Halloween is Fun

Today was fun. I started the day deciding between spiderwebs versus skulls. The decision was not to decide, but to wear one of each. 

I worked all day & left to rush home and eat. After dinner, I enjoyed some organic pumpkin ice cream along with "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on tv.

Dougie's Last Day

I started the day baking cookies. I ended the day at happy hour to say farewell to Dougie. 

Cookies were apparently the best ever. 

Cameras only came out after most people left. 

Macbeth

Shakespeare is tough for me. I don't have a good appreciation for it. But I go anyway. Because it interests me. I wrote a message to Ethan Hawke on Instagram after seeing him starring in Macbeth at Lincoln Center tonight. The witches were entertaining... The fight scenes were a disaster. I think the sword fighting was better at Medieval Times. The show was too long...Vikki read that it was the shortest of the tragedies. Oy vey. 

Fall Tablescape

I got some gourds and pumpkins... Attempted to stage a tablescape for fall. I don't love it so far. It'll be a work in progress... But here's the initial attempt.

Missing a Hawaiian Wedding

My friend Eddie is getting married today... In Hawaii and I'm missing it. I got a wish you were here text. Believe me buddy, I wish I were there, too!

Missing Halloween

I normally spend Halloween weekend in Colorado. Love the costumes, Kian's monster mash at school, baking and pumpkin carving.

Kian was GI Joe. So cute!

Celebrating Ten Years

Several of my girls gathered tonight to celebrate 10 years in NY together. It passed already for some, it's coming up soon for others. Mine is January 27th. We'll have to celebrate again, since some of the girls were sick. But our I heart NY theme was fun. 

You Chose Poorly

Tie game... I played 0 on 5 of a kind, but then got 5 threes that didn't count for the Yahtzee. What a bummer!

Interpretive Power Outage

There was a fairly disruptive power outage today that knocked out our data center, much of our network infrastructure, application servers, and wifi. It didn't have too much of an impact on my group since we don't run any critical or emergency services, but we did get very entertaining interpretive text messages. My favorite was this one, including Borat and Yanni.

Bring Me a Duck

I went on a mission to Chinatown, to buy I Heart NY t-shirts for my theme dinner on Friday with the girls. I asked everyone in the office if they wanted anything from Chinatown. They joked about pork buns and such, but Noah, my newest employee, asked me to bring him a duck.

Noah: Can you bring me a duck?

Me: A whole one? Like the kind that hangs in the window?

Noah: Yes! You can just hang it in my cubicle in the morning. 

Sure, Noah, I'll order a whole duck, commute on the subway with it, then have it in my apartment over night, and bring it again on the subway, to the office, and hang it in your cubicle!

Halloween Candy

We love candy in my office. I added candy corn, pumpkin spice kisses and a pumpkin full of chewies, gummies and chocolate to the regular stash. It looks like a candy shop!

Boats in Central Park

Brian, Alexis, Hazel and Alexis's mom were in town for a one day only adventure in Central Park before they headed back to JFK. 

I took them by the remote control boats and the boat basin since they are boating people.

The sun was bright so most of my pictures were oddly colored, but this one was my favorite.

Taste of NY Brunch

It's Aimee & Oli's Birthday weekend. Laura & I treated them to the taste of NY brunch. It featured NY based famous/celebrity chefs and food locally sourced in NY, as part of the NY wine and food festival. 

RAC Retreat Day

We have been planning like crazy for weeks and today was the big day. It was a long day, but it went fairly smoothly.

Hoping the outcomes end up being great.

Cupcake Push-up

The PMO got me a treat to celebrate my promotion. They joked about attempting to bake and got mini cupcakes instead. It's a fun concept, but I didn't eat much food today, so I decided not to eat this much frosting. 

Kinda phallic looking, eh? 

Game Obsession

I can't stop playing this object finding game. Slightly pathetic, but I get really bummed out when my energy runs out. Haha! Back the "Dice with Buddies" and "Words with Friends" and whatever else I obsessively play. Oy!

Alleviating Jealousy

We have a joke at work about being jealous of collage phone covers. I saw this living social deal, today and circulated it... For the joke. 

