So, what are your thoughts on Valentine’s Day?

If you met me two years ago, I would have probably said something like, “what’s the point of choosing one day out of the year to celebrate love? You should do it everyday. It’s a hallmark holiday” Blah blah.

I was defensive mostly because up until recently had never spend the day with someone special.  For most of my life, Valentine’s Day was spent three ways:

A) With my family, which was so much fun growing up.  We’d have a special meal & my mom would surprise us with little gifts, letting us know how much she cared.

B) With my single friends. We celebrated the fact that even though we didn’t have boyfriends, could have a fabulous time. We had each other, a good meal, and plenty of drinks.

C) Working. I for one would NEVER go out to eat on Valentine’s Day due to the crowds, but apparently everyone else in the world feels different.  I can’t tell you how miserable it is. But is a night guaranteed to make lots of money.

I was anti-Valentine’s day, not too sure if I was just jealous or considered it too corny to join in. But what did I know? I only spent it with family, friends, and coworkers.

Last year was my very first Valentine’s Day, spent with Kyle. Though we had only been dating for a month or so, were already so good, planning our trip abroad and finding more things we liked about one another as each day passed. Our Valentine’s was spent drinking, watching movies, and making a beautiful dinner of sushi & miso soup. Really, I couldn’t ask for anything more.  This year we took a trip to Ninety Mile Beach, about an hour north from where we live,  to a bed & breakfast.  It was spent on the beach and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Seeing it from both perspectives, I get why I was negative and against the clique.  If you don’t make it special and custom design to your relationship, of course it seems lame.   But knowing Kyle & how we do holidays, I look forward to it. Just another reason to celebrate

It’s been three years since I’ve started blogging. How nuts is that? I can’t help but reminisce where I once was and where life has taken me.  Look, my first blog! Not that well written, but pretty entertaining..it was around the time when I first moved to Hoboken and drinking heavily.

“Just Your Typical Tuesday”

Without fail, Tuesday nights in Hoboken seem to turn into a ridiculous time, with even more ridiculous characters. And yes, last night was no exception.  I started off with dinner and drinks at this awesome tapas place in my neighborhood. Since going to the tapas place Savannah, or the artist formally known as The House of Coffee, I have been skeptical of this whole tapas thing. Savannahs was poorly priced and insanely meager. But the place in Hoboken is mm. mm mm mm.

Anyway after dinner, I met up with my friend E and we decided to go out and about for cocktails. For the past month or so, we have gone to the same place (The Goldhawk) for open mike night, so figured it was time to mix it up. Where did we go you ask? The Greenrock. The Greenrock is the type of place you have to love because it has dollar drafts and…well… ok, fine that’s it. It is always super packed, the music it way too loud, and the people who go there are generally a sideshow. The girls were dressed up in their finest clubbin’ clothes and dancing with eachother sexually, in hopes of getting the attention of the late 20’s finance men that were surrounding them, discussing who was taking whom home.

And then there was me and E, who were dressed like elementary school teachers compared to these chicks, and kind of standing to the side.

Within minutes, a dude in a blue collared shirt, whom I probably would have found attractive if he wasn’t so wasted, staggered over to me, kind of tap/pointed on my arm and said, “Hey. I’m John. I work in finance and make six figures. Whah do you do? Isn’t it great that even though I’m so young, I make so much money!”

The conversation continued with me asking if he liked his job, which he said no, to then why did he do it then, with a reply of, well because he made so much money, from which I replied with, I’d rather do something I loved and enjoyed and make less money than waking up and hating life everyday.

He made a fist with his hand and went into a dramatic monologue about how there was SO much more to him and MORE that he needed to give, blah blah blah. What he was doing now was to prepare for his future. He didn’t know what he was going to do, BUT SOMEDAY he will make an IMPACT. Then, he looked at me with bewilderment, probably because he wouldn’t usually show strangers this side of him, and rushed off to the bar for another drink.
pff. So there.

Meanwhile, E was talking to one of weird blue shirt finance’s friends, who was cute, oh so tall, and seemed normal. I moved over closer to them to get out of the middle of the room and happily people watched for a few minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw weird blue shirt whispering something to his friend, motioning for him to talk to me. Obviously, they either wanted to keep me entertained so his friend could continue talking with Emily or that I was the “weird – bad conversation – pathetic – left over friend” that could easily be taken home by just about anyone.

yay.

SO up comes this guy who looked sticky and smelled like a dirty grandparent basement. From here, without a scrap of eye contact, proceeded to give me one of the worst and stale conversations I have had in a long time.

