This past weekend was one of those great weekends where you have a lot to do but everything you do is fun and not stress inducing. You actually *want* to do it and don't feel obligated.
Friday nights are usually my night to hang in. After having a hellish week trying to come back from a wonderful vacation the week before all I wanted to do was make out with my couch and catch up on DVR. That's precisely what I did. But not before I made a feast.
Earlier that week I went to the A&P Grocery store right down the street from where I live. Now I was all snervous (snervous = scared/nervous. Or if you like you can say snervvy)and anxiety ridden as I was driving there because, you know, new grocery store, where am I going to find anything? How will I know where to go? Will the produce be good? That sort of thing.
The second I entered the A&P my mind was at ease. Before me stood rows and rows of pristine produce, aisles of well marked cereals and foods from around the world. It was like grocery store porn. As I passed the seafood section I had an epiphany.
I will make linguine and calamari for dinner on Friday!
It was Tuesday and I was already deciding what to make for dinner on Friday.
I had the seafood man direct me to the calamaris, picked up the rest of my things and off I went.
*Fast forward to Friday*
Armed with my new wok I purchased from Marshall's for $9.99 I started cutting up the calamari and making sure that the little squids were all cleaned out. It took about an hour with all of the prep and constant clean up (I was so paranoid of getting dried calamari juice everywhere that roughly every 2 minutes I would douse my counters with Clorox Any Surface Bleach Spray) but after I was done I had roughly enough linguine, calamari and clam sauce to feed about 15 people.
"Who eats this much?" I said as I turned on my DVR and started watching the previous week's episode of Dance Your Ass Off.
"Oh..."
The objective of Friday evening was to get to bed early because I had an early morning on Saturday.
"Lisa, why so early?"
Why you ask? Because I had to haul my buns over to the Bayonne, NJ DMV in order to get my NJ plates. Finally.
Once I got there I waited while a little Asian woman rummaged around for my title. She then tapped away on the computer while I updated my Twitter.
"Miss Gradie?"
I looked up, "Yes?" The Asian lady was staring at me expectantly.
"I'm sorry what?"
Her mouth was moving but no sound was coming out.
"HUH?"
"How will you be paying?"
"Oh..." I handed her my Amex.
She handed me back my card, then my new registration and then finally my new plates. I looked at her and again her mouth was moving but no sound.
"Pardon????"
"You need to get your car inspected?"
"Oh. Yes."
She handed me a pink piece of paper. "Ok. Go to the inspection place and put this in your windshield."
"Ok..."
I stared at the Asian lady as she stared back at me.
"Um. Where do I go and get this done."
Mouth moving. No sound
"EXCUSE ME????"
"At the inspection place."
"Right....where is that? Can I go to like a gas station?"
"Oh no."
(Don't act like it's a dumb question. In Mass you get your inspection sticker at the Mobile station.)
"Ok. Sooooo.....Where do I go?"
"Where do you live?"
"Hoboken."
"Ok so you're going to want to go to Secaucus."
"Ok."
More staring.
"Do you happen to have an address?" I mean I had my Mass information in my hands. You'd think she'd take the social cue and realize that I'M NOT FROM NEW JERSEY!
"There is a book up front that has all of the places that do inspection."
Why couldn't she have just told me this before??
"Kthxbye."
After FINALLY getting my car inspected (that is a whole other blog in itself) I enlisted a male friend's strength to fashion my car with the bile colored NJ Plates.
Here is Suzi:
Here is Suzi as a Jersey girl:
I so miss my Mass plates. But, *sigh*, what can you do?I needed to make the switch so I could obtain a Hoboken resident sticker and not get towed again.
After running around all of New Jersey for 5 hours I finally made it home just in time for my gay husband Hoosty to arrive at my apartment!
I've known Hoosty (aka: Justin) since college and he's back in NY for the summer. So we decided to get some brunch in Hoboken and then go on his boyfriend's boat.
We had to meet Michael (his bf) at 2pm. At 1:15 I looked at Justin if we had time for one more drink or if we should get the check.
"We should probably get going," he said. "It's going to take us probably like 20 minutes to get there."
We picked up some snacks and wine for the boat and, after thinking my car was towed, (it wasn't, I was just laughing so hard at something Justin said that I totally walked by it) we plopped into Suzi (who still had her Mass plates btw. We'll get to the switch over later) and I plugged the address of the marina into Carmen, my GPS.
"Um. Justin?"
"Mmmm??"
"It says we're going to be there in three minutes."
"Yeah....I think we're like a lot closer than I thought."
They were legit around the corner from where I live.
So after a couple of margaritas at the restaurant we were finally ready to shove off!
Here is Hoosty preparing for..er...take off?
Take it in while you can people. He doesn't give that angle up for just anyone.
Removing the tarp. Check out those long fingers.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai! We're like on a boat!!!"
The outbound view of Le Statue of Le Liberty. Or Libby as I so rightfully nicknamed her.
Justin holding up one of his precious Peapod Crisps. Those things were nasty. Sorry Hoost.
The inbound view of Le Statue of Le Liberty. Looks the same doesn't it.
It was around this time that I thought I was going to hurl into the
Hudson. I had to actually lay down for 20 minutes for the nausea to go
away and once I thought I was in the clear I sat up and legit thought I
was going to toss my cookies all over the deck. I had to sit very still
with my eyes closed and swallowing for about 60 seconds.
But after that I was totally fine!
So the boat was amazing and such a nice treat. After we docked Justin walked me to my car where he changed my plates for me. It was sort of sketchy looking actually. In the middle of a pretty much empty garage there was a really tall dude with a shifty eyed girl unscrewing Mass plates and replacing them with NJ ones. Legit right after we finished and got into Suzi the security guard walked out and made a bee-line for us. Thankfully I drive hard and got us out of there in a hurry.
I was home by 7:30 and was so tired that I showered, and was in my bed by 10:30. I didn't even make it to a friend's birthday party in the city. I was nautically pooped!
Sunday I had a great day busting around downtown Manhattan with LK. We heard about this park called The High Line and wanted to check it out. Basically its' a park that was built over old rail road tracks. It just opened so there isn't a whole lot to do just yet but it's nice to walk around and the views are cool.
Look! It's Hoboken! Helloooooooooooo.
LK and I stopping to take a picture.
Sunday was one of those great NY days. It was totally comfortable to bust around and it was totally dead! I had never been in New York on a summer day on the weekend. I can't believe what a ghost town it is. It's super quiet.
We topped off the day with seeing 500 Days of Summer which you all should go and see now and then stopped at 24 Prince for drinks.
Quite possibly one of the best weekends I've had to date!
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