I fell...

... for both advertising and popular culture, all in one whack.

While riding the subway last week, I saw an ad for a free book download from audible.com. Awesome deal. I love audio books, but they're so pricey if you have to buy them. I logged on last night, and found that the freebie was for one audible.com credit, and most books are one credit. As I was surfing through the most popular books, I saw Twilight. I've never had the desire to read it, but I feel like it's all I've heard about for the past few weeks. So I decided to download it. However, Twilight cost two credits, unlike most of the other options. So what did I do? I got a one credit book for free, and paid for Twilight. Still not a bad deal- two audio books for $23.00.... but the fact stands that I fell for advertising in that I paid for a book, which is exactly what the audible.com people wanted, at the same time falling for pop culture telling me what to read.

I will report back when I've finished it, and let you know what I think.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving week in NYC was, as expected, great. The weather was beautiful, it was really fun to share it with the whole family plus friends, and New York is always fun to visit.

Jon and I arrived to LGA on Wednesday night, pretty late, and called it a night. He was staying with his friend Joe, I stayed at Sarah's. Thanksgiving morning started off early with watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was really pretty cool. I think it may be my one and only trip to see the parade, but I'm glad we watched it. A large midday feast was followed up with a walk through Central Park- the picture of all of us above. I hadn't seen Felicia in over a year, so it was really great to see them. The rest of the week was spent doing touristy stuff- which I always enjoy, but it has come to the point that when I visit NYC, I've done all the really big things, so I like to focus on hanging out and walking around. We got to do a lot of that around Sarah's neighborhood, hitting up some restaurants and sights that she's been telling me about lately. Big fan of Lansky's and Zabar's. Good tasty food :) We got to give Stephanie her first taste of Jewish food, and New York for that matter.

One silly, but amazingly cool thing, that we visited was the Charmin Times Square toilets. I'm not really sure why I was so amused/impressed/amazed with the whole thing, but it was so cool. It had to have cost them a fortune, and was so gimicky. But awesome. I'm kind of a big fan of anywhere in NYC that offers public toilets that are fully stocked with TP (and different Charmin variaties, of course!) and cleaned after every usage. Go Charmin... and the catchy jingle that they play in the building is still going through my head....

We thankfully had amazing weather until my last day- Sunday. We should have renamed it Rainday in an effort to truly capture how amazingly horrible it was. There was a light rain all day, but not really light enough to need an umbrella. And it was too windy to use an umbrella... they kept turning inside out like in the cartoons. Plus, it was freezing and got dark at like 4pm.

Overall, it was such a fun trip, and I'm so happy we all got to get together to celebrate together. I guess the next big, full family adventure is our wedding... I can't wait until February!

Just a Regular White Girl

That's what I've been dubbed by the people I work with. Yes, I know, I live in Miami, where most of the population seems to be Hispanic. But why do I just have to be a "Regular White Girl" (RWG, from this point forward).

A lot of people come into work who only speak Spanish. I understand that living here, knowing Spanish would make my life easier. Wait, no it wouldn't. It would make other people's lives easier. Sigh. We're in America- we speak English. I have WAY less of a problem with customers who don't speak Spanish (let's face it- we've all been to other countries and didn't speak the language) than I do with store employees who don't speak English. (recall my Target story?)

Anyway, climbing off my soapbox.... I was in the breakroom the other day, and one of my co-workers was talking to another coworker about how when he first met her, he thought she was "just a RWG" then he shortly found out she was Hispanic, which made her cooler, apparently. So I asked- "What exactly is a RWG?" To which he seemed to have no answer. I suppose I'm being descriminated against because I have no blatently obvious heritage... as my mom always says, I'm European American. That always gets questioning looks.

Regarding the Hispanic culture in Miami, I've now been here for three months and I have a few observations.

1. Their coffee is tasty. And strong. And cheap. Forget Starbucks, I hit up the coffee places around me and can get amazing coffee for $1. Put it this way- if it's more than $1.50, you're getting taken advantage of.
2. They like to kiss you. Weird. I have personal space issues, so when I first meet people, I extend my hand for a nice handshake. Nope- that doesn't work here. People love hugging and doing the two cheek kiss. Took a while for me to not be totally heebed out by it. It's beginning to grow on me... but I'm still not 100%
3. They call women "mama." It's not just the dudes that do it either- it's girls too. I have NEVER been called mama in my ENTIRE life, and suddenly, it's like my new name.
   
4. Back to the coffee... a lot of times, when you buy a Cuban coffee (just espresso and loads of sugar) they give you these little plastic "shot glasses" to share it with your friends. How fun. I suppose they think that you would have to be nuts to finish the whole thing yourself... I've done it. Many times.
   