So where do you live? Where are you from? Have you lived anywhere else in NJ?
10th and Willow Middletown Yeah, New Brunswick

Why? Where do you work? Where did you go to college?
I went to Rutgers A magazine I just told you. Rutgers

At this point, I leaned over and said, “Hey E. Lets finish these drinks and go?”
I went to the bar to close out while she said her goodbyes with nice friend, and moved on to the Shannon.

Usually, the Shannon is great. But I guess on Tuesdays it consists of old men playing darts. Whatever. We could actually sit at the bar without someone yelling in our ear or trying to push us out of our seats.

At this point, we figured it was late and should go over to the Gold hawk (surprise surprise) for last call.

Walking up, it looked insanely dead, so I said to E, “dude, what time is it? I wonder if is too late to get a drink…”
umm its 11:30.

So we walked in and sat down at the empty bar, ordered beers and lemon drops, and bullshitted a bit. And yes, apparently I was drinking beer last night (?).

Within two minutes, one of the locals spotted us and talked with us the rest of the night. I think about his music, movies we love and hate, and so on. hm.

Last night must have just been one of those nights that I wasn’t on or something, because next thing I knew, E & local were in deep conversation (ha, which today she has absolutely no idea what it could have been about), while I drunk texted a guy I used to date.

Awesome. So then a random ukelalie and mandolin player in a snow flake sweater appeared out of nowhere, talked to him for a few and went home.

Time for Bed. End of Tuesday.

The Aftermath.

7:00 Alarm goes off. Um. no. how about you re-set til 8:25.

8:30 began the scrammble of showering, breakfast and lunch planning, getting dressed and so on. Makeup free and badly work dressed, I rolled in around 9:30. Not bad.

Gotta love Hoboken

I miss Emily! Here’s her on one of our drunky Hoboken nights circa 2007.

Oh boy, 23 year old me in all my glory.

Here in New Zealand, word of mouth is definitely the best way to travel. And the locals are more than happy to give you advice. They LOVE their country and what others to really enjoy it. While we were in Auckland talked to about a handful of people, led a trickle effect to the minivan and later to where we currently are: the town of Kerikeri , which is in the northern part of NZ.

The town is wonderfully unique, with a lively downtown, but if you drive three minutes one way or three minutes the other, you are instantly in the middle of the country. All there is to see are beautiful hills and farms, almost overmwhelmingly breathtaking. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up in a beautiful place with plenty of nature all around, but never so much of it in one glance of the eye.

So, last Saturday we strolled around Kerikeri, knowing immediately that it was the place for us. We popped into a few real estate places that advertised rentals. The next thing we knew, we were in a car with a realtor named Flip, taking us to a place  he believed was right up our alley. And boy was it.

This is the view from our little deck.  The house to the left is our landlord Gillian’s. She is SUCH a sweet woman and spends most of her time in the garden.  Her property,which is about an acre,  is one of the most magnificent gardens I have ever seen. She took us for a tour and there was a vegetable patch, wildflower area, plants that liked lots of sun, some that didn’t want any at all, others she collected from all around the world, and those that looked like they were out of a Dr. Seuss story. Kyle & I were completely blown away that this was what we’d be waking up to every morning.

In addition, there are lots of animals that live on the grounds including a couple pigeons she somehow inherited, a sweet deaf cat, and chickens! Already Gillian has handed over eight eggs for our dining delight. The funny thing is that the yoke is bright orange and thankfully she warned us beforehand.  Otherwise I’m sure we would have thrown them out.

The loft, I guess you can call it, is small, but super homey & it came furnished! Literally it is exactly what we wanted and hoped for.

As for now, Kyle & I are settling into our new home and slowly but surely looking for jobs. Believe it or not, I haven’t had a real job in over a  month! But knowing I won’t be heading back into the office life is an extreme relief and I’m excited about what’s next for us.

Isn’t he the cutest?

The idea of a new pet member of the family has been on the table for a while. After our collie Jessica passed away last April, my mom & I have missed that relationship with a dog who you knew like the back of your hand. So we went and checked out dogs first. Alas, it isn’t the right time for my parents to be raising a new puppy due to the fact that they travel so much.  So this week we welcomed a kitten to the family.

Le sigh. His name is Desmond (yes like Des from Lost) and he is the sweetest and most friendly cat I have ever met. The reason we noticed him in the first place was that he literally crawled over a couple bodies to get near my mom & me. After Des reached his little paw through the bars to say hello, we melted and that was that.

