Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Homework

The last week has been pretty interesting for us Virginians, huh? (And most of the east coast/northeast, for that matter.) Nature is a fickle mistress, folks. Thankfully we don't have any damage to report, just a couple new chores for yours truly as I get to clean up the tree branches that fell in the backyard.

Kirsten + power tools = Sketchy at best.

For now, however, I'm pretending to finish a 3-4 page single-spaced paper for class Monday. It's weird, I've become so used to double-spaced papers that typing three pages single-spaced feels like a huge production. But really, I should stop dragging my feet and finish up because the Gent's on his way over and we're supposed to make Madelines, which won't happen if I don't have this paper done in time. It's a good thing I like sweets . . .

And for anyone reading (namely Ashley and Sam) I highly recommend setting up a "Belle & Sebastian" Pandora radio station. It may be the best decision I've made in a while. Take the last four songs to play, for example:

"Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" - Bob Dylan

"Cecelia" - Simon & Garfunkel

"Janglin'" - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

"Michelle" - The Beatles

It's good stuff, let me tell you.

Also good stuff: Chocolate bread a la Balthazar. I'll post the recipe once I get around to making some myself (sometimes it pays to live with your culinarily-inclined mother at 23-years old.)

Then and Now

...

Not much has changed.

New York, New York

So the fact that I'm updating this blog (finally) on a Saturday night may or may not be proof positive that I have virtually no life, but it must be done for me to feel justified in having taken roughly ten billion photos on my iPhone over the past few weeks . . . and having a certain someone groan at me almost every time.

Anyways, as I mentioned in the Keanu Reeves post, I have finally seen New York City and kind of, sort of, fell in love with it. Part of that may be because we stayed in an amazing home (designed in part by Robert and Cortney Novogratz, for you fellow design nerds!) in a great part of the city, but I remain steadfast in my opinion!

The first thing I had the opportunity to fall in love with in New York is the food, which I continued to fall in love with it over and over again during the next three days.

This is a shot from brunch at Balthazar, where we enjoyed the most spectacular (and expensive!) bread basket to ever grace my table. Some day, I will learn to bake their chocolate bread.

Monday night, we went to a vacant lot turned food truck and hipster hangout. Tacos with kimchi may sound strange, but trust me - they're a game changer. We need real (aka cheap) food trucks here in D.C.

(So there's not actually any food in this picture, but Republic Noodle was pretty awesome and I mean, look at that tie - someone should definitely give this gent a high paying job with reasonable hours and a good healthcare plan.)

This may have been my favorite meal of the trip - 3 different types of Bahn Mi sandwiches from a Vietnamese deli and gourmet rice pudding from Rice to Riches (don't knock it until you try it.) I would not, however, suggest the move '2012' unless you enjoy yelling at the TV about plot holes as much as we do.

The gent also tolerated - and to some extent encouraged - visiting the more touristy sites. Seeing as to the fact we only had about 72 hours in the city, some of which were consumed with things like sleeping, we took a fairly truncated tour of the city.

First stop: Central Park, possibly the only place in the world where bicyclists may actually be more dangerous than cars.

Second Stop: FAO Schwartz, for the sugar-crazed, materialistic child in each of us.

(This last one's for Tesha.)

Third through Remaining Stops: Places either on the way to or from somewhere else.

Tiffany's: Where men's bank accounts come to die.

Radio City Music Hall

30 Rockefeller Plaza, and its Lego facimile.

The most beautiful place on earth.

It's the J.Crew flagship(?) store, right across the street from an Anthropologie. Winning.

The Empire State Building

Grand Central Station

(and its absolutely amazing ceiling.)

The Highline - A park literally built on some old railroad tracks in Manhattan. It's beautiful, as you can clearly tell from this blurry, late-night camera phone picture.

Times Square, for roughly 2.5 seconds.

So I actually have about 50ish more pictures, but roughly 3/4 of those were taken in ABC Carpet & Home and fall under the "Things to Buy When I Have an Income and Home to Put Stuff In" and this post is already absurdly long so I'll spare you the remaining 1/4. The bottom line of this post is that life does in fact exist beyond northern Virginia, and public transit is cheaper there.

How to Make a Killing (or Just Kill Time)

I have returned from the city that never sleeps and enjoyed every moment of my trip (and every calorie consumed, of which there were many.) My iPhone has a number of photos that it is just bursting to share, but I am le tired and have little ingenuity with which to craft mildly interesting stories to share. In their stead, I give you very blurry iPhone pictures of the one and only Keanu Reeves. It's a teaser of sorts, if you will.

