Merry Christmas, Baby

Last night, Cariño and I ventured into Restaurant Row to partake of a tradition neither one of us had been a part of before: making Gingerbread Houses.

It's one of those things I'd read about as a child, or that always makes an appearance in Christmas magazines or specials, "fun things to do with your kids!" type of thing. I'm sure that gingerbread house making happens all over the place, but I always saw it as the quintessential American activity.

Anyway, it couldn't happen in a more incongruous place: the upstairs alcove at the Village Pourhouse, which really is just Joshua Tree with another name. They provided us with super cute house making kits, that included almost everything we'd need to make our house, namely gingerbread, icing, lots and lots of candy.

You begin by pouring an icing foundation, and then it's just a matter of sticking pieces together. Of course, its more time consuming than that. All in all, it took about two hours, and that's without making the thing from scratch. Our finished decorated product is courtesy of Cariño, since I probably would've just stuck candy on to the thing all nilly willy. And I did, on the little tree outside the house. We would've done a better job if we had extra tools, since the kit only comes with plain bags of icing. Our building neighbours were pros at it, and borrowed knives and forks to make a masterpiece of a house: they left a side open so that you could look inside the house. They even made an icing snowman! It was amazing.

But ours came out pretty nice for first timers, I think. Hopefully Cariño's third graders will enjoy it. I know I enjoyed putting it together!

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Last Day Of Recording For the Year

Recorded in Brighton Beach today. The ride down flooded me with High School Memories. It was cold, but it was nice to look at the Ocean. This year brought 82 recording days, with 289 interviews. I like the sense of accomplishment, and the thought that I touched all those lives...

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Memorials

This little memorial by the City Hall caught my eye. It's titled "be right back" and on top of the suitcase there's a half eaten donut, and a coffee. This visit has so far not been a lot of fun, mostly because we're here recording some serious/sad stuff. Plus, there just hasn't been the desire to do much. Let's see if we do something about that today.

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Zumba

Today I began to Zumba. Let's see how this works out. So far, I'm way lost in the reggaeton steps, some of the salsa ones. Dodum!

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A comer Venezolano

Couple of weeks ago I had me some Venezuelan food. I've been carrying around the picture on my phone mostly because I forgot the name of the restaurant AND the name of the plate. It was described as the national dish and it consisted of white rice, black beans, and shredded beef. The beans come with queso fresh. The restaurant is somewhere in Astoria. It took ne a while to get into it, because I expected it to taste like Dominican dishes, but once I was able to separate it in my head, it was very tasty.

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Another Thanksgiving

This one has been interesting at the very least.

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Old Fart

Today is my birthday. So far it's been great - Life has been good.

Huzzah!

Bandelier

We weren't going to start work until late in the day, so we decided to take in a little bit of New Mexico. Our B&B hostess pointed us to Bandelier, a National Monument and Park. We drove about an hour in the early morning cold, enjoying the beauty around us. Once at Bandelier, you have about a gazillion trails that you can choose from. But let me backtrack: the Bandelier area was once inhabited by the Ancestral Pueblo People. We chose to not check out the Cavate areas (caves that were excavated by the Ancestral Pueblo People) were they had more than 400 rooms built. Instead we chose one of the trails - a moderate one that would take about three hours and that would take us from the top of the mountain down to the Rio Grande: Falls Trail.

The hike began easily enough, specially since it's on the way down. Although the trail had sharp edges and you had to make sure you stayed on the path, the path was pretty big and even, with very few sharp drops between steps. You could hear the Frijoles River singing a good 60 or 70 feet down from the trail, next to us - we essentially walked around this huge crater, in search of some falls, and in search of the river.

On the way down, enjoying the fresh air and the beautiful sights, we crossed paths with a family of four (parents and two boys) who were already coming back from the hike. We all said hi to each other as we passed, and I quickly decided that I will have a hiking family. I want my children to love nature and to feel comfortable with walking around a tiny tiny piece of earth that allows you to see awesomeness around you. Plus it just sounds cool. We also later on ran into a family of three (parents and a boy) that were also on the way down, but had stopped a bit to enjoy one of the falls.

The little boy was very cute, and fearless, climbing to the very edges of the path to look down. He also informed me that the entire thing had once been a volcano that was bigger than... something. I drowned him out, because little know-it-alls are hella cute, but also hella annoying. I decided that my future children would love hiking and would be fearless, but would not be know-it-alls. And if they end up being know-it-alls, they'll be the cute only kind.

We quickly surpassed the family and kept making our way down. That's when the trail got a little steeper, but it was okay - we jumped the Frijoles river a couple of times (back and forth and back and forth) until we finally hit the valley. The most amazing part about the trail was that there was all kinds of foliage on our way down - it went from looking like we were walking down a mountain to areas that could've been somewhere in the Northeast, to the Valley, that was mostly dry and did have tumble weeds, but was caught in between all of these mountains and the most impossibly blue sky you could think of. The Rio Grande totally snuck up on me - the little sucker was huge, and very muddy, but incredibly quiet. You could tell that the current within it was strong, but the surface did not show it at all.

After relaxing by the Rio Grande for a bit and a couple of swigs of water, we headed back. It was high noon and the sun was squarely upon us. I wished that I had brought a hat with me.
Soon though, it became obvious that the way out was not going to be as easy as the way in - of course not. We had walked down into a crater, now we were hiking out of it. Holy Shit. I made it a good 25 minutes before I had to stop. By the time that we hit the second Falls and we stopped to let my heart slow down I had decided that a hiking family is for idiots that don't know how good Central and Prospect Park are, and if my future kids can't get enough nature out of that, they can rent a documentary. We then ran into an older man, he must've been 65 to 70 something, that was also on his way up. He decided to join us and began walking between Matt and I.

I don't know if to be thankful for his presence or not. He kept Matt busy, talking about New Mexico and giving us details about the places we passed; everything from they just fixed this wooden bridge to the type of rock we walked by. He informed us it was tarantula season. I quietly wheezed my way up behind the two of them, while the old man, in his hat and his sweater, walked ahead cool as a cucumber. He reminded me of Roger Gulley and I was torn between finding him adorable and wanting to smack him over the head so that he would stop talking and I could concentrate on my wheezing. I need to get in shape y'all. For reals.

A Salad Bistro

The work day was pretty slow, but that didn't deter our hunger. After a beautiful Sunny day, we decided to stop by a spot in Santa Fe proper that advertised that they only sold Salads. Its name? Vinaigrette.

It was crowded, which is always a good sign I suppose. They apparently own a farm and only serve seasonal and organic veggies. They do offer meat, however, so they're not strictly a veggie place. We ordered from the seasonal specials and salads. We shared the most delicious pan crusted potatoes

And then I had the On the Cob salad, which consisted of a lot of corn, goat cheese, and a whole lot other goodness.

We finished the night with hot apple pie with a scoop of their homemade ice cream.

Perfect.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

After lunch in Albuquerque, we hit the road to Santa Fe. We took the scenic route. Check out all the blue:

Mountains upon mountains. The place is gorgeous and at times just beyond breathtaking. I kept singing the Santa Fe song from Rent, which probably bothered Matt a little, until we turned on his iPhone on shuffle.

We stayed at this place called "The Triangle Inn", which markets itself as the Gay Santa Fe Bed and Breakfast. The couple that own the place have two children and are hella friendly. The B&B consists of a bunch of "casitas" all made out of Adobe. I stayed in one of their Studio Casitas, with a lovely living area and kitchenette area attached to my bedroom. The only drawback? They don't receive TV signal, so although the rooms are equipped with TV's, you have to depend on their (considerably) large vhs collection if you'd like in room entertainment. Luckily, I had Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to keep me company, but this also means that as of this writing I've yet to watch this week's Grey's Anatomy and that sucks balls.

We were hungry, but also tired, so instead of heading into town for dinner, we drove around the corner to Gabriel's. The place is huge and quite beautiful. I was swayed by the smell of onions and so I had me a most excellent chicken fajita.

It comes with rice, pinto beans, pico de gallo, guacamole  and corn tortillas.

