Snow Storms and Spices

Well hello! We're almost through a very snowy January - tonight being a very snowy night in particular. Actually, I'm wondering how concerned I should be that the weather channel keeps upping it's accumulation prediction  for Manhattan every time I check. Should I be stockpiling antibiotics and protein bars, hightailing it to the public library and burning chairs for warmth? It's getting a little chaotic looking down there on 9th avenue.

I'm warm and cozy inside my apartment, making tea and cooking away.

I've been really sticking to my healthy eating (for a healthy me!) plan and experimenting with some great new recipes. There have been some failures, burned Brussels sprouts, beeping smoke alarms and gooey gummy carrots, but I'm mastering it along the way, right?

Basil Maple Apple and Barley Stuffing

I'm also slowly acquiring fancier cookware, which is making me giddy. So the gummy carrot episode was tolerable.

Spiced chickpeas with yellow peppers and brown rice

Now that I have chairs around my table in my new apartment, I can probably stop pretending to be a sad excuse of a grown up and have my friends over for dinner. It was a long stretch without chairs. But hey - I made due! I now know that you'll never truly appreciate the idea of chairs until you've eaten your breakfast while sitting on a plastic storage bin every morning for three months. 

Stuffed Butternut Squash

I also am learning to love my new luxury of the... microwave. Yes, that's right. I lived for over two years without a microwave and a stove with 1.5 out of 4 working burners. It was a time of forgotten left overs and charred stir-frys. But 50th Street is a story for another day. Now I have a microwave and I can make popcorn all day every day until I'm full of microwave popcorn up to my eyes.

Okay, I won't do that. But I could. If I wanted to.

Sweet potato and Quinoa cakes with Blackberry Jalapeno salsa.

What I will keep doing is cooking up a storm! Maybe that's a terrible metaphor to use during a blizzard. It is getting terrible out there! Every time I look out the window I get a little more worried that we're in a War of the Worlds type emergency and I haven't caught on yet.

Anyway, I'll keep on with the new recipes. And I'll keep up with the yoga. And my resolution to be more Zen. And I'll keep making a lot of arts and crafts projects. And staying up really late with equally Type-A friends playing hilariously competitive games.

I should probably work more on the whole "a little more Zen, a little less type A" thing.

But hey, tomorrow is another day.

2013, and where it's all going

Well, it looks like 2013 is coming to a close. I know everyone says the same thing every year, "I can't believe it's the end of ____!" but seriously, I feel like it was only weeks ago that ending everything with the 2012 apocalypse punchline, and here we are, at the end of the following year. Did the rapture happen and we didn't notice? Oh well. Super old news.

I made a pact with a friend on New Year's Eve that we were going to fill this year with new experiences. While I recognize that it was a really stupid pact (because aren't all experiences new, in a sense?), it ended up being a pretty fantastic year. When that same friend packed her bags smack dab in the middle of our fun-filled year and left on a jet plane to the west, I thought I would be crushed. But something entirely different happened - I saw that I could to anything. We sat on the edge of the East River, watched Manhattan light up in front of us and the Brooklyn bridge loom over us, and the realization flooded over me like a cold, fast rolling wave of river water: I can do anything. Anything. It smacked me in the face.

Sometimes I walk down the street during rush hour and take a moment to look at the people rushing beside me. All in black, carrying briefcases, looks of quiet concern and preparation on their faces as they lean forward towards their lives. So professional. So ambitious. And then every once and I while I realize that it's very possible that I am one of them too.

I made some changes this year. Hopefully they are for the best, hopefully they make me an more of a better, freer, loving person.



"'I have never felt more alive then I do right now!' she yelled... As we all stood in an empty predawn Times Square the size of eternity, with the dazzling blinking lights blazing above our heads and the whole beautiful world at our feet.

I've met some beautiful people and I've heard some astonishing stories, good and bad. I want to keep collecting these stories. The more you hear and see and feel, the more you begin to wonder about the people around you. The commuters in black rushing beside me in the mornings to get to their own offices and to deal with their own concerns: where did they come from?

I want 2014 to be just as wonderful. Because the biggest lesson I learned in 2013 is that life doesn't just happen to be fun and fullfulling and full of excitement and love and romance and drama. You make it that way.



So I'm going to work as hard as I can. I'm going to keep jumping at opportunities. I'm going to take a cab to Chelsea and try to cook an Indian recipe with a friend. We'll eat Ethiopian food. We'll participate in the art shows and we'll swim in waterfalls. We'll run down Broadway at dawn. We'll eat cupcakes. We'll hang out with Austrians and sing more Ukrainian birthday songs and eat more oysters. I'll hop on buses and trains and visit the people I love in faraway states like Vermont and Oregon.



Because half of the fun of all of this are these experiences. And the experiences happen because you make them happen. The rest of the fun? The the stories you hear from the people you are with and the new ones you make along the way.



And I'm going to keep soaking it all in.

Goodnight ya'll.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Adirondacks... July 2012











Ohhhh the Adirondacks. It was a beautiful trip. I don't think any pictures could do the beauty of these mountains justice. An escape from the city was exactly what we all needed - and it was perfect. Five days of silence, mountains, good food, good beer and incredible people. And of course- an extremely intense game of capture the flag (and only a few injuries).

Adventures in Queens

So I'm sorry if this post looks a little strange, my laptop has come down with computer appendicitis and I've resorted to writing on my iPhone (first world problems, am I right?) I tried to fix my it myself, and now I have a broken laptop with a few keys missing and tech guts hanging out. Turns out, computer surgery is not my specialty. Big surprise there.

