Big City Living

Siren Frenzy

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Up until this morning, I was convinced that I was slowly losing my marbles, one ambulance at a time. I am here to announce something exciting: I am NOT losing my mind.

Let me set the scene: 9 months ago, I switched apartments, but I stayed in the exact same building. My old apartment had a window in my room that faced a busy street, and I lived on the fourth floor. I heard noises constantly. I heard cars, I heard honking, I heard 3 am food deliveries as the Whole Foods trucks backed into the garage for 10 minutes straight. It was annoying at first, but I became accustomed to the noise. I had, after all, lived in New York City for 6 years.

Fast-forward to February, when I moved up to the ninth floor, and my windows now faced an interior courtyard. When I first tried to sleep in my new apartment, I could barely quiet my mind, because of the lack of background noise! I felt like I was sleeping in a suburban cocoon. I know some of you out there probably think this is a good thing. And it was… eventually. Three months passed, and I became accustomed to the lack of noise, and I was sleeping like a baby.

THEN, all of a sudden there were sirens. Sirens during my TV shows that I wasn’t sure if they were coming from the TV or not. Sirens that were waking me up in the middle of the night. Sirens on the street so loud that I had to turn up my music, or tell the person I was speaking to on the phone (probably my mom), to wait a minute until the ambulance passed. I’m not just talking about the regular, run-of-the-mill siren, I’m talking EPIC noise.

After a few weeks of this, I tested the waters and started to ask a coworker and a friend, here and there, if they were noticing these sirens. Turns out it was only me. I received a few strange looks, and a few comments like, “um yeah, there are sirens, this is New York.” Or, “Yeah, didn’t you notice you live smack in the middle of Mt. Sinai and St. Luke’s? You’ve lived in the same building for 5 years.” I felt like I was in the first scene of Mr. Holland’s Opus when he realizes his son is deaf, except everyone else in NYC was the deaf baby at the parade who couldn’t hear the fire engines.

Anyway, after a month of asking other Upper West Side-ers about the possible siren change, and a lot of fruitless googling, I decided to give up and come to terms with the fact that I was losing my sh*t, and/or maybe my hearing was improving with my old age.

Sidenote: There are a LOT of videos of sirens on YouTube. I do not recommend watching them in succession, it will only make you crazier.

Fast forward to this morning: my coworker (who I had told about my siren anxiety) told me she was listening to WNYC and that the sirens HAVE indeed changed with the times and I am actually a sane person! She linked me to the 2-minute piece, which is aptly named, “No, You’re Not Imagining It: Some NYC Ambulances Sound Different.” Sure enough, the piece specifically talks about how they have switched from a “wail” siren, to a “high-low” siren to penetrate the newer, more sound-proof cars. Both of those siren terms, BTW, I learned from my obsessive YouTubing.

Moral of this story: I am not crazy. Happy Monday.

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Travel

Durham, North Carolina

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WEEKS ago I went to North Carolina for the first time. Since then, I have been to 4 other states, but my travel schedule hasn’t allowed me to keep up with my blogging schedule so I am here to fill you in. The best part about delaying a travel recap blog for weeks is that my memory fades, so I can only give you the Cliff Notes, abridged version of my trip. Trust me, this is better for both of us.

TL;DR: I went to Durham, NC 4 weeks ago for emoji-bf’s cousin’s wedding. The first day I explored alone, I had amazing coffee, tried out a new fitness studio, saw friends I had not seen in a decade, and met their kids (mind. blown). I explored the Duke Chapel and met very nice Uber drivers. I practiced all my professional wedding guest tips, danced a LOT, was very much a token light-skinned person, learned what the Liberian Grand March is, and I drank a lot.

Some highlights:

Let’s start with something I’m sure my emoji bf would consider a highlight more than I did. Our flight was delayed, as it ALWAYS is. Emoji-man and I have epically bad flight luck together. It’s basically inevitable that we will be delayed 1-24 hours on at least one leg of any trip we take together. This time, the delay was three hours, so we arrived in to North Carolina at 2:15 am instead of before midnight. At that point, I called an Uber. I knew we were staying at the Marriott City Center, so we waited ten minutes (not bad for 2:30 am in NC), and we hopped in our Uber. We arrived at the hotel to find that they did not have a reservation. I was not pleased. It was after 3 am and I looked to emoji bf with a large emoji question mark on my face. He insisted he had made a reservation. Welllllll, turns out it was 100% my fault, because we were staying at the Marriott City Center in Durham, and I had put in the Uber app the closest Marriott City Center, which was 2 minutes closer, in Raleigh. OOPS. I promptly called another Uber and we finally settled into our room in Durham around 4 am. Emoji bf was sure to tell me multiple times that if it had been his mistake, I would not have been pleased. He won this one, I would have been PISSED.

