9March was definitely a busy month professionally, socially and otherwise. In honor of March Madness I can say it was quite madding at times. One of the niceities at work was that the whole office filled out brackets in light of the month's college basketball games. I was partial to Kansas - who I believe won last year - and St. Louis - because...well, just because they are the under-underdogs and my good friend Jay lives there. Neither of which got very far, especially St. Louis but it was something to follow outside of all the other craziness going on in my life.
My colleague who works with me on Sandy cases were happy that our months of outreach paid off. We now have a steady stream of clients calling that are referrals from various agencies we've met and worked with recently. The upside is that we're bound to make quota for the Sandy contract. The downside is there's no quick-fix cases, only complicated ones. It goes without saying that 15+ months after the storm there's a strong likelihood that they'll have a multitude of other needs. Our office had a "site visit" which is a fancy term to describe an occassional drop in visit by people from the Administration office to check our overall progress for each grant and the status on each employee's cases/files. We found out that as of April 1st my colleague and I are working full-time for Sandy so we can dedicate a little more time to these cases. With that we become salaried employees and get full benefits so YIPPEE!
Socially, well I feel like I've been such a social butterfly as my good friend Keith would say. Beginning-mid March was Hoboken's St. Patrick's Day celebration called LepreCon. Bascially yet another excuse for Hobokeians to get blastered for consectutive weekends, wait they already do that so I guess its in light of a holiday which calls for obsessive drinking to occur and publically accepted. My friend Dan and I hung out at the Panera on Washington to watch the drunk people stumble by. Two weeks later was Part 2 and my friend Jodie and I and later Dan came to bar hop, play darts against a funny and drunk bartender and create a coalition (see proof in picture below).
I also broke my music funk when I went to a 90s Shibuya-mei asian pop band Cibo Matto at a venue I'd been dying to go to, the Brooklyn Bowl. It's an interesting place that I thought would be a nice place to hang out with the JC gang. Later that same night I experienced the true "club scene" in Downtown Jersey City at O'Hara's. Basically the setting is a group of semi-diverse (mainly hispanic and blacks) of young (teens to 20-30 somethings) people stand around while a dj (no name) insists on playing horribly awkward, dancing unfreindly tunes. Meanwhile the bartender is giving wildly inappropriately named drinks on the house (Pink Pussy) out to our colleagues after they've all had waaaay too much to drink as it is but....it was a memoriable time so what the hecks (as some foreign friends say).
March was also the time for love! My Mom and I went back to our old church in Montclair, NJ to witness Mary Frances and Adrianna marriage after 20+ years being together and having raised a beautfiul daughter. Mia, their daughter, shocked me wearing these outrageously high stilettos and accompanied the pianst with her wonderful musical talent playing the violin to the popular love song "Thousand Years" by that Christina P....somebody. It was also a reunion of sorts because all the former congregates and our friends came to share in this happy day - long story short, there were issues with the choir ppl after the director left, and dispute about an organ, issues with a new rector...complications = people leave the church. Can you say DRAMA?!?!
The JC gang tried this happy hour/karaoke at VB3 near Newport. Happy hour wasn't bad, I even got a rejection from the bartender who I thought was available and turned out to be married, he was nice about it. But my friend Elizabeth and I were a bit pissed that the karaoke didn't start in a timely manner. It wasn't until about 11pm that there was even a test of the technical system. Adios to that.
The last event worth mentioning was the Women of Letters show. I went to a somewhat seedy area in Brooklyn - a bunch of warehouses, dimly lit, alleys, etc -to this place called the Bellhouse. My main draw was Edie Falco, famous for her roles as Carmella in The Sopranos and lead as and in Nurse Betty. I also was extremely pissed that NO ONE recognized Women's History Month. I feel somewhat proud that I did support the historic and modern achievement of women in this country.
In Carmella Sopranos' honor my Mom and I went to Holsten's after the wedding in Montclair. I shared this decadent coffee ice cream sundae. It was so heavenly!
Till my lastest post about weekend brunches and the beginning spring....
