I met him at the grocery store

Yesterday I took my usual Sunday morning trip to the grocery store. When I got off the train this guy approached me in the parking lot. He politely asked me my name and if he could have my number. Now mind you I was in my normal grocery store attire and beauty. Hair in a ponytail, no make up, gym pants and a t-shirt. I though shoot if this guy is interested with me looking like this, then why the hell not. So I gave him my number and told him I would call him a little later.

We met up about 3pm by my house. It was such a beautiful day I decided to just go to the outdoor bar down stairs and have a beer and chit chat. Now this is where the typical Shannon date starts.

So we go to the bar and I order a beer, he orders the same. The bartender tells us our total and this fool doesn't even try to pull out his wallet. I said OK lets see how this goes, so I give the bartender my card to open a tab. I figured I could get a round then he could get a round. So we sit drink our beer and talk. He is a nice guy but is a little immature for me, but I figure I still need to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean I am almost 32 and still single so there must be a reason for that! So he tells me about a new job he just started, blah blah blah and then the fool shows me his pay check stub! Seriously I told him "are you that insecure that you need to carry your pay stub around to show chics you have job." Needless to say that was a little weird. PS I make more money than he does for sure, so he shouldn't be so proud to show that stub off :)!

After the first beer, which I drank in about an hour and he downed in about 10 min, we went to leave. He didn't want another, big surprise. So I go to close out the tab and damn if he didn't go to pull out his wallet again! So being the chic I am I went ahead and paid the tab, but you know I am keeping score and this dude just went to negative points.

Next he needed to get his phone charger from his friends house, so we took a trip to Hoboken where he was the night before and where he grew up. You have to remember that all I know of Hoboken is that it is a nice affluent area where all the yuppies live. Well technically I live with the yuppies too, but you can imagine where I was thinking we were going. So we jumped on the train and headed to Hoboken. How about this fool takes me to the HOOD! Now those of you who know me know I can hang anywhere, but shoot if I new we were going to the hood I would of stayed in my work out pants and t-shirt from earlier. Honestly though it was a nice walk through hood. He introduced me to everyone we stopped to holla at :) and they were all very nice. I got offered a beer from Mike on the stoop, it was natty ice but I didn't want to be rude. And everyone was cooking out. I wish we would of invited our selves to some of those parties. The smell of burgers and ribs were killing me! So after my tour of the hood, one natty ice, and NO FOOD, we headed back to my house. By now it is 6pm, close to my feeding time, so I mentioned that I was hungry. You know this fool didn't even offer to take me to dinner! He keeps loosing more and more points. So I gave him a hug goodbye and he did apologize for not having any money to take me out. Um, then don't ask a girl out until you have a couple of bucks. Or shoot have a game plan and ask a girl to just walk in the park or something. I could of figured out a bunch of free shit we could of done, shoot. So long story short I don't think I'll be seeing grocery boy too much in the future.

Back by Popular demand

Yeah Yeah Yeah I suck, nuff said!


Here are a few things that happened last month.

Vacation!! My mom turned 60 this year so I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday. I was hoping she would say cruise but instead she wanted to rent a beach house out at Folly Beach in Charleston. We use to do this every year when I was young so I thought it was a good idea. First let me say that beach houses ain't as cheap as they use to be! We rented a cute 4 bedroom house. It was older but good enough for us, plus it had charm.

I invited all my besties. The ones who showed up are still my besties! The first few days we had a jam packed house. Erika, Michael, Addison, Morgan, Grandma, Aunt Kim, Mom and me. And no, none of us killed each other. I had fun with the girls and got to show Erika and the fam around my hood :) The highlight has to be sitting at the dinner table Monday night and asking Addison when the last time she went potty was. "I went potty in the pineapple pool." Earlier that day we took the girls to Water Front park and she swam in the Pineapple fountain. Needless to say she did a little more than swim!

The big group all left on Tuesday and Melanie and Malachi came on Thursday. I had seen this hot dog joint on the food network so we had to try it because Malachi loves him some hot dogs. He was impressed with his hot dog with ketchup, but if you ask me, my fancy dog wasn't all that! At least I can say I went.

I got to see a few other friends while I was in town so all in all it was a great vacation!

The weekend I came back from Vacay, my friend of a friend who is now my friend, Jessica was in town for work. We spent the weekend doing the NYC made dash tour and went to see Rock of Ages Sunday night. LOVED IT! I'm sure the bottle of wine at dinner and the fact that you could take your adult beverages to your seat didn't hurt, but we both were singing along the entire show! And yes Constantine was playing the lead.

