Turkey Day Redux

Special K and I spent Turkey Day in Dallas again this year with his mom, his siblings (and siblings-in-law) and 11 busy little bodies known as the "smellies". (Special K has 11 nieces and nephews, ranging in age from 5 months to 16 years.)

"Crazy Uncle K" masterfully wound the 2 - 10 year-old smellies and released them like spinning tops, watching them collide with furniture and with each other as they whirled around the house fueled by caramel apple dip and homemade fudge. He also doubled as a human jungle gym and any time I looked over, he had no fewer than three smellies hanging around his neck, from his arms or from his legs.

On Black Friday (as far as shopping goes, it's like Boxing Day for you Canadians out there), we took six of the smellies shopping. Oh. My. God. From Toys R Us to Game Stop to Circuit City, I could barely keep up. I'd look up in Toys R Us just in time to see the five-year old go peddling by the end of an aisle on a tricycle. Just as we were about to check out, a soccer ball was rather aggressively kicked and nearly took out an entire endcap display (never mind another customer). And to top it all off, the kids were bound and determined to somehow ride in the TRUNK of the rented Chevy Impala. (Can you say "You have the right to remain silent"?)

The biggest laugh-out-loud moment, however, actually happened on Friday evening. Special K's oldest niece is an extremely accomplished ballerina and she was dancing in a performance of The Nutcracker. Right after the "Waltz of the Flowers", in the quiet of the brief break just before "Pas de Deux: Adagio", a young man's voice rang clearly through the theatre with a plaintive "aw, man!" (sounding more like "meee-an") when he realized that the brief break was not actually the END of the performance.

Aw, man, we haven't even seen the "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy" yet!

Road Warriors R Us

Here's a quick snapshot of how the month of November has unfolded for me:

-- New York (5 days)

-- San Diego (3 days)

-- Orange County (36 hours)

-- New York (36 hours)

-- Santa Clara (3 days)

-- Orange County (4.5 glorious days)

-- Dallas (4 days)

-- Orange County (16 hours)

-- San Diego (36 hours)

-- and finally back to New York two nights ago ... and will finish up the month of November in NYC. Whew.

This means that in the month of November, I will have slept in my own apartment in NY a grand total of 10 nights (which makes me want to throw up when I think about my monthly rent payment), I will have been on 8 flights and flown a total of about 14,000 miles.

No wonder I'm a little knackered!

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving (almost) to all my American friends! For once, I will be making a trip sans laptop today (yeah! my back and shoulders will be thanking me) when Special K and I head off to Dallas for the Turkey Day holiday.

For my New York friends, I'm crossing my fingers that the weather holds for tomorrow's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (remember the rain LAST year??).

For everyone, I wish you safe travels and plenty of good laughs with family and friends over the coming days.

And just as a matter of principle, please don't let me hear that any of you were in a mall at 4:00 a.m. on Friday morning, no matter HOW good the deals are.

Is that Rupees or Dollars?

So, I have discovered a local Indian restaurant where I will quite often order dinner and have it delivered. I've sort of narrowed down my order to a few key things that I really like from this particular restaurant and the last few times I've ordered from them, I end up getting Chicken Dildar (a nice combo of Chicken Tikka Masala and saag), naan and a couple of vegetable samosas for good measure.

What's absolutely fascinating to me is that every single time I order the EXACT same combination of food, I always end up getting charged a different amount. And it's not like the amount is slowly and surely creeping up as they increase their prices. Nope, sometimes it will be about $18, then the next time, it will only be about $16, then back to $18 and then if I'm really lucky, back down to $15.

I'd hate to be that restaurant's bookkeeper.

Dinner with Friends

I love it when friends come to New York to visit! Last weekend, Lisa and boyfriend, Rob, came to town and I, of course, was back in California. So I flew back on an early flight on Sunday so that I could at least meet them for dinner on Sunday night before they left.

Everything seemed to be going in my favour -- my flight actually landed early and I was out of the airport in record time. And then... my towncar drove straight into a giant traffic snarl and it took almost two hours to get into the city. I got a very lengthy tour of Queens and THEN my driver tried to charge me extra "waiting fees" because he claimed he had to wait for me at the airport. Buddy, my flight was EARLY. Try bamboozling someone else.

I not only love having friends in town, but you all know I also love completely random situations. And I was not to be disappointed last Sunday. It turned out that Chris, Lisa's brother (also from California) was in town for work for a few days, so he was able to join us as well. Lisa and Chris joked how ironic it was that they had to travel almost 3000 miles to see each other when they only live one county apart in SoCal.

We had a great dinner at Ustav (Indian food) on 46th and as luck would have it, half the restaurant was closed off for a Diwali party and so we also got to enjoy some great Indian music.

And I was doing some Bhangra moves in my seat.

Heaven On Wheels

A couple of weekends ago, I went to see Xanadu on Broadway. Oh yes, this is indeed the musical stage adaptation of the 1980 movie. For those of you not familiar, it's the story of a Greek muse who descends from Mount Olympus to come to the inspirational rescue of a struggling artist in Venice Beach, California. She helps him realize his dream of opening a, um, roller disco. (What more could you possibly want in 1980?)

We weren't sure if we were going to like the show or not (it was one of the only tickets we could get at TKTS 15 mins before curtain), but we gave ourselves up to all its kitschy glory and transported our minds back 27 years (1980 was TWENTY-SEVEN years ago?? Ugh!) and laughed at the semi-lampooning of a questionable (at best) movie and story line.

Tony Roberts and Jackie Hoffman both starred, the lead character spent much of the performance cruising around stage on rollerskates, and there was just enough balance of darn good singing with purposely cheesy lines and situations. It's also in a relatively small theater so it seemed like every seat was probably pretty decent.

Still not sold? Not sure you'd actually fork over the precious cash for the tickets when Wicked, Lion King and Spring Awakening are all playing just down the street and around the corner?

Well, you have to believe we are magic, don't you then?

Taser Parties

This has nothing to do with random UF student, Andrew ("Don't Tase Me, Bro!"), but I did learn today that coincidentally (ok, not really), women in New York are now beyond tupperware parties, Mary Kay parties and maybe even botox parties (ok, maybe those are still going strong) and are starting to host taser parties.

That's right, now you too can hire a law enforcement professional to come to your home where you can host all your closest girlfriends for a self-defense mini-seminar on how to use a taser. I had no idea tasers were even really legal for civilians to carry.

I sense a whole new business opportunity here... taser accessories like bejeweled carrying cases, taser charms that express your individual personality, even tasers in every colour of the rainbow.

Taser-ific.