NYC: day 1-2 or sleep no more

Hello patient P&Q fans!

It's been a while. My brain has been lazily enjoying the break and the opportunity to rest and read and do what it pleases. As you could guess, New York City was heaven. The people, the sights, the food, the activities... I never wanted to leave. I have recently decided that I just want to be on a traveling vacation for the rest of my life. That's reasonable.

As you can also guess, I took a million photos and have many a story to tell. It's all too good to summarize so I'm going to take you through it day by day. Day by day... by day.

Day 1:

The long trek to NYC. Take a look at my artfully packed travel backpack. That's six days worth of luggage, ya'll. It's all in the art of layering. And the art of wearing the same pair of jeans several times.

Flying into the city was a beautiful experience. Buildings-- everywhere-- stacked right up next to each other! It was like a little board game of tetris skyscrapers. My mouth was agape trying to take in all of the little city details. And the Statue of Liberty-- so teensy yet welcoming. From these moments alone I was quite taken with New York. City love at first sight. I'll never forget it.

After landing at LaGuardia, I was in charge of navigating myself through the city. Rachel had to work late so I tried to figure it out... to no avail. I was completely panicked. I have a terrible sense of direction and am quite famously known for getting lost in simple Tucson shopping malls or the like. 'Luckily' I met a guy on my flight who was a NYC native. Long story short he gave me the worst directions imaginable and I got über lost on the subway. I did, however, get to enjoy several subway performers, which seemed like a fair trade. 

I finally found my way out after about an hour of confusion. I wandered out of the warm depths of the subway into the chilly February night air... and saw this. Like a shining beacon!

Bienvenidos, Jenny!
You might not know where you are right now, but at least you know you're in the right city.
Good start.

I met up with Rachel and a big group of her work friends celebrating their Thursday night the right way-- with drink specials. I grabbed a much-needed beer and chatted with her lovely group of friends. We went to leave, grabbed my luggage, walked out the door and stumbled directly into a one Mr. Tommy B. One of my dear friends from childhood and life in general.

Apparently Rachel and Tommy work at the same company, just a couple floors apart, and had no idea we knew the other. What! It was hilarious seeing Tommy, even for the couple of minutes we did. Universe, you crazy.

Rachel and I had delicious late night pasta near her apartment in Harlem before calling it a night. We had a big day week ahead of us!

Day 2:

Rachel and I started our Friday at the New York Stock Exchange! My dearest and most favorite brother Jason called up one of the brokers he works with and arranged the meet. We got there at 8am on the dot-- bright eyed and bushy tailed with absolutely no expectations.

This is Bill. Bill has worked for the NYSE for 49 years. It was the first and only job he's ever had. He was so excited to have guests and we were so lucky to have him as our host. He is one of the kindest men I have ever had the pleasure to meet. 

I took a sneaky picture...

We got there early so Bill treated Rachel and I to the most delicious bagel I have ever had and fresh orange juice. He guided us through the building, pointing out pictures of presidents and celebrities who had come over the years to ring the bell and explaining the inner workings of the stock exchange. We met many different people, mostly men, who looked at Rachel and I like they had never seen a woman before. (Bill pointed out only two women currently working on the floor. Wow). Bill spoke illustriously about the architecture and explained the various lines on the floor. He was incredibly animated talking about the Exchange in its heyday. After the surge of computers and technology most of the brokers lost their jobs. Bill was one of the lucky few who didn't. He talked about the 'old days' with a sad yet inspired tone... wistfully staring off and painting a vivid picture for us. The high stakes, running from place to place, the crumpled up papers littering the busy floor, the first woman broker who made so many men uncomfortable, where he was during 9/11 and how it affected their work. The NYSE has a very rich history and Bill was the best person to hear it from.

In 1967 Abbie Hoffman led a group of activists to the upper viewing part of the Exchange floor, where they proceeded to throw fake money down below towards the brokers in an act of protest. After recognizing that anything could in fact be thrown down onto the floor, bulletproof glass partitions were put up by the windows. Tourists could see but not physically interact with the going-ons below. They have been taken down since then and the NYSE is now only open for private guests and meetings.

This is how it used to look, thanks Ferris Bueller.

When Cameron was in Egypt's land... let my... Cameron.... go.

We also got to see them filming live-- MSNBC and special NYSE clips for the Today Show, etc.

Squawk!

Ringing the bell! My mother told all of her work friends that I rang the bell. Because I sent her this picture and said "dingdingding!". In mother language that apparently translates to "I was the one who rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Be proud, mama." 
Yeah, no. I ain't Ellen DeGeneres or Carrie Bradshaw. Yet.

