Happy Happy Spooky Night

Okay, I take back everything I said about Halloween in NYC. Sam and I just experienced the coolest thing. We walked down to 7th Avenue to check out all of the Trick-or-Treaters. We stashed ourselves off to the side to walk. We joked about the fact that we probably looked like pedophiles - grown adults without costumes pointing out all of the cute kids. We ran in to my old supervisor, Iris and her husband Bob. We walked down the street with them to wait for the parade. I had no idea what Park Slope considered to be a parade, but I was willing to check it out. What a great night! There were drummers and dancers and great costumes and a "headless" horseman on a real horse. Some people are so creative when it comes to Halloween costumes. We saw a couple of iPods, someone dressed as a Metrocard, someone dressed up as the $25,000 Pyramid, complete with categories and lights. It was pretty nifty. I could never be that creative. Maybe next year we'll actually dress up before heading out to the parade.

And last but not least, there were tons of Trick-or-Treaters getting candy from residents sitting on their stoops. We passed a "Haunted Garden" at one building and tons of brownstone decorations. I feel much better about future Halloweens, maybe it is a special day after all....

Happy Spooky Day

Well, it's Halloween and to be honest, it doesn't feel any different than any other day. I have long since stopped dressing up for the holiday. I'm much to old to Trick-or-Treat and I'm too old to go and TP houses. Over the past few years, I have really enjoyed buying candy and passing it out to the kids that were Trick-or-Treating in my neighborhood. Since we moved to New York, kids don't really go door to door for candy anymore. I think there's some sort of parade down the street tonight, so we might go check that out.

The real question is, do you stop Trick-or-Treating when you get older or do you get older because you've stopped Trick-or-Treating? Maybe Sam and I will sit outside tonight and watch the kids in their costumes.

Well folks, Happy Spooky night! Get in your tricks while you can and I wish you all a year full of treats.

Can't wait to go to the grocery store tomorrow and get the 1/2 off Halloween Candy. Woo Hoo - a Sale!!

Sleep well because tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos....day of the dead.

Boo!

I love brunch

There's nothing better than getting up late on Sunday and going out for brunch. Especially if the brunch is $9.95 and it's ALL YOU CAN DRINK Mimosas, champagne, Bloody Mary's, Screwdrivers, etc. The Eggs Benedict was great, but it wouldn't have really mattered if it tasted like cardboard, because we were there for the alcohol. I love Mimosa's. Unfortunately, the Mimosa's weren't all that great, so I had to follow it up with champagne. And what's better than a yummy alcohol-infused lunch? Why grocery shopping, of course.

Sam has decided that in order for him to enjoy going to the grocery store, we should institute a "Four-Drink Minimum" for his enjoyment pleasure and so that I don't have to yell at him for being a pain in the ass. I love the grocery store but my loving husband does not feel the same way. However, after four Bloody Mary's, he was having a great time. Such a great time that as we were walking home from the store, Sam tried to fall down and take all of our groceries with him. I couldn't help but laugh. Usually he has such grace and poise!

So tonight we are following a Rachael Ray recipe and making Nosagna, or a noodle-less lasagna. Mmmm....yummy. We gots lots of yummy vegetables and some exciting stuff to cook with (yay heavy cream and cheese). We'll see if we can follow a recipe and make this turn out just right.

We're going to make dinner, watch Man on Fire and enjoy ourselves tonight. I got cider and Sam has beer. We'll be fine...

Texas Fight

Well, I couldn't be prouder of our Texas boys. We came back and kicked ass! 47-28 against OSU. We kept OSU scoreless in the second half. Like Vince Young says, "we just gotta keep taking care of bidness".

Still proud to be a Longhorn!

Hook 'Em!

