My friend Harry had an extra ticket to a Mets game and invited me to come along. We lost horribly, but I did enjoy the awesome Jason Bay triple! During the seventh inning stretch, the Mets apple ascends. I am a fan, but not nearly as big a fan as I am of the singing baseball at the Reno Aces stadium. There’s something endearing about that inflatable, bouncing thing.
GRACIE!!!! The cutest little puppy! Her mom was having the apartment sprayed for cockroaches. So Gracie came to spend the day with us, and she is far too cute to be in those scary metal cages with all those twitching post-surgery dogs. I brought her up to the front desk to be my assistant for the day. This job is definitely not the last I’ll ever have, but some days I love it.
In the background is about 70% of the files we have. Two things about this. ONE. This is why I get an attitude when clients call and say either “It’s me” or “This is Lily’s mom.” We have close to 6,000 active clients. I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I also don’t know your pet’s entire medical history. These people honestly expect this amount of information to be sufficient. I think because they are wealthy, they honestly believe that the rest of the world is at their beck and call. TWO. Is this 1983? How are a group of successful veterinarians so technologically inept? I have been actively dragging my employers into the 21st century with baby steps that I am practically forcing on them. When they ask me to get them the binders of allergy serum orders, I open up the categorized Word document and tell them that yeah, this computer thing is here to stay.
“Wow, this is so much easier to use and organize!” They often say to me.
I deserve a raise. Just sayin’.
The internet that I had been stealing at my apartment suddenly became password protected. So I spent this Sunday at my old haunt, Think Coffee. I still think they have the best Iced Coffee in the city. I’ve spent some quality time with former co-workers that no longer work there. But I hadn’t been in to see the people that still work there for a long time, so I also spent a lot of time at the espresso bar catching up with everyone. I always mean to hang out there more but have been so busy the last couple of months that it never worked out.
Kayla and I hit up the “Museum of New York” in Lower Harlem. They had this amazing documentary about the evolution of New York (or Little Amsterdam as it was originally known before the British kicked the Dutch out). It was interesting to see exactly how New York became such a center of industry, culture, wealth, immigration, etc. It kind of all boils down to the setting of regular shipping schedules between New York and London. Now I know!
Oh yes, it’s ladies night, and the feeling’s right. I went out with my co-workers on this rainy Friday. We got manicures and cocktails at Beauty Bar, then headed out to another bar around the counter. Mercedes, who recently moved here from the Philippines, kept buying round after round of Malibu Rum shots, while shouting “This is what life in Manila is like!”
At one point “Billy Jean” came on the stereo, and I confessed that I knew the entire dance by heart. Junie, who is pictured to the left, also knew it by heart. We cleared some room in the bar and bust out our moves. Unfortunately Fortunately, someone grabbed my camera and documented the entire thing. Oddly enough, this is the least embarrassing picture of the bunch.
I made this for my photoshop class. We had to do a composite. Like I’ve said before, I really don’t have much of a knack for visual art. I LOVE art, but I just can’t create visually pleasing things. So this was what I came up with. I call it “Puppy Garden.” For some reason, my teacher thought it was hilarious and decided to use it as an example to show the class, then point at me to congratulate me on a job well done. I hadn’t really talked to many of the people in my class, so this was their introduction into who I am. Soooooo, when our next assignment was to make the cover of a novel about our life, I threw any shame I had out the window and made this:
Why, yes, I am the coolest photoshopper ever.
Some friends and I went to dinner in Midtown-ish area. As we left and headed back to the subway, we saw this across the span of city streets. I know I just posted a sunset picture but c’mon! How could the other pictures I took that day possibly compare.
I went to a UW alumni “happy hour” in Midtown. I had only been to one before. I always feel out of place, but then a beer or two sets in, and everything becomes peachy keen.
Not the crispest picture I’ve ever taken. But, you gotta love that summer light! I work late on Mondays, but it is still nice to leave work and still experience some vestigial sun rays.
My grandmother passed away when I was 15, and I guess I never got to know her as well as I now wish I had. I have memories of baking brownies with her, the way she smelled of cigarettes and way too much perfume, and I distinctly remember her laugh. In my adult life, I know her mainly in the context of my grandfather’s loss. They were crazy in love their whole lives. They went through difficult times together, losing a child, poverty, and her Parkinson’s at the end of her life. But they loved each other and supported each other their entire lives. She died in her sleep, in his arms, where (I believe) she was happiest. Isn’t that what we all aspire to?
In the early stages of my break-up, I was sobbing to my mother about how I couldn’t believe he could just up and leave me.
“It happened to Grandma,” my mom told me. I was flabbergasted. I had never heard of this. I had no idea. My grandmother and grandfather were two peas in a pod. I had never heard of there ever being someone else.
But my grandmother had a first love. He went off to World War II and wrote her a letter from his training camp saying he had met someone else, that it was over. She was devastated. But, she decided she was done with men forever. She was going to be a career girl. In the 1940’s that meant going to secretary school. She worked hard and eventually became lead secretary at the office where she worked. She traveled all over the country, worked on a dude ranch, and in the above picture went sailing. (She’s on the left.) Then on a random night out with friends, my grandfather (who was actually supposed to go across the street and meet another girl) approached her and never turned back.
My mom sent me this picture, and I keep it by my window.
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