This happened

Huzzah! I'm engaged!

Festival of Lights

Celebrating Hanukkah for the first time, with our first Menorah. I like the reminder of God's presence, and the miracles in our lives

My first

Illness thanks to my students. Happens during the last three weeks of the semester, and during the weekend rather than the week.

Well played, children, well played.

Second Wind

The end of the semester is nigh, and I'm feeling strangely revitalized even though I am TIRED. I think that tiny Thanksgiving break was good for me.

I'm looking at two papers and a group presentation in one class, two papers in another, one paper in my third class, and a group presentation and two papers in my fourth class. No big! It can be done. It will be done.

Now if only I could get my 14 year old client to come to school...

Happy Thanksgiving

Huzzah food, thankful cakes.

Breaking Dawn

Saw the last movie of The Twilight "Saga" last night with Michele. The best part? The audience's reactions. This movie was hella dull til the fight scene at the end. Some of the changes they made- I felt meh about. It was fun fluff, though, and they did a nice character montage at the end that I wish they had done with Harry. Otherwise, I leave the theater happy to be done with it, thankful for the memories, and for the trailers. Ha!

Words Are Wind

Finished reading Dances with Dragons on Sunday night. I feel empty. One of my favorite characters may have been killed. It feels like my soul has been killed. The worst part is not knowing when the next part of the story will arrive. Winter is coming and my stores are empty. I'm going on just on fire and blood.

Happy Birthday, redux

Got together with Steph to do a belated birthday celebration. We ended up at Gemini's Diner, my dear old haunt, where I once again enjoyed a chicken salad triple decker on wheat, no pickles. SO good! Still the best chicken salad in town (even on their off days.)

After, we walked to Steph's car to find an actual pie shop. A pie shop! Most of them mini pies, with sweet pies and savory pies. We of course did a healthy bit if Sweeney Todd singing afterward.

Yes, I'm old, but that just means more celebrations!

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Meal

Got together with some of Mi Cariño's closest friends to celebrate a pre-thanksgiving. It was a potluck, but since mi Cariño cooked I called it a free meal for me.
We had a delicious light salad made by Becky, Mac'n'Cheese made by Michele, Turkey Chili made by Genovieve, butternut squash soup with croutons made by Ryan, and cornbread and pumpkin chocolate muffins (not pictured) made by mi Cariño -assisted by me.
After, we sat around just talking and enjoying each other, with a quick round of Taboo before making our way back home.

Errand Sunday

Spent most of today cleaning and running errands with Mi Cariño. Did manage to take a break and have some Belgian Waffles with pumpkin spread and Nutella. Can't say I was crazy about that combo, but it was okay.

This Is Microphone Three...

Went to see Free Style Love Supreme last night. Pretty decent show, even though I only understand a quarter of what they say. I can't think as fast as they do!

A Feast For Crows

The Fourth book on the Song of Ice and Fire series has been finished. I can't say I enjoyed this one as much as the previous three. The first two so far remain my favorites.

A shorter book than its predecessor, A Feast For Crows moves slowly. It concentrates on the characters on King's Landing and much other minor characters, in my opinion. There's a lot of Brienne, a lot of Jaime and Cersei, a lot of Samwell, a smattering of Arya and Alayna (Sansa) and lots of learning of what happens to others through these characters. Most definitely not enough Arya for my liking, and then the bit of Arya there was left her BLIND in the middle of the book, never to appear again.

It's my understanding that A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons were meant to be one very long novel, that was simply to long to publish. Martin chose to separate the novels "thematically" rather than cronologically. That'll be interesting when reading A Dance with Dragons.

I don't know why so much emphasis on Brienne of Tarth. I feel that she is inconsequential to the series. I'm not sure I care what happens to Cersei. Or to Jaime, at this point.

You see, I think Martin finally started to suffer from "big BOOK syndrome." Let me explain: big BOOK Syndrome happens when an author gets free range as to what to write. The fandom likes and loves the big BOOKS and so the author is encouraged to provide as much detail as possible.
Even when that detail is not relevant to the story. Coming up with a shorter book is a disappointment to the fandom and the author. J.K. Rowling shortly suffered from this syndrome, but was able to get back to her senses somewhat after Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.

Don't get me wrong, I love me the big BOOKS too - when what I'm reading is relevant and awesome. When I'm able to skip swatches of description and still be able to follow the story, and still am able to guess where things are going, well... then you need a good editor.

