A La Moda

We finally did it!! All summer long, a group of us from the office have been trying to go to Moda, a restaurant/bar that has what looked to be a very fun and hip outside patio (fully covered, in kind of an opening between two buildings in the middle of the long block between 7th and 6th Aves). Every time we've tried to go, it has been near-hurricane conditions, so we've had to abandon our Moda plans and opt for somewhere where we could stay dry inside.

But Thursday night, the planets were aligned and we conquered Moda. It was sort of a celebration/send-off for me and my new role at work, but most importantly, it was a great excuse to get everyone together, have a couple of drinks and have some fun.

After Moda, a few die-hards (Ally, Oda, Holly, Andrea and I) were pretty hungry so off we went to never disappointing Eatery where we demolished the house Mac & Jack (A-mazing), but also a fairly decadent chocoate/ice cream concoction for dessert. Yum!

Nick, we missed you and now you have some catching up to do!

Love it!

Best sign (seen in an art gallery in Santa Fe):

"Unattended children will be given a free puppy."

I'm Cracking Under the Pressure

There's a pusher in my building. But it's not what you think. She's not pushing illegal narcotics on me, instead she's pushing house cleaning services. Yes, you read that right. House cleaning services. The sweet Asian woman who runs the valet service that takes care of laundry and dry cleaning for the building has just added house cleaning to her laundry list of services (pun intended). And as it turns out, she is a hardcore sales woman who doesn't take no for an answer.

Last week, when I breezed home to pick up my bags and catch my ride to the airport, she spied me coming in the front door of the building and pounced on me. "You want house cleaning? We come this Saturday." I respectfully decline, as I'm backing away towards the elevator, one eye on my watch, very aware that I'm running a bit late.

I flew home last night and this morning, on my way out, I stopped to drop off some dry cleaning. It was as if we were picking up on our conversation from over a week ago as if the time gap had never occurred. "So, we come on Saturday?"

I'm just going to have to give in. It's a win-win situation after all. I get to come home to a freshly cleaned apartment and she gets to claim me and my testimonials as her next weapon in her campaign to secure house-cleaning rights to every single apartment in the building.

Vegas, baby, Vegas!!

Life is random and unexpected and that's what makes it an adventure. I have been in California now all week for business and I stayed over this weekend for more west coast meetings on Monday.

Special K emailed me on Friday with the simple two-word question "Vegas tomorrow?" and less than 24 hours later, we were settled in on Jet Blue for the short 47-minute flight.

Special K's company is hosting an event in Vegas in early November, so we went primarily to scope out the venue, but we didn't let the opportunity pass to have one of those great Las Vegas dinners. We dined at Rao's in Ceasar's Palace and it was a pretty incredible display of Italian fare. The original Rao's is in East Harlem and has only 10 tables and apparently, customers actually "own" the tables (much like one owns a condominium) and so unless you know someone from whom you can "borrow" a table, your chances of dining at the original Rao's are not much better than a snowball's chance in you-know-where.

Vegas to the rescue. While the Sin City version of Rao's features decor much like the original, it's much bigger and turns the tables many times per night. (East Harlem Rao's only offers one seating per evening.)

We arrived early and had a drink at the bar and I noticed that there were Christmas decorations up already (it's not even the end of September, for pete's sake!). We asked the bartender and she said it's a tradition from the NY-based Rao's and described an historical decision made by one of the owners years ago when it came time to take down the seasonal decorations and pack them away.... "Ah, just leave 'em up .... fuggedabouddit." And voila -- now it is Christmas all year long in Rao's.

After dinner, we went back to the Voo Doo Lounge at the Rio (where Special K's event will be) to see what it looked like on a rockin' Saturday night.... we listened to the band for a while and then made our way back to our hotel where we dropped a tiny bit of cash at the blackjack tables and then dropped into bed for about two hours of sleep before heading back to the airport for the first flight out.

