Hello?

Does anyone still read this? I'm no longer in NY, and the apartment upstairs is currently vacant, but it seems daunting to start a whole new blog, so away we go!

We're famous!

I don't think I ever blogged about it, but Joe may have. Back in January, we went to a taping of the Maury Show. We actually got to see the taping of two shows. One was a paternity test show (you are NOT the father), and the other show was about cheating spouses/significant others (with lie detector tests!). We never bothered to call the Maury people to find out the air dates of the shows, because watching it once was more than enough.

Tonight we were watching t.v., and somehow started looking on the interwebs to see whether we could find the shows anywhere online. I was about ready to give up when I found this clip:

Pause the video at about 2:52, and admire the blue sweater and red sweater. That's us! And no, you can't see our faces. What this video also doesn't show, is that sitting right by our feet was one of the producers. She furiously wrote cue cards for the "guests" on the show, telling them when to be more confrontational, and reminding them to stick to the script. Yes, there is a script. We saw it.

Future tenants?

Joe and I are in our NY apartment for the last day and night, cleaning everything. This is the floor in our NY kitchen. When we moved in, the entire kitchen floor was the gray color. We thought the linoleum was a speckled gray color. We mopped the floor, and it was still the speckled gray color. But then one day, after living in NY for about 6 months, Joe accidentally spilled some concentrated cleaner on the floor, and a white spot appeared. Turns out, our floor was once, a long, long time ago, a speckled white linoleum. Once we realized this, we were pretty disgusted. Unfortunately, regular mopping stuff doesn't do the trick. I had a leftover Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and I used that on half of the kitchen floor today. You can tell where the magic eraser finally gave up and died.

The broker also came by today to show the apartment to someone while we were here. It was a couple about our age, and they did a quick walk-through while we chatted with the broker. I was trying to figure out a way to corner them to warn them about 6N and tell them to stay far away from this particular apartment. They were ready to leave pretty quickly, but not before they asked Joe a question about the bathtub leak, and the internet. The broker was rushing out the door while they were asking questions, so I mouthed to the potential tenant, "The upstairs neighbors have a drum set in their kitchen!!!" At least if they move in, they can't say no one warned them.

$15 Idea

In my last post, Joe asked for an example of an idea that I could sell. Well, not only do I have a sample idea that he could have bought from me, but it's an idea that could earn me some money too. I already ran the idea by Joe, and we're in agreement that this is a $15 idea, meaning that this is a Really Amazing Idea.

As most of you know, Joe and I are pretty thin people. When I'm stressed out, I forget to eat, and I've been kind of stressed out recently about our big move and starting my Real Job. I may have lost a little weight. However, with the start of my Real Job also comes the "joy" of a more sedentary lifestyle, in which I sit at a desk for about 40 hours per week. In anticipation of my future weight gain, I bought a Wii Fit yesterday. I figure it's cheaper than a gym membership, and I won't have to worry about waiting for the machines I like at a gym. Anyway, when I was inputting my information into the Wii Fit yesterday, it informed me that not only do I have the balance of a 40 year old, but I have the balance of an underweight 40 year old. My Wii Fit proposed that to combat this, I do some strength training in order to build muscle mass. I had a different solution, though, and came home from work and had two brownies and a beer, then nachos and a glass of wine.

This is approximately how many brownies I've eaten today:
Anyway, my money-making idea is to start Mandy and Joe's Fat Camp. For the small price of $5,000 per month, you can find out the secret to staying thin and not depriving yourself. I think $5,000 is a fair price to pay. It's a sleepover camp, so Fat Campers would get to stay in the extra bedroom, and the price also includes the cost of food. We'd discount the price if the Fat Camper was willing to do some housework during the day while we're at work, or run errands. The only drawback to this idea is that it's possible that at the end of the first month, the Fat Camper will find out that Joe and I are just metabolically blessed. That's why there won't be a money-back guarantee.

I still haven't been forgiven, so you get to see a picture of my other cat.