New York City - it's a pretty strange/beautiful/amazing/scary place.

Mea Culpa

I have some serious amends to make.

• First and foremost, I need to apologize to those lovely ladies in BV that I promised I would visit today; driving six hours in one day then immediately leaving for another five hour drive just proved to be too much for this sad little body of mine. I hope you're having an amazing time!!

• Second, I need to apologize to me fellow interns in chambers, to whom I promised homemade cupcakes and then failed to make because I spent Friday getting my (totally rad, but always breaking) car fixed.

• Third, I need to apologize to the Gent for being absolutely terrible at packing and a major procrastinator, because I have not packed for New York yet. Actually, that's not true; I tried to pack last night, but you would think a five-year old had done it because my bag is missing some essentials, like more than one shirt. And shoes that I can walk more than 100 yards in. And a toothbrush.

As of very early Friday morning, my summer officially ended. Two terrible (content and performance-wise) finals and a couple of very late nights made for a less-than-fun week, but it's over and I've done all that I could do. Now it's time to prepare for interview season and the fast-approaching fall semester. Onward and upward!

And this one's for Kelsey: remember Miles Fisher's cover of "This Must be the Place?" Well, I found this new music video on YouTube today. It may not be quite as amazing, but it's worth a listen. Or three.

Best Coast

I know it's early (in my terms, at least - waking up is not my forte) but I saw a snippet of a music video last night (on MTV! Gasp!) and kind of, sort of immediately fell in love with it. I looked it up first thing this morning, and it's got everything. You want the breakdown?

1 - Donald Glover. With a beard. Enough said.

2 - Chloe Moretz. Super talented, and super cute. No idea how they made her hair do that, but I'm intrigued.

3 - The fight scene toward the end is (in my opinion) perfectly choreographed - it's very stylized, but doesn't come off as "Step Up 4: Now with more Headspins!"

4 - Every time someone shoots a movie in that drainage ditch(?) setting, it makes me think of Grease, which may or may not have been my favorite movie growing up. In fact, I may or may not have worn an Olivia Newton-John style catsuit at one (or more) point(s) during that time period. Yes, I really was that awesome. Still want to be my friend?

5 - It manages to pack all the best parts of a doomed romance into 3 minutes and 30 seconds. It reminds me of West Side Story, for obvious reasons, but doesn't come off as a hokey remake of the story where Maria's a badass with a heart of gold. Well played, Drew Barrymore, well played.

. . . oh yeah, and the song's not bad either.

Okay, back to studying and wishing I weren't such a Sandy, pre-carnival.

Once More, with Feeling

One final down, and one to go before I can finally say summer is over. It might sound like a strange thing to say, but I'm pretty happy this summer is drawing to a close.

Back in May I had fooled myself into believing I was one of "those people" - the ones who are not only to do everything, but do everything fairly well. One terrible final and a very long, more than full-time internship later, I'm looking forward to the respite offered by a regular class schedule and two-day-a-week internship. At the same time, I've had the opportunity to do some pretty awesome things - like visit Utah for Lindsay's wedding - and look forward to spending some time this weekend with my friends of a more pseudo-southern persuasion (as much as possible!) and taking a short jaunt to New York City for a job interview next week. It hasn't been an easy summer, but I wouldn't change a thing (mostly for fear of inadvertently throwing off the universe's balance and sending us all hurtling into the nearest black hole . . . Hey, it could happen.)

Until then, however, here's a song for all of you.

So, this happened . . .

Sometimes it's kind of weird to be dating someone whose style is (fairly) close to your own. Like, for example, when something like this happens:

You can't see my shoes, but they're brown loafers. Just like his.

This is what we wore to brunch at the Fort Myer Officer's Club with Thad's family. No, it was not planned, and yes, we realized we were matching shortly before leaving. He refused to change out of principle* and, well, I don't make a habit of carrying spare outfits around so were were locked in with this awesomely awkward--and slightly patriotic--look.

You should know the first three attempts to take this picture were successfully photobombed by this little lady (who is actually not that little at all, but totally adorable nonethelesss):

This is Zephyr. She will race you up the stairs, take up all the space on the bed, and put her head in your dinner plate given half a chance.

She loves you.

Anyways, it's finals time (as in "I'm taking a final in approximately 2.5 hours") and I have studying to do. Hope the first of August is treating you well!

* His rationale was, "Well, my pants are more of a salmon and your skirt is fuschia. They're different." Love the fact that he actually reasoned it out.