Random things I notice...

In the Midwest, it is common for people to hold the door for you. It is especially rare when a man does not hold the door for a woman. Well New York is different. I can't count how many times the door has slammed in my face. Subway doors, elevator doors, doors to work, Starbucks, etc. Every once in awhile you encounter someone who does hold the door open for you and it is nice. So being the nice Midwestern girl that I am, I say, "Thank You." It is just what you do. There is a type of individual in NY that I have noticed that does not seem to exist in the Midwest. The older, nicely dressed gentleman. He will hold the door open for you but when you thank him, and I am not kidding, he looks at you like, "This is a complete waste of my time. You thanking me is actually taking more time than I planned and I totally regret holding the door for a few extra seconds." It is the oddest thing. What is even funnier is that the other day as I was leaving the gym, I heard this awful squawk. I looked behind me and there was this old lady. I am assuming she was mad because I didn't hold the door for her but I honestly didn't see her. She is a fast moving blue hair. But seriously!

That reminds me. Old people in NYC are a whole other thing. I can't decide if it is all of New York or just the Upper East Side. The other night I was at the grocery store and there was an older man in front of me with a couple of things. I started to grab the partition thing so I could start putting my groceries on the conveyor belt but he grabbed it out of my hands and put it back! I just stood there stunned, unsure of what to do. Which what I wanted to do was grab it again and beat him with it. What the hell? You don't grab things out of stranger's hands. So I was like, well I am just going to start putting my stuff on the belt and if he gets charged for some of my stuff that will teach his social security ass to grab things out of people's hands.
They finally took the scaffolding off of the front of my building which is nice. I almost don't recognize the front of my building! But unfortunately, the two holes from the construction workers are still here. There is one on the wall in my bedroom which is the front of the building. The front of the building is patched up so air isn't leaking out or in but there is still a huge hole and I am afraid they will charge me when I move out. There is also a hole near the ceiling in my bathroom. Any time someone shuts a door anywhere in the building, pieces of wall and debris fall. There is a constant mess that I have completely given up cleaning except for maybe once a month.

Still dealing with Maverick's anxiety that has significantly gotten worse from moving here. He has really good days and then he has days that he just shakes and there isn't anything I can do. It doesn't make any sense. There isn't a lot of noise on my street. I bought the Thundershirt. Hopefully that helps. The vet prescribed anti-depressants but they don't work once he is already in an anxious state and I don't want to keep him constantly medicated. Will let you know if the Thundershirt works. I am hopeful.
Dad and I leave for Italy in 18 days. I am taking him on his first overseas trip to Italy for his belated 60th birthday. It is where our family is from and I can't wait to show him Italy. He has no idea. We are going to Venice, Rome and Sicily. I haven't been to Sicily before so I am pretty excited about that.

For some reason, my mind really wants to be running but my body has been so tired lately that I just can't make myself do it. It sucks. Can't wait for the weather to get nice again and so I can run in Central Park.

I finally signed up for German class. I speak German conversationally and it has always been a goal of mine to become fluent. Here is the first step. It feels really good to make the first step. Classes don't start until April. I have a busy couple of months anyway.
-S
P.S. I love cake.

Sorry I have been absent. Please forgive me.

I promise I have definitely been out and enjoying my life and not being boring. :) Let's see. I still have nights where I go out and it just starts out watching a Mizzou basketball game on a Saturday afternoon, drinking a couple of beers BUT crazy Sarah rears her ugly head and gets me into trouble. She always does. So I was out with Trisha and her roommate who is from St. Louis. We were watching the Mizzou game last Saturday at Blackstone's, the Mizzou bar. Started out just a couple of pitchers of (yuck) Bud Light but of course we can't go home after the game. We decide to move the fun further south. We try to go to McSorley's which seems like a good place but waaaaay to crowded. We go to the St. Mark's Hotel bar which was LAME! Then we find this place called Phebe's (Bowery at E. 4th St. ). The inside of this place seems pretty cool. We sit and have a couple of drinks even talk to some cute guys. Now here is where the night gets a little dicey. We decide to leave, this I know but I have no idea why or how it was decided that we went to the next place which I am pretty sure was the 13th Step. We head to the back of the bar where there is a second bar. We found a beer pong table! We kept having people either say 'Go Blue!' or Ohio fans were mad at us. (Because they don't realize that we are wearing Mizzou shirts.)
Then I had a total douche say to me, "Mizzou didn't play today."
I was like, "Uh, yes we did. I watched the game."
He was like, "Football?"
I was like, "No, Basketball."
And he was like, "But you are wearing a shirt with a football helmet on it."
What a total douche.
It wasn't like I was wearing a Yankees hat to a Giants game. Some people. Then we decide to play the next game of beer pong. Trisha and her roommate played while I came up with the plan to distract the guys we were playing by dancing seductively while they were throwing the balls. It worked pretty well.
I also found a large group of Indian people. I decided to text my friend (who happens to be Indian) and let her know. Which obviously is of the utmost importance and riveting information that she probably had no idea that other Indian people lived on the island of Manhattan and being the good friend that I am, I had to alert her to this fact. By this time, clearly I am very drunk. I decide to walk up to these people and tell them that my friend is Indian. Not my finest moment, I admit. Again it was decided to leave. I have no idea whose idea it was. It could have been mine. I made it home to my dog who most likely was thinking, "Oh here is my drunk and disorderly owner, AGAIN! I am so proud." I am pretty sure I took him outside but I don't remember.
Unfortunately, I am getting older. Evenings like this result in taking about 1.5 days of recovery.
Another time I will have to share the night my coworkers and I went to a little hole-in-the-wall called Subway. We are all still laughing about it and it happened back in December. We are hopefully going out tomorrow night weather permitting. Also thought it would be fun (for anthropological reasons) to do speed dating. Will report. Over and out.
-S