The next morning I woke up and after a night of sitting in airports and traveling, I was ready to get moving. I had done my research on fitness studios in the Durham area – clearly more in-depth research than I did on where our actual hotel was. I googled “best fitness studios in Durham” and saw that the third studio listed was walking distance from our hotel. Also, I was used to drop-in class prices in NYC being $25-42/class, and I saw that SyncStudio had $14 classes. You couldn’t beat that… I THOUGHT. WRONG! They have a partnership with this thing called ZenRez, where you can get last-minute offers for same day classes, used to fill the classes. I got my class for $9! I booked it on my phone, grabbed my lululemon and my phone (thank goodness for Google maps), and made my way to SyncStudio. The people in the lobby of the hotel thought I was crazy for walking there, but it only took 11 minutes door to door. Suburbanites. Anyway, I went to a TRX Circuit class taught by Kyle, and he used an all-Rihanna playlist. I had a BLAST and I was sore for days! It was an awesome class, only made better by Kyle’s energy and music. I now follow him on Spotify and so should you. We also took an awesome boomerang and gif. Find us trending on Instagram.

I spent the rest of the day exploring Durham. I ate a DELICIOUS panini at Toast, which I discovered from FourSquare. Am I the only one who still uses that? Anyway, it was so good that I actually posted a pic on Instagram of my food, a big no-no. I also had a strange but amazing chocolate habanero cold brew coffee from another FourSquare suggestion, The Parlour. It’s known for its ice cream, but I highly recommend cold brew as an alternative. I walked around for a few hours taking in the city (/village) and discovering amazing murals and street art throughout.

That night, there was a pre-wedding welcome night, but it didn’t start until 10 pm, and I was kindly informed that it would be running on CPT, so we should not arrive before 11:30 pm. That left me with a lot of time, so I arranged a rendezvous with two of my long-lost friends from high school and college. One of the friends, I met from MySpace when he was in the Army and I was in my junior year of high school. Myspace, guys. That’s how long I’ve known him. Anyway, we became best friends throughout college after he left the military, and he now has a wife and child, neither of whom I had met. My second friend I also know from high school, where she was an amazing volleyball player, winning the state championship for the school, and I would chase after balls trying to keep up with her in gym class.  We also went to college together (Go Gators!), where we lived in the same apartment complex and people frequently thought we were the same person. I still don’t understand that. She ALSO now has a husband and a child, neither of whom I have met. I dragged my emoji man to Motorco, which has “college-friendly prices” (quote from emoji’s sister), and we had a fun night reminiscing and catching up on one another’s lives. The best part of traveling the country for weddings is catching up with friends from near and far.

 

Saturday started out rough because I had way too much to drink at the college reunion, and then even more at the pre-wedding 11:30 pm gathering. But no matter, I went to the hotel gym to sweat it out with all of emoji’s family, sans emoji-bf himself. Emoji’s older sister challenged me to a plank-off, where I proceeded to sweat piles of gin onto the floor. After a shower, I dragged emoji out of the hotel to explore the Duke Chapel, as suggested by a friendly Uber driver the night prior. The architecture was breathtaking, and it was fun to be on a college campus on a game day, even though we didn’t get close to the stadium.

After Duke, we went back to the hotel to clean ourselves up for the wedding. I was impressed with us. Sometimes I forget how I look when my hair isn’t soaked in sweat. Gross but true. The ceremony took place in a Baptist church, where I was almost definitely the only one thoroughly confused by everything going on. Thankfully, I know enough about weddings to smile and wait for the vows, which made me cry, as usual. Then, after the ceremony, I was instructed to stay back for what is the #1 most awkward thing for every plus one at every wedding ALWAYS: PHOTO TIME. Do I go in the photo? Do I not? Is 2.5 years of a relationship enough to get a spot? Or do I wait until I have an engagement ring? Or a wedding band? What is “family?” In this case, it is extra difficult because I don’t exactly blend in with the rest of the family. The last thing I want is to be in a photo that the bride and groom do not want me to be in. I think my heart rate was elevated 20 BPM from the stress. OY VEY! (Am I allowed to say that in a Baptist church??) Ultimately, I did not go in the photos, but then was dragged in for the last 3.

Next up: The reception!! I gave you my tips earlier this week about how to rock a reception, and I practiced all of my tips religiously. The second I stepped in the room, I found the open bar. Sure enough, there was already a line. I parked myself in line, ordered two drinks, and learned the bartender’s name. The rest of the night went smoothly from there. The speeches were short and sweet, and the entrances of the bridal and groom’s parties were epic, each with their own dance moves. I hit the dance floor myself and I even learned and did the Liberian Grand March. One of emoji’s cousin’s explained the Grand March to me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had done it before. After a few more minutes, it dawned on me that it was simply a combination of the Conga line and the Israeli Folk Dance Yesh Lanu Tayish. Basically, years of South Florida Bar Mitzvahs prepared me for this specific combination of dances and this exact day. I knew I had to be training for something. The night was a BLAST, and luckily, the reception was across the street from our hotel so we could stumble back and pass out. I stuffed a few extra of the party favors, Dove chocolates, in my purse for the plane the next day, (that little remnant of Jewish grandmother in me never ceases to surprise me), and I headed out.

Only 1 day left until The Last Wedding of 2017. I’ll keep you posted!