The cat with the shoe fetish. I promise that this is the last cat picture I'll post. Until my next trip to Maine. Tomorrow we move onto more important things, namely how few days left we have living under 6N and how my happiness seems to be correlated to the amount of time left in this apartment. I'm also happy because I checked our new building's website, and as of today, we don't have upstairs neighbors!!

I'm sorry Newtster!

Yes, you GET to see pictures of my cats! X-ray cat!

Possible Tourist Endeavor

There are only a few days left in NY, and Joe and I have been trying to figure out if there are any touristy things left that we should do before the move. We talked about getting up really early on Thursday or Friday and going to the Today Show. I said that if we're going to get up that early, we need to bring a great sign to make sure that we make it on TV. Here are just a couple ideas so far:
I'm not quite satisfied with any of them yet, except maybe the third. So, if you can come up with something spectacular enough to be on TV (I'm looking at you, Justin), I'll turn it into a poster, and I promise we'll get up super early and go try and win Al Roker's heart on Thursday or Friday morning.

I spent a week with the cats in Maine, and I'm not even going to post pictures of the cats. So there, Newton.

Sorry for the absence, I was vacationing for the last time before the big move and the start of my new job.  When Joe told one of his friends that I was in Maine for the week, the friend's comment was, "Oh no, does that mean she's only going to blog about her cats for the entire week?"  I took that as a hint that it would be okay to take a brief vacation from the blog, too.  Instead of showing you pictures of my cats, here's a picture from the top of Mt. Agamenticus, taken on the one sunny day of my trip.

The votes are in (again), and it's almost unanimous that I should turn this blog over to the future residents of apartment 5N.  I'm excited about this result, and I'm hoping that the future 5Ners have a solid grasp of the English language and are good enough sports to at least post and say hi.  The NY lease isn't up for awhile though, so don't expect to hear anything from Future 5N until at least August. In the meantime, expect to hear more about what I've been doing to keep the noise from above from getting on my nerves.

In closing, here is a picture of the NY sky a few minutes ago.
And another:

Reason #2 why it's dumb to put coffee in a bag

Yesterday was another rainy day in NYC, which has been pretty standard for the past couple weeks.  After packing a few boxes for our upcoming move (!!!), I decided to reward my hard work with coffee and a sugary treat, so I headed out to Sugar & Joe, a relatively new Sunnyside establishment that seems to specialize in coffee and sugary things.

It was about a ten minute walk to get there, and I was pretty soaked once I arrived.  I couldn't decide what treat I wanted, so I figured I'd get one for then, and one for later so that I wouldn't have to venture out again in the rain.  I chose a lemon cupcake, and a s'mores bar, in addition to my coffee.  Each sugary confection was placed in an individual plastic container, and then both containers were put in a paper bag.  I managed to stop the woman before she put my coffee in a separate paper bag.

Since it was pouring out, of course the paper bag holding my treats started to get soaked. I wore a raincoat instead of taking an umbrella, which was my own mistake, but the raincoat allows me to use both hands to carry coffee and cupcakes. Anyway, as you can see, I didn't make it all the way home before the paper bag just gave out, and my loot fell to the sidewalk. I was crushed, because the container holding the s'mores bar popped open, and it fell on the sidewalk. I was really glad my coffee made it unscathed, and I learned that it's always better to buy two treats, because if you drop the only cupcake you buy, well, that's even more soul-crushing.

Unfortunately, I probably missed out on the better of the two treats. I assume I did anyway, because the cupcake was really bad. The cake part was vanilla/bland-ish, and very dry. The icing was lemony, but it was kind of hard and unremarkable. I definitely wouldn't buy another cupcake there, and I don't think I'm very difficult to please when it comes to cupcakes.

