Poverexic in NYC

SUMMER INDOOR PICNIC TODAY AT THE OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was extremely excited but was kinda upset they didn’t give us more advance notice.  They literally dropped the flyers off at our desks this morning.  I mean what if I had been sick and had to take a last-minute sick day and didn’t know about this?  Half our team was out today (at our client’s for business), and if I were them I would have been f-ing pissed.  Anyway, it was great for me because it meant that there were like 8 people missing from this indoor picnic, so that’s 8 people’s worth of food that was left for the rest of us.  They had the most incred array of hot appetizers at this picnic — delicious sliders, this jalapeno biscuit and pulled pork thing, delicately fried chicken, crab cakes, hot wings, chips and guac, Corona, Bud Light Lime, etc.

My mid-year review was today, but my managers and I really had to rush it because I had a meeting right before my review and the picnic right after it.  It was literally the quickest review I’d ever had — we zoomed through that shit.  We were 5 minutes late to the picnic (which we were really upset about), but again, luckily there were several people missing from the team today, which meant there were still plenty of sliders and pulled pork and beer left for me when we arrived.  I sat myself happily right in front of the appetizer basket and refused to move for 20 straight minutes, which my team members commented on and then awkwardly began to tell one of our EVPs about the time I didn’t refridgerate S’s leftover beef fried rice and then tried to eat the moldy goo the next day for lunch.  While awkward, perhaps that story will induce pity in my EVP and encourage him to give me a raise.  Fingers crossed.  HAPPY SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was pretty good I must say.  Around lunchtime today, I was talking with boss E, except I wasn’t paying much attention because I kept getting distracted by the incredibly delicious looking soup and salad she was eating while counseling me.  Except while staring, I couldn’t help but notice that boss E was just eating the liquid soup and leaving all the chicken behind.  I refrained from saying anything because I wasn’t sure if she was leaving the chicken for last, which is what I do when I eat anything (leave the best for last) — which can be quite deceiving because it’s really dependent on the person.  Some people eat around what they don’t like, and thus leave what they don’t like behind.  However, other people like myself leave the best for last, so when these personalities clash it can really lead to disaster.  My dad is a “leave dislikes behind” kind of guy, so he naturally thinks that when I leave stuff behind, it’s because I don’t like it — WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! UGGGGHHHHHH STOP TAKING MY “SAVING THE BEST FOR LASTS”!!!!!!!!!!  Seriously, I mean I will leave the rarest part of a steak for last and he will just swoop in and eat it, and then I cry, and then he’s like “what, I thought you didn’t want it,” and I am just like UGGGHHHHH NOOOOOOO I WAS LEAVING THE BEST FOR LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I digress.  So I waited until boss E literally goes “ugh, I don’t want the rest of this,” and starts reaching for the trashcan — E, ARE YOU REALLY THROWING THAT OUT I’LL TAKE IT.  “Oh, sure — here, have it, have it!”  HOORAY.

Then, I got to expense my dinner today for working uber late, so I ordered my usual Mooncake’s steak and pepper sandwich.  PEPPER AND STEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX8nswnUKU

A few days ago roommate L and I were watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network and saw the most incred throwdown of fish tacos and PUFFY TACOS which they have in San Antonio and the tacos are deep fried till they puff up (hence, puffy tacos).  It looked so incredibly dericious.  So roommate L, who is quite the chef, got inspired to make tacos for us last night which consisted of deep frying the tortilla shell and deep frying beer battered steak.  IT WAS SO INCRED.  It was out of control.  It was the most delish beer battered fried steak with homemade guac with homemade salsa with big prump slices of mini tomatoes and homemade spicy salsa in a deep fried corn tortilla with homemade bloody marys with tequila (which were surprisingly delicious).  He cooked it all.  I just ate and drank.

