Have a Relaxing Weekend!

Woo wee! What a crazy, stressful week. Apparently I haven't been to the doc in 3 years, and it came back to bite me in the bum today. I'll definitely make an appointment this year because, guess what, it's one of my resolutions! :) It's just so hard finding a good doctor.
Hopefully everything will be fixed and okay early next week. *Crossing fingers*
In the meantime, let's focus on the happy:

Listen - Damn, that's sexy. Even without watching the video, you can feel the James Bond vibe. RAWR.  Feeling Good, Michael Buble.

Watch - The Booth at the End. If you like Hitchcock or The Twilight Zone, you will love this. It has a calm, eerie, mysterious, amazingly written story, all of which takes place in a booth in a dinner. You don't even think "I want to see what happens outside the booth" because it's written SO WELL. You guys, I just went all caps right there, so you know I'm excited and serious! There are only 5, 20-minute episodes (first season was better than the second). That's less than two hours! (I was going to give the exact time, but I'm like, eh, I'm bad at math...I'll just estimate.) You can do this!!

Eat - French-Korean fusion? Okay! My brother told me about this place, and it has excellent reviews on Yelp. The prices are reasonable, the portions are ample, the food is delicious. If you visit me in JC, I will probably take you here :)

Help -  There is a very cool volunteering event I will be working at on Monday for Bottemless Closet NYC. The gist is, disadvantaged women participate in workshops that prepare them for interviews, manage their finances, and gain other skills that allow them to be more self-sufficient. Attending these workshops allows them to earn credits they can use to shop for interview- and work-appropriate clothing. That's where I will come in. So while I won't be doing anything life changing, I will get to help someone shop and accessorize for their big interview! If anyone wants to join me, let me know!(Update: My bad. This is actually on Feb 11.)

(The picture is from a camping trip I went on a while back. That colorful thing on the bottom seems to be a beautifully molding leaf.)

Brunch: Frittata

One of my 28 resolutions, is to cook one real meal a week. I figured today would be my official kickoff because I was having my cousins over for brunch and all we seem to do when we hang out is eat, so yummy food is a must. I made my first ever frittata with a side of breakfast potatoes (which are basically baked french fry cubes), and second ever crepes. All of them got a thumbs up, so...huzzah!

A frittata is basically an omelette, but the veggies and meat are cooked in with the eggs, not sandwiched between the folds. Even though I read numerous recipes about 37 times before and even while I was making it, it's actually incredibly easy. I'm just a a nervous person who needs to quintuple check everything. Here's how I made mine in case you don't already know the gist of a frittata:

Happy MLK Weekend!

I don't know about you guys, but this was not my favorite week. Here's to a better weekend.

Do - Restaurant Week...which is really about a month long is happening right now.

Get - if you don't have an iPad Mini, maybe you could use these as mirror stands! Or just not buy them.

Listen - I don't know if you remember this guy, but I just heard his other song the other day and remembered how much I loved this one. At moments he sounds like Freddy Mercury, no? Grace Kelly, Mika.

Wonder - Why do all these TV shows show families sitting around eating breakfast and chatting, and then eventually getting on their way to school? What time does TV school start? Noon?? When I was in school eons ago, it was still dark out when I finally made it out the door. I don't think I even had time for cereal. My breakfast was usually a pop tart....to go.

Speak - The Italian version of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" is "Non si può avere la botte piena, e la moglie ubriaca" or "you can't have a full bottle of wine, and a drunk wife." Theirs is definitively more fun than ours. Oh those Italianos...so saucy. Ha, pun.

Wear - Because I dare you.

(Pic: I met this guy at the Central Park Zoo. I call him Lorenzo. Get it???)

Happy Friday!

Ssome random bits of interesting to share. Have an awesome weekend!

Watch - Whites. I know it's the British way, but this series was too good to be this short. But...this makes it easy for you to marathon this weekend! I love you Bib!

Learn - Did you know that this --> ?! <-- is called an interrobang? Sounds naughty, doesn't it?

Do - Broadway week! Shows don't start for another two weeks, but tickets go fast, so get on it!

Listen - I have been a huge fan of this chick since I heard her on TV over 5 years ago. Doesn't this one sound like something choreographers Mandy Moore and Travis Wall would use on SYTYCD? 

Eat - I just learned the real name of one of my favorite Indian dishes! In my family, we just call it "egg powder." This isn't exactly my mom's recipe, but it is the one with the nicest picture :)

Laugh - I hope I remember to pull this out when my friends tell their crazy stories. *cough*racinginAC*cough* 

Speak - My last class had a bunch of international students and I found it fascinating when I realized how many idioms and how much slang we use every day. Did you know that the Danish version of "to search high and low" is "med lys og lygte" or "with light and lamps?" Cool!