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Long Legs and other Personal Problems

How To: Professional Wedding Guest

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In the past 3 years, I have attended so many weddings, I call myself a professional guest. In the past 2.5 years, I’ve had emoji bf on my arm, and we have gotten it down to a science. This upcoming Saturday, we are attending yet another wedding, and in honor of it being the last one on the books for 2017, I am doing all of my readers a favor and imparting my sage advice.

Never, I repeat NEVER , agree to be a bridesmaid. Being a bridesmaid is more than the title, it is basically indentured servitude. I know this from watching my friends as they perform their serf duties to the almighty Queen Bride, not from actual experience, since I have ONLY had to do this one time. Being a bridesmaid means a lot of things. For starters, it means you’re going to drop $2 grand on the occasion, at the very least. You are required to be at all events, you need to fly to a destination bachelorette, you have to go to the bridal shower, you have to buy a godawful dress you will never wear again and it will unquestionably make you look like a rotund banana, you have to shell our hundreds of dollars for hair and makeup, and of course, you have to smile the whole time and lie to the bride. Am I exaggerating? Maybe a tiny bit. But if you are a bridesmaid, you should probably just declare bankruptcy and block off all of your weekends for the six months leading up to the wedding. Also, being a bridesmaid means being in all of the photos. This takes away from valuable open bar time. Which brings me to my next point.

Always find the open bar as soon as you enter the reception. This is possibly the best advice I can give you. Keep your eye on it, and always know if the line is getting long. If you are assigned a table, but not a seat, it is important to position yourself at the table so you can view the line at the bar at all times. You will thank me for this.

Take selfies. If you didn’t take selfies, did the wedding even happen? Also, you can take many photos of the bride and groom, but they hire professionals for that. Don’t waste your time. Take one photo of the happy couple, then stick with the selfies.

Learn the bartender’s name. Also tip him, but knowing his name is key. Back when I was a wedding guest novice, I was embarrassed when the bartender remembered me and my drink order. Now that I am a professional, I realize how useful this is. Why waste a valuable second explaining to the bartender that your vodka soda should have a splash of grenadine? This is a second that you could be burning calories on the dance floor!

Always have two drinks on your table before the toasts begin. Once you’re on a first name basis with the bartender, this should not be difficult. You should be on a first name basis before the toasts, if all goes well. The worst thing at weddings is being stuck at the table during interminable speeches with no alcohol and no clandestine way to escape to the bar. Once the toasts begin, you are trapped at your table for 10-60 minutes. Always be prepared. I learned that in Girl Scouts.

Dance!! Nobody likes a downer wedding guest. Also, no one is judging your dance moves. If someone is sitting at his/her table judging you, it’s only because he/she is jealous of your moves. Plus, killin’ it on the dance floor is a good way to get into a lot of wedding photos, without having to be in the wedding party. Load up on the liquid courage (it’s FREE!) and get it moving. Limbo, electric slide, wobble, even a little Mambo #5. It’s all a blast. Also, the more Fitbit steps you get after midnight, the less you have to get the next day. Which will come in handy, since you will undoubtedly have a slammin’ hangover (see tips above about boozing it out).

Bring Flip Flops. This goes hand in hand with dancing, and it’s the “adult” version of bringing socks to Bar/Bat Mitzvahs as a 13-year-old. How can you break it down on the dance floor if your feet hurt!? If you bring alternative footwear, you’re sure to have a better time.

Photobooth. The more props the better. Photobooth pics are better party favors than anything that the happy couple will actually give out. Also, the photo quality in photobooths is usually better than a phone camera. Some of my favorite wedding gems of the professional guest couple, (that’s us), have been from photobooths!

Borrow Dresses. It’s inevitable that you will be in photos. And it’s also inevitable that you will have worn every dress in your wardrobe at least once if you go to as many weddings as I do. Luckily, I have a best friend who wears the same size! I often shop her closet when I am out of options in my own. Other possible options for cheaper dresses: TJ Maxx or Rent the Runway. But I am a bigger fan of borrowing because it’s my favorite price: free!! Another option which may not work for everyone – wear your prom dress! I did this for a formal wedding last year and it was a huge hit (See: the feature photo and the first and last photobooth photos above.) 10 years later, still rocking it! It finally paid off being overweight in high school; it’s a bit too big on me now!

Buy a gift off the registry or give cash. Never go off-script here. I’ll never forget when my sister received what everyone thought was an ashtray for her Bat Mitzvah. Now, logically, of course we did not think any of the guests would have purchased smoking paraphernalia for a 13-year-old, whether or not she was officially a “woman” in the eyes of the Jewish faith. But still, who would buy a mini silver tray for anyone, anyway? This is a tidbit I think about whenever I go to buy a wedding gift. If they wanted a small silver tray, they would have registered for it. And if they didn’t register for it, guess what, they didn’t want it. Don’t be a hero and find something obscure they must have “forgotten” to register for. They didn’t forget. Or, give them some cold hard cash. It doesn’t have to be enough to “cover your plate” anymore, but don’t give $20 either, only your 90-year-old grandmother can get away with that.

