My Voice for The Voice...

An audio file of me singing the solo and trio of New Hymn by James Taylor, a cappella...

Pick me, pick me!

It Hurts Our Liver to Even Write This...

Since we last spoke, we have (1) run a half marathon, (2) retaken to the bottle, and (3) welcomed a new family member in the world. Each in turn, people, please have patience.

(1) The Half Thon was a very fun experience, we hope to recreate it at some point, or move on the the full one. After reflecting on this event and the "sprint" triathlon we did a few years ago (half the olympic distance), we are beginning to think maybe we are best suited for half things since they sound really hard ("oooohhh, a triathlon," and "ahhhhhhh - a Marathon!"), but really only half the effort goes into it. But maybe it's time we undertook the whole thing, at the very least, just for shirts to wear later. We'd also like to give a shout out to our dad who also ran the race and did very well.

(2) Since the half-thon is over, our half (or fully) dumb idea to give up booze during training has ended. Since the race was a week ago, we have obviously been out drinking 7 times, wanted to die the morning after at least 6 of them, and have seriously considered going back to train for something if only to be spared this horrible feeling in our heads, stomachs, and elbows. We started off with beer with meals, and graduated to wine after work, but this weekend it was all standards and class thrown aside, and we went for the $2 mojitos and $4 well drinks on Friday and (free) watermelon gin fizzes on someone's roof the next day. Our liver was not ready for these kinds of things and now hates us.

(3) Our cousin had a baby! She is so cute, we die, and now want 1209382 babies of our own asap. Baby daddies out there - call us!


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It's Offish Y'all!

Today we were sworn in to the Bar, which for all you non-lawyers means we can now be disbarred for co-mingling funds, stealing other people's money, or otherwise being a horrible human being.

Yesterday was our "interview," which consisted of the following:

Interviewer: So, tell me you have a job.
FW: Praise Xenu, we do.
Interviewer: Oh, I see you went to Y.U. for undergrad. Do you know Guido Calabresi?
FW: Judge Calabresi? Um...not personally, no.
Interviewer: Did you know he was Jewish?
FW: Hm, we did not.
Interviewer: With a name like Guido, who would've thought, huh?
FW: Yes, that is interesting.
Interviewer: Do you have any unpaid parking tickets?
FW: No. We can barely afford a bike, and you expect us to have a car?
Interviewer: Welcome to the profession. Good luck to you.

And that was that.

Today we sat through a 2 hour orientation, which talked all about how sucky being a young lawyer is, but that you should remember not to hit reply all by accident when making fun of someone at your place of employment. Also, if you are drinking before your court appearances, you likely have a problem and should seek help. If only.

And then we went up to the courhouse to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of New York State. And we didn't mess up, unlike someone else we know. And then we had our second shake shack burger of the week.

So there it is folks, we are now officially Fishwatch, Esq. It has been a long journey to get to this point, so we'd like to give a shoutout to all those who made it possible, and to our reader(ship), who has been cheering us along on the journey.

Crying in the Rain

When we arose yesterday morning, we were excited and ready to go for our 10K race in The Central Park as part of our half-thon training program (which we made up ourselves, so it's nothing official or even practical, but that's ok). Instead of looking out of the window, we instead relied on people's facebook updates to inform us that it was in fact raining, and then checked the weather on the internets only to learn that it was in fact raining and would continue to do so all morning. "We can deal with a little rain," we told ourselves as we put on a cap and some water-resistant outer layers.

Well not only was it raining, but it was in fact freezing as well, but we were compelled to continue on to the start at the southwest corner of the park b/c all these people from our neighborhood were also en route (you can always pick out the race go-ers on the UES on weekend mornings, they have the same look on their face as we do -- the one that says, "this seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it, but I would really rather be in bed"). Anyway, we get on the cross-town bus and make it to the registration booth, near which, soaked bagpipers were playing tunes in honor of the "Scotland" theme of the race, which we guess someone took a little too far given the conditions. After standing in mud to get our free t-shirt, we honestly thought long and hard about going home and back to bed now that we had received our swag, but we ran into some friends who told us that they would laugh at us if we did that and who pointed out that we were already soaked, so who cares. We caved, and proceeded to run the 10K, looking absolutely ridiculous with a free Scotland themed poncho on, but ended up not feeling all that bad about it.

