Women be Shoppin’ : Century 21

One of my favorite things in NYC is a department store called Century 21. You all know I love to shop at Last Chance here in town. Century 21 is like Last Chance on steroids. It’s a discount department store that carries all kinds of cool designers. I wish I had all day to spend in the store, but alas, I had a hungry husband waiting for me outside. I bought a few Michael Kors tops and even scored some So Low yoga pants for only twenty something bucks! (note: you can imagine my giddiness when I came across an old blog where Mindy Kaling was gushing over these pants. I love her, so it would make sense we would love the same pants. Yet another reason why we should be BFFs. Also, she luurves not paying full price for stuff and all I have to say is ‘haha, I got them for only 20 bucks. Suck it.’ But she would laugh, wouldn’t take it personally and give me a high five for my find…because that’s how I roll).

I think my major finds were in the shoe department. I bought these super-adorable Stuart Weitzman flats. I’m not one to be all Zsa-Zsa Gabor and wear leopard print dresses or anything but these shoes were too adorable to pass up. I think when paired with a solid colored dress or top with some skinny jeans, you can’t go wrong. I saw these shoes at the Saks Off Fifth Avenue at the Cabazon Outlets in Palm Springs and they had the retail price listed as $250 and the outlet price at $150. Guess what I paid for these? Go ahead, guess….$50! Great deal, if I do say so myself.

Stuart Weitzman ChitChat flats in snake. Mine are in leopard.

I also got these adorable black BCBG Max Azria flats. I know they’re similar to my black Michael Kors flats with the silver buckle but these have a gold buckle, y’all…totally different. I also saw these at the outlets priced the same as the Weitzman shoes, and again I scored these for $50. Suh-weet!

BCBG Max Azria flats

The last pair of shoes I bought were these sandals by Naughty Monkey. I love them because they are different and quirky and multicolored, so I can wear them with practically anything.

Naughty Monkey flats. I love the name.

If you guys go to NYC, don’t forget to stop by this store. It’s located in lower Manhattan right next to the WTC.

Iiii don’t wanna work, I just want to bang on this mug all day…

No real rhyme or reason to this post. I just don’t want to work. Here goes a picture of my Dwight bobbleheads watching me do nothing. Aren’t they cute? Just sitting on their biscuit, never having to risk it.

I now have the strength of a grown Dwight bobblehead and a little baby bobblehead.

Ricky Gervais: Not in the hair…e.g. a watermelon

We went to LA this past weekend to see Ricky Gervais’ stand-up show at the Kodak Theatre. Let me start up by saying that I kind of hero worship this guy. He is incredibly talented and one funny mo-fo. His routine had me laughing from beginning to end. My abs had one hell of a workout. So, not only do you laugh while at his show, you also get to workout your core without trying. Sounds like a win-win to me! They are recording the Madison Square Garden show so they can air it as an HBO special. Keep an eye out for that.

Note: Ricky Gervais, if for whatever reason you happen to read this, can you please email me the AIDS pamphlet? Please? Maybe you can post it on your blog after the tour. I would be indebted to you for-e-ver!

On a side note: I kind of feel like NYC Ryan by saying this but who cares. We had quite a few celebrity encounters while at the show. Vince Vaughn was sitting a few rows in front of us. He was wearing the same flannel shirt you see him wearing whenever the paparazzi take pictures of him. After the show, Dave and Andrea had to go to the coat check to get their camera (they didn’t let us take cameras into the Kodak). While they waited in the long line, Matt and I hung around the lobby and guess who we see again? Vince Vaughn. A few minutes later, we see Ben Affleck (! He is really nice to look at.) and Jennifer Garner. Then, we see Jamie Lee Curtis walk by. Then we look at the bar line and see Jonah Hill and his buddies. I was hoping Andrea and Dave would hurry up, so they wouldn’t miss this. When they met up with us, Jamie Lee Curtis walked by again. Then Ryan Gosling walked by and looked up at us. The last person we saw before we left was Craig Robinson. We followed this up with dinner and drinks at the Hungry Cat. Not a bad day if I do say so myself.

I heart NY!: DAY FOUR

We decided that our last day in NY would be a lazy day. We just wanted to enjoy being in the NYC. I had a tummy ache in the morning (probably because of that ginormous sour apple drink from the night before. I mean did you see the size of that thing?), so when Dave and Andrea headed off to visit the Statue of Liberty, Matt and I stayed in and slept a little. I felt better at around 10am-ish and we got ready to go out and do some shopping. We grabbed a quick snack and spent the morning walking around Fifth Avenue. I bought a couple of things and of course Matt had to get some stuff from Nike-Town, but mostly we just enjoyed walking around and doing some people watching (does that make me sound like a skeevy little perv?).

