i am the tree in the forest.i'll fall whether you're there to hear me or not

Big thanks to Tim O. for causing that title. Working on expanding it.

Time to play catch up before July gets here.

I spent 2(and a half? a quarter maybe) days camping down in Wharton State Forest. I had been climbing the walls and feeling cooped up and all sorts of crowded. It was good to be alone in the woods. It was good to hike. It was good to kayak even if it was flatwater. I had my first attempt at sleeping under the stars but only made it to 3 a.m. before the dew drove me back into my tent. I'm finding that I am writing more in my photoblog and I hate to be repetitive so I'm being more concise here. That's pretty convoluted but I'm sure it'll sort itself out.

Had a job interview that got moved or cancelled, I'm still not sure which, due to schedule conflicts between my work and their meetings. Cross your fingers that I'll get in some time this week.

Closed for the restaurant for the first time. That went pretty smoothly. Only ran out of one thing and I figured out how to make it before anybody missed it. Yeah, I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back with that one.

Tim O had his "house warming". I saw Carsten, Cristina and Oscar very briefly as they were leaving whilst I was arriving. It was just long enough to feel Carsten consciously being cold to me. OK dude. Somehow I got lost coming back from Tim's and wound up in Mendham. What a lovely if inconvenient drive.


I went to Chaw and Matt's reception. It was a beautifully planned and executed re-enactment of their vows. Chaw is even more lovely pregnant. I ran into a couple of people that I met through Chaw or while we were roommates and it was awkward because on almost every occasion that I'd spent time with them it was for a very concentrated amount of time. I remember having fun and having lovely conversations but I found that I had nothing to say to them this day. "Hello, nice to see you again." was all I could get out. I had to really admire Asela's conversation skills. She has a graceful ability to fill in the awkward moments. These days I just sit through the awkward moments and wait 'till something comes out. I really enjoy people that can ride those out with me.

It was coincidentally Asela and Emilio's 5th wedding anniversary. After we left the reception we decided to get some drinks in New Brunswick. Despite having spent our childhood in this area both Asela and I were unable to navigate the 2 miles from Piscataway to New Brunswick. And so for the second time that day I was lost. At least this time I had company. We eventually made it to New Brunswick.

Almost within an hour of arriving at the reception I had kicked off my heels, yep I was wearing heels, and was walking on the grass barefoot. Now that we had gone back into the paved world I had to put those same heels back on and I was reminded of the many reasons why I had not bought or worn heels in years. They numbered in the hundreds, those pinpricks and pinches of pain I felt as we walked around NB trying to figure out where to go. I could almost hear the my own echo from 5 years ago as I grumbled to myself, "Never again. No heels ever!" as my swollen feet popped out of those heels the moment we returned to the car.

The next day, this past Sunday, Emilio, Asela, Maura and I went on a long drive to Philly. The trip was made longer by, you guessed it, our getting lost. It wasn't too bad though since there was an Atlas in the car. We managed to navigate our way to the Brazilian Festival. On the way there was much ooooing and aaaahh-ing of life across the river. There was much speculation as to the lower cost of living in the Philly suburbs.

When we did get there a general sense of disappointment descended on the group as we realized that this was a much smaller festival than we had grown accustomed to. Newark and New York have spoiled us for street festivals, where the streets are so thick with bodies you can't help but exchange fluids with strangers. Since there were few vendors selling food we decided to chuck the whole Brazilian themed hunger that we had cultivated on the drive and went into Lucy's Indian Cuisine. We spent three hours in that restaurant helping ourselves to the buffet letting our stomachs settle before getting seconds. We relaxed and killed time waiting for the festival to fill up a little by pondering on the logistics of the digestive process within a street fair context. We'd be damned if we would get caught with a voiding emergency in those porto-potties. Speaking of which, I saw a couple walking around the fair barefoot. Normally I'd think Wow they have tough feet or Wow they're really getting into the festival but since they were waiting in line to the porto-potties all I could think was DAMN that's taking adventurous too far.

As a result of this weekend's merry making, from Tim O's to the festival, I woke up this morning rather puffy and feeling weak and tired. Aaaaahhh the drawbacks of liquor and salty foods.

I'm looking forward to Wednesday when I can enjoy my favorite beach, a little horse racing, and you can be sure there will be gambling. What more could a girl ask for?

Experimenting

Well I had three buttermilk shrimps today and nothing seemed to happen. Maybe it has something to do with quantity.

It happened again

Last night before I got out of work I decided to have a bit to eat. Immediately after I finished my buttermilk shrimp with white rice and vegetables I felt the right side of my face get itchy. I thought it was just some stray hairs. I went back to the office to finish closing out and one of the servers came up to me and said, "Hey the hives are back" Sure enough there were large red welts, larger than last time, up and down the right side of my face. I didn't take anything this time and after about an hour or so they were no longer noticible unless of course I told you about how I almost died from the shrimp.