The band so far

I've only received two responses to my request to start a band.  Not too shabby, considering tons of people post in the musicians section of NYC Craigslist.  When I first posted the ad, I almost included a line about how if the band didn't work out, the person should at least be up for drinking some beer.  Turns out that maybe I should have included that line, because the first response I got was from a girl in high school.  Aside from the age, she does have a knowledge of physics (though she said she doesn't want to be in the class, so protests by reading comic books in the back...not sure that qualifies, but hey, at least she read the ad!).  Unfortunately, she plays the keyboard and sings, and wants to make "truly beautiful music."  I just can't allow a high schooler with true musical aspirations into my new "band," because she's never had to rent her own apartment, so I'm not sure that she quite understands the real purpose of my band.  Plus, it's creepy to hang out with a high schooler that you meet on Craigslist, even if it is to be in a band.

The second response, from Frank, was much more promising although he used a lot of emoticons in his response, which always makes me a bit wary.  He sings, but not very well, and is a beginner on the electric guitar.  His musical inspirations include Three Doors Down and Breaking Benjamin, and he wants to play music like that.  Besides the excessive emoticons, he seems like a keeper for the band, mainly because I think his musical tastes will be recognizable to 6N.  He also included a "p.s. say hello to your neighbors!", which I found amusing.

This cat sits in the hallway in our building a lot.  As soon as it sees you, it starts hissing.  I thought it looked funny sitting under the umbrella, so I took a picture, and even managed to capture the evil in his eyes.  Or I just had the camera on the wrong flash setting.

I'm starting a band!

After figuring out yesterday that our management company has done nothing about the noise problem upstairs, I decided to use my legal research skills to read up on a few NY cases about noisy neighbors. Turns out that tenants in NYC seem to have no right to quiet, and that part of the "price" of living in a big city is dealing with noisy neighbors. And here I thought the price of living in the city was the rent I paid every month. Anyway, it seems that as long as the noise ends by around 11 p.m., courts have found that neighbors can play musical instruments, including drums, as long as their lease doesn't prohibit it. Mine doesn't prohibit it, so we're pretty much screwed in terms of enjoying any quiet in our apartment.

Rather than being upset, this information actually makes me feel a little bit better because now I know that at the very least, I don't have rights that are being violated. As a lawyer (not barred in NY though, and none of what I write is legal advice anyway!), it would really make me angry if I had rights that were being violated. Now I realize that I'm just oppressed, and what better way to rebel against oppression than to start a band? Change things through music, right?

As usual, click to make it bigger and be able to read it, it's easiest to just post Craigslist ads by taking a screenshot.

Does anyone have any good ideas about what I can name my new band?

And the votes are in! All three of them.

I have two votes to turn the blog over to the future residents of 5N (let's hope they can read/write English!), and one vote for "other". The person who chose "other" did not elaborate on what they thought I should do with the blog, though. I'm pretty sure Justin, my most frequent commenter, didn't vote. I extended the time for voting by another week just for Justin, although also because Blogger just randomly decided on the first end date for the poll.

In other news about me, I've been having a pretty bad and boring week, so I tried to turn my frown upside down by taking a walk to the bakery this morning for coffee and a chocolate croissant. The bakery lady put my croissant in one little paper bag, put my coffee in another little paper bag, and then put both paper bags inside a plastic bag. The whole "putting the cup of coffee in a bag" thing is something I've only seen in New York, and frankly, I just don't get it. Since the notion of putting a cup of coffee in a bag to make it easier to carry is so absurd to me, I often forget to speak up in time to stop the person from putting my coffee in a bag. I'm much more paranoid about spilling my coffee when I'm carrying it around in a bag than when I'm just carrying the cup.

Anyway, on my 15 minute walk home from the bakery I was convinced that my coffee was going to spill inside the bag and get my croissant all wet, which would mean that my frown would stay a frown. By the time I got home and took everything out of the plastic bag, this is what my croissant bag looked like:

I started to get a little upset with myself for not taking the coffee out of the bag, but then I realized that the croissant bag wasn't wet. The marks on it are just the butter/grease from the croissant, and for a few minutes this morning, everything was delicious and right with the world again.

