Welcome to The Holiday Season

Short blog this week. Pressed for time.

It's been a crazy week at work. I've spent almost 100% of my 35 hour work week at Barnes and Noble in Burlington. We've set up a gift wrapping table there and take donations to wrap gifts. It's fun and a great way to sell the brand and not be sitting at my desk all day.

Last Monday night I took a tour of Le Cordon Bleu in Cambridge. I got excited about the possibility of enrolling and all the stuff that goes with it. Until, that is, I was informed that they aren't really "affiliated" with lCB in Paris. The parent company bought the name from them. Also? They lost their accreditation. No. Not spending money on an education that doesn't mean anything in the long run. It was a fun night, though. I got to see how one does that sort of thing. Very nice, indeed.

Le Cordon Bleu - Cambridge, MA

For the First Anniversary of our First Date, Daniel sent me something lovely. Very sweet. I think I'll keep him, no?!

Roses are Red (and White)...

The apartment is getting settled. We still don't really have furniture. We're going to pick up things slowly, I guess. We both have all of our stuff in our respective homes in Florida and Georgia. I just priced moving trucks and it's reasonable but I'd also have to hire people to unload up here. I don't have friends of that caliber up here yet. LOL.

Daniel was here this weekend and we spent some time in Target looking at storage options and fun stuff. Just for the record...I have Rachael Ray pots/pans at home... I showed Daniel the other stuff I want. Like the Casseroles and the EVOO dispensers and the big dutch oven. LOL. I'm such a helpful girlfriend.

Love the casserole dishes

Conveniently offered in Orange and Blue!

Merry Christmas from Prince Redmond!

Last but not least, I became, "That Mom" by purchasing a clothing item for my dog. What? He's cold now that he's not so furry. He's constantly freezing so now he's all warm. 

That's it for this week. Work and gift wrapping is about all that's going on in my life now.

Have a great week. I'll be in Dade City in 10 days. MUAH!

How is it December?!

Warning: there will be a lot of pictures in the blog for this week.

Last week Shawna and I did an event in Newton so afterwards we swung by Wellesley College to take a look around. This was the school in that Julia Robers/Kirsten Dunst/Julia Stiles/Maggie Gyllenhaal flick, Mona Lisa Smile. I love all these old campus buildings up here. It's amazingly gorgeous. 

Friday was the last day of, "Movember" [During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo's, these men raise vital awareness and funds for men's health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.] so Jarret sculpted his 'stache. Kat (Communications/PR) said he looked like one of The Village People so she gave him a hard hat and took this picture.

We totally have fun while we work hard.

Holocaust Memorial

 Friday night Shawna and I had a girls Night Out Dinner in a cool and reasonably priced (Yay) Mexican restaurant. Walking back we got to pass through the Holocaust Memorial. It's pretty cool. You're walking on grates and there's fog and if you look down there are lights. It was late so I didn't read all the explanations. I'll go back later. Anyway, it was cool art.

We're moved into our apartment now. I am NOT moving for a year unless I absolutely have to. Up and down a flight of stairs to move out of the old place (steep) and then up and down 2 flights of stairs at the new place. Thankfully, we don't have furniture at all! I love it, though. We're getting settled in nicely. When I get some $$ I'll ship my stuff up from Dade City (and  hire people to haul it upstairs). 

Bathroom - The room is big b/c there's space to the right of that where we'll put shelving. There is a 2nd door that connects to Mel's studio, too. That is convenient.

My bedroom - angle 1 (that's my closet...it's wide to the left so plenty of room)

My room angle 2 - that's a niche area where I might put a desk. I'm going to get seated storage for in front of one of the windows, too.

First Floor Foyer tile. Very cool. The details are awesome in this place.

Kitchen view (linoleum being weighted down after glue-fix. LOL)

Kitchen view (GAS stove YAY!)

Kitchen view... that's the entrance from our foyer...and to the right there is the cut outs looking into the livingroom.

Livingroom

Mel's Room

Mel's room from the door back

Studio off Mel's room that connects to the bathroom. She's going to do her art and sewing in there.