We then walked to Central Park and met up with Dave and Andrea. We had lunch there and then just explored the park. It was so beautiful. It made me wish we would have brought the dogs along. There were cute puppies everywhere! There were trees everywhere, too, which was great because I love shade. I don’t know that Andrea loved walking under the trees since a bird pooped on her arm. I guess this gave her a real reason to give her best Angela Martin impersonation. Poop!

I wonder what he's thinking about...

I don't think there's that many trees in all of Phoenix.

Poop is falling from the ceiling...Poop!

A Bride and Groom were taking pics in front of this fountain.

John Lennon Memorial paid for by Yoko's donation. (Did you say Yoko? Ono..Ono I didn't)

After the fountain, we split up for the day. Matt and I went and took one of the bike/carriage rides around the park. We considered taking the horse carriage rides but I couldn’t stand the stank when I walked next to them, so I don’t think I would have lasted a whole park ride full of stank. My nose thanked me. It was a nice ride and the guide was telling us about everything we were seeing. Next time, I think I want to rent bikes and just ride around the park. Our afternoon flew by fast so we headed back to the hotel to drop off our shopping bags so we could head out to dinner.

Our bike/carriage ride

We decided to go back to Greenwich Village to find the famed Magnolia Bakery. I am so glad we went back to this area of Greenwich Village, as this was my favorite spot in NYC. I absolutely fell in love with this area. While walking around, we just noticed that everyone here was so laid back and everyone was walking their dogs. It was just really refreshing.

(Ooh, cool story. When we were walking over to Bleeker Street, we walked by this tall man and he looked familiar. He walked passed us and I turned around to get a better look at him. As I turned around, so did he and we made eye contact. That’s when it hit me that it was Tim Robbins! He must have seen the realization come across my face because he smiled at me and nodded. I turned to Matt and said, “I think that’s Tim Robbins! Look”. By the time Matt turned around, Tim was further away and Matt only saw his back side. The guy was wearing a backpack and some hockey sticks across his back so Matt said, “That’s probably not him. Why would Tim Robbins have hockey sticks?”. When we came back home, Matt IMDB-ed him and it turns out that Tim Robbins lives in Greenwich Village and plays hockey. I KNEW it was him!)

When we arrived at Magnolia Bakery, there was a long line wrapped around the building of people wanting to get in so we decided to go eat dinner first. We stayed close and walked around Bleeker Street and found this nice little Italian place. The restaurant was so quaint and adorable and the food was deelish! Mmm, I’m getting hunger pains just thinking about it.

Nice little Italian place we ate at in Greenwich Village

After dinner, we walked around the neighborhood and I took pictures of some of the brownstones. When I get the big bucks, buying one of these brownstones is one of the first things I’m going to do. Doesn’t that just look yummy? I mean, I can you envision anything better than a lazy Sunday, sitting on the stoop reading and eating a Magnolia cupcake? (Yes, I’m referencing SNL’s Lazy Sunday. So, what)

My future brownstone

When we went back to Magnolia bakery, the line had gotten a lot shorter and we only had to wait something like five minutes before it was our turn to go into the store. I was in heaven. You all know my love for cupcakes is almost as big as my love for the Kras, so yeah, pretty excited. They were everything I had imagined them to be. We bought eight cupcakes so we could take some to Dave and Andrea and some to bring back home.

Magnolia Bakery

We walked a little more and got more froyo at this Pinkberry like place. (You guys must think that all we did was eat. You know what? You’re right. Don’t hate!) We took the train back to our hotel. Matt became a pro at the whole subway thing. We never got lost once. I’m so proud. Baby boy has grown up!

We still hadn’t gone to the top of the Empire State Building so we made a late night trip out there and went to the top. The view was great and I’m glad we went at night so we could see all of the lights. It got really windy when we were up there but it wasn’t scary at all. I wonder why I got so scared on the bridge and not at all here where it’s like a trabillion times taller. Thems be the mysteries of life.

Matt at the top of the Empire State building.

Andrea and Me at the top of the Empire State Building. No duo shot of the guys. I think they avoided joint pictures after the Puerto Vallarta dolphin picture debacle from two years ago.

Matt and I headed back to Times Square at around midnight to get some last minute souvenirs for my nieces and nephews. This city really never sleeps. Matt wanted to get some White Castle (again with the eating) but we didn’t see one. Ah well, he’ll have to wait for the next trip. After that, we called it a night because we had to wake up early the next morning to catch our flight back home.

