White Pants = Start of Summer

So now that summer is here, I wear my white pants. I love white jeans, white pants, white in the summer. Having Memorial Day off and a 4-day work week makes me think (makes everyone think) that we should have 3-day weekends al the time. What day would be best, no Fridays or Mondays? I think we are all much more productive during the week and show up bright-eyed and rested on Monday. Or will it be Tuesday?

I've been rollerblading in the school parking lot by my house everyday for about 30 minutes. I feel SO good after, and I actually look forward to it. Along with eating less, and making smart meal choices (I am always less hungry in the summer anyway) I have noticed a significant change in my body, energy, and mood. The past few weeks have been great. I'm making more train friends, more office building friends, and I have nothing to complain about!

On Friday, Kay and I got sandwiches/sushi from Garden of Eden on 14th and ate them in Union Square Park on the steps. I bought a jar of nutella also and I'm embarassed to say the whole thing was gone by Saturday night. It's just so delicious. I've noticed myself getting some freckles and a little bit of color from sitting/walking around outside. That's usually how you get the best sun. Kay and I sat in the sun on Friday and watched all the USQ park crazies doing their thing. There was a zumba/cha cha class behind us with young women dressed in black pants and white tank tops- we thought it might be a flash mob! Then this short, scrawny guy in a huge basketball jersey was carrying the BIGGEST boom box I have ever seen. I don't know how he carried it. The greenmarket was packed and the flowers are gorgeous, the food and herbs smell so good. It makes you want to cook.

Saturday my neighbor Jessica had her babyshower at an Italian restaurant in my town. Her and her husband, and her mother moved away a few years ago but are still very much involved with their friends on LI. She's having a boy named Carter in August, and the theme was Owls. We had a delicious owl cake - yellow cake with blue and red fondant and a huge rice krispies model of an owl at the top. It always seems though, that party rooms for these kinds of events are always too small for the amount of people invited.

Sunday my parents went to a Gritalian wedding (Greek and Italian) at a Marina in the Bronx so I intensely spring cleaned my room while listening to tunes and eating Texas toast. I de-cluttered a little and dusted. I even cleaned my mini-blinds. It was not as annoying as I expected. The wedding was crazy with tons of courses, fresh mozzarella being made at the cocktail hour, fireworks, delicious food and tons of pastries. They had fun and it lasted all night.

I was rested and ready for Monday, surprisingly!!

Flying Kites for Lung Cancer

Memorial Day weekend was so relaxing. Summer Fridays started at the office, meaning we get out at 3pm each Friday of the summer until Labor Day. But since it was a holiday weekend, we got out at 1pm!! The LIRR/Penn Station was packed with commuters headed home to Long Island, and vacationers taking the train to JFK, the Hamptons, Montauk, and Jones Beach. It was a fight to the death to get a seat, which there weren't many of due to the huge suitcases and duffel bags people brought on with them. I luckily got a seat. 

I rollerbladed for a little after getting my car washed and then went to bed early. Saturday morning I drove to Southampton and went to a big lunch my boss was hosting at her house. Her family has a charity called Uniting Against Lung Cancer and later that day, hundreds of people were expected to show up at Cooper's Beach to fly a kite for the cause. Since everyone migrated to the Hamptons Thursday and Friday, my ride out was just under an hour, an hour of the same long, sceneless road. Upon entering the Hamptons, a fog started to set in, and there was haze everywhere. The beach was windy and hazy, but people started to show up. The kite fly started at 4pm and ran until 6pm. WHEM, a radio station out there, broadcast from the beach and had games and contests. There were free water bottles and Tate's cookies, which surprisingly, I only had one of. My hair was flying all over the place and it was a little cool but it was nice to be able to celebrate the start of summer. We had a great turn out and raised a ton of money for the organization!

Here are some pictures of me and the event-volunteers taken by Lifetime Photography.

 

Madison Square Eats!!

  My friend and Tridelt sister Kay and I went to to Mad Sq Eats today for lunch. It's located in the square adjacent to the park on the west side of Broadway and 23rd Street. It was such a sunny New York thing to do and I feel like we should have been in the midst of filming a romantic comedy. On the way there shed waved to a bike riding Statue of Liberty. Our first stop was Asia Dog where Kay got the vihn dog, and I got the pulled pork sammy. We both love our hot dogs, but the ones I deemed safe to try were already sold out. Perhaps I will have to go back! It was so nice to get out for lunch and talk with a girlfriend, since we're all so busy usually lunch is just done solo. After our delicious lunch at a coveted table, Kay was sweet and got cannolis from Stuffed Artisan Cannoli for her office and I got a blackberry mint ice pop from People's Pops. The man who worked at People's Pops complimented me on my pink cotton dress and it made me so happy! I like when people make you feel good :) The cannolis reminded me of ones I read about in Kelsey's Italiano Blog, although those were in Italy. Hey, this booth was near Eataly...