I will report back next week after the Final Wedding of 2017 to tell you if all of my tips worked out. As of right now, I only know two engaged couples, so here’s hoping I don’t have a single wedding in 2018! My wallet will thank me.

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Big City Living

Marathon Sunday 2017

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Yesterday was the most wonderful day in NYC: the NYC Marathon. No, I didn’t run it. I am not crazy enough to pay to rip all of my toenails off and poop my pants. JK, I am crazy enough, but I’ve entered 4 times and I’ve never won the lottery. Anyway, on Marathon Sunday, the buzz in the New York air is palpable, and it is the only time when New Yorkers take their earbuds out and voluntarily speak to strangers, cheering them on in the ridiculous physical feat of traversing all 5 boroughs in rain, sleet or snow. Yesterday, it was rain. Lots of it.

My marathon day always consists of many traditions, none of which involve running: first, I wake up early to watch the start of the race on TV and listen to all of the personal interest stories. I love a good sob story early in the morning. Then, I grab my marathon sign, which I worked hours on tirelessly the night before, and I go to the east side to cheer on the semi-fast runners (not elite, not stragglers). I try to spot all of my friends running by stalking them on the TCS Marathon App, then I proceed down to Maya for brunch. I knew 15 people this year!

Brunch involves of 2 hours of unlimited drinks and unlimited tapas. I stuff myself and continue to binge drink and eat as runners stream past the windows, huffing and puffing. After I am huffing and puffing solely due to the overdrive my body is doing to digest the feast, I go back out to the street for my favorite part of the race: cheering on the stragglers. Then, I continue to drink and celebrate 50 thousand people who did amazing things, me not being one of them. Let me break down my day further.

Sunday morning, I set my alarm and woke up at the crack of dawn. Crack of dawn = 8 am, when all of the actual marathoners were already on Staten Island, but no matter. 8 am is early for a Sunday for me. I slipped on some lululemon in solidarity, then went into the living room to turn on ABC. Thankfully, I was able to get my dad’s cable login, specifically for marathon-watching purposes. He told me to test out his login by logging into Fios and trying to pay his bill. I didn’t fall for that.

Anyway, I started watching the great news anchors at their posts throughout New York City, and I watched the wheelchair race, which had already begun. Feeling a bit guilty that I wasn’t running, I did a mini workout in my living room, because 5 minutes of jumping jacks and crunches pretty much equals 26.2 miles of running, right? After about 45 minutes of intermittent squats and lunges, I took a quick shower and got back to the TV just as the commentators were telling Meb’s life story. What an inspiration. Then, just as Shalane was about to cross the finish line (TOTAL BAMF), I left the house to go watch some of the marathon IRL.

I walked ten blocks to the bus, so, basically a half-marathon, and then went across town to 1st Avenue. Then, I walked another 14 blocks, so basically a full marathon. I was trying to track so many runners this year. Unfortunately, I don’t know whether to blame the weather or my inability to use technology, but I only found one of my friends!! Extra kudos to Kerong for looking fresh-like-mile-1 at mile 16.5. You killed it!!

After unsuccessfully trying to find 8 more friends, I went in to Maya for brunch, ready to stuff myself to the gills. We had a reservation for 16 people, and 15 of us showed up. Not bad, friends. There were 4 couples in attendance, one of which is getting married next weekend. Talk about dedication to Marathon Sunday!! Also in attendance was our Marathon Sunday Long Island/Jersey crew, aka my high school best friend’s aunt and friends, who we binge drink/eat with every first Sunday in November. We love getting together to stuff ourselves and cheer on runners.

This year, my friend’s aunt brought her best friend who has a daughter who just wrote an amazing book, This is Really Happening. Ok, full disclosure: I haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure it’s great. She brought me a SIGNED copy as a thank you for organizing brunch, and I promised to read it ASAP and review it on Goodreads. I will blog about my addiction to Goodreads in the near future.

The author of the book, Erin Chack, is ALSO a senior editor for Buzzfeed. Talk about a coincidence – my main goal on marathon day is always to get on Buzzfeed for my signs! Ever since my 15 seconds of fame, 4 years ago, when I was featured on Buzzfeed (#30!), it has been my ongoing goal to make a reappearance. You can see some of my previous signs in my post about my own Half Marathon Training from earlier this year. I owe my friend’s aunt for making that connection, or shidduch, as they say in Yiddish. It’s WHO you know, not WHAT you know, after all.

We went outside after brunch and continued to cheer on runners/stragglers and take some fun photos. BUZZFEED, ARE YOU THERE!? IT’S ME, EMILY. Maybe that’ll be my sign next year.