Oh Texas, My Texas

So I am a proud alumni (or is it alumnus) for two amazing schools - The University of Texas and Columbia University. However, tonight I may be disappointed by both. Columbia already lost to Yale today and just about everyone else this season and UT is not holding their own against unranked Oklahoma State. Am I disappointed? Yes. But more than that, I'm shocked. What is going on with my team. I tend to think that I bleed Orange. I have watched this amazing team all year and share the hopes of many that we will have an undefeated season. Could it be possible that we are really down 28-12 at the half? Can I expect a comeback? I certainly hope so. I have faith in my Longhorns and feel deep down in my heart of hearts that Texas will not go down without a fight. Texas Fight, Texas Fight! Come on, even though we are in Oklahoma tonight, the Eyes of Texas must still be upon us! Right? Let's hope so. Maybe I'm a bit premature to be blogging about this game before it's over. And don't even think that I'm convinced that we are going to lose. I'm not, I'm convinced that we're gonna hang in there, get our shit together and stomp the damn Cowboys. I just can't contain my frustration. We are ranked #2 in the damn nation, let's start acting like it!

Give 'em hell, give 'em hell, OSU Sucks! Da duh duh da duh duh duuuhh!

More after the game...

It's fall, it's fall, it's fall!

Sam and I decided to venture out today for a walk. We woke up, went to the Duane Reade to get some smokes and then to Ozzie's for coffee. We felt like super adults as we sat in the coffee house, drinking our coffee and reading the paper - Sam the New York Times and me the Park Slope Courier. It was quite cute if I do say so myself! We decided to just wander around the neighborhood. It was 50 degrees out early this afternoon, the trees are changing colors and everyone is out and about. I'm so glad that we didn't just hang out in the apartment today. We found a new gourmet grocery store, a cool clothing store and many many many bars. We were just glad to walk a couple of miles to get rid of the many calories that we consumed last night.

Side note - 7-layer cookies rocked. Unfortunately, we gorged on the cookies, or "candy" as Sam calls it and didn't eat any type of healthful (hee) dinner. We watched a kick ass movie last night - The Believer with Ryan Gosling. Very interesting, upsettting, enlightening, etc. Don't know how we put it on the Netflix Queue, but we got it and it was cool. Tonight is the Texas-Oklahoma State Game. Love watching my Longhorns kick some ass.

Not a very interesting Saturday, but a fun and relaxing one. I love that the weather is getting colder and it's getting so cozy out in the neighborhood. Gonna go make some dinner and chill with my baber.

Hasta la Pasta...

It's a good day

I woke up before noon today, which is a great start for me. Seriously, I like to stay up real late and sleep even later. Something about not having anything to do during the day makes it easier to sleep. Strange, huh? Well, for some reason today felt different when I got out of bed. I felt invigorated. I felt like I could take on the world. And even more than that, I felt like actually leaving the house today. To be honest, I haven't left the house in a couple of days. I woke up, got dressed and checked the employment ads. No new jobs today. Hopefully I'll start hearing back from some of the people that I've sent my resume to.

So, I washed the dishes, put on a heavy sweater and headed out to the Ace Mart. I know, not real exciting for a trip outdoors, but at least I was outside. I bought chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, condensed milk and pecans. I feel like baking for my husband today, so I bought all of the stuff for my world-famous, super rich, 7-layer cookies. They're not really cookies, more like brownies or bars or something more significant than cookies. But I digress....

The cookies are baking and the cell phone rings. It's a local cell phone number. It's not someone I recognize, but it could have been any of our friends here. I haven't entered in anyone's phone number into my new cell phone. So the mystery person actually left a message and it was PWC asking me to interview. Now let me give you some background on PWC. I have applied for at least six jobs from them with no response. My buddy Jessica is doing her final internship with them, so I thought it would be really cool if we were working for the same company. So a couple weeks ago, I decided to try one more time. I sent them a cover letter, resume and list of references in a big envelope with fancy calligraphy addressing the package. And glory be, they called me today. So I'm interviewing next Wednesday morning at 10:15 am. The position is in East New York, Brooklyn. Not real close to the Slope, but at least it's not Harlem or the Bronx. Anyway, I'm excited about this and am looking forward to wearing my suit next week and not sweating like a pig.