This book gets three stars instead of the previous 3, which all got four, mostly for the stated above reasons. If I don't feel the NEED to read every line, then I'm just reading for plot, and then, well, I might as well wait for the movie. (or TV Show.)

No llores por mi Argentina...

Saw Evita with mi Cariño today. I don't particularly like musicals were everything is sung... it's hard for me to understand what they're saying, plus it doesn't allow for songs to stand out in my mind, all bleeding into each other. This was ok, though, with Ricky Martin playing himself - I mean Ché the narrator. He was cute and did okay. The Eva understudy was on (we attended on a Wednesday on purpose). She was good, with a nice voice. But her voice could've been stronger - (think Sara Ramirez' strong!).

All in all I'm glad I saw it, although I wouldn't go see it again any time soon. Now off to google Evita!

Girls (and one boy) just wanna have fun

Steph's birthday is this week, and she and Alex threw the best shindig, turning their home into The Annex, a place in the lower east side that used to have a Friday night party called "Ruff Club"

Before dancing there was tons of food: Lobster, macaroni and cheese, mozzarella and tomato salad, delish fried chicken with awesome aioli sauce... Yum!

I think everyone had a great night. Forgot to take a picture of the chicken and I didn't have the guts to taste the lobster, but I was too busy eating to worry over it. Happy birthday, Steph!!!

Selling Out

And so, I've purchased an iPhone. It's an old, old generation, and refurbished, and somewhat that makes me feel a little bit better. I still feel like I'm selling out. Oh, bother.

Regardless: here's dinner at grandma's. Brown rice, chicken, greens and veggies salad, and sweet plantains. Yay abuela!

Hands Clean

Four years ago, Steph and I got the chance to see Alanis Morissette perform in an intimate setting FREE! Steph won the tickets and since Ida wasn't in town, I got lucky.

Now that Alanis has a new album, Steph and I considered getting tickets to an intimate performance outside of New York City - but the tickets ran at $100 a pop. Since there was no way of that happening, I figured I'd try my luck this time and I entered several "come see Alanis!" contests online. I had even forgotten about the contests and the possibility of Alanis when I received an email while on my way to school: "Alanis Morissette show TONIGHT!"

At first I thought it would be advertising tickets, and I almost deleted it unread - but then I thought about the improbability of an Alanis performance not being completely sold out, so I read it, and found out that I had just won two tickets to an intimate Alanis mini performance!

Talk about going full circle and what crap. I immediately texted Steph, secured her attendance, and hoped that my afternoon class would end on time so that at 6 on the dot we could drive downtown to see Alanis rock the shit out of a microphone.

It wasn't a very long performance - which I was okay with - since the songs were all perfect. Didn't know her new ones very well yet, but they sounded great, and she played all the classics that I loved. Totally awesome. You have to love an artist whose songs are able to mean something different if you listen to them at different moments in life - do you know what I mean? The way that "Hands Clean" was haunting and meant something very specific to me when her "Under Rug Swept" album came out all the way back in 2002, and how it kept changing meaning to the point that listening to it tonight, it held all of those old meanings, and new one's, too. This doesn't happen with every artist - more often than not, their songs mean what I thought of or was going through the first time I heard them.

And she finished the set playing "Thank U," and I was 18, and 22, and 25, 27, 31, still growing, still thankful.

Thank you, Alanis. 

Spike It!

It's the Olympics!! The Dominican Republic made it for Volleyball and I couldn't be more excited. We are moving in to our new place, and I'm waking up at 4am so that I can get to watch the games online. It's been super exciting. Today the Dominican Republic plays against Great Britain - if the D.R. wins, there's still a chance that they will move on to the quarterfinals and hopefully eventually the finals.
I wish I had all the fun college sports channels so that I can get to see the college games. I have been wondering if I can get in the Hunter's team as a graduate student. I don't know.

GO D.R.!!! You can do it!!

I wanna dance...

And so, after spending sometime with Mi Cariño's family, we're back in New York! And to celebrate, why not a road trip?! To Atlantic City!! To see Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez in concert. We headed out early morning (not too early), Cesar drove, Laura regaled us with fun stories, and Mi Cariño and I lounged in the back seat, praying that we'd make it to AC in one piece. If you've ever been in the car when he's driving, you know what I mean.

But we made it! And we got to enjoy some time at a Casino, at one of the famous Atlantic City Buffets, and of course, the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

What a great feeling to dip your toes in the sand and smell the cool refreshing sea air. I would throw more cliches at you, but there's no need! You get the gist. Then, off to the concert!

