August 29, 2007

Eats


We're tired a lot. In fact, it's not 9 yet on a Wednesday and Craig is asleep during some British comedy he has been so excited to see - he excused me from watching it when I explained I'd rather post. But to look at our lives (I know I complain about this often, when in actuality I should feel blessed and lucky) and realize we're out of bed before 6 each morning, out of the apartment a little after 6, and not home again after sitting in an office with no windows (cutting KB off from windows is like cutting off oxygen to the brain) until after 6 p.m., can finally and really take its toll. Now, with our new healthful routine, I hurry home before Craig, who doesn't leave the office, typically, until 6. So say I arrive home at 6, or a little after, like tonight. Walking on the streets of my neighborhood, Nano plugged into my head, walking practically right into cabs considering I am in such a major hurry to cross each intersection (a year ago I was so timid I would not near the street from the curb until the Walk Signal popped up on the crossing sign - ha! That scared girl is long gone!), I feel like a natural born New Yorker. Every New Yorker is as tired as the next and is in a Huge Hurry. So hey, at least I'm not alone, right? Anyway, so tonight, as a for instance, I came home, exercised for half an hour or 45 minutes before Craig came home, then I greeted him with a quick kiss and hug and headed across the street to drop clothes off with The Ladies (our favorite laundry place). I came back home (it's roughly 7 at this point) and began dinner, sorted through my spices in their miniature cabinet above the fridge, couldn't find fennel seeds in the madness, and I desperately needed them for this particular diet-friendly dish, gave up the search and completed dinner anyway, ate dinner with Craig (we indulged in a piece of frozen garlic bread each - yum!), then offered to clean the kitchen so he could watch his movie (slash, nap!) and by the time it's all said and done, it's 9'ish and I'm exhausted. The factors likely include my age, the summertime feel, the fact that I militantly plan and cook nearly all of our meals now, clean, exercise and try to maintain a full time job - huh! Imagine tossing babies into that mix. Right.*Above and below is pictured Vespa. Monday night we left work a little late, and somehow Sunday's grocery shopping excursion only landed me 3 nights worth of dinners: Burritos, Roasted Red Pepper Chicken and Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Bolognese. So Craig and I commuted home together Monday and in talking decided

that we might like to have a Monday night treat of dinner out. We had eaten at Vespa once before, for Valentine's Day 07, but didn't quite experience the great pleasure we did this time around. First of all, we sat out back in their "garden" seating. The ambience was nice. The waiter was over-attentive. We ordered a "tasting" plate, of which Craig let me select the contents: balsamic mushrooms, asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes, soppresetta and cured olives. Mmmm. Then I ordered their whole wheat pasta dish with broccolini and sweet sausage and Craig ordered a creamy pasta dish with asparagus - all of their pasta is homemade, mmm. Dinner was fabulous. And we spent our time planning where to go for Christmas: Cozumel, Cabos or Puerta Vallerta. Right now we're leaning toward Cabos. It seems like we might be able to land a good deal there. I just can't wait - get out of the City, get out of real life, swim-up bars, all-inclusive food and beverages, long white beaches, hungover morning runs in the sand!, just me and my favorite person in a far away land. We're saving money so that it will be paid for up front. Sounds good.*

