Merry Christmas! As many of you know, Dan and I have friends. Ben and Jara are our friends, and they have birds. Since they are lucky enough to be spending the holidays with family, we were enlisted to watch two of their birds: Cleo and Alfie. And thus the adventure begins. Picture this: a bird on the boxes, the incessantly screeching, pooping, flailing, food-flinging, Dan-biting heathen by the name of Cleo. Cleo does not like Dan and Dan has sworn off Cleo for life. Alfie is a much calmer, and larger, poop machine. He is positioned on the desk and he likes to shred paper, eat broccoli and sit for long periods of time on my knee. It should be known that Alfie does like Dan, so the theory that Dan emits an odorless bird repellent does not fly, so to speak. I take turns holding the birds and keeping them away from Dan, but they really hate it when I leave the room. There is an ear-splitting cacaphony that follows my exit which consists of screeches, whistles, clicks, hoots, flaps. Dan contributes to this by swearing and cursing the noisy beasts. So things are very lively at our place.
In other news, we have been busy with visitors (see previous blog), holiday happenings and work. Our other friends Kyle and Nancy have an annual holiday party we would be crazy to miss. We get to catch up with people we rarely see and meet new people we won't see until the next holiday party! And the food! Nancy is serious about her party fare, and we look forward to her yummies every year.
I have been working at the hospital a lot lately, mostly filling in for those lucky enough to have vacation time. The 3pm-11pm in the lab is actually a lot of fun because the people who work that shift are great and there aren't any supervisors around that late so we get to screw off a lot and wear tennis shoes! I hope none of them read this...
On Christmas Eve I worked 3-11 and Dan met me after work so we could go to the Midnight mass at St. Saviour's which is right behind the hospital. We walked home and fell asleep around 2am.
We got lots of cool stuff for Christmas, most notably (for me) a bunch of kitchen accessories like the Pampered Chef chopper and the Williams Sonoma aprons! Dan got some CDs, a new man-purse made by Victorinox, Pictionary and some stuff we have yet to open. Which is why I will sign off, because I need to get home and open more presents!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Sorry for the delay...
Hello again. Sorry for the delay, we'll try to stay more current with the blog. It's been a couple of crazy weeks. Katie has been working at the hospital quite a bit and I have been studying hard for my comprehensive exams for my PhD. This 3-day test starts Jan. 17. Hofstra won't start again until the end of January so I am looking forward to 3 weeks of basically non-stop cramming. Woo hoo. :(
One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been my parents visit the week before Christmas. They came overnight and arrived Friday morning on jetBlue to JFK and then took a cab out to Hofstra where I was hearing sight-screaming...I mean, sight-singing exams for my sophomore ear training classes. I took them on a tour of the campus and we took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) back to Manhattan. Fortunately, the subway workers had postponed their strike until the following Tuesday.
We did so much fun stuff with my folks including, but not limited to, getting a architectural-themed walking tour of Park Slope (a very nice Brooklyn neighborhood) from a former Mannes extension student of mine who happens to be a well-known architect, eating some good food, going to Ellis Island, eating pizza at Grimaldi's in Booklyn (the best pizza in NYC according to the Zagat survey), buying quality chocolate at Jacques Torres, seeing the NYC Transit Museum, eating some good food, sight-seeing at Rockefeller Center, looking at the holiday window displays, eating lots of good food, seeing the Rockettes at the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, seeing some wonderful illuminated manuscripts from the 1200-1600s at the New York Publick Libraries magnificent building on 42nd Street, and did I mention eating good food? It seemed like they were here longer than the 4 days since we packed so much fun stuff in.
They didn't escape the transit strike though, since they left on Tuesday (when the strike started). Fortunately, I was able to take the LIRR into Penn Station (from Hofstra where I was administering more torture, I mean finals) and we spent a few more hours sight-seeing, and then endured a 2-hour cab ride to JFK, ouch. I was able to take the AirTrain to the LIRR going back to Brooklyn, but there was still a 30-minute walk for me to get home. We are glad the strike only lasted 3 days!
So check out the new pictures at flickr.com, you can click on the pictures at the bottom of the page or over to the right-hand side of the screen. Katie is writing the Christmas report that you have probably already read since it was published later than this post. And we'll try to report back on our New Year's doings and not have a month-long reporting lapse again!
One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been my parents visit the week before Christmas. They came overnight and arrived Friday morning on jetBlue to JFK and then took a cab out to Hofstra where I was hearing sight-screaming...I mean, sight-singing exams for my sophomore ear training classes. I took them on a tour of the campus and we took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) back to Manhattan. Fortunately, the subway workers had postponed their strike until the following Tuesday.
We did so much fun stuff with my folks including, but not limited to, getting a architectural-themed walking tour of Park Slope (a very nice Brooklyn neighborhood) from a former Mannes extension student of mine who happens to be a well-known architect, eating some good food, going to Ellis Island, eating pizza at Grimaldi's in Booklyn (the best pizza in NYC according to the Zagat survey), buying quality chocolate at Jacques Torres, seeing the NYC Transit Museum, eating some good food, sight-seeing at Rockefeller Center, looking at the holiday window displays, eating lots of good food, seeing the Rockettes at the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, seeing some wonderful illuminated manuscripts from the 1200-1600s at the New York Publick Libraries magnificent building on 42nd Street, and did I mention eating good food? It seemed like they were here longer than the 4 days since we packed so much fun stuff in.
They didn't escape the transit strike though, since they left on Tuesday (when the strike started). Fortunately, I was able to take the LIRR into Penn Station (from Hofstra where I was administering more torture, I mean finals) and we spent a few more hours sight-seeing, and then endured a 2-hour cab ride to JFK, ouch. I was able to take the AirTrain to the LIRR going back to Brooklyn, but there was still a 30-minute walk for me to get home. We are glad the strike only lasted 3 days!
So check out the new pictures at flickr.com, you can click on the pictures at the bottom of the page or over to the right-hand side of the screen. Katie is writing the Christmas report that you have probably already read since it was published later than this post. And we'll try to report back on our New Year's doings and not have a month-long reporting lapse again!
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