Sweet Blog O'Mine

Category: Fun

  • A.W.O.L.

    After walking around in agony since Wednesday morning, I made the executive decision to skip boot camp this morning in exchange for more sleep and a Pilates video.  I am still so ridiculously sore that I’m moving like an 80-year-old woman — this weekend I’ll attempt some light cardio, go to yoga with Nikki to stretch out all the creakiness, and I believe that a good, solid schvitz is in order.  After all that and some decent rest, I think I’ll be ready to re-enlist at 6 a.m. Monday morning. 

    Wednesday night I had the pleasure of eating at my friend Ron’s new restaurant with Erika and Jeremy. Pair of 8’s, on the Upper West Side, is going to be a huge success — on their second night they were already full and turning people away.  They have a fantastic special on Monday nights: $25 prix fixe for two courses and a drink. It might even be enough to make me go uptown more often.
    Congrats, Ron!  Last night I had the pleasure of attending an awards ceremony where one of the associates at my firm was honored for her inspirational pro bono work on behalf of domestic violence victims for Sanctuary for Families.  Yay, Hannah!  After that, I had a top secret meeting with a fellow Vendy Award judge to determine our criteria for next week’s event — go buy your tickets! 

    Tonight I’m hosting a wine tasting dinner with Jenn, Vivian, and Melissa.  At our last one, we went through six bottles of wine among the four of us, so I’m definitely looking forward to this one!  Now, I just need to figure out how I’m going to clean up this pigsty of an apartment and buy dinner (pumpkin ravioli with sage and brown butter) sometime before 8:00 tonight . . .

  • Yeehaw!

    Believe it or not, I went square dancing last night.  Many thanks to Sean for being up for the adventure.  We’re going to recruit a large group next time and make an event out of it, so get ready.  We also discovered (thanks to a tip from Nicole), the Leela Lounge, a great new upscale Indian restaurant right nearby.  More on that later.  And for those of you who asked (Dad), yes, I’m still doing boot camp.  It’s not getting any easier and I still come home and crash for another 45 minutes after my shower.  I think it’s killing me slowly.

  • Boo

    Goth

    At least two different people told me that I looked hot and should dress like a goth more often.  I don’t think I could handle the time and effort it took to put on that much eyeliner on a regular basis.  The rest of the pictures (from Kirsten’s party and more) are here.  Happy Halloween!

  • I’m Tired*

    *for best results, just imagine Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.

    You can tell how busy I am by the amount of crap piled up on my dining table, the number of dishes in my sink, and the degree to which my apartment is in a state of general disarray.  Thankfully, after tonight (planned night in), the piles on the table are a little smaller, the dishes are washed, I’ve written one out of three things I wanted to write for Gothamist tomorrow, and I’m getting to bed at a reasonable hour.  As my friend Katie pointed out, my blog posts are getting shorter and shorter.  I’m just tired these days.  After returning from OJ, I’ve been going nonstop — work’s been busy, I went to the Human Rights First gala dinner on Monday, and had dinner with Jenn at Joya (yum!) last night.  My apologies, dear readers.  I don’t mean to be terse.  And speaking of readers — I’ve been checking out my stats lately, and I’m dying to know who the reader is from Chicago who did a Yahoo search for "blog by a woman named laren set in new york city."  ‘Fess up!

  • Ooh — I Got a Shout-Out!

    From Ms. Lusty Lady in her recent Village Voice column.  (I’m the L. who used the phrase "dating yourself.")  Thanks!

  • Yes, We’re 12.

    Oj_group

    Any weekend that leaves your abs in pain from laughing hysterically is a good one, at least in my book.  Thanks to all for another year of ridiculousness, summed up in a phrase that made me laugh more than anything in a while:  while searching for the word "flaccid," John mistakenly uttered the phrase "flatulent penis," and then spent a decent amount of time describing what this would look like, in more detail than I’d ever, EVER, want to imagine.  The pictures (of the weekend, not of the flatulent penis) are here.

  • Wicked Huge Lobstah!

    Larger than Life Lobster

    I figured since I’ve been so lame about blogging lately, the least I could do was give you a good picture.  I was up in Maine this weekend with the family, and after my irritating trip up (which I’ll expound upon some other time), I had a relaxing weekend, and enjoyed an amazing lobster roll at Scales in the Portland Public Market — butter, lemon, lobster.  End of story.  Chip was winding down his fall foliage tour and met me in Portland, so we drove back to NYC together.  After talking up Rein’s Deli, as we hungrily turned into Vernon, CT, we discovered that the power had gone out in the town, so Rein’s was closed.  Still hungry, we almost ended up at a Taco Bell (it would have only been my second exposure to a Taco Bell), but at the last minute, spotted Little Mark’s BBQ.  Ribs, sweet potato fries, pickles, cole slaw, and birch beer weren’t the best I’d ever had, but infinitely better than anything we could’ve gotten at Taco Bell, that’s for damn sure.  Chip was also kind enough to get me Julie & Julia, which I recently wrote about on Gothamist.  Very psyched about that — thanks, Chip!