After the NYPD cleaned up the streets, told the remaining runners to proceed to the sidewalk so they could take away the road barriers (and take more photos with me, obvi), we went on to the next bar. The remaining 6 left standing from brunch went on to Pig & Whistle in midtown and chatted some more. Then, I went to the West Village to congratulate some friends from my run club who also ran/cheered all day. It was an awesome day filled with yelling, cheering, and walking. I may not have run a marathon, but I did scrape the whole back of my ankle open by wearing the wrong socks with my boots. Does that count? Check out my battle wound below. Until next year! Maybe I’ll actually win the lottery this time and lose my toenails! If so, y’all better come out strong with some signs!! And all of those who ran yesterday, Happy Medal Monday, wear that hardware with pride!

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Big City Living

Trick or Treating

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Trick or Treat!! I know it’s already the second day of November (WHAT?! When did that happen!?), but I freaking love Halloween so I am talking about it ONE. MORE. TIME.

Tuesday night, I rushed home from work to hand out candy to the kiddies in my building. My apartment’s leasing office organizes Halloween every year, where residents can pick up a paper the week before Halloween to put on their doors. If you have the paper on the door, then you demarcate yourself as a candy-friendly home.

Email from my building:

Happy Halloween!

Beware… Tuesday, October 31st, the halls will be taken over by little ghosts and goblins. If you are brave enough to provide them with treats, be sure to pick up your purple door sign, beginning Saturday afternoon! The trick or treaters will be searching for the purple sign to know which haunted houses have treats inside! Don’t worry, our brave Concierge will not allow ghosts that do not live in our building to haunt the halls.

Ok, clearly I live on the upper west side. Anyway, I hurried home because the Trick or Treating was from 3 pm -8 pm, and I have a job. I figured the parents in my building lobbied for early trick-or-treating, so they could make the nannies deal with it. Anyway, I got home just before 6 and I put that sign proudly on my door.

Then, because I am a weirdo, I put my costume back on from the Pub Crawl. Am I a gumball machine? Or am I a creep-o pedophile waiting for Chris Hansen to catch me on TCAP?! Honestly, I felt like the latter because I have no kids and who in their right mind puts on a unitard for no dang reason? ME. That’s who. I will say, almost all of the parents said, “Awww a gumball machine! How cute!” This was in stark contrast to most of the millennials out drinking on Saturday, most of whom thought I was some sort of robot ballet dancer in a red tutu who would dance for 25 cents according to my coin slot. I appreciate the parents’ appreciation for creativity. Maybe my costume was more of a throwback than I intended.

I opened the door once to a 10-year-old boy in a full-face mask that was lighting up 3 alternating colors, and as soon as I opened the door all the way, two of his little hooligan friends popped out from beside either side of the door frame and said BOO. I felt lucky that my emoji-boyfriend was home to protect me from these very juvenile delinquents. I told them they were terrifying and made sure they only took one piece of candy each. That’s what they get for make me quiver in my gumballs. Overall, we had about 50 kids come to our door, which is not bad at all. However, I overbought candy and I ate way too much of the leftovers, so I brought the rest to work today.

There were 3 amazing highlights:

1. I went in my costume to Chipotle, where I got a $3 BOOrito bowl. It made for an amazing lunch yesterday.

2. I found a golden skeleton just chillin’ in the lobby of the building next door to me. I dragged emoji-boyfriend aka my Instagram boyfriend, to take photos of me with him.

3. I had two girls Trick-or-Treat dressed as Cellino and Barnes. I’m talking, FULLY dressed as them. One of them even had a papier-mâché bald head with little puff balls of gray hair on the sides. Their mom asked me if I knew who they were, and I didn’t want to be rude so I just said “you guys look adorable!” Then the mom motioned for the girls to turn around, and on their backs, one said Cellino and the other said Barnes, and they had the phone number written there, too! I told them I’d give them extra candy if they could sing me the song, and one of the girls goes “5-6-7-8!” and they burst into the jingle. They won Halloween. And hopefully their night didn’t end in a vicious split-up like the real duo. WHO WILL GET THE RIGHTS TO THE JINGLE?!

What an amazing night. I know you guys are probably wondering what in the world I will talk about now that my favorite holiday is over, but fear not, the best weekend of the year in NYC is this weekend (MARATHON WEEKEND!), the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is around the corner, and better yet, ‘tis the season to start watching Elf on repeat (why can you not stream it for free anywhere?? Good thing I have the DVD).

 I hope you all had amazing Halloweens, did you see any unique costumes? Let me know in the comments!

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Miscellaneous

DIY Gumball Costume

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! As you read in my very long post yesterday, I spent $114 Saturday. October is my most expensive month. Therefore, I always try to spend as little as possible on my costume. I already told you last week, I am always trying to re-purpose the costumes I already have, since I have an entire box of them. Also, I have many crafting tools at my disposal since I have been doing this for years. My emoji-boyfriend is not so into the costuming like me, but if I completely take care of the cost and the labor of making it, he will relent and wear what I make him. Therefore, I try and make his costume low-cost as well. Overall, I spent $41.25 for both of our costumes. Not too bad. It may cost a bit more if you need to buy a glue gun, but they are generally less than $10.

We got a LOT of compliments, so I figured I could tell you how to do it.

