Chinatown with Joy

Joy and I spent an evening in Chinatown a few weeks ago and it was so fun! We started out at Apotheke for drinks. It's a cool little speakeasy type place for drinks. They had a really fun drink menu and they were SO good. We each had two because they were so tasty....I learned my lesson though and will stop at one next time. They were a lot stronger than they tasted!

From Apotheke, we went to Pongsri for some Thai food. I am scared to try most of the restaurants in Chinatown, but this was great! I am not a huge Thai lover in general, but I had the best Pad Thai I've ever had. I would definitely go back there. In fact, I'd do this whole night over again exactly the same way!

Action!

Back in this post, I mentioned that I was just waiting for the day for someone to ask to use my apartment to film something.  Well, that hasn't quite happened, but I got a whole lot closer this week!!  I came home one day to find a letter on the door from my neighbor (the actress).  It stated that there was going to be a film crew in our building the next day, she hoped it wouldn't bother anyone, it had been approved by the owner, etc....  Her most recent project was using her apartment for a scene! Sure enough, the next morning (at 6AM!), the whole film crew was there moving in equipment.  Outside my door were several guys and they'd even set up the craft services tent outside.  I wish I hadn't had to leave for work all day and could have seen more of the action!

I ran into said neighbor today and got to ask her about the project.  It's a movie called "That's What She Said" starring herself, Anne Heche, and Alia Shawkat...the little girl from Arrested Development.  I never watched that show, but she was in one of the Indie movies we watched when I took that movie class a couple of years ago and I loved her!

Anyway, this is one movie I won't want to miss!

Random Happenings

This post is just a hodge-podge of stuff I've done over the past couple of months, but never got around to blogging about.  I'm trying to catch-up here, folks and have a lot of pictures to get out here on the WWW.

Etsy craft night.  Mindy and I grabbed dinner at Five Guys (Burgers & Fries!) and then went over to Southstreet Seaport for an evening of nautical crafting.  We did an embroidery project and Etsy provided all the supplies.  I had no idea, but embroidery takes forever!!  I didn't get very far that night and swore I would finish it at home, but I still have not picked it back up.  Maybe on some cold winter night I will get back to it.

They even gave us a gift bag (and we didn't pay a penny

for ANYthing).  So nice!  Yarn, fabrics, thread, buttons!

I hope to do more Etsy craft nights.  We had fun

crafting away and really enjoyed chatting with the

other 3 ladies sitting at our table.

Lucy's & Jessica had a rooftop party.  I met

Stacy, Mindy, and Hillery for dinner at Dogmatic

beforehand for some yummy sausages.

Party, complete with DJ

Stacy and I

Sorry for the blur!  Hillery, Angela, me and Amanda!

I met Rosella and Kianti for lunch at the Boat Basin one lovely Saturday.  Thankfully, the weather stayed lovely the whole time we were there...unlike last time when I went with Jessica and a random and sudden storm blew in!

Subway tour w/ Robyn.  Robyn moved away :(  After 10-years in NYC, she still had things to mark off her list of to-do's!  She really wanted to take a tour of the oldest subway tunnel in the WORLD, so I joined in.  It's located in Brooklyn and hasn't been used for many years now.  To get to it, you have to climb down a man-hole in the middle of a very busy street.  That was probably the most exciting part!!

Down goes Robyn!



Down goes Susan!

We had to make our way through

this little narrow section

Then crawl through this little hole

Then down a bunch of stairs

And finally into the main part of the tunnel,

along with a ton of other people

Self-portraits are bad.

On our way back out!



I had my old Community Group over for brunch one last time.  I made goat cheese scrambled eggs, butter horns, a spinach/strawberry salad, and a fruit salad.  Yumm-o!

Hillery, Erin W., Robyn, Kim, myself, Jen!

Mallorie and Erin G. couldn't make it :(

We'll stop there for now, but there's still lots more to come!  Stay tuned, friends!

It's a Small World. Full of Famous People.

