Monday, Monday

It's Monday morning and boy am I bushed. I worked again for the third night at my night job until 2 am, so needless to say I wasn't at my day job by 8:00 am. Fortunately, my boss is traveling on business, so I'm taking full advantage of his absence. I'd have an Irish coffee in the morning to celebrate, if I didn't worry about getting fired. I'm also behind on NaNoWriMo which is not good. I know we're not supposed to try and make up the word count the next day but somehow I need to add an extra 14 pages to this week's turn out. Wish me luck!

This past weekend was my birthday weekend (I tend to celebrate my birthday the entire month of November if I can get away with it). Friday night, I had a drinks party at a really nice wine bar called Wined Up near the Flatiron building. It was all wood paneling and the wine wasn't served in wine glasses which was really interesting. About sixteen friends showed up to help me celebrate. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures because I was too busy yacking, particularly about cutie pie author. Had to have the garlic fries through and a delicious salmon tartare. The evening was great until the end when one of my guests felt the need to yell at me for checking my messages to find out why two of my guests hadn't shown up. Kind of put a damper on the evening, and I certainly will never be inviting this person to any event I throw again. I found it rude and insulting.

The other thing I found obnoxious was that my boss didn't bother to wish me a Happy Birthday or take me out to lunch. Nor did anyone else that I work for. He also had a party at his house for the marathon which he didn't invite me too. Talk about not making me feel like a valuable member of the team. I would totally quit this day job if I had a book contract, and just keep my night job.

Saturday was our monthly chapter meeting where I raffled off a lovely basket full of goodies to celebrate my birthday. Received many lovely gifts from people who couldn't make the party Friday night. Also our chapter is revamping our web-site and creating some really awesome content over the next few weeks. I'm really excited about it, and I can't wait to see it up and running.

I also discovered a groovy new CD by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss thanks to AOL Music. They have these CD listening parties once a week where you can listen to a whole album instead of just clips from it. These week they were previewing the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration which I listened to in between writing questions for America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back, the show that will make you think that everyone is a criminal. Seriously, if you are even remotely paranoid, don't watch this show. You will never leave your house.

So after listening to the CD, I went out and bought 4 copies for friends, because I loved it so much. I gave one copy to ex-sweetie pie as a thank you for taking me out to brunch to celebrate my birthday at One if by Land, Two if by Sea, a lovely restaurant housed in what used to be an 18th Century carriage house that Aaron Burr owned in the Village. Normally neither one of us would be able to afford to eat there (the prix fixe menu is $79 a person) but they have a brunch on Sundays for $20 that includes a mimosa, bloody mary and bellini. And the food was really good. I highly recommend it if you are in New York on a Sunday, because it's a very romantic restaurant. And the end of our brunch, they brought out a plate with a candle that said Happy Birthday in chocolate with 2 tiny oatmeal raisin cookies, marshmallows and a mini tart. It was a wonderful end to the weekend.

I hope to be able to post my interview with Blaze Author Kathleen O'Reilly this week. Stay tuned!

EKM