Braden and I decided to venture out to Queens to see the Queens Art Museum... And we made a stop at the 1964 World's Fair along the way.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon wondering the museum, which (among other awesome pieces) is the home to this giant panorama of New York City. All of the buildings in the 5 Burroughs is represented to scale... And they have a touchable representation on the side where you can run your fingers over the brownstones in Greenpoint to the Empire State Building in Midtown.

After the museum, we thought it'd be a great idea to hop on the subway and hop off at a new stop we've never seen before.

We found ourselves on Roosevelt Avenue - picked a random direction- and ended up eating the best plantain empanadas on this side of the border.

Well Queens... it's been great!

Life is too short for Kickball.

Hold up ya'll. It's time for a serious moment today. A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of my very best friends on the phone. She has known me for most of life... we met in second grade and became best friends the instant we figured out that we'd rather write plays and read novels than play kickball (seriously - that game is SO stupid).

On this particular night I was crying over a boy who really put a huge dent in my sense of self. First of all, it's embarrassing to admit that I would ever cry over a boy... but I guess it happens to even the toughest of us at some point, right ladies? (Oh shut up, don't lie. You've all been there.... Unless you have no heart, and in that case I'm just concerned for your blood flow situation). I've always prided myself on being so tough, and the fact that I let such an unimportant person make me feel like I was anything less than kick-ass is, in retrospect, ridiculous.

But back to the point. My friend, who has provided nothing but love and support throughout the entire crazy nauseating weird winding lurching truck on a corroding dirt road journey of my life so far - told me to stop. "You are NOT worthless. You are the example I use when someone needs a success story. You've had some really tough breaks - and look where you are now."

Okay, fine. She's right. I've had some roadblocks. But haven't we all? Haven't we all felt like giving up at some point and surprised ourselves when months later we were the happiest we've ever been? Weren't you glad that you didn't quit? We all know a person who's picked themselves up after an immeasurable setback. We all know someone who has figured it out when things were stacked against them. This world throws some crazy stuff at all of us.

People are amazing.

Perhaps the most miraculous thing about our world is the resiliency of the human spirit. We are adaptable, pliable; we can turn ourselves into whatever or whomever we need to be in order to survive. It is amazing how an individual can experience horrific circumstances and still find the strength to rise inthe morning, brush his teeth and begin a new day. A villain can smash our world into tiny fragments and we still figure out a way to collect all of the pieces and put them back together with the scotch tape and Elmer's glue that we found in our apartments' junk drawers.

These people are everywhere. They pass you on the street. They wait in line at the bank. They pour your French roast at the coffee shop and they return your change at the grocery store. He is waiting next to you at the bus stop. She sits behind you in your English class. You would never give them a second glance otherwise.

How do we do it? We have entire communities destroyed by hurricanes; many of our neighbors become ill. Yet we still find the strength within ourselves to keep moving and help the person next to us off her knees. We take our newly single friend out for a romantic comedy and chai lattes. We listen closely as our sisters tell us the second doctor's diagnosis. The human spirit itself adapts constantly to the environment and rises above and beyond disaster.

We are survivors.

Oh and that boy I cried about that night? He ended up to be nothing more than a small pinch of salt in the really awesome story that I'm creating. He'll find where he needs to be, I'm sure. But the world is at my feet, bitches.

Why I Hate Buses.

My hatred for buses did not begin in Chinatown or even in Brooklyn.

My hatred for buses began in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania... with the horrible Blue Loop.

Bloop: Vehicle of nightmares.

I developed my first aversion towards buses on the second day of Kindergarten. I'll never forget watching my mother's confused expression, the smile still wide on her face while her waving hand dropped as the yellow public school bus sped past my driveway. I had pulled my new floral baseball cap over my eyes and began to cry. Convinced that I would never see my mother again because the bus driver was taking me to a place filled with nightmares and cigarette smoke and keeping me in a room with all of her pet ferrets, five year old Lauren couldn't be consoled at the next bus stop down the street. The bus driver forgot I was still on the bus. I should have known then.

For real. Ew.

During my first three years at Penn State, I refused to ride the bus alone. Sure, I would take the bus at night with my friends while drunk students swayed and sang our favorite football cheers. Sometimes I could even be convinced to take it downtown if a few of my girlfriends convinced me the trek was too far for heels. But I never rode that terrible thing alone. I would hike in the snow for miles, inflicting a lot of unnecessary pain upon myself just to avoid that bus. "Freeze warning?! Only stay outside for 10 minutes at a time, you say? Whatever Weatherman! I will take breaks! I will thaw in coffee shops and regain feeling in my legs in lecture halls." DON'T tell me to ride that bus.

On a gloomy, overcast day in November, I walked toward my apartment as a drizzly, icy rain began to fall. I was at a building on campus that was almost a mile walk away from home. Up ahead, I could see the Blue Loop approaching the bus stop. Today would be the day! I would finally muster up the courage and get on that bus! Ride it all the way home! Ride in the warmth home to happiness!

I got on the bus and proudly sat in my seat. Girl conquers bus. Take that, bus.

I rode the bus that day for a few stops when I began to notice something was wrong. The driver was driving away from where I wanted to be going, and people were getting off at the stops, but no one was getting on. Strange, I thought. These people don't have the fiery courage that I have to conquer this unruly bus!

But suddenly, everyone was gone and the only person left on the bus with me was the driver. He drove away, away from the campus, away from downtown, away from anywhere I wanted to be and pulled into a parking lot. He turned off the bus.

What was this? Was he going to murder me? Was this finally the day I would be kidnapped and forced to live with a smoker and a house full of ferrets? I only had a minute to think about my inevitable ferret filled future because after a moment the bus driver turned around in his seat and gave me a brief look of jaded indifference.