August 25, 2007

Evocations

I've posted a similar, if not the same image above before, but this morning, for a Saturday which finds Craig sleeping in and neither of us with expectations of today (for the first time nearly all summer!), I'm inspired to recall just how wonderful it feels to have a home that we love so sincerely. Today, also inspired by the 90+ degree heat outside, we intend to clean our home, scrub it down like we're preparing for guests only we're not, and entertain each other versus a string of other people. Fun!*It's been a really eventful several weeks, including but not limited to going to Pianos a second Sunday in a row (last weekend) to see Jeff drum, only this time with our friends Laura and Brian from Brooklyn, eating sushi (maybe I've mentioned that but it is deserving of another mention, since it's a treat for me and I can rarely drag Craig to eat sushi), eating at Don Pedro's a second time (the second time not as commendable as our first go round), working long hours with little reward through the weeks, discovering and making two terrific Cooking Light salads, one which we shared with Alison and Scott which they can't stop talking about, and last night, going to Alison and Scott's to help make Spicy Chicken Cakes with Horseradish Aioli, Creamy Parmesan Orzo and Asparagus (second time for us to have these, first time for Alison and Scott - they loved it!) Their apartment is beyond belief beautiful - huge, for a New York apartment, with glossy kitchen appliances, a granite countertop large enough to fit our entire kitchen, and perfect hospitality provided by Alison and Scott, to boot. They are into their first week of Weight Watchers and I must say, this idea of becoming healthy as a 30-something just fits right nicely into life. But it's hard. It's really, really hard. The restaurants in New York - where to begin to brag of their overindulgence? Exercise? Are you kidding me? When? We wake up between 5 and 6, we're out the door not long after, we don't get home until anywhere between 5 and 7 each night - calculate the free hours there - 3? (that's not very much time) and then we're in bed to wake up and offer our souls back to the job the next day. Granted, we are New Yorkers and New Yorkers walk, on average, a million more steps than other Americans, so at least we've got that. Anyway, we encouraged Alison and Scott last night as well as we could - they feel their encouragement is just seeing us in the flesh, considering they traveled to England a year ago with the two of us carrying around something like 45 lbs. more combined than we carry around now! Amazing.*I really intend to get back to posting more frequently. I think summertime is a wash. Everyone pitches it out the window because really, who gets anything done in the summertime? Last weekend we traveled to Long Island to sit by our co-workers' pool and drink and eat all day, which ultimately resulted in several of us being thrown in the water, Craig included, equipped with wallet and cell phone in pocket. That has yielded us to cancel our Sprint service (did so yesterday) and to go purchase new razor phones with AT&T service with the eventual dream of owning iPhones someday. Meanwhile, Saturday mornings like this one, where we stayed on the West Side with Alison and Scott until 3 a.m. and slept in and now plan to watch a movie before cell phone purchasing/cleaning, are we really going to get anything productive done today? Bring on the fall, which will find me writing fiction again, in a routine again, recording television series on our DVR box for weekend morning tv catch-up again, and altogether feeling back together again.*Coming up: next week is a full week, with work, work, work, followed by our Labor Day weekend plans of a Williamsburg, Brooklyn pub crawl next Saturday with Paul and Stacy, Laura and Brian undetermined plans Sunday with a party at Cilantro for Jeff and Lauren Sunday night, who are kissing Manhattan goodbye and moving their lives one train stop out of the City to Long Island City, where they will inhabit a brand new unit in a brand new building complete with such amenities as a dishwasher - gasp!, a rooftop pool, a fitness center, and square footage exceeding 600, which, for New York, aside from Alison and Scott's place on the West Side of the Park, is a rarity. Monday we will recover from the weekend, thankful for the holiday, and Tuesday night we have Yankees tickets - potential big game as the baseball season nears its final month of regular season play. We have a wedding to attend in September, tickets for a Mets~Cardinals game that was delayed earlier in the season, and intentions to plan our Christmas around each other for a change versus around our families. The idea was hatched by a possible trip to Ireland which was vetoed because of timing, but we still may pursue something outside of traveling to see our families for Christmas. I would like that - a chance to let the year unravel into an extended relaxing adventure for just me and my boy. We'll see. Life doesn't seem to slow down long enough to let us breathe, it seems.*Today is Saturday, at least.