Saw this poster of BJ outside of Caroline's in Times Square. What? You know I would take a picture of it.

Yummy Magnolia cupcakes

Me stuffing my face before I go to bed.

Thanks for treating me well, NYC. You and I, we had a good thing going on but it was time for me to come home. I'll miss you dearly. Don't be sad. I'll be back to visit. I promise. But for now, keep close the memories we shared. Fly away sweet little bird. Fly away and be free.

New York is like Phoenix on acid...no, on speed...no, on steriods! : DAY THREE

We did a better job of waking up early on day three. It still wasn’t that early but earlier than any of the other days. We wanted to do the Downtown tour on this day and make a stop at Ground Zero.

Ground Zero is just a big construction site right now. We didn’t do the tour there but we walked around it ourselves. It’s hard to think about all of the horrible things that happened there but they are working diligently to get the new buildings up.

After that, we went to a department store called Century 21. This was a store that was recommended to me and I am SO glad we went. It is this three story discount store that had everything you could dream of at reasonable prices. Everywhere I looked, I saw Michael Kors, Manolo Blahniks, BCBG, Dolce and Gabanna, Sevens, Theory, Juicy, and many many more designers. This place was like Last Chance on steroids! Andrea and I were in heaven. I was able to score three pairs of shoes, a few Kors tops and some other stuff. We didn’t even get to go through the whole store because Matt was complaining about being hungry. I’m going to write a blog just about the store later, so keep an eye out for that.

Our next mission was to go to Chinatown in order to find somewhere to eat pho. I can’t say I liked Chinatown very much. It was packed! The streets were crowded with people trying to get a sweet deal on a fake Coach bag. I felt like I was in Vegas where those people sit on the street passing out nudie bar flyers except these people were trying to convince you to *buy* said fake bags. I should have worn a sign that said, “NO. I do not want a knockoff, douchebag” After walking around and trying to get around the crowd, we finally…finally found a pho place. It was ok. Nothing special.

Tired After a Day of Shopping

We went and tried to catch the tour bus after lunch. The bus took us around to Greenwich Village, Times Square, Empire State Building, SoHo, Little Italy, East Village, Rockefeller Center and more. It was nice to sit while we got to see all of these sights.

At night we ended up going to the Upright Citizen’s Brigade (UCB) Theatre. It is this really famous improv theatre. They have one in LA, as well. That’s where we saw Ed Helms a couple of months ago. Amy Poehler is one of the main players in the NY UCB Theatre. The line for the show was long and we waited FOREVER to get in but once in, we had good seats. It was a pretty funny and raunchy show. I just want to say that they made my day for mentioning Gymkata in one of their sketches. Seriously, I make fun of Matt for watching that movie so having them make fun of it, made my day, kind of like if they were in on our inside joke.

Getting ready to laugh our asses off

After the show, we were starving and were excited to see that Dallas BBQ was open. I had heard good things about this place from a couple of people. I ordered this sour apple drink and it was ginormous. I got a little buzzed off of one drink. Yup. It was pretty funny. The BBQ was pretty good. I ordered the BBQ ribs and I’m pretty sure they served me something straight out of The Flinstones. I looked like I didn’t even touch my food. After a dinner and drinks like that, there’s nothing you can do but hit the sack.

Gotta Get Me a New York Slice! DAY TWO

We tried to waking up early in the second day but that didn’t work out really well. We were still really tired from the red-eye we had taken the night before. I think we still got up at a reasonable time. On this day, we did the Uptown Tour. So many places to see, so little time. We bought the 48 Hour Red Bus Tour ticket which was a great idea. We got to ride on the top of a double-decker bus and we could get off and stay at whatever destination we wanted for how ever long we wanted and we could just catch the next bus. I think the wait time in between buses was something like 15 minutes or so.

Our Tour Bus

We did the tour for awhile and then we decided to get off at the Museum of Natural History. We spent half of the day in there and we didn’t even see everything. It was huge and very interesting. This is another place we have to go back to when we go back. This and The Met.

The Museum of Natural History

Dog dolls found in the Tombs of Colima in Mexico

Dinosaur Food

After spending half the day walking around in the museum, it was nice to get on the top of the bus and finish off the rest of the Uptown tour while we sat. It took us to Harlem, the Met, the Guggenhein, Central Park, Fifth Ave and many other places that I’m sure I’ll remember later.

