Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!


We didn't spend the holiday dressed up or going to any costume parties, but we did spend it doing 3 things we do love - eating good food, walking around under pretty fall colored trees, and people watching. We went down by the Village Halloween Parade and saw LOTS of people.

There were lots of zombies (timely) and bedbugs (also timely). But what was up with all the Teletubbies? Is there some Teletubbies resurgence that we just don't know about?

One of our favorite pairs was the green pig and the red bird from Angry Birds. That was awesome. As was the family we saw earlier in Central Park where the dad was Luke, the mom was Leia and the little kid was Vader. Lots of fun. Hope you had a happy Halloween!

Fake Locations

Castle is one of my favorite TV shows. I love the characters, the action, the story, the chemistry, everything about the show. I've watched it since episode 1 and have been really happy to see more people discovering the show. Hopefully it will be around for awhile.

But while I love the show, every so often I get taken out of the story when something doesn't look quite right. The show is set in New York but they film in Los Angeles. Usually I don't notice, but last night I did.

They claimed that a victim lived at 35th and 8th, and showed the suspect this picture:


The only problem is that 35th and 8th in Manhattan looks nothing like this. (Street view it.) It's a very crowded, non-green area near Madison Square Garden and Penn Station filled with old skyscrapers. There's no wide sidewalks with large plush trees. There's no spacious residential buildings with a fence, and there's certainly no grass. I paused and rewound the episode to make sure I heard them right.

It occurred to me that maybe it could be another borough but 8th Avenue in Brooklyn doesn't cross 35th Street because of the cemetery, and I looked up all the 8th Avenues in Queens and they don't cross a 35th Street either. Nothing in the Bronx or Staten Island that I know of.

It's certainly not a big deal but it wouldn't have made the story any less effective to show a picture of a skyscraper (except they're not always very distinctive) if you're going to use that address. The perils of living in NYC ... you can nitpick all the shows set here that don't film here!

Fun New Toy

I got a shiny new iPhone on Saturday. I probably don't need to tell you that it has been a ton of fun. But besides the fun games, there was one app I was really looking forward to - the Sleep Cycle app. It's supposed to track your movements when sleeping to determine when you're in deep sleep mode so that it can wake you up (within 30 minutes of your set time) when you're in less of a state of deep sleep. I am really hoping this works so that I can try to become a morning person. Sleeping before 2:30 am would help that too. Maybe tomorrow. Can't wait to see my sleep graph in the morning!

Thanks CBS

CBS announced today that they were giving full seasons to all five of their freshman TV shows. They are:

The Defenders (yay!)
Hawaii Five-0 (yay!)
Blue Bloods (yay!)
Mike & Molly (initially wanted to watch, time slot too packed, so don't care)
Crap My Dad Says (why?!)

I'm still not sure why the last one is a show... but I'm just thankful to CBS for giving full seasons to 3 of the new shows I actually like! Happy Thursday news!

A Shaky Start

Note: This post was written in Amsterdam to post later. It's a little long... but we have a lot to say about this!

We had been looking forward to our vacation in the Netherlands and Belgium for weeks. Probably more like months, but our wedding reception planning limited our ability to actually research the trip for some time. We couldn’t wait to get to Europe, experience the cities, soak up the history and soul of the towns and the neighborhoods, and try all the different foods.

We were scheduled to leave on a Friday night. Things didn’t quite go how we expected.

First, we stressed over Hurricane Earl and whether or not he would cancel or delay our flight. The storm was scheduled to be right by us right around the time we were leaving. Excellent. We followed the weather forecasts ever since Earl started heading up toward the East Coast and fretted over its impact. Luckily at the last minute, things took a turn and he ended up further offshore than we expected. Potential crisis averted.

Source
Second, things were crazy busy at work for M the few weeks leading up to the trip. She didn’t sleep much the week before the trip (and the night before, that “sleep” was a nap at 8 am, figuring this could be like a Spanish siesta and help get adjusted to the time difference). It was so busy that she didn’t start packing until an hour before we were scheduled to leave for the airport. Not the best planning there.