PUFFY TACOS

Steak and Beer Batter

Tequila Bloody Mary

DERICIOUS HOMEMADE TACO

VIVA EL PUFFY TACO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was team lunch with boss S who is on maternity leave because she recently became with child.  We went to Dean’s, just a hop, skip and a jump away from the office, a faux Patsy’s with delish pizza and salad.  Boss S brought little R who is just a little peanut (did someone say peanuts?!?!), and there were a few awk moments throughout the lunch where it became awkwardly apparent just how inexperienced I was with babies, such as when I asked if little R wanted a bite of my pizza (apparently 2-month-olds don’t eat real food, although I am pretty sure I was eating rice and fish by 3 months).  I alleviated the awkwardness by eating the rest of the table’s bowl of salad with huge chunks of tomato and artichoke, and then eating one slice of margarita pizza, one slice of veggie pizza, one half slice of veggie pizza that I split with J, then one half slice of veggie pizza that I split with M, and then the last slice of veggie pizza that was left on the table.  I watched nervously and hunched over my plate as the waitress came by and took away S’s plate, then J’s plate, D’s plate, M’s plate, K’s, A’s, L’s, mine-OH NO YOU DON’T YOU BITCH.  I’M STILL FINISHING MY PIZZA AND SALAD.

That became another awk moment.

And then boss S picked up the entire tab!!!!!!!!!  Awk moment alleviated once more.  She is like the Jewish mother I never had, she feeds me and keeps me healthy and alive.  ARIIIVVVVEEEEEEEE!!!

Today, I had salsa for dinner.  That’s correct.  Salsa for dinner.  There was some homemade salsa in the office kitchen today, leftover from some chips and salsa thing, and it was the most delicious salsa ever, with whole ripe tomatoes and perfect seasoning.  So I took 2 cupfuls of salsa, and that is what I had for dinner.  Then, I questioned my lifestyle.

Never mind.  I lied.  For dinner I also had a Newcastle and 2 glasses of Little Penguin at home while watching Top Chef Masters and thinking about prawns.  Now I’m WASTED!!!  Lightweight (not really).

OMGOMOGMOMGOMGOMGOMOGMOMGOMOGMOGMOMG
http://nymag.com/restaurants/cheapeats/2009/57880/

Had a free bagel for lunch today and the leftover plate of sandwich/salad/pasta for a 4pm dinner. And then coworker A gifted me an entire ziploc bag of

Reese's Dark

Reese's Whipps

Reese's Fast Break

that her bf’s mother had forced on her to get some meat on her bones.  Luckily I’m the only one around here who actively wants more meat on my bones.

Today was so frustrating.  Yesterday I went grocery shopping for the first time in 3 months and bought 10 canned soups, which should last me about 3 more months.  I brought the soups to work (I use my cubicle shelves as my pantry) and really didn’t want to already eat one today, but by 11:45am I was so starving that I just had to eat my chicken creamed corn soup.

Literally 3 minutes after I finished my tupperware-heated chicken creamed corn soup, I get an IM from coworker A: “FOOD IN MEETING ROOM 4.”

GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!  I immediately ran over to meeting room 4 while hitting myself in the head going WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY and angrily shoved two sandwiches, pasta, caesar salad, and dessert onto my plate while I was still kicking myself over the fact that had I been patient for just a few more minutes, I would have not had to go into my own private stash of food for lunch.

THEN!!!!!!!!  It got worse!!!  And by worse I mean better.  At a presentation just a few minutes after that, there were boxes and boxes of pizza!!!!!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!??!?!??! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY and I again angrily took three slices of pizza still furiously annoyed at myself for having been impatient and gone into my own food stash when there was an abundance of free food at the office today.

Ultimately, I ate the pizza for today’s lunch and dinner, and saved the plate of sandwiches, pasta, caesar salad, and dessert for tomorrow.  I will not make the same mistake again tomorrow.

Ugh I was doing so well this weekend until today.  Yesterday I woke up at 1pm and thought I was starving so ordered my usual Tasty King lunch special beef and broccoli with pork fried rice and wonton soup for $5.50 — I usually eat it all in one sitting but yesterday for some reason I suddenly got really full after the wonton soup and just a couple bites of the beef and broccoli with pork fried rice.  And since I usually eat my lunch over 2 hours, it meant I finished my lunch circa 3pm, which means that I wasn’t hungry for the rest of the day (since I usually don’t eat post-5pm, especially on weekends in an effort to facilitate my inebriation process on as few beers as possible to lower weekend costs).