  

3D picture of NY by Sergey Semenov

Resolutions 2013

So it's been a year, eh?
I did half of my resolutions from last year. One that I did not do was the constellations one. It's kind of hard when you live in a city filled with light and air pollution that makes seeing actual stars impossible. I did see some TV and movie stars though and was totally able to identify them, so...does that count?
Here's part of my list for this year...
1. Be able to do whatever this is called:

It looks easy, but it isn't! It isn't at all!! You try doing it without rolling all over the place in the middle of a class full of bendy, tight pants wearing, yoga girls. Not fun. But one day, I will be one of them, and someone else will be the core-strengthless girl who can't even touch her toes who I will pretend not to notice or feel bad for.

The Mindy Project

You know I love Mindy. She hilarious - as Kelly Kapoor, in her book, Twitter, and in every blog she's started and abandoned. And now she has her own TV show, It's Messy The Mindy Project!  She plays an OB/GYN (like her mom is in real life) slash Bridget Jones-like awkward yet totally cool single girl looking for a man.  Did you watch the trailer? No? Well go on then, the link's right there. I will wait.

What did you think? It was a little awkward, right? But it did have some good moments so I can see it evolving into something watchable. I mean, I'm going to be obsessed with it no matter what, but it may take other people a little while. 

And hey, did you notice she's Indian? You didn't, right? This is huge, you guys. I mean, what other ethnic people are the stars of a show that isn't on BET, Telemundo, or My9? And her co-stars are two guys, so it doesn't feel like a chick show. She's also cute and fabulous (check out the Louboutins!), but real enough (check out those curves!) that you don't kind of hate her a little. And even though the premise is that she wants to get married, she's also an independent, educated, professional feminists would approve of. Well played, Mindy, well played!

Summer To Do List: Part 1

Christina, Pam, and I had a "Spring's Here, Let's Come Out of Hibernation an Hang Out!" reunion recently at Beecher's.  It was lovely! The seating area is downstairs and dimly lit, so it definitely has a basement feel, but the bathroom was nice! It's unisex, so don't be surprised if, as your washing your hands, the guy you worked with 6 years ago comes in, but you don't say anything because it's the bathroom and he probably really needs to pee and you're like "eh, he probably doesn't remember me anyway" even though you're facebook friends, and you wouldn't facebook friends if you weren't real friends, RIGHT?   

While enjoying our cheesy dinners, we started talking about our plans for the upcoming warm weather. Pam whipped out the To Do list on her phone (she's so organized :)) and I just blurted out the random things I'm interested in. That's not going to work, is it? Alright, here's my list which, now that it's out there for the world, will hopefully hold me to itself. It's long, so here's part one: the "New Cities to Explore" list.

1. Bond with Jersey City - my new home. Eeps! That sounds so weird to say! I'm still not used to this place, but that's exactly why I need to explore.

• There's Barcade - a bar with $0.25 aracade games
• Mana Contemporary - NOT White Mana, the nearby White Castle-like burger place, but actually a very cool 125k sqr ft arts and performance space.
• I'm actually interested in looking around what I call India Town. So many restaurants and shops, all run and owned by real life Indians. My mouth is watering just thinking about it*
• And I'll definitely be hitting up a few of the many festivals they have all summer.

I'm excited! JC has a bad rap, but it definitely has a lot going on and it's very up-and-coming. Maybe I'll have some mad cap adventure and in the end realize this is where I truly belong. Oh god, I hope Jersey City, New Jersey is not where I truly belong. How 'bout I just realize "this place ain't so bad"? Yeah, that's good enough.

2. Explore Brooklyn. Land of artists, vegans, and Polish people!  I could so easily see myself fitting in there.  But just because I became a corporate cog doesn't mean I can play pretend on weekends, right?  I'm hoping Brooklyn Ambassador Pam and I will soak up as much as we can in the next few months and do things like

 - go to Smorgasburg (get it?) - a food flea market. Just go to the site and see how delicious everything looks!! If you find the one person taking pictures through a real camera and not Instagram, that'll be me, so come over and say hello!

- go to the Goonies screening at the Brooklyn Museum. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I've never been to this museum, and ya'll know how I like flaunt my cultured...ness, so why not!

3. The Hamptons. I'm not going lie, I really just want to go because I watch and love Revenge and am hoping to get caught up in some billionaire's scheme to ruin the local royalty. Who knows, maybe I too can score a job as a party planner/personal assistant/stylist/photo shoot director/media representative/web designer. 

Next list: the "Hit the Haps in Central Park"....

*Because of the restaurants, not the Indian people.
Photos from Pinterest (but the added apostrophe is all me) and Smorgasburg (credit:Kate Glicksberg)