Third, the MTA almost made us miss our flight. It was a frustrating, miserable few hours. It only takes an hour to get from our apartment to JFK. You hop on the E, take it to Jamaica, hop on the Air Train and you’re done. You don’t hit traffic, the train whizzes along and you’re at the airport an hour later. Sometimes there are delays and it takes a little longer. Sometimes there are diversions and you end up traveling locally in Queens instead of express (which the E usually is) but those are usually planned in advance and you can adjust accordingly.

So we were late and frustrated, and then we ended up waiting in the station for an E train for almost half an hour. Unbelievable! We were well within the rush hour peak traveling period and there were no trains. At least 2 A trains and 2 C trains passed through and then finally the E came chugging in. We were relieved but hadn’t been extremely upset because, although late, we would still make it in time for our flight even if it took an hour.

An hour later and we were in Queens near the border between Woodside and Jackson Heights.

WHAT THE HELL MTA?!

We had been moving really slowly. It was the slowest moving E train we had ever been on. We could walk faster than the train. We were doing great in Manhattan. The lag time started picking up when we hit Queens. We dragged along like we were meandering on the subway tracks. We stopped. Every time we’d get a “thank you for your patience” or “there is a train directly ahead of us” or some other increasingly annoying message. After some time, how much can you believe? How can there be a train in front of us if we’re stopping all the darn time for long stretches? Something wasn’t adding up.

With only 5 stops remaining before we were free the conductor announced that because of an incident we were going on the local tracks. Not only did we go on the local tracks but we then proceeded to spend about 5 minutes stopped in each station, more time stopped between them... It was incredibly frustrating and we were sure we would miss our flight, increasingly so with every stop.

We finally pulled into the 65th Street station. Another train, I think an F, whizzed by. (Confused ... weren’t they supposed to be local and we the express?) Then we stopped. For a while. The conductor got on the intercom (and we could actually understand what he was saying) and said that there was a sick passenger on the train in front of us and we were going to be at this station until the situation was resolved.

You. Must. Be. Kidding.

Source. We didn't take these train lines to the airport but it's kind of accurate for how we felt about the MTA on our way there.
It started to get a little frantic on the train. It was crowded. Lots of people were standing and packed into the subway cars. Plenty of people with luggage on the way to their airport griping about missed flights. M wondered, as she fought her within-crowds claustrophobia, if the MTA could write an excuse letter to get us onto the flight since we were delayed for their problem, since they write those letters if people are late for work. Doubtful. We felt bad for the sick passenger but we were completely stuck with no options and that sucked!

What were we going to do? We were already cutting it close because we left so much later than planned, the train had gone ten times slower than usual and now we were stuck for an indefinite amount of time in a part of Queens that really isn’t known for having cab traffic.

We got off the train. It was better than sitting through it and not knowing whether or not our waiting and not seeking another option was costing us the seats on our flight. It was like an episode of Amazing Race: stay with option 1 and hope it works out because you’ve already invested so much time or cut your losses, try option 2 and hope it comes through.

First thought was maybe we try the LIRR if we can’t get a cab. After a panicked call to M’s parents, they suggested one of the car service places that advertises all over TV and that you usually have to call in advance. We tried but they weren’t coming up with anyone in the area. It was looking more and more likely than we would miss the flight.

Then a little white taxi came up to the corner. We must have looked like panicked wrecks on the corner with luggage. He offered his services. We took him up on it. The nice man in the little white car quickly got onto the highway and got us to the airport. We checked in our bag. We watched it go through security. We even had enough time to eat a heated BBQ chicken baguette sandwich before getting on the flight (which had been moved up 15 minutes without any notice). I think we got to the airport before we would have if we had stayed on the train and it had left right after we got off (which it didn’t). We are so thankful to the nice man in the white car. I don't remember his name and doubt he is reading this, but THANK YOU. He saved our trip. We gave him a good tip. He deserved it.

Our last minute meal at the airport once we finally made it
So after a shaky start where the trip looked in doubt… we made it. Next time: the awesomeness of KLM.

Recaps

It's been over a month now since we returned from the Netherlands and Belgium (sad), but we're going to start recapping our trip so we don't forget it (although I'm sure some of the details are already lost). We have been recapping on the food blog for a bit now but we're only 3 days in because there is so much to say! Hope you'll bear with us as we take a trip down (happy) memory lane even though the posts will be inbetween other posts about our current life. We'll tag all of the trip posts with the "2010 Europe Trip" label so it's easier to follow along. We loved our trip and can't wait to tell you all about it! Hopefully we'll finish blogging about it by the end of the year. :)

Results

I spent an hour at the chiropractic and physical therapy place. Seems like I have exactly what my mom thought it was - piriformis syndrome/sciatica. An hour of physical therapy has helped to the point where I can now walk without screaming in pain and stopping every 10 steps, so that's an improvement. But it seems like it might have been a result of trying to stand all day. I try to make a healthy change to my life and get hurt as a result? WTF!