I think we were in Vegas for about 15 hours altogether.

The art of the hang up

There used to be nothing quite as satisfying as the feeling of slamming down the phone on its base, punctuating the end of a particularly frustrating or upsetting conversation, and knowing that the person you just disconnected from was probably still holding their own phone in their hand, mouth agape with disbelief.

I hate to say it, but this was a simple (if not destructive) pleasure that technology has really robbed us of.

Now what do you do to make a point to your annoying conversation mate? Aggressively push the "end" button on your cordless or cell phone and think "There! That'll teach you! Hmfph!!"? Yeah, THAT's satisfying. I suppose you could throw the phone after you hang up on someone to really demonstrate your anger, but really, what good does that do? You will probably break your phone and the person you hung up on just thinks that this is yet another case of a dropped call and they'll probably just call you right back and continue to be annoying.

Taxi Talk.... with your host, Shari

I don't know what it is, but I tend to get the chattiest cab drivers. Occasionally, it's annoying if I'm dead tired and just can't muster the energy to hold up my end of a conversation, but mostly, I try to engage at least a little bit because some of these guys tend to be downright entertaining.

It's a bit of the Forrest Gump "box of chocolates" philosophy -- you never know what you're gonna get.

My most recent cab ride in NYC was from my office to my apartment in the middle of the afternoon so that I could get home in order to pick up my bags and catch my towncar out to the airport.

I flagged down a cab at 53rd and Broadway and the driver almost ran into another cab, swerving over to pick me up at the curb. That, of course, caused a chorus of honking that didn't stop until I had climbed in and quickly pulled the door closed behind me.

After I gave the cab driver directions on where I wanted to go, he peered at me in his rearview mirror. "You must be a supermodel or something, right?"

I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Yeah... no. Incredibly lucky Dove girl, yes. Supermodel, no.

The conversation evolved from here and in the ten minutes it took him to drive me home, I learned that he was not only a cab driver, but also worked part-time as an embalmer (you can't script this stuff) and that he had just sold his first script in Hollywood and was soon heading to LA for the production of his film.

He had just finished telling me that he lives in the South Bronx and how scary and violent it still often is when we pulled up to my block and I told him where to stop to let me out.

"You live here?" and he let out a low whistle. "Momma, you doin' ok!"

Travel Log

You may have noticed that I'm not blogging quite as frequently as I have been... I'm easing my way into a new role at work which means that my travel has just jumped significantly. It looks like I could easily be on the road 50% of the time (mostly traveling back to California) which is proving to make it a bit of a challenge to siphon off a bit of time here and there for an occasional random blog post.

But I do have to tell you about a few things that happened on my last trip out west (I flew last Friday night):

-- First thing in the morning, Oda comes by and tells me that her sister (who was also flying to SoCal from JFK that morning) has just called to tell her that a "suspicious individual" was yanked off her flight, causing all sorts of dominoes to fall and culminating in the FBI combing the plane.

-- I actually make it to JFK on time for my flight! (Whoo hoo!!)

-- I am sitting at my gate, thumbs tapping away at my blackberry when I happen to glance up at the people sitting across from me. The girl is reading the new issue of Cosmo and lo and behold if she doesn't have the magazine open to the very page where my Dove ad is! So cool.

-- Once seated on the plane, I notice the lady seated across the aisle from me.... she is clutching a prayer on a small laminated piece of paper.... she is repeatedly crossing herself with one hand while muttering the prayer and fingering her rosary beads in the other hand. Put in a good word for me, please.

-- Directly behind me is an elderly ex-Navy white man and next to him is a young Chinese immigrant. The American is super friendly and SUPER curious about where the young Asian man is exactly from etc:
"Where in China are you from?"
"South China"
"I use tiger balm!"
Wha???

Viva New Mexico!

A few highlights from my rendezvous with Special K in New Mexico:

Biggest "I'm not in New York anymore" moment: Finding that the only restaurant open for dinner after 10pm was Taco Cabana.

