Chinatown: check!

With the move to Vermont a mere three months away, New York and I have some serious hanging out to do. To make sure I go out with a bang, a bucket list has been created and routinely updated. One item on the list was to eat Chinese food in Chinatown. How does one go almost three years in New York and never having done this? I'm not really sure.

Susan is in town and as we've previously seen, she and I love adventures. We had discussed meeting up for a meal, the bucket list item was mentioned, and thus a plan was made without much thinking (and for those of you who don't know, I hate trying to make a legitimate plan). That, and she already had a place in mind. Our afternoon planned itself. So considerate of it. Thanks, afternoon!

After hitting up a Starbucks (because, let's be real, when do I ever not need massive amounts of caffeine?), we wandered through Chinatown using our smartphones and my bare-bones knowledge of the area to find our way to Mott Street and our final destination of Hop Lee. We were pleasantly greeted and promptly sat at a booth on the side. After much consideration, we decided on an assortment of items that could feed at least four people.

How amazing does all of that look?! If you must know, it was incredible. It was all so good that we sat there for well over an hour, eating and chatting. Numerous times we thought we had reached our limit and uttered a phrase or two emphasizing our fullness, usually while scooping some more rice and sauce and egg and broccoli and bok choy and chicken. When we finally threw in the towel, the table looked something like this.

In all actuality, we probably ate a little more after I took this photo. Then we had some orange slices and our fortune cookies. Then we went to get ice cream. Then we continued wandering in a quest to find hilarious plushy items. Susan and I got matching turtles!

Missions accomplished!

Piling it on

As if things weren't going as oppositely of swell as possible, I woke up the other morning to find some bloody mess in the cat box. Oh. Warning the previous sentence, and probably the content of some subsequent ones, is gross. Now, with multiple cats, it isn't always obvious of the culprit. Suspect one was Cancer-Cat for obvious reasons. Suspect two was little man cat since I couldn't find him. I spent the morning going about my business of the usual routine (make tea and read the internet and think about the things that need to be done) but repeatedly checking each time a cat took care of theirs. Eventually, I solved the mystery. My little Socks kitty-man was spewing a bloody slime from his rear end. Delightful.

I considered canceling my massage, but I didn't. I reminded myself that I deserved to take care of me and not just my cats (sound more like a crazy cat lady, why don't you?!) and the constant pain in my back added its sentiments about the necessity of a massage. I swallowed my stress and panic and money woes long enough to put on some sweat pants and a hoodie to jump on the train and trek down to get the knots in my back worked out. Feeling a little better, I stopped to get some wine and headed home for an afternoon/evening of wallowing in "why me" wailings and wine. By the time I got home, I somehow had a change of heart. I cracked a beer and settled in to my couch.

Stress remained. I felt like a penny that had been left on the train tracks. I knew I could just lay there and think about things. I had to do something. Phone call happened. Vet appointment was made. The next day couldn't come quickly enough.

That evening, I was restless. I had to get out of my house. Two beers deep I headed to the bar to meet a friend. I vented. We chatted. Beers and eventually laughs were had. I returned home with an attitude like no other. I was going to take on whatever else came my way. I wouldn't be broken. Not by this. Not by this plus this plus this. Step one was to remove the dry erase board from the wall and wipe it clean. Step two was to fill it with all of the things that I could control. Once that was done, I headed to bed to face the next day.

Socks went to the vet, howling part of the way. Dear people on the subway, it's payback for your babies crying. Stop staring.

The checkup was quick, and he was diagnosed with inflammation that was probably the result of stress, which is probably the stress of Mandy being sick and out of the house and such. Some meds were prescribed and the bill was less than I expected and far less than Mandy's visit the week before.

He seems to be feeling better already. I feel better in the sense that I don't want to be weak. I hate being weak and appearing weak so I'm standing up to the Universe and all of the shit that has been thrown my way. Taking into my own hands what I can and letting the rest just be there. In the past forty-eight hours, I have accomplished many things. You would think the To Do List would shrink, but as I cross things off, I find more things to add. This is my life and I will win.