 December is super busy for work. I'll be gift wrapping at Barnes and Noble in Burlington for ARC Donations. I'm going to select screenings of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I might go to a Macallan (liquor) tasting. Anyway, it's crazy up here.

Everyone have a great week!

Love, Jini

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving. I missed you all. However, I made the most of it up here in Boston.

Last week was a great "catch up and prepare for post holiday stuff" week at work. All the kids were headed out for their holiday break so there wasn't much to do in that regard. We did finally sign the contract on The State House so our Semi Formal in January is a go! The kids are super excited about it. They need to parlay that excitement into ticket sales, though. 

We had a lot of "Team Building" at ARC last week. That's code for "going out after work for drinks and talking about all things NOT ARC." Kevin Sayre coined that, btw. 

At Firebrand Saints... that is the chili pepper infused tequila drink I love.

Thanksgiving Weekend was great. This was mine and Daniel's first official holiday. All together now: AWWW!

Thursday we went to Shawna & Paul's place and ate like crazy. Paul's dad brought the turkey so I cooked it, Jo Larkin style (kinda)...and made some casseroles: squash/zucchini and corn ... as well as an appetizer of bacon wrapped chicken (brown sugar & chili powder coated) and my (in)famous sangria. Shawna made stuffing, yams, caprese salad, general yummy appetizers and the mashed potatoes.

Caprese Salad

Bacon Wrapped Chicken coated in brown sugar & chili powder

Fri

The Turkey

Yes, I'm aware that the turkey was cooked upside down. Mom told me after I did it. It was still yummy and juicy and awesome. Next time!

Thursday night Daniel had to drive to Maine for an early Friday delivery (3am) so I rode along with him. I was there for the company since I just slept snuggled up with Prince the whole time. So, technically I didn't "see" Maine at all. We got back to Peabody (where he parks his truck) and had a great breakfast at the local diner. Then, the rest of the day we just drove up the coast and chilled. We ended up driving up through Gloucester and checking out the houses and views. Most everything is closed this time of year but it was great to just sight-see, stress free. We stopped in Salem on the way back for lunch. There is a great cafe there and we sat outside with Prince and had our wine and cheese/meat platter. Friday night and Saturday was our usual Uxbridge chill time: dinner at a new (to us) Italian place and breakfast at Bert's with Karolina and Dennis (his boss & wife). 

Gloucester Coast...beautiful day and view

A "castle" on the coast...closed that day but I got a picture

I bummed the rest of the weekend...laundry, etc... I'm ready to dominate this week now. LOL

We move into the new place on Saturday. I'm so excited I could scream. KITCHEN!!! I'm going to IKEA to get a mobile island (storage and counter space is minimal in our HUGE kitchen). I can not wait to start cooking again. It's cathartic for me.

Christmas:

I'm off on 12/19 for a flex day. I will be packing.

I fly down to Tampa on 12/20 (standby so it may take awhile) and am staying with mom and dad through 1/1. I'll drive back New Years Day and 1/2 to be back at work by 1/3. If any of you are around that week, let me know and we can hook up. Can't wait to see you all.

Everyone have a great week!

Love,

Jini

 

Pre-Thanksgiving

Tis the season to think about the things for which you're thankful, I guess. Maybe that's why I've got the feels all the time lately? I'm 3 months into this crazy journey and I'm wondering if this sentimentality will ever fade or go away. I'm giddy all the time. I geek out at weather of all kinds, of buildings, of the river, of people on the T. I worry Shawna will smack me. LOL.

I'm pretty ready for the winter, I think. I have coats and scarves and jackets and snow boots and ear muffs (that have jacks into which I can plug my iPod). I still need a rain coat of some kind w/a hood. I may shop Burlington later. I've had no luck at Wal-Mart or Target. I did get cute galoshes the other day at The Coop (MIT store).

 

 

My Awesome New Orleans themed Galoshes

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before about how crazy the MBTA is up here. The trains are easy to figure out. There are maps of all the lines in every station. It's simple except for figuring out inbound/outbound depending on where you are. However, the busses? You need a MIT advanced PhD to figure that crap out. 

