Chicago

I'm heading to Chicago on Sunday for my cousin Steve's 21st birthday celebration. I'm excited. It was supposed to be a surprise, but Steve ended up seeing a text message that I sent, so it is no longer a surprise! Still fun though. I'll be back on Wednesday in time for dodgeball, that was a requirement of the booking...

Happy Memorial Day!

Hope everyone has a nice holiday. I don't have dodgeball for 2 weeks, I'm a little bit lost without it. I'm sure I'll find something to occupy my time. :)

Cooking

I'm kind of learning how to cook with all my free time. Yesterday, I made delish tofu stir fry. Today I got a little more complicated, tallapia with white wine mustard sauce and brown rice. It was really good! And not too hard. I'm still not so good on the clean up though. :)
Now, I only need a new job that gives me 4 extra free hours a day that I can use to look things up online, go to the store, practice making them and enjoy eating them!

Yankees Red Sox

I scored a ticket to the game tonight! My first uber-rivalry game. I'm pumped!

Great visit!!!

I just had a wonderful weekend with 3 of my favorite people, Unk Bill, Tia Nancy and Elizabeth! They arrived on Thursday night and we had a great action-packed 2 day visit. We took a tour of Yankee Stadium (we even got to sit in the dugout!), walked around the campus of Columbia University, saw Phantom of the Opera, shopped Soho (Eliz bought the CUTEST Betsey Johnson dress, she's going to be the talk of the wedding she has to attend this summer), went to the Garage jazz club and had varied cuisine ranging from really good chinese (mr. K's), really good italian (morandi) and classic New York (diner and bagels and lox) to street meat (chicken on a stick anyone??) and Gray's Papaya hot dogs. Oh yeah, we also went to the psychic 2 doors down from my apartment, but that's a WHOLE other story!
All 4 of us packed into my apartment very comfortably. I'm so happy they stayed with me, it was a great slumber party!! And I now know that I can fit a minimum of 4 people in my apartment very comfortably. So anyone thinking of visiting, come on out!
So thanks again for visiting me Unk, Tia and Eliz...I'm SO glad you did!

To anyone who thought I was ridiculous....

For not walking on the grates on the sidewalk...

http://cbs5.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_137115609.html

Apple store

Ok, I just had a ridiculous encounter at the apple store. I went in there to have them look at my wireless internet and I had an appointment for 1:40. There was a woman in there named Anna Dilligan who had an appointment at 2:00. She was 2 people behind me on the list. So when they called my name, she scooted right on up there, not able to distinguish between Dilligan and Keegan evidently. So I saw my name disappear off the "next for Mac" list and went up to the guy who was keeping track of the list and said, I think she took my spot, I'm Anne Keegan. he said, what time was your appointment. I said 1:40. He said, well hers was at 2 so you're just going to have to wait for a few more minutes, she's ahead of you. And I said, why would she be ahead of me? And he said, because her appointment was at 2. And I said, yes and mine was at 1:40. And he said again, yes, but her's was at 2, she's first. You have a few more minutes to wait. Not understanding at ALL why she was first I kept saying, I DON'T UNDERSTAND why she is ahead of me? I was ANNE K. on the list she is ANNA D. She is still on the board as waiting in line. She took my spot! And again he said, her appointment is at 2, she is ahead of you. So he went to check in with one of the guys behind the desk and he said, yes I called Anne Keegan. And he asked her what her name was and she said, Anna Dilligan. So then he comes back to me and says, ok, what was your name? I said ANNE KEEGAN. And he said, you had a 2:40 appointment. And I said NO for the MILLIONTH time, i have a ONE FORTY appointment. finally getting it, he said, oh my, I'm so sorry, you should have already been called. I said, I WAS CALLED. She took my spot! I seemed to be the only one who got it. So he put me on a standby list that got me the next available person. So that worked out ok. Then in about 5 minutes, when it was finally HER turn, they called Anna Dilligan. And she replied, Um, you already called me, I've been sitting here for ten minutes. I so wanted to scream, um no, they called ME!! you just scooted up in my place! Crazy woman.

theme night!

So my friend Laura and I decided that in order to mix things up a little bit, we were going to pick a theme and go to bars that fit in that theme either throughout a weekend or night. Theme 1 is illustrated below. I came up with this one, we go to bars that incorporate the names of the intersections where they are located into their names. Convenient for me, there are 3 within about 5 blocks of my apartment which fit this theme. I'll let you know if they're fun once we complete the theme night!

