First, no, second, no, THIRD weekend as Brooklynites....

Keep in mind that the below post you are about to read is the mash-up of postings composed during a two week period of writer's block.  I attribute the writer's block to......so much change.  I attribute it to....the need to take everything in before sharing about it.  So read below with an open mind (as if those who follow us do not already have an open mind.....), take everything with a grain of salt, and please note that the below marriage of posts started during the first days of our arrival and were written at home, on my phone, on the subway, at work, just before bed, while watching a movie, while eating, while listening to a concert in the park, just after running in the park, yada yada yada. Enjoy the next 5 minutes of reading pleasure. Happy Sunday, folks!

We arrived and are about 95% settled in! Mission accomplished! With much focus and determination we committed our first weekend at our new home to moving in and getting settled. "How'd you get your drapes hung already?" asked our puppy brother. Wait......who's and what's our puppy brother you ask? Matt, our third roomie is who and GTS for what it is. =)
"With gumption & skills, that's how!" - said neither of us ever.
Being new to NYC, it was challenging not to go out and explore the city. But being disorganized and walking/dodging a labyrinth of boxes is frustrating and the sooner we got the move-in done, the sooner we could play!  We got in Thursday, 4th of July. How poetically patriotic. 8) What a thrill that was. I keep saying this and it is true: it is almost something like out of a movie, no joke! How everything has just been so amazingly awesome and with few hiccups. As in, only a few and already forgotten about. 
Friday night we.......<-- so THAT thought obviously never got finished.....

Its easy to write on the road when there are miles and miles of empty road between one destination and the next. but after getting back to the real world, having to work and being gone 'in the city' during weedays for what seems like 12 hours of the day, time is harder to come by. The road-trip was an amazing precursor to the next adventure of NYC. I would do it again in a heartbeat; I just wished we had more time to dedicate to the true exploration of each state and the sub-cultures that reside therein. But everything is as it is meant to be. 

Now as a resident of NYC, I am like that of an easily distracted child, my attention pulled away for a bicyclist pacing the subway this a.m. en route to work. Hey now, bicycling, thats not a bad idea........think I will hang tight until the weather cools down some. But in reality, I only live <5 miles from work.I always said that I would live close to work to avoid a commute, because I watched my Dad affected by his commute and on some days be outwardly disgruntled. Who wouldnt be by adding 2 hours to the day's grind? 

How the hell is it Friday already?! I swear it was just Monday......@#$%! A NYC minute is really like a second. Its nuts. Work days pass by much quicker here whereas in CA I remember watching the clock and noticing the time more. I really need to learn to optimize my time management...

Second week in and i really started feeling like a New Yorker......I learned to press my toes into the subway floor to counter enertia during the ride; a fellow young male subway rider and I had a conversation in body language and without speaking a word (a seat opened up during my a.m. commute, we both saw it at the same time, he nodded at it and then at me as if to ask if I wanted to take it to which I politely nodded back, 'No, thank you, you take it, but that was very kind." Its funny how tone, emotion, and gratitude can be expressed without even speaking a word. while music really is the universal language, body language is too to some extent even though there are gestures that obviously mean very contrasting things. I also began to have more confidence, direction, focus, & drive. There really must be something in the water here........or maybe it is osmosis. One thing for sure, I have many less distractions and more time to think outside the box. As in, what can I do to do my job better?  How can I optimize my life, my career, my happiness?  I get up earlier here than I once did.  Well, depends on if  I slept 15 hours the previous night or not I suppose.  I used to think it was the heat that got me up in the a.m. but now I have an a.c. (an a.c. that rattles and drives me a little mad and might be going in the kitchen mind you).  I'm going to start pointing out the things I took for granted in California: central a.c. and dry heat.  We do not realize a luxury they are.  There's no sweating after you take a shower in CA unless you're moving around vigorously.  Before we got room a.c. units in our place?  I would towel dry and walk from the bathroom to my room and would 'work up' a dew.  Then I'd have to stand in front of my room fans just to let the sweat evaporate.  For the first couple of weeks without a room a.c. unit I did not sleep under the sheets, in fact, I sleep on top and without problem.  Usually I need the weight of a sheet or something on me while sleeping.  But it's so damn hot here that my skin couldn't take the additional layer.

Another reason I am becoming a New Yorker/adapting to NYC: I began saying no to going out or to staying out on 'school nights' because I just couldnt do it. It is my theory that part of the reason for the focus and drive that my fellow New Yorkers possess is b/c it takes so much damn longer and harder to DO things here. You want to go to Target? You have to bring a granny cart and lug all the shit you bought back via Subway or walk. Same thing for grocery shopping. And for me, lover  of baking and company culture, this presents a new challenge and that much more of an adventure to trek my cakes and all my fun work stuff on the subway.  

This past Thursday was my first time lugging a three-tiered cake from BK to MN on the subway.  It's only a 30 minute ride door to door so it's fine; besides, I consider it a bit of an upper arm workout.  Well the first train that arrived at the station for which I could have taken into the city was JAM PACKED.  I chose not to risk that ride because it did not look to bode well for my cake.  So I waited another 5 or so minute for the next appropriate train and found myself one that had enough room to set down the monstrous cylindrical cake carrier.  Experience has taught me to watch the cake as it can slip and slide and adhere itself to one side of the carrier, smushed by enertia.  So I babysat the damn cake for the entire ride like a helicopter-Mom hovering over her infant.  It made it safe and sound with me to the office all the way up to the 8th floor and hidden precariously in the one and only fridge (at Pasadena HQ we have 4, which made it easier to hide cakes all day from hungry recipients).  Having just the one fridge at the NYC office presents another small challenge: keeping them hidden.  Fortunate for me this birthday lady doesn't get up and in the fridge that often.  But my gosh was the cake worth the effort to bake it and get it there.  It was a colorful beauty and quite the perfect debut of my baked goods for my new NYC home-office.  "Keep the baked goodies comin'!"  I told myself.  For if there's one thing I know how to do, is to be a mad baking-scientist in the kitchen.  Bon appetit!  Here's the link to pics and recipe of my cake.  Pics are somewhere still being sent through the interwebs from my phone to my personal email.  They'll come later. 

And I leave you with this:

"It's never too late to become the person you always wanted to be." -George Eliot