Nothing like ending the year with a string of random strange events

I've been sick for the past few days. I really hate being sick, moreover, I hate being sick and still having to go into work. I sit during my incubation periods with no desire to take advantage of the quietness of the lab and read scientific papers. Instead I have exhausted every link on the People Magazine site.

So I was expecting a slow boring day (especially since I finished reading my book and I know the contents of People by heart) and hoped to leave early to buy the necessary items for our New Year's Midnight Fun Run costumes. But already this day has been anything but boring.

This morning I took the subway to work. (Yeah yeah, I know, I work a little over a mile away. But I'm sick and it was raining.) I'm running down the stairs to the platform and there is a woman standing in front of me, TERRIFIED. I mean she was having a panic attack. It turns out that there is a rat on the platform, fairly large one too. She is so frightened that she can't move. So being the good Samaritan that I am (and having no fear of rodents), I offered to scare the rat away. I get to the bottom of the stairs and the rat is milling around about 3 feet away. I stomp my foot at it to scare it and it hisses at me. HISSES! It was more of a screech/hiss, but really! What an obstinate rat! So I kick at it (more like flailing my leg at it) and it moves a bit and hisses again. Finally, I open my automatic umbrella at it and it freaks out and runs off the platform and down the tracks.

I get on the train and it's an empty car. There is a homeless man who comes through the car and sits next to me. Very closely. I get up and move. He follows. We are now at 175th street. He yells at me, calling me mean names including f-ing china, my personal favorite. I get off at the next stop and he gets off, and continues to heckle me until...Dum Dum Dum...I see a cop and report this nuisance. The cop sees the man following me, yelling at me and tells the guy to chill. He is no longer my problem. I did enjoy hearing as I walked away the man yell, "Pig, PIG!"

I get into the hospital elevator and a woman pushing another woman in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank gets in. The pusher says to the patient, "I know you hate elevators, but we are almost there." This is a lie. We are at the lobby and she is going to the 14th floor (I get off at 15) and the elevator is excruciatingly slow. It turns out the patient not only has an elevator phobia, but is also severely claustrophobic. Now, I am a small person. I don't take up much space, but somehow this patient decides I am too big and that my bag is causing her to feel claustrophobic. She hits, HITS, my bag and tells her pusher that I am a rude girl and making her have difficulty breathing. She tells me to move. Move where? All I want to tell this lady during this fairly short elevator ride, is that she has a mental problem. GET OVER IT LADY! It's all in your head! is what I feel like yelling at her and I envision myself in that split moment punching her in the face.

Of course I don't. I instead tell her how sorry I am that she feels that I am encroaching on her space and that she will be out of here soon enough, that is if the elevator doesn't get stuck. I said this knowing that we were about to hit 14. I see the look on her face, a look of horror, and then we open at 14 and this crotchety lady and her pusher get out.

What a day. And it's only 1:30.

Best Gift Ever

Like I said in my previous post, Christmas usually results in the "getting of more stuff." I am not fond of stuff. But this year turned out to be excellent as I did receive gifts, but did not increase the number useless items. I received two excellent pairs of earrings, one from my sisters and one from Josh, several iTunes gift cards, a black cashmere crew neck sweater from my parents, and The Last of the Mohicans from my brother. We got some awesome sauces and spreads from Mike's parents. This was great.

But most impressive was Mike's gift. He bought me a 2.5 hour cooking lesson from Home Cooking. This is a private cooking lesson in my home for any appetizer, entree and dessert I choose. How awesome! In addition, he got me a gift certificate to the Equinox Spa. I can't wait to schedule a lesson.

This made my gift feel...inferior. I got him (us) a membership to the American Museum of Natural History and The Five Chinese Brothers . I also planned a secret day out where he only got clues, but it didn't go as planned. The museum was beyond crowded with mis-behaving children and we couldn't get tickets to the Darwin exhibit on account of everyone and their mother being there. So we headed to the next secret destination: Film Forum where we saw The Grace Lee Project. I then took him to Arturo's for dinner. I had planned to take him to Mc Sorley's , but we were tired and wanted to get home. Today's secret plan was to take him to the Celestial Highlights series at the Hayden Planetarium, but since he has a cold and I am still bleeding from cutting the tip (very tip) of my thumb off while doing an experiment, I think we will wait for the next one. But the is one last secret Christmas surprise for him on Friday.