Except when the "cool down" period began and we were litterally shivering, and then picked up our bag which was now soaked and covered in mud, and the color of which bled into our new Scotland Run t-shirt, which is unsalvageable now. Also, we are sure the pneumonia is setting in about now, despite our taking 2 Airbornes and 1 Emergen-C's yesterday, but that is the price one must pay, we guess, to be able to update their "status updates" about how athletic, and thus desireable, they are.

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Momof*ck* YES!

Well the food gods must have read our last post, since after posting it, we secured not one, but TWO reservations to the coveted restaurant Momofuku Ko. Did you read that Frank Bruni? TWO MOTHER F-ING RESY's. Wow that felt good.

Anyway, so we made our first on Sunday morning for Saturday night, after which we danced in our PJs around our living room, and bragged to everyone we knew, only to discover that our cousin's baby shower was Saturday night and not during the day. Who knew? So, we logged on Monday am to see what luck we might have on the 1980s era work computer - and lo(han) and behold - we got one for Sunday night! I mean I guess there are not that many people up for eating on Sunday night at 9:50, but after a lifetime of drinking heavily at Hiro and Park and other such Sunday night establishments, we certainly knew we could scarf down some pork and foie gras on a school night. So we cancelled the Saturday night one and headed to Long Island for some 8 course (basically) Indian food-fest, which, we must say basically rivaled Ko's level of yummyness.

But back to Ko. Since we're off the booze (and had work the next day), we had to pass on the wine pairing, which looking kind of amazing, but the food was good enough to make up for our inner semi-alcoholic yelling at us. Likes: this small biscuit thing soaked in butter and goodness, and the smoked egg with caviar and potato chips, and the sirloin in jalapeno something or the other. Dislikes - the snail sausauge was kind of yuck, but interesting we guess.

Well, since we are so good at securing this resy now, feel free to ask us to book for all y'all. Although, we wonder whether we have used up all our Ko luck. Meanwhile, chef David Chang has been named an "Agent of Change" by Rolling Stone Magazine, which is not surprising, since we kept chanting "Yes We Can" as our stomachs filled and we questioned our ability to eat anymore.

Momof**k* you.

We have now been trying daily for many months to secure a reservation at Momofuku Ko, that tiny restaurant that everyone raves about all the time and is small and hard to get into (if not secret and elite), so it must be good. Basically it involves logging into the reservation system every day at 10am, and trying your bestest to click on a time slot and confirm it in .00021332 seconds before it says “sorry, someone else has grabbed this spot.” We have found this to be virtually impossible, especially since our work computer is from circa 1988 and we swear that sometimes it is secretly dialing prodigy or AOL behind our backs to log on to the internets.

More famous writers/bloggers have blogged about this reservation struggle before, but the other night we met a total cutie who informed us that he himself had been the subject of one of these writer/blogger’s post about this very restaurant, and that he has secured many a reservation by the use of tabs and perseverance. Perseverance we have, but tabs, we asked? Yes, tabs. Now, we are very familiar with tabs since we tabbed and bound our outlines in law school like a crazy person, but never before had we considered using our leftover tabs to mark on our screen where the mouse should be to ensure a quicker clicking time and thus a coveted reservation.

Well last night we tried to mark the screen with tabs so today we would be ready, but the problem with this is we sit in open pods at work, as you may know, and so everyone walking by our desk could see us clicking “refresh” 12318298 times with tabs on our screen. We are embarrassed for ourselves. So 9:59:58 am rolls around, and we count to two and click, and click on dinner, and go to choose party of “2,” but our 1980s era mouse freezes up and instead clicks on 1. Epic fail. We could have paid $100+ to eat by ourselves, but we can do that at home with our melancholy playlist on for much cheaper. We guess we will tab again tonight and try again tomorrow. Maybe by the time we get a reservation, the recession will be over and it won’t be as painful shelling out this kind of dough.


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If You Give Us Health Insurance Then Next Thing You Know We May Want Tax Benefits. THE HORROR.

According to today's New York Times:

"Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative advocacy group, said that if Mr. Obama extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, he would 'provoke a furious grass-roots reaction, reinvigorate the conservative coalition and undermine his efforts to portray himself as a moderate on social issues.'"

Really? A grass-roots movement sparked because someone wants health insurance for their spouse? People are ABSURD.


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