And with that the man shrugged his shoulders, stood up, and got off the bus.

Oh what the heck.

WHAT? Seriously? I sat there for a few minutes, confused, wondering how my courageous bus trip and turned so terrible so quickly. Defeated, I got off the bus and walked an hour home in the cold Pennsylvania wind. When I got home that afternoon, my friends couldn't stop laughing as I told them my story while trying to thaw my red cheeks and ears. That day ruined it for me. The Bloop ruined it all.

__________________________

Three years later, I found myself in the Bronx riding the bus home one night with two of my coworkers. One of my coworkers had just started the job earlier that week, and we were giving her a tour of our site in the Bronx.

The bus was filled with loud people who were yelling in Spanish and an icy rain poured down the windows, blocking our view of the dark sidewalks of Tremont. We were pretty sure that we were going in the wrong direction, and I was pretty sure that I was going to die. I was going to die on this B40 bus somewhere in the Bronx next to this man clutching a chicken. That was the end for me. Y pollo.



We tried to ask for directions, and everyone started trying to answer our quiery all at once in Spanish and broken English. We rode along into the night deeper into the wrong direction. "It's not ALWAYS like this," my one coworker told the newer one as she looked around feverishly at the men wearing matching colored bandanas and the women bickering loudly about dinner. The old man clutched his chicken closer to his lap. The bus screeched to a halt and we lurched forward.

But she was lying. The bus is always like that.

Subway Chronicles: Episode 1

Some seriously strange things happen in the New York City Subway. I don't know what it is about those underground concrete tunnels, but they seem to really bring out the weirdo in some people. Most of the people who ride the trains have the same stoic, expressionless stare with glassy eyes that look at the advertisements without seeing them. I like to call this the "train face." Everyone who rides the subway has a train face. It's one of our only methods as New Yorkers to have a moment to ourselves... a piece of solitude in the subway car packed with dozens of other expressionless zombies. We need to pretend that we have space.

This subway ad scares me. No wonder everyone has to look elsewhere.

Last night, someone from Connecticut commented on New Yorkers' lack of social space. A stranger in public is very likely to come up to you and stand so close to you that your arms are touching and you can smell his Crush cologne (that stuff sucks, seriously, why?). Odds are, if you have lived in the city long enough, these intimate moments with strangers won't even cause a second thought. Apparently, outsiders are totally creeped out (GASP) by this and end up jumping away from said snuggly stranger, bumping into someone who then doesn't apologize or even glance at him, and then wonder to themselves why is everyone here so mean!?

Leave us alone! We have our train faces on.

No one here wants to talk to you. No one.

In fact, when someone speaks to you at all on the subway, it kind of freaks you out. Even harmless courteous gestures become shocking and suspicious. One day, during my old commute from Williamsburg, a strapping young lad asked me if I would like to take a seat instead of him. I was so dumbfounded that he broke the bleak silence on the 8am L train that I didn't even respond (stupid!) and sat down in the seat like a confused foreigner.

Where do these people come from on the subway? One morning I saw a man with the EXACT same hair cut and color as the poodle that he was smuggling in his purse... Murse?

Sweet hair-do, dude.

Something I've always wondered... you know that blind guy that wonders the 2 train during the work day? He walks from car to car asking for donations to "help the blind"... and my first reaction is "aww, that's sad!" and then after a second I think, "What is a blind guy doing walking by himself in between moving train platforms!? How is he on the subway platform alone at all in the first place?! That shit is hazardous."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Every time I hear or say "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" I want to follow it with an "aaaaaaauughh!!" but then I realize that the "Aarrgh" expression isn't Irish, it's more of a pirate noise. And I don't think any pirates were Irish. Unless you punched an Irishman in the stomach, maybe he would make that noise.

Anyway, today is the one day of the year that I openly admit to myself and everyone else that my roots are actually a lovely shade of strawberry blonde and that my skin is actually pretty fair (as much as I want to fight it). Kiss me! I'm Irish.

 

No, please don't kiss me. You're creepy. You can have a high five like the other creepers outside today.

So really, what is it about this holiday that transforms everyone into a sloppy wierdo? There are thousands of people in the streets today, and probably 500 are on my roof right now pouring beer outside of my open window (thanks, assholes). Don't get me wrong, I love a good Guinness, or even a few beers in the sunshine - but seriously guys - what is going on out there?! I don't remember any of my Irish family acting like this in my childhood... except my grandfather really likes bagpipes. And corned beef.

All in all, it's a beautiful day outside. I skipped out of the bar tours today and decided to stroll out into the masses for some sunshine (another one of my poor choices) while talking to my sister on the phone and not really paying close attention to those around me. Maybe I've been in the city long enough to tune out losers and only hone in on threats and celebrities... but I think that this is a beautiful and helpful skill. However, today I was walking along and suddenly realized that everyone around me was wearing a kilt.

 

I think that this guy was standing next to me, but we were on 45th Street and not the beach (unfortunately).

"Where am I?" I thought. "Why is everyone in a kilt? And why are they all playing bagpipes? WHY DON'T I EVER PAY ATTENTION!"

I had wandered into the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. I think it was the banner that tipped me off. Either way, I made myself a nice little cameo. Oops.

On another note, I wandered into a lovely little home goods store today and got really engrossed in looking at a few really rad frames. A boy tried to convince me to buy a Nespresso machine, but I would only settle for a delicious free sample.

 

I really do not care if George Clooney endorses this. He is a gazillionaire and I am too broke for rip-offs. Isn't he in jail anyway, Mr. Salesperson?

But I'm broke and in serious need of a caffeine buzz, so I will pretend to nicely listen to your speech while I daintily sip my free espresso.

Ciao!

