Yeah, that’s right! Two list items in one weekend!

Saturday night me, Dana, Wesley and Rob headed to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. There are touristy things to do in New York City that are way overrated, but going to the top of the Empire State Building is not one of them, especially at night when all the lights on the ground are twinkling and you can see three states worth of view. The observation deck is open until 2 am and the last elevator up is at 1:15. We walked through the lobby doors at 1 and sailed through the empty maze of velvet ropes that usually are jammed with tourists. From lobby to observation deck was about 5 minutes.

At the top, I got good and kissed.

Some people get excited when folks “in the know” can sneak them into a hot club; this weekend I was thrilled to be sneaked into the NICU where I could meet Jen’s new baby. My hopes of helping with the homecoming and breathing in new baby smell were replaced with peering at her through a maze of tubes and apparatuses in the hospital, which sucks because there aren’t two nicer people in the world to become new parents, and they don’t deserve this AT ALL.

I spent the weekend doing what I could and hanging out with Jen’s family, which felt cozy, and I was happy to be there even if there wasn’t a heck of a lot I could do.

“I’m sorry you can’t hold her,” Jen said. I was sorrier.

“She’s really pretty, though, right?”

So pretty. She looks just like her mom! (Except, you know, way smaller.)

Both her and her husband are exhausted and sad, but they have that soft, happy look of being newly in love. It’s really, really awesome to see them as new parents, crappy situation or no.

On Sunday (after scrubbing my hands for the required three minutes) I went to say goodbye after two days of being in Connecticut, and Jen thought it would be alright if I touched her. So cool! She pulled one teeny arm out from under the blanket and I pressed the tip of my finger to the baby’s soft, papery palm and patted the back of her hand. Immediately, she wrapped her fingers around mine. It was a weak hold because she’s medicated and drowsy, but still, a grip! Definitely a high quality moment.

“I got dumped in this outfit,” she said sadly.

“Was he looking at you?” someone asked, and we all looked at her cleavage and said, “Right?!”

I said, “You need a new, happy memory for this outfit. It’s too pretty to ruin with a bad one.”

Her eyes went wide and she gasped.

“Now,” I said, “It’s the outfit you wore that time I grabbed your ass.”

Before

After, with Jen, who also donated about a foot of hair.

It’s one of those things that I can point to in defense of my friendships when people say, “Internet friends cannot possibly be ‘real friends’”. Of course, I’ve met in person just about everyone who is participating in “Flower Friday” today, but we connected via the internet.

Twitter is difficult to justify to people who don’t get it and think it’s stupid (and, granted, it’s difficult to use if you don’t know anyone else on it), but it’s things like “Flower Friday” that make it fun. Nicole is mastermind of many awesome, creative things, and started this as a quirky tribute to our friend Sarah.

If you’re on Twitter and want to participate, go to FlowerFriday.com for more information, and download the flower to put on your own avatar. It’s fun!

Happy weekend.

1. My new library cabinet. Two hours before the eBay auction ended, I put in a max bid for $300 and snapped my laptop shut to avoid temptation of over-bidding. Out of 18 bids, mine was the highest, and I snagged it for $225 which is nothing short of completely ridiculous. I could easily turn around and sell this for $500. It took $160 to get it here; I hired two hipster guys off of Craigslist who would have been even cheaper if they didn’t get stuck in traffic. They drove from Brooklyn to Long Island, loaded it up and dropped it off at our apartment. I’m slowly filling the 60 drawers up. (Well, 57. Three of the drawers are still full of the Dewey decimal system cards.) We went to pick it up ourselves, but it didn’t fit in the car. It is way bigger than I realized when I was bidding; five feet tall and three feet wide. We’ll be filling the drawers for years to come.

2. Realizing I know my chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart. I made cookies from scratch this weekend with minimal measuring and entirely from memory. I didn’t get to take photos before they got hoovered.

3. Throwing a party and having lots of people come. My house was filled with new friends this weekend, and older ones, too. We discovered an application called Remote that lets guests request songs in my iTunes library from their iPhones. It made for a cool mix of music all night.

