Preparing for Irene

On Cape Cod and the fuss about Hurricane Irene has been growing. I personally think it's silly due to the fact that by the time it gets to us up here, the strength will have dissipated. New York City has completely shut down. They shut down the subway due to potential flooding and worst of all, they shut down BROADWAY! I can't tell you how many Hurricane Parties I have been invited to this weekend. I sort of wish I was there to hunker down and spend time with friends. But instead, I am hangin out on the Cape working and spending time with family and pets!

As I mentioned in my last post (East Coast Earthquake of 2011) I have been home to help out my brother Joe with the campaign he has been working on all summer for Alan Khazei. My mom and I organized a small get together of locals at our house for Alan to speak and gather supporters. Before I knew it, one of my hippy high school teachers, was at my house along with all the other hardcore Democrats 13 months before the primary elections even happen! The group of people who I had to make small talk with were....eclectic....to put it lightly. They were important though, because they help the campaign  continue to thrive.

My second donation to the campaign happened this morning when I went with my brother, his girlfriend Chessy, my mom and her best friend Shelly to Dream Day Camp set deep in the woods of Brewster, MA on the Cape. We were there to volunteer our time preparing the camp for the "hurricane," as part of the campaign scheme. We were supposed to be meeting up with other volunteers but of course we were the only ones...deep in the woods of Nickerson State Park. Talk about the Griswalds go to camp! I used to work at Cape Cod Sea Camps down the street and spent some weekends in Nickerson, but I think my brother and some of the others felt like they were in something straight out of a horror film. Joe told us after, that once he got out of the car he didn't think he was getting out of those woods alive. We got started learning about the camp. Camp Dream Day is a camp for terminally ill children to come with their families to spend the week having fun in the outdoors. It is an amazing concept and made the time we were there, mean so much more. We got down and dirty on the lake moving boats and anchoring the docks. I even met the lake's resident 40lb snapping turtle, "Ertle." At the end of it all, my mom's friend Shelly treated us to a delicious lunch at Chatham Bars Inn,  a beautiful inn on the ocean.

I'm finishing off my evening watching William & Catherine: A Royal Love Story on the Hallmark channel. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm sort of obsessed with the Royals. Obviously I love the UK, but I am also one of those nerds in love with the Royal wedding and everything royal. I don't know what it is, I really don't, but I am fascinated with their life. Not to mention, the talent agency at which I have been working in NYC represents the actor playing Prince William. Many a reason to watch the film. Of course it is a Hallmark film and with that, a certain reputation comes with the quality, but I'm still enjoying it!

Well, tomorrow Irene is supposedly arriving. I am meant to work at my dad's store, Cuffy's, but we'll see if they open the store. They already closed the store in P-town. We can only wait and see! Stay safe and goodnight!

East Coast Earthquake of 2011

It's a good thing I haven't left for London yet. If I had I never would have had the opportunity to experience my first earthquake. I know, I know, all of us east coasters were FREAKING OUT yesterday when we felt the earth move underneath us. Of course all those Californians are calling us babies for all the hullabaloo we have created over this 5.8, and yes, no one was hurt (thank God), but it WAS sort of a big deal for us. All fifteen seconds that it lasted were scary. The thoughts that ran through my head as I sat on my bed were, in chronological order:
    1) Is the mouse back behind my bed?
    2) Am I making this bed move?
    3) Is it the construction next door?
    4) Oh my God, I think this is an earthquake.
    5) What do I do? I'm all alone.
    6) Do I leave?
    7) Do I get underneath something?
    8) I think I need to call my mom.
    9) Uh, I feel seasick.


This is honestly the thought process I went through in the buildup of those fifteen seconds. It was so soft at first and then I thought I might have imagined it because it stopped for a couple seconds then just got bigger and bigger. It was no longer just my bed going back and forth like a boat on waves, but the grates on my window were shaking as well as my doors and lamps. I was almost frozen with a confused fear. If it had lasted any longer I honestly don't know what I would have done. Probably run out of the building at that point. Because I'm no longer at my job I was just sitting on my bed packing up my clothes...alone. It wasn't until I posted a Facebook status asking what had just happened (thinking I might be one of the only ones) that I was informed. I tried Googling it initially but nothing came up. After a couple attempts it finally showed up. Turned on the TV and within minutes of it happening it was all over every channel. Goes to show you how speedy the media can be. My phone wasn't working when I tried to call people because the lines were all clogged up with people looking to call family and whatnot. Of course Facebook exploded as well. It's so funny to see how we are so hugely attached to technology. Even if the news wasn't there to cover the story, everyone could have found out just as fast through Facebook and Twitter. Unbelievable. Even though it was a scary moment, I am happy I finally got to experience it. I hope never to experience it again on any greater scale.