State of the Future of My Blog

Dearest Readers,

It's approaching that time. The time I've been waiting for since about two days after I moved to New York. It's almost time to move out from underneath apartment 6N. I am writing this now, because we have an important decision to make in the next few weeks. Namely, what am I supposed to do with a blog that I started because of my obnoxious upstairs neighbors when I no longer have obnoxious upstairs neighbors (as of July 4)?

You will notice that there is now a poll in my sidebar, so that you, the three readers who have been regaled with my tales about the drumming from above, the terrible taste in music that 6Ners have, the six to seven people who live in a one-bedroom apartment above me, as well as my other random thoughts, can choose the fate of this blog. If you have other ideas, please make them known in a comment.

Sincerely,

Mandy

P.S. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying I won't have obnoxious upstairs neighbors in the new place. It's entirely possible that I will. I was promised by the leasing agent that they'd have to drop something very heavy for me to know they're up there, though. Something heavy like a piano.

Road trip recap

My most loyal reader and commenter, Justin, visited Joe and I in NY this weekend. The three of us rode together from DC to NY, and bad traffic meant that we were in the car together for about six hours. After the first hour, we decided our conversation should be recorded for posterity. Since the entire car ride takes up about three single-spaced pages, I am only including the highlights here.

6:11 p.m.: Justin and Joe discuss where the nearest Sonic is. In the following minute, Cookout, Bojangles, and Quizno’s are mentioned.
6:12 p.m.: Joe bitches about price of Quizno’s sandwich and mentions Butcher Block (Irish deli in NY).
6:14 p.m.: Joe debates stopping at Chik-Fil-A.
6:15 p.m.: Justin mentions Sbarro.
6:16 p.m.: I mention to Justin and Joe that in the past 5 minutes, they’ve mentioned at least 6 food places.
6:17 p.m.: Joe’s foot is warm. Justin offers to blow on it.
6:27 p.m.: Justin wasn’t 5 feet tall until the 10th grade. Joe’s growth spurt was in 9th grade. Mandy was taller in 6th grade than Justin was in 10th.
6:28 p.m.: Justin tells vulgar joke about his college growth spurt.
6:38 p.m.: Joe wants ice cream. Or protein.
6:39 p.m.: Joe wishes he had a banana.
6:57 p.m.: Justin tells us about an idea for an I “sorta kinda like” NY shirt, where the words “sorta kinda like” are in the shape of a heart, and in red letters.
7:07 p.m.: Kevin Smith wanted Superman to battle a giant spider. Giant spider instead appeared in Wild Wild West (and Harry Potter).
7:14 p.m.: See Chik-Fil-A sign.
7:14 p.m.: Joe drives to Chik-Fil-A exit.
7:15 p.m.: Discussion of Chik-Fil-A shakes. Joe likes chocolate. I think it tastes fake.
7:17 p.m.: Justin loves mayonnaise.
7:17 p.m.: Justin tries to convince Joe and I that a peanut butter, banana and mayonnaise sandwich is great. We don’t believe him.
7:43 p.m.: I finish eating, so does Justin. While eating, we discussed Justin getting a picture of himself sitting on Santa’s lap and sending it as a Christmas card.
7:44 p.m.: Joe’s milkshake straw not functioning well. Justin suggests using a chicken nugget to scoop it up.
7:50 p.m.: Observe that traffic is moving much better now, but we’re still in Maryland. Christian fast food places fix traffic problems.
8:04 p.m.: Justin is annoyed by Joe’s milkshake sucking noises.
8:05 p.m.: “Water Shed” is what Justin calls himself in the shower.
8:10 p.m.: Drive by guy driving while wearing a red graduation cap and gown.
8:18 p.m.: Justin may now be an uncle. We are all quieter, possibly in food comas.
8:22 p.m.: Welcome to NJ. We were in Delaware for 16 minutes.
8:24 p.m.: Justin and Joe have discussion about Jeff Teague while I text message a friend. In my mind, no Wake Forest moment will ever top the time Chris Paul punched that guy in the balls.
8:29 p.m.: Joe asks if Riley Skinner’s “skinner” was better. Nope.
8:39 p.m.: C3PO was gay.
8:44 p.m.: Justin makes another vulgar joke, worse than the first. He will be a bad
influence on his new nephew.
9:05 p.m.: Justin goes through a family pack of chicken every few days.
9:38 p.m.: Noticed that I lost my pen.. Joe gave me another one. Oh yay, I can keep being secretary.
9:45 p.m.: Justin tells us about old Winston-Salem slogans.
9:50 p.m.: I try to play anagrams with Winston-Salem. Slam wine snot; slam lots wine
9:56 p.m.: Male won snits
10:02 p.m.: Decide someone should start a “Little Canada”
10:02-10:09 p.m.: Discuss every possible touristy thing to do in NY.
10:22 p.m.: Notice that the boat in front of us is called the “Lusty Squid.”
10:28 p.m.: Wet mans loins
10:35 p.m.: Justin is intrigued by Giovanni’s Pizza, which serves tacos, burritos, tortas, tamales and guaraches.
10:35 p.m.: Joe explains street numbering in Queens to Justin, and explains that it bears no relation to Manhattan street numbering. I don’t think Justin cares.

