I love these people.

Last night, Joe helped celebrate my turning thirty at Sweet Revenge.


I had planned my birthday wish the night before, but under pressure, I completely forgot what it was.


I came up with another (probably better) wish.


Sugar high.


Beth and Oscar shared their amazingness with me.


Joe and Jess, Bikram Yoga Twins.


The good people I love.


The best birthday present ever was Riva's presence


and Sandra's presence!


Serious and sweet.


Chris, Alexis, Umber, Beth: pure genius.


Love = sharing cupcakes.


Hot Alexis.


I was smitten with Kim and Umber's company.


I wish I had better pictures of wonderful Leyla and Denise.


When the party started to mellow out,


we all kind of crashed from the sugar


except Beth, who insists she's not a serious person.


Oscar's band photo.


Joe gave me beautiful flowers.


All the way from Boston, Riva traveled for me!


After the party, Sandra had me convinced that we should have a late-night snack at the cheesiest restaurant in town, Caliente Cab.


They brag about having the freshest guacamole in the world,


but we all felt really sick.


Still, we ordered the fiesta platter, another horrible choice.


The only good choice we made was to steal the beautiful trivet.


In the morning, Joe and I took Sandra and Riva back to Manhattan.


I


love


these people.


With a mandatory stop at Ess-a-Bagel before Sandra and Riva headed back home.


They hopped on the bus with a dozen bagels each, to keep them going while they're away.

This birthday celebration was my favorite birthday weekend ever.

Locked out: Update

My next door neighbor just stopped by this afternoon to check up on me since I had left her a message yesterday when I was locked on the roof. She just got back from upstate New York and wanted to make sure everything was okay. If I had waited for her, it would have been a really long night on the roof.


Adorable email from my nervous father:

With my fear of heights, I too was not thrilled to read about your roof adventure, especially that part about jumping to the fire escape gives me the chills. Please don't even think of such a thing, ever. Love, Dad

***

Dad,
I will never jump. Ever. Death in Astoria sounds much too mundane.
Love, Gili

Locked out

I thought I'd spend this beautifully sunny morning on the roof of my building, reading, writing, and tanning. Seemed like a good idea at the time. About an hour into my time upstairs, I heard the door slam. I didn't think much of it until I decided to come inside and make myself lunch. When I tried to open the door to leave the roof, I realized someone had locked the hatch.

I called my next door neighbor, but she wasn't home. It's much too far of a leap to my fire escape. I thought I might have to wait for one of my Astoria friends to get home from work and save the day.

Finally, I saw someone coming into the building down below. I yelled to him and he came upstairs and unlocked the hatch.

I'm not sure what to do about going up to the roof in the future. I've never been locked out of my apartment building and I don't really want to go through that again.

Luckily it was a perfect day to be outside.

Too much luck.

We wore our shirts in solidarity.


Natrually, Alexis won. We didn't even want to win this time.


We are unstoppable.

Love = Bacon Peanut Butter Banana Cookies

Inspired by Vanessa's Bacon Peanut Butter Cookies, I decided to test my hand at it. Tonight is Joe and my official-ish two-year anniversary-- April 7, 2007 was our first date-- and I wanted to surprise him with something delicious. I combined the best of two Peanut Butter Bacon Cookie recipes: using the peanuts from one recipe and the fresh bananas from another. I cooked six strips of bacon in a frying pan and then diced them. The results are sickeningly delicious. After allowing myself one cookie, I craved a salad to make up for the decadence. I have a feeling any old peanut butter cookie recipe can be used, but the banana and chopped peanuts that I added really enhanced the bacon. I'm not sure I could replicate the recipe, but as Judy said on her blog, "Go with your gut --not your head -- on this one; the combination of peanut butter, bacon and bananas really is delicious." Joseph will be arriving very late in Queens from teaching in New Jersey. Hopefully he will be hungry for something unusual.

Week one: Controversy

In local news, my Chia Obama is coming along quite nicely considering the weather has been mostly stormy with little opportunity for Obama to get a tan on my windowsill.


In national news, Chia Obama has been pulled from the shelves of some Walgreens locations, due to the fact that this toy has received complaints from customers who consider the item racist.

As of now, I'm not sure whether I agree with this sentiment. Maybe the racism becomes more apparent as the grass begins to grow?

I'm not ready to pull my Chia Obama off the windowsill just yet.

love picnic

Joseph and I celebrated our two-year anniversary with fried chicken in Long Island City. That's a t-shirt he's wearing because G-d made it warm as a summer's day to honor our love.


Or something like that.

My new Bookslut column is online. Enjoy!

Shalom, old friend.

One of the things about living in New York is that I get to stay in contact with people from all different aspects of my life. Sometimes these encounters can be unexpected and startling like last week when I was interviewed for a job by an old friend at an organization where I had no idea she was working.

Other times, seeing old friends can be the perfect cure for a draining week. When I lived in the Bay Area, I was the director of a nonprofit, working with youth to get them involved in social justice issues. Jess is one of those genius youths. Though she has been living in New York for four years, we hadn't gotten around to seeing each other until tonight. I always pegged Jess as a New Yorker, but she is headed home to the Bay after she graduates from college in a little over a month. We have so much catching up to do, and I'm truly disappointed we waited so long to reunite.

We're going to try to maximize the time we have left together in New York. I have a sneaky feeling that she'll be back.

Happy tummy

Another week, another binge fest with Vanessa. Yesterday, she took me to The Chocolate Room where we indulged in a giant piece of chocolate cake and homemade vanilla ice cream.

I didn't think my stomach could digest so much food right before Aikido. I was SO wrong. I ended up having two of the best classes I've ever had. In the second class, I was sent flying across the room. Then we learned kicking movements, which I didn't even know were a part of Aikido.

The moral of the story: Aikido is best with a stuffed belly.

Overdue victory

I finally broke my losing streak: first round of bingo belonged to me. (That's Bingo Bob officially congratulating me.)


Alexis brought me a gift, a giant magnifying glass because they're fun to play with and she's weird.


Vi and Alexis had no such luck.


A winning round of shots for the table was enforced. I won a Blackbird's t-shirt, which I gave to Alexis since she gave me hers when she won. Now it's anybody's game.