What an experience! We were so lucky and so grateful to Bill (and my brother) for giving us the opportunity.  We said our goodbyes and endless thank yous to dear Bill and headed out to seize the rest of our day. First stop: more food. We headed right to Once Upon a Tart... and dug in.

Now for more pictures...

My favorite photo of the week.

Chelsea Market. Good thing I was already full of food at this point... this place was deliciously tempting.

Attack of the giant Kate Spade models!!
Of course I had to stop and take my fancy purse to it's mother ship in New York City. Rachel and I were treated very fancily because of my previous full-price purse purchase. I felt very purse-important.

Carrie Bradshaw's apartment. I took about eight photos of me on these steps but they all came out rather creepy.  Yes, apartment by itself is much better. Such a magical street!

Magnolia bakery for some cupcakes! Yum!

Cakes and handpainted sprinkles. I was in heaven.

After shopping and wandering through the city for hours, Rachel and I stopped in to Hill Country BBQ, appropriately located in the Meatpacking District for dinner!

...I felt like I was eating at the Texas T-Bone in Tucson. That's a really dated reference and I don't care who knows it.

You go up and order how much meat you want by the 1/4 pound. My Los Angeles meat-eating eyes were a little bigger than my stomach. I had ribs, grilled chicken, and some of Rachel's brisket. Woof. 
Mac n cheese and cornbread were non-negotiable.

Yum! We had fancy tea and gin cocktails for good NYC measure.

After dinner Rachel and I wandered around the city-- walking off the piles of BBQ goodness in our bellies and waiting for our show to start...

One of my favorite photos-- Rachel and I with some street art.

Now. This show. 

This show is appropriately titled Sleep No More. If I wasn't exhausted from my long day of adventuring and walking thousands of miles, I wouldn't be surprised if I was unable to sleep at all. This show was perhaps one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life. By the end of it I was shaky and sweaty and teary. And I'm obsessed with it.

Let me explain as best I can. It's something you have to experience so I certainly don't want to spoil it for you. So I'll share the details that will leave it spoil-free.

Sleep No More is immersive theatre-- that means you are surrounded by the actors in an interactive and extremely dynamic experience. It takes place in a large four-story building, decorated to look like a 1930s hotel named the McKittrick. (Think Tower of Terror). The story: Macbeth. Comforting? No. This makes it all the more frightening -- for the simple reason that you are probably familiar with the story. Imagine being immersed into that world of backstabbing and murder and lies and insanity. (Shiver).

Everyone in the 'audience' wears these masks:

...I surrounded it by cats so you wouldn't be too scared. It's scary, no??
(Also I'm in love with the Cat Effects app)

There is no talking, no touching (resist Arrested Development reference...), and lots of nakedness. Lots. I was not given a heads up about the naked factor. My first reaction was to turn away or point out to the various actor that indeed, their nipple or the like had made an escape. That was until the nakedness was quite unavoidably obvious and I realized it was a realistic and artistic choice. For minutes on end. ...To look away or not look away? The masks allowed us all to be cheeky bum-lookers in the privacy of our own faces. I'll take it.

This was also a very physical show-- for the actors and us. The show takes place on different floors in rooms of the McKittrick. Characters only come together for banquet scenes or the like, meaning that you are in charge of what characters you see and where you go. Some people choose to follow just one character throughout the length of the 'show' or you can follow various people as you go. My plan was usually to follow whatever character was running as fast as they could up flights of stairs/ if I knew Macbeth was about to seriously murder someone/ if he needed a bath. Makes sense.

Ah! Freaky. Check out the masks in the back. And the blood!

That's it, I have to stop-- even though I could talk about it forever. You have to go see it. It's amazing.

We got out of the show at 3:00am. Everyone and their mom was still awake, cruising around the city like it was the middle of the day. What?! I'm hard-pressed to find an open anything at that hour in LA. Yes, NYC. Bravo. Rachel and I got onto the busy subway home and slept. Somehow.


More tomorrow!

It's good to be back.


Kisses,

Jenny

twinkle twinkle little star

Greetings from a very busy Jenny!

I am currently hard at work, eating a kids meal bean burrito from the fancy vegan place down the street and fixing the button on my peacoat. I'm going to New York City in the morning and one must have a button on one's peacoat if one plans on being warm. My clothes are roughly packed at home-- laid out in little piles on my bed. I am questioning my shoe choices at this time... relatively new boots and converse. Well-- if those boots aren't broken in now they sure will be at the end of my six walking days in the Big Apple. I apologize for my lack of writing. I've been pressed for time balancing everything that needs to be taken care of before I leave!

