BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: JERSEY GIRL EDITION - MAY 17, 2017

Today was supposed to be much different than it turned out, but that's ok.

When planning the trip up here, I knew that there would be two days I'd basically be on my own. The first day (yesterday) went about like I thought it would.  I wanted to figure things out and find out how and where things were so I would be comfortable getting out and about. My original plan for today was to go into NYC by myself and wonder around, a plan that was not well received by anyone (save one person and I adore him for that.)  I found a train in town that would go directly into the city and I could take the subway anywhere else once I got there.  Ultimately, when I went to bed last night I wasn't 100% sure I was going to go.  Lots of people tried talking me out of it when I'd talked about it at home.  I'm sure I could have done it without any problems, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea.  Strangely enough, I wouldn't have been afraid to be in the city alone, but getting there was what worried me.  After not being able to cross the street without asking two people and losing my way three times yesterday, the idea of trying to navigate the New Jersey public transit system gave me the wiggins.  In the end, I decided I probably wouldn't go. I'm a bit ashamed that I punked out, but it was actually for the best in the end because I woke up sick this morning.  Well, let me rephrase, I woke up feeling ok and was fine for a while, but I dozed back off about half an hour after Steve left for work, and woke up again feeling very dizzy and all around yucky.  Nothing serious, I was sure, but my head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and I had a slight case of vertigo.  Eh, walking straight is overrated anyway.  I lay there for a long time wondering which deity I had offended, but no answer came forth. I finally got up and made myself decent, as in, I put on pants, and since it was after 11 by the time I could drag myself around, I decided I should probably try to eat, so I went down to the rather elegant restaurant (thank God I put on pants) downstairs to get lunch.

An aside: I realized that when I was going through my clothes that everything I brought is either black or blue and it all pretty much looks the same. I didn't realize when I was packing. These hotel people are going to think I am wearing the same clothes all week! Heh.

After lunch I still wasn't feeling well, so I went back to the room and fell asleep for a looooooong time. Seriously, this is not how I wanted to spend my day, but I must have needed the rest.  I woke up feeling sicker than I had before, so I was glad that I'd not gone anywhere.  I am mad I wasted a day feeling sick, but after dosing myself with loads of medicine (I usually carry something for every ailment), I started feeling much better after a couple of hours. Thank goodness, because I didn't want to be sick the whole time we were on our trip. That would suck.

We had dinner with Steve's coworker again and walked around the mall for a while talking. He's a very funny guy and apparently a computer genius. I mean a legitimate computer genius and not in the hyperbolic sense, so he had a lot of interesting stories to tell. We had a great time. His wife is flying up here tonight and they are going to stay in the NYC over the weekend. What are the chances that we'll bump into them? Haha.

Tomorrow, Steve and I are going to travel into the city for the day and do some stuff! I hope I will be 100% better by then and that we will have a good time!

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: JERSEY GIRL EDITION - MAY 16, 2017

I stayed in bed for a long time this morning. This is a luxury I afford myself on days when I can and I recommend it! I kept myself entertained, though. :)  Today was going to be my "Figure Things Out Day" and so I lay in bed looking online for things to do and at subway times and things like that. I was thinking of exploring Short Hills today, but there isn't a lot for me here.  It's a lovely place, but it is a smallish town where people mostly work and live and not a place with a lot of interest for someone who doesn't live here. There is a huge mall across the street, though, which I decided to check out and do a bit of unnecessary shopping!

I embarrassed myself starting out, because I asked the concierge if I could walk there. "Sure," she says "just walk down the ramp to the crosswalk and go across."  "OK! I say, having no idea what ramp or which direction.  I walked four different ways, hoping that something remotely resembling a crosswalk would appear, but alas...  I finally had to go back in and ask again, feeling like a supreme idiot, and the other concierge walked me to the door and pointed down the second road I'd tried to walk down.  Apparently I didn't see the crosswalk because the lines were faded. Oops.  I was embarrassed, but he seemed good natured about it. Oy.

The mall is of those places with lots of seriously designer stores and expensive jewelry shops inside, so I spent a lot of time just looking through windows. I certainly can't afford Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana, and even if I could, they don't make things in my size, so I did a lot of walking and not shopping at first.  I also got my first in-person look at a lot of designer clothes that showed me that just because people have money doesn't mean that they have taste! Haha! Seriously, a LOT of it was ugly. Like, clown ugly. I do not understand. I did get to hold a Christian Louboutin shoe in my hand, and it cost two of my paychecks, so I put it down very carefully and walked away slowly! Haha!  The only place I really wanted to go into but didn't was Tiffany & Co. which is one of my favorite fancy jewelers, and they do have relatively affordable silver jewelry, but there were no less than 8 sales people in there and no customers, and I didn't want to have to talk to anyone who would ultimately be disappointed that I wasn't going to buy anything, so I just passed on by.

I walked around until I got to the part of the mall that looked familiar, as in, I have seen these stores and can afford things in them. I did a little shopping, but nothing outrageous. I kept getting turned around in the bigger stores, and people kept having to help me find my way out. Big stores are haaaaaaaaard, I guess.  I did find a fancy candy store, a Lush, wherein I found some lovely smelling things and while in Bloomingdales I discovered  (in the lowest level of the store, in the home goods section no less) the place where they sold clothes for people of my size. Nice, huh? I'm not to the point where I need to buy clothes at Chattanooga Tent & Awning or anything like that, but literally, I think I found the only place I could buy clothes in that whole store!  What?!  Of course I bought something, because I'm a basic heifer and I wanted a Bloomingdale's brown bag, so I shopped in the basement!  I got out of there before someone could put me in a cage and show me off as a freak of nature, though.