August 20, 2007

Watchers

I'm definitely not in the business of posting pictures of me, Craig and our friends. I shy away from it because I don't want to be identified by anyone as the Girl Who Keeps That Boring Blog. But anyway, this particular picture I thought was quite cute of me and my friend Alison (our friend through Dustin along with her husband Scott) and I think my weight loss shows a wee bit right there in my chin and down to my arm. Alison, left of me, is a tiny girl but decided to join Weight Watchers with her husband, as well, so that they could determine themselves to lose a few pounds. I'm at just under a loss of 19 pounds and truthfully, I feel fantastic. I'm a little sore this instant from a rigorous hour with my hand weights, but fantastic, nonetheless. And tonight we even went a little crazy, for a Monday: commuted home together after I endured an intense tutorial on scheduling with my boss which lasted right until 6 o', and walking along 3rd Avenue we decided to duck into our Hallmark store for a birthday card for Hannah, who turns 5 in like two days. Well, before arriving at Hallmark we spotted Pesce Pasta, which Craig pronounces "Pesky Pasta", an unassuming neighborhood gem, evidently. He quickly connived me into going (reminding me how healthy fish is for a dieter) and we ordered a bottle of Cabernet and I ordered salmon and broccoli whereas he ordered Bass and broccoli. Clearly my salmon was swimming in Dijon/butter sauce, and my broccoli was stuffed with as many garlic cloves as one chef might have the chance to shove into a few heads of broccoli, but the whole dinner was amazing. And it was light, despite the gratuitous amount of butter I'm sure was used! The scale reminded me, when we got home, that I had just eaten a stick of butter so as of tomorrow I will be back on kitchen duty, making one of several light salads I intend to make for the weeknight meals.*Meanwhile, our weekend was just a perfect mess of eating, drinking, friends, co-workers, train rides, and plans for future trips/adventures. Our friends Alison (seen above) and Scott traveled out to Dix Hills, Long Island with us to enjoy a whole day of poolside, food, drinks, socializing and interesting sidebars, and then we all traveled back to Manhattan together in stupors on the LIRR. Sunday Craig and I had brunch at Yura (I ordered an egg white omelet and he thinks me crazy but I think him foolish for cheating on his diet by not ordering egg whites!) and we came home and watched Shooter, then I shopped for food for the week and he napped and then at night we returned to Pianos (Lower East Side) for more Jeff on drums and to meet up with Laura and Brian. Ok, admittedly, also I returned for the salmon/tuna steak sandwich that sent me into food convulsions last weekend. It was just as good if not better because I already knew I was getting myself into something unbeatable.*Many untied strings remained to be tied, regarding our next couple of months. What I do know is that football will begin to occupy my love once again for a season so possibly I will have a second to myself or two. Gotta love that cute guy I live with!*

August 15, 2007

Dishes

This photograph must make me seem like such a slob. The whole mess of my kitchen is contained to one countertop and one window sill, where there are endless dishes, two stainless steel canisters of rubber spoons and spatulas shoved haphazardly in, a hapless Jade plant which I swore I could keep alive yet then I sprayed it with insecticide once because two small gnats had somehow found their way into our space and I believed it to be the Jade's fault, so I sprayed repellant which in turn, killed the several leaves on which I sprayed, plus the bottle of Ivory and the near-empty bottle of Jameson which I can safely contribute to my friend Jeff who pumps the stuff practically right into his veins. Alright, not so much - he paces himself well but that stuff is like lighter fluid for the most part.*I've stayed away from posting recently but not because I don't want to catch up with everything we did with Paul and Angie after Boston, or after we flew to Chicago to meet little Brady and to see the rest of the family, including Hannah my almost 5-year-old playmate and her little sister Lauren, and their Mom, and Brady's Mom, and their parents (Craig's parents) and everyone else, but more or less because after so much happening, I've really just felt like leading a regular old life, not writing about it, not worrying about it, just living it. I may not make it back in time to discuss the beauty of the past adventures (although, I do need to recap the family visit, which I will do with the handsome photo shoot of Eddie's grilling talents, someday, maybe soon) but I don't want to forget the things that happen presently, too. For instance, how we've gotten to such a great weight point where finally we can order our favorite Chinese from Wu Liang Le (sp?) and not feel guilty, or where we can head to Nina's (tonight) for my NY Strip with Chimichurri (sp?) and sauteed spinach with garlic and Craig's cannelloni, which were succulent and rich. Or how last Saturday I made us low-fat Spicy Garlic Chicken Cakes which involved chopping raw chicken in my new food processor (scary) but with the Horseradish Aioli, they were seriously of restaurant quality in flavor. Plus with the fat-free sour cream and chives mashed potatoes and extra virgin olive-oiled asparagus, I can't see how Craig could have wanted anything else.*Then Sunday we ate vanilla yogurt with granola and watched Zodiac, which was pure genius (thank goodness for smart scripts in a sea of stupid people making money off of stupid scripts). We left the apartment for lunch and a drink at Genesis (on 2nd) then came home, where I made chicken salad for my lunch week and we suited up to head to the Lower East Side to a fascinating little place called Pianos at Ludlow and Stranton. Stanton? There we ate the most amazing sandwiches - Craig had a chicken sandwich he called "the best I've ever had, ever" and I ate a grilled salmon/seared tuna steak sandwich with Jack cheese that could have blown any Bobby Flay or Rachel Ray recipe for the same out of the water, for sure. I ate around the white breaded roll, and whatever balsamic salad dressing was on our salads was meant to be served in heaven - it was amazing. We stayed out way too late with Jeff that night (he was our reason for going to Pianos, as he was drumming for a friend's show) and Monday sort of crawled by, but now it's near Thursday and we're basically enjoying a plain regular New York week together. I've been nothing short of in love with every moment I've had the chance to see him, peaking in morning hours when we commute together, then becoming quite anxious and giddy-happy in the evening, which rarely finds us commuting together, when he comes home and shrugs out of his shoulder bag and kicks off his shoes. Now he is watching his movie solo, rather, he's sleeping. It's near 9 o'clock and while the best of me wants to keep chattering away blissfully, especially in my new thin self, which matches the self I used to be before I turned into a late-twenties, early-thirties-something, I think I'd better wrap it up and see to it that Craig makes it into bed soon. I believe he's ready.*Today was Hannah's first day at school! Exciting! And my nephew James goes soon, too! I wonder how these little ones take it all in??? And my friend Mary is pregnant - I found out yesterday. We're going to Washington D.C. with another couple that goes way back with them, too, that we know from here in New York, to visit Mary and her husband Roger, in the end of September. They were basically my surrogate family in St. Louis. I love them that much, anyway. It will be fun to see a pregnant Mary!*For now, I promise updates of the past. I just don't know how disciplined I can be with that. Oh, yeah. I forgot. Guess what? I get to work with Sharon, the woman who inspired my most productive writing semester, ever, last winter term! I mean, I get to work with her one-on-one. I found out yesterday. She teaches five students from her home, but can't take on more than that, and doesn't kick anyone out of a new session (sessions last 10 weeks). So I've been bugging her for weeks and she finally found out she has a quitter - which means I have a space! One-on-one writing coaching with one of the most amazing women around. How great is that? Details to follow.*