That means that today I had nearly an entire thing of Tasty King lunch special beef and broccoli with pork fried rice leftover, which I ate again as soon as I woke up at 1pm.  Today, however, by 6pm I was starving for some reason and had to make myself an entire plate of pasta, which I was really annoyed about because I was going on a really impressive streak of not cooking or making anything in our kitchen for 7 months straight since I went home for the holidays.  (Now that I think about it, I guess that means the pasta was 7 months old but I don’t think boxed pasta goes bad.)

I thought I was having such a low-cost weekend when circa 9pm as roommate L and I are watching “Music & Lyrics,” he suggests ordering prump dumpring.  Ugh I just couldn’t resist.  And I was still starving for some reason so of course I caved into the suggestion of ordering prump dumpring (I mean who could resist this prumpness):

Prump Dumpring

So I ordered my usual meat dumpring soup for $4, and I was kicking myself for it because it meant that I could have potentially only spent $5.50 on food for the entire weekend but instead I ended up spending $9.50.

TODAY THERE WERE PRUMS IN THE OFFICEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!  I took four.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

THEN THERE WERE SANDWICHES AND PASTA AND SALAD IN THE KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!!  I really had to act quick.  There was only one sandwich out and one wrap, so I swiftly grabbed the sandwich, a plate full of pasta, topped it off with some salad, and then immediately sneakily whisper-called each of my team members from the kitchen phone to get them over as quickly as possible.

They were too late… by the time they got there three minutes later, someone else had already swooped in two minutes later and grabbed the last wrap and the rest of the pasta.  Tsk tsk tsk how many times do I have to emphasize that you have to act at LIGHTENING SPEED around here, we work in PR, very fast-paced environment!!!!!!!!!

THEN!!!!!!  An hour later coworker A brought over a plate full of cupcakes from J’s office wedding shower and it was one of the best cupcakes I’d ever had in my entire life, I think it beat Crumbs Boston Creme cupcake!!!!!!!!!!!

Great office Thursday.

Yesterday was full of free food, bbq’s and patriotism, especially because I was hanging out with a bunch of Texans.  SS and I started out the afternoon at T’s bbq which had maybe the most impressive array of food I’ve ever seen in my life — there were burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, pineapples, watermelon, fresh fruit and veggies, really good pickles, red velvet cupcakes and strawberry rhubarb cobbler.  It was incred.

The most entertaining part of the first bbq was, though, watching N eat his first hot dog ever in his life.  I know — so strange.  Apparently N had never eaten a hot dog in his life before because he’s had a hot dog aversion since he was a little kid that he claims is not penis related since he does like pickles — this is unlike my friend J who has a serious fear of hot dogs because they remind her of penises.  Like if you stick a hot dog in her face she will shriek “Eek! A penis!”  Not sure if her boyfriend A knows about this odd fear of hers.  Anyway, I usually don’t like to force feed people since I feel really strongly that people should never eat something if they don’t want to eat it because there will always be plenty of people around who do want to eat it and they should be the ones who get to eat it.  This is similar to how I absolutely cannot stand it when my mom tries to get my sister to eat delicious things like mussels and escargot that my sister does not eat and I am just like STOP IT MOTHER SHE DOES NOT WANT TO EAT IT, I WILL EAT IT GODDAMMIT LEAVE HER ALONE!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway I digress.  The point is I forced N to eat the hot dog despite my usual principles.  Apparently R who was also at the bbq had never had red velvet cake before, so I also forced her to eat a red velvet cupcake.  This bbq was full of firsts.

After that spectacle, SS and I moved on to bbq #2 to meet up with S and his Texan friends where of course there was plenty of seven layer dip, queso and beer.  There were also plenty of red and blue jello shots of which SS and I each had about 11.  I love jello shots and I experienced flash backs to freshman year when one of my roommates and I would make jello shots in our mini fridge every weekend and our other roommate M absolutely hated us for it because they left our fridge colorful and disgusting.  The rest of the evening consisted of playing about 6 rounds of flip cup, attempting to play beirut without a ping pong ball, and sitting around and eating vodka soaked watermelon.  We also drank delicious pink lemonade gin something out of turkey basters out of a huge cooler for most of the night and ran around spraying each other with 80 hour energy spray, which means that yes, I will be bouncing around like a ball of energy through Tuesday.  Good times.

Needless to say, this was a successful weekend full of free food and booze, and I guess there were some fireworks too.