I've gone to Cheryl's for brunch, took Taco on his morning walk and gone produce shopping at the farmers market and am sitting on the couch watching Independence Day on ABCFamily while munching on frozen grapes...all before 12 noon.

I have GOT to move into this neighborhood. I was excited to shop the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza today since I could go nuts on shopping without having to worry about hauling all my goods home since Ana's apartment is just a couple blocks away. I scored beefsteak tomatoes, fresh basil, cilantro, fresh picked blueberries and cherries and a loaf of olive ciabatta bread. I've been so into late night homemade salsa lately. They're just so damn good and so much better for you than those canned crap you get at the grocery store. Plus ever since I discovered the fabulousness of frozen grapes, I'm trying to figure out what else I can freeze.

I can already foresee what life would be like if I had my very own place and I was equipped with all the amenities available to me here. I would probably never leave the house. Hahaha! That's why it's so much better to live in a house with other people and not own a TV (we don't have one at the apartment) plus not having an AC in the common areas gives you a reason to get out of the house and do something else aside from sitting on the couch.

My movie's done. Time to flip the channel.

or somewhat close to it anyway.

As I type this, I'm sitting in a couch next to a 42" flat screen watching No Reservations, the AC blowing a cool breeze and an adorable corgi named Taco lying next to me.

For the next two weeks, I'll be housesitting Ana and Poy's house while they fly off and join the rest of my family in Manila. Everybody shall converge in Davao on the 1st of July for my great grandmother's 100th Birthday celebration. Family from all over the world are flying in for the big event. Well, everyone except me anyway.

It's me and this little guy for two weeks baby!

For the next few days I get to pretend I live in a one bedroom apartment in one of Brooklyn's good neighborhoods, in an apartment building equipped with their own laundry room, a doorman and close to all the good restaurants I love going to. Cheryl's Global Soul is just TWO BLOCKS AWAY NOW!

Yesterday was such a HOT, HUMID, and STICKY day in NYC. I walked over here to Ana's early in the morning to take photos of Santi's 3rd month before they flew off to Manila.

When I got home, I took refuge in my room, turned on the AC and refused to get up and out because the heat was just too overwhelming. Eventually, I decided to shower, get dressed and got out of the house. I had no destination in mind but I just wanted to take advantage of the AC in subway cars and wherever I might eventually end up. I ended up in K-Mart in the east village. At 6pm and the sun still blaring, Michael calls me asking if I wanted to head down to Coney Island before the sun went down. It took us an hour to get there but the sun was still up and there was a nice cool breeze blowing on the beach. We laid on the sand and got up only to dig through our bags for snacks and eventually to walk towards the pier to see the sun set.

This was the pier where a dream sequence in Requiem for a dream was shot.

When the sun set and night kicked in, we decided to walk through the carnival and trip out on 25-cent mechanical entertainment.

Michael tried to get me to go with him into this spooky house ride for a full 10 minutes. I repeatedly and firmly refused because I am a GIANT scaredy cat. Places like this seriously FREAK.ME.OUT. The Haunted House in Disneyland totally traumatized me as a child.

We ended up riding disco bump cars instead. We drove in the dark with neon lights overhead and bouncing disco music.

We then visited Ana and Poy again since I needed to send some stuff over to my mom in Manila. Mike got to meet Taco and discovered his pet peeve.

Injured myself first thing on Monday by slicing damn lemons. Seriously. I've never had a mad bleeding incident at work ever and this is the first one I've painted sinks blood red. Two chefs in the kitchen rushed to my side armed with bandages and antibiotic spray as I flushed my found under the tap. It's nothing serious, I believe I might have exaggerated a little with my Facebook status about the incident because I received a flood of messages both in FB and my cell asking how I was doing. Yes I did bleed like a MoFu and the wound was deep enough but not deep enough to kill me so relax ladies and gentlemen. I refuse to let my tombstone read "Here Lies Kari. She died by slicing lemons."

Finger is healing pretty well now. It took two days to clot but I can keep the bandages off now. I think the finger condom I wore to hide the bandaged finger might have freaked out a few dining customers but that's better than letting them see an open flesh wound before a meal.

I missed my pilates class this morning because I failed to wake up on time. How come? Well, I had the smart idea of making a detour to the liquor store around the corner from my apartment and scoring a teensy bottle of Absolut Apeach. I had a sudden pang of nostalgia way back to 2-3 years ago (I forget) when I used to drink copious amounts of said liquor just to put me to sleep. I was supposed to have one cocktail before bed (Absolut Apeach, triple sec and pineapple juice shaken and poured over a tall glass filled with ice= winner beybeh!) but I was joined by Benny and Michael and I had more than the one I had planned. I don't know what time I eventually passed out but that's why I missed my pilates session. Kari = genius.