Now that you've made it to the end of some of the more entertaining snippets of our conversations, let me reward you with a very blurry picture I took when we finally made it onto the Verrazano Bridge.

Don't worry, my first "grown-up job" purchase will be a digital SLR.

I'm too clean for the NY subways

This weekend one of my college friends came to the city for a little visit. She works for a well-known environmental organization, which I'll call Preengeace, and she has some excellent stories to tell about her job. Of all the people I talk to regularly, I think her job and organization are the most fascinating.

While we were riding the subway during her visit, she was approached by a possibly intoxicated man (it was about 3 p.m.), and questioned about a necklace she was wearing. Side story about the necklace-it was given to her as a gift, and is made of coral. She doesn't wear the necklace at home or work but figured she could wear it while visiting, since she knew we weren't about to lecture her, of all people, about sustainability of coral jewelry. I wouldn't have even known what it was made of if she hadn't told me, but I'm more into blood diamonds than coral.

At least it wasn't a necklace made from this poor whale's missing teeth.

Anyway, she admitted to the man that yes, her necklace was made of coral. Then he launched into an incoherent babble about the environment, something about how he used to be a sea man (at this point, his diatribe made me think of the South Park episode with the Sea People and it was hard to keep a straight face), and how "girls like you, with your clean clothes and your detergents, they go in the water....blah blah.....incoherent ramble....fish....another mention of detergent and clean clothes and girls." I expect that this is the only incident where someone on the NY subway will complain that I'm TOO clean.

This incident made me realize that I need to apologize to all of you for being female. I guess I'm slowly killing you all with my clean clothes and laundry detergent, since there are absolutely no environmentally friendly detergents on the market.

Tourist Saturday

On Saturday afternoon Joe and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, to go eat pizza at Grimaldi's, killing two tourist birds with one stone.

While walking across the bridge, we ran into Hobo Gary, who was going to meet us for dinner. It was a moment reminiscent of the Sex and the City movie when Miranda and Steve meet on the Brooklyn Bridge after they decide to stay together, even though Miranda was kind of bitchy to Steve and Steve cheated on her. Our moment was better though, because we haven't cheated on Hobo Gary, and Hobo Gary isn't bitchy.

The wait in line for Grimaldi's was about 1.5 hours. During that time, I decided that it would be a good idea for someone with a lot of money to rent the vacant space next to Grimaldi's and open another pizza place called Grimaldo's. I think it's close enough that at least some tourists would accidentally go to Grimaldo's. Even if they're not confused, after waiting in line at Grimaldi's for an hour, they'll be willing to try Grimaldo's.

