a weekend with new yorkers...

so hello kitty flies into town this morning with mr. husband. i'm picking them both up after church in davis county and then we're driving up to morgan to have dinner with the fam. i just had dinner last night with william. talked to catherine that morning. the night before was catching seinfeld's performance and dancing with christian and keri at the w lounge. its been a lovely weekend of catching up with old friends that still have love in their hearts for the big apple. its weird that such a big busy city can connect you with so many amazing people. possibly friends for life. we've all changed since leaving the city (except maybe william since its only been a few weeks), but we've somehow grown together. the changes haven't been so drastic as to make us lose our familiarity with one another.

last night at dinner, william and i reminisced on how we first met almost seven years ago. it was at his parent's park ave apartment and i was a very poor import - straight from utah to the bit city only a few months before. his dad was my first counselor in the singles ward bishopric and asked if anybody wanted to make some extra dough by helping with the catering of william's homecoming party. i readily agreed since i was still living on grapenuts and pizza. i sat and deveined the largest shrimp i have ever seen with william's grandpa from logan. he told the best stories and i had more fun removing the digestion leftovers of crustaceans than i could ever have imagined. i just remember william looking shell shocked as he greeted so many people he hadn't seen in two years and wondering why there were all these young women floating around his house from his dad's singles ward. that night i made $75 and then an extra $25 for cab fare. you know its a sign how poor you are when you pocket the cab fare and still take the subway home to queens at midnight. $25 was a lot of money back then. that could buy 20 days of pizza slice lunches. now it can buy you a third of a tank of gas. oh how times have changed.

keeping banker hours...

so i've been told twice this week that i need to update my blog more than just once a month. sorry for the long delay. just call me an investment banker at goldman sachs these days. better yet, call me john mullen - old dear friend who was notoriously known for working a bazillion hours a week in manhattan a many moons ago. i think he's in the suburbs of connecticut now and i'm sure his wife isn't letting him keep the hours he used to.

but i've been busy working on a project for work. my first big proposal. and for the next week or so my living quarters will become my 4' x4' cube - or i would rather call it my workspace. much more sexy.

but hopefully i will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel come july 7th and i'll be starting my travels once again on the 14th. next is DC and then a few weeks later, it will either be boston or atlanta. i'm crossing my fingers that its boston so that i can tack a weekend on one end of the trip and visit mike and sherene and baby k'auva (i'm sure i spelled that wrong - sorry baby!).

i received a call tonight from a dear friend - md. he has now flown the coop from manhattan and will be settling here in utah for at least the next year or so. he's started his first year of residency this week and tonight on the phone he recalled his first day, which was this past tuesday. he lost a patient and he had to go and inform the family there was nothing they could do. i can't imagine that being my first day on the job. there's a reason why md is an MD and i'm a portly writer. nobody dies on my watch at work. except maybe my plants. that is, my workspace plants. (so much sexier putting that word in).

tomorrow i'm looking forward to seeing jerry seinfeld perform here in utah. last time i saw jerry (yes we're on a first name basis) it was probably five years ago in orange county, where i almost died in the LAX airport, which is in the scariest city in the world. it was for me and hello kitty's birthday and we celebrated it (and not dying the day before!) by going out to dinner at some nice fancy dancy place in irvine and then going to the orange county performing arts center to see jerry do his thing. my ribs hurt after that night - for eating too much creme brulee and for laughing so hard.

i hope they hurt tomorrow night as well.

the golden rule gives back!

so i was meeting matt for sushi tonight downtown and i was attempting to parallel park on the street. now i don't parallel park all that well, and i like to blame it on my fused spine. but anyhoo, i accidentally bumped into the silver car behind me! and when i got out to see if i did any damage, i noticed that there was white paint now on the left front fender. remember the car was silver not white, so it really didn't match all that well.

i had this moment of panic on not knowing what to do. do i just leave? but then how could i sleep that night? do i just wait in the hot sun for the owner(s) to come back? but then i'll miss out on sushi with matt. do i leave a note? yes, that sounded like a good idea. so i wrote a note on the back of my airline ticket letting them know what i did and leaving my phone number as well as this appropriate salutation: "i have insurance!" i also took photos of the left fender with my camera phone just to prove that i caused no dents or big scratches. just white paint on the fender. i called my parents to let them know what i did and have them validate what i did because that always makes you feel better and then i went on my way to meet matt for sushi.

well about a half hour into dinner, my cell phone rings with a number that i don't recognize. sure enough, its the owner of the silver car. its a man and he tells me that he got my note. he asked if the damage was white paint on the left fender. and i said yes. he said that was already there and that someone had done that to him a few weeks before, but they did not leave a note. he just wanted to thank me for leaving a note and to let me know i didn't do any damage to his car! i almost cried! i thanked him for his honesty and in turn he thanked me for mine! i got this warm fuzzy feeling inside me that reminded me of how i felt when i told my mom that i had broken her scissors when i was 7 years old. it was also similar to the feeling that i felt last night when the boston celtics won the NBA finals, except in that case i didn't do anything nice for anyone but cheer and boo the lakers. overall, tonight was a very tender moment over a salmon crunch roll.

i hope this story reminds us all why its important to follow the golden rule. and to have insurance. and to take photos with your camera phone just in case you don't hit another fellow golden rule keeper.

tales of the airport...

so i was in the airport this morning on my way home from the thriving metropolis of boise, id. no, i did not sit by anyone interesting on the plane. so there will be no new segment posting on the blog today. however, i did have meet an interesting gentleman in the security line: a pilot. who kept forgetting his luggage! hasn't heard the announcements in the airports? you can't leave your luggage unattended! but he kept forgetting his suitcase - the kind that magicians would carry around with all of their tricks inside (maybe he was a musician!) - in the security line. it drove me crazy. he would just leave it around and i would have to attempt to push it with my foot - in case it had a bomb in it, i thought i would be better off without a foot than a hand. finally i had to just say, "excuse me sir, but you forgot your luggage!" he finally turned around, came back to fetch the annoying case and then asked me where i was flying that day. i told him SLC and he said that's where he was going! he was my pilot! this irresponsible man who kept leaving his luggage unattended! i almost didn't get on the plane....

swimming with the kids..

so i spent memorial day weekend in CT with mickey, uncle t and clarkie, matt, and mickey's cute little charges. we had a great time on saturday in uncle t's pool. the funniest thing is that ayla, the two year old, took a liking to matt, uncle t's nephew. so from then on, it became "matt's house."

the new segment: strangers on airplanes

so i don't have much to report on my newest segment. i've been on three trips since i last posted and to be honest, not many strangers that are worth writing about. except for one. on my flight from DC to laguardia, i sat next to this cute canadian kid who had to be only 16 years old and it was his first trip to the united states. he was with his church group touring the new england area. we discussed the book he was reading - some book on WWI. wow. the things that kids are reading about today. he then asked me if it was okay if he went to the bathroom before the plane took off. i told him he needed to hurry.

i promptly put my earphones on so i could listen to my iPod and fell asleep. he kept waking me up to remind me to put on my seat belt or turn off my electronic device (since a $300 mp3 player can take down a boeing 767) when it was time to land. i would feel this light tap on my arm and he would be doing hand gestures on what i should or shouldn't be doing. it was pretty adorable.

the smart car...

so uncle t got a smart car and over memorial weekend, me and mickey were able to take it for a spin. can it be any cuter?