Sometimes I just can't get over how small this world really is.  Or at least how small NYC is.  Okay, I know. NYC is HUGE.  But I think the fact that there are so many people here makes it small.  It's like, how can you not know people here when there are SO many of them.  Surely all of you know someone here (besides me).  Anyway, that brings me to my latest "small world" happening.  I started Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) for this year (I'm talking in school-years here).  More on BSF later.  Last week was my first week and I went to meet my small group and I sat down and looked up at the person sitting across from me and what do you know?  It's Mary Carmen, my sister's next-door-neighbor from freshman dorm in 1991!  Woah!  I remember the first time I met Mary Carmen when I was all of 15-years-old and my friend, Jessica, and I got to stay a night in the Baylor dorm.  Beth and some friends took us for dinner at El Chico and Mary Carmen came along.  She is the only friend of Beth's that I can remember being there at dinner.  I remember her because she was very eccentric and Jessica thought she was the coolest ever.  The last time I saw Mary Carmen was in 2003 at my sister's wedding.  I had heard she was living here and vice-versa, but it has been great to reconnect.

Okay, so the world is small.  It's also full of famous people!  Or at least people who know famous people.  Or people who are going to be famous!  I am none of those, but I like meeting anyone who falls into any of those categories.  Last night, my friend Katie and I went to see our friend Hillary do a Cabaret Showcase.  It was so much fun and Hillary was excellent (maybe she'll be famous)!  We're all in a new community group together (Oh, yeah...I quit my community group of 4 years and have a new one.  More on that later, too).  Hillary had invited a couple of other girls she knows from church who Katie and I met for the first time.  One of them is a lovely girl named Sarah Jane.  My conversation with Sarah Jane went something like this:

Me:  So what do you do here?
SJ:  I'm an actress.
(This is a very typical answer here.  Most of the time it means they WANT to be an actress, but haven't really found work yet.  Doesn't mean they aren't talented.  Just means there is a LOT of talent here).
Me:  Oh, do you like to do plays or musicals?
SJ: I've mostly done musicals.
Me:  Are you working on anything now?
SJ:  Yeah.  Promises?
Me:  You mean, like, "Promises, Promises" on Broadway?
SJ:  Uh, huh.
Me:  That's great!  What role are you?
SJ:  Oh, I'm just in the ensemble. 
Then, under her breath,
SJ:  And I fill in for the lead when she's not there.
Me:  You mean Kristin??  (as in Chenoweth, folks).
SJ:  Yes! 
Me: Wow!  That amazing!  So great.  Congratulations!  So, what else have you done?

And, it turns out this gal is legit.  But, very, very humble.  Not only is she filling in for Kristin Chenoweth now, she was also her Understudy for Wicked.  Oh, and also for The Apple Tree.  Yes, that's right, she's basically been Kristin's body double for the last 7 years.  Well, not that whole time.  There was the period where she was the Understudy for Sutton Foster in Shrek.  Simply, amazing.  It was so fun to hear her talk about what it is like to work with Sean Hayes and Kristin.  Sean?  Humble, very nice.  Kristin?  Self-absorbed.  But, sweet.  But, self-absorbed.  Oh, but so sweet.  But, so self-absorbed.  She said Kristin is a completely different person today from when she worked with her 4-years ago.  I asked if the fame had gone to her head.  And she said it wasn't that so much as you can tell she has been treated differently and she has gotten used to being treated that way.  Very interesting to hear these kinds of things first-hand.

Oh, and back to the small-world thing.  When I found out SJ went to school at CCM in Cincinnati, I quickly did the math in my head and realized she just might have been there at the same time as a guy I knew in high school.  Yep, turns out Sarah Jane was roommates with his little sister.

It's a small, small world!

Governor's Island & EATALY

A few Saturdays ago (September 11th to be exact), Stacy and I decided to take full advantage of the gorgeous day. We headed downtown to catch the free ferry to Governor's Island. I had only been over to GI for the Polo match in June and it was crazy crowded and hot that day so we didn't really see much of the island. I was excited to really explore it! Governor's Island is an old Army Post and has a lot interesting buildings, many that the public are free to explore.

We took a ferry like this one

Once we got to the Island, we rented bikes and

spent about 2 hours biking around the island.

There was a trapeze school on the island

so we watched for a while - cool!

We found 2 churches on the island

We were allowed to go inside one-

it was pretty bare inside

This is the wall surrounding the barracks.

That's a moat you're looking at!

