Citizen of the World

Last night Matthew and I headed into the city after getting my car fixed (by 7:00 PM).  A friend of ours is leaving for London in a couple of weeks to be there on business for about a month - or more.  I'm all kinds of jealous, but I've had my time with business travel (I do miss it sometimes, though!).

His partner held a going-away party last night at a new-ish place called Industry. Truly, they didn't spend all too much on decor in that place; the floor, for instance, kinda actually looks like the sidewalk outside or at least a factory floor that's been there for 100 years. Perhaps that's part of the decor or "interior design".  We don't find ourselves there often for a lot of reasons, but primarily because it's not our crowd of people.

But last night was really fun. There were about 50-60 of us all in the back area of the bar. We ran into people we haven't seen in a while, and I ran into one guy I hadn't seen for about 10 years when I lived in south Jersey close to Philly.  Turns out that guy's ex-partner, who I also knew, died about 2 years ago. His friends or family found the guy, Kevin, dead in his bed where he'd been for a couple of days. No one knows how he died, but it seemed to be from natural causes. Thing is, he had had a gastric bypass years before (back when they really went to town and chopped you up inside) - in fact those two broke up because Kevin had had the bypass without talking to his partner, Joe, about it. What's odd is, Kevin's favorite "holiday" was Halloween and his birthday happened to be Halloween, as well.  After Kevin was buried, they discovered pumpkins were growing from his grave site.  When Joe told me about that, I got all sorts of tingly and creepy and strange feelings.

Matthew and I had only had a salad for a late lunch around 2:30 in the afternoon. By the time we got to the party - around 8:30 - we were pretty hungry. I had two martinis and a diet coke at the bar and was pretty happy and warm for the rest of the evening - without another drink!  We went to Uncle Nick's for Greek, which is always good, but last night's dinner was probably the best we've had there: grilled sardines (the 6 on the plate were each about as big as a large Cuban cigar), whole grilled Branzino, sauteed dandelion, fried smelts (YUM!!), and a mixed appetizer platter that contained grilled octopus, keftedes (Greek meatballs), multiple spreads, olives, pita, and dolmadakia.  Uncle Nick's really knows how to do seafood - their octopus is some of the best you can get.  Awesome!!I wanted to post some pictures, but it seems like the photo upload isn't working for some reason.  :-(  I'll try to reload and see if that works.

The way to buy yourself a little holiday happiness is at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I went there tonight on purpose to buy a couple of bath rugs. Our cleaning lady has been consistently and slowly bleaching little spots onto my black ones in my bathroom over the last 6 months because she's tired of them and because she wanted a different cleaning product than Clorox Cleanup. It's a slightly passive aggressive way of getting rid of the rugs without actually throwing them away, which she wouldn't do. The rugs aren't that bad, but now there's little red spots on the stark black. Those little red spots irritate the crap out of me. But, I can't really say anything because she's actually cleaning...

So, tonight I had a few errands and got this rug for in front of my sink:




Since we're hosting Matt's Fordham Thanksgiving Dinner again this year (YAY!), I wanted something extra. So, I got these little hand towels and this little guy for in front of the toilet. Aren't they adorably holiday - and not necessarily just Christmas? I love that.




My little gingerbread man makes me happy and smile each time I go to the bathroom. I can't wait till Saturday!

This year, for a change of pace, Matt and I were invited to and went to a party in Clifton, NJ, at a friend's house. It was a lot of fun. There was LOTS of food and dessert. Our friend is a wine dealer in NJ and, of course, always has great drinks available.

We had a blast, took some photos, and got to see lots of folks we hadn't expected to see. Here are some picture highlights and a link to the Picasa album. Enjoy!

I've felt so disconnected recently because we've been so busy. Each week, I posted stuff on eBay, closed sales throughout the week and applied for jobs. Almost every Thursday (except for the two Thanksgiving weeks), we hosted Game Night, which is always fun. Here's a run-down of other things:

Week 0: Made cranberry sauce and canned it. Made gourmet white wine vinegars as party favors for our upcoming Thanksgiving Dinners.

Week 1: Saw God of Carnage. Met all the actors (including James Gandolfini - SQUEEE! But our picture is crap.) after the show, which was good, but the play's dialog was a bit arduous and outdated. Had dinner at Nanking on 6th Ave - good enough. Oh, and we saw Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman coming out of the neighboring theater, too!! BONUS! Then prepped for the annual Fordham Thanksgiving Dinner (Matt's fellow alumni from Fordham - this was year 19, I think).