The food was excellent, and even though I was only able to eat about half of it, I was immediately thrown into a food coma, so we quickly paid the check and I promptly passed out for the night.

Albuquerque, part I.

Arrived in Albuquerque in a very sunny Thursday afternoon. Call it Schadenfraude, but knowing that it was raining cats and dogs in NYC made me happier to be in the sun. Sorry my NYC loves! Nothing personal!

Anyway, we drove to 20 Carrots Cafe.

There was only a customer there, an older woman that kept saying in Spanglish that she was from Bogotá, Colombia, and judging by her commentaries, she was not very fond of people from Mexican descent. The owner, who might've been of Mexican descent, was a lady probably in her late 50's that just kept agreeing.

I wasn't too hungry, so I got a cup of pinto beans soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Simple, yet delicious.

The best part, though, came when I stopped by the bathroom before leaving. The original owner of 20 Carrots (Christie Brinkley's brother, nash) had commitioned a painting or something. The thing was bizzare, but awesome. There was a beach scene, with a Scotsman in a kilt playing the bagpipes, walking on water. On the other side Jesus was actually walking on water. It was just too much.

Before leaving, stopped by the news stand next door to buy a postcard for Brichelle. The self-help section:

Of unplanned hiatus and what not

So I haven't updated in a while - no particular reason, just have been really lazy with the posting. I have pictures of meals and all these things I've been up to since the last post, but it seems ridiculous to go through the work of recounting all that, so we shall just say that the month happened, it was good, meals were had and enjoyed, movies were watched, books were read.

Speaking of, I'm smack in the middle of re-reading the Harry Potter Series, in preparation of the movie. I hope  I didn't start reading it too soon, since I'm already in book 3 (Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban). I plan to re-read the seven books, then re-watch the movies, and then there's the premiere of movie seven, which I CANNOT wait for. Huzzah!

So, I promise I'll write some more. Or something.

Hungover Movie Day

We celebrated Stephanie's Birthday on Friday night. Saturday then became recovery day, since we certainly celebrated heartily. We began by having diner food, but that stuff was so horrid that I refuse to put it here. Plus, I didn't even take pictures. Because it was so horrid.

After that we made it to Times Square to watch Bran Nue Dae (this image does not belong to me.)

The movie was awesome. A musical set in 1965 about a young Aboriginal boy who escapes boarding school to return to his hometown of Broom. Right up my alley. The thing was a total romp, with several catchy songs, and with a main actor who is all kinds of cute. Plus Geoffrey Rush is in it. Why aren't you running to watch it?

Afterward we made our way around the city, mostly walking, running errands, and then decided to watch Go the Distance in the Upper East. This RomCom with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long was very cute, a little bit raunchy, and with a pleasing ending. The soundtrack was to die for, but I expect that from D.Barrymore flicks. Her chemistry with Justin Long was pretty good but of course in the back of your mind you keep thinking that they were broken up when they did that movie so it's kinda weird, having to kiss your ex. And make it look good to boot. The questions the movie brings up are not new one's - what do you do when your personal professional life doesn't really mash your personal life? What do you do when the two of you have to live in different places? There are no easy answers. Some people think it's best to sacrifice everything for a relationship. Others opine that if the relationship is meant to work it'll survive the distance or a breakup. I think it's a case-by-case thing, you know? Blanket statements don't really work well in these situations.

Movie was followed by a walk to an Argentinean/Italian restaurant in the Upper East and I sadly do not remember the name right now. I'll search for it later. Their food was ok - we began with some bread with eggplant (instead of butter, which I LOVED)

We shared some croquetas de papa, that were cheesy and perfectly sized, unlike the monstrosities I grew up with

My entree was battered chickend in a lemon butter sauce with veggies

The veggies were perfect, not drenched in oil but light and tasty. The chicken was a whole different business - first it was too hard, and then it was too lemon-y. The lemon butter sauce was good though, and went well with the veggies, which is mostly what I ate.

All in all, a very good Saturday, spent with Ida and Mi Cariño. The weather even cooperated, giving us good crisp air all day long. We finished the night by walking home. Yea. At the risk of jinxing it, I can't help but think that Life is hella good at the moment.