Biggest "What were we thinking??" moment: Driving a total of six hours for Pizza Hut pizza. And paying for it all night long.

Best town name: "Truth or Consequences" (Or "TOC" on the weather maps, thank you very much.) But when it comes right down to it, don't we ALL really live in "truth or consequences"??

(And yes, I really did make Special K turn the car around and go back so I could snap the pic.)

Funniest XM Radio moment: Hearing the song "Big Girl" by Mika. Key lyric: "Diet Coke & a pizza please." Just about made the 6 hour trip for Pizza Hut pizza worth it. Ok, maybe not.

Most frustrating XM Radio moment: Hearing "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie. Over and over again. And no, the lyrics don't get any better the more you hear them.

Best TV commercial: 60 second spot for "Tater Mitts", rubber gloves with an abrasive surface that basically allow you to "peel" potatoes" by scrubbing them vigorously under running water. Yeah, I know.

Most interesting artisan encountered: Carol in Santa Fe who used to paint for NASA. Art meets science in fascinating ways.

Most "interesting" artisan encountered: Robert the Navajo pottery artist we met at Petroglyph National Monument. After an interesting conversation about his previous "ladies" and his background in learning the art of indian pottery, we beat a hasty retreat when the conversation turned to how he can fly.

Most romantic moment: Accidentally stumbling across a winery in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, stopping in and having a peaceful glass of wine beside the pond and fountain on the winery grounds. (But a glass of tawny port in front of the outdoor fireplace at Baleen in Santa Fe was a darn close second!)

Most offbeat experience (and frankly, a tiny bit creepy): The burning of a giant groaning marionette effigy called Zozobra at La Fiesta de Santa Fe. Zozobra is "Old Man Gloom" and his fiery demise symbolizes the destruction of the previous year's troubles and worries.

Best birthday surprise (I hope!): Hot air balloon ride for Special K's special day. I even managed to keep it a secret until the morning we went. Even though I was on the verge of spilling the beans for DAYS. Special K was an excellent sport even though he had no idea why he had to get up at 5:00 am.

Coolest new experience (on the ground): Llama trekking with four furry llamas, Andrew the crusty trail guide and Jesse the ever loyal and adorable trail dog.

Most relaxing moment: Hour-long couples' hot rock massage in our room at the Taos B&B where we stayed. Job? What job??

Geography 101

This is the conversation between me and the towncar driver as he's approaching the Newark airport terminal, preparing to drop me off nearly two weeks ago:

Driver: "Where are you flying today?"

Shari: "I'm on Continental to Albuquerque."

Driver: "Great, I'll drop you off at the international terminal then."

Pause.

Shari: "Um... why? I'm just going to Albuquerque."

Driver: (with sheepish laugh) "Where's that?"

Shari: (looking for the hidden cameras) "New Mexico. NEW Mexico. You know, between Texas and Arizona."

Clearly my driver had NOT seen the relevant Bugs Bunny cartoon.

September 11

I'm finally back in NY. After a glorious New Mexico vacation (details shall be forthcoming), I had to make a bit of a detour and head to Northern California for business for a couple of days, so I hauled my suitcase full of vacation clothes westward and made the best of it.... sans laptop. (But Blackberry never far from my nimble thumbs.)

So, while it's ridiculously late for me to blog about anything in detail (ignore the time stamp -- it's actually 1:00 am), I did have to say that when I was in the towncar tonight, riding back into the city from JFK, I could see the pillars of light emanating from Ground Zero, in remembrance of the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

I did feel a little bit weird about flying today -- when I was booking my flights last week, it did make me shudder a bit when I asked the travel agent to help me find a return flight on Tuesday, September 11. I think my voice trailed off a bit as I said it. My plane ended up being only about half full, but everyone was in cheerful enough spirits and the worst thing that happened all day were flight delays due to the rainstorms on the east coast. Amen.