I ended up sleeping in this afternoon just up until I had to eat (bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel) shower and head out for work at 4pm. It was not a busy night but it seemed like it because everybody decided to dine at the same time so we had one big rush and only two servers to manage an 85 seat resto. I was unable to help Mandy on the floor because I was too preoccupied being a bartender for the 25 pax private party we had at the bar. Yeah, you read that right. I was bartender for the night. They made it easy though and only had wine and beers all night. We closed the restaurant down an hour after closing time with all the cleaning up we had to do and I was exhausted. I failed to take my staff dinner so I finished up at midnight starving and extremely tired. I needed to eat but I also felt like I needed to eat something GOOD. It was midnight in NYC and I just got off a late shift and there was no one to call and ask to come join me. I felt so pathetic that I felt I needed to compensate by treating myself to a really good meal. I walked down to SoHo and finally decided to check out Blue Ribbon Brasserie. I've heard and read about this place many times and I've been meaning to go (some claim they have the best roasted bone marrow in the city) but the prices have always prevented me from going. Tonight, I didn't care. I worked hard today and my party of 25 gave me an extra $50 tip on top of the 20% gratuity I put on their $900 check. So I was feeling a bit lavish and decided to splurge.

So I got there knowing this isn't the kind of place that sells $6-8 lunch specials and cocktails would not be less than $13. I was under dressed and I did wonder if they'd shun me out for walking in there wearing havaianas and patchy jeans. But they were nice and I was seated soon after I checked in. I sat down, ordered a St. Germain and soda and perused the menu. I ordered one of each of the two kind of oysters ($3.50 each) they had on the special followed by grilled skate. The oysters were surprisingly fresh despite this being the city and the ocean is quite a few miles away. So the skate, HOMAYGAHD the SKATE. I've had skate before so I knew what to expect. But this, oh dear, was lightly coated with flour, seasoned and grilled then topped with capers, shrimp, potatoes and bacon. I'm not even talking about the small crispy bacon bits you find in pathetic caesar salads, nor am I talking about the usual fatty greasy crap you see everywhere. I'm talking real thick strips of bacon, bursting with porky goodness. GOODNESS. I wish it weren't so dark in there so I could've taken a photo with my phone. The price tag on the plate of skate? Oh, that will be $28 please. So if you did the math on that meal plus tip. I pretty much gave away the added tip that 25-top gave me at work. I don't care. I don't owe anyone money and I don't borrow moolah from anyone. I manage myself fine and I enjoy real good food because foodgasms make me very happy.

I was so excited about today's beach day with Kelly that I took a long shower last night when I got home from work, shaved my legs, waxed, packed my stuff for the day after and set 3 alarms to wake me up at 8am. My alarms rang but none of them woke me up. Mike walked in my room and woke me up instead.

This is what I call his "Abercrombie white boy heading to the hamptons" look.

But the weather this morning was gray and cloudy and soon it began to rain. So we canceled the beach trip and I was stuck with nothing to do on my day off. Much sooner than expected though, the rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun came out, bearing its scorching rays on us. Kelly had already made other plans at this point so I walked to Cheryl's for brunch. My god I love this place. I've tried several other brunch places in my neighborhood and despite them also serving good food, only in Cheryl's do I walk out fully satisfied. Food here is so good for the soul. It's the kind of food that I will want to make one day, if I ever do decide to open my own joint. I got the strawberry pancakes with Chantilly cream with a "side" of scrambled eggs and a "side" of bacon.

From there I decided to head to PCRichards & Son to see if they have the same price for the brand of air conditioning I planned on getting at K-Mart. But when I got to the subway station, I decided to walk all the way to Atlantic Ave (about 2 miles) under the intense summer heat and humidity instead of seeking refuge in the air conditioned train cars. It was a good decision too since I never would have discovered the street fair that lined the streets of 7 ave in Park Slope. I decided to check it out and I soon regretted ordering my "sides" of eggs and bacon since there were booths stretched out as far down 7 ave as the eye can see and people milling around and the air smelled of grilled bbq, corn on the cob, shawarma, funnel cakes, mexican food, a fresh lemonade stand on every other corner and a host of other things.
Halfway through (or was it?) I doubled back and headed towards Atlantic Ave once again. By this time I had already purchased a bag and two glasses. One of them was this

PCRichards & Son was selling the unit for $25 more than K-Mart's price so I hopped on a train and headed to the east village K-Mart, bought the AC and hopped on a cab back to Brooklyn. I hauled all 42 pounds of that unit up two flights of stairs and spent an hour installing it. My room looks like a tornado hit it but later became soooo grateful that I will no longer suffer in my hotbox.I took a quick nap after, cleaned up then showered. I decided to make a simple pasta pomodoro for dinner so I made a quick trip to the market on the next block then proceeded to cook while watching The Dave Chappelle show.
I was dripping in sweat out there so I was keen on heading back to my room, turning on the ac and enjoy a nice comfortable sleep. Which I shall get started on right now...