A little Mai, A little Thai

We go to Thai Select all the time, it seems, since 2008 when after seeing an Off-Broadway Show at 37 Arts (The Beebo Chronicles - what an amazing play!), we stopped there for dinner, to have a little mai, a little thai, just as a character in the play describes his drink of choice.

So after briefly attempting to find another restaurant, Ida and I headed to Thai Select, were we started with drinks. I can't remember the name of mine - it had jamaican rum, pineapple juice, and many many other wonderful things. They served it in this beautiful deep glass.

For my main entree, I didn't deviate much from my Thai mainstay, having the Crystal Pad Thai which is sauteed bean vermicelli with crushed peanuts, eggs and scallion.

The noodles gave the plate a slightly different flavor, but Pad Thai is Pad Thai y'all.

After the movie we walked down to Chelsea to catch a showing of "The Tillman Story", a documentary of sorts about Pat Tillman, the NFL football player who gave up his lucrative NFL career to join the military, and died thanks to so-called "friendly fire." The family used this medium to share their story, and it is indeed a heartbreaking one. Any death arriving from this ridiculous unnecesary war is heartbreaking one, but judging by the details that after much investigation the family was able to uncover, I can understand why they did this.

The thing is sad all around. Here was this guy who judged that the best he could do for his country was join the military. This man loved his wife - his wife had actually been his one and only girlfriend, since they were High School sweethearts. This man joined the military with his younger brother. This man gave up a lucrative career. This man thought he was going to be sent to Afghanistan but was sent, instead, to Iraq. This man was murdered by other member's of his country's Military. And then that same organization tried to paint his death as a heroic feat first, later as an unavoidable mistake, and then when his family didn't just accept this, managed to jump through all of that family's legal recourses to point the finger at others, and then go on with life.

Namely not a very happy thing to watch, to be quite sure. I wondered why the middle brother that joined Pat in the military did not really appear in the documentary. I wondered how many other deaths were out there, like Pat's. I wondered how many young men and women are going through life now, trying to get over traumas (physical or mental) that came from this completely unnecesary invasion. It's sad, it's just sad. Makes you wanna drink a little Mai, a little Thai.

Forest Hills

Headed to Queens after work last Wednesday, to spend some much needed down time with my best boy. We toured his neighborhood, walked his dog (not an euphemism) and settled for dinner at his local restaurant, Dirty Pierre's.

We sat outside, as the day was gorgeous. We also had a blast running into a former co-worker of ours. I talked my mouth off and he was kind enough to listen. For appetizers, we had deliciously spicy spanish sausages:

He also convinced me to try Mussels, which he loves. They came in this huge bowl, with warm Italian bread.

Add to that a nice glass of the house red. The bread was delicious, and the wine, whatever it was was good. The mussels though? Not so much. I don't know, I guess I'm just not much of a shellfish eater you know? I've tried so far, crab, shrimp, octopus, and now mussels. So not my cup of tea. I will try lobster, since people seem to love it so much, but I don't really expect to like it any more than I like the others.

For his main entree, he had a wonderful looking pasta. I on the other hand went with one of their wednesday specials, Meatloaf with Mashed potatoes and salad. It was downright perfect - the meat loaf was quite different from any I've ever tasted. I however deleted the picture of that by mistake. Instead, gaze at a dark pic of my boy and I

The Dirty Girls Social Club

So, somewhere in 2003, I think, Mr. B. drops on my desk an article from the New York Times. Not a new occurence. He often gave me (and still does) articles from the Times or any other newspaper or magazine he assumes I do not read. "Here," he said, "this is what you should do."

It was an article on Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez and Latina Chick Lit. I, an English Major with a concentration in Creative Writing, said that of course I knew who she was, and there was no way you could compare my poetry with that. Mr. B. just shrugged and said, "she's making a whole lot of money." And that was that. I thought of the book, but never picked it up.

Well, I finally picked it up this weekend and yes, it is as quick and easy a read as one would expect. Chick Lit, romance novels, easy lit, whatever you want to call 'em - they share that fluidity, more action and plot based than anything else. This novel was all that.

And yet...

