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.

Decadence thy name is Saturday Night

Saturday Night, Ida and I go in search of Molly Pitcher's Ale House in the Upper East. It took some walking around, and a bit of quick Yelp'ing. We enjoyed some beer. I've never had it before. It had red in the title. I don't remember the name.

For main Entree: Wings, baby.

After some deliveration and after the decadently delicious dinner (and another beer or two), I said goodnight to the Upper East Side and made my way to Williamsburg to celebrate the birthday of my buddy Herms.

The party was good, the music was eclectic, and there was a whole lot of people I didn't know, which happens when you go to a co-worker's shindig. I declined to participate on the beer pong mostly because the whole thing really grosses me out. Why can't they just put water on the cups and people drink from like a nice, clean, pong-free beer cup lined up next to them? Instead I partied with Naomi and Siu and talked to some girl's who had a magical traveling stick and then towards the end of our time there, we decided to go roof hopping.  Here's the view from the roof adjacent to the party:

It was fun, and the ride home wasn't so bad, specially since I managed to walk in a straight line most of the time. Huzzah!