Supplies for the Tutu:

  • Red Tulle
  • Scissors
  • Elastic or Ribbon that fits around your waist

Honestly, I don’t need to explain this whole process because I learned it, like many other things, from YouTube. Here’s a link to a great tutorial. You can decide either to use elastic as a waistband, or to use ribbon if you prefer to make a big bow on the back. If you use elastic, you’ll need a few stitches or a glue gun to connect the two ends.

I’ve done it both ways but I find elastic easier for bathroom purposes. Just cut the tulle to the width you prefer and cut it to twice the length you want, so you can double it over. I ordered it in 6-inch width from Amazon this year for ease, and because I didn’t have much time to cut the strips, but it was a bit more expensive. I linked it above, they have a lot of color options.

If you buy tulle from a fabric store, you’ll probably need 4-5 yards from a bolt (about $3/yard), but if you buy it like above from Amazon, you will probably need 4, 25-yard spools because they are only 6 inches in width. It also will depend on how long and fluffy you want your tutu. I needed to cover my silver-unitard-ed bum, so I wanted mine extra long.

 

Supplies for the coin slot:

  • Piece of cardboard (cut out of any box)
  • Duct Tape
  • Sharpie

This was incredibly easy. I just took a piece of cardboard from a box and I covered it in duct tape. Then I drew on the coin slot. The tricky part is I made a little loop on the back from doubled-over duct tape, so I could tie some extra tulle to it, and connect it to the waistband of the tutu.

Supplies for the Quarter:

  • One bowl for tracing
  • One piece of silver poster board
  • Scissors
  • Sharpie
  • Twine/string (stolen from the office)
  • A friend with amazing freehand drawing skills

Not much to say about this: trace a bowl for a perfect circle, have an amazing friend copy a photo of a quarter from the internet. Trace the pencil outline with a Sharpie. Or just freehand it with a Sharpie. I was ready to just write “25¢” on a silver circle, but my friend made a real piece of art. Then I punctured the front and back of the quarter with a letter opener, and threaded the string through. If you have money to burn, it may be a good idea to laminate the pieces so they don’t get soggy from beer, but I was short on time and money, and my emoji-bf is clearly better at not spilling than me. It lasted all day!

Supplies for Gumball Belly:

  • Same bowl for tracing
  • 2 pieces of white felt
  • Scissors
  • Lots of pom poms
  • Glue gun
  • More sticks of glue for the glue gun than you’d think (I used 10)
  • 4 safety pins

This was much easier than I anticipated. I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to decide how large the pom poms should be. Most people said 1 inch, so I bought the cheapest pack of them from Amazon (link above). They were definitely smaller than an inch, but it still worked out well and there was a great mix of colors. I traced the same bowl I used for the quarter on two pieces of felt, then hot glued them together. Then I started at the bottom of the circle, and tried to randomly place the colors, with some attention to keeping a variation of colors, but also not caring too much because real gumballs have the same color next to each other sometimes! It did take more glue than I thought it would, but ultimately only took about 10 minutes to complete while binge-watching Will and Grace. I opted not to use the white, brown and black pom poms, but that is up to your own artistic license. I also decided not to fill the circle up completely, to make it more realistic.

Safety-pin that baby onto your uni! (or tank top). I realized that I preferred it to be a bit underneath the tutu, making it more of a 3/4-moon shape, again to make the circle look a little more realistic like a gumball machine. Personal preference.

Supplies for headwear:

  • Headband you’re willing to part with
  • 10 pom poms (I had plenty left over from the belly)
  • Glue Gun
  • 2 sticks of glue

As I trolled google for gumball costumes, I saw a lot of people wear red beanies for the tops of the gum ball machine. That is a cute idea, but I have a really weird-shaped head. Every beanie I wear just makes me look bald. I settled on my old faithful hair accessories: headbands and bows! I glued 10 different-colored pom poms on a throw-away headband from CVS, and tied a red ribbon that I already owned in my hair.

I already owned a silver unitard from my previous jaunts as the Tin Man and a Hershey’s Kiss (see below), but for those of you who do not have one, you can always safety pin the gum ball felt belly on a white tank top and wear red shorts or a red skirt under your tutu. Highly recommend this costume, with or without the emoji-bf! You can be the quarter, too! The more accessories, the better. I plan on repeating the costume tonight to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Hopefully no one thinks I’m a clown and gets scared again! I think I already know what I want to be for next year, but if you have any great ideas, comment below! Have a boooo-riffic day!

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Big City Living

Halloween Pub Crawl 2017

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Reporting live with the 2nd day of my hangover still slammin’ in my head like a terrible rock cover band at 3 am. I can barely open my eyes in the blinding light of the sun, and a credit card is missing from wallet, which means I OBVIOUSLY had an amazing time on the annual Halloween Pub Crawl 2017.

