Saturday, September 26, 2009

Goodbye 25

My twenty-fifth year was awesome, as it should be because my lucky number is five and five times five is 25. This was the year I resumed going to the gym, Este got into Columbia grad school, we set a date for the wedding, I started a new job and my first book there hit the bestseller list, I broke my habit of biting my nails (well, sort of), and we moved into a ballin' new apartment. There have been a lot of changes and for the first time since I moved to New York for college eight years ago, I can feel a new chapter beginning in my life. Bigger than a chapter--more like Part III. After all, 26 is 30 rounded up.

I can only hope that 26 is a better year than 25 and that each year gets better after that. So far, life is damn good and judging by the extent of partying during my birthday weekend, there are thousands (hundreds?) more good times to come. Cheers!


Pre-game in the apartment.


The party continues on the subway.




Partying it up at Alibi Lounge.


Whiffle ball at Central Park. Obviously too hungover to play an actual game, but at least we got a good team photo!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Complete Set

When I first got engaged there were two things I was most excited about: the cake tasting and the chance to hold a scanner and shoot everything in sight for a wedding registry shopping spree. I was practically giddy with excitement waking up this morning, knowing that today was the day to realize the second of my dreams.

The wedding registry lady equipped us with a scanner and a map of the store and then we were off! "This is what it must be like to be rich," I thought as we skipped our way through aisles of bed, baths and beyonds, scanning every single item that looked remotely like something grown up couples would have.
A 3-piece ice bucket set? Definitely. We like our drinks cold. Even outside the fridge.
A $100 waffle maker? Are you seriously asking me? SCAN!
And definitely scan the food scale. I want to be able to weigh everything I eat.
We requested a mahogany box to store the fancy flatware, and a bamboo tray to store the more casual flatware. And a heavy wooden block to support the 17-piece knife set. And that was all within the first five minutes.

After we scanned the 15th item, though, the giddiness started to wear off. As excited as we are for the 10-Cup Automatic Drip Krups Coffee Maker and the Deluxe Recycler Can, everything else is just stuff. And stuff that, when it comes down to it, we really don't need. I don't want Este and I to end up like the famous Collyer brothers, whose decaying bodies were found buried under more than a hundred tons of junk in their Fifth Avenue apartment.

I tried to convince myself that eventually, when we move into a house, we will need to fill it with all the items we requested and ideally we'd like those to be high quality and long lasting. But for now, we live in a Manhattan apartment with limited space and a limited budget. To ask my guests to get us two hundred-dollar Tempur-Pedic pillows in addition to the thousands of dollars they are spending to attend the wedding just seems plain wrong.

We decided to call it a day and head home. When we went to turn in our scanner, the sales lady squealed with delight and said that because we scanned $150-worth of Cuisinart, the company was going to send us a free measuring cup set. Do we want her to fill out the paperwork to receive the gift? Este looked at me with twinkling eyes. "Yes, please!"