There's something to be said about representation and more importantly, about transference. Although I am not a half Cuban-half white woman raised in New Orleans, I'm not a half Dominican-half Puerto Rican woman raised in the ghetto in Boston, I'm not a Jewish Cuban raised in Miami in an abusive relationship, a Mexican-American business woman raised to call herself Spanish, nor a self identified Mexica that lives to make music and I'm not a Colombian Lesbian Newscaster, I was able to identify with each of this women. Even though some of the same characters in the novel wrestled over being "Latina" and being all grouped together because of this commonality, it was the Latinidad in each of them that I related to, and that made the novel such a joy to read.

Now, I do believe that you can enjoy and put yourself in these women shoes without being Latina - their issues are universal female issues, wether you're white, yellow, brown, black, etc. etc. We all struggled with being true to ourselves, with accepting our shortcomings and taking a positive attitude in our lives. They think like we think. Valdes-Rodriguez did a great job at giving each character their own voice and a strong difference in their personalities. So Kudos. Now, to find the sequel.

Look at the fireworks!

(This image does not belong to me.)

I've loved "In The Heights" since July of 2007 when I went to see it off-Broadway at 37 Arts in midtown west a Sunday afternoon. I was so lucky - I woke up that morning and thought, "I'm going to see a show" and Cesar had seen this one already and loved it and so I bought tickets right before the performance was sold out. This was, after all, their final Off-Broadway Performance and the show had already been chosen to move on up to Broadway. I remember how much I loved Vanessa (and Karen Olivo), I disliked Nina and the actress that portrayed her, loved Usnavi, cried when Abuela passed away, and left that theater humming "Look at the fireworks!" after pre-buying the yet to be recorded soundtrack.

I hummed that line for a year after only hearing that song once. When the show appeared in Broadway finally, I refused to listen to the soundtrack until I had the chance to watch the new, revamped Broadway version. I got to see the show in AMAZING seats as a graduation present. I lost the ability to breathe during several moments in that show, and felt my eyes water when the "Blackout" song finally came on towards the end of the first act.

I mean, I really loved this show. I saw it one more time in 2008, and then two years have gone by and this weekend I just wanted to see it again. Plus I was curious to see how Jordin Sparks would be as Nina. So I convinced mi Cariño, and off we went.

This was tough for me, since I had never seen the show without its original actors - Can Usnavi really be Usnavi without Lin Manuel Miranda, and all that. I have to say that Sparks was pretty decent as Nina - not a dancer by any means and the acting is okay, but she sure has the pipes for it, and more. All I know is that when Blackout came around I once again lost the ability to breathe and my eyes went misty and I felt so... I don't know, complete, fulfilled? I don't even know how to explain it, but I sure love that feeling.

After the Show and after wandering around the city for an hour or two we decided to go to the movies, and 'La Soga' was playing. This Dominican produced, directed and acted movie was pretty interesting - I can only compare it to reading a Short Story. It's a revenge flick, with lots of action and blood and what not, but also makes good use of symbolism, hits the right sentimental notes, and really kept me entertained. I recommend y'all to go watch it. It's a big deal for me - for the country. Growing up, we never saw ourselves on TV - DR only had limited reaches, production wise. We had news programs, tv show sketches, a la saturday night live and Sábado Gigante - things that had one stationary camera in one studio. The biggest amount of acting and self produced things we saw were our commercials (and those were a piece of art.) So it means something to me to see mi Santiago in the big screen. Makes me happy. It's not fireworks lighting up the night sky happy, but it's a good deal close. Ah, patriotism, nationalism... la la la.

Homecoming

After arriving at La Guardia and turning my phone on I found a text from my girls, inviting me to dinner. After dropping off the luggage and a quick shower I headed to my old neighborhood, midtown. We chose to have Korean food and so walked to K-town, but once there ran into a new Japanese restaurant and figured, why not? enter HaruHana.

The place was very nice, the decor is simple and uncluttered, with huge wooden benches for chairs that you share with the table behind you. We had vegetarian Gyozo as appetizers:

They were crispy and tasty. Very hot. Good way to start quieting the hunger. We also had edamame but I did not take a picture of that.