You're not a New Yorker until you've cried on the Subway.

There were so many new ways to get around when I moved here. Buses! Taxis! Town cars! Guys pedaling the pedi-cabs! And of course, there is the most important public transportation of all, the veins of New York - the Subway.

Now within 2.4 days of living in New York I had already discovered that buses terrified me and that every form of a cab was out of my budget. So the subway it was. I pulled out my giant map of the NYC Metro system and was determined to memorize every train and every stop. I was determined to be a pro in another week.

Totally easy.

My roommate at the time, let's call her Green, liked to give me advice about New York. Green will be a story for another day, but I can say right now that she was not the type of person to take advice from. I would have told her that to her face, but I was always afraid she was going to stab me.

"Life is tough here," she told me one day as I had the subway map open on the table, trying to figure out how to get to the Upper East Side. "I cried on the subway all of the time when I first moved here. It's totally normal."

Maybe it was because of Green's profound words - or maybe it was because it was one of our only conversations where I wasn't planning a room escape route - but that advice really resonated with me. I was too tough. Everyone kept telling me that New York was so difficult, that the city could crush you whenever it pleased, and I refused to take this advice. Most of my friends that moved to New York before told me about their experiences crying openly on the subway. "It happens," Shelby told me one night. "One day something just breaks you and you're crying on the L train." No. I would not cry - and I would NOT cry on the subway. I was determined to be a hardened New Yorker.

A few weeks later, I was crying on the E train. I got off at Rockefeller Plaza and cried among the Christmas-at-Halloween decorations while tourists stared at me.

"What's your problem?! You're not a New Yorker unless you've cried on the Subway."

This is a throwback post from an old blog - originally from December 20, 2010
Enjoy.

Earlier this week, something terrible descended upon the small little state of Delaware. Something disastrous, menacing and murderous.

Snow.

Now, just for clarification purposes, the lovely residents of the First State are a pretty resilient and hearty group of people. Delaware is beaten up by hurricanes, floods and the occasional rogue tornado. A little rain never hurt anyone... but when the stuff freezes the whole state goes into a emergency frenzy.

It all started on a chilly day earlier in the week. It was just below freezing outside, (which of course sent my coworkers into a frostbitten panic and everyone was piling on scarves, goggles, mittens, waterproof earmuffs, thermal underwear, arctic gear and boots, wondering how they would ever survive) and there were “rumors” of flurries later in the afternoon.

Having spent the past four years of my life in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, snow doesn’t even cause a glimmering hint of excitement or even a reaction at all. I spent so many days and nights lugging my butt around in 12 inches of snow uphill both ways that I considered building snowshoes out of my roommate’s tennis rackets or crafting a sled out of cookie sheets to get myself to work.

(There you go, kids. I just proved that it IS possible to walk uphill both ways. So HAH!)

Anyway, snow doesn’t stop me. I will push my car out of that snowbank the mean plow truck driver created around my car. I’ve done it once dammit and I’ll do it again.

So I did not give it a second thought when it started to snow lightly outside the classroom window.

I knew something was terribly wrong when I stopped by the office later in the afternoon to find several frantic parents demanding to take their children home early.

Expecting to see apocalyptic blizzard conditions outside, I rushed to the window to see… light flurries.

Confused and annoyed, I finished my day at work and we dismissed the children at regular time. 

HOWEVER, many of the buses were “stuck in severe traffic” and weren’t even at the school yet. I snuck out the side door expecting, once again, the apocolypse blizzard I kept hearing about and found… flurries.

About 1/3 of an inch of snow had accumulated on my windshield. I was pissed. This was no fun at all.

But I had no idea the fear that the 1/3 of an inch had struck into the little hearts of the Delawareans.

First of all, no one in Delaware has ever heard of road salt. Dear DelDot, if you ever read this: Salt MELTS snow! It’s really cool. If you put in on the road it will make the snow go away and stuff. It even makes ice melt too! You can drive on the road again and its probably a lot cheaper than all those costly sled dogs, sleighs and flying cars you were considering as solutions. It’s a really brilliant invention.

After driving 0.4 miles an hour to get out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I decided that I was adventurous enough to drive uphill in the apocalyptic blizzard. WRONG! A man in an SUV had tried the hill, panicked, blocked the road and got OUT of his car. So I did the only reasonable thing: I spun my car around and tried the other way.

The next few minutes were filled with sheer terror as drivers slid all over the road, losing control and hitting curbs and innocent recyclable bins. For some reason as soon as the rain froze into snow, people who have been driving for 20+ years turned into intoxicated teenagers. It took me 20 minutes to make the corner to get onto the main road. At times I considered getting out of my car and knocking on windshields to show people how to get their cars off the sides of the street.


But it was nice and toasty in my car so I turned on Top 40 radio and daydreamed about Christmas.

The flurries continued to fall and the drivers of Delaware continued to panic. As we crept along Route 41 at 3.12 mph, I watched Mercedes’ slide into ditches and BMW’s skid into yards. A man going the other direction lost control of his vehicle and slid completely around in a circle (He thought he was hot stuff and tried to hit 4 mph). People got out of their minivans and pushed other cars back onto the road. People started walking home. People started pulling over and calling for other transportation (sled dogs, probably). The air filled with smoke and the smell of burning rubber. All adherence to traffic signals was lost (RED LIGHTS??? WE DON’T USE RED LIGHTS IN THE APOCALYPSE BLIZZARD!!!!!!! WE DON’T NEED TURN SIGNALS ANYMORE!) and children cried for their mothers.*

It took me 2 hours to get home. It normally takes me 20 minutes with traffic.

The last bus pulled out of the school at 6:10 PM. School dismisses at 3:50.