There were all kinds of interested buildings

This was a really pretty house - inside and out

There were many yellow houses similar to this one

Always love some archways

We saw no less than 4 cruise ships that day

Flag at half-mast for 9/11

Great view of Manhattan and a cool sailboat

Me and lady liberty

After an afternoon of sunshine and biking, we were hungry! We decided to hit up Eataly...it's what everyone is talking about these days!

Eataly just opened a couple of weeks ago and is a new food market/eating venue backed by Mario Battali. I was a little nervous about going as I'd heard the crowds were almost unbearable, but we decided to go for it anyway. It was really cool. There are all kinds of food stands...gelato, Italian desserts, panini's, cheese & wine, etc.... There are also a few sit-down restaurants - a steak house, a seafood restaurant, and one that has pizza and pasta. We put our name on the list for the pizza/pasta restaurant while we explored the rest of the space. In addition to all the foods you can eat right there, you can basically do your grocery shopping there, too! There is also a cookbook section and a kitchen supplies area. It's a pretty cool place! I'd love to go back sometime and pick up all the fixin's to cook a great Italian meal at home.

Fresh pasta

Fresh ravioli

Produce

Stacy and I split a pizza (fabulous) and pasta (also very good) for dinner. Afterwards, I got some gelato and she got tiramisu and we took it across the street to Madison Square Park where they were airing the US Open live on a big screen - fun! My gelato was excellent - I will be back! Oh, and we got lucky that night because Mario was in the house...Stacy was brave enough to ask for a picture!

I honestly didn't spend much time dwelling on the significance of 9/11 this year, but Stacy and I did head downtown that night so that we could see the lights representing the 2-towers...I can't believe I'd never seen them before. I think next year is the last year they will have the lights...I can't believe it is going to be the 10-year anniversary. It really does not seem that long ago.

Labor Day Weekend

I tend to go out of town for most 3-day-weekends and it is nice to just stick around and have an extra day in this big city with more things to do and see and eat than I can keep up with. Labor Day weekend was perfect. Perfect weather, perfect friends, perfect events, and even some great productivity thrown in there! My sister's friend Chandra and her friend Kristy (from Two Funny Girls) were in town for the weekend. I met up with them on Friday night to grab a bite. I wanted to take them to Kashkaval (still one of my faves), but it was too crowded, so we ended up at Eatery, which also is always pretty good. It was fun to catch-up with the girls over a yummy meal.

I spent most of Saturday doing some cleaning and conquering some projects that have been on my list. I've had so many changes I wanted to make to my apartment this summer, but it's been slow going...there has been some progress though and pictures will be coming in the near future. Saturday night, Chandra, Kristy and I went to dinner at Nonna - Italian food in my neighborhood. I had only been once before and it wasn't quite as good as I remembered the first time, but still pretty good. I had risotto and it was chalk-full of veggies. I have a serious risotto addiction. I'll definitely be back there. After dinner, I took the girls to a party in Brooklyn. It was at some church peep's apartment...it was amazing! They have an awesome patio off their apartment that has stairs leading to their private rooftop that has fantastic views of the city. It was an apartment to die for! The owner, Rick, also had a couple of Emmy's sitting on the shelf...way cool!! He won them when he worked for the Dallas Morning News and they won for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina. He also had a Pulitzer, which he said was a bigger deal to him.

Kristy had to get her pic with the Emmy!  (and Rick)!

And the Pulitzer Prize!

On Sunday, I had a day full of church - I taught the kiddos in the morning, served communion at night.

Monday was a fun-day and I met Stacey at The Met to have a cocktail on the rooftop..it was my first time to be up there and it has seriously been on my list of "to do's" since before I moved here. Soooo glad to finally check that one off my list! The Met has a different exhibit on the roof every summer and this year I'd been hearing great things about it. It is a massive bamboo structure that is constantly in development and growing and changing all summer long. You can take tours of it - meaning you get to climb all up and around it. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do the tour...you have to be there at specific times and we couldn't work it out. Afterwards, we went to the new Shake Shack on the Upper East Side for a delicious burger dinner. It was a great day!

The crazy bamboo structure

Made only of bamboo and bungee cords.

There were pathways all up and around it

for the tours...so cool.

My first time to see the views from the top of the Met!

Stacy and I enjoying our day of freedom from labor