Funny beginnings all over: first, Cesar and I sat and saved the wrong seats, and had to have an unfortunate situation with some of them Jersey people where we thought we were right and they were all like "Nah huh," and so we had to make our way further from the stage. BUT, all good since it was still a great view, and a good group of people around us. We managed to go in after the opening act, which was good since none of us were interested in him.

Then Enrique came on. At first, Mi Cariño and I were miffed at the inclination that Enrique was opening for Jennifer - after all, we all know that whomever sings last holds the power! But man, did he prove that his heart wasn't in it. It wasn't so different from his concert in MSG really - just this one was worse. And shorter, of course. But really, just worse. He did the whole "pull a guy from the audience" bit he loves doing. Boring as hell. Then, he continued to do the thing where he expects the audience to sing every one of his songs because he's too lazy to actually sing them himself. I mean, really. It was travesty.

But then, Jennifer came on. And trust, I'm not the biggest Jennifer Lopez fan - hell, I still have nightmares from having to sit through one of her movies back in 2001 when I was attempting to woo someone, again, and again, again. I never thought the woman was an artist, I always thought she was a good businesswoman. But tonight, I've learned she's a show woman as well, because her set made the trip and the entrance fee totally worth it.

Don't get me wrong, she still can't sing. But she has songs that cater to her voice, and she sang all the way through - none of that mumbo jumbo of giving the audience the microphone every two seconds. I paid to hear her sing, and sing she did. And dance. Through almost every single song she danced, and kept the energy going, singing the stuff that made her famous.

After, Cesar managed to drive us back into town in the pitch of darkness in much less time than it took us to get there, and that's even with a pit stop. I'm usually pretty good at putting up with his driving unscathed, but boy did my heart live in my throat that entire ride. We made it home safe though, and am now ready for the last run towards the finish line: I've handed in my resignation, and will be ending my time at StoryCorps in 22 days. For now, thanks to Cease, Laura, and Mi Cariño for an excellent day. 

Deja Vu

Here recording for a day at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, which is a couple of blocks from the Convention Center where Rose, Naomi, and I recorded back in 2009. Here's a view of the ceiling on the third floor. Not a bad office look!

 To bring things all around, our recording partner took us to lunch to The Flying Fish, a restaurant I visited then, too.

Totally worth the second visit! I don't remember what I had the first time, but today I enjoyed me some grilled cajun catfish and veggies. (I'm pretty sure the first time I had hush puppies.) Forgive me for the bite before the picture, but that catfish just needed to be tasted.

When the recording day was over and we had packed our equipment, we walked around the east river market for a bit, and then got in the car. Now we're back in Memphis, getting ready for an early, early, early morning flight back to New York tomorrow morning.

Time for a quickie!

So, on a super quick trip to Little Rock, AR. Usually, trips this far are a minimum of five days (three days recording, two days traveling), but this time we have a three day turn around: Katie M. and I flew into Memphis today. I took a snap to remind myself of the part that I won't be missing when I stop doing this job: the middle seat.

Before making the drive to Little Rock, we stopped by one of the Neely's BBQ restaurants.

I went for my favorite, Brisket Sandwich.

Although it was good, I wasn't bowled over.
After, Katie M. drove us to Little Rock. I tried driving out of the Memphis airport, but there really were too many trucks and highway closings for me (or Katie) to be comfortable.

So now, I chillax in my Little Rock room. I keep thinking of my previous visit here, almost three years ago. It doesn't feel like time has changed at all. I am tired - I flew in from Miami yesterday only to wake up today and make the flight and drive to here - but there's a pool downstairs and I have a bathing suit, and it's hot as good hell here. So, not too bad.

It's All Happening!

I decided I wanted to spend some one on one time with my sweet Cesar. It's been a while, and the last few times we've hung out it's usually at his place - since I wanted to do something different, I woke up nice and super early and stood in line to get tickets to see "Bring it on: The Musical." It's still on Previews, and it'll be open at the beginning of August, so I figured there'd be less chances that Cesar has already seen this one, not to mention that I don't think this is one that he would choose to see right away.

I was the second in line, which wasn't too bad. Cesar had no idea what we were doing, and so he was totally surprised! He suggested dinner before the show, and so we were at Victor's Cafe in the Upper West. Coincidentally, it was Restaurant Week!

We had so much food! Also, I had forgotten that Mami was taking her GED Test just down the block - I would've called her to share our meal. We - well, really, I - downed a carafe of delicious Sangria.