Lesson of the day: Road salt solves a lot of problems. Delaware is only 37 ft wide by 429 ft long so if we all donate about 5.3 cents the cost should be covered.

At any rate, I’m going to go drink some tea and review survival skills for the real apocalyptic blizzard.

*NOTE: I didn’t see anyone get hurt. This wouldn’t be funny if people got hurt.

The Day I Became the Cupcake Criminal

One of the strangest New York experiences I've had so far actually happened on my trip AWAY from New York.

I've heard sketchy things about the Chinabus, but I have always thought to myself "Hey, these people are spoiled and used to luxury. I can tough out a cramped bus ride for a few hours."

I have never been more wrong.

My adventure started out on a Friday morning as I got ready for work and packed my bags for my sister's birthday weekend - which I considered to be fairly light. I had a duffle bag, a pair of boots and a tray of 24 cupcakes. Alas - those cupcakes would be the first mistake of the day. I realized after stumbling through my apartment building that those little pink frosted delights were not going to survive the Friday morning commute through Grand Central - or I wasn't going to survive it - so I had to splurge and pay for a taxi to get to work.

By the end of the work day I had already decided that I would take a taxi down to Chinatown to catch my bus. Perfect plan! I had a whole hour to go a few minutes! This would be a breeze! Right!? Wrong. I could not catch a taxi at 5:00 on a Friday in Times Square if I had been Prince Harry. Why would Prince Harry ride in a yellow taxi? Oh I don't know - but if he wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to on this afternoon.

He wants a taxi.

After a few minutes of stomping around with a tired arm I finally flagged down what I thought was a shady black cab. I started to panic and jumped in the cab with my lovely cupcakes without fully assessing the situation (bad choice - young aspiring soon-to-be New Yorkers).

"Do you accept credit cards? Great! Broadway and Canal please. Chinatown"

"Okay," The taxidriver said. "That will be $40. Plus tip, but the tip is up to you, of course."

"What? Okay." I paused for a second. I set the darling little cupcakes down and realized what had just happened. I had gotten into a car with a random man and as he started to drive away, I suddenly came to the abrupt conclusion that something was very, very wrong.

"Sooo... why is it $40? It shouldn't be that much. Isn't that a little ridiculous?"

"It's all the way downtown, miss."

"Yes - but there is no meter running. All other cabs charge 40 cents per quarter mile."

"There is no such thing as a quarter mile in New York City, miss."

"Oh really! That's strange. That cab has those exact rates printed on the side. And that one! And that one over there! And every single other cab I've ever seen in Manhattan. Let me out of the cab. I'll get into one of those instead."

"Those are taxi cabs, miss." The taxi driver rolled his eyes at me in the rear view mirror. "You're in a Lincoln Limousine."

"WHAT!?" I yelled, starting to panic. "Why didn't you tell me that? I didn't want a limousine! Let me out right here! I'll just pay you for this block."

"You said 'okay', so I started driving. It's $20, please."

At this point, I really started to panic. We had traveled one block and I had $4 in my wallet. Angrily, I handed over my credit card. "I don't accept credit cards for less that $40, miss."

Really? I saw an out. "Oh! Well I guess you aren't getting paid then. Unless I run over to that ATM right there?"

The only time I can say an ATM machine saved me.

And for some for some strange reason that I will never understand, the angry little swindler of a driver let me out of that cab without a fight. He watched me drag my luggage and my cupcakes over the the ATM... and run into the pub next door.

"Can I help you?" asked the young hostess, as I ran burst through the door, panting and looking around feverishly for a back door.

"No! I mean - Yes! Do you know where an ... um... ATM is?" The restaurant had no back exit in sight - but the hotel next door did! I ran back out the door as the taxi driver started to honk and scream out his window. I looked back one last time, ran through the revolving doors of the hotel, pushed through the patrons and flew out the side entrance. Find me in New York City, jerk!

And off I was - sprinting down 42nd street like a deranged criminal in a white sweater and carrying 24 pink cupcakes.

Fifteen minutes later, after I had walked almost a mile and still couldn't flag down a taxi - it had become clear that the taxi driver had sent out a red alert to every cab in Manhattan. "WARNING! Do not pick up crazy blonde girl in a white sweater. She has a tray of cupcakes and is possibly dangerous." Finally, an off duty cab driver stopped for me, and then refused to take me downtown. "DUDE! Just let the lady in the cab!" some man yelled from another car as we stood arguing in the middle of the rush hour intersection.

This is the only guy that offered me a ride.

I finally pathetically waved down a cab and made it to the bus stop - with one minute to spare. At 5:59 I shuffled - cupcakes in tact - to the end of the bus line. The very... long... bus line. After setting down my things and catching my breath, I took a look at the line of people waiting for the bus. There were a lot of people. Too many people. All of us were not going to fit on this bus... and I was all the way at the end. Sadly, at this point there was nothing left to do but wait. So I waited.

And I waited.

And ... I waited.

And .... I waited. For 2 hours.

At 7:45 our 6:00 bus pulled in and... for some strange reason... came from the wrong direction. Somehow my place in the back of the line became the front. And I was not going to lose that spot. Panicking once again, I threw my bag in the luggage section and, clutching my cupcakes for dear life, shoved my way onto the bus and crumpled into a sad heap in a seat.

I had made it onto the bus. There weren't enough seats. The last people to load onto the bus realized this and shuffled around the aisle like dogs with peanut butter on their tails. Admitting defeat, the angry bus driver herded them off the bus. We drove away, watching their sad eyes sniffle as we turned the corner as we headed towards Pennsylvania.