The hype also gave a lot of comedians some solid material. David Letterman based his top 10 list around "Things heard during the earthquake." I also discovered this beauty floating around twitter:




DC Earthquake Devastation:

 

Underneath it read: Thanks to all of you for your kind words of support, as we look to recover from the devastation of today's quake!

 Haha! Thanks to http://jmckinley.posterous.com/dc-earthquake-devastation for making us laugh!


In other exciting daily news, I finally received my welcome packet from school via e-mail. It had all the information on registration and included a loose class schedule. It is so strange how the schedule works. It's looking like I will be in classes every Friday and then there are a couple days set aside as all day special lectures. I was warned that at first I would be surprised by how "little" work it would feel like, but as soon as I get into an internship, that would change. Besides, the whole point of this program is to get out do the internships and get practical experience. To be honest, that's what I am most looking forward to. I cannot wait to dive right in! Sadly I have to wait until October 6th for the first day of registration. I'm moving over the 19th of September and have a few weeks to settle in...but I'd honestly like to get started as soon as possible. Maybe that spare time will give me a chance to get a job under my belt. Time will tell I suppose.

Tonight I am home on Cape Cod after a long bus ride from New York. I must admit it's good to come back to see my three furry best friends! Maisy is our beautiful Golden. Oliver (Ollie) is the little white monster child. And Huckleberry is the kitty. He is saying hi in the bottom left photo. I love those guys so much. I could spend the whole day just hanging out with them. They are truly the best! Anyways, the reason I am home: I am on the Cape for the next couple of days to help out my brother with the democratic campaign for State Senate he has been working on for the past couple of months as a summer internship. We are hosting the candidate, Alan Khazei, and supporters for a meet and greet tomorrow night after he does a tour of Cape businesses, mostly set up and planned by my little brother. Ah, I'm such a proud sister! Anyways, I will be playing party planner all day while Joe (my brother) goes from event to event and then back to the house at night. I must say, I'm no expert in politics, but I can plan a mean party! I'm excited to help him and the whole campaign with my event planning skills. More to follow tomorrow! Goodnight all!

Mouse Attack

Wow, what a day it was today. I really feel I accomplished a lot on the packing front...and was able to have a social life! (Always a plus when both are accomplished). I hit the ground running with getting this apartment ready for moving next week. I head home to the Cape for 5 days on Wednesday to help my brother out with events for the campaign with which he has been interning all summer. Then next week my dad comes back to NYC with me to pack it all up and drive it home, while I stick around for a couple days to celebrate my 23rd birthday with NYC friends. So you can see it is quite the week and a half I have in front of me. The problem is, I have to have everything ready to load into the truck when I get back with my dad. Basically I have tomorrow and that's it. And I have a ton of crap!

Along with packing, we need to hardcore clean the apartment. I mean scrub and spackle, wash and shine! Hanna and I are banking on our security deposit that we paid a year ago to come back to us in full. I need that security deposit to help pay my October rent in London...therefore the place must be spotless. I ran some errands down in the Faltiron district to pick up cleaning supplies and drop off something to Hanna. I have rarely wandered around that area, but it was such a gorgeous day with the perfect temperatures (hinting that Fall is around the corner) and I just had to procrastinate packing for a bit. I would like to try to explore a little more of NYC before I leave. It's a shame I wasn't able to see and do more (even though I did a ton). I even chilled out in Madison Square Park for a bit and watched a commercial being shot. I wanted Shake Shack so badly but the line wrapped halfway around the park! I shouldn't have been surprised seeing as there is ALWAYS a line for Shake Shack. Shake Shack has become a popular burger joint in NYC and I guess has spread to some other cities. They also make homemade custard that is a popular item on the menu. There is just something about their burgers that I love! If you are ever in NYC and just want a cool place to have a burger check out Shake Shack. If you want to go to the one in Madison Square Park, go to their website first because they have a live webcam where you can check out the status of the line. So smart! Not sure I would remember to do that but still cool. Also a fun fact if you have ever seen the movie "Something Borrowed," the scenes where Ginifer Goodwin and John Krasinski always meet for lunch is Madison Square Park and Shake Shack makes quite a few cameos. 

