put it on my coupon. They responded by telling me that the stores are independently operated so they would alert the store of the issue. Meaning I'm not getting my pretzel bites. For shame, The Pretzel Maker, for shame!).

The approach

The explanation: It says it right here on this coupon.

The confusion

We walked over to Panera. I told the cashier I was there for my birthday treat. She wished me a Happy Birthday and told me to choose any baked item. I had another choice! I chose a large festive candy cookie.

Easy Peasy at Panera (also I'm noticing my ass looks like a box in this skirt)

Then we went to Baskin Robbins a few blocks away, and I got a free small scoop of chocolate chip ice cream. The cashier wished me a Happy Birthday.

I brought the cookie and the ice cream to my parents to enjoy. I told my brother that I would have had pretzels for him but the cashier "didn't know." He was okay with that.

Yesterday I took my coupon for a free Fribble to Friendly's. The cashier saw what was in my hand and told the other worker behind the counter, It's a birthday coupon. So I was like, Oh, you've seen this before! She was like, Happy Birthday, by the way. The other worker was like, Happy Birthday, and I was like, Can I have a chocolate Fribble please? Then she made a chocolate Fribble and handed it to me, telling me to enjoy the rest of my birthday. I brought it to my parents for them to share.

Go right ahead...I bet you can't even try to tell me this isn't the most adorable picture you've ever seen.

I also handed over my free meal from IHOP. I had my Pancake Revolution Anniversary last month for which I had a different free meal, so I probably won't make it to this birthday one. I have to see if they'll change my anniversary date so I can space out my free meals.

You see, it's not that I want all these free things for myself. I want to share the love. And I want people to continue to wish me a Happy Birthday.