Our softball team made it to the playoffs, but lost the first game. Oh well, that is how it goes. We will wash away our sorrows at the end of the season party next weekend. If memory serves me correct Rick will be bringing a bottle of Henesey for striking out! Why the only brother on the team got to bring Henesey. Damn stereotypes. Shoot I'll drink to that though :)

Thanks to my new friend Mike at work I've been getting out a little more than usual. The bad thing is I have to work out a little more to cancel out the beer calories. But hey you do what you gotta do right!

I am headed to ATL this weekend for our annual rafting trip, so I will be sure to make that the next post.

Oh yeah and I saw a man pucking between the subway cars today. Thought I'd end on a good note. I heart NY!

Keep Austin Weird

Yes this is what the T-Shirts say and boy did I figure out why.

We were finishing up construction on our 4th CCS store out in Austin, TX and I went to do the punch. (for those of y'all none design folks that is basically when we go and make a list of items the GC or fixture vendors need to fix prior to the store opening) Any hoo, because I work for the best company ever, and the ticket price was the same, they let me fly back on Sunday so I could spend a long weekend in Austin. As usual my timing sucks and my friend Laura had plans for the weekend but we did get together and meet up for Tex Mex and entertainment. More on that a little later.

The only goal I had while in Austin was to fill up on BBQ, Tex Mex, Margarita's and Sweet Tea. Well I soon learned that Austin is more South West and everywhere does not have sweet tea. WTF the word south is still in SW so dang it y'all need a come to Jesus meeting and get some Sweet Tea!

Our construction manager, Bryan, who is based out of Austin, was in charge of showing me around town. Lucky man! He picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the "County Line" for some good ole Texas BBQ! We did family style and even though cole slaw and potato salad were on the table, I filled up on nothing but Sweet Tea, Ribs, Chicken and Brisket. I did have a tiny bit of potato salad, but didn't want to fill up on carbs you know, watching my figure and all! OMG I was in heaven. That was the best BBQ I have had in a long time! I was so full I had to skip on the pecan pie though. But it sure looked good! After dinner I checked into the hotel and got settled in.

I stayed at a hotel right in Downtown Austin. I was told that was the hot spot, and they didn't disappoint. I mean people from all walks of life live in Austin, except black people I don't know where they were. I think I saw like 3 my whole trip and they were all leaving PF Chang's across from the hotel. Yum, expensive chicken wings to go. Ya'll know you ain't paying for parking! Shout out to my sistas :) I can't really blame y'all for being a little dispersed though. I mean Austin has weird people, redneck people and just plain crazy looking people. Plus they have the right to carry a concealed weapon. Shoot, I am even too black for some of the areas I walked through.

Friday was a day full of work and the GC wasn't nearly as finished as he was suppose to be, so I knew I would be working Saturday too. But hey I can't really complain when Foot Locker if footing the bill. So this leads me to meal number 2. A late lunch at the Hula Hut. This spot has been around for ever and is right off the Austin River. I really would of loved to have some Margaritas by the lake, but the GC was taking us out to lunch so I thought I should keep the drinking to off the clock hours. The food was very interesting I must say. I had a pablano, mango taco and your standard Chicken taco. The mango was a little to weird for my tastes but the Chicken was off the hook. Oh and don't even get me started on the chips and salsa. I swear I could eat chips and salsa all day. Just and fyi, this restaurant did not serve Sweet Tea and looked at me crazy when I asked for it. They suggested Snapple. Damn it, am I still in NY, WTF.

View out to lake Austin. I felt like I was on the islands man!

After lunch we did a little more work and then I was meeting Laura that night for dinner and drinks. This brings us to meal number 3 at "Maudies." Laura and her boyfriend live right around the corner, so we just walked from their house.

First I got to tell y'all about the walk. A lot of folks in Austin are, as I call them, "Organic." You say tree hugger, I say organic. Lets be politically correct people. Well along the way to the restaurant we passed a tomato garden in the front yard but not just any tomato garden, one with a big ass golden Jesus head in it. Next past the lesbian's house, was a house with a dog and chickens chillin in the front yard (they are in the background of the picture). Yup farm fresh eggs served in the morning. I'm sure if it was a little brighter outside I would of seen a lot more, but this was just enough to make me smile.

As we come up on the shopping center where Maudies' is I notice this roof drain down the side of the building is crocheted. Yes you heard me. Evidently they commissioned some artist chic to go around town and make these crocheted sleeves to put over things. Laura termed it "Knitfitti" and I think that is all too perfect. This isn't the actual knittfitti I reference, but you can get the gest of it.

We finally reach Maudie's and I am still full from lunch, so I decide to just eat chips and queso and drink my dinner. Hey Margaritas have to have some type of nutritional value. By the way I didn't even ask if they had Sweet Tea, all I wanted was that Rita! After dinner we walked across the street to the air streams. Ok take a step back.