Anyways...after all my daydreaming about food, I trekked back uptown to my apartment with all my cleaning and spackling supplies and got to work. Not easy to do on such a gorgeous day. Once I got the hang of it, I was on a spackling frenzy. I was ripping out all the nails and unscrewing all the screws from the walls. When I would try to spackle the holes, sometimes there would be extra drywall in the way. I really could have used some sandpaper. I looked through our stuff to see if we had any. No such luck, so I had to get creative. Because they were tiny nail and screw holes, I thought that maybe my nail file would work. Well, sure enough, it proved successful. I would go around, rip out the nail, sand it down with the nail file then fill the whole with spackle. I must tip my own hat on a job well done. Anytime you need some spackling done, give me a call. Then, I got to work on the ridiculous amounts of scuff marks on the walls all over our apartment. Hanna introduced me to the Magic Eraser by Mr. Clean. It was incredible! All you do is soak the special sponge, ring it out and it instantly removes scuffs and marks on walls. I used them up so that they are now torn to shreds. What an amazing product. I really never expected it to work that well. Finally I finished up the day with starting to pack up all my clothes...my endless amounts of clothes.

I decided I needed to get out and see some of my friends as I am not going to be here much longer. I met a couple friends at ANOTHER BURGER JOINT called Mother Burger. I still had the idea of a burger in my head and this has a fun outdoor atmosphere and serves frozen lemonade! YUM! I had the "Single Mother" with cheese, onions and pickles (essentially a one patty cheeseburger). It was a great meal and a great time. I headed home with Hanna to quite the disturbance:

We had just gotten home and I was in the living room when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something scurry along the wall and behind the couch. I started freaking out and I told Hanna. She started screaming and we were just standing in the hallway holding hands. Such babies! We were both afraid to even look in the living room. I finally braved the walk to my room to get my Wellies and to shut my bedroom door in case he tries to get in there. We both are in tank tops, gym shorts and our tall Hunter Wellies standing in the middle of our living room on our coffee table. Hanna has her broom in one hand. We decide to move the couch out. As soon as that happens, we see the little guy scurry along the back wall behind the couch. I start screaming, Hanna starts screaming. We both run  like chickens. It's embarrassing but it happened. We started to strategize. We would scare it out and capture it with a shoebox. Sadly we couldn't find him again. We hit and threw things all to try to scare him out, but nothing. Who knows where he went. I doubt it, but it's possible he could be sleeping in my bedroom with me tonight which I'm not happy about. It's possible he went back through the hole he came in. We thought there was potential for his hole to be near to the radiator behind the couch so hand took the remaining spackle and covered it up. It was quite a disastrous and hilarious scene. We made a mess tearing that room apart...just to find a silly mouse. Here is a panoramic shot of the disaster zone we created:

Packing it up

Hello all, Happy August 21st...also known as my wonderful friend Corinne's birthday! Happy 23 years Co! xxx

Sorry...had to do the shout out!

Well the journey to London finally feels real. The countdown has begun! I am currently starting to pack up my apartment which is not proving to be easy. I have so much crap! The worst part about it all is that I've already brought some stuff home. I need to rid myself of so much junk. I think the things that I have an absurd collection of are my shoes, clothes, makeup/beauty products and hair products. I DON'T NEED IT ALL! Also, the amount of denim I own is out of control. I have at least 10 pairs of jeans. The funny thing is I don't even wear all of them and my favorite pair is a hand me down! I have a ton of hand-me-down jeans, adding to all the denim chaos. Packing all of this up scares me because A) I do not know where I'm going to put it all at my house and B) I don't know how I'm going to pack two suitcases with all of my essentials for a whole year. It's just not feasible! I did it for the 4 months I studied abroad, but a year? NO WAY! I also don't want to end up buying tons of stuff that I won't be able to bring home...but I will UGH!

