Busy Weekend... Almost Thanksgiving!

I'm at work. I finished up what I had left to do on the spreadsheet for the holiday cards, and now I'm just waiting to hear back about some addresses, which I probably won't even hear back on today anyway. So I'm probably going to leave soon, and the day ends at 2:00 today anyway, but I'll stick about for a little while. I'm just getting a little antsy about getting to be home for 4 days! (even though I'll be really busy) AND I get to bake pie tomorrow, which I'm excited for since baking is one of my favorite things!

But anyway, I'll wrap up the story of this weekend and Emily and Kali's visit.

Saturday Emily and Kali saw "13" and "Spring Awakening," and I hung out by myself while they did those and met them by the stage doors to take pictures. Between shows we wandered to Rockefeller Center, contemplated skating, but decided against it since it was expensive and would have taken a long time. We had dinner at Junior's deli, which was great, and for dessert Emily had this specialty of theirs which is Devil's Food Cheesecake, which is basically a 2-layer Devil's Food cake with chocolate icing on top of cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake, but I had some of the Devil's Food and it was INCREDIBLE! I had a black & white cookie for dessert, and I gave some to Kali and it was her first black & white and she enjoyed it so I'm glad (I know the number of "and"s in that sentence is gross). But my god, that devil's food cake... wow.

Sunday morning they went to coffee with our friend Amy from high school and then out to tea with Emily's cousin at Alice's Tea Cup, then they went to the North Face store to get a jacket for Kali. I slept in and went to Bloomingdale's with my mom for brunch and half-hearted Christmas dress shopping. Emily, Kali and I met up around 2:00 at the Central Park Zoo, where I was dismayed to learn that I'd left my camera battery charging in the apartment! But the zoo was fun. We watched them feeding sea lions, seals, and penguins, and saw the polar bears which Emily in particular was jazzed about. We spent a long time in the rain forest exhibit, more out of the desire to be warm (it's tropical animals, hence WARM building), less out of love of the rainforest animals. Although I enjoyed the bats, the birds were colorful, and we saw some crazy awesome frogs and lizards and such. Water snakes are creepy as hell.

Then we went back to the apartment and got the camera battery, and returned to the park for a brief photo shoot (because I am nothing if not a photography addict). The pictures are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/applegalette

They left Sunday afternoon a little after 4:00, then my parents and I went to the opening night of "White Christmas." This is one of my family's favorite Christmas movies. There was one really weird moment at the beginning where the main guy started singing the title song and, although it sounded good, I just kinda found it really jarring that he sounded nothing like Bing Crosby. Bing's voice is so distinctive, and that song is so iconic, I guess it was just a visceral reaction. Also, and this is a cultural/generational reaction, at first I was kinda thrown by the fact that these two super successful Broadway/performing stars (the two main male characters) had been in the army, since that's not the type of guy you associate with being in the army, but then I realized it was WWII, which a) had a draft and b) had incredible popular support, so pretty much everyone from most walks of life either enlisted or was drafted. But it was the first time that I'd really NOTICED the influence on my thought processes by the culture I've grown up in.

The desserts at the party were AMAZING. Since it was "White Christmas," all the desserts were white (sugar cookies, nutty cookies covered in powdered sugar, cheesecake, and, most importantly, white chocolate mousse). The chocolate mousse was so good, I had at least 3 (probably actually 4) of the little cups. And with the last one I had a cup of hot chocolate, and I discovered the amazingness of dipping the spoonful of white chocolate mousse in the hot chocolate before eating it. Wonderful. Writing about it right now makes me crave it...

But I get to bake pies tomorrow so hooray! I think I'm gonna leave here in 10 or so minutes so... yay! Thanksgiving!

Frozen Fingers!

Tonight my friend Emily and her friend Kali from college at Case Western showed up to stay with me. (And by "showed up" I mean this was planned about a month in advance). We decided to order in both pizza and Chinese food (twice as delicious!), then we watched the new episode of my cousin's show ("The Suite Life on Deck"), then we went out to the Empire State Building. It was EMPTY, which was wonderful! :) We walked right through up to the ticket counter, and tried to purchase youth tickets (12-17, and $2 cheaper than regular tickets). The lady demanded ID. She started accusing us of stuff. I didn't HAVE ID on me, otherwise I would have presented my old student ID and gotten the discount.
(My high school ID just says "2008" on it, indicating my year of graduation, but it could easily indicate the year it was issued). The lady kept demanding ID and being mean about it, and saying that we shouldn't say we're youth when we're not and that three "youths" shouldn't be walking around alone that late at night. First of all, if tomorrow is my 18th birthday, today I'm youth, tomorrow I'm not, but I change just about not at all as a person. Also, if I'm younger I'm less likely to have ID than if I'm older, since I can't get a driver's license and, although almost every school does now, not EVERY school gives an ID. Whatever. We made it to the top:
And then we went outside, where it was WINDY and COLD, especially since it's 86 stories up!I stupidly did not wear gloves.
The picture above is me cringing in pain after coming inside. My hands were so cold it actually hurt to warm them up!
Mirror picture! With lovely NYC lights in the background.
And, of course, our visit concluded with the obligatory trip to the gift shop! (we purchased nothing, of course, but did have some fun in there!)

Tomorrow is our Times Square adventure. Huzzah!

It's Beginning to Feel...

Last night I walked out of The Public, looked around, and saw a very impressive display of Christmas lights to the south. Instant smile. This morning as I was leaving my apartment building I saw some guys stringing lights up on the trees by the curb. It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I love it. It's also finally getting really cold, which is amazing (although it can get uncomfy for a California girl like me!). To me winter is what New York is supposed to be!

One of the other interns in our little intern office just called her boss on the phone to ask her a quesiton. I could hear both halves of the conversation just sitting here, since the offices are so open and close together. I found that amusing.

My friend Emily and her friend Kali from college and coming to visit me this weekend. It'll probably be exhausting, but fun. And it'll be good to pass the time this weekend until I get to go HOME next Wednesday for Thanksgiving (not that I don't go home ALL THE TIME, but it feels great every time I do!).