I had one week with him until I left. And you know what, there’s a part of me that is sad that I don’t get to watch Des grow up into the amazing cat he soon will be. At least I have the comfort to know my mom will send daily updates of the cute and fantastic things he does.

Here’s one she sent from Saturday. Desmond loves to dance while my brother plays the guitar

Have I told you about my current living situation?  When I moved home, it wasn’t as if my childhood bedroom had been preserved in the event of a return. I wouldn’t want it to be.  It’s important for a house to continue to evolve, not to memorialize the fact that children once grew up there.  When I went away to college, came back, went back, came back, and finally moved to Hoboken, it was left alone, the parents knowing we were temporarily involved in a yo-yo relationship. My brother Jason on the other hand, when he went away to college, his bedroom was converted into the “Reiki Room”. It isn’t a large space, but the perfect size for a Reiki table, dresser to contain linens and things for the table, & a small end table for a CD player.  Now that Jason’s living home again has occupied my old room.

Now where does that leave Kristine? Honestly, I could really care less. The murmurs of, “no rent”!!! & “free food”!!! overpowered any worries of where I would sleep or put any personal items. The first idea was to convert our finished basement into a make-shift bedroom.  Which for about a month or so worked…..until it got a little moldy and I began having problems breathing.

SO I moved upstairs kinda. We left everything down in the basement, but simply blew up an air mattress and laid it down on the upstairs office floor when it’s time for bed. At the moment it has gotten to the point that I see sleeping in a bed as a novelty. It’s amazing how quickly you can adapt to situations.

Anyway, it is 6:42 am Monday morning and I am awake. Why would I be though? It’s not like I have a job or anywhere to be today. Well, 42 minutes ago, I was awaken by my dad with a flashlight searching underneath the air mattress for his briefcase!!! He’s lucky that I don’t have a fear of burglars or he would have been knocked in the head with the nearest object.

After waking up to a point to communicate, I asked him if he wanted me to move. Obviously when Idid, the brief case appeared, nice and warm from a good night’s sleep. It was probably angry with me to wake it from a nice dream & shook it’s fist on the way out.

So here I am. 6:46 and getting a little sleepy. I think the blogging helped. At least I’m one of the first to know it looks to be the start of a beautiful day!

One of the things I loved about working in NYC was the proximity to friends who worked nearby.   It made it wonderfully convenient to meet during breaks for lunch or a delicious coffee.

After I moved out of Hoboken and unable to go out after work anymore, Emily & I began doing weekly coffee breaks. This was the best option because  (a) we share an insane love for coffee (b) liked to escape the office around 2:00 and most importantly (c) needed to catch up with what was going on in each other’s lives.

Her and I have always loved our local spots. That all began when we were  newbies to Hoboken and determined to become locals.   Emily & I navigated the area and found gems that soon were considered second homes. For example,  there was the favorite restaurants Mikey Squared and 10th & Willow in Hoboken, our fave bars The Russian Samavar in NYC  &  The Goldhawk (RIP) in Hoboken, and our coffee spot is The Manhattan Espresso Cafe.  

The MEC is a great espresso place that we got to know initially simply because it was directly located in between our jobs.  The shop is teeny tiny that literally has four stools and room for maybe 7 people to stand comfortably.  It doesn’t matter though.  The coffee, pastries, desserts, and beautiful crepes make up for any discomfort you may have  in your personal space. I always found it funny while we would sit in two of the four stools chatting away, the amount of European businessmen who would breeze through for a quick espresso break. Literally.  They would chug their small cup of coffee like it was a shot of vodka, make a comment under their breath about how they needed that, and off they went back to the office. Sometimes the businessmen would make comments about how nice it was that Emily & I had the luxury to sit in a cafe and leisure our afternoons away. “Oh no no”, we would say, “we are just having a nice coffee and a chat”. ”We’ll get back to work eventually”.

In addition, the coffee baristas are fantastic Europeans that we NEVER had any idea what they were  trying to communicate.  They could have  been saying the coffees were laced with date rape drugs or that they hated us, and we would reply the same way everytime: a dumb blank smile followed by a, “sure sounds great thanks”!

It’s nice to have your own local spot & feel at home in such a large city.  And how great to have the gift  to chat it up with a good friend during an otherwise boring day.

 Don’t you want to sit there and people watch while sipping a delicious coffee?

Today’s my last day of work! The early morning long commute & slow work days are over!! I am BEYOND ecstatic and oooooh so ready to return to my life of leisure & creativity.  But alas, with the job coming to the end, so does my romance with New York.