The sun was over the horizon and night had fallen completely. We went through the Lincoln Tunnel and I started to relax as the city skyline receded into the hills. I had made this trip before. I could finally relax and think about my sister's birthday. It would be a 4 hour drive and I would be late now - but I would still get there in time to meet her at the bar.

As we drove along the highway in New Jersey, I started to realize that I didn't recognize the signs. I didn't think anything of it until the bus driver pulled off the highway and did a u-turn onto the other side of the highway. No one seemed concerned, so I kept watching the signs. We were heading towards New York? That couldn't be right. We were just taking a different way.

Twenty minutes later, we made another u-turn. People started to notice. Where were we going? And another twenty minutes later, we were making another u-turn.

At this point, the people behind me started to panic. What was going on? Why were we going in circles? Why did that road sign just say "New York City - 10 miles"? As it turned out, we were traveling on the wrong highway for over an hour. There were a lot of disgruntled whispers. The bus driver finally pulled onto the right highway and everyone started to relax again.

Suddenly, the driver pulled off the highway.

And into a closed gas station.

And waited there.

Everyone gaped around the bus, searching for some sort of answer. "Is this some sort of rest stop?" "Are we supposed to get off the bus?" "Are we there?" "Let's just GO!" some guy yelled from the back seat. "Even if we wanted to get off the bus - we couldn't! This place is closed down and dark!"

After another minute, the bus driver started out on route 80 into the darkness - and in the wrong direction. We turned around again and headed off - again - towards Pennsylvania.

After what seemed like forever, the "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign appeared on the side of the highway. If we had been on schedule, we would have seen that sign at 6:20. It was now past 10:30. More panic welled up in the bus. "We are SERIOUSLY only just now crossing into Pennsylvania? What is going on!" Phones were being dialed and friends and family were being notified.

We drove along in the night and things seemed to be alright. We were late but we would get there eventually. Just as everyone began to relax again, the driver slammed on his breaks.

As far as the eye could see into the distance were bright red tail lights. Stopped traffic. At midnight. I'm pretty sure at this point the person behind me was crying softly. Another person was curled up into the fetal position. I wanted to die.

I'm not sure how long we sat in traffic that night, but it was long enough for me to decide that I may not live to see my sisters birthday and that the girl in front of me definitely had the most annoying voice in the entire country. It was also long enough for the man behind me to admit loudly into his cell phone that it was taking every fiber of his being not to kill everyone on the bus. This made everyone very uncomfortable.

We finally got out of traffic and drove at a normal speed for about 10 minutes. In the middle of the dark Pennsylvania hills, the driver pulled the bus off the highway and into the parking lot of an old Red Roof Inn. The hotel light flickered sadly as the driver turned off the engine.

"Is this it?" a man asked in the silence. "Is this where they kill us now?"

No one laughed.

The bus was silent.

Two older Asian women stepped off the bus and into the parking lot of the Red Roof Inn. Without a word, the bus driver started the engine and started down the highway. I watched as the Asian women faded in the dark, carless parking lot. The sign flickered in the distance.

No one spoke as we headed towards (what we hoped) was our original destination. I got a strange whiff of fish sticks but assumed that I was just starting to starve to death and ignored it. But the fish stick smell started to get stronger. People started to look around and cover their mouths as the smell wafted towards the front of the bus. Passengers started to wake up from the smell and look confused. As the smell grew stronger, people started to cover their faces with clothing. Fish sticks? It wasn't fish sticks.

It was sewage.

The bathroom on the bus was backing up and there was nothing we could do about it. I put my knees up and covered my mouth and nose with my sweater. Men pushed on all of the windows but there was no way to open any of them. Someone walked to the front of the bus and pleaded with the driver to do something... so he opened the front door.

Here were were, barreling down the highway in a bus full of sewage, our mouths covered and our faces plastered to the windows.

I had completely come to terms with the fact that I may never make it to see morning, let alone my sister's birthday. It was now past one in the morning and we were unable to breathe, starving and not even sure if we were heading in the right direction. We traveled along like that for a while when an Asian woman in the front of the bus started to yell at the driver. They argued back and forth for a while, and the driver grew more and more irritated. As he angry yelled at this woman at a language I did not understand, he swerved the entire bus back and forth on the windy mountain road. I held onto the seat with the hand that wasn't covering my mouth as I watched our bus jerk closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. I was totally going to die.

She wanted to be let off at the Red Roof Inn.

The bus driver may have just thrown the Asian lady off the cliff, because I can't remember how the argument ended. But he did calm down and we did make it to our destination - nine hours later. After missing our stop and pulling into a tiny alley, we pleaded for the bus driver to just break long enough for us to exit.

I ran down the street to my sister's apartment through the hoards of drunk college students. A few boys approached me and peered into my cupcake tin. "What do you have there sweetie? Dessert?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

I made it to my sister's apartment in time for the morning of her birthday. She loved her cupcakes.

To this day, my heart drops every time I see a Lincoln Town Car.

I'm sorry, but you're just not the "dodgeball" type. Maybe you should get a doll?

For some reason I can't explain, I have never been able to play any sport that involves a fast-moving ball.

Balls (you know, the sporty game kind) have always had this strange magnetism to my skull. No matter the game or venue, the ball will find it's sneaky little way to my head. In other words, I always get hit with the ball. Always. Hard.

I think it all started in elementary school when I first came to my sad realization that I would never become a world-famous dodge ball champion. It just wasn't in the cards for me. I would step onto the gym floor, my biceps clenching in my Limited Too T-Shirt, only to be pelted in the head by multiple dodgeballs at once. Stupid boys and their stupid ability to throw and dodge simultaneously.