Anyway, this week I was supposed to meet up with Shawna to work the ARC Food Pantry for handing out turkeys. The volunteer services Toyota was being used by the testing people so we agreed to meet there. I looked up on MBTA's site how best to get there. I took my train to a station and was going to transfer to a bus that would drop me off on the same block. I got to Ruggles Station and the first 2 busses on that route were filled beyond capacity. I got on another bus to see how far it would take me. I ended up walking 3 miles there. Yeah. I know. I should have gotten back on the train and gone to another station. I didn't know how close one was to there for some reason. Learning curve? I got there and had a great time packaging food. There were tons of volunteers. It's a great thing to do and I highly recommend it. Overall that day I walked 5 miles. It's so awesome to walk up here. I haven't seen a scale since before I left Dade City but I'm pretty sure I'm doing okay on that front.

 

 

I'm in no way adopted.

Thanksgiving will be spent up here. Shawna and I are hosting at her house. Daniel will be here late Wednesday night for a day or so. It should be fun. It'll be a small group and casual. I love that. My landlord will be here invading. I hate that. If I could afford it, I'd get a hotel for the 5 days she's here. It's just weird. I have the option of staying with Shawna & Paul or Natalie & Stephen but I don't really want to do that. I'm going to put on my big girl panties and stay, I think. Weirdness or not.

I'm very excited to say I'll be in Dade City over Christmas. Thank you L&M for the help. I'll be flying down on Thursday, 12/20 (if I don't get bumped a lot) and staying through January 1st. I plan on making the rounds so be prepared to see me. LOL. Daniel is excited to meet those of you he hasn't yet. This will be our first Christmas together as a couple. Yes, I know...last year he flew me up to Ohio to spend post Christmas/pre New Years with him. We weren't "together." Technicalities. 

 

 

Breakfast in Uxbridge 11/17/12

This is a short week at work. We secured the State House for the YAB dance in January. Yay, us! It's going to be a great party! I need to price food. It won't be a sit down thing...heavy appetizers, I think. Fun.

I've seen 3 movies this week. I found the AMC at Fenway. There are no Cobb Theaters/CineBistro up here. Does anyone want to front the money and we'll open a franchise? We would make bank!

     Pitch Perfect was awesome in that it's about A capella singing groups. Completely cheesy. Think, "Burlesque" but with less Xtina and Cher. I can't stop singing, Titanium (David Guetta feat. Sia).

     Yesterday I saw, Breaking Dawn Part 2. I won't spoil the ending thing because well, while it was happening, the book purist in me was mad. Then it finished and I was pretty impressed with it. It was a great way to spruce things up and still be faithful to the book. KStew continues to stink up everything. The general acting is awful but man the eye candy is great. Stay through the ending credits for cuteness and the awesome song, A Thousand Years by Christina Perri.

     Today I saw, Skyfall. Wow. So good. I really love Daniel Craig as Bond. I wasn't sure about it. Then again, I thought Pierce Brosnan was going to be great but I wasn't a fan. Go figure. This movie really was a meta commentary on the franchise getting old and why did we need movies about spies when that old school stuff wasn't necessary. Well played, screen writers. Well played. You need to go see it. I'll I'll spoil is: ASTIN MARTIN...and the Foo Dogs were beautiful. I have a serious case of the wanting them. Judi Dench continues to dominate the craft of acting. Ralph Fiennes is a welcome addition to anything (he could seriously just read me the phone book and I'd be in love). All the hipster fangirls will be happy to see Ben Whishaw as Q. He was good. A decent part of the aforementioned meta commentary has to do with him. 

Ooh, download Adele's theme song, Skyfall. It's really good.

Only two more weeks until we move to the new place. We're very excited. Except for the moving part. Yeah, here we go again. Dad should be happy to not be here for all of this. He tends to get roped into helping me move all the time.

I think that's it for the week. I can't wait to see you guys in FL. MUAH.

Love, Jini

Daylight Savings Time is a Big B

Hello and Greetings from Jamaica Plain.

Wow. What a long week. Seriously, that time change kills my internal clock. It felt like it should be Friday every single day this week, starting with Monday at noon. It gets dark just as I'm getting on the train in Cambridge. By the time I'm getting off the train waiting for my bus in JP, it's pitch black out. I do not like that.