Since on Tuesdays Shows start early, we hightailed it out of there close to 7pm, and essentially ran down to the theater, just like old times. The show was pretty much as I remember it from Los Angeles, but I enjoyed the songs a little bit more the second time around, I think.

Also, we got up and walked around during the intermission, and while doing that ran into Lin Manuel Miranda, and we - well Cesar - got to tell him we thought he was awesome and super talented. I touched his shoulder. It was awesome.

I really enjoyed the show a lot more from up close. The cheerleading routines were pretty spectacular, and the actors are just as great. They were pretty consistent with their work, which was commendable, too. I related to the storyline a little bit more this time around - it's less about cheerleading and more about trying to make it through High School. Really, a smart move from the producers and creators: great way to get younger viewers interested on Broadway.

Happy Fourth of July!

Took a short vacation from work, grabbed my mother, grandma, my niece Chanti, and Mi Cariño and took the bus up to Massachusetts to visit my brothers. It's the Fourth of July! I usually spend it up there and this was the first time that Mi Cariño was coming along, so I was nervous as hell. To say the least. But it ended up being a most excellent "long weekend."

Most afternoons were spent in one of my brother's backyard, hoping to avoid the mosquitoes. Mi Cariño and I also got to take a trip to Boston with my oldest of friends, Fabi, to enjoy some hanging out time. On the Fourth itself, we drove around to see the town's fireworks and then stole away to find some delicious local ice cream at Jaylee's Ice Cream and Go Kart Store.

Gotta love spending time with the family. Happy Birthday, America!

NYTV Blue

So, after months - nay, years! Of trying to get my friends to come along and be a part of a Scavenger Hunt in good ole New York City, I finally realized that they are just not the kind of people that would enjoy a scavenger hunt. Instead, we got some of Mi Cariño's friends together, and off we went to our very first hunt!

Now, yes, today was NYC Pride, but since we're not parade people and the fair part doesn't really change year after year, we were okay with doing something else instead. The Hunt's theme was TV. We began by meeting at a Bar near LES and coming up with a TV related name. Since points were given for having uniforms, we all dressed in blue colors and thus NYTV Blue was born. From there the teams walked around asking trivia questions of each other to try to come up with extra points. The task was to run around the city in a certain amount of hours, finding the clues given. Every member of the team had to be in the picture with the "hunted item."

Examples: Finding a cop, a cd of an American Idol winner, someone that dressed like Homer Simpson, a model, specific pubs, and much much more.

It. Was. A. Blast. And totally worth it. We ran all over the city, jumping on the subway, relying on our knowledge of trains, on our smart phones, on our wits, everyone contributing thoughts and ideas as to what to do next while enjoying doing crazy things all over the place to take a picture with some guy drinking a McDonald's Sweet Tea.

I hope we get to do this again sometime!

I don't wanna wait...

So, I'm cleaning this weekend.

Really, I'm just purging. Throwing things out. I had pre-orientation at school last Tuesday, and I'm as ready as I can be for the possibility of going to school again. It's not a sure thing. The one sure thing going on though, is that I hope to be all moved in with Mi Cariño by the end of the year. To do that, I need to start choosing what's coming with me.

It's very cathartic, this clearing of stuff. The Hard part has been trying to decide what to do with my comics - they're not super valuable, but it took me years and what I consider to be a lot of money to amass this number of issues. What to do with them? Right now I'm making a list.

The fun part is finding things from my teenage years. Like the scrapbook I made of Dawson's Creek stuff. Yup, you read that right: a scrapbook of Dawson's Creek stuff.

My love for Joey Potter knew no bounds. I think everyone should have the opportunity to find, when in their 30's, things that they did or thought about in their teens. Puts stuff in perspective, you know what I mean?

All them shades

I don't like reading things when they're popular. I admit, I'm a little bit of a snob. A lot of it, really, when it comes to certain things. I try not to be one when it comes to literature, because, hey! I'm the one that loves reading romance novels, so, why judge?

But I will judge the "Fifty Shades of Grey" Trilogy. I will judge it, thoroughly. I started reading that thing because everyone and their mother was reading it, and I didn't want to base my thoughts and judgement on somebody else's thoughts. And so, I purchased the first e-book, in the way soiling my sweet Santana with the contents of this... novel. After the first few chapters I couldn't take it, and I put the book away. Weeks went by. Finally, I decided to give it one more try, and so I trudged along and read it. I felt some braincells dying.