August 08, 2007

Trains

If I do not qualify for New Yorker status after today's commute, I don't know what will give me New Yorker status at all. Mass transit - can we say mass chaos? (I bet that has been used time after time but I'm helping myself right to it). This morning we awoke to quite the City lightning and thunderstorm. A little after 6 (painful to actualize that we wake up that early) Craig announced to me that he thought it best, per the Eye Witness News anchors, that we wait out the storm and leave a little later. No problem by me, bucko - I'm in no mad rush to get to work, ever! So, a little after 7, then, we left the apartment and headed in somewhat dry conditions by that time to 86th Street. There we boarded a 6 Local train almost immediately (thankfully, seeing as the heat had already managed to reach late 90's-ish). Typically we take the 4 or 5 Express but our instinct told us Express trains, much lower underground than our 6 Local, might be delayed for wet conditions. So our 6 reached 77th Street and the doors of the cars stayed open for a few minutes. An announcement was made that due to flooding conditions at 23rd Street, trains would be experiencing certain delay. So, as New Yorkers will do, we exited that train and decided to walk to 59th Street to scope out the N to Queensboro. At 59th we were dismayed to learn that N trains and W trains were not running either. At this point, our only option really was to walk to Grand Central Station. And so we experienced the walk from 77th all the way to 45th, where we picked up a 7 train and along the way we learned that next to no trains were running in Manhattan due to weather. As we speak, the MTA is beginning their eternally-seeming length 2nd Avenue Subway construction, which means the need exists for this line because 11 million people use mass transit as is. So one can only imagine what it's like in the City of New York when trains aren't running. Think MTA strike lasting 3 days a year and a half ago or so. Sheer hysteria. But what is that thing I love so dearly about New York (one of several zillion things, that is...)? New Yorkers power through. They just keep on going. Trains are down? Fine, we'll all walk 60 blocks to work. And so it goes...we arrived to work around 9.30 this morning, sweaty, tired and having managed to fit in a couple of hours of exercise!*More recap of the cousins' adventures to come. Meanwhile, tonight I'm making my favorite Asian brown rice for my lunch tomorrow (with black beans and tomatillo salsa) followed by our dinner of roasted red pepper chicken and creamy parmesan whole wheat orzo (and asparagus, which I deftly manage to sneak in every single night because asparagus and I love each other). It's proving to be quite a busy week at work, and I feel as though my evenings are reduced to kitchen time only these days. I love it, don't get me wrong. But because of the snail pace at which I function, particularly after a long work day, by the time the kitchen is cleaned, dinner is cooked, the kitchen is re-cleaned and leftovers are stashed away, I'm pretty well beat. Maybe tomorrow night will be leftovers night.*I heart you, New York, even if you turned my morning upside down.