Those first dodge balls hurt, but I was a resilient little pigtailed brat. I kept trying. I quickly learned that basketballs hurt when you catch the pass with your face. Baseballs hurt if they mistake the bat with the side of your head. I could not successfully headbutt a volleyball without falling over. And softballs? Contrary to popular belief, softballs are NOT soft.

Yes. I was THAT girl.

Elementary school came and went and I became a very un-sporty teenager who luckily found several un-sporty friends. We would run away screeching during our pathetic excuse for class volleyball tournaments and use our baseball gloves to fight sun glare as we chatted about dances. During football "games" we would stake out spots as far away as possible, fearing the pigskin's collision with our craniums. I didn't even have to be PLAYING the game in order for me to get injured. I just need to be within 100 yards of a soccer game or a football scrimmage to get bonked in the head.

One balmy night in college my friends decided to play a friendly game of frisbee. "Oh! Frisbee!" I thought, "I will surely be safe, for it is not a ball at all. It is a flat object that usually moves slowly." As usual, I was wrong. My last memory was talking to my friend about class when suddenly --- BAM!--- I felt a sharp thud on the back of my head. The next thing I knew I was looking at the boy who threw the speeding frisbee standing over me asking if I was okay (and hoping he hadn't killed me via frisbee).

I am not cut out to be the world-famous Ultimate Frisbee champion, either.

Years later I was walking down the hallway of my workplace, which just so happened to be an elementary school. Why yes, the very same environment where I first had my athletic dreams crushed. Just as I passed the gymnasium a dodgeball whizzed past my head and ---WHAM--- hit the wall next to me. "Sorry!" a boy called as he jogged out to get the ball.

I will always be that girl.

She gets it from her Mama.

It's not really a secret. If you know me, you know that I am

Clumsy.

Not even in that "wow look, lauren totally tripped while trying to catch public transportation" type of way. I'm clumsy in that tragic "oh no, lauren totally broke her toe while getting into the shower and then fell down the steps and busted her face on a towel rack and hit her head on the toilet on the way down"  kind of way. 

When I was a child, my family quickly became accustomed to my lack of motor skills and ability to avoid flying objects (i.e. balls). The sound of falling down the carpeted steps or screaming bloody murder over a stubbed toe became white noise in our whirlwind of a household. 

One instance in particular that always strikes me as a great example of my clumsiness happened while I was in 9th grade. Being the complete spaz that I am, I was flying around the kitchen and talking non-stop at my mother who I'm sure was using all her will-power not to knock me out with a rolling pin.

"Get out of the kitchen now! You are driving me insane."

"Nope. Never! HAHA!" I said, doing a lap around the island, causing the steam coming out of her ears to become visible.

"Get out! Now! If you don't I'll make you clean up the entire kitchen."

Hearing this, I squealed, did a spin in the opposite direction, took two steps toward a sprint, felt the carpet slip out from under me, completely lost traction, hit my knee on the island, fell to the ground and hit my forehead on the barstool on the way down.


My mom sighed heavily. "Seriously, Lauren. I'm going to make you do the dishes."

My mother has no right to judge me.
Where do I get this monstrosity of a character trait?
I get it from my mom.

My dear mother is so accident prone that by the time she was 20 my entire extended family had already dubbed her "Calamity Jane." Interestingly enough, my friends call me "Hurricane Bill." I don't know why it's Bill. Please don't remind me that the nickname makes no sense. I'm sure it held some significance at some point. I'm sure.

When I was in second grade, I thought I would be a good idea to bring my mom in for show and tell. Bring in something you love? I love my mom! Awww! Great idea. Lauren is so darned sweet. Everyone else is going to bring in their ratty stuffed dogs and their drool-crusted blankets. I rock. You suck. Win.

The morning of my fantastic everyone-is-looking-forward-to-Lauren's-turn show and tell extraordinaire my mom went to the grocery store. Passing through the garden section, she stopped to smell a nice looking flowering plant. "Oh look," she must have thought, "a sweet flower for me to smell! It is so nice and harmless looking." That's when said plant unleashed its fury. 

After a trip to the ER, it was concluded that my mom had cut her cornea on the deadly spiteful grocery store plant. She was given some strong meds to deal with the pain and an eyepatch. That's right folks! A good old-fashioned strappy black eyepatch. 

Somehow, she still made it to my show and tell.


I think I still had the best show and tell that day. MY mom was the drugged up pirate.

UPDATE: Today I slipped crossing the road and a homeless guy laughed at me.

How to Grocery Shop on a (Seriously Sad) Budget

Well, at 6pm tonight that thing happened again. Dinnertime.

Considering I don't even have enough money in my checking account to buy a small pizza until pay day, I had to get creative with this one. Luckily I had leftovers in the fridge. Score!

I know that I am not the only young, aspiring New Yorker with this problem. So I've come up with a few tips for grocery shopping on a serious budget. It has taken a few years to balance the art of saving cash and eating healthy - so here it is!

1. Buy Grains in Bulk
You're hungry. You want carbs. The best thing to do is to buy pasta at the grocery store when it's on sale (my favorite whole wheat pasta usually goes on sale randomly 10 for $10 and I stock up). Places like Trader Joes sell whole wheat couscous by the giant box that lasts for weeks. Large boxes or bags of rice usually sell for less and last a while. Do not - I repeat DO NOT buy the single meal boxes of flavored pasta, couscous, and rice. These are packed full of sodium, preservatives and the cost of them really adds up after a while.

2. Buy Fruit from the Fruit Stands
You can't find cheaper fruit! Here's how to find one: Walk outside and spin around in a circle until you see a fruit stand. Walk towards it. Viola! Fruit! Yes, this fruit has been sitting outside for a little while, but whatever. Wash it off and put it in your fridge. The city is trying to fight obesity by providing us with easily accessible produce- so take full advantage of it.