We also did a night tour on the double-decker that took us to see all of the lights of NY. It picked us up in Times Square, which is named for the good times you have when you're in it. You know I couldn’t pass up a chance to quote Michael Scott. Speaking of Michael Scott, there’s no way I could pass up this photo op in Times Square. He'd be proud of us.

Gotta Get Me A New York Slice!

This part of the tour freaked my freak. Let me preface this by saying that I have never really been afraid of heights. I mean, I’ve done worse things like been on the top of the Stratosphere ride in Las Vegas. We went over the top of the Manhattan Bridge, though, and I got the strangest freight of heights. I was paralyzed. We were on the top of the bridge on the top of the double-decker and when you looked off the side, you couldn’t see any of the railings or anything. It just freaked me the hell out. I couldn’t look over. I don’t know what happened. I got over it when we got off the bridge. The one thing that sucked about this part of the tour is that our camera battery died and we forgot the backup battery in our hotel room, so we didn’t get any pictures of the rest of the night.

For dinner that night, we took the subway out to SoHo and ate at this little organic restaurant. The food was good but I liked the Italian place better. The saving grace on this meal was that this restaurant was a few blocks away from a Pinkberry. Have I raved to you guys about Pinkberry before? It’s this deelish yogurt place that they have in LA and Lee took us there once when we were visiting in January. We had been craving Pinkberry for the last couple of months. I think Matt was more giddy than I was when we saw that they were in NY, as well. After Pinkberry, we called it a night and headed home.

New York, New York: The city so nice, they named it twice! DAY ONE.

In case you all haven’t heard, Dave, Andrea, Matt and I took a little trip up to NYC. It was a mini birthday vacation. We had so much fun and want to go back already. I’m going to jot down some of my favorite things about each of the days there so you guys can feel like you were there with us. Instead of posting a super long NY blog, I’m going to split it up into days. So, stand back because here goes the first installment.

Day One:
So, day one is really like day one plus a night. We ended up taking the red eye out on Thursday night. We figured we could sleep on the plane and then have all day Friday to scour the city and that way we would save on hotel costs for Thursday night. Bad idea…bad idea jeans. I think I slept two hours on the flight up. It was a good flight though, if you don’t consider the biatch that was sitting behind me. I’m trying to keep this blog PG so I won’t talk about her or else it’ll get all stupid up in here. We flew Jet Blue for the first time and I gotta say I loved it. Every seat had it’s own tv with Direct TV and XM radio, free of charge. Did somebody say free? Me likes free.

We got to NYC at 7am-ish (that would be 4am-ish Phoenix time for those keeping track). We were able to do an early check-in at our hotel, which was right around the corner from the Letterman studio. We did breakfast at this café. Everyone said I should try a bagel in NYC because they are supposed to be the “best bagels”. They tasted the same to me. No problem, since I like bagels anyway… but I’m just saying.

We spent the day walking to Rockefeller Center and going to the NBC Experience store. You know Andrea and I had to pick up some Office merchandise. I got the Fun Run t-shirt and the “Support the Rabid” wristband, which I ended up forgetting in the hotel because it was so small. Idiot. I also bought a Panther Football t-shirt from the NBC store. It’s so soft.

Aww, Steve! You know we had to take a pic of this.

We also went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was so beautiful. I fell in love with it’s architecture and all of the carvings in the walls and the ceilings and just everything. Can you imagine being married there? Next, time we go to NY, I am going to make it a priority to go to mass there.

Another cool thing we got to do that day was attend a taping of The Conan O’Brien show. It was so exciting. The first thing we all said to each other when we went in to sit down was, “Wow, this is so small. It looks so much bigger on tv” (TWSS!) but really, the studio was so tiny. We were so close. It was pretty fun because they had a warm-up guy come out and tell some jokes before the show started. Conan even came out and talked to the audience before the show started. I don’t know if you guys watched the show, but Conan did this bit about Fleet Week and the sailors he was talking to were sitting two people away from us. There are some scenes where you can see Matt, Andrea and I. The tickets were free *and* we got a free Conan tee. Suhweet! (Remember when I said I liked free? I wasn’t kidding.)

This is a screenshot of us on the Conan show!

Later that night we had our first encounter with the subways. We made it to our destination without getting lost, which was an added bonus. (I wish we had a subway system here, but it’s never gonna happen. Who still thinks the light rail is gonna work?) We ended up going to Greenwich Village in the NYU area for dinner. We ate at this lovely little restaurant called Pasta Presto. I had a delicious Tuscan Steak. So good.