Shooting Pain

I think I may have sciatica. Yesterday afternoon what I thought was my hip started bothering me. I thought it was because I recently switched to a standing desk setup from my usual sedentary life. I exercised and stretched a little and then sat without moving since it was more comfortable. The pain got worse by the hour to the point where right now I can barely walk. Hoping Aleve will work enough that I am able to walk to the chiropractor's office soon.

I had no idea what it could be until I mentioned it to my mom this morning and she suggested sciatica. I looked it up online and found the following description of sciatica, which is spot on:

The pain may be dull, sharp, burning or accompanied by intermittent shocks of shooting pain beginning in the buttock travelling downward into the back or side of the thigh and/or leg.

(I can't get the link to the site where I found that because it was on my blackberry and when I go to the site here, it doesn't say the same thing!)

Hoping the chiropractor and/or physical therapist will be able to do something to alleviate the pain. It's currently a 9 (since I'm sure something can be worse, even though this brings tears to my eyes) but I keep thinking about upgrading every time I get up and walk. The one block walk to the chiropractor looks like a mile right now.

State of Fall TV

It's week 5 of the fall TV season and "lackluster" is a good word to describe this year's crop of new shows. There's very few shows that I would say I really like. I'm not sure if this is because we're behind on so many shows and I would feel more attached to them if I saw more, or if they just kind of suck. I have sampled a lot of the shows and here's how they stand for me so far.

Shows I Like
These don't rise to the level of "love" (nothing this season does) but I would miss these if they went away.

The Defenders (up to date): Of course the one new show I really like is possibly in trouble because CBS has too many well-performing shows. This show is just pure fun. I don't care about the law. I just love watching the characters and the fun and ridiculousness. It's light-hearted and a good time. I hope it lasts.

Nikita (4 watched, 2 behind): It's fun and has a good story going. (Funny how the new CW shows are 2/2 for me.) I hope this gets a full season order at some point.

Blue Bloods (up to date): I have a soft spot for Blue Bloods because my dad met the cast when they were taping near his workplace last week. And they film in NYC which makes it more authentic. And the stories are good. And it's about a big family. I love shows about big families.

Shows I Kind of Like
I enjoy watching these, I would feel a little sadness if they were gone, but I'd get over it... fairly quickly.

Hawaii Five-O (2 watched, 3 behind): I like Hawaii. I like the cast. I like their chemistry. But in the end it's just a procedural. Maybe I need to watch the other eps.

Chase (up to date): I like the action. The cast is pretty good. But again, it's just another procedural. It's getting a full season (as of today) but I wonder if it'll be around next season.

Undercovers (1 watched, 3 behind): I like spies and relationships, and putting them together is even better. I like the show but I put it in this category because I am resigning myself to the fact that it will probably get cancelled at some point since it's not doing well. Therefore, I should keep myself from liking it too much.

Hellcats (3.5 watched, .5 lost by DVR & horrible CW player, 2 behind): A really fun show which is different from everything else on. It's refreshing. But I don't love it yet. But I can see this moving up to the next category.

Shows I Watch but Don't Care About or Am Undecided On
I think that's self-explanatory.

The Event (3 watched, 2 behind): It's no Lost. But it was interesting and I'm curious to see where they go with it. Parts of it are compelling and parts of it are just bland. I kept tuning out during the pilot because I was bored, but the episodes after it got better. Do I like it? I don't know yet, but I'll keep watching for now.

The Whole Truth (up to date): I like legal shows. This one won't last though, and it's just OK anyway.

Shows I Stopped Watching

Detroit 1-8-7: I usually give shows 3 chances before I give up on them, and I stopped watching this during episode 3. It's not a bad show. I like the diversity in the cast and it seems well done. But it's just not my type of show.