Anyway, this brings me to a troubling possibility. I may be allergic to shellfish! I don't know if I can live with that. This is only two shrimp instances though. I thought I ate the same exact shrimp/rice/veggie combination sometime this week and don't recall having a reaction. Maybe the severity differs. Oh shrimp! Oh lobster! Oh clams! Oh crabs! Bring on the hives. I'm not giving those babies up.

Under Morris Goodkind Bridge

Secretly, I'm a troll. This being what it is I found myself desperately trying to find a way to get under the Morris Goodkind Bridge which spans the Raritan River to connect New Brunswick into Edison. I've gone over this bridge hundreds of times in the over 20 years that I've lived in this area and always looked over the railing and wondered, "What the hell is down there?"

Well yesterday was the day I answered half of that question. I took the first exit off of route 1 north after going over the bridge and just kept going right towards where I thought the bank would be. I knew I was getting close when the temperature dropped 10 degrees. I went through a neighborhood I would not have thought would exist in Edison. I'm talking lovely foliage along the way that made me think I was on my way into a forrest.

The northbound side or the side towards Sayerville almost immediately underneath the bridge houses the Raritan River Boat Club. I wandered in in my pink sarong, red shoes, green shirt and asked the first person I encountered if I needed permission to wander around the dock and take pictures. The half naked, very sunkissed man was very friendly and I think slightly drunk and said I had permission as long as I didn't fall in.

So I spent the next couple of hours taking pictures. A lovely couple passed me on their way from their trailer to their boat and asked what I was doing. "Waiting for the sunset!" I noticed that the man was cradling his extra large bottle of bacardi light as though it was his first grandson. The woman came back about an hour later to ask me if I was comfortable, if I wanted to sit in their boat and have a soda. I didn't want to put her out plus I was raised during the don't talk to strangers phase of this country's growth and even though I'm a self reliant 28 year old it still haunts how open I am to strangers. I regret it in retrospect. There might have been good conversation. There might have been rum and cokes.

I got a couple of good pictures but not the sunset I was looking for since it was oppressively hazy and the sun disappeared beyond the bridge into Highland Park. I got to spend a couple of hours bobbing on the wooden docks watching a family of ducks swim back and forth, watching some kids race each other on their jet skis, watching people on the banks in the distance fish for god knows what all while trucks and cars sped past hundreds of feet above me unawares.

It was a good lesson in the rewards of wandering.

holy random batman!!

I was on my way out of the restaurant after my shift when I realized was on fire! It wasn't a general blaze more like pin points of fire on my face that were spreading into my chest and man did I want to scratch. A look in the mirror and wham!!!! I had broken out into hives! AND in the back of my mind I'm going,"Wow I'm looking very unattractive today!"

WTF???? Parts of my face were starting to raise up in red welts. We sent somebody out to get me some Benedryl. I took it and an hour later the damn welts were gone. I have a vague notion that it was caused by somebody spraying some sort of scent all over themselves in the office. Very the bizarre.

Tick Tock Everybody

So there I was sleep deprived and cursing myself for the defect in my nature that compelled me to go to Atlantic City and when I knew I had a long demanding shift ahead of me when one of my servers comes running into the office where I was trying to lay low for a couple of minutes.

"Call the ambulance a guy's collapsed!"

Having no idea what was going on I called 911 and relayed everything I knew. The cops were there in 5 minutes and the ambulance followed shortly thereafter.

I found out later that his name was Paul. Today was Paul's 38th birthday. He, his wife, and their 4 young children were on their way from Connecticut to West Virginia to meet their family for vacation. They stopped in the restaurant to get a bite and rest from the road. It being a busy Friday night we were on a wait and while he was putting his name on the waiting list his wife went to the bathroom leaving the 4 young children with Paul. As he was talking to our host he said, "I feel like I'm going to faint." Down he went. The wife came back to find her husband down in our foyer and a crowd gathering and her children in a panic. She spent the next few minutes clutching her children and her husband praying. They performed CPR and defibrillated him. Eventually they took him into the ambulance where they continued to try and resuscitate him. They declared him dead at the hospital but they think he was dead before he hit the ground.

I have a gambling problem

So if acknowledging you have a problem is the first step, can somebody tell me what the next step is?

I finished watching the first episode of the second series of Celebrity Poker Showdown around 3.30 am this morning and for some reason felt like I could conquer the world. And off I went! You guessed it, AC. Arrived at 6am and played until 12pm. Lost. Enjoyed myself. I'm realizing that the 2-4 tables do not follow normal poker rules. Since it's so cheap to see the flop EVERYBODY stays in. What a crock... And now off to work to learn how to close the restaurant.