Some of my photos from the party are below. Normally I’m not a “post tons of photos of my friends” kind of blogger, but flipping through I realized that everyone I had photos of are “internety people” (they started a Twitter hashtag for our party, which is so nerdy and fun), so I figured it was fair game. I didn’t get everyone, though! I quit taking pictures early in the night and someone grabbed my camera for part of it, but there are people missing from the photos. If you have links to them, send them to me!

We had people sleeping on our air mattresses and couch. Having overnight guests is a tiny bit stressful (mostly because of the dogs), but I have a religious-like devotion to hosting houseguests. I think it is very important to open one’s home up and share your space with friends in the intimate, overnight-stay sense, even if it disrupts your schedule a bit, and to do it well. The reward is making close friends with people, because you really bond when everyone is sitting around drinking coffee and eating pancakes in their PJs.

PS – Dave, you left your underwear here. Phase one is complete!

I got this email two weeks ago:
I have a question. Any thoughts on where I can get some cute prints for her room? Everything is light (you saw it), so I don’t want anything to crazy colored. You’re more up on the cool, fun, artsy stuff than me, so hook a sister up

I was all over it. I think I might have ignored the “nothing too crazy colored” part, but overall what I came up with is pretty good, and I’m pleased!

If you’re looking for art for small people, you should peruse my list, and if you are interested in even more things for small people, check out Poppytalk. They’re kicking off their own week of things for small people, starting with the custom birth announcement shown above, by Almost Sunday.

Birth announcements should all be as cute as this one, so that twenty-five years later you can hand your child’s spouse one that you’ve saved for years and years, and they can cry all over it and then frame it and hang it up. Also, now everyone who comes to our house knows that Rob was 7 pounds 8 ounces at birth. Probably half of that was his head.

When our first flight landed, I Twittered that we were about to board our second flight in Atlanta to go on to Austin.  My friend Krissi Twittered back, “I’m here too!  Maybe we’re on the same flight!”  It turns out we were, and when we compared seat numbers, she was in the seat next to me.  Score!  Rob was one seat behind.  She offered to switch, but I refused.  I love Rob, but he has a tendency on flights to zonk out and turn me into his human pillow.  This includes occasionally reaching over in his sleep to “fluff” me.  It’s kind of endearing, really, but it gets old, and I was running on two hours of crummy-quality sleep.  I was not in the mood to be kneaded and smushed around for three hours, no matter how charming the smusher. Krissi was a much more un-evasive seat companion.

On another note, this is my last post as a twenty-six year old. And, (again), tomorrow, my podcast launches. Woo hoo!

Saturday we took the trio to the dog park, and Stu! came along even though Jack got left with her parents in Connecticut, because she “missed her dog”. What she meant, though is: “I’m looking for cute guys who are into dogs and this is a good cover.” I know this because she used to go to the dog park in grungy clothes, like me, but on Saturday she showed up in skinny jeans, cute shoes and with her hair “did”.

We spotted a hot guy smiling at her (I make no delusions he was looking at me, as I was in full dog park attire: grungy pants, over-sized sweatshirt and hair in a handkerchief, which tends to make me look like a lesbian welder from the deep south. No, you can’t see pictures.) and I offered to play, “Haaaave you met Susan?” but she declined. I’ve threatened to do this before, but never have. One of these days, though.

Shortly after Halloween, Rob and I were in Target. We swung by the clearance section to see if there was anything worth scooping up, and boy oh man, was there ever. I scored eleven boxes of Halloween funfetti cake mix for 40 cents a box. Coolness upon cool, the sprinkles, or “funfetti”, are packaged in their own little foil container, and the main package is plain white cake mix, so if you’re making cupcakes for something other than Halloween, you can have plain.

I used that mix and some vanilla frosting to make Jen’s birthday cupcakes. Since the cupcakes I made for her birthday last year were so chocolaty and rich, I made these light, airy and sweet. The bears are Teddy Grams from 100-Calorie packages. Normal Teddy Grams are bigger and thicker, and would work well on a cake, but these are tiny and cute, about 3/4 of an inch tall, and just right for posing on cupcakes.

The hearts are purple Necco conversation hearts stuck on backwards. Grandma and I ripped open a bunch of little boxes and picked out all of the purple ones. I made the sign earlier in the day out of a cut-out square of poster board, with a strand of uncooked spaghetti taped to the back of it for the stick. Silver candles completed the look.

So fun!