My thumb still hurts and hasn't stopped bleeding. Also, it is difficult to type with one hand and so I will end this post.

Strike is over

It's over! I am so excited. But I already paid the 50 bucks extra for shipping of all my holiday gifts in fear that I would not be able to go Christmas shopping. Anyway, I will use Friday to do all the errands I wasn't able to do this week. Whoo Hoo! I have all sorts of NYC plans!

Completely off topic, but I was asked three times today by three different people if "everything is okay." It turns out that I am dressed so poorly today that people think I must be depressed and have given up on my public appearance. It's the Addidas track pants I'm wearing with a fitted black shirt that makes me look all out of sorts. Also, I'm wearing the pants like "mom pants" which makes me look like I have a torso the size of a small child and hips wider than a hippo. But I like wearing my pants that high. It's really comfortable.

Strrrriiiiiiiike!

Man! A strike?! In NYC?! Craziness! This hasn't happened since 1980 and wouldn't you know it, but it happens when Mike has a job on East 53rd Street and before the holidays. I haven't finished my shopping. I stayed up until 3am waiting to hear about the strike only to go to bed without a clear answer. Do you know what this means? Among many things, this means I will have to pay extra for shipping. I must say I valiantly tried to finish my shopping, but I almost went ballistic in Macy's from the crowds and heat.

The strike doesn't affect my work (sadly), but it changes all the things of my daily life-the things I look forward to, like the gym...the gym...SoHo...the gym...Burrito Box...the gym. This essentially keeps me in Washington Heights. It will be an interesting time. The city is estimating a loss of 400-600 million a day. The dept stores and all other shops will take a major hit. I will not be able to..do stuff. Actually, I'm a bit scared that some people will take this to mean people close to work should take advantage of the strike and think that we should work MORE. MORE! Is that even possible? Mike will have to work from home but this means he will do laundry. Ha! The day is mine! I will keep you posted. (Not that anyone cares. )

Reporting from Washington Heights- Hyunmi Kim


On a side note, we signed up for Zipcar. I'm excited.

Holiday! Celebrate!

In the words of Madonna-
If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life- It would be, it would be so nice
Everybody spread the word
We're gonna have a celebration
All across the world in every nation
It's time for the good times
Forget about the bad times, oh yeah
One day to come together
To release the pressure. We need a holiday.

Keeping this in mind Mike and I hosted a Holiday party. It was also a party, sadly, to say good bye to Joe as he starts his new life in Boulder, CO. To plan such an event, I thought long and hard about the food. Now everyone knows that good food at a party is critical. I had asked everyone to bring one dish or item and that I would cook the main dish-turkey with the trimmings (corn, cranberry sauce and a veggie dish). But I have NEVER cooked a turkey before. Certainly I have seen turkeys cooked and so I took the lessons from my mother and decided to cook a turkey with bacon. She does an awesome job with bacon and butter as the main moisturizing ingredients. I found a similar recipe involving bacon (2.5 lbs. of thick organic happy bacon), butter, fresh sage and thyme, onions, two heads of garlic and bread crumbs. The recipe called to puree the bacon. Let me tell you. This results in one of the grossest things I have ever seen. But once you add it to the sauteed onions and add the bread crumbs and herbs, it smells soooo good. Happy pigs makes a happy Hyunmi.

Also, I bought an organic kosher turkey from the butcher up the block. It's so nice to walk out your door and order a fresh turkey and pick it up a week later. It was so well cleaned and, well, fresh. No thawing. So I defiled this kosher turkey with bacon and lots of it. I put my bacon mix all under the skin and rubbed almost an entire stick of butter allll over the turkey. (The sea salt I had rubbed on it earlier was now causing stinging pains as the coarse salt made micro tears all over my hands. All for the love of butter and bacon.) But, hey, the turkey came out AWESOME. I have to say that there was not a single dry piece of meat. I bought a fancy meat thermometer. I love it! I was also able to use it to determine how off my oven is from the set temp. and the actual temp.

