oh btw, I had a really STRANGE dream regarding the Guy from last May (Bro-Ham) and ...wtf? UGH.

I just had a late-night snack of my mom's famous chicken and chickpeas slow cooked in tomato sauce. YUM.

Some news on the front...


I GOT A NEW JOB!

yay!

I will be in charge of customer support for adagio teas, which is an online and retail gourmet tea business (www.adagio.com or google tea and we're the 3rd thing on the list!). I'll have to do the grudge work of answering emails, tracking orders, etc but I get to do some fun stuff too! I have to cultivate and sustain the loyal customer base by creating topics on the website's message board and I get to write articles- anything about tea! Woo-hoo! It's a small company and I'm excited by the fact that there's no huge bureaucracy if I want to pitch an idea. I had my interview with the owner and we talked for two hours. Sweet. I have creative freedom over my writing, which is cool because I can get those skills I got in college (I was quite the research machine) as well as let my inner Martha out. Oh, and they are paying me a LOT more money than i'd make a year at the bookstore. The kicker is that it's all the way up in Garfield, which is an hour away, and will prob. turn into a 2 hour commute each way. Whoa! But I think i'll be able to manage for a couple of months; I have family that lives up there and of course the boyfriend. In a couple of months too, I will be able to work from home, thus saving more money. I plan to move back up to Northern Jerz by the end of the year, if not sooner.

I can't express how happy I am! I've been on a cloud 9 of sorts, with some bum-outs, such as working a stupid busy President's Day. Man, do the crazies come out! Ugh, they were taking up the aisles, pulling every effing book off the shelf, screaming (the children), whining (the adults), and making a mess and not buying anything. Fer serious. I just kept on retreating into the back, where I was comforted by the thought that I will be here less than a month.

So, in prep. for my departure from B&N, I've started to order all this stuff I want. I found these awesome cupcake notecards and ordered a bunch. And a book on the world's most beautiful libraries. And 2 Filipino children's books. I had this whole thing where I was going to buy a lot of stuff before I leave, but I was looking at prices for the books I want on amazon and it usually is a dollar cheaper with shipping, or the same price. It's going to be very weird to have to pay for books at full price. In fact, it's going to be very weird and a bit disarming not to be working at the bookstore. I have to subscribe to the NY Times weekender to get the book review or i'll never know anything about books again.

I plan to buy a lot of Moleskins. Last week I bought Trivial Pursuit The Book Lovers Edition. Who's ready to take on me and Nick in a game?

ps: I forgot. If anyone with simple html knowledge could email me codes (christine.rillo@gmail.com) for like italicizing things, posting pics in the page, links, etc. My blogspot for some reason (maybe it's my browser?) doesn't pull up the typical editing bar on top.

I posted a new profile pic. I'm bring lobster back. Oh, and sexy.

happy valentine's day!

so I feel loads better. My work week is a total vacay: I ended up calling out early Sunday for my closing shift, then left early due to still not feeling well on monday, and today and yesterday we closed the store early because of the weather. SWEET.

I didn't do anything special today for v-day. I was pretty happy we were going home early (though the greater population of princeton was probably pissed bc where-am-i-going-to-go-on-this-snowday. go to fucking borders dudes or stay at home with the books you bought last week). I bought Marie Antoinette today (!) which I love. It's so frikkin girly; I love the costumes, the desserts, and I have allowed kirsten dunst to reenter my life since I saw it back in October (we were on a break during that whole oooh i'm with jake gylenhaal thing). Plus Jason Schwartzman, I mean does it get any better? I watched it with my mom over some weird paella thing she made tonight. Whatever, it was warm and gooey.

Nick was off today and because of the weather he wasn't about to come down here, nor would I let him. Tomorrow we celebrate. I ordered him abottle of wine offline which I should be getting on friday, hopefully. Note to you all, you can't order wine into nj or pa! Maybe it's only by a bottle, next time i will get a case.

I wrote some letters today, updated my book journal (for my Remains of the Day, Atonement, and Brave New World entries). I started About Alice last night by Collin Trillin; a damaged copy I got free from work. It's very short, and I like it. Trillin writes about his late wife (he's a staff writer for the Times, writer of other family-humor kind of stories). It's very cute-that's not really the word-very heartwarming, endearing, and even the in the few pages I've read, it shows he really loved his wife. A nice V-day read, indeed. Next up on the book list is The Cement Garden, by Ian McEwan. I think I've become a fan, but I shouldn't say that until I read another book of his (he wrote Atonement. SO GOOD).

Oh, btw, I have an interview on Friday. Wish me luck! You know what that means? Shopping! haha. I need a professh shirt. I honestly don't have one. Well, I have one but it won't match my black pants. And some shoes. Cos all my shoes have bows on them. Not very profesh.

sick day.

i bought these Stacy's pita chips with cinnamon and sugar. I ate a couple, and I would be better satisfied if there was some sort of dip, maybe a sweetened cream cheese kind of glaze. I thought they would be like churros. I put one in the microwave. They are not like churros.

I'm watching the food network, which is airing all chocolate related shows all day long in honor of st. valentine's day. i want truffles right now. i did buy dark chocolate with almonds, but champagne truffles would be better.

I want to leave my house very badly, but I know /should stay at home so I can feel better and go to work tomorrow. I don't know where I would go either. I would love to go shopping, but the mall I prefer is too far, and wait! I have no money. I was thinking about going to target. I wish I had bought some bad magazines to read, but I do have some reading to keep my occupied, which will allow me to utilize my brain cells in a better way.