Then, a coworker of Mi Cariño gave me a copy of the last two e-books free, since there was no way I was going to pay for those things. And off I went, and off I read. I finally finished the third one today - a journey that began back in April 17.

Here's the thing: I read the Twilight series, Okay? No masterpiece, but the plot was interesting enough. That's all Twilight is: Plot. The characters are crap, the pacing is crap, the entire thing is crap. But it has one interesting plot. The Twilight series kept me sane back in 2008 when I was freaking out about moving to Ireland. The Shades of Grey "Series" most definitely burned some of my braincells. It just was crap. Everyone was interested in the series because of the sex, but by the end I was skipping the sex scenes in an attempt to bravely finish the thing.

I'm not going to say something new - everyone with brains that's reviewed these has said the same things. The only thing I'll add is that I'm just appalled that people are walking around thinking that this is Kink, that this is proper S&M. It's not. It's also not proper literature. I've read dollar romance novels that are much better than this thing. But I'm still glad I read it - I like that I can give you all these thoughts, and know them to be true, at least for me.

Queens Pride

This year, Mi Cariño and I decided that we would try to attend the "mini" prides that happen around the boroughs during the month of June, to make up for my missing last year's. The first Pride of the month is in Queens, so out we went!

It was a mixture of a day: a bit cloudy, a bit rainy, a bit sunny. Getting there wasn't too bad - Pride was in Jackson Heights, and we rode the R train. It's such an experience: Jackson Heights is such a Latino neighborhood, apparently unaccustomed to see "the gays" walking around. But walking around the gays did, and we mixed right in. As always, a lot of the stuff in the area catered mostly to men, but we were able to find some stuff that interested us, found out the names of possible clubs to go visit, and enjoyed the delicious food available. Really the only difference between this Pride and your regular NYC Street Fair was just the amount of men's chests one could see. We enjoyed having a delish Mozzarepa, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, while listening to lovely music.

Goodbye Albuquerque

Recorded at a Navajo Middle School today. It was already after the last day of school so it was pretty empty. However, the welcome sign was pretty nice: (the middle one is in Navajo language.)

After we were done, we made our way to the ICE Caves. It took forever to get there, but we wanted to actually do something nature related. It is New Mexico after all. 

It's amazing, after a small hike down into this volcano pit, you have to make your way down by walking down these wooden steps. You don't believe it, but you're walking down the steps and it's your regular New Mexico 80 degree weather and then a certain number of steps down, it's like 30 degrees cold. 

The ice part of the Ice cave. Unfortunately, you can't walk on it anymore, which would've been amazing. 

The view from the bottom:

The view back on our drive back to Albuquerque proper. 

Tomorrow, we head back to New York. In my next supervision I will be announcing my acceptance to Silberman School of Social Work and providing my notice. Here goes nothing.

Working from "home"

Only two recordings today, and they've happened at our hotel and so Rose and I got to have a nice day of working from "home." Our hotel has a most wonderful patio and I was able to spend most of my non-recording time out there, enjoying the New Mexico heat.

For lunch we just walked out of our hotel and found The Grove Cafe and Market, where I enjoyed the Farmer's Salad: mixed greens, golden beets, asparagus, yellow pepper, tomato, marcona almonds, goat cheese and a lemon basil vinaigrette.

It was really yummy, even though it was wet goat cheese, which is not my favorite. For dinner we went to a nearby pizzeria, but I didn't take a picture and the food wasn't that great and thus: they don't get to be here.

All in all, though, a good productive day in Albuquerque.

New Mexico Redux

In Albuquerque, NM for days of recording, this time with Rose, this time actually recording in a Middle School inside a Navajo reservation.
Today though, we recorded in Crownpoint, NM, at an elementary school. During lunch hour, I just crossed the street to get me some Navajo Fry Bread. Essentially just a bunch of food trucks (and they all sell the same things) park on this expanse. It's not like there's a lot of traffic, but there's just enough.

 

I felt a little out of place and "outsider-y" so I went for a truck that looked clean, but not too crowded. 

I went for your regular old fry bread, which looks a lot like my own Dominican yaniqueque: flour, eggs, water fried on oil. Sprinkle some salt. It tastes pretty similar, but it really is not quite the same. 

And because I don't know the next time I'll be around one of these trucks I had me what they call a veggie "Navajo Taco." On a bed of fry bread you get pinto beans, lettuce, cheese tomatoes. It was delicious, super delicious.

I also "got to" drive back from Crownpoint to Albuquerque, where we are spending the night.