winter wonderland

The ice skating rink has officially been constructed in Bryant Park (I can see it out the windows across from my desk). Winter is officially here!

AHHH!!!!

The thought of ice skating and snowflakes and twinkly lights is really exciting. But after December 25… the great white North will officially turn into my wintry hell. After four years of enjoying glorious spring-like weather (while my brave Great Lakes family told me about five feet of snow and treacherous patches of ice) I am entirely unprepared to face down a northern winter. Blech.

Perhaps you’d like to hear about our weekend? Saturday night Eric and I went out to dinner with my friends from UNC, Julia and Mathieu, who happened to be in the Big Apple. I’d heard about this Indian restaurant called Panna II in the East Village. All I knew was that they had a penchant for decorating with string lights and that there was some kind of competition going on with the restaurant next door. I had NO IDEA it would be the crazy experience it turned out to be! We walked up to the address, where there were not two, but three identical Indian restaurants all mushed together. At the doorways of each were these Indian hosts who were absolutely determined to get us to come to their restaurant. They all shouted over each other trying to convince us that the other restaurants were bad and theirs were “the best.” Thank goodness I knew which place to go in, because had I not I would have been really confused! Inside Panna II (which is about the size of a shoebox), there are millions of lights strung everywhere. It’s like a jungle of crazy lights. At one point during dinner, they actually turned off all of those lights and turned on a disco ball and then sang an Indian version of happy birthday. It was fabulous. Plus it was dirt cheap and pretty delicious too—I’m absolutely taking all of my future houseguests to this place! Only in New York…

What else… we also painted Eric’s new bedroom this weekend, which used to be this hideous mix of maroon and navy (with random patches of white… cute). Because the room is teeny weenie (as in 6 ½ feet by 10 feet) there used to be a loft up for a bed as well. Eric decided to forgo the joys of fort-building and took it down-- good choice, honey! So anyway, even though the room is ridiculously small, the ceilings are about 14 feet so there was a lot of work to do. We had to prime the whole place first and then we picked a nice tan for the lower portion of the walls. And now the place is lookin’ good! Go us.

And now a tip of voting advice… THIS is super important!! If you’re voting in North Carolina, you MUST fill in the bubble next to your choice for President, EVEN IF you’re filling in the bubble below to vote straight ticket. If you don’t, your vote for Prez won’t be counted!