I made some crafts yesterday. Though I was sick, I went up with nick back to his house. We went to michaels and bought craft supplies. He painted, and I made these little plushes. I only made two, which don't look very good. It's too cold in the basement to go sew, plus I have to get all my stuff together, since my mom scattered my supplies all over the basement since I've moved in. Built by Wendy has cute spring patterns; one is for this dress:http://builtbywendy.com/onlineshop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16905&category_id=296. I think it's darling.

I'm going to read some of What Color is my Parachute?, get depressed, polish up my resume, and send it out to at least 5 places today.

I don't think people make churros anymore. In the latest food and wine, the back page recipe is for churros with hot chocolate- how lovely! I want to make those tonight.

What happened to being the type of sick where you dont want to eat anything at all and sleep all day long...?

LALALA.


So, my mini vacation was fabulous. It was only for a few days. Nick and I traveled to Portland, ME for a couple of days of cold weather, cheap lobster, and lighthouses. We're pretty corny. I got a good deal on a hotel room at the Inn @ St. John, which was like a victorian b&b. Upon our arrival, we got a complimentary upgrade to the superior room, which pretty much had just a bigger bed (wink, wink haha), a big screen tv, and some 'jets' in the tub. It helps to be probably the only people staying at the place. We got dinner at this place called Demillos on the waterfront, which was a converted yahct. I ate 2 lobsters for 20 bucks. Sweet and tasty. They gave me a bib, and I must confess it was my first time eating lobster like that. It was fun, somewhat messy, and I also sustained an injury to my left middle finger, a rogue spike on the lobster claw or something. We ended the evening watching the Top Chef finale, where I won the bet (Ilan won!) and Nick owes me a paperback of my liking.

Thursday, we got up somewhat early...well, no, we got up at 9 to go to the Twin Lights State Park. We saw the lighthouse that Edward Hopper used in his painting, Lighthouse at Two Lights. Afterwards we went back into the city to visit the Portland Art Museum, which wasn't so bad; a lot of NC Wyeth, a Hopper, Henri, etc. We made hte bad decision to eat lunch, and because we were so hungry we over ate- a plateful of bacon wrapped shrimp and mussels, and giant lobster rolls each with fries. It was quite Good though. The rest of the evening was spent walking around Old Port, looking into shops and stuff before everything closed at five or six (ahh, New England cities).

Thursday night's dinner was delayed, because we were still full, so we went back to the room to nap and sit around. I played online cos we had free wireless and watched tv. When we finally did decide on dinner, around nine, we were somewhat rushed, cos in Portland, kitchens close at nine-thirty. WTF? We ended up eating at the smae place we had lunch, which was good, but it was weird because they were ready for the 'nightlife' time of the evening. Apparently, this place had a DJ every night, which I could understand in any other city, or rather, a big city, but in Portland it didn't seem to make any sense. The poor waitresses/bartenders assured anyone who came into the bar (which weren't many to begin with, as they turned right around at the sight of about five people, two of which-us-were still nursing our dinners, sitting around watching a Disturbd video on the plasma screen above the bar) that the place did get crowded, but much later. But how much later? Shit, stuff closes at 1 in New England.

Anyway, we ended out the night and then went back to our place. We left Portland in the morning after some last minute walking around, and drove straight to Park Slope, where we had a 'couples' night with Dan and Keith, Andrew and Nicole, Nicks's friends. There was plenty of wine and booze, and lots of talking among the boys. It was cool, because I finally got to meet Nick's oldest friend, Andrew, who is like, for example, the Megha in my life. He was very funny, and his lady friend/date, actually was an old friend of theirs that they new since high school, and that Nick was fairly good friends with after high school and hadn't seen in ten years. It was a fun time, and we ended up crashing there.

Saturday, the two of us got brunch at my favorite place to eat in P. S. , the 2nd Ave Cafe, where I had the french toast with the fruit butter (!!!!! I dream of this stuff at night...omgomg) and the chicken apple sausage. Heaven. We headed back home, where I eventually got back to P'ton. Saturday night, to end the festivities, Mike, Carin, and Judi came down for dinner. We acted like fancy adults and got dinner at LaHiere on Witherspoon Street in P'ton. I got the scallops (so much seafood the past couple of days...not complaining) and creme brulee. Mike also brought some wine from his cache, so we had a glass or so each before heading out. After dinner, Judi wanted ice cream so we went to the Halo Pub, and then walked around the campus so Mike could check out any ivy league hotties. As it was almost zero degrees, no one was out, and we all were just very cold.

Judi left when we got back to my house, but Carin and Mike hung out for a while. We looked at pictures from our youth; high school and Providence ,and talked about how much we've changed. And we have! Looking back on the crew our pics, it's a bit of a startling feeling. Not to sound vain, but we all look good now! It's so funny how the teenage years, no matter how put-together you were, or at least you thought you were, looking back to it, it really was a trainwreck. Mike and I talked about my love of sweaters (pref from A&F or AE or AERO...geez) and this stupid black duster I wore everywhere. I was at least fifty pounds heavier, and didn't know my way around a makeup/grooming kit to save me. Our faces look so young, and though none of us have really gone through huge changes in our lives, it's interesting to see how we've matured, both on the surface and on the inside. We found plenty of blackmail fodder, believe me. It was a good time reminiscing about the past, stumbling across the 'oh, you remember the time __________________', pictures, providing lots of laughs over the stupidest things we used to do. Everything was so frivolous back then, though we were so certain we knew what we were doing. Good times, indeed, and finally ! someone(s) came to visit me in stupidbumpprinceton. yay!