The big thing now in Austin is to get an Air Stream, park it somewhere, and sell food out of it. There was one selling organic salads and shit and then there was one selling hot homemade doughnuts. You can only guess which one we ate at. Hell to the yeah! I had a doughnut with bananas, caramel, pecans and graham crackers. Thank God I didn't eat dinner or I would of missed out on this delectable treat from a home on wheels. There was also a band out in the parking lot. I swear the entire Austin experience in one night, Tex Mex, air stream dining, and live music. As if that wasn't enough we even had our own private dancer. Let's call him Jarome. He had a gold chain, no teeth and kept taking his jacket off to show us his dirty wife beater. Love Austin!

me and Laura and My fabulous doughnut!!!! nuff said

Saturday morning was spent back a the mall. I did have some time to walk around Downtown a little and take in the sights a bit. It was kind of like NY. Cars still try to run you over and I even passed a crack head screaming at himself. Ah it felt like home.

Later that night Byran and I went over to a former Foot Locker employee's, Wes, house for a get together. Now Wes is almost exactly like me so you can only imagine how much fun we had. Those fools had me doing flamin Dr. Pepper shots at the house. Right next to Wes's parents and kids. Now that is and example they should follow.

Needless to say I slept in on Sunday and left for the airport. Back to my bed, so I thought. US Airways over booked the flight so I ended up spending the night in Charlotte and heading back to NYC Monday morning. All in all though it was a great trip to Austin.

oh so busy

I can finally use the excuse that I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to post. Watch out now! Stay tuned for posts about my trip to Austin and FL, but now here is a little ditty about our softball game last night.

Last night we played in central park again. I swear you don't really realize how huge that dang park is until you have to take a train 3 stops to the other side and still walk 15 min to reach your playing field. Needless to day we were about 5 minutes late so we didn't get a good warm up in. Well it was down hill from there.

I played the second half but did get up to bat once this game. Whoo hoo. Shoot I smacked that sucker into mid field and they over threw at 1st. Damn it I'm counting that as a double! Overall we had a lot of errors and the boys on our team are super competitive. So needless to say there was a lot of cursing in the dug out and we lost.

Well after our loss we were all getting our stuff together and our coach Fernando found out he had been jacked. Someone went in his bag and stole his new Droid phone and the $5 from his wallet. Damn you can't even trust ball players in NY. It had to of been the next team to play, no one else was by the bags. Shit if you can't trust a group of Abercrombie looking white boys playing on the same league then who can you trust!

Foot Locker on 3

1,2,3, FOOT LOCKER!

I am back in the softball game. So after way too many years I have re-joined the game of softball. We have a team at work, so I thought it would be a good way to meet people, get a little exercise and get out of the dang house!

I must admit I was a little worried, my bones ain't as young as they use to be, but turns out I still can hang. Thank goodness, because our team is the real deal. I mean talk about competitive, but I should of known, baseball is to the North what college football is to the South.

We've only had two games, but so far we are undefeated!!! I didn't get to bat the first game because of the mercy ruling, but got up to bat once in the second game. I know not much, but that is how a co-ed team with too many girls kind of works out. I did smack that sucker hard to mid field though. Hopefully I proved myself to my new teammates and can move up in the line up.

We have several parks we play at, but one is Central Park. It is kind of surreal playing softball in Central Park. I mean who would of ever thought I would go from playing next to the chickens in FL to playing next to Park Ave. And the best thing of all, I get to play without GNATS!!!!

Little Sampling

Not much has really happened since my last post so I thought I would do a little recap and combine some little notes into one.

Don't mess with NYers and their cake!

I work with some cold hearted people (myself included unfortunately). Friday we scheduled a surprise party for one of the girls who is getting married. Just something simple, cake and a card. Well she called in sick, yeah sick on a Friday and she came back today with a sunburn, but I digress. Anyway do you think we saved the cake for Monday, hell no. We all gathered around the table and cut that sucker up and then sent her a text showing the before and after of the cake. Cold I tell you, but not as cold as when we ate Lady Footlockers birthday cake. Now that might not sound bad, but oh it is. So Lady Foot Locker had a monthly thing were they bought a cake for all the birthdays for each month. Well it just happened to be the day to celebrate birthdays when our company did its lay offs. Well quite a bit of the Lady folks got let go, and trust me I feel for them I've been there, so there was an entire sheet cake with no one to eat. Being the greedy real estate department we are, you know we cut up that cake and ate it. Pretty sad huh, but goes to show you don't mess with NYers and their cake!

Daylight Savings!