Woo hoo! A job prospect! And it's even in Social Work!!! I'm really excited...

Keep ya posted...

Recap

I stayed up till 2 am this morning so that I could finish my book and then write about it. It was great. I really enjoyed the book and was disappointed that there weren't hidden chapters somewhere else. I really felt drawn to the main character and want a sequel damnit. So if you read this Liza Palmer, I want a continuation of Maggie's story!

But the reason for this blog was not to be a book review or to impress those that might actually read this with how much spare time I have to read. It's about me ranting about my inability to find a job! Since August 1, I have applied for at least 60 jobs. And I'm doing pretty crappy on the ratio of callbacks at this point. When I had applied for 20 and had 3 interviews I was ahead of the curve. Now I'm at 60 jobs applied for and only 4 interviews. I am at least 2 interviews behind. And do you wanna know the saddest part? I've stopped applying for Social Work jobs. It is clear to me that someone out there does not want me to be a social worker. So I've resorted to my old fallback - Bookkeeping. I knew I should have gone into accounting. I was an accounting major for about five minutes one year. I should have stuck with it.

But alas - I haven't even heard back on any of the bookkeeper jobs. Am I destined to be a not-so-domestic housewife? If so, I'm going to need an apron and some Valium! In the past two days (not counting today), I have applied for fourteen positions. By now they should have read my fabulous cover letter and taken a gander at my resume. Shouldn't they be knocking down my door at this point? Is it the Austin cell phone number? Are they afraid to call long distance? Do I sound fat from my cover letter and resume and they feel I might tarnish their image? It has to be something. To be honest, I'm really getting sick of trying. Can you believe that I have one of the most expensive degrees in the country from an Ivy League School that some people would kill to go to and I can't find a job?! Wouldn't it be sad if I were a bartender at some seedy dive bar or a coffee maker at some snobby-ass coffee house? At least I wouldn't be the first overeducated bar maiden, right?

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day and there will always be shitty jobs for me to apply for and get my hopes up about. Right? Of course right!

Tons and Tons of Books

So I'm a bookaholic, if there ever was such a thing. I love books. I love to read for fun and to read interesting things that I can later quote and sound really cool. So I recently went a little overboard on the books. I read book reviews in magazines and decide that I can't live without those books. I spend money on hard back books to add to my "collection". I guess I'm assuming that at some point, someone very well read will come to my home and see my "collection" and admire, "Wow, you are so very well read. Will you please join our underground book club?" I don't know what I was thinking. There was a sale at Barnes and Noble online and I bought a few books. I joined a book club and received seven new books. I can finish a book (If I really try hard) in about 3 days. So ahead of me I have nine unread books. They all seemed like really good books and of course most of them were a really good deal. My grandma would be so proud. I got most of them on sale. See, my thought was that since I'm not working, I would have plenty of time to read. Unfortunately, I only seem to have time to read while I'm in the bathroom. I have the wonderful invention of cable TV and it's hard to turn it off to devote time to reading. However, I did it yesterday and plan to do it later today. Hopefully I can finish my current book by tomorrow afternoon. Is it possible? My husband thinks I'm crazy and has banned me from entering a Barnes and Noble until all of my current books are read. At least he's not trying to get me to sell any of them. How dare I even bring up the notion of breaking up the "collection". I blame my favorite female authors. I read their blogs and they recommend other books by other female authors. I have to go out and buy those books, don't I? What would the authors think if I didn't listen to their every recommendation? Okay, so it's a sickness. I'm sick, that's what it is. But books make me happy. Should I stop doing something that makes me happy? Wow, I am sick. I'm giving the excuses of a junky, aren't I? Well, at least it's books and not expensive shoes, or cashmere sweaters, or smack for God's sake. Okay, I'm done with my ranting. I'm going to turn off the TV and finish reading (or at least read a lot more) of Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer. It's getting good.

Ciao!