I really hate that I missed Momma Lee's Birthday last weekend. Thank you to Tina Lee for messaging me a cute little video of the party. Mom also forwarded me Aunt Sherry's pictures. It looks like everyone had a great time.

Melissa and I officially got the new apartment this week. We signed the lease on Thursday night. It's a month to month thing so with 30 days notice, we can leave if we don't like it there. Time will tell. I'm just happy to have a way out of where we are now. I love the area (ish) but ... well, I don't care for the living terms too much.

We're on the 3rd Floor. My room is the one that has the two windows you see from the front. It's not huge but it will do. Melissa's room is in the back so noise won't be a factor for either of us. We all get to share the front porch on the 2nd floor. It's nice. Our landlords are great. They're on the 2nd floor and live with their teen son. Mom and Dad will love the details on the house; inside and out.


I also got my first snow this past week. That wasn't supposed to happen this week at all. We were south of Boston at a health fair and we turned around and saw it start to fall. Hilarious. I didn't have my snow boots with me; they were in my backpack in the car. By the time we drove back to Cambridge, it was just rain. Then when I got off the train in JP, it was full on snowing again. It was beautiful. It stayed on the ground for a couple of days and that was it. I think I'm pretty set and ready for the winter. I just need a couple of things like galoshes and a rain coat and tights. If anyone wants to know for holidays/birthday/whatever: Burlington Coat Factory GCs. LOL

 

 

Yes I was cold. We were wanting to hurry to the car but neither of us had our proper shoes on and we didn't want to fall on our behinds! I of course, had to photograph the moment.
 

 
This was the front of my street the next morning. Not too bad. Pretty! Needless to say, I'm not attempting to drive in snow yet. 

Shawna and I are working on the Youth Advisory Board Winter Dance. The kids wanted to do a semi-formal this year instead of a blackout dance. We were having difficulties nailing down a venue. Jarrett suggested we try the State House. He said it used to be, back when he was a Senator, that an official could sponsor your NPO and you'd get it free or super cheap. We found one and we're just waiting on what the discounted pricing would be.
 
Shawna and I did the tour this week and the guide took us off the normal script to show us the Hall of Flags. It's a great space. We couldn't decorate much at all but with the way the room is, you wouldn't need to do much at all. That'll leave us with more budget for catering, anyway.
 

The Front of the State House

 

The Grand Stair Case... Perfect for Pictures, don't you think?

 

The Hall of Flags

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed. We should know something concrete by Wednesday or so.

I'm planning my Thanksgiving. I can't afford to fly down to Florida so Daniel and I are going to go to Shawna's new apartment and spend it with she, her boyfriend, Paul, my roommate, Paul's Grandma and Paul's Dad. It should be fun. I'm making the turkey and some sides. Shawna is doing a ham and some sides. I was told my Sangria was mandatory for admission. Aah, I have a signature "dish!"

Nothing much else is going on. It's business as usual.

Everyone have a great week.

Love ya, Jini

Doctor Who S01E02 The End of the World

Hello, Cassandra. Hello, Trees (Jade)! 

And hello, Face of Boe:

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.org

It's the End of Earth....billions of years in the future and the sun is expanding. There is no longer money to fund the satellites that protect Earth from this happening. Earth is long empty of life. Platform One hangs in orbit for the Artistic Viewing of the end of Earth.

This is a great episode to show how out of touch with everything The Doctor has become. He has no idea how much he's distanced himself from reality and whatever form of humanity that Time Lords posess. Rose does a great job showing him this.

This is the first glimpse into The Doctor's origin and sorrow. Way to go, Jade for cluing us into some of it. And way to go, Rose for getting him to admit he's alone and the last of the Time Lords.

Episode 2 is good and keeps the momentum going.

Next time: BLECH, Russel T. Davies (RTD) starts his gross Eve Miles obsession. Yay for Simon Callow, though.

Doctor Who S01E01 Rose

This won't be linear, sorry. I'm not a writer or critic. Forgive me my trespasses, oh internet junkies.