The Halloween Pub Crawl was not my original idea, I used to be a lowly participant on my best friend’s family’s Crawl. She comes from a big Irish Catholic family with 5 brothers and sisters, and innumerable cousins, so there were always enough people for an entire pub crawl just by inviting the family. Since then, my best friend moved away, and her cousins are less likely to hang out with me without her. (I’m still hanging out with her aunt et al. this upcoming weekend for the NY Marathon, more on that coming next week). Anyway, now that all of my friends expect a Halloween bar crawl, the organizing is left up to me. This year, Facebook invitations went out in August, as is necessary with our crazy New York schedules. I invited about 85 people, and made sure the group was open for friends of friends to invite people. Overall, we ended up with 103 invited, and about 50 people showed up. Not a single member of my family. Not bad!

For the past three years, I have been organizing the Crawl by myself and the last two years I planned it to be held on 14th Street, from west to east. This year, I decided to go old school to the Lower East Side. It’s annoying to get there on the subway from the Upper West Side, but #WorthIt because you only have to walk approximately 15 steps to get to another bar. Also, the looks we got on the subway were priceless. I was a gumball machine, but I think a little kid thought I was a clown and he had a minor breakdown when his mom told him to sit next to me.

5 days before the Crawl, I published the google map of our route, which included walking directions AND my own notes about drink specials. I tried to only pick places with major drink specials, since this was a marathon, not a sprint. I took out $100 cash and hoped for the best.

I won’t recount the whole pub crawl because it would be boring. Also because I remember less and less as the day goes on. But ultimately, we hit 11 bars over the course of 8 hours, and I had 16 drinks and bought three slices of Artichoke Pizza (LET ME LIVE!!) for $114. Not bad!!

This is the link to the original pub crawl map. And here are the bars we actually went to, not in exact order, necessarily, because my memory fails me:

  • The Grayson
  • Double Down Saloon
  • The Hairy Lemon
  • Mama’s
  • Ace Bar
  • Rue B
  • 7B
  • Bua
  • 11th Street Bar
  • B Side
  • HorseBox
  • Planet Rose

We started at the Grayson, and as usually I was running about 30 minutes late. I knew it would be an all-day event, so I figured it would be fine. Sure enough, we arrived and we were the first ones there! Grayson is a Wisconsin bar, which I did not know (Go Badgers!), but that worked to our advantage because they had $5 well drinks and an amazing DJ spinning live during commercials and time outs. There were a lot of time outs. I originally picked this bar because it had $5 mimosas, and I thought that would be a good way to easeee into the day of drinking, but instead I had one cider and switched straight to gin, which I would continue to drink for 9 more hours. We waited for 3 more people to arrive then walked one block away to the next bar, Double Down. Drink Count: 2.

Bar #2 and my memory already starts to fade. Why? Because the bar had 2-for-one happy hour, with well drinks = $6 (aka, $3 each), and the bartender was pregnant. Again you may ask, why does this matter? Well, because I think she was pouring all of the alcohol she couldn’t drink into our cups. But hey, I’m not complaining! We stayed at Double Down for over an hour because the drinks were incredibly cheap and because they had an awesome outdoor area and the weather Saturday was to die for! By the time we went to the next bar, we officially had 17 people on the crawl and it was in full swing. We wanted to switch to a bar with TVs so we could watch the Gator Game. HUGE mistake. Double Down has TV’s, but they only play porn. I’m not kidding. Drink Count: 5.

Anyway, we went to go to Hairy Lemon (the old Croxley’s), but we quickly found out by the overflow crowd on the sidewalk that Hairy Lemon is a Penn State Bar, and they are much better at football than UF this year. We vetoed Hairy Lemon. Luckily, this was the Lower East Side, and there was another bar literally next-door, Mama’s. And that bar next-door had 16 kangaroos in it. Again, not kidding. Only in NYC. We decided it was not an option to hang out with the kangaroos. They agreed to put the Gator game on for us, which was a mistake because we were already losing by nearly 20 points in the first 10 minutes. I decided to distract myself and put on a Kangaroo costume. Then people started to get hungry so we went in search of a bar with food. Drink Count: 6.

We did not find a bar with food. But we DID find another bar, Ace Bar, and they DID let us bring in our own food. A few people got slices of pizza. I did not. But I did have another drink! Drink Count: 7.

More people joined us on the crawl, and my memory of the order of bars gets a bit fuzzy here. At some point we went to 11th Street Bar, we also went to Rue B, and Bua, and we headed (RAN) to HiFi because Happy Hours everywhere were about to end (it was 7:15), but HiFi said online that their happy hour was until 7:30. I clearly needed to get my butt there, since I was only at Drink Count: 12.

Well, joke was on us, the rude bartender told us that actually their website was Fake News and their Happy Hour only went until 7. LAME. We decided we did not want to be patrons for this alternative facts bar, so we left. Drink Count: Still 12.

We headed to Horsebox, where I ultimately must have decided I was not at all done drinking, because instead of paying in cash, like I had been doing all day, I decided to open up a tab. Daddy Warbucks of Gin and Gingers, apparently. This was a stupid move for 2 reasons: A. I definitely did not need drinks 13, 14 and 15. And B. I hadn’t used my card all day, so of course I forgot I had put it down and I left my credit card there. TGFFP. (Thank God For Fraud Protection). My new card should arrive tomorrow. Drink Count: 15.