August 04, 2007

Cousins

It's Saturday morning fairly early and Craig is asleep. I worked out to my new Express Pilates dvd this morning (thank goodness no one can see that happening - what a twisted limb mess!) and I've eaten a fiber bar (not too bad, actually) and am drinking coffee and feeling utterly relieved that today and tomorrow are non-active weekend days for us! And thus begins the recap of events. I will try to limit this to the significant details and include favorite photos only. Thursday, July 19th Craig's cousin Paul and Paul's wife Angie landed at Kennedy Airport. Craig and I worked, so those two cabbed it to our apartment - we had mailed them a set of keys - and let themselves in to begin their first day in New York (they had never been). After work we hurried home, greeted them and showered for our first activity: Xanadu on Broadway. Basically, seeing as much of their week would revolve around baseball, Paul had permitted Angie to choose which show we would see - her first choice was Wicked, which would be impossible to get tickets to on such short notice, and her second pick was Xanadu. I've got to admit - I had my doubts going into it. I loved Olivia Newton John as much as the next 5 year-old girl back in the day - her album Let's Get Physical was practically all I ever listened to in my cassette player (old lady me) but nevertheless I had never seen the campy roller-skate disco movie from 1980 and I couldn't imagine it performed live on stage. No! It was fantastic! In fact, it might rank as the most entertaining show I've seen! Hilarious - the lead mimicked Olivia Newton John to perfection, especially singing the breathy intro to "Suddenly" - and it was really overall quite the performance. And yes, we saw Chris Fowler (ESPN College Game Day) and Whoopi Goldberg (newly announced to co-host The View on morning talk tv) live and in person. Craig and I actually brushed by Whoopi on our way out. See - celebrities do what we do. I still felt a little star struck...moving along, after the show we ate at Becco - I had a delicious (I can still recall the half hour I spent with it) halibut with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Friday morning we woke up and ate bagels. This was our first bagel in over a month and a half, after nearly a year of bagels once or twice a weekend, and to be perfectly honest, it didn't blow my mind the way I anticipated it to. I think our diet has been good enough for us in many respects that really, cravings for heavy breads and pizza and grease and french fries have been reduced - I say reduced because I did tear into a bag of jalapeno potato chips that were leftover from a lunch at work earlier this week! But I tossed half the bag at a co-worker and begged her to finish it. Anyway, our Friday fairly much consisted of sight-seeing: Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Washington Square (as seen above), Ground Zero (which has now undergone a total personality shift - because of the construction of the Freedom Tower, the mournful air has lifted and now it's a buzz of construction activity), SoHo, the Village, lunch in the Village, and then a return trip to the apartment to get ready for our Friday night Yankees game. Saturday morning we woke up early to get ready for our road trip to Boston. Because our tickets to the Yankees game were free, as well as our tickets for the following week's Mets game, we splurged on Red Sox tickets (although, as it turned out, Paul and Angie paid for ours generously because we let them stay here with us). I had been to Boston twice before. Once Craig took me to Fenway - we arrived late and left early, and another time we went and toured around a bit - went to Cheers, saw downtown, but I never walked away from a Boston experience feeling the way I felt after this Boston weekend.
I fell in love. Oh, New York - you are my truest City love but Boston might have to be my affair! It is unbelievable there. Craig had rented a Dodge Charger and we traveled for about 4 and a half hours to get there (by train it's more expensive for two couples but takes substantially less time), checked into our hotel in Cambridge (soaking in the brainy energy of MIT) and changed clothes to grab a cab to Fenway Park. Dear St. Louis, you have incredible baseball, but you have nothing on Boston baseball! Take this from a girl who spent an entire year at Old Busch Stadium, all the way through Play-offs and a World Series! No wonder Boston Red Sox fans are so happy all the time - they have the best ballpark in the country, possibly in the history of baseball?? The atmosphere before the game outside on the street was high energy. We loved it.
It had become time to cheat on the diet so Craig and I ate juicy ballpark sausages and drank baseball beers. Our seats were really not too bad - out in right field, but Paul and Craig had somewhat of an obstructed view for a few innings.
During the game we got up and walked to better seats nearer home plate. The Red Sox were kicking the pants off the White Sox (the big thing of going was to see Fenway but also for Paul, a White Sox tried and true, and Craig too, of course, to see their team in Boston) so some of the ballpark had emptied a bit and we were able to duck into better seats. After the game, we headed to a bar for dinner (the game had started at 3? 4? so by the end, we were famished).
