The Cheese State

Hmm, it's actually the Dairy State, but I think The Cheese State has a much nicer ring to it.

Dad got to Brooklyn Friday night and we met up with the guy who bought my couch and chair (I love you, Craigslist) and got that moved. After a delicious dinner of Dumac & Cheese at DuMont with dad and my roommates, we headed home to load the Suburban. Since dad is really hardcore, we finished everything by midnight, had a glass of wine with Aruna and set an alarm for 4:30am.

We got up and were on the road by 4:45, which put us back in Wisconsin by 6:30. It was intense - I made dad stop at a Cracker Barrel for some breakfast at 7 and I could tell he was getting jittery with all the "wasted time." I decided that hash browns and eggs were more important then getting home 15 minutes earlier. Anyway, we hauled ass home. Since the Suburban has all kinds of bells & whistles, we could tell that the engine was running for 15 hours and that we'd averaged 67 miles an hour all the way home. Dad says he's never averaged more than 60 for a long trip. Seriously - we hauled ass.

The weekend was gorgeous - the new jet ski was in the water, I managed to get up and "shred" behind the boat (my brother took an old wakeboard and removed the bindings and fins, then put surf wax on it), drank some beer, ate a lot of grilled meat and cheese and generally had a great weekend. Yesterday it poured so my sister and I went to the gym and then went through some of my junk, trying to figure out what to do with all of it. Most of it is being given away - it's kind of nice to do a complete cleaning of all the accumulated stuff I have. Today marks the 5 week mark - I'll be in Philly 5 weeks from today for my 3 days of staging before leaving for Guinea.

Since I've been home, I've eaten spread cheese (3 kinds), string cheese, cottage cheese (2 kinds), cheddar cheese, and taco cheese. Oh, and a slice of pepperjack cheese on a chicken sandwich. It's been amazing. But I might have to expand my diet a bit.

48 hours left in New York

Wow. I can't even begin to describe how quickly the move seems to have arrived!

My going-away party was Saturday night - 20 friends for dinner followed by meeting up with a lot more friends for drinking. My mom and sister were there as well and it was great to finally introduce everyone. Mom even stayed out until 1am, which I was very impressed by. It was a fantastic way to cap off a fantastic 3-ish years in NYC.

Tuesday night was a Litigation Paralegal Party at Sapa. There was some delicious food and yummy wine. Apparently I got home and decided to start packing. When I woke up a bunch of my things were in boxes and I was a little confused! Dad is getting on the road today and we are leaving Saturday morning after delivering my couch and chair to the buyers and getting my things loaded into the car.

Today is a joint going-away party for my co-worker/friend Juliet and me. We have almost 5 collective years of paralegal experience and are going to splurge on some delicious cakes (thank you, Corporate Amex) and maybe some Prosecco. We figure the firm is getting a deal since we are combining our parties. :)

Tonight I'm meeting my friend Rebekah for a few drinks after work - we will actually have to say good-bye this time, unless she decides that a road trip to Wisconsin in June sounds like a good idea. It was too bad that I got too intoxicated at my party to properly say good-bye to my friends, but I hope that they all know how much they mean to me. Hell, it's me - they would expect nothing less than a drunken hug and a slurred "see you in 2009."

I just finished burning my personal files and pictures to CD - since I don't have a computer at home I've used my work computer for quite a few personal things...that's also what happens when you are expected to work until midnight for weeks on end doing deposition preparation. Anyway, I now have copies of everything I need. That means that if things around here are really bad I can just walk out and not worry about anything that's left! But I wouldn't do that, would I??? Hmmmmm.

Anyway, less than 6 weeks until staging. Hopefully the drive back to Wisconsin will go well and Dad and I can have some quality time together with all my worldly belongings. I can't wait to have cable television for a month!

Best.Weekend.Ever

Heidi came to visit last weekend and we had the most amazing time. We ate amazing food, got incredibly drunk, danced a lot, called too many people too early in the morning AND saw David Blaine in his bubble, which was much cooler than I thought it would be. The only way it would have been cooler is if we'd gotten there later in the weekend, once his skin had started peeling off. Hmm, or maybe that would have just been disgusting??!!

I'll post some pictures once she sends them.

Highlights from the weekend:

• The Bodies exhibit. www.bodiestheexhibition.com. For those of you who think it's gross and/or are sketched out because the bodies may or may not have been Chinese prisoners who did not give consent for their bodies to be displayed to millions of people, you have a point. That being said, it was very cool and not nearly as creepy as expected.
• We ate at: Extra Virgin (my favorite restaurant in the city), Dos Caminos, Tenement, Cafe Gitane, and Markt. Yes, we ate a lot. And it was delicious. Plus, the weekend was gorgeous and we dined al fresco everywhere. Yum.
• David Blaine in his bubble. Hilarious. Lots of people were tapping on the bubble to get his attention. We would have gladly joined in, but the line was too long.
• Heidi also got to see Central Park, all the 5th Avenue shopping, all of SoHo, and we did an accidental bar crawl of the LES.
• On Saturday night we ended up dancing with my friend Megan and a bunch of other people. We danced on a barrel, we danced together, we danced with boys (tastefully, of course...) Then -
• We called her husband, our friend Casey and my roommate. After 4am. From a cab. Oops. According to my roommate, I left a message: "Hey Aruna, it's Jen. Call me when you get this." She was worried I'd locked myself out and is a kick-ass roommate, so she called me back. I told her we wanted to know where she was so we could meet her out! She was like, uh, sorry, but I'm home. When we got home we wanted Papa John's. Here are the numbers I dialed trying to reach them:

1. 212-834-0400

2. 718-384-404001

3. 783-840-04000 and, finally,

4. 718-384-0400.

Then I got their voicemail, since they don't deliver pizza at 4:30. The nerve. We made mac & cheese, which I'm still finding in my apartment days later.

• Ultimately, though, the highlight for me was getting Heidi to myself for 3 days. She's been my friend since 4th grade and I feel really lucky to have her in my life. I also feel really lucky to have been able to spend so much quality time together, since we live so far away from one another. It was an incredible weekend full of fun, laughter and debauchery. The perfect weekend to cap off almost 3 incredible years here in NYC.

I'm so excited!

Wow - I'm even annoying myself today. Because I'm SO excited. I'm excited about my adventure, about my time back in Wisconsin, about seeing all my friends, about finally getting to Guinea. I'm just so excited about everything. How awesome is this next 3 years going to be? Amazing. And really awesome. I'm done with work in 12 business days!!! And I'm moving in 16 days! And my mom and sister and friend Jay are coming next week. I have so much to look forward to! No more law firm! Hello, Guinea! I can't stop using exclamation points!

Lord, I'm not going to have any friends waiting for me when I get back if I can't stop this.

My soon-to-be home

is number 10 on the "Failed States List." Sandwiched between Afghanistan and Liberia. Hmmmmm. Let's hope it's not very accurate.

Hopefully this link will stay active...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Failed-States-List.html

Kitties are so cute!

Farrah, Harris and I went to see a friend's kitties this weekend - they were 6 days old and were so cute it took all my willpower not to crush them with hugs!

Harris is above with one of the kittens. Can you even believe how small they were? They were all in a kitty pile-up. There are 6 of them and they are still blind, so they'd all get on top of each other and if they got separated they meowed until we put them back in a pile! It was so, so, so cute.