Because of the storm, which flooded the subways, my 45 minute commute (already a bit long) turned into a 3 1/2 hour commute!

I took three trains and still had to walk.

I left my apartment at 7:45 am and got to work at 11:15!

Craziness.

Then all day, I had to write about all the flood-related incidents we had at our buildings.  A leak here, a flood there… one of our buildings had a 14 inch flood in the basement! 

Anyway, what a day to be a tourist in NYC!   Fugghedaboudit.  A family, obviously tourists, were discussing (quite loudly in a packed train) what they were going to do.  When grandpa said “we were going to go see the Status of Liberty!”, the whole cab groaned “NO way, buddy!  don’t even try!”. One man suggested that they take a boat tour, since the day turned out to be actually very very nice.  But very very hot.

Sigh.  New York, you’re dirty, smelly, and hot… and because so many people use and abuse you, when one small thing goes wrong, you do not adjust well to change… you fight back… your streets flood and your subways shut down… but I still love you.

On a happier note, off to SF in a few days for the Michigan “wedding of the year”!

Japanese food is so yummy.  I consumed a lot of it this weekend, including Japanese afternoon tea at Cha-an (koreanhalfling, we’ll need to go when you come to NYC!); and izakaya food (Japanese drinking place)… I can’t think of one Japanese food that I don’t like. 

Thinking about it now makes me hungry:

-onigiri (Japanese rice balls)
- yakisoba (fried noodles with pork and cabbage)
- okonomiyaki (savory pancake with cabbage, pork, seafood)
- all sobas (noodles)
- yakitori (skewers)
- tempura
- hamburger steak
- anything green tea flavored (ice cream; cookies; pound cake)
- shabu shabu or sukiyaki (actually, I’m not ENTIRELY fond of sukiyaki)
- ramen
- sushi and sashimi (of course)
- Japanese salad dressing (carrot/ginger)
- Japanese snacks

MMMMMMMMM. 

I hate:

• my pride (the kind where I can’t accept criticism from people gracefully)…


• death (which takes beautiful people made in God’s image - born and unborn – away from loved ones)

WORK:

Almost at the end of my first week of work.  My boss came back, so I kind of have more work to do.I still don’t officially have a title or a job description.  I will have to give my boss the latter and let him pick a good job title for me.  The ones that have been thrown around include: “chief of staff”; “director of strategic planning”; and “director of special projects”.It takes FOREVER for me to tell people what I do….Read about it here:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/html/resources/@build.shtml. So far, it looks like I’ll be doing some PR and a lot of projects that people in our division don’t have time to do or don’t do well …

FOOD:

I know Melvis will be jealous – I bought some barbecued ribs from Big Wong in Chinatown; and ate them with rice and string beans at home. MMM. Last night, my sister and I went to Frank’s Trattoria, nearby where I used to live in Queens… it should be called Frank’s Geriatrics, because mostly elderly people eat there.  But the food is actually very good. We shared linguine with seafood – it was just enough food for us…And working downtwon, tt’s nice having such a huge variety of places to eat for lunch… I can eat ANYTHING for lunch… yeah!

HOME:

I’ll be moving out of my current apartment in Wash. Heights and moving into an excellent place on Mott and Houston.  Don’t even ASK me what the rent is… any non-New Yorker would faint…(maybe even New Yorkers or former New Yorkers)…but the apartment building and apartment are actually pretty decent!  The only bad thing is that we had to pay a broker’s fee (AAAARGH).  Brokers are so annoying.  We saw a few other apartments before this one and all were not so great… none of them had broker’s fees… so.. you get what you pay for, I guess.  I’ll be living with my youngest sister… (I live with my middle sister now)…

Since I’ve been back in the States.. I’ve had a number of random encounters with people who are either Uzbek or have been to Uzbekistan.

Today, I learned that my apartment broker was born in Tashkent but left when he was 4.  His grandparents came from the Ukraine to Uzbekistan after WWII and his parents were born and raised in Tashkent… in 1989, they all left for Israel (they were Jewish, obviously).. he told me how his mom makes plov, pelmeni, vareniki, lagmon… all food we ate over there!

Crazy.