I've gotten so "kalat" lately that I've succumbed to actually using the Calendar/Planner application on my iPod touch. I've never been one to really use these things that's why Starbucks planners were always wasted on me. I started taking one-on-one Pilates with Mica's friend Louie. I did one yesterday and now my abs feel so maxxed out that it was hard to get off of bed this morning. The pilates machines looked and felt more like torture devices. I'm having another one next Wednesday so we'll see how that goes.

Also, I seem to be very lucky with celebrity sightings since I saw Ana Ortiz (Hilda from Ugly Betty) taking a dance class at the gym when I was having my pilates session. Mica's a big fan of the show and I wonder if she ever saw her there.

The other night too, when Mike picked me up from work and we were walking to the subway, we saw a huge film crew set up just around the corner from the restaurant. With a bit of snooping, we discovered they were filming the new Kate Hudson movie, Something Borrowed. We decided to walk towards and passed the set (which was not en route to where we were going but what the hell right?). We caught them filming a taxi cab scene and we tried to squeeze passed the small space they allotted for passersby to walk on. I caught a glimpse of Ginnifer Goodwin (which I initially thought was Kate Hudson since we were informed it was a KH flick) and Colin Egglesfield.

I also failed to mentioned the time where I was on my way home from work and I when I got on a practically empty subway car, I looked across me and see Sarah Silverman. I had to turn my iPod on and listen to her talk to make sure it was her. Her voice is unmistakably unique.

Now if only I see Angelina Jolie...

I'm getting inked again! NEXT MONTH! ...or whenever funds will allow me...

So I need opinions as to where I should have it done. I know what I'm going to get. I'm getting this:

Bonus friendly points if you can guess where this is from. :)

Now the question is, where should I get it done? My two options are:

I'm inclined to go with my shoulder but the only thing stopping me is I have another tattoo idea I was planning on putting there. What do you guys think?

If Marla hadn't told me about this, I would have missed it so a big BIG thank you to Marla for giving me the heads up!

I was alone in my fangirlness and hiked all the way up to Columbia University just to catch a glimpse of my literary rockgod. I must have been high this morning because it didn't occur to me to switch my 50mm lens to my 18-200mm for better close up photos nor did it occur to me to bring my own copy of one of his books for him to sign. I was that much of a nervous wreck.

I thought I'd be very late and I wouldn't get a good seat but luckily, I had time to get purchase a pre-signed copy of Stories and manage to find a good center seat, even if it was waaaay at the back of the auditorium. Amanda Palmer walked in with a couple of people and she sneaked in through the back when no one was looking and I just happened to turn my head around just as she walked in. She looks exactly as she does in photos.

When the writers walked in, and NG trailing behind them, I tried hard to contain the squeal that was trying to escape from the back of my throat. I had a hard time wiping the silly grin off my face.

When the event ended, I tried to stall and linger by trying to look for the restrooms. When I couldn't find it, I slipped back into the venue and found Mr.G swarmed with fans trying to get photos or autographs. His publicist (or whoever she was) was trying to extricate Mr.G from the swarm of people. I decided to stand back and not join the crowd and tried to see where the publicist would pass when she escorted him out. I stood by the exit aisle and tried my very best to look like I belonged there and they both exited the auditorium, I swooped in and approached Mr. G and asked if I could get a photo. He quickly responded "Sure, but you'll have to take it as you're walking with me." My hands shaking, and armed with only my camera phone (i didn't have time to fumble with my DSLR which was inconveniently kept in my bag), I leaned in and he put his arms around me and I pressed my face to his head (the man has such soft hair) I took the photo just as a few other people (who noticed my sneaky move) decided to swoop in and walked with us. I walked out and detangled myself from the crowd and stood there staring at the lousy photo I took with my lousy phone cam. I was so happy I wanted to cry. I was shaking walking out to the subway station. Friends who know me KNOW that I have never or will never ever approach famous people and ask for photos. I've always been the type who would stand back and pretend you're not someone famous and keep my cool.

Tonight, I broke my cool and acted like a total geek.

I have no regrets.

Woke up and despite Caitlin being in Albany for the weekend and Mica being in Queens, I still got dressed and walked out to Cheryl's for brunch. I sat at the bar and ordered the buttermilk pancakes with mixed berries and chantilly cream. Good lawd they were awesome!