  It was a great way to spend the day before summer's kick-off weekend.

It also appears that not only do I have the three musketeers (Ramish, Tony and Manuel) downstairs, but Alice and Connie (from 201) and now a new friend Seth from 204. We met in the hallway today and he's from Long Island also! Yay for new office building friends.

Iconic Fashion

I wish there was more of this elegance in the world.

reblogged from Bourbon and Pearls: An evening gown from Madame Grès in 1954

Wild Subway Ride

We're all wearing dresses and sandals, and soon white pants will make an appearance (at least for those who haven't already broken the no white before Memorial Day rule). You all know how much I love cupcakes and how I travel on my lunch break to different cupcake shops around the city. There is one I knew about but was reminded by from my LIRR-friend Bert's food blog (Phoodographs and Finds), called Little Cupcake Bakeshop. There are two locations, one in Brooklyn and the other in SoHo.

Since it's so nice out, I decided to go there on my lunch break, Prince Street on the N or R Train.
SoHo seems to always be crowded no matter what, but going west from the subway stop, it was more shady and tree-lined, and not so congested - really cute. I passed two restaurants I would love to try soon, one is called Soho Park and the other, right across the street, is called Delicatessan. They're casual chic restaurants with doors opening out to sidewalk patios, and both were hoppin'! I get on the 6 train at Union Square- it's weird they have moving plates on the floor because the trains are at a tilt, and there's a HUGE "mind the gap" worthy hole between the train and the platform. When the train stops the plates shoot under the train so people can get on and off! - and it says it's going to the Brooklyn Bridge...I know there are more stops before that so I thought I was ok. Turns out the train flew past all the other stops and ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge stop. Luckily Broadway and the R was just a short block away from there and so I made it to Soho, and walked to the cupcake shop!! The girl was lovely, we had a conversation about how she is sick of wearing sweats to work, I'm sick of wearing jeans to work, and we are both glad it's time for dresses!

I decided on a blue velvet cupcake since it was one I have never tried before. Its a mix of blueberry and cream cheese frosting, kind of like eating a smurf! It was PERFECT. Soft, full of flavor, the icing was the perfect consistency, and that was a great flavor too - not too creamcheesey. And I made it back to the office on time. Snaps!

(Enjoy some summer tunes- my friend Katie and I love this song: Corrs- Summer Sunshine)



Gold!! ....and other things

   As much as I have tried to fight it, not only have I become a coffee girl, I've become a Starbucks coffee girl. It's a relatively new thing, within the past year or so, that I have used a sweet iced coffee to cool me down, to save me from the doldrums, from falling asleep. I've embarassingly enough, gotten to know all of the workers in the Starbucks by my office in Union Square, one of three! In November I registered a Starbucks card and since then, it's been a total competition with myself to get those 30 stars. A few weeks ago, I hit gold!!!! I'm almost to my first free drink. Yesterday I came home and my gold card was waiting in the mail. It's so pretty and it has my name printed on it. Maybe we should write a press release at work about me claiming this awesome "piece of real estate" haha.

  Yesterday was so humid and my shoes were literally sticking to my feet, and it was terribly painful. I have to find a a cheap, pretty pair of those convenient roll up flats they sell for women. I went to the record store during lunch again, where the A/C was full blast...aahhh :) I looked through their $2 bins and found mostly old Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross and unheard of bands, but I hit gold again when I was at the end...the debut album by Boston. I originally heard about them through the CW show Supernatural, because Sam and Dean love to listen to this type of music on the road to their ghost hunts. For $2, it was so worth it, and Peace of Mind/More Than a Feeling never sounded better than they did on the turnstile. I love browsing the record store, it makes me feel like i'm in the Vinyl Crocodile from American Dreams.

  On the way back to the office, the Sabras hummus truck was there handing out free hummus samples with bags of Stacy's Barely Naked chips. YUM. The perfect combo of salt, texture and crunch was a nice afternoon surprise snack. Paired with my iced coffee of course. I also walked past this crazy woman on a bike with a basket full of junk yelling "don't raise a fist, be a species-ist".On the subway ride home, this man in a suit rambled on about how he lives in the subway and the MTA gave him this suit so he can preach to the riders about his careers. Then someone gave him money. I wonder if these people wake up and decide to be a crazy ranter, or its spontaneous.

Blue York City Building

http://elianatomas.blogspot.com/

Thought this photo I found on the blog (link above) was the epitome of "blue york city!"