2 by 4 - 2nd Ave and 4th St

2 by 4 - 2nd Ave and 4th St
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

One and One - 1st st and 1st Ave

One and One - 1st st and 1st Ave
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

7A- 7th st and Avenue A

7A- 7th st and Avenue A
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

Hooray for Amazon!

So these days, not having cable is not as big of a bummer as it once was. Particularly after the wonderful invention of tv shows on DVD. I watched the entire first season of 90210 and was working my way through seasons 1-4 of Seinfeld when I got a message from Amazon that the SECOND season of 90210 was now on sale. Of course I immediately ordered (on sale even!) and requested Super Saver Shipping, which is free but usually takes a long time. The expected ship date was somewhere between May 10-17 and arrival wasn't guaranteed until May 23. Imagine my surprise and delight when today I came home from a walk and there was a small DVD-sized box from Amazon. One day before the expected ship date! Bravo Amazon, bravo!

lessons learned

Ok, so I know MANY of you will have comments to this post, so bring em on. HOWEVER, i have to say that I learned 2 very valuable lessons over the last 3 weeks of apartment set up. One I have heard for my entire life (and ignored for most of it) and the other one I just heard but am starting to thoroughly embrace.
1. A place for everything and everything in it's place. Jean Keegan lives by this rule and as she would say "by gory" now I'm going to too.
2. Organization is the key to success in small spaces. These were actually words of my Uncle Steve's (although he used them minus the "in small spaces" clause) passed on to me by the ever-wise MB when she was here helping me get organized.
I hope everyone can come visit and see these two lessons in action!!

did I mention...

Judge Hatchett??

My dodgeball team!!

My bed!

My bed!
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

The final piece of my apartment is finally here! I'm so happy! Thanks again a MILLION to my mama and aunt MB who really helped me transform this place into a great little space!

Forgot one..

I forgot about divorce court. That's on at 10:30 as well.

New Rug

New Rug
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

This is my new rug. The crap on either side of it is all going to go in the drawers in the bed which arrives tomorrow. The apt is really coming together.

MEAN JEAN!!

MyPicture
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

Sorry, I know Lewdogg requested to see a closeup of the t-shirt and I totally forgot to take one. Well, here it is. The back says "MS Walk 2007" TEAM MEAN JEAN, New York, LA, Minneapolis. Great t-shirt Kate!

DODGEBALL!!

last night I had my first dodgeball game and it was AWESOME!! I joined "party dodgeball NYC," a group that meets once a week and plays dodgeball in the gym of PS 116. My team is my friends Krista (she's our captain), Laura and Drew and a couple other random coworkers and friends of Krista's. We lost both of our games last night but it was REALLY, REALLY fun. It felt like we were back in 3rd grade, everything just felt a little bit smaller! After the games we went to a bar around the corner and drank pitchers of beer and played flip cup. The season lasts 6 weeks, not NEARLY long enough! check out www.partydodgeballnyc.com for pics and details.

Court shows

Both a blessing and a curse to being unemployed is that I'm long on time but short on cash. This means that I have all day to watch tv (especially if I'm waiting for the flippin UPS man) but don't want to pay to have cable set up yet. This leaves me with 12 channels and a VAST assortment of court shows to watch. So far I have watched: Cristina's Court, Judge Alex, Judge Maria Lopez, Judge Mathis, Judge Judy and People's Court (not all in one day mind you, I like to switch it up a bit). Today I got lucky, Judge Mathis had a case with a paternity test result revealed, no need to watch Maury now. I'm pathetic. :)

grrrrr UPS

So today is one of the most gorgeous days outside of the year but I can't enjoy it because of UPS. I'm having a rug for my apartment delivered and they tried to deliver it yesterday but I wasn't home. This morning I called them and asked what time they'd be back and they said, "gee we're sorry, we can't guarantee ANY time when we might be there. Oh and if you're not home, we're going to return the item." Great, that means I have to stay home all day because god forbid I miss the delivery again! grrrrr....all I want to be is outsine.

Some apartment pics

I posted a few apartment pics below. The one with the flowers is from the front door looking in, and the other two are from the back of the room looking toward the door. My bed is going to go right below that shelf with the mirror and little silver lamp on it, but it hasn't been delivered yet. I'll post more pics when that arrives as well. Enjoy!!

"Living Room"

"Living Room"
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

Coat rack and shelf

Coat rack and shelf
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.

Front entry

Front entry
Originally uploaded by akeegangu.