Over the next couple days, I am going to be working on a NYC tribute. But where do I begin to express what the past two and a half years have meant to me? There were so many fun & hilarious & ridiculous &  serious & devastating & hungry & priceless adventures. What to include & what to leave out?

WELL. I do have one story that for some odd reason was never told, but could have been by  far one of the most random experiences of my life.

It was March 2007 and my friend Geraldine & I were having one of our fantastic ”let’s brain storm while drinking cocktails” kinda nights.  Somehow the topic of artistic photos came up and we both expressed an interest in getting pin up-ish pictures taken of ourselves. It would absolutely be a guaranteed rewarding artistic experience.  The one little problem was that we didn’t have/want to spend money for a fancy shmancy photographer. Ultimately, we placed an ad on craigslist, entitled, “We Need A Photographer, You Need Subjects”. 

Within minutes, there were over 150 replies… Apparently photographers are in desperate need of subjects.  Instantly I felt like an in demand model and shooed people away for boring photo websites or non-creative replies.

Then Ned entered the picture. He had a great portfolio on his website & knew all about the pin-up genre of photography.  We decided to give him a test shoot on the streets of NYC… you know to make sure he (a) was legitimate (b) wasn’t creepy or had intentions to kill and rape us & (c) to see if we could establish a comfortable relationship.

Geraldine had to work late, so Emily came along instead.  At the time, we worked together, so around 4:45,  rushed to the bathroom, changed into some clothes, put more makeup on, and off we went to meet Ned.

I can’t recall if he told us what to look for. Emily & I went to the designated meeting spot & looked for ANYONE who holding  a professional looking camera….I had images of  Ned being a super hot creative type, who instantly found his muse (me), and we’d live happily ever after.

Um NO.

There he was…a little man, maybe 5′2, with orange corduroy high water pants, but they were loose exposing his shiny black orthopedic shoes.  Ned needed suspenders to hold up his pants and, honestly, the rest was a blur. I do recall his little teeth shaped like V’s and quickly sniffle-lisped while he spoke.

Emily and I looked at each other and wondered if we should walk the other way.

But we stayed and he took piles of pictures.  It was March and freezing out, but like the professional models that we were, got out there to get the shot. Tourists walked by and whispered pointing at Ned, the exact opposite of style, and Emily and I – obviously not models that they had seen on tv- and probably felt mildly disappointment that their NYC dream bubble was burst by a little man and two faux models.

I knew when he started encouraging us to open up more and be a little saucy that there was NO way I would do anything near a pin-up picture for this little guy who smelled like my Granny’s basement. Oh no no no. But for what it’s worth, we had a great time.  AND midway through the shoot, treated us to grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate egg creams.

He used a super old camera for this photo. There was no flash, so we were put  under a lamp on a scaffold. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think we were in a studio.

After our grilled cheese break, we found this really interesting murial to take pictures  in front of.

Later in the week, he emailed a few times to see when our next shoot would be.  I casually disconnected because obviously in my mind the relationship was over. But ooooh what a random evening that turned out to be.

Don’t you love when you write yourself a quick reminder to remember something and hours later have zero idea what the note says or has anything to do with.  Immediately the first thing I think is, “why didn’t I write myself a note to remind myself what this note was about in the first place”?

Take this guy for example:

The top part of the note is a dead give away. I was planning on going to a hot vinyasa class this week at Yoga To The People, so looked online to get the schedule.

But Columbia….? Why? Where did Columbia come from? I have wracked my brain trying to come up with anything that could be a reasonable answer. Nothing.

Ahhh another one of life’s little mysteries.

In one way or another, we all have fallen prey to the technology boom. Well….there are a few exceptions:  people who simply denounce all modern novelties, have no patience, live in the middle of nowhere where tech means nothing, or are way too set in their ways to learn something new.  Beside digital cameras  (the best invention of my generation), I am usually stubborn  when new products replace the old. Like when DVD’s came in and made the VHS obselete or the arrival of the Ipod and MP3 players wiping out the CD business.  I feel like a traitor, turning my back on old friends who had always brought joy to life.  But in the end, the new always wins.

After getting used to these novelties, like cellphone for example, can you remember life without it? 

By far, the worst is the ”mystery no reason breakdowns”.  No matter how hard you try to trouble shoot, beg and plead with it, pray for it to return to normal after restarting it time & time again, obviously the next step is for your dear love to be sent in to be repaired.

The latest dilemma is my laptop, who, two Saturdays ago,  suddenly decided it didn’t want to work anymore. After having a mini-meltdown, I restarted it a few times, hoping that would prompt it to come to it’s senses and bless me with life. Alas, the laptop remained in a coma & I knew I needed the help of professionals.