I am mainly anxious about two things in the prospect of this year: the packing and the amount of money it costs to live over there. My student visa only allows me to work a maximum of 20 hours per week. This is not going to help me on the money front. I'm hoping to get a part time nannying position but of course I have to manage school and internships all at the same time. It is so daunting. I want so badly to travel while I'm there as well but I don't think money and/or time will allow that as much as I would like. I'm just going to have to make it work.

I am going to keep this post short because I need to keep chipping away at this whole packing thing. I cannot procrastinate. It's a dangerous thing!

Until next time, I will leave you with this cool panorama pic of my "PACKING ROOM." It's a mess...please do not judge! It also makes my room look huge...sadly that's an illusion.

***I was able to take this pic with a cool new FREE app on my iPhone called PHOTOSYNTH. Check it out!***

Don't you just love it when...

Yesterday was a day of babysitting. I babysat from 8:30am-6:30pm. At noon we went for a walk to Riverside Park and played on the playground. It was just a gorgeous, perfect day. I had a huge issue this summer living in this city with the muggy heat, but yesterday made up for all of it. The air felt clean, there was a nice breeze and the sun was shining. We then went to get pizza followed by Pinkberry. Pinkberry has become a huge fad that I believe started over in LA and is now in NYC. It is frozen yogurt and you can choose your own toppings. I love getting strawberries with either granola or something chocolatey. Yesterday I chose the original flavor yogurt (always my go to) with strawberries and oreo pieces. YUM! I know there are so many frozen yogurt places around but there is just something about Pinkberry! I'm obsessed. Writing this makes me want to grab some more before I go babysit today!

So while babysitting of course, the fuse blew in the apartment so we all had to trek down to the basement...baby in carriage and all! And find the fuse box. It was lovely. Right as I was trying to make dinner. Anyways...I finally finished with babysitting and came home when the thunderstorms started. I'm not a huge fan of thunder and lightning. I used to be the biggest baby about them. Now I can deal, but last night's were intense. They were right above us and so loud. They were setting off car alarms! All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball under my covers...And I did that while skyping with Matt. He thought I was being a baby but I don't care...lightning is dangerous and I know people who have died from getting struck and people who have been struck by simply being at their window. Well it passed and Hanna and I decided to go out to meet one of my college friends for drinks. We are trying at the moment to pack up the apartment and Hanna had the great idea to try to get rid of the little alcohol we had left in the house. We had enough to make one drink each with some concentrated juice and ice in my blender. This was the delicious drink we came up with:

It turned out to be a pretty good night and we didn't even get home super late. However the part of the night that sucked was finding the signs of possibly having a third roommate in the apartment that we didn't know we had. First Hanna found a nibbled hole in her english muffins package and a little nibbled out of the english muffin. Then later that evening I found my bread bag with the top piece nibbled and shredded. There was a decent size hole in it as well. Great! So we have a week and a half left and this happens to us now!? What gives? We had a mouse this winter that we kept seeing. Finally we found out where he was coming from and blocked the hole. We were mouse free after that. Then in the beginning of the summer we had a bit of a cockroach problem. We brought in the exterminators and they took care of it. Pretty much roach free (I mean its NYC...it sucks). Now we have this!?!?  I can't deal with rodents and if I see that little bugger I might have a breakdown. NYC living is one of the huge reasons I am moving to London and into a brand new building complex. I am so over it! Even though its pretty hilarious to think about...roughing it as some of my family and friends have described it!

Babysitting at The Jeremy Kyle Show and change...

So today I was called for an emergency babysitting job at this new talk show called The Jeremy Kyle Show. Well, actually it's not so new to the Brits. Turns out this is a really popular show in the UK that is coming to American TV this fall. I had to babysit the guests' kids in the green room while they were on the show. Because I wasn't totally sure what I was getting into, I gave Matt a call (my expert Brit) to find out a little more. Welp, turns out its essentially the English version of Jerry Springer meets Maury Povich. GREAT! Anyways, I don't want to talk too much about the family for privacy purposes...I don't know much about them anyway. The three little girls I was watching were adorable. I have no idea why the their mom was a guest on the show but I guess we'll only know when it airs this fall. Seeing shows like this makes you realize that your family isn't as crazy and messed up as you thought. I thank God for my upbringing.  It's so unfair when innocent children are forced to live in these uncontrollable circumstances. To say the least, today was a unique babysitting experience...a lot of people running around with headsets on! Different!