I had forgotten how cheesy and creepy Season 1 was. What a great introduction to The Doctor, though. I was new to the DW thing, shocking for a massice SciFi/Fantasy freak, I know.I didn't really know what to expect. I'm so glad I jumped in!

The Doctor: 

 Photo Courtesy of: FanPop/The Ninth Doctor

I think Christopher Eccleston did a fantastic [pun intended] job introducing newbies to the Doctor Who world. He showed how angry and lonely and lost The Doctor was after The Time War. I know I just got ahead of myself because we don't know about that yet but... I said this wasn't linear. I'm also not above spoiling. I'm going to assume you're an adult and if you haven't watched and don't want to know, you'll stop reading. Anyway, he was quirky and fun to cover up the pain. I love how hurt he was when Rose first turned him down. He knew she'd change her mind, though.

Rose Tyler:

 Photo Courtesy of: bbc.co.uk/doctorwho

Billie Piper was a great companion. She really dug in and portrayed the average person: not brilliant but not stupid, not perfect but not completely flawed, and very very human. I think Rose is what kept The Doctor from going off the deep end and becoming something akin to The Master. My favorite thing about Rose is the split second decision she makes at the end of "Rose" to go with The Doctor. She knows she's unhappy with her mediocre life, boyfriend, family. She wants more and she sees the chance to take the opportunity for adventure by the tail and ride. 

I'll get into Micky and Jackie in other episodes.

Overall, what a great intro to DW. Crazy freaky spooky aliens trying to invade Earth for whatever ridiculous reason: this time plastic mannequins. What? Yeah. That's right. Store mannequins. The Nestene were weird! If you can't take over the Earth with electronics (or taking it away from us), invade by controlling all the plastic.

Next time: The End of the World...and the introduction of The Face of Boe (Hi, Jack!).

Week 9

As you all know, Hurricane Sandy made her presence known up the NE Seaboard.  We were expecting much worse in the Boston area as she was supposed to hit a massive cold front from the west. This was to create another "Perfect Storm" type situation but over land: Nor'easter. Didn't happen, thankfully. I worked all day Monday. MBTA was shut down at 2pm just in case. We got lots of rain, flooding and wind but nothing above (in my "Florida Girl Been Through a couple Cat 5s" opinion) tropical storm level. We didn't lose power at work or here at the house. We were lucky. ARC opened up shelters for people without electricity and who got flooded. The Disaster Operation Center (DOC) was up Sunday - Thursday. Right now we're just asking for volunteers to deploy to help out in NY and NJ. I may go. I don't know yet. It's a 10-14 day commitment and I have to move in that time period. We'll see.

Here is the neighbor's tree that had a big limb fall on their Prius. I couldn't get a better one.

Here's one for mom of the house across the big road from us. It's crazy big. I wonder if it's a personal residence or a B&B type place. I don't see any signage so I'm thinking not:

Things settled down at work after our shelters closed and shifted immediately to raising money. That's the best time to get donations, after a disaster. We are government chartered but run solely on donations (no government funding at all).

To let off some steam after being so busy, Jarrett let us continue with our plans to dress up for Halloween. Fun!

 Bob as Captain Jean Luc Picard, Kelly as an ice cream cone (she made that from scratch), Shawna as a bumble bee and Jini as Medusa. 

Ashley is the Tanorexic Mom. Hilarious and very creative!

Here are the development ladies getting in to the spirit of it all. They're normally pretty stuffy but were having a good time this week. Also, here is a close up of my make up and green hair extensions (supposed to represent snakes). 

I got to have Friday night/Saturday all day Daniel time this week. I think we can make that an every 2 week thing if my schedule permits. Then when he gets his 3 days off, he'll be here. I'm loving seeing him more.

That's pretty much all that happened this week. Sandy filled the entire week!

I'm going to be using my blog for other things in addition to my weekly Boston posts. You can read or skip, it's up to you. I'm practicing my writing so I'll be blogging about tv & movie stuff and randomness.

Everyone have a great week. Thanks for all the support and checking in!