That following Monday morning, I called tech support. Of course the woman on the phone was somewhere in the heart of India and I could barely hear or understand the instructions. There were fragments of,

“restart and press f11“, “do you see a promtp for recovery mode…oh no you don’t? Hmmmm, “  & “if you pay for another year warranty, we’ll ship and fix it for free”.

“Sure sure, I said, “ just do that.”

I literally leave for New Zealand in 27 days. I do NOT have time to bullshit around and hope for a miracle.

The Indian Trouble Shooter told me to back-up all my files before I sent it in & gave directions to do so. Good idea, except my drama queen of a laptop pretended it didn’t know what I was talking about and refused to save.  And I know, backing up is  important & should be done regularly. But, it’s been a busy summer, sorry.  EVERYTHING is gone. Goodbye word documents, so long music, and adios pictures. Ohhh well, it could be worse.

Friday, August 21: Left the FedEx box filled with the laptop  in my office mailbox, where the mail room guys come 5-6 times a day to take mail and packages.

Monday, August 24:  I decided to track the package’s progress. FedEx showed no record of any delievery going out. “Hmmm, I thought, “maybe they just forgot to put it in the system? I have the wrong tracking number? It is a 2 day delivery so hasn’t gone anywhere? WHAT! Where did you go???”

Tuesday, August 25: FedEx STILL remained strong on the fact that  they have never seen or heard of alleged box. I began to panic, thinking of it drifting around in a back of a truck, with no one paying any attention.

I called FedEx to inquire what was happening. A super nice Southern woman exclaimed, “well Hun, I’d check the mail room. My daughter once did the same thing and turned out her broken cell phone was down there for 6 MONTHS”.

Immediately, I  ran upstairs and what do you know, guess who was patiently sitting on the counter waiting to be shipped…….

Nice right? So I grabbed the box, shouted to the mail room guy, “I’ll take it MYSELF THEN!” and off I went to FedEx Kinko’s. 

The moral of the story:

(a) BACK UP your valuables! You never know when something is going to happen.  And if something goes wrong, like my laptop did, do not put your complete faith in the system. Make sure that everything is going according to plan.  Thanks to technology, we are given the option to track. Use that gift.

(b) Don’t let problems like this get the bestof you.  I was in a foul mood about an hour or so after the initial breakdown & days later when I called for tech support. It happens to everyone & will work out.

(c) When beginning a new chapter of life (in my case New Zealand), I find it refreshing to start off fresh. Even though I lost a few important things, nothing compares to going into an unknown situation with tools you can 100% completely depend on. So maybe this was all meant to be. In retrospect, I’d rather have things go wrong now vs. in a different country.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly the summer has gone by? I feel like yesterday was Memorial Day weekend when I was preparing my southwestern pasta salad and thinking ahead of all the fun things to look forward to. This summer in particular has been a quick and not as appreciated one because:

• I have been an emotional mess dealing with visa this & that, preparing for New Zealand, and so on.
• Usually each day is glorified and blessed because I think, “only 40 days or so left of warm weather and then I’ll be cold again.”  I am a summer girl. It’s my favorite time of the year and get very sad once it’s over. This year however, we’ll be flying into New Zealand in their spring, which means two summer for 2009! When I miss a beach day now I think, “well, whatever I’ll be making up for all those lost days on a beach in New Zealand soon enough”.
• We lost the entire month of June to rain. The summer was transformed to a quick two month season. At least Septembers are usually beautiful and I’ll have the first three weeks of the month to play before we go.  Guaranteed, my three weeks of freedom will be dominated by mornings spent at the beach & working at the restaurant. I told them my schedule to work and it’ll only be a matter of time before they begin to bombard me with shifts to cover. Fine fine fine. The more chance to make money the better.

The one great thing about this summer was I had ALOT of days off. Between summer Fridays, holidays, & vacation time, there has been plenty of chances to take long weekends and time to enjoy the weather.

Yesterday for example was a PERFECT beach day.  My mom, sister, my friend Chia, & I headed down and had a great day lounging around and swimming. The water is AMAZING might I add, go for a swim soon if you have a chance.

My sister Heidi, Mom, & Me

Heidi, Chia, & Me

I look forward for the next month. The weather will hopefully remain beautiful, the end of my job is in sight, a great goodbye party is in the works, & our adventure is soooooo close!  When you have so much to look forward to, it’s hard to dwell on something as silly as the weather or time going by. But it’s important to reflect on how the time was spent.