Alas... I've had enough of my Miami observations... I'm sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport (thanks, free WiFi!!!) waiting for my flight to NYC... I'll be there soon! Stay tuned for a trip recap and pictures.

I'm no longer unemployed!

Woohoo! I have a job!

I've actually had one, effective October 24, but that was just when we started training for the new Apple store. We had the grand opening on November 8- it was nuts how many people were there. I wasn't scheduled to work the morning opening shift, but since we live across the street from the mall, Jon and I decided to go witness the festivities. There was a line out the door of the mall... hundreds of people there, waiting for the opening. It was exciting! I took this video of the opening.... It was slammed all day, and has been since then. It's nice to have people my age around to work with and hang out with... and to actually be making money :)

My $0.02 about the election

Whether you like him or not, Obama winning the election last week is historic for our country. Even though he's just as much a white man as he is a black man, it's still historic that anything but an old, rich, white man is elected our new leader. I had no extremely strong feelings about either candidate, I thought they were both qualified and would do a good job, I'm just anxious to see if Obama's change platform will materialize. Let's hope so.

In other news, I'm quite embarrassed by California and Florida in their votes on the Gay Marriage laws. It's pretty pathetic.

Rather than go all political about it, I'll let Kieth Olbermann's speech from earlier this week say what I want to say.

So, this election, we saw one step forward for one group of people, and one step back for another. Again... hopefully the change platform really means something.

:::hops off soapbox:::

I'm a lousy blogger

Yea, I need to be better at actually writing... so I will attempt to do some catching up over the next couple days.

Two weeks ago, we had some visitors- Mom, Dad, and Sarah!!! It was great to have them all here for the awesome engagement party that Jon's mom threw for us.

Since Sarah has 1209843094 days of vacation every year, she flew down on Thursday to play with me. We hit up The Big Cheese, home of $9 meals for 2 and the most delicious garlic rolls on the planet. We had some good, quality lazy sister time... it was perfect!

We spent Friday shopping, including buying Christy her Emmy dress- a fabulous purple ballgown. I can't wait till Emmy #1 has some company! Mom and Dad got here at about 6, and we went to Taverna Opa for dinner. Opa is a great restaurant, one where it's not only acceptable, but expected, to dance on tables- and sometimes with the belly dancers!

We spent Saturday hanging out on South Beach, and going to Versailles, home of cheap and delicious Cuban coffee and pasteries. On Saturday, it was also home of a bunch of politically charged Cubans making a last ditch effort to get John McCain elected president. Evidently, the old school Cuban Americans see Obama in roughly the same light as Castro... They even had shirts that said "Cuba wanted change in 1959- be careful what you wish for."

Jon's mom put together a fabulous engagement party for on Saturday night. She had huge pictures of us in Israel and Japan, and pictures of Paris, hanging on the walls. Dinner was sushi, middle eastern food, and crepes made by the French crepe chefs. It was great to actually meet her friends that she's been talking about for so long and so much. We even got to see baby Unay, who has easily tripled in size since the last time I saw him. That is one cute baby.

Dad had to leave Sunday morning, so the ladies plus Jon spent the day shopping and visiting with Jon's cousin. Monday, we went to Ikea, and Mom left. Sarah left Tuesday morning, after I went to vote.....

It was a fabulous weekend!

Think Pink

Today's entry is pink, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

There are very few things that will get me out of bed before 6:30 on Saturday mornings... Day After Thanksgiving shopping, fun trips, and this morning, the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure 5K. Thousands of people participated, raising probably well over a million dollars (actual figures will be posted when they're available.) Breast Cancer is one charity and awareness campaign that I can really get behind. My grandma is a survivor, and I have two close friends who are dealing with it in their families right now. So this morning I walked for them. Since we're not in shape to run (bad us!), Christy, her sister, her mom & coworkers, and I walked the 5K. It was really fun.... like I said, there were thousands of people participating, everyone was wearing pink... including the men, the dogs, the kids, and everyone else. The survivors wore pink race shirts, and everyone else wore white with pink designs. Some of my favorite shirts had tag lines like: "Cancer Sucks A%@," "I Love Boobs," "Save the Tata's" & "Save Second Base." There's nothing quite like seeing a grown man in a black t-shirt that says "I Love Boobs all over the front of it... in public... and it be completely acceptable. After the race was over, we went to Bay Front Park and shared in the festivities... Yoplait was giving out free yogurt, there were free bananas, music. Overall, it was just a fun morning. Some pictures from the day:

Christy with her mom and sisterMe and ChristyOne of my favorite shirts... it had a bunch of different names for boobs!

Lots of people running for their moms
And to top off the fun day... Christy got a text message that she got nominated for an Emmy... make that 2 Emmy's! She won one last year for a special segment she helped produce on hurricanes. I told her that her Emmy needs some friends... this is the text message she got during the race.