Hippn Urbndays

  Christmas this year already seems a bit like a distant memory. I actually only have participated in festivities with my boyfriend’s family so far. My parents were out of town visiting the extended family on the day of and they just got back. My mom was in the hospital for a couple of days with abdominal pains but she’s doing much better and says she’ll be home today. I still have a pile of Christmas presents for my brother and his kids and my mom and dad and will have to do it all over again soon.

  Boyfriend’s family Christmas took place on Christmas eve and we watched babies open presents then stayed up all night “playing” Cranium. I explained the rules the best I could (forgetting a few key elements) and spent most of the time trying to wrangle boyfriend’s very drunk attention to get him to even play. But it was fun, nonetheless. After all that drinking, bf wasn’t feeling so fantastic in the morning so we took Christmas day easy. We stayed in almost the entire day and picked up Chinese food in the afternoon and watched Antiques Roadshow.

Pro Tip: Don’t eat cheap Chinese food on Christmas.

  I don’t know if it was that or the expired rice milk I put in my coffee and pancake batter that morning, but I got violently ill on Christmas night. It felt very much like that time I got food poising from a Mexican place but didn’t last nearly as long. Boyfriend thought I seemed well enough to get brunch with my bff who was in town from Philly for the holidays. We went to our old staple The Rookwood. I was well enough for about ½ a bloody mary which was amazing and I ate almost all of my lemon ricotta pancakes which were proooobably the best pancakes I’ve ever had. Bff brought us some small gifts which included a cigar that we saved for New Year’s Eve. (Thank you, friend!) We weren’t sure what else to do with ourselves that day, but we ended up hitting up a few local staples. First stop was Park + Vine where I picked up a small gift for Mom. We got coffee at Sidewinder (beneath our old apartment) and chatted for a while. After that was a walk across the street to Shake It Records where I got a couple of old Calypso vinyls and boyfriend got an oldish Esquavel cd. This was the point where I decided I really should bring home my nice record player and stop trying to get by with an old novelty Michael Jackson record player. While it looks cool, it sounds pretty terrible.

 I started my new job the next day the way I’ve started every other job.  The first day I wore a cute dress and makeup and the second day was jeans and leftover mascara.  Hey, they had to meet the real me *sometime*. I’m now working as a leasing agent for a property management company. I’m still a little stressed by how little I feel like I know, but it’s really not much different from real estate. Much of it is just setting up appointments and meeting people to show them rental units and I kind of have to get back into the real estate mind set since it’s been years since I did that.

Wednesday night my bff invited us to Northside Tavern where there was live band karaoke. I’d never seen or participated in live band karaoke but bff seemed to have a blast singing.

He was all “Take on me!” and I was all “But you WILL be gone in a day or two :(“.

I’d like to also point out some hilarious graffiti in the girl’s bathroom that always makes me laugh.

Puzzling I found this in the ladies room because everyone knows a true lady never poops. 

  Somehow I closed down the bar that night with boyfriend and bff, even though many sensible friends went home much earlier. I still made it into work the next morning and was even bright-eyed and pleasant for my first showings as a leasing agent. After my first showing I started to get a little stressed out about the second which I had to push back 15 minutes after getting slightly lost for the first one. I was almost out of gas so I stopped off the highway where I saw this little guy by the pump. Perhaps god’s little way of telling me to relax already?

The rest of the week flew by – especially only having a half day on Friday. I spent most of remainder of my free time on Friday trying to hem and alter my dress (poorly but effectively) for NYE. Bf bought a new suit on a whim and we got to our friend’s Mad Men themed party with plenty of time to relax for the countdown.

 I don’t even smoke but I totally smoked about ¾ of an American Spirit because they were sitting here in a cup and they looked like a good time. I discovered neither ¾ of a cigarette nor the additional puffs of a cigar or Swisher Sweet are a good time the next morning.

The kind of party where I could break out the fancy/uncomfortable shoes!

Around 11:30 we headed over to MOTR for the countdown. Almost all of our friends from the party joined us and several other friends were already their including bff.

From MOTR’s Facebook page.

We all watched The Seedy Seeds and toasted and kissed and everyone was smiling. It was really the best ending to any year I can remember. I was with the one I love, I didn’t get embarrassingly drunk, and there was no drama. Though I wish all of my good friends were there in the same place, it was pretty perfect.  I’m excited for the coming year…with an amazing boyfriend, great apartment, new car, and fun new job, I’m not sure what else could go right. Ugh, barf, okay, everyone hate me now.  Happy new year!