3. Spices, Spices, Spices.
Okay, this is actually very important. These may break the food budget bank at first, but you NEED them for cooking - especially if you are buying plain grains. Some of the spices in my fridge are: salt and pepper (duh), cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, cumin, ground ginger, thyme, basil, oregano, curry, garlic.

4. Beans are Your Best Friend. 
A bit cliche- but these add protein and fiber to your meals. I add kidney beans, garbanzo beans and any other beans that may be on sale to my rice, pasta and couscous. Did I mention that beans are ridiculously cheap?

5. Soup!
Soup is a wonderful thing because you can't really mess it up. What I usually do is cook a huge batch of soup or chili and freeze all of the leftovers. You can share with your roommates and still eat it for a week (but because it's frozen you don't have to eat it EVERY day for week). You can splurge a little bit on soup ingredients because you'll get multiple meals out of it. Some of my favorites are eggplant vegetable soup, vegetarian chili, lentil soup and black bean.

If you're not much of a soup chef, or if you don't have a kitchen and a ton of time, canned soups can do the trick. I usually buy soups that are high in fiber and protein so that they keep me full and can call themselves a meal. Some good examples are Amy's Black Bean, Lentil and Vegetable and Tomato Bisque. These are a little more expensive but the cheap soups are full of gross stuff and will leave you hungry and spending more anyway.

 6. Dollar Stores Are Not Always Below You.
Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Dollar stores are actually goldmines for things that won't give you awful food poisoning like crackers, chips and dry goods (we don't eat chips though, do we?!). What dollar stores are really great for are other kitchen and cleaning supplies. Soaps, detergents, wipes and cleaning sprays. Clean away! There are many money-saving treasures in there. So pull down your cap and go!

7. Plan Before You Go to the Grocery Store.
Having a plan guarantees that you'll spend less at the store, even if its on the walk over. Think about what you already have in your kitchen and what can be made with just another ingredient or two. This means you'll get the most out of the money you've already spent and you'll have less stress later. Plan a few meals and snacks. When you're at the store, check out the sales and think about whether or not you will eat the sale items in the next two weeks.

8. BE CREATIVE
You need to be creative to save money on food. Come up with combinations of your favorite ingredients. Experiment with spices. You will save money and become an amazing cook in the process! Some day when you can afford really good food all of the time, you will be able to impress everyone with your cooking skills and creativity.

Have a great night New York!

Brokers, Crooks and Thieves.

One of the hardest things I've experienced in New York so far is the horrible process called "Apartment Hunting."

Now, one would think that with over nine million people in this area somebody somewhere along the line would have come up with an adequate way to house ourselves... or at least a way to ease the process. No. Finding an apartment in New York City is about as difficult as finding your only other pink sock after laundry day or your soul mate in middle school. Terrible.

Basically the whole finding an apartment saga goes something like this: You scour endlessly over websites like craigslist, looking for ANYTHING that is somewhat close to your budget. After finally finding a few that sound absolutely wonderful, you realize that they will probably rent within 2 hours and 12 minutes so you are directed to call a mysterious number. The man on the other end of the number tells you he is a real estate broker and he will meet you on the corner of Creepy St. and Asshole Avenue.

You run to the corner of Creepy St. and Asshole Avenue (because the mysterious broker NEVER gives out the real address!) and look for someone who you hope looks like this:

But in reality, the stranger on the corner who announces he's the broker usually looks like this:

After having 21.4 seconds to decide whether or not this person is a serial killer, you follow him to the wonderful apartment he promised to show you. This can go several ways...

1. He completely lied about the location. The apartment you thought was in the beautiful Upper East Side is actually a first floor apartment in Spanish Harlem next to an old Taco Joint.
2. He promised you a wonderful spacious apartment and it's huge... but it has no windows.
3. He's actually a serial killer.

Most of the time, the advertisement shows pictures that look like this:

And the apartment ends up looking like this:

Our apartment search has been a tough one. I've had brokers try to convince me that a closet with plywood shelves actually counted as a bedroom (Hey! Let's make the bathroom a bedroom too! My sheets would go great with this linoleum tile!) and we've seen basement apartments with backs to abandoned lots with drug dealers lurking in them. We've walked to the top of a walk-up to find that the "broker" misplaced his keys. We've been shown rooms with no windows or air-vents. We've been stood up, lied to, and pushed around.

"Oh look!" my roommate exclaimed while looking at a particularly horrible layout, "You can brush your teeth and pee at the same time! You just don't see that every day." We then hobbled up the rotting spiral staircase and found our way out.

"I don't EVER pressure people but... this 8th story walk up with the mini fridge and the bookshelf separating the 'two bedrooms' is going to go really fast. If you don't pay me $8000 right now you're probably just going to be homeless for a year," says the broker as we escape to the next horrible showing.

"This is awkward," says another broker while we wait in the hallway for the tenants to "freshen-up" as the neighbors blast techno at a deafening volume.

Excuse me, New York. I'm paying thousands of dollars here. I want running water and windows. I refuse to pay this much money and live in an apartment that looks like it is below a butcher-shop in a 3rd world country!

At this point your budget goes out the window and you've accepted that you're just going to have to be flat broke unless you want to live in a dumpster behind Chipotle. I mean, they do have good burritos...

Moving on with the new imaginary budget - and the adventure continues!



On a lighter note - There is a bakery down the street from me that doubles as a tombstone store. Yes, they make tombstones. For dead people. But apparently they also make delicious bread because they had a sale today and I got a giant loaf for $1. It reeked like nail polish remover in there... I still don't know why.

Goodnight everyone!