One thing that HaruHana had against it: maybe because they were very new, they didn't have a lot of the items in their menu, including the Vegetarian Ramen which is what I really wanted. I settled for Tofu Teriyaki.

Food came all in individual trays which was very cute but also took a lot of space on the table, which was cumbersome. The food was so good it was REALLY hard to stop eating. What a good deal.

Afterwards, we walked around, had some coffee. Not a bad way to come back home at all.

Say what you want

about the Olive Garden, but the unlimited soups and salad deal?

It's pretty sweet.

At the Akron/Canton Airport, on my way back to NYC, via Milwaukee.
Small regional airports may not have great food selections (this one has an Arby's and a Great Lakes brewing Co.) but they tend to have the free internets, so it's not that bad of a deal.

I guess this post is about the sweet things in unexpected places.

Or something like that. Off to watch some Gilmore Girls.

Hump Day

Thursday, but I kept thinking it was Wednesday. Probably because I have to work Friday and Saturday this week. In any case, although we were again at the same awesome bookstore and with the same awesome people, I needed a pick-me-up type of activity and so Naomi and I decided that after work we'd go bowling at Corner Alley in Downtown Cleveland.

Good choice too, since there were specials going on and we were able to rent shoes, and pay for 2 games for only 6 dollars each. What a steal!

We of course had to eat, and since it was still their happy hour and they had food specials, we went all out. We each had some beers and we shared:

a cheeseburger and fries

Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese

And bruschetta on toasted pizza crust.

Can't say that this cured me of all that ailed me, but it was a good dose of laughter and of junk food. Also, I bowled a 156. Considering that I haven't bowled since 2005, I think it's not that bad of a deal!

Visible Voices

First day of recording. We started late in the day, which always throws me off my game, but luckily we're working with a great bunch of people who support Adult Literacy and held the recordings at Visible Voices bookstore, in the Historic Tremont District, which I encourage you to visit. They host wine and beer tastings at night, because really nothing goes better with a good book than a good glass of wine. I love NYC, but I can't think of that being pulled off there succesfully. For one, they'd go bankrupt because we'd all go just to drink the wine and trash the place or something. Okay, so I'm being uber-negative, but the vibe felt very "outside of NY" and they have that working for them.

Anycase, after work Naomi and I were in the mood for noodles and so we walked from the bookstore through a very nice park to bac, an asian-american bistro. We sat outside, and enjoyed the different kind of people that walked by with their dogs.

I chose the Tofu Vietnamese Noodle Salad, with thin rice noodles, lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts, basil and cilantro. They topped that with dill carrot and crushed peanuts, chopped vegetarian spring roll and a sweet garlic vinaigrette.

It was to die for. And I'm very proud of me, for not ordering the Pad Thai. Check-me-out.  But now that I think about it, I may have had noodle salad in El Paso. D'oh!

Cleveland Rocks

Landed on Akron early afternoon on Tuesday. We drove from there to Cleveland, stopping first by Cuyahoga Falls National Park, in hopes to see, what else? the Cuyahoga Falls.

Unfortunately, we had no map, and no desire to traipse around forever, and so we just drove around the edges of the park, finally venturing in when we saw a Farmer's Market. The market of course was outside of the park, but I'll count it as going in.

The market was very nice and airy, and the scent of fruits was intoxicatingly delicious. Unfortunately I was not able to partake of the locally made slushies.

because they were chillin'. Oh, yeah.

There was also a nice area for us to chill after buyin our fruits. I left with some clementines and nectarines. Naomi got herself some peaches.

About 30 minutes later we made it to our hotel, in downtown Cleveland. I loved my room - huge and spacious, with wooden floors, which you don't get often. I lucked out by having a whirlpool tub in my bathroom, but also this

Yes, that's a window inside the room. A window into the bathroom. So I can look at whomever's in the tub, I suppose. Or something. Wild. I love it.

For dinner, and still in a pub mood from the Saturday before, we went to Flannery's Pub, where I had a lamb and beef Irish stew with garlic bread

Not quite as savory and awesome as the lamb stews I ate in Dublin and that I've been craving for days, but it hit the spot.