    More on tonight’s activities, featuring a vodka tour with the author of The Vodka Cookbook, later this week on Gothamist.

  • Real Men Do Yoga

    I don’t ordinarily blog about work — it could have negative repercussions.  But today, I’m making an exception.  A portion of the floor on which I work at the new job is under construction, and I am fortunate enough to have the construction less than 50 yards away from my office.  The gaping hole that will eventually become the hallway leading to a shiny new section of offices is currently blocked off by a plastic tarp and some duct tape, which means that not only can I hear pounding, drilling, sawing and hammering, but every single conversation the construction workers have.  Now, I’ve never seen these guys, but I imagine them to be fairly large, muscular or somewhat hearty guys, and many of them have fairly thick New York accents.  So the other day, they were talking about their workout routines.  "Yeah.  You should lose some weight"  "Well, I already dropped 45 pounds"  "Yeah, but you should lose some more."  "Well, I go to the gym.  My wife’s got me going to a kickboxing class."  "That’s good, but you should do yoga."  "Yoga?"  "Yeah — I been doin’ it for a year now.  Check out how flexible I am."  Pause. "Wow — that’s from yoga?"  "Yeah, yeah.  It’s good stuff.  You need to be all flexible."  "Yeah."   The images in my head were hysterical.

    A quick recap of the past few days — dinner Saturday night with Chip at Una Pizza Napoletana (which always kicks ass) followed by drinks at Blue Ribbon Bakery to visit Jim at his place of business (I told him he could visit me at my place of business anytime, but it might not be as much fun).  We were met there by the Lovely Miss Katie, Elisa, and others, and we capped off the night at the Stoned Crow — a great neighborhood dive.  Sunday I finally spent some quality time with Erika as we walked through Central Park, talked about life, the universe, and everything, then visited Michelle to see the new arrival.  Sunday night I was almost ready for bed when I received a text message from Augie asking me to join him at Otto for a toast in honor of his and Lauren’s one year wedding anniversary.  How could I say no?  Monday I saw Matty Z in his debut poetry reading (which was great, by the way), and tonight I joined my Mom and Joe at TONY’s Eat Out ’05 (the photos are here — not one of my better batches).  Off to bed before an early morning meeting.  Despite my best intentions to slow things down to 33 1/3, the gerbil wheel keeps on spinning at 45.

  • Nothin’ Gonna Break My Stride*

    Somehow the rest of the week absolutely flew by.  Work has been super-busy, which is great, but my hours are creeping later and later.  Had dinner with some of the beach house ladies at Mercadito Grove Wednesday night, and yesterday was a whirlwind — an offsite meeting for a chunk of the day, running around the firm introducing myself to new associates, a party for Pro Bono Net, honoring our past director and co-founder Michael as he moves on to a new adventure and celebrating the new beginning with Mark at the helm, a brief stop at the Eater launch party at Bungalow 8 (the first, and likely the last time I’ll ever set foot in Bungalow 8), then catching up with Sara over tacos at La Esquina.  In the middle of it all I ran into my friend Andrew from law school — he and Michelle just had a new addition to the family, so please join me in wishing them all the best — mazel tov!  Tonight is dinner family-style as I check out my sister’s new digs uptown.  I’m very ready for the weekend, when hopefully I’ll have a tiny bit of downtime.  Whew.

    * Anyone know the artist for this one?  I didn’t until I looked it up . . .

  • Fall Ahead

    Kismet lighthouse

    I spent my last "official" weekend out in Kismet this past weekend.  I was actually happy that the house was quieter than usual — a perfect pace to wind down and truly enjoy every ray of sun, each grain of sand, and the welcoming waves mellowed by the presence of the full moon.  I couldn’t have asked for a better conclusion to a great summer.  I won’t even get into the food, except to say that the fried turkey and deep fried oreos were even better this time around than they were Memorial Day weekend (having the proper equipment helps).  I didn’t take many pictures, and certainly couldn’t capture the gorgeous red moon that was so huge and perfectly illuminated that it looked like part of a stage set, but a few pictures are up on flickr for your enjoyment.

    I’m now starting to gear up for fall — shopping for warmer clothes, welcoming the incoming class of associates at work, and generally feeling like I should go out and buy school supplies, even though I totally don’t need them.  As I mentioned, I truly want to slow down a bit this fall and take more time for myself, as I feel somewhat overloaded, but this week is already lining up to be a doozy.  My one mandatory staying-in night was just displaced by the Katrina benefit concert, and then I’m booked solid with social engagements for the rest of the week.  I’m looking forward to all of them, but between work, writing, and my social calendar, there is no real down time.  That said, I’m off to read some Harry Potter and go to sleep so I can get an early start in the morning.

    PS — for those of you who haven’t been getting your email updates, I think it’s fixed now.  Bloglet never tells me when there’s a problem . . .