That and I had the most traumatic Saturday... ever. 

Ever.

The most traumatic Saturday... ever. 

I made it out alive though. In true Jenny fashion, I have already blocked most of the unpleasant day from my memory. I'm good at that-- maybe too good at that. But it was bad. The day, which started out pretty casual--- escalated. Quickly.

I drove my car over to my friendly mechanic, only to find out that the heater core did crack (see! I told you!) and would cost about $800 to fix. Woof. I've been thinking about upgrading my car for a while, so I thought that taking a looksie around town before fixing it might be a good move. My car isn't worth all that much as it is and putting in that amount is a big commitment. So I called up my mother and we decided to take a look at a few places.

The first stop was a pre-owned Toyota dealership, where the manager (who looked as if he had never left the confines of the small asphalt parking lot in the last twenty-five years) suggested that we take a look at the President's Weekend Sale--

$134 on the 134! 

The dealership was right off the 134 and was promoting a lease on a 2013 Corolla for $134 a month. Whoa. Crazy, right? My mother and I-- who are the kind of people who pay for a car in cash and drive it until it's on the edge of self-implosion-- are usually wary of leases. Pay them money--- every month-- and then at the end you still don't have a car? Doesn't really make sense.

But then again... I'm not sure where I'm going to be in three years. I might not need a car. And a brand new car obviously sounds great. For $134 they had my interest. Even if it was a sedan.

Noted. Time to keep browsing. We headed to KIA to test drive the Soul.

Eh. Not that great of a drive and they put all of the focus on making it look cool. The comfort wasn't there. Not interested. (But of course that hasn't stopped them from calling me once a day and leaving weird messages on my phone).

We were hungry. Drove home, walked into the house. And then.

Poor little Thomas the cat had gone to kitty heaven.

This was not a surprise. He had been slowing down for the past few months and was laying very low the days leading up to it. I had said my impossibly difficult goodbyes and tried to make my peace. He didn't want to go, either. He was fighting all the way to the end, trying to lift his little kitty head and trying to meow when he heard his name. It was heart-wrenching.

I have known Thomasina since he was born in my closet when I was five years old. We thought for the first several months that he was a girl, hence the name Thomasina-- after one of my mother's favorite films, The Three Lives of Thomasina. Then one day as I was playing with him, holding him high above my head, we realized this fluffy little kitten was most certainly a boy. Thomas it was.

I don't remember a time without Thomas. If you knew him, you know he was an incessant meower. All the time-- when he was hungry, cranky, wanted you to pet him, while you were petting him. Noisy and adorable. He'd come running the moment you called him and if you took chicken out of the refrigerator, he could smell it in less than ten seconds. He was a super-cat.

Here's a video of me and Thomas singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-- recorded by my dear friend Laura. I was hardly a month into my freshman year of college. Eeks... six years ago... This video is a classic.

Precious, yes? 

I love this kitty and I am going to miss him everyday. Till later, little Thomasina. I will always sing "Frère Jacques" with your name in it instead. 

My mother and I took him to the vet, as we don't have a big yard to bury him like we did back in Tucson. That made us sad, too. We were sad and still hungry. So naturally we went to Tony's Darts Away and split a sausage and grilled brussel sprouts and told Thomas stories.

If all of that wasn't draining enough-- we continued car shopping, for some reason.

We made an incredibly awkward stop at Honda to hear their deals. They wanted us to jaywalk across the street, in a bad part of North Hollywood, to look at cars in their dark warehouse.  "Well... uh we're in the middle of building a bridge over there..."

Yeah, no-- you crazies. So we left and went right back to Toyota. Where we spent the next six hours.

I test drove the 2012 and 2013 Corollas. That was wonderful-- smooth drive, luxurious seats, a moonroof, auxiliary outlet... car heaven. Then I came back and we talked details. This is where my blocked memory comes in and I only remember things in large block generalizations.

We talked. I liked the car. I was unsure about leasing. They talked me into it. I was totally car-sales-men-d. And double-teamed. I was pressured. They tried to coax me with fresh popcorn. It worked. They printed out a number that was not $134. I got angry. They lowered it, told me it was a good deal. It probably was. I was going to trade in my little Jimmy and put down some money. Started to look like an okay deal. Signed off on numbers. Agreed to bring in diploma and pay stubs the next day. Went into financial room. Burst into tears. Tried to keep it together but way too stressful and scared. Listened as they suggested five different kinds of insurance that is recommended for leased cars. I really needed all of them. Price went up to almost $300 a month. Tried not to throw up. Shook hands, walked out, got in car. Drove home. Crumpled on couch.