Terriers: The critics seem to love this one, but I thought the 1st 2 eps were just OK. I liked the 3rd one, but not enough to log in to Hulu and watch the rest.

Shows We Still Haven't Seen Yet
Luther
No Ordinary Family

Shows That Got Cancelled Already

Lone Star: I rooted for Lone Star, mostly because it was different. It wasn't the best show out there, but I felt like everything else was a procedural and it would be nice to have something different to watch. I liked the storytelling and wanted to see where they would go with it. Perhaps it should have been something other than a show about a con man screwing over everyone in his life. Who could like or relate to him? I think I was more in like with the concept of a show like Lone Star on the schedule than the show itself.

My Generation: I was in the middle of watching the second ep on Hulu when they announced the cancellation so I just stopped. It was not a good show. I thought I would like it because I love shows that deal with history, high school, relationships, etc. The history segments were cool. The characters all kind of sucked.

Outlaw: I saw the first ep and thought it was ridiculous. I like legal shows but I couldn't care less if I saw this again. At least with The Whole Truth I wanted to see more eps if they made it to air. I completely ignored this after ep 1.

I'm going to check out Walking Dead after Halloween because I heard it's good but I worry that it will be too creepy for me and I may have to abandon it. We'll see.

Hopefully we can knock off that "shows we still haven't seen yet" category soon.

Why is this TV season so ... not extraordinary? Last year was great! Modern Family. Glee. Vampire Diaries. Good Wife. So many good shows. This year? This year people know more about the cancellations than anything else. Why does it suck so much?

Stupid

That's me.

M and I have a storage unit since we moved from a 641 sq ft apartment in Chicago to a 550 sq ft apartment here in NYC. It's amazing how little you can fit in a 550 sq ft apartment. Or maybe you can actually fit a lot provided you don't have stuff that was accommodated by an extra near 100 sq ft.

Anyway, I brought some stuff out to the storage unit tonight to try and free up some space. It was bulky and a little hard to handle, but I was able to carry everything to the garage to put into the car. Once I get there I realized that I hadn't grabbed the access key card to get into the storage areas. Frustrated, I locked up the car and walked back to the apartment to get the card. After finally driving my way to the storage facility, unloading the items, and taking the elevator up to our floor, I realized I hadn't brought the key to the lock. After much cursing and curbing of the desire to kick all of the items up and down the hallway, I made my way back to the car, reloaded everything back into the trunk, and drove back to the apartment.

I left the car double-parked outside our building and ran in hoping beyond hope that the minute or two that it would take me to grab the key wouldn't cause our car to get hit or ticketed. Luckily none of that happened, and I was able to get the stuff moved into the storage unit.

Upon returning to the garage, I was just in time to see someone pulling into the spot I had vacated nearly an hour earlier. Had I not been delayed several times by my own stupidity, I would have been able to park back in my spot on the ground floor right by the exit.

Sigh...

The Dog is Not Amused

Yesterday we went to the Grub Street Food Festival at the Hester Street Fair. We were really looking forward to it, but the place was ridiculously packed, too small for the overflowing crowds and nearly impossible to get food.



This dog has it right. His expression perfectly sums up how I felt about the festival (about which we'll write more later).


He does not look amused. He looks bored with it all. Like one big sigh. When you're waiting on line for a booth with 2 lines going in opposite directions and curling around in front of other booths, but you aren't really sure if you're in line or the crowd is just not moving... yeah, the dog has it right.

At least getting shoved around in the crowd led to one of my favorite photos that I've taken in awhile. Thanks, photogenic dog!

Uncle Gussy's

Food from a Greek truck? Yes, please.

I went to Uncle Gussy's, a truck located on 51st and Park, today for lunch. I wanted to take a walk and then got my mind set on a chicken pita, so I headed over. My plan B if the line was more than 20 people was to head back a few blocks and get chicken over rice from XPL.


Uncle Gussy's has pitas, platters, sandwiches, Greek salads and burgers. They also have daily specials "made by Mom." (Today it was tomatoes stuffed with rice and chopped meat.) The Greek salad sounded really good, but as I said, I was there for a chicken pita. Luckily the line wasn't that long and I quickly put in my order for a chicken pita deluxe.


I didn't really know what the difference was between a pita and the deluxe and didn't feel like asking at the time. I figured, it was my first time there, I'd find out what it was and then adjust accordingly next time. Turns out, unlike at diners where "deluxe" means fries but also the sandwich toppings, deluxe here just meant fries.