Chocolate Delights

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that I was going to do something fabulous with some of the leftover bacon. This morning I went out and acquired the remaining necessary ingredient, and a few minutes ago, I declared Project Bacon to be a smashing success.

I made chocolate covered bacon. I like bacon, but the prospect of eating plain old bacon for a few days in a row wasn't that exciting. I scoured the internets for things that I could do with the bacon, and found a few recipes for chocolate covered bacon. I didn't want a fancy recipe because it sounded like chocolate covered bacon was either going to be a bit hit, or a huge miss, so I didn't want to invest any more money than necessary into the project. In the end, I didn't follow any particular recipe, because it doesn't take a genius to melt chocolate.

So, I went out and bought a plain old Hershey bar, and chopped about half of it into small pieces. While I did that, I threw four pieces of bacon in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. I know I like my bacon crispy anyway, but it really needs to be crispy for this, because I think chewy chocolate covered bacon is a guaranteed disaster. Anyway, when the bacon was about done, I threw the chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds total (be careful not to burn it if you melt it in the microwave!).


Then I broke the bacon into pieces and dipped it in the chocolate, coating both sides, and then I put it in the fridge to give the chocolate a chance to solidify. This was a good time to do a little sampling of my project, because a few of the pieces broke a little bit in the chocolate since they were so crispy.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. If you like sweet and salty combinations (chocolate covered pretzels), and if you like chocolate, and you like bacon, there's a chance you'll like chocolate covered bacon.

There's an app for that

Don't take this post the wrong way, because ever since I've been an unhappy AT&T wireless customer, I've wished that I'd just gone ahead and gotten an iphone instead of the one that I bought. But last night I was watching t.v., and an iphone commercial came on:



As the narrator was busy telling me that there's an app that can tell me ski conditions, the amount of calories in my lunch, and print a UPS label for me, all I could think was, "yes, and that app is called the INTERNET." If I'm not mistaken, I believe that "app" is included in the data plan that AT&T requires you to purchase.

Bacon art

Last weekend Joe told me that because I was studying for finals, he'd make me whatever I wanted for dinner. I opted for macaroni and cheese, because we hadn't made it for awhile and it's delicious. When we make it we always throw in about four pieces of bacon. Since Joe is back in DC for the week, and our freezer is on its last legs, this means that I am forced to eat a lot of bacon this week.

I think I'm one of those people who's always stressed out about something, so yesterday when I got home from my last final exam ever, I made myself an enormous "To Do" list. I love making "To Do" lists, and I usually break annoying tasks down into smaller ones on the list, so that I can cross more things off and feel accomplished. Yesterday I almost put "Eat bacon" on my list.

I would like a bacon dispensing machine.

I was telling this tale to Joe tonight, and I also mentioned that I'm going to use some of the remaining bacon for something fantastic, which will be kept secret until I get everything I need for Project Bacon. I expect Project Bacon will take place tomorrow afternoon, and once it is complete, I will promptly photograph it, eat it, and blog about it. Joe asked if my project was a bacon weave. It's not. During our conversation, we somehow decided that I should use the bacon to make bacon animals, and ask our friend (formerly known as) Hobo Gary, who is a curator at a museum, if he would put my bacon animals in an upcoming Very Important Show that he's working on. Well, Hobo Gary, will you put my bacon animals in the show?

Finals are over, this is what I'm doing

Actually, I'm having a beer, not a glass of wine poured into a glass by a barfing chicken. But I do love my barfing chicken pitcher, and I don't really have any other pictures to share with you at the moment.

Expect more posts in the future, now that I've got nothing but time for the next 7 weeks. So, if there's anything in particular that you always wanted to me to blog about, or if you want me to learn about a specific topic and report back to you, just let me know! Because otherwise I'll just be writing the pilot episode of my tax law show. Right now I'm picturing Samuel L. Jackson playing the IRS Special Agent (the one with the gun), but I worry that it will wind up being very similar to Law & Order, except with tax law instead of criminal and Samuel L. Jackson instead of Ice-T.