So that being my biggest cooking accomplishment of the season, I will quickly list the other comestibles present.
Me: molten chocolate babycakes with Kahlua/dark chocolate sauce and raspberries; shortbread cookies (I used the cookie gun!); asparagus with a butter garlic lemon Parmesan sauce
Joe: red onion feta goodness
Bena: spinach quiche. There was no meat in the quiche.
Vijay: Pumpkin and apple pies; dinner rolls; banana nut bread
Katie: garlic/sour cream/yummy mashed potatoes
Alison: Sweet potatoes with brown sugar and walnut topping
Dan: gold coins! Champagne (from Lithuania)
Ekin: Fire water (Hot Damn!)

Am I forgetting anything? Everything was sooooo good. Thanks everyone!

After dinner, dessert and drinks most of us headed out to Verlaine. I had called ahead to ensure a table would be reserved. Otherwise it can be hard for a group to sit. They were great about it. We hit The SKINnY up next. I hadn't been here before...actually, Dan and I think we might have been here before it was this place, but who knows. I really like the place and will go again, but more importantly I loved the music. Come on! 80's pop/rock and indie rock?! What can beat that? It made Mike very happy to hear Add it up and we were all on our way out when we heard Billy Jean, and well, everyone stopped to dance (actually, Vimal and Joe stopped to play Ms. PacMan). From here we went to get fries at the best frite place in the world. I couldn't let Joe leave NYC until he had consumed these. I think they changed his view of French fries forever.

We cabbed it back at 4am and knocked out. Vijay was drunk. It was humorous to say the least. This morning we said bye to Joe after brunch at 107W (the Albuquerque Melt is excellent). It was a great night out. Hopefully we can all do it again soon. Maybe in Boulder.

Enjoy the pics on Mike's page.

Parties galore!

There are so many holiday parties going on that I have a hard time working. Poor me. Wednesday night was the fancy Dermatology Dept. party. Normally the party is held at the restaurant, Terrace in the Sky. It is a fantastic event. Unfortunately for us, this year it was held at the Columbia/Princeton Club. It was a lot of fun, but not the same as previous years. I did dance my one dance with Katie to Like a Prayer my favorite Madonna song. (Speaking of Madonna songs, everytime I hear La Isla Bonita, I think she is saying, "Last night I dreamt of some bagels.") Today was the Genetics Dept. party and man oh man, one glass of the famous "Polish Lightening Punch" and I am done for the day. Katie and I helped out by purchasing many paper products and cutting a strudel up and designing very lovely platters. It was nice to see the whole dept, though I chose to talk mainly with Josh and Katie. I am such a social butterfly. Next week is Mike's company party at the Rainbow Room. Now we have a lab happy hour with Ming's famous spring rolls and beer. Ah...what a great work day.

Chill weekend and average cookies

This is was the first weekend in a while that Mike and I didn't have a crazy schedule. Work was low key this weekend and we got to do a bunch of stuff. On Friday we met up with Andrew Li and a few other people. I again made the mistake of hitting the drinks a little too hard a little too early and by the time 11pm rolled around, I was ready to go to bed and was having a little trouble standing. It was great to see Andrew and we saw a bumper sticker that said, "Republicans vote Voldemort." We got a quite a laugh out of that.

On Saturday we met up with my family to celebrate my father's b-day and my parents' anniversary. So Mike and I got to NJ early to clean out the car (parked by my sister's) in the hopes of selling the car. My little brother happen to be in the area and after we all cleaned out the car, we got lunch at a favorite high school lunch spot of mine (a current favorite of my brother's). For two bucks, you get an awesome steak sandwich. It was fabulous. We met every one for dinner at River Palm then went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I found it...ok. It had a few high points (Tilda Swinton as the White Witch was fabulous).