I got the sandwich on whole wheat pita. Liked having that option. I didn't add any other extras, so it came with lettuce, tomato, white sauce (tzatziki) and hot sauce.


And a better look at what's inside the pita:


The chicken pita was so good. I definitely want to go back for more, whether it's in a pita, platter or as the chicken gyro topping to the Greek salad. The chicken pita fulfilled my craving. Go visit Uncle Gussy's!

Programming Note

Just a programming note: we may cross-post here some posts that are also on our food blog. Want to check that one out too?

Knee pains

Ever since I was young, I've had bad knees. When I was 8 or 9, I was playing in a soccer tournament when I had 3 players fall on my fully extended knee and hyperextend it. I rested it for about a month, and I was cleared to get back on the field. A year later, in another tournament, we were playing in the semifinal game when out of nowhere, that knee just gave out. I could walk on it, but it felt loose. I couldn't generate any drive off that leg, and kicking was nothing more than me forcibly swinging the leg forward because the knee joint just didn't want to work. Doctors exams and x-rays showed nothing so everyone thought the worst was over. Oh, how they were all wrong...

I'm tall. I was always tall for my age. I grew a lot between 6th grade and 7th grade, and I had some serious knee pains during that initial growth spurt. If you've never had Osgood-Schlatter disease, let me tell you that it's not a pleasant thing. If you didn't go to the link, Osgood-Schlatter disease is a condition where the growth plates in your knee, for lack of a better term, split. The tendons connecting the kneecaps to the shinbones pull away from the shinbones. If you think that sounds painful, I can let you know that, yes, it is very painful.

I was a very active child, much much more active than my mostly sedentary lifestyle. That's part of what caused the issue. Years and years of basketball, soccer, and tennis put wear and tear on my young body. In the end, from ages 11-13 or so, I had to ice my knees after each time I ran even a little. Thankfully I finally stopped growing (when I was 18), but the pain abated soon after I turned 13.

Knee troubles didn't take long to come back, though. Freshman year of high school in 1994, during basketball season, I didn't warm up properly and just jumped into a pickup game. First play in, the opposing team grabbed the rebound and hit the outlet that had leaked out for an uncontested layup. My philosophy is to never give up an easy basket so I took off at a dead sprint. I didn't get there in time and oddly decided to try and stop on a dime. I succeeded, sadly, and in the process hyperextended/sprained my knee. That put me out for about a month, but thankfully I did no real structural damage.

Knee issues over? No, but it would be many years before they would resurface. In 2007, after a nasty ankle injury (my ankles are actually worse than my knees, but that's a different post) I returned to basketball which actually caused the ankle injury in the first place, but I digress. I played an entire season with no troubles. Then, randomly, after waking up from a nap, I couldn't straighten or bend my knee any further than what it was stuck at when I woke up. Instead of calling out to M for help or maybe calling an ambulance, I forced my own leg straight to "fix" it. Much crunching and popping later, I realized that it may not have been the best of ideas for me to do so. Throbbing pain followed my stroke of genius, and a visit to an orthopedic surgeon was made.

X-rays and MRIs later, it was found that I had dislocated my kneecap while sleeping. The tendons in my knee had gotten so stretched from my injuries that the kneecap just slid out of place. Forcing the leg straight did pop it back into place, but I had destroyed a fair amount of the cartilage in my left knee. Luckily I managed to avoid any damage to my ligaments and tendons. Rehab for this injury went for about 3-4 months, and I got myself back on the basketball court (no, I never learn). Two or three seasons went by, and I wore a brace the whole time. Much of my mobility came back, but the knee never felt quite right. It was sore on and off regardless of whether I exercised or not, and I had to take pain medication prior to playing basketball to make sure I didn't feel any pain while playing. The drawback of that, however, was that I couldn't tell that I was destroying my knee in the process.

I took a season off to try and see if the rest and basic rehab exercises would relieve the pain. I then continued to take time off as M and I planned our wedding and attended several of our friends' weddings. It was in August of 2009 that I was in Chicago for a friend's wedding when I found that there really was something wrong. Walking through a revolving door to get back to our hotel, my knee seized up in intense pain. I couldn't put any pressure on my leg, and I basically crumpled to the floor in the lobby of the hotel in pain. Sadly, since M and I were getting married soon I didn't have a chance to get myself checked out prior to the wedding.