Midway through my meal, I get a call from Lily saying I can take the day off since we had no reservations and she thinks it won't be busy anyway. I suddenly find myself with another Saturday off and nowhere to go. I contemplate going back to Coney Island for another nap on the sand but I took too much time dilly dallying when I got back to the apartment that I had little time to enjoy the sun after that.

I walked over to the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza to find more fresh produce available now that weather has been better (for growing veggies, NOT for suffering through sweaty nights). It's been so hot now that I'm getting an air conditioner on Monday because I seriously cannot stand the heat anymore. I have TWO fans in my teensy room, one by the window and one by the bed and still I feel like I'm sleeping in a toaster oven. In my 26 years living in tropical, humid Manila, I never had the need to use an AC but I am surrendering to the heat now.

I bought a plant and scored 3 comic books at a stoop sale for $5. I was never into either of the two graphic novels below (Watchmen and Batman) but they were there so I got them.
I ended up visiting Mike at work in Superdry for a bit then spent too much time shopping at the Gap that I missed Benny's show which I originally intended to watch. Instead I bought a skirt and a "boyfriend" shirt at the Gap. I left the teal green floral maxi dress but I fully intend on going back for it as soon as I get paid. Money's a bit tight right now since I just paid bills. With that in mind, I still ended up spending the money I could have shelled out for the dress because I bought this:

David Chang's Momofuku Cookbook

I keep googling the recipes from the restaurant that I figured getting the book is a good investment because I know I will use the book a lot. And to prove just that, as soon as I walked out of Strands Bookstore, I walked straight to Whole Foods and bought shiitake mushrooms so I can make the pickled shiitakes I was going to pair to my usual ginger scallion noodle for dinner.

I also picked up Vegan Butter (huwaaat?!?!) because I was challenged to make my choco peanut butter cookies for Michael. I was curious if they would still taste the same. The real test would be if I fed them to Paul (at the restaurant) and see if he would notice. But actually, Paul would eat anything and everything so I'm not sure if he would be the best judge either.

I'm not sick of it yet. I could it this everyday.
Made fresh lemonade to beat the heat.

Time for bed, I promised Lily I won't be late to work (like I am every Sunday, heehee) so I have to be up early. Will be spending the night at Queens on Monday since Tito Ans and Joe are coming to NYC for a night before flying off to Manila for two months. Did I mention my entire family in NYC (and everyone else in other parts of the world) are flying out to Manila for my great grandmother's 100th birthday in July? It's a massive reunion and I cannot join them. *sob*

Okay, enough banter and bedtime for me.

I did say I was going to post photos of my weekend when I was sober but since I haven't had a signle sober night since we had Camilo and Andreas over, I am only sharing them to you now. Most of you might have already seen the weekend's photos over on facebook so those who haven't I'll post some of them here. I haven't been uploading anything on my multiply mostly because I'm lazy to bother uploading them there so people who don't have access to my FB will have to make do with what I share here for now.

This is Mica reading a book while sprawled on the lawn by Chelsea Piers (up) then eventually napping (below) as a soft breeze blew from the Hudson. You can see the New Jersey skyline in the background and a massive Norwegian Cruise Ship.

This was from Billy's Bakery. I bought five cupcakes and stuffed my face with it. They were just too awesome to have just one.

Sunday afternoon was spent in Coney Island, napping under the hot summer sun. I would have taken a quick dip if I wasn't so worried about leaving my stuff while I was out in the water. The next time, I will need company at the beach.

This was taken the second night we decided to have a rooftop drinking party. From left to right we have Camilo (danish-chilean), Mica, Alexander (russian) and Andreas (danish-english).

This was during tequila night where Andreas, Camilo, Benny and I chugged down four pitchers of frozen margarita while Caitlin finished off her bottles of beer in the fridge.

The danish boys' last night before flying back to Denmark was spent drinking cocktails at Bar Seven Five along Wall Street where Caitlin works. I will have to take the Santiagos here because they have really, really good cocktails. Then we hopped on over to Ulysses for late night dinner before heading home for a couple of light drinks before calling it a night. We have a group photo taken of all of us (Caitlin, Mica, Benny, Michael, Camilo and Andreas) but it was from Andreas' camera so I have to wait until he uploads that so I can share it.

The weekend was loads of fun. We have another new couchsurfer over tonight, a guy named Weston from LA who'll be in NYC for about a week. So far he's been getting along really well with Michael and seems cool. Benny says tomorrow we may have another session up on the roof, but this will depend on how tired I am from working tomorrow.

I guess I could have a drink...or two.