We've decided we'd be ordering them for each other for the holidays. Awww jokes!

Return of the Bat

Sitting in my office, I thought, October 14th?! I need to get the pumpkin out! I normally put the Halloween candy out right on October 1st. Oops.

I grabbed the box of holiday decor and found my bat. He made his return to the window, too.

I can't believe it's mid-October! Welcome back to the bat cave.

Spot Welded

I was speed walking through a street fair after a disappointing brunch. I thought there was one booth in particular that was fun and different.  So I stopped to look and ended up talking to the welder from Baltimore who was showing his work in the street craft show near the AMNH.

I bought earrings and a ring made from screws, nails, nuts, and a wrench.

DVR Reduction Night

I've spent the entire evening watching my DVR. Many hours of tv. Speeding through commercials. I've just started Scandal, one of my very favorites, but I made quite a dent... 

Fell from 96% to 72%...

Big Fish on Broadway

It should have been better. I thought I would love it. I do love Norbert Leo Butz.

It was slow. It dragged. The songs weren't exciting.

I look forward to watching Roma's NY1 review tomorrow when I wake up. 

Vanity Fair Dinner Through the Decades

Shawn and I went to an underground eats event with vanity fair created by the Gramercy Tavern chef and new pastry chef. 

We met some fun new friends. Had a good meal. And were in an awesome space.

    

Another Late Night

In the office for way too long. No energy to do much of anything. Even my fish is looking peacefully asleep.

Farewell, Alan

One of my pals resigned to go play with the eTrade baby.

Though I had way too much work and would immediately regret the decision to leave work and go back to the party, I spent a few hours at a pub saying my goodbyes and enjoying the last few moments with him and his team. 

All the best, Alan. I hope this isn't the last I see of you.

Bad for the DVR's Health

The DVR was so full that it crashed around 10:20 tonight. I imagine my 10PM shows didn't tape properly. Going away in the middle of the new shows getting started was bad for my DVR's health. Hehe.

It'll be fun to catch up with it all though!

Kailey & Hazel

Before we left Brentwood, we popped by Pete's parents, then called Julie who has just given birth to her first daughter, Kailey.

Amazing little girl. 7ish pounds, teeny tiny, so precious. So great to have a chance to see her so early in life.

I also spent most of the weekend with Hazel, she is 16 months and cute! Today we did a bit of baby clothing shopping including this Dino/Dragon hoodie. She even got to FaceTime with Kian on my iPad. 

Kids... I also met Jordan, Hammy's baby, but failed to take a photo. 

Mr. & Mrs. Panagopoulos

It is so nice to fly to California to celebrate life with my friends. Petey got married today, to a lovely woman that I don't know very well.

The ceremony was beautiful, they had vows, did a Greek crowning ceremony, he kissed his bride and they were announced as Mr. & Mrs. Panagopoulos. 

The toasts were heartfelt & funny, dances were beautiful, it was amazing to see my guy friends from college all together, since we hadn't been together in such a long time. Great night! Congrats Pete & Sarah.

Pete's Great Expressions

Taking a selfie with Pete is always such a treat, but tonight, at his rehearsal dinner it was phenomenal. 

Last night of single Pete, still the jokester, love you, Petey. Xxx

California, Here I Come

I took the E train from work, jumped on the AirTrain, to find out I needed to switch to a shuttle bus. Track work or some such. Unfortunately, since I was rushing our of work, I didn't get to get good as I expected. Now I was running even later.

What a mess! 

But security was pretty efficient, surprisingly, thanks to my mobile boarding pass. So I had about 3 extra minutes to grab a salad.

Joy of Baking with M&Ms

It's my new coworker Fawad's birthday this week. He asked me for cookies with m&ms. So that, he shall have...

Pumpkin Spice Kisses

Well, I'll say, I was super excited for pumpkin spice kisses. But truth be told, I was a bit disappointed. Very pumpkiny, very spiced, but also a lot of white chocolate, which normally I don't mind, but it doesn't mesh well. Since all of the flavor is outside then white chocolate inside.

Maybe if it were swirled like hugs? Advice for you, Hershey's... They need help!