Week 2: Redid the lighting in our hallways and closets ourselves. Fixed a lot of little bothersome things around the house in preparation for the Fordham and real Thanksgiving Dinners. Changed most all of the pictures in the house. Posted stuff on eBay and closed sales throughout the week and applied for jobs. Had dinner at Casa Lever off Park Ave., which was very tasty, but WAY, WAY, WAY overpriced. Moved furniture around for the Fordham Thanksgiving. We took a friend's mother out to dinner at McCormick & Schmick's since he was in Australia for a couple of weeks.


Week 3: Went grocery and home-accent shopping for the Thanksgiving Dinners. Redid my (the main) bathroom with lots of decor and changed things around - including the light feature above my and Matt's bathroom sinks - huge deal. We'd been talking about doing this for about 3 years, and finally did it!

Hosted the Fordham Thanksgiving at the house and it went off great!! Only hitch - Matt had to keep cooking the turkey till much later than he had planned. But it was all good. 16 people with two turkeys, appetizers, and dessert. The wine and Steve-made cocktails flowed and everyone was happy. I made doggie/gift bags for everyone, which still barely made a dent in the food Matt cooked. Awesome!


Week 4: Recuperated from the Fordham Thanksgiving dinner and moved furniture back to original spots. Prepped for the family Thanksgiving dinner. Redecorated fully for the family's meal. And by "family" I mean Matt's aunt and cousin; his sister's family went somewhere else and MISSED OUT! Real Thanksgiving went off wonderfully and his aunt and cousin loved everything. They loved all the food (of course - Matt's a fantastic cook!) and took time to notice all the decorative elements I put around, which made me feel so good. It was great.


Then we took off to Asbury Park, NJ, for the annual Santa Saturday fund raiser - always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That was essentially 2.5 days. Had dinner at a great place in Asbury Park called Bellmonte's. The stuffed pepper app brought a tear to my eye it was so tasty. Santa Saturday was so much fun, and later than night there was an event at the Stone Pony (yes, the Bruce Springsteen Stone Pony). We coordinated a birthday dinner for a friend and the next morning a birthday brunch for the same friend at the Salt Water Cafe - great place for brunch.


Week 5: Recuperated from Thanksgiving and Santa Saturday. Cleaned the house - again. Went to see Ragtime after having dinner at Kellari Taverna on 44th. Took lots of pics around 6th Ave with all the festive lights and later around Time's Square. Ended up in the Village for drinks. Then on Saturday (WITH THE 1ST SNOW!!!), we attended the annual Bloomfield Holiday Pajama Party! That was so much fun. Started around 7:00 and ended around 3:00 AM the next morning.


After recuperating last Sunday, we went to see a cabaret - the Last Piece of Cake. Two friends of our, Tom and Vinnie, have been doing their "Cake" act in Manhattan for about 9 years, and they retired Monday. The Duplex was PACKED solid. At the end of the show, Tom proposed to his partner on stage. It was so sweet, and Brian (of course) said, "Yes!" On the way out of the show down the stairs, I ran into the lead singer from Ragtime and got a picture with him. Awesome guy, great smile, and HUGE biceps (yep, I squeezed them...).





And that brings us up to this week as I'm redecorating for Christmas. Started in the dining room already, and here's the Christmas chandelier I put together over the dining room table. Matt's started on the Christmas cookies and he's done one biscotti and the pecan tarts so far. YUM!!


This is the chandelier.

We had our annual Fordham University Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday. It was successful from top to bottom (from the attendees' point of view, which really is all that matters, right?). The only things that disappointed us were 1) we were cooking up to the last minute, 2) my cranberry relish wasn't complete, and I had to rush through it after people had started arriving, 3) we discovered all too late that we had a great spot for people to take holiday pictures (see the lamp post pic below), and 4) it felt like it went way too fast!

After easily 24 hours of preparation (from planning, shopping, Matt cooking the wonderful food, moving furniture, decorating, etc.), the party was done in a mere 6 hours. The 18 people there ate typically two plates apiece, and between us all had at least 14 bottles of wine and about 4-5 martinis (which I made). They all left happy, with party favors (below), and full, but somehow not having made a visible dent in the food! We have sooooo many leftovers.

It's strange how it works out that it's all over so quickly, isn't it? Doesn't seem fair. Check out the pictures of the food, decorations, party favors, and the holiday photo corner.

Party Favors:


Table with decorations:


Dishes and glasses:


Libations:


The food!


Photo corner:


Our holiday picture: