It's a Small World After All

So every once in a while I have those experiences where the stars align or the dots connect or [insert cliche here] where you are reminded that the world is SMALL. A big one of those moments came for me on Tuesday, when I headed up to Niketown to meet up with the Nike Running Club, which I have recently started running with on Tuesdays.

Tonight, they announced at the door, there is a special event going on with a celebrity athlete. Minutes later, riding up the escalator to drop off my bag, who should I run into but the celebrity athlete (and my freshman roommate!!!) the fabulous Ogonna Nnamani of Stanford and US Olympic Volleyball fame! We scared most of her high school volleyball fans with hugging, and screaming OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!

The world is small. Turns out, she's living in NYC with her fiance (looks like I'm the only of our 3 freshman roommates to be riding the single train), and finishing her requirements to apply for med school. And, as it appeared, making some special celebrity appearances (this one was for the launch of the Nike Training Club app). As we used to say freshman year, GO OG!

And yes, we both were coincidentally dressed in matching Stanford/Nike gear :)

Celebrity Status

So this morning I went back to the Martha Stewart show...unfortunately this time I was a second class citizen/audience member rather than guest/winning chef. Not as fun, but still quite a lovely way to break up the monotony of a rainy Tuesday. And, unlike those audience members who came to my show who were probably disappointed by the lack of celebrities, I was pleased to see both Emeril and Russel Simmons on the set this morning! Woo hoo.

You can check out the turkey recipe that Emeril and Martha made here. And I must admit it looked quite delish and simple too, none of this crazy intensive brining. Even more tastey than that, though, was that we all got a 6 piece Emeril bakeware collection to take home! Man am I thankful that I live near Martha's studios!

Kinda a (Mr.) Big Deal

Yes, I am a sucker for Sex and The City just like every other 20-50 something woman in the US. No, I've never had a TV, but I did have the pleasure of watching every episode countless times at Stanny in the comfort of a bed full of girls at 517 Cowell Lane. So, when I my coworker offered me his ticket to the premiere yesterday afternoon, I swooned and graciously accepted. (We were given tickets as part of our media buy at work because our Parisian Love Search Story--previously viewed on the super bowl-- is playing before the movie).

With a 15 min turn around time at home to turn monday workday into red carpet ready, I arrived at Radio City Music hall perspiring....with thousands of other nobodies. Apparently we were too late for the red carpet, and instead I was waiting in line with women from who knows where who couldnt have cared less about what I was wearing...not the quite the glam entrance we all dream of. But I wasnt exactly red carpet ready.
The movie was spectacular- of course the Liza Minelli cameo was ridiculous and Charlotte falling off the camel seemed a little absurd-- but screw the critics, these women are hot and hilarious and I will love them til they are old and grey. And judging from the crowds response last night, I am not alone. Everyone cheered when favorite characters showed up and laughed and boo'ed when they disapproved of their behavior (Spoiler alert: I'm keeping my lips sealed passed that!).

The after party was in a huge Middle East themed tent (though I'm not sure how indigenous red roses are to the Middle East-- there were no less than 10k of them), outside Lincoln Center. Allison and I arrived early and managed to sneak our way into the vip section. When Aidan (who's real name I just learned this morning was John Corbett) had a free moment, and we had had a drink to ease the nerves, we made our way over to congratulate him and ask for a picture.
After posing I spilled out "I must say, I have always been a bigger fan of yours than Bigs" (smoooooth entrance huh?). Allison and I chatted him about how great he was, asked whether there would be a SATC3 (he said not for him- he had his moment), and when he said it was the first time he himself had seen it, we asked why....
Aidan: "oh I just flew in..."
Me: "From where?"
Aidan: "Santa Barabara, I live out there."
Me: "OH I absolutely LOOOOOOVE Santa Barabara, I was just out there for a bachelorette party [please note this is the second friend bachelorette shout out we've given in the company of Stars-- first being Erin's "5-way" comment on Martha]
Aidan: "Oh yeah? It's pretty nice huh"
Me: "I love it, I want to move there.....all my favorite people live there: You, Jack Johnson..."

"YOU and JACK JOHNSON?" Did I really say that? UGH. Yes, that came out of my mouth. I don't remember what happened after that, I think we excused ourselves and said have a nice night. Bottom line, I blew it with Aidan (but then again, so did Carrie?!)

Other notable siting of the evening were:

1. A very drunk Mr. Big with a mean body guard who he kept telling to ward off the girls and not allow any more pictures-- lame, typical. Sidenote: he looked good, and I am not a Mr. Big fan
   
2. SJP was pretty private, didnt get very close but she was doing that awkward brush your hair back from behind your face but not behind your ear move that I hate.....
3. A very fake and baked Smith Jarred was clearly trying to cover up his aging, and failing drastically.
4. Various other celebs we paparazzi'ed in our full album
   

Ok, this is officially the most shallow absurd post in Internat history, and I humbly apologize to my male reader-base (and Lauren). For this I will punish myself by writing at least 2 very intellectual posts soon to prove I am not the new Perez Hilton or whatever his name is. And yes, I am going to hell for all these comments.

In any case, perhaps we were already punished (or at least Allison was): the night ended in a typical SATC-like tragedy. At 1am, after a goodbye dance with the hummus and babaganush platter, we went to retrieve our bags and Allison's designer purse was missing. Reminded me of the shoe thief episode. Seems there must only be one solution: have Allison register at Chanel for her upcoming 25th Bday party.....

Mini Martha meets the Legend

OMG OMG I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. AT THIS TIME NEXT WEEK I WILL BE ON NATIONAL TV WITH MARTHA STEWART!

The contest went like this:

We decided to be Team USA: Trapped in the Kitchen, because, well, who doesn't want to cheer for the USA? (And love R.Kelly's Trapped in the Closet) That would be completely unpatriotic. Plus I happen to have a lot of red white and blue. We dressed up and strung up a flag at our station. We met the judges beforehand: 3 Google NYC execs and celebrity chef Todd English. Naturally I told him I grew up going to Figs and Olives, and was from Newton. He signed a cookbook for me "Cooking with Love." My thoughts exactly, Todd.

Then we got set up for the relay. There were 3 tasks: peeling 4 hardboiled eggs, de-veining 6 shrimp, and trimming a hanger steak. I started with the eggs:

Lindsay peeled shrimp and Erin man handled that steak, with Todd looking on, impressed:

We came in second out of 6 teams in this round.

Then came the "cooking" round, which wasn't cooking at all, just 5 minutes to prepare an "amuse-bouche" with items from a microkitchen. It was slim pickings but we decided to go with a strawberry/banana toast made from strawberry, banana, yogurt on a cinamon sugar pita chip. Most other teams had a similar idea, but we WON 1st because of our creative presentation (using cupcake frosting to put dabs of Google color on the plate). What can I say, I'm in the creative lab!

We were happy:

This narrowed it down to three teams for the food trivia round. The questions were quite random, everything from the ratio of sugar to air in cotton candy, to the function of cream of tartar. We were neck and neck for second 5 questions in a row....NERVE RACKING! But we had an insane cheering squad (thanks to my team), complete with pom poms and USA cheers...

We finally got knocked out for not knowing the president responsible for importing the Olive Tree! BUT they decided to let us go to Martha anyway. This is a dream. Like, OMG a DREAM. I feel like jumping up and down. Oh wait, I did:

I can hardly wait.

In the Company of Stars...

They've been taping Law and Order on my street and running route for the last couple days. Makes me feel like I live somewhere legit...thought for all I know they are filming some sketchy scene where they find the criminals drug dealing or mutilating people in a parking lot near my place. Who knows. Anyway, right now the hood looks far from sketchy, with tons of video trucks and people walking around on those headpiece walkie talkies and a huge breakfast spread that I have to run straight by. I haven't seen anyone famous yet though. Or maybe I have...for all I know the star is my nextdoor neighbor. I've never seen the show. Anyway, exciting.

More exciting is that last night on the way to Whole Foods there was a movie premiere at the 23rd street theatre and I slowed my walk to see if there was someone I would recognize in "The Stepfather." Then, OMG there he was, DAN! (Penn Badgley) He looked studly and cool, pretty much like he does in Gossip Girl. And wait, it was Monday night- what was he doing out at a premiere when half the world was watching him on TV uptown!? I walked back and forth a couple times and finally snapped this picture (stalker).

This is a lot cooler than my former spottings: Ethan Hawke or Anne Hathaway.

New York State of Mind

* Love the new Jay Z song btw.

So far this has been one of those weeks that I'm like, "I love NYC?" at least some times. It started with a fabulous fall weekend, free of humidity and heavy on the sun, with that perfect 78 degree temp that is warm without leading to perspiration. Amazing.

I got in two bike rides and also made it onto a BOAT! Not a Kayak this time...I finally got my first and last ride on fishsticks (the SAE boat)...actually it wasn't a ride since the engine broke about 2 months ago and is not reparable for less than the cost of the boat *purchased for 7k. How much fun could a docked boat, be you say? Well, turns out, a lot. My favorite bar in manhattan is the Frying Pan, so basically this is a private Frying Pan, docked in Jersey with a view of the city-- we pick the music, the crowd and the drinks. So, we spent Saturday basking in the sun, drinking Prosecco in pirate, captain and sailor hats, and smoking cigars next to the waving SAE flag. You can take the boy out of the frat house....

Sunday was a rather rough start as I sat in bar-closing time traffic at 4am as I rode to the upper east to catch a bus ride to queens with about 5k of my fellow crazy NYC roadrunners. While taking a bus rather than the subway in the morning sounded like a good idea, getting to the race 2 hours before the 7am start was not. So I sat shivering in the cold on a playground in queens in the dark, with nothing but 13 miles to look forward to. Awesome. After running my past two half marathons in Rio and in Sonoma, Queens was a bit disappointing in terms of scenery....but whateva, I ran 13 miles and consequently have justified thousands of nutrition-less calories since. Which is pretty much the end goal of running these things anyway, right?

To celebrate, I went out last night to The Box for a Peace One Day event. The Box is where Blair does her striptease for those of you that watch Gossip Girl. I felt almost as cool as the Queen B herself (at least until I cut off Jude Law on the staircase) since it was hosted by Ben and Jerry (the founders) and had several celebs in attendance. Unfortunately there was no burlesque show, but there was a performance but a drunk brazilian singer, which was almost as good. Pause, not. I was overserved. That goes for the free Vodka AND the free Ben and Jerry's. Monday Funday. Tuesday morning, not so fun.

Spirits were lifted though since tonight was the second monthly Theater Night with Alex. We saw In The Heights which is pretty much THE VERY BEST SHOW EVER. Like, ever. I mean, I laughed, I cried, there was music and dance and spanish and rapping and we were in the 4th row. It is kinda like a hip hop-era, but the lyrics make sense, unlike the famous Trapped in the Closet. Man it was great. I can't wait to go back with everyone I know. We spotted 2 of the actors in the subway and much to Alex's embarrassment, I insisted on gushing to them about how amaaaaaazing they were. (and they really were). Wow, I wish I could sing and dance.


I was feeling so full of Broadway and NYC love when the play let out tonight I bought these glasses on the street (note: I refrained from wearing them in the subway as I knew I would lose my theater night partner if I did):


Could the week get better? Actually maybe, tomorrow I'm going to the U2 concert and Friday I'm going to Vegas with Daphne and Paul (don't be jealous, those are my parents).

Favorite Places- SPOTTED!

So last week I posted a shameless self promotion for the campaign we launched last month-- Google Maps Favorite Places. Yesterday while on the walk to my first Physique 57 (NYC's version of the SF Bar Method in half the space and for twice the price), I spotted one of the banners on a SoHo street. Obvi I made Kron do a photoshoot with me and the banner, which probably caused 4 times as many people as normal to look at it. Now that's effective marketing...

Almost Famous

Lots of celebrity sightings this week. Started with Anne Hathaway at the Barnes and Nobles on Sunday. Unfortunately no photo, video or physical contact, as Gleason prohibited me.


Then little did I know, one of my coworkers is not only a great karaoke duet partner, but also is pretty much a huge deal in the infographics space (which I didn't know existed). According to Fast Company, he's basically attempting to save the world through interactive icons. Here's the video that made him famous.



Oh and did I mention he's younger than me...that doesn't make me feel unaccomplished at all. NBD, here's a pic of me and Kanye from yesterday.

Ethan Hawke

Is not that hot. He looks pretty slobby actually if you ask me. Saw him on the way to work this morning, NBD...He was unshaven, skin looked pretty bad, hair a mess (note that I was walking to work unshowered since my hot water wasn't working, so I prob looked worse). He did have a pretty cute kid in tow though...in fact, I probably wouldn't even have noticed him if it weren't for his little whipper snapper. Apparently we're neighbors. Anyway, just thought I'd mention that since apparently people like reading blogs about celebrities.

And while we're on the topic of celebrities here's a picture of Ed avoiding the paparazzi on Friday night's Creative Lab Karoke extravaganza.