Across the street from Yawkey Way is a place Craig has seen on a tv show called Beer Nutz, a place that serves blueberry ale, with blueberries bobbing in the top.
Following dinner, we went to a couple of other bars and spotted Hanson and a streetful of screaming girls during the later part of the night. Sunday morning we woke up early and decided to tour MIT and Boston. Cambridge is so lovely, I have no idea (as a dreamy art major and poet I suppose this makes sense that I'm like this...) how students discipline themselves to go to class with all of that landscape to gaze into. The atmosphere of Cambridge and Boston is so laid back, very peaceful. Granted, we were tourists in mid-July on a Sunday. Still, I really liked it.
This is the Gehry MIT building that was under construction the last time Craig and I were in Cambridge, Mass. We walked across the Charles River to the Back Bay, walked the length of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall (long tree-lined boulevard), stopped to take in the Public Garden, which reminded me very much of London by Buckingham Palace,
and we walked through the Beacon Hill neighborhood, which I joked to Craig would be a suitable place for us to raise babies (suitable if you make several million dollars a year, that is!)
Boston impressed me, needless to say. I suppose there are many elements of Boston that win me over: the accent of its people, the number of intelligent universities nestled right there, the sky over the river, the old feel to the architecture - it definitely made me envious of being an East Coast native. I've probably wanted to be an East Coaster forever and it's now fully surfacing as I get older. I've got time here, obviously, but I consistently massage Craig into realizing how unimaginably amazing it is to live here. He feels very much the same, I think. We're proud New Yorkers.*After checking out of the hotel, we drove to Harvard's campus so that Paul and Angie could see it. We'd been there before, also, but again, I felt more in tune and content there than last time (is this because now I qualify as a local to this coast? whereas last times there I felt so foreign?) We walked through Harvard, snapped some photos and then stopped in a Harvard hot spot for lunch. I ate a delicious tuna wrap with yellow tomatoes and a mesclun salad with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and Paul ate Eggs Benedict with salmon and drank a bloody Mary, Angie ate crabcakes and Craig had a chicken sandwich on focaccia with yellow tomatoes and pickled red onions (he had me try one - it was fantastic). Following lunch we headed out to the Mass Pike and back to New York*An hour has passed and I've exhausted the trip so far, so I will continue chronicling their stay at another time. I think I'd better check on sleeping Craig. He told me he intended to sleep in this morning but this is getting to be quite the lazy morning for him! It's nearing 10.30! I believe we might go to Park Slope tonight for dinner at my friends' apartment, Laura and Brian. We've had tentative plans with Paul and Stacy and Alison and Scott but nothing definite, so I should get that figured out. I'm also planning to submit a manuscript to the 92nd Street Y for admission into an Advanced Fiction Workshop to begin in October. I'm still not sure if I will be working with Sharon this fall - she doesn't know if she has a spot open yet, but if I can get into the shorter and more affordable workshop at the Y, I will not attend the New School this fall. I'd like to return in the winter when I have a little more money to toss around (the last part of this year I will be wrapping up old debt, thankfully). So anyway, our schedule is taming down again. Last night was lazy and back to normal. Ah, summer.


August 01, 2007

Summertimes

These past couple of weeks have been sheer insanity, all activity, pure energy and tons of fun. I can't recall the most recent hour I have had just to sit at the computer and type a post (other than at work, which I try to avoid altogether). In the attempt to recap recent events, I intend to spend quite a bit of time this weekend downloading photos, organizing my thoughts and returning for an evenly trimmed chronicle of everything we've seen and done, from Whoopi Goldberg up close and in person (!) at Xanadu a couple of Fridays ago (and Chris Fowler, some ESPN man) all the way to hopefully what might be Alex Rodriguez' 500th Career Homerun tonight at the Yankee-White Sox game (we went last night, as well, and while the Yankees hit EIGHT home runs last night, not one of them was nailed out of the park by A Rod!!) Anyway, so I post this procrastination of a real post so that I at least feel like I've accomplished something productive in the last several weeks (outside, of course, of all that I've been up to at work!) I am really looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with Craig in the apartment. I think we will meet up with our friends Alison and Scott and their friend sometime Saturday, but that will be after much needed Friday rest and a long nap through Saturday morning...mmm, rest.