Today after work and the gym, I did some light Christmas shopping at the Holiday Fair at Columbus Circle and picked up a few things. Including a pair of great earrings for 6 bucks. Awesome! I also purchased a cookie gun since I wanted to try out a new shortbread cookie recipe. Needless to say, the recipe isn't as good as my regular one. I should have stuck to that one. In addition, the recipe was too gooey to use the cookie gun so I couldn't even get all the neat patterns I wanted. Dumb recipe. Now I am stuck with a bunch of average cookies. My number one critic and kitchen cleaner even thought they were average. My plan is to get rid of them by taking them to lab where people are always hungry.
Enjoy the pics.

These are a few of my favorite things

The Christmas season always results in the "getting of more stuff." Normally, that's not a bad thing, especially since my family tends to be very good gift givers. However, upon getting married, I realized that there is NOTHING I really need. Also, considering the lack of storage in our apt., there isn't much I would want. In general, this is great news. Not getting stuff is great but this makes it difficult for those who wish to exchange gifts. Other than music from iTunes, I couldn't think of much more that I would want that doesn't take up space.

Nonetheless, I went through the various websites, bookmarks and wish lists I have noted over the year. I finally took the time and put most of them together, creating one fat list. This list is not complete and consists primarily of the things I would like to have but would generally not buy because they are useless. If I had won Mega Millions, ehhh, maybe I would have bought a few things.

Annnyyyywayyyy...I was poking around the MOMA store online and came across this which I added to my list:
What is it? It's a set of connected ring. Specifically, it is a Subtle Safety Defensive Ring designed by Kim Hoffmann, Amanda Knox, Sara Shaughnessy (2003). According to the site:
This unique piece of jewelry looks like a sculptural stacked ring; it also unfolds into three linked rings designed to be placed over three fingers. Made of sterling silver with stainless steel rivets. When sizing, select the size that fits the middle finger. Although this ring can be used as a defensive tactic, it is not meant to replace self-defense training.

The last line is my favorite. Crazy! How awesome! Essentially, they are brass (sorry, silver) knuckles all done up for the bourgeoisie. It's hysterical. You've got to love modern art.

I have no legs

All I can say is that my legs are broken. The "Definitions" class Mike and I go to at Equinox is awesome and as a result of all the squats, lunges, and the plie-esque repetitions we do with weights, my legs are somewhat immobile. I love it. The instructor is great and she teaches a bunch of other classes (Powerstrike being one I think I want to take, but I have a serious coordination problem, so we'll see).

By combining this class, a regular lifting schedule, cardio 4 times a week and yoga once a week, Mike and I will be machines! Maybe not a machine since I have taken to eating more chocolate, but definitely in better shape. Oh yeah, and my newest enemy is the Versa Climber. I attack this machine with all the energy in my body. Josh informed me that this machine was in Rocky 4. Well, if Rocky did this to get ripped, then hopefully I can look like him after a few months of Versa Climbing training. I can hear "Eye of the Tiger" everytime I approach the machine.

Grad School Top Ten

Hello folks, this is Katie writing a guest entry for Hyunmi "Rats" Kim. I've decided to revisit a theme that always makes me feel better for some odd reason. So, back by popular demand, I bring you the Top Ten Reasons to Leave Graduate School:

10. You got an email from your boss last night that some of your mice have necrotic (rotting) tails and somehow you're supposed to find a way to remedy the situation.
9. Subway has done away with its stamp system, so you're back to paying for every 9th sandwich.
8. You are pretty sure that with enough time and energy, you could win an Olympic event if only you didn't have to go to lab every day.
7. Sometimes you eat moldy bread for lunch, but hell, maybe it will boost your immune system.
6. Shut up Vijay, you're just about halfway done.
5. Sure there are roaches in your apartment, but at least it's not student housing.
4. Your friends all work shorter hours, have better-looking coworkers, more job perks, and much higher salaries, but you're saving the world, God damnit!
3. Your foreign coworker likes to take Holiday songs and change them into "everyday" songs with verses such as "congratulations and salutations" over and over and over...
2. You try to summon all of your creativity and wit to respond to any insult, only to spit out "your face is _______!"
1. You get a little bored at work between experiments, and your friends don't update their blogs nearly often enough to keep you entertained.