I was a mess. I had developed three canker sores over the course of the evening and I was emotionally exhausted. As soon as I laid down on the couch I realized I couldn't do it-- and luckily-- I didn't sign anything substantial.  I called them in the morning and that was the end of it. Looks like I'll be fine not using the heater in the 'ol Jimmy after all. Brrr... in this cold LA weather...

The truth is-- I live in a town where fancy cars are the status quo and spending two hours a day in your vehicle is quite normal. I have been wooed by the fact that seemingly everyone else is paying to drive in comfort here. I, however, have decided that I will not succumb to LA appearances and I shall not spend so much of my income on a fancy car. My money is best-spent on adventures and trips and delicious hamburgers, not car payments. Car payments are so five years from now. 

Yes.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I will happily go spend my money in New York City.

I can't believe I'm leaving so soon! This means that I won't be writing for a while. I get back on Wednesday and will have to play some catch up at work. I hope that I can at least post some pictures from my iPad while I'm there. We'll see...

Have a wonderful weekend. Send me happy warm thoughts!

And now-- because I just can't resist...

Lots of kisses,

Jenny

fickle friend friday : sickly sweet smell

Happpy Friday! Though it is FFF today... I do have some updates and stories. So a few of those first...

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's yesterday.

After getting home at a very late hour, Ashley and I walked to Pinnochio's to get some delicious pasta for dinner. Belinda and Sarah came over with a big bouquet of flowers and cheesecake to add to the party. Though we had at first thought that it was going to be a pajamas and movie kind of a night, it turned into a very ladylike conversational dinner party. The stories were abundant and hilarious. A perfect Valentine's evening.

Yum! Photo courtesy of Belinda.

I also made romantic blondies yesterday, too. 

To be honest, by the end of the day my happy positive energy was waning a bit. After long hours at work and sitting in traffic and staying bubbly and optimistic all day-- I was exhausted and wanted to lead the troops to the pity party. Ah, but that is part of life, yes? I did feel mopey for a bit. But then friends and wine were in front of me and all was restored. Take that! I do love Valentines and I don't care who knows it. 

Remember that Budweiser event I told you about on Wednesday? Well it happened.

Ahem. Let's pretend this is where FFF starts...

Budweiser's new Black Crown Label. Surprisingly delicious.

....very random party. Weird celebrities from the early 2000s milling about and raffling off Gibson guitars.
No-- we didn't win. So close.

I was awkwardly dressed like Daria for the event because BEAU didn't tell me it was party attire.
At least I had on heels.

The time has come for me to get a new car.

Yup. My car is officially possessed and my left leg has been clutching up and down the Hollywood Hills for too long. It's time for a reliable, automatic car with some personality and an auxiliary cable. Recently my car started to smoke from the inside with a terrible sickly sweet smell. After some research (see: Google) I have determined that it is something to do with the heater... cortex... or something like that. It's not that dangerous. Hopefully. I'm taking it in tomorrow morning! Okay?

Check out what it does to my window...

No-- that's not steam. Yes, the windows were rolled down all the way. That is a film that builds up from the smoky fumes. I have to wipe it down every time I stop-- and it smears all over the place. It's terrible. Not safe at all-- and the smell is horrible. Hopefully I'll look at some new cars soon...

Here are some of my ideas. I realize I am simply not a sedan girl and never will be-- but small SUVs are semi-ridiculous for my lifestyle right now. Small crossovers with personality it is! (Note that I am not getting brand new ones and not necessarily white...)

Little baby Fiat. 40 mpg. Might be too small. Might not protect me against anything. But boy, ain't it cute?

Scion xA. Small but still has four doors.

...If I could somehow find it in myself to forget those freaking hamsters... the KIA Soul might be an option.
If is the operable word here. It's pretty awesome inside and affordable... minus the Party Rock rodents.

A little more expensive but the Honda Fit is a great little car. Oo la la!

We'll see. I am not a fan of car payments but that might be my only option. But on the bright side NEW CAR. Woo!

If you missed President Obama's state of the union like I did-- this article from my favorite website The Everygirl has a great summary. Check it out.

My new favorite instagram of the week is from Ayasakai. You know-- just a sweet little Asian toddler and his adorable French bulldog. Being friends.

Dangerously cute.

My new favorite song of the week is Awkward from Australian band San Cisco. It's no misnomer-- it truly is awkward.

DANG IT. I've been saving this valentine for a month or so now. Great. Day late. Real cool, Jenny.

Ah! We're leaving the office early! Hallelujah. Off I go....

Lots of happy thoughts to all of you. Thanks for reading.

xxxo,

Jenny