When Steve came back from work, we had just enough time to clean up before we had dinner with his coworker, who is a very nice guy.   He's younger than we are and madly in love with his wife, and we had some fun conversation with him over food at The Cheesecake Factory.  He jokingly shamed me for NOT getting cheesecake after dinner, so he's basically a man after my own heart. :) 

Steve had a lot of work to do after we got back to our room.  He's very busy on several different projects and he has to extra homework after his regular work, so we are each doing our own thing for now.  Although all I really did was shop and eat today, I enjoyed it. 

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: JERSEY GIRL EDITION - MAY 15, 2017

This week I accompanied Steve on one of his business trips! He has been traveling a lot for work, and if he goes someplace neato, I always ask if I can go. He was supposed to go to Hawaii and Italy this year, and he said I could go along on both of those! I was, understandably, quite excited!  Unfortunately he got moved to different contracts or some such thing, and he wouldn't be going on those trips after all.  However, he said I could go with him on his next travel wherever that would be and so here I am.

In New Jersey. 

Stop laughing.

Our day didn't exactly run 100% smoothly, although it wasn't anything terrible.  It was just one of those days where a series of little annoyances seemed to follow you around. Things began on a fun note when I had a sudden allergic reaction to a new kind of mouthwash. I didn't stop breathing or anything like that, but my lips swelled up quite a bit!  On the bright side, if I ever get the urge to get lip injections, I can save a ton of money and have fresh breath as a bonus by just using that stuff!

Then I had to go to the dentist, which isn't exactly an annoyance, but it is not a thing I enjoy. You know, I can brush and floss without incident, but let someone else do it and I get spit all over my face and toothpaste in my hair! Gross.

Once I got home, Steve and I packed the car and got ready to go. We would be driving to Atlanta to catch our flight to Newark. A little road trip to start the day off isn't so bad!  Heh...  We got in and started to back up when BAM! We hit something very hard.  In my head we had plowed to the truck, but no, that wasn't it.  We turned around and saw that Steve had backed smack into one of our trees. Earlier, Steve had moved the car so that we could park the truck in a different spot and unfortunately for him the tree was in his blind spot. It did a little damage to the bumper, but nothing terrible. It didn't even scratch the tree. I started laughing, which made Steve very mad! I know he bruised up the car, but I couldn't help it! I had to turn my head and hide my face until I got myself under control!  He did NOT appreciate my mirth.  Heehee!

We finally got out on the road and the drive to Atlanta was thankfully normal. Yay! After checking in we had to separate at the security checkpoint.  Steve has the TSA Pre Screen thing and I am just a lowly peasant, so I went to where I had to take off my shoes and show everyone my toiletries, while he did his thing.  Again, my ankle set off the X-Ray machine.  I wonder why it does that?  Was I in a war I don't remember and have shrapnel inside of me?  Is everyone afraid to tell me that I was a soldier?  Do you not think I can't handle the knowledge?  What is it?!  Anyway, we were in two totally separate places doing security, so when I finally got through, I had no idea where he was! We texted and waited in the wrong places for a bit until we finally found each other.  I really need to do that pre check thing soon. 

When we made it to our terminal, it turned out that we had been moved to a different one. We kept getting alerts on the Delta App that our flight was in one place, but it when we'd check, it wasn't there.  Finally we found where we were supposed to be and sat down.  We sat, and sat, and sat some more while our flight was delayed not once, not twice, but three times.  That was going to get us to Newark after 10:00 PM, which is much later than we wanted.  Oy.  While we're we're waiting, a woman came and sat across from us in the terminal. She looked like a well dressed business woman and so I didn't pay much attention to her since I was returning an email and minding my own business. She pulled out her phone and was talking quietly to someone and then all hell broke loose.  She started yelling into the phone. Yelling. Yelling private relationship business.  Apparently her boyfriend, Kevin, is an asshole and she didn't want to go to his birthday party anymore. He was an asshole and he was gaslighting her. She didn't feel safe with him and he was mentally abusive! He tried to kill himself...strangle himself in front of her! She wanted to break up. She had never wanted to move to California in the first place! She was going to come back to his house and get her stuff! 

Everyone around her was hearing this and trying to pretend that they weren't. We were all very uncomfortable.

Girlfriend then hung up the phone.  Whew, we thought, now that's over, but no...she pulls out the phone again.  Kevin is an asshole! A gaslighting asshole! He was mean to her and she wanted to break up. She was breaking up with him right now! She didn't even want to see him this weekend! It went on and on and on. FINALLY she gave her last word and hung up. She got up and walked off, and then the applause started. 

Kevin, I don't know who you are, I don't know what your thing is. If you love this woman, I hope it works out, but from one stranger to another...run, brother. Run for your life!

We were (finally) crammed in what looked like the oldest plane that I'd ever seen, and I do mean crammed, and after sitting on the flipping tarmac for a year and a half, we finally took off.

We made it in due time, and my first impression of New Jersey was that it smelled old.  Isn't that weird?  I'm sure it was just the airport, but even outside, it smelled old.  I can't describe it any better than that.  It was too dark to tell anything else. We got our rental car and made our way to our hotel.  The Short Hills Hilton is a lovely place, and probably the nicest chain hotel we've ever stayed in.  We had missed dinner, so we got snacks in the hotel store and went to our room.  I am currently sitting here in my pajamas eating chips while Steve is ironing his shirt, and pretty soon I'm going to crash because I am exhausted. 

Let the adventure begin!