Time for a change
Posted by Gypsy on Jun 23, 2008
It’s been a year since I ditched the blond in favor of my natural color. I don’t remember the last time I went that long with my natural hair color, so of course I was long overdue for a change and today it happened. What do you think?
Mom gives us life, we give her weekend in NYC
Posted by Gypsy on Jun 13, 2008
For Mother’s Day, my brother and I decided it would be a fun idea to take mom to New York City. It was her first trip there, so we figured a weekend would be perfect to show her a little of the city and would finally give me a chance to show her why I love it there so much.
So that mom wouldn’t have to use any vacation days, I booked us a flight for Friday evening. The flight was interesting to say the least. Apparently there was lots of roadkill or something in our flight path because we swerved back and forth the whole way down there. At one point I think the monitor showed us flying completely north, even though we needed to go southeast. But we did land on time and, since we didn’t check anything, hopped into a cab to head to the city.
To get the room, I had gone on Priceline and bid on a room, so we didn’t have a choice in the hotel yet somehow we ended up at the perfect one. We stayed at the Millennium Broadway Hotel, on 44th near Broadway. Perfect location as we were less than a block from Times Square and right across the street from Virgil’s, a barbecue joint that has become a frequent haunt when visiting the city with a group. Since this was mom’s first trip to the city, we bummed around Times Square a little taking it all in after we had checked into the hotel. Since it was late, this was all we really had time for before we were both ready to crash.
Waking up fairly early Saturday morning, we head off to pick my brother up from Grand Central Station so he could join us on the rest of the weekend. Dropping his bags off at the hotel, it was now time for me to show them a little more of the city. Since it was a short trip, we decided to skip on sightseeing tours and instead just relax and have fun. This lead to us walking down 5th Avenue in 90+ heat popping into various stores and the like in an effort to enjoy some air conditioning. This wasn’t all bad, though, as one of those stores was Tiffany & Co. (a personal favorite) and another was FAO Schwartz, which led to some toy buying. From there, we head over to Central Park for a short walk and to grab some ice cream before heading back downtown to relax before our evening out.
Saturday night, we met up with a few friends from the board, including Adam, Ed, Anthony and his lovely wife Jasmine, for dinner at Virgil’s. As usual, dinner there was awesome, though I do think this is the first time I’ve been there where no one has had a drink. After dinner we all said our goodbyes and mom, Jack and I were off to see Avenue Q. We had all heard some great things about the show and figured it would be a fun one to see. What a great decision that was. It’s really just a raunchy take on Sesame Street. And so well done, too. After the first few numbers you kinda forget that there are people holding the puppets up and stuff and just start paying attention to the puppets. Plus any show with puppets having sex on stage can’t be bad.
Sunday was really just a day of killing time. Since mom and I weren’t set to fly out until 5:30, we spent the morning bumming around Times Square and hanging out before we had to take Jack to the train station. One of the places we killed time at was Midtown Comics, where I bought a few trade paperbacks to read and Jack bought an insane amount of Transformers comics that he’ll probably never read. We also hit up the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for lunch, which was a fun new experience. I’m not generally one who loves chain restaurants, but I dig enjoy the food and the atmosphere of this place. After bumming around a little more, it was time to collect our bags from the hotel and take Jack back to the train station before catching a cab to JFK.
This is where the weekend started to get bad. Mom has motion sickness and the whole cab ride to the airport wasn’t feeling well. We finally get there, mom’s stomach settles and we have dinner before boarding our flight on time. We then proceeded to sit on the runway for 5 hours waiting to take off. First there was a storm that delayed us. No big deal, right? Then, according to the pilot, there was a storm in our flight path which led to us needing a new flight plan. I don’t know what was going on at the control tower or with whoever maps a new path, but that’s what kept us on the tarmac for so long. We were supposed to land at 7 p.m., but ultimately didn’t land until after 11 p.m., finally getting home shortly after midnight. Worst flight experience ever and has lead to me not wanting to fly through JFK for awhile.
Overall, flight home aside, the weekend was pretty awesome. Mom had a great time and can’t wait to go back. I actually get to go back later this month when my friend Andrew comes to town, though this time I’m driving to West Point and taking the train. Takes longer but at least I can avoid being trapped in a tin can with no food or smokes.
Redesign!
Posted by Gypsy on Jun 9, 2008
Isn’t it beautiful? Thanks to the totally awesome Carol Ann and Chris Trimper, I have a fun shiny newly renovated Web site and I couldn’t be happier. Even better, Chris went through and updated Word Press for me (since I hadn’t done it since I got it back in 2006) and added a bunch of other fun new stuff.
Some things you may notice is the fun Flickr photos on the right side. Click on them and larger versions show up. Also, my twitter updates can now been seen on the right side along with feeds from some of my favorite blogs.
Beyond that, things are just a lot prettier than they were before. I’m digging the blues and the layout of this a lot more than the previous design. I still have some fiddling to do with settings and the RSS feed to the right, but otherwise, it’s pretty much set. So let me know what you all think.
I can see!!! - One month later
Posted by Gypsy on Jun 1, 2008
It’s been about a month now since I got my vision corrected with laser surgery. If you want to read about the actual surgery, click here. I had my one month follow up the other day and things are looking awesome. The doc said at this point my eyes are healing really well. The first few weeks there was a lot of fluctuations in my eyesight, one eye would be better than the other and then they’d swap, but that has stopped. The haloes in my night vision are nearly gone. And I don’t need the eyedrops as much anymore, though I still use them every few hours. I can wear make-up again, though the first few times I did after the surgery I was worried I’d still hurt my eye. The day I dragged my eyeliner brush over my eyeball by accident proved to me that normal things would not hurt my eye and I got over it.
One month in, I still find myself clearing a spot on my nightstand for my glasses before I go to bed, but that’s starting to stop. I also still go to push my glasses up on my face and to take them off at night, but after 17 years with glasses, it’s understandable there would be a period of adjustment now that I don’t need them. I also have absolutely no clue where my glasses are at the moment. I have every intention of donating them, and I put them in the case so they would be ready to go, but then I promptly lost them. And for the first time in nearly two decades, that doesn’t send me into a panic.
Overall, LASIK was the best money I ever spent. It’s amazing to open my eyes in the morning and see everything clearly. There’s no dust or scratches to get in the way, just the crisp clarity of the world around me. When I’m walking in the rain, there’s no glasses to collect the drops on. No fogging when I come in from the cold. Anyone who is thinking of getting this surgery should definitely go for it. It might seem like a lot of money, but what you get in return is priceless. It may seem trite or cliche, but having my vision perfect for the first time in my memory has opened a new world for me. I haven’t accidentally shampooed when I meant to condition. I haven’t had to crawl under my bed flailing my arms around searching for the glasses I dropped and now can’t see to find. I haven’t had to shove my phone right by my face to see who’s calling in the middle of the night. I can just open my eyes and see. And it’s wonderful.