Now I remember the one downfall of Daylight savings....the sun is low in the morning. Now if some of y'all remember I have had quite a bit of close calls getting hit by cars (and yes one finally got me last year on my birthday but we ain't gettin into all that). Well now that day light savings has hit, the sun of coarse sits low in the morning making it hard for drivers to see the traffic light. At least that is the benefit of the doubt I am giving. Well I have already had one close call but last week I almost got hit by a school bus. That would of been a hell of a lot more serious than my Chinese man in his SUV, but then again that would of been a government check coming my way. Hum..there is an upside.

No Pain No Gain!

I finally sucked it up and joined a gym. I've been using the one in my building but needed a little more than a treadmill and a bo-flex. Anyway lets just say I am paying twice as much as I ever have, but hey it forces me to really use my membership. So the other day I am on the treadmill and there is a woman beside me. Now usually I am in my own zone and could care less about other folks, but I couldn't help it. First I must say this gym is fancy so they provide the towels and a towel service. So here I am minding my own business watching Friends on my little TV trying to ignore my calf cramps and this lady takes her towel (the one the gym provides) blows her nose in it and then drapes it over the treadmill. Are you freaking kidding me. How gross can you get. Its bad enough the machines are full of sweat from people who don't clean them after their work out but now I need to worry about snot on top of it. No kind of home trainin I swear!

And that is just a little tid bit for this month.

The nicest folks in Jersey

As promised I am trying to be better about my blog. Here is a little ditty about my trip to Fair Lawn, NJ.

So if some of you remember, Foot Locker opened its first skate concept about 6 months ago. Well they are really taking off so I took a trip to our store in NJ, to introduce the concept to another architectural firm we use. As you know I have no car up here so I rely on public transportation, so I took the train and was picked up by my boss close to the mall. Blah Blah Blah, meeting was good yada yada yada.

Well on the way back my train was delayed due to something so I was kind of stuck in Fair Lawn, NJ with 2 hours to kill. So you ask what do you do in Fair Lawn, you hit up K-Mart and get your nails did! Oh yeah classy area fo sho! And y'all would of been proud because I seriously contemplated hitting the "Wine and Spirits" shop and getting a bottle of Pino to help kill those 2 hours, but I decided I needed to be on my A game in case something went down in Fair Lawn.

So first there were the two ladies in K-Mart. Like usual, people just come up and talk to me. Its the baby face I guess. So I had a short conversation of how Easter was around the corner, how disorganized the K-Mart was and how much snow we have been getting with two lovely ladies I met in the card isle, ran into again in the Rubbermaid isle, and finally at check out. I ended our meeting with a nice southern, "Y'all have a nice day."

Next was off to get a manicure. Seriously I counted 6 nail salons within a few blocks, so hey, when in Rome! Plus I still had an hour to kill. So as I was sitting under the dryer thing, I sparked up a lovely conversation with Sue. She came there often. I explained to her my day, y'all know I talk to anybody, and she seemed really interested in my job. So after I gave her the getting laid off from Starbucks and moving up here to work for Foot Locker in Manhattan story, I felt like I had found a new friend. She is a retired school teacher and decided to treat herself to a little mani pedi combo, (she usually only gets a pedi) but today because her grand kids were spending the rest of the week with her she needed to relax now, because it sure wasn't going to happen later! Well Sue, yes that is her name, it was great chit chatting but my train would be here soon, gotta go.

Finally, there was the lady at the train station. Now Fair Lawn might seem like the place to be but there really isn't a train station per say. There is basically an electronic ticket machine and the train just happens to stop there by the street. So I go get my ticket and this lady starts talking to me. I swear I hit the jackpot! Now I have to describe her so you can get the full visual. Picture a skinny white woman, with an old leather "members only" coat on, holding a bouquet of fake green roses (I am assuming for St. Patricks Day, but didn't ask), black jeans, old white K-Swiss shoes and no teeth. Seriously I can't make this crap up! So she is freezing cold and insists on telling me how she was in Patterson, NJ (where ever the hell that is) and got pulled over by the cops. She said they accused her of buying drugs (um...lady I can kind of see why) and demanded to search her car. Well supposedly her registration was expired by 2 days (yeah right two days I'm sure) and they impounded her car. Now she was needing to catch the train to get home, even though she said her sister lived down the street, and she had been waiting for an hour for the train to come. I told her that I had called for the schedule and knew the train was coming late so I went to K-Mart and got my nails done. She said she wished she would of thought of that and the Indian lady sitting on the bench next to us laughed as she listened in on our entertaining conversation. I gave my new friend the number so she could call in the future and wouldn't be waiting out in the cold in case there was another train delay. I wrote it down because she didn't have a cell phone, not saying she traded it for crack, just saying she didn't have a cell phone. But God Bless America she had some fake green roses!!!!! Get it girl!

This concludes my 2 hour excursion in Fair Lawn, NJ. I will remember my time fondly.