After that I stopped by one of my all time favorite shops: TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Filene's Basement, H&M and Forever 21 are some of my favorite stores because I am a serious bargain shopper. I'm afraid to say it but I am turning into my mother. She happens to be an expert at finding the best things at these types of stores. Some people don't have the patience to weed through the endless racks of clothing, but my mom is a super star! I have gotten so many cute things from Marshalls and TJ's in particular because of her skills. Thanks Mom! Today I finally got a new little zip wallet for $9. I haven't been able to part with this stupid little butterfly change purse thing that I found in my closet from Christmases past. Who knows how long ago I got it as a gift...middle school? Then a year or two ago I found it still in its box in the depths of my closet waiting to be used. Well its been used...OUT! It's so middle school, so I thought it was time for a grown up wallet, but its been hard to find anything similar. I'm not crazy about change, so it had to be worth giving up my butterfly wallet that I was so used to and comfortable with. You can see it was a very good upgrade!

Finally, tonight I was able to start purging my bedroom of things I am not going to pack up and bring home. I think I had to finally say goodbye to 6 pairs of shoes that are years old and broken. I don't even wear them...the zippers on the boots don't even zip...the heels are non-existent, but I JUST CAN'T LET GO. I have random papers and bills around the room that just need to get tossed. Why didn't I throw them out months ago? No idea...thought they might be important late? They weren't...just a waste of space gathering dust. Something I did find was a bunch of playbills from the numerous shows I've seen over the past year in NYC. I have to say, thanks to working in this industry I've had some amazing experiences including opening night parties and seeing a lot of Broadway shows. Here are just some of the playbills I was able to find:

Cleaning this out has been a ride down memory lane of my past year. I have to say it's been amazing and I've met some great friends and have a ton of memories...but now its on to the next phase in a new city...a cleaner one ;)

Oh by the way, dinner turned out well! BBQ chicken and buttered pasta..I have a really exciting palette.

Ugh dinner...

Hey guys!

So I just got home from...well sort of a strange day. I'm going to tell you all about it in my next post later this evening, because it was bizarre. But right now, I am trying to sort out what to have for dinner. I'm feeling obliged to cook because I have a ton of ingredients ready to go, the only problem is: I DO NOT cook. My cooking skills are embarrassing. Most of the time bad things happen to me in the kitchen. For example, once I was transferring a hot grilled cheese to the plate from the pan and disaster struck. Picture this: glass plate in my left hand, grilled cheese on a spatula in my right hand. Somewhere during the transfer I managed to burn myself on the stove...Grilled cheese went flying, plate went crashing to the ground, Plate smashed into pieces, whilst grilled cheese separated into two and landed on my cell phone, gooey, hot cheese face down. I felt bad for my cell phone but it survived. Things that shouldn't catch fire, catch fire. I've over-boiled water so that it burns the bottom of the pan and ruins it. In short, I am a hot mess in the kitchen.

I also don't understand the science behind cooking. I don't really know what works with what and can't really create a solid meal. I like to improvise a lot too which really just adds to catastrophe. My boyfriend Matt, however, is a very good cook. You might think "well then you're all set! No problem!" Sadly Matt would love it if I cooked. If it were up to me, I'd have cereal morning noon and night. In a few short weeks I will be heading over to move in with my beloved and much to my dismay, the cooking lessons will begin. Two Christmases ago he bought me a cook book and then last Christmas he bought me an apron...is he trying to send me signals here? My cooking skills will be put to the test over the next year and I plan on covering the highs and the lows in this lovely blog, so get ready!

As for tonight...I just got a free promotional bag of food from Barilla. They were giving them away at Columbus Circle today. It had a box of spaghetti, tomato sauce and a box of salad greens in it. Not to mention I have chicken in the fridge ready to be cooked with tasty Barbecue Sauce from Dinosaur BBQ, which is a famous BBQ joint near my apartment. So now I have all these options and I don't know what to do. I'm sure I'll come up with some weirdo concoction and share it with you all later.

Wish me luck!!!