Love, Jini

The West Wing Theme Song

This was written some time from 1999-2002 (I think) by some creative peeps I know online (I'll post credits when they tell me exactly who wrote it or if it was collaborative). 

Recent Tweets by Richard Schiff (@Richard_Schiff) have led us to post online for people to see.

The West Wing is on

Go away, leave me alone

Please don't phone me until after 10

If you want to be my friend.

Pleeeeeze give me scenes

Of Martin Sheen in his je ee ee eans

The West Wing is on....

Week 8

If we're lucky, Melissa and I will be moving mid November into a pretty cool place. We're waiting on the landlord to let us know. It's in a decent neighborhood. We're Jamaica Plain/Roxbury adjacent so that's good. I'm about 3/4 mile from the train so it will be an interesting walk but hey, I'm all about that up here. Reduce that carbon footprint! Here are some pics of the outside. Inside is 2 bedrooms (with a side room for Melissa's art studio) and 1 big bathroom. Skylights are in there, too. Big kitchen, decent sized living room, too...and plenty of storage. It's 3rd floor but ... again with the movement!
 

Pretty Decent Architecture, IMO. 

I like the pillars and the stained glass porthole thingies. Gives it character. 

It's on a dead end street filled with families. 

The 2nd floor is the landlord. They are really nice. The 1st floor is a couple.



Anyway, I'm excited to see if we can get it. It's really reasonable for a JP apartment.

I went to an High School ARC Club Orientation with Shawna this week. It was a private school in the Back Bay section of town. Think UPSCALE Hyde Park (Tampa). If I had money, I'd so live there. It's exactly what I imagine city living to be like. Seriously gorgeous brownstones. I told Kevin he needed to buy one and I'd rent a floor. LOL. 

 See? How cool is this?

Wouldn't you love to live there? So so cool. Hey, Kevin...Just sayin'!

Monday I had after work bevies with some ARC peeps. Boston is not short of cool places with relatively reasonable prices (relatively being the key word). This concoction is "The Firebrand Saint:" Thai Chile Tequila, Agave Nectar, Lime Juice and a splash of cranberry juice. Yum-O!

This week at work was all about rolling out the new Disaster Preparedness Campaign: 

www. savingzombies.com.

It's a cute and fun way to get ARC out there in the media using the "Mayan End of the World" thing and "The Zombie Apocalypse." We have a contest whereby people upload videos of what's in their "Go Bags." I'm supposed to make one. I'm coming up with something clever, I think. Stay tuned and I'll post the link. Cool article in The Metro.

This fits in nicely with our YAB Haunted House which took place on Friday and Saturday nights. Natalie let us use the dance studio in JP so that was great. We had a couple of snags (a bunch, actually) but like true Red Crossers, Shawna and I put our heads together and got the job done. It was a fun time for everyone. We of course, got way into the Halloween Spirit! Our HH was a maze.. 1st area was a cemetary then down the dark hallway where zombies came after you, then through a room where bodies were chopped up then served to you on platters. Yeah, gross...but highly effective!

 

Shawna and I got bit by the zombies. It was gross yet ever so much fun!

 Other than that...I just went to Waylon Bedell's 2nd bday party on Thursday night. It was low key and nice. Natalie & Stephen had snack food and beers and cake. Way is adorable and very sweet. I babysat for him today. He loves Yo Gabba Gabba...think Barney but more inclusive and with super cool guest cameos every episode.

Hurricane Sandy is about to hit NC and we're already getting the weather. NYC is evacuated b/c of flooding. We haven't gotten much of anything except it's windy, cold and rainy (sleet, I think). I went shopping today and got more water, food that doesn't have to be cooked, batteries and extra glow sticks, etc... I have an emergency pack from ARC that has a first aid kit, flashlight, and other cool stuff in it. Hopefully, we won't need it. As of 9pm tonight, MBTA is running as normal for tomorrow. I'm going into work unless they tell me otherwise between now and then. Fingers crossed we just get wind and rain...and not the huge storm they think we're supposed to get. 

Everyone have a great week. If I don't talk to you, I'll be keeping Mom in the loop. She'll be your contact person for info on me.

MUAH!

Love, Jini