It took a month or so for M's insurance company to get me added, and even after that, we were busy with the holidays and trying to dig out of the mess of our apartment. Finally in March of 2010 I was able to see an orthopedic surgeon recommended by many of my basketball teammates. More x-rays and MRIs later, they found a tear in my post-medial meniscus. Surgery was scheduled for early April, and it went off without a hitch. It has now been over 6 months since surgery. I've done endless hours of physical therapy and rehab, and I've been safe about the activities I do. I'm not pain-free, but it's manageable, and it will lessen over time if the surgeon is to be believed. Now I'm finally able to get back on the courts and work my way back to actually playing (seriously, I never learn).

M warns me to take it easy, and to be honest, this time I really am. The old me would have jumped right back in without building my strength back up first. I was hoping that my knee problems would be past me, but I know that I have years of arthritis to look forward to as I grow older.

So you may be asking yourself what this post has to do with anything, and in all honesty, I really don't know. I guess I wanted to put down all of my knee injuries.

Look, it's my knee post-surgery!

Milagro en la Mina

One story gripped most of the world today - the miraculous and amazing rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for months. The fact that all of the trapped miners and all of their rescuers made it to the surface in good condition was a miracle. After all of that time, after all of that hardship, after all the things that could have gone wrong - this was truly an amazing human story.

Since last night, I have been transfixed by it, glued to the TV, watching whatever I could. I watched most of the coverage on the Spanish channels, free from most of the useless commentary on the U.S. cable channels (did we really need to know that Mario Sepulveda shares his name with a Los Angeles street?). Of all the channels, I found Telemundo the best because they were the one channel that stuck with the rescue, every minute, every miner, every rescue. Gracias Telemundo.

When I couldn't watch it on TV (i.e., during work), I tried to stream it online but mostly kept up via twitter (I follow a LOT of Spanish news sites) and blogs (I liked Guardian's coverage the best). When history is happening, it's not something to ignore, even when you're at work. Especially something as amazing as this.

I don't know much about mining. But it seems dangerous and treacherous, and it's clear that the conditions miners work in aren't the safest. One thing that was on my mind throughout the entire time they were trapped there, but which I didn't dare voice for fear of jinxing it (not that I think I can jinx the entire operation, but why add a risk?), was earthquakes. With all the earthquakes Chile had in the recent past, what would happen if an earthquake struck near the miners? With everyone working toward the goal of rescue, would they be trapped there if the earth shifted? It's too horrific to think about, and luckily it didn't happen.

There are so many images I won't forget from the rescue. The beat up capsule, every time it rose to the surface, saving another life. The scene inside the mine every time another person was loaded into the capsule, filled with hope. The rescue of the first miner, a milestone step, knowing that someone who had suffered for so long was finally free. The families and their emotional reuniting - you could feel the love, the worry, the relief. It's making me tear up writing about it! Miner #2, Mario Sepulveda, emerging from the capsule cheering and running around, as the paper said, as if he had won the World Cup. His enthusiasm and happiness were infectious and he made me smile through the tears. The miner who proposed to his long time girlfriend from underground and their long hug when they reunited. Trying to figure out whether Yonni Barrios was meeting his wife or his girlfriend when he got out. The last miner, the foreman, and the celebration when all 33 miners were rescued and safe.

So many things could have gone wrong in the rescue. What's most amazing is that, between all the miners and all the rescuers, nothing did. Everyone's fine. Everyone's more than fine -- they're out of the mine, they're with their families, they are back to their lives.

Milagro en la mina, indeed.

Ramble On!

Hello! Welcome to the world of the rambling pandas.

Who are we? M and A. We are best friends who got married exactly one year ago today. We are starting this blog on our first anniversary to start sharing and recording our lives - both everyday adventures and exciting faraway journeys. We love pandas, we love to travel, we love TV, and we love to eat.

This blog will have a lot of random musings as we offer a small glimpse into our lives. We plan to talk about everything and nothing at all. As the name suggests, be prepared for a whole lot of random rambling.

Welcome to our world. Pull up a chair, grab some popcorn, and enjoy our wild, little ride.