Luck be a Katie

After stepping on my glasses on Sunday night (I got them fixed, yay!) I dropped my phone on Manhattan Avenue while running for the bus last night. I had just left the gym and then the toy store where I was buying some Thomas trains for the little guy I babysit for. As I was getting off the bus, I realized I had dropped my phone, but when I went back, it was gone. To make a long story short, my friend Mikey was online when I got home, and he called the phone, someone picked up, and I went back to the toy store to pick it up. It had gotten picked up off the street, brought to the Verizon store, and somehow miraculously made it back to the toy store (where they knew I was looking for it), all within 30 minutes. They had even called my mom.

I've clearly been pretty careless with my belongings, but I've also been very lucky since I moved to Greenpoint. Within a week of moving to this lovely, sometimes urine soaked town, I drunkenly fell on a sidewalk and dropped my wallet. This was at 4:30 in the morning, during the glorious days of employment when the other Kate and I first moved here. About 30 minutes later, 2 cops knocked on our apartment door while we were eating hotdogs. How they got into our locked building, I have no idea. But how they found me was even better. Someone brought the wallet to the police station. The cops then found a business card for the apartment broker in my wallet, called him, and he told them where I lived. At 5am. Nothing missing in the wallet, no cash taken.

A few weeks later someone literally chased me down Manhattan Avenue calling "Kathryn! Kathryn!" I don't typically respond to my full name, because I've only been called this when I was growing up and getting in trouble by my mom. I had left my ATM card in the machine.

Some time after that incident, I left my digital camera at the Mark Bar, a fairly shady (but great!) local hangout down the road from my current place. The next day, the camera had been returned to the bartender, and to my surprise there were no obscene photos taken down anyone's pants.

I'm going to try to be more careful, but sometimes we all run and drop stuff, sometimes we are all forgetful, and sometimes we all get drunk and leave our precious belongings in shady bars. Thank you, Greenpoint.

And thanks to Mikey for negotiating my phone pick up.

Don't run

After a full + week of total bummers which I won't get into, I got the email at work today that my company was/is too poor to participate in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge 5k run in June. A few people even responded to this dismal email that they would pay for the registration fee themselves and wear the same t-shirt as last year. I agreed, but to no avail. This run was my only enjoyment at said company.

Also today, my boss sprung this "what does Kate want to achieve at this company" meeting that I had to BS my way through. He didn't even tell me about the meeting, I just saw it on his calendar. I may have bought myself enough time, my grad school interview is rapidly approaching. Here's hoping.

Anyway...enough of that. I just went to the Bluepoint beer tasting at the friendly neighborhood bar, and that was enough excitement for a Thursday.

Time for bed... maybe a more exciting post next time.

Cat response to cat video

My friend sent me this cat YouTube video because people always send me cat related things, so here it is: the talking kitties video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3U0udLH974

I decided to show this to Chubs because he usually responds to TV and video. Here's how it went:



I'm not sure if he's really smart or really dumb.

Arrhythmia

A little arrhythmic poem for a change of pace:

my love expired
the same day as my Metrocard
it's like they were wired
to make life doubly hard

the fare will soon increase
but what can you do
soon i will cease
pulling answers from you

Yelp!!

I don't think I mentioned that I just started "Yelp"-ing a few days ago. I'm not really well versed in restaurant reviewing, but you have to start somewhere, right? I usually feel compelled to review a place right after I've had some anger inciting restaurant experience, but I'm hoping that this will eventually progress into more placid reviews inspired by good experiences and hopefully, avocados.

Here's what I've written so far: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=vyMQiSTfNc8aC-dVd74ngA&fsid=KfiIQhLtKIPXpVlnM0XeRg

Animal farm

I've written a total of 21 posts since joining the Blogosphere, and not once, until now, have I mentioned my cat. This is because, contrary to popular opinion, I am not a crazy cat lady. Somehow my sister escapes this branding, even though she has TWO cats, one of whom is fatter than your mom (sorry).

The reason I bring up my cat, Charlie, or "Chubs," is because he drools. When I come home each night, he slobbers all over me, making sure to bury his little face in my hair while doing so. When I haven't been home for one night or more, the intensity of the drool increases into a St. Bernard (Beethoven)-esque pool of grossness. In the same way that I google or WebMD all of my ailments to conclude that I am dying of an incurable disease, I googled "cat drool." And I found that my dear Chubs awaits the same deadly fates that I do. It's either gingivitis, or impending kidney failure, or possibly just an emotional reaction to the stress caused by my periodical absence. I'm going to go with the latter, because I can't afford the others. Possibly gingivitis, but if I start brushing my cat's teeth, then I'm definitely a cat lady.

Also on the subject of animals...my Aunt's accidentally promiscuous horse had another baby this morning. This means my horse, Aesop, in Florida, has a sibling. Cute. I'll get to see the happy family in April.

Here's the drooling fool:


And, a little fuzzy (pun intended), but here's the little guy, Blaze. This guy was born THIS MORNING. And he's that big. I'm glad I'm not a horse mama.

On second thought

I take back the total excitement of my last post. I forgot how Mr. Softee likes to park directly below my window and play his not so sweet anymore chimes over and over and over again.

We all scream

Spring is here!! Know how I know? Because I just heard the sweet sweet chimes of the Mr. Softee truck. Yee haw!

That's it for now...

No Sleep 'Til...

I had a really awesome Brooklyn kind of day on Saturday. On the way to go to the Brooklyn Museum for the first time, we stopped at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, not because we hadn't been there before or even really wanted to go, but because it's free before 12pm on Saturdays! And it was 11:45am, so who wouldn't want to stick it to the man (I guess) by going anyway?

In one of the greenhouses, I learned that the word Bonsai, as in Bonsai trees, is actually pronounced "Bone-sigh." Who knew? I've been saying Bon-zi my whole life. Knowledge!

Then, the Brooklyn Museum. A good time. I saw the installation "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago. Lots of representational vaginas. Then on to the Hernan Bas special exhibit. Interesting, but not my favorite. I'm not sure how to explain that, so go see for yourself.

After a long day of walking, we ended up at the Brooklyn Library to finish the Brooklyn trilogy of events. I picked up a ridiculously tattered copy of Paul Auster's "Moon Palace," which I was reading in August when I left it on a plane in Minnesota en route home from Alaska. I finally got to finish the last 50 pages of the book while sitting next to the boy who is from the Twin Cities where I left my copy. All while sitting under a large photo of Jonathan Lethem peering down on me. Probably judging me for not liking his book. Coincidences.