Slowly, people decided they absolutely NEEDED to sing karaoke, as people always decide after 15 drinks. So began the slow exodus across the street to Planet Rose. Planet Rose is the dingiest and grossest of all karaoke bars in New York, which of course makes it the best. Apparently, you can sing songs there for free during the week, but I’ve only ever been there during the weekend, when it costs $2/song. Luckily, I had some cash left since it was clearly necessary at that point for me to croon Fiona Apple while laying on the probably-bed-bug-infested couch. Drink Count: 16. Karaoke Count: 1 song. Dignity Count: negative.

I managed to find my way, by myself, to Artichoke Pizza, which I had sworn all day I would end the night with. I bought three slices, one for me, one for me the next day (I’m so smart, even when highly inebriated), and one for my boyfriend. Turns out he doesn’t even like Artichoke pizza, so I still have a slice in the fridge 3 days later. If my hangover doesn’t go away by tomorrow, I think I know what I will be having for breakfast.

Overall, a major success. We had almost 50 people. A friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in 15 years came out. My costume was super fun, and comfortable, and I will be posting a DIY on how to make it tomorrow for real Halloween. And best of all, I didn’t die. For all of you New Jerseyans out there, Happy Mischief Night!!

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Miscellaneous

Pre-Halloween Pub Crawl Poem

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‘Twas the night before the Pub Crawl, and all through the City,

Millennials were home watching Netflix, no one getting litty.

The unitards were hung by the doorways with care,

In hopes that the Halloween Pub Crawl would bring strangers who stare.

The hot glue guns were heating, the felt was cut up,

The costumes were barely ready, but their minds were made up –

The next day would bring debauchery and a whole lot of booze,

With 13 pubs on the route, they packed comfortable shoes.

 

Generation Y was nestled all snug in their beds,

With knowledge their parents wouldn’t like their inappropriate threads.

Is it “sexy nurse” or “sexy cat” or “sexy bunny” this year?

Their parents lay in their beds, paralyzed with fear.

When out on the streets, there arose such chatter,

These are unitard-clad adults! These outfits do NOT flatter.

Their parents were relieved, and they thought to themselves, smugly,

THANK GOODNESS MY CHILDREN LOVE TO DRESS UP SO UGLY!

 

Can’t wait to crawl with you all tomorrow!!!!

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Miscellaneous

Spotify Time Capsule

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Do you love the 90’s? If you were born in the late 80’s, probably the answer is “HELL YES.” If you were born in the 70’s and you love the 80’s, the same thing applies. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. What if I told you that you could be instantly transported to the best jamz of your youth, curated FOR YOU, with a click of a button? You’d totally be down, right? I thought so. Well that is exactly what Spotify Time Capsule is. It has changed my life and made my week. This feature has been available since September 28th, and I don’t know how I have survived a month (or 30 years) without it.

During my Monday night Spin class, I casually mentioned that I had done an all throwback 90’s playlist last Thursday (listen to it here!) so a newbie to my class came up to me afterward and informed me of this magical feature on Spotify. Somehow, through a mix of creepy stalkage, magic, and voodoo (and by asking the year you were born), Spotify creates a playlist of every song you listened to from 5th grade through twelfth. AND BEYOND. Ok maybe not EVERY one, but 55 of them! This is a creepily accurate list.

According to Spotify’s press release, this feature can be designed for any user over the age of 16, in 60 Spotify markets, and “gathers the 30 most nostalgic tracks from your teens and early twenties, creating the soundtrack for a trip down memory lane.” My capsule had 55 songs, so I guess it ranges per person. Maybe it’s because I obsessively use Spotify every day, and also because I pay for premium. But this feature is not reserved for only premium users! Most tech blogs presume that this idea comes from the “battle for subscribers” between Apple Music and Spotify, with both of them trying to add more personalized features. I have always been Team Droid, but in my completely biased opinion, I have to say, Spotify NAILED this one.

It would be one thing if it only picked songs from my already-downloaded library, but no. This list includes songs I totally forgot about but TOTALLY listened to. It starts with “This is My Party” from Fabolous and goes to “Case of the Ex” by Mya, two of my favs. At first, I was skeptical. Didn’t everyone love those songs? Also, are they only picking hip hop because I play a lot of hip hop for my spin classes? But then I scrolled down and realized a large majority of southern rappers, Trick Daddy appears more than once. Did they know I grew up in south Florida? HOW!? I didn’t even have Spotify back then!

Then I thought to myself, I liked more than Southern Rap. These Spotify biatches don’t KNOW me!! So I scrolled some more and found Backstreet Boys… then Fiona Apple… then Whitney Houston… a song from Pocahontas… OK THEY KNOW ME! THEY KNOW ME BETTER THAN I KNOW MYSELF! I have been listening to this playlist for two days straight. You guys absolutely must try it out and tell me if my playlist is different than yours! Click here to make your own, and then check out mine in all its glory. If you’re using the Spotify program and not the browser version, just type “time capsule” into the search bar. I guarantee you it will make your day.

https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1E516gnkWfVieT

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