Category Archives: neighbors

The Matrix Loaded

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Whenever I say the name of this car, I expect two things: someone will make a crack about Keanu knowing Kung Fu or similar or that Duran Duran will jump out from behind something and start doing a bastardized rendition of The Reflex.  These are the things that go on in my head from moment to moment.

I bought this car today. cheese  It’s a 2009 Toyota Matrix and she’s red and I like her a lot.  I’m also quite proud of my haggling. I brought mikey with me because I didn’t want to get bamboozled. Not that I couldn’t hack it myself, but car salespeople are professional manipulators (no offense to any car-slingin’ readers I might have) and there is safety in numbers. I would have brought GFI, too, but she’s in Panama getting tan.

I’m honestly surprised it only took 3.5 hours. Normally a car purchase is an all-day affair, but this was a cakewalk.  I went in knowing what I wanted and I have to say, the folks at Mossy Toyota, especially Theresa, were really helpful.  She had all the cars and/or colors I said I was interested in, with the appropriate features, ready for me to test drive when I got there.  And when I refused to budge from my deposit amount (I had a number, people, and I wasn’t paying a penny more!), she and her GM were more than willing to get it down to my number without changing my monthly rate.

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The Continued Pursuit of the Perfect Martini

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Last night, GFI and I dolled up and hit our favorite haunt, Anthology Supper Club.  Their house band was playing, so we wanted to catch a few sets and have some cocktails. (Herb Albert is playing there tonight — I wish I’d known!)

Every time we go to Anthology, I love it more. (You can read about the very first time we went here.) The staff is sweet, the atmosphere is relaxed, but refined, and the music… well, I love jazz.  I love love love it.  So, it may not be for everyone, but we like it.  Their food is absolutely incredible, albeit wee.  This time we had a duet of Maytag blue cheese souffles with fresh arugula (rocket for my English friends *wink*), a couple spiced candied walnuts, port poached pears in a port reduction and a bit of Stilton.  It sounds like a lot, but it was about 6 bites or so. cheese  We also ordered Frite Misto which was a lovely combo of lightly battered bits of fish (we noted salmon and some kind of whitefish), prawns and lobster with a caper remoulade.  We had a hard time deciphering the lobster and suspect that it missed our batch, but it was still delicious.

Now, the important stuff – the cocktails.  I recognized last night, once and for all, that I’m just not much of a fruity drink person. If it’s a margarita or a sangria… well, those are in their own league. Umbrella drinks aside, I am not really one to order apple-tinis or even Cosmos.  It’s vodka martinis, slightly dirty, 3 olives, straight up.  The sugar in those other drinks just doesn’t jive with me, especially when I’m eating.  I like sampling them and creating them, but for pure cocktail enjoyment, I’m old school.  Yet, being the adventurous chick I am, I ordered a Blood Orange Drop, which was blood orange vodka, fresh blood orange, a squeeze each of lime and lemon and a dash of simple syrup.  The flavor was delicious, but it just wasn’t a “sipping” drink for me. It was too sweet, especially with the rim of sugar.  But it was pretty!  Personally, I’d serve it on the rocks in a collins glass, skip the sugar rim and hit with a splash of soda.  Now that sounds drinkable…

GFI ordered a Ginger Peachtini which was Peach Vodka, ginger simple syrup and… something else. I can’t remember. It was good, though! I liked it better than my Blood Orange thing.  Next up we enjoyed some of the best Grey Goose dirty martinis I’ve ever had.  Seriously. After our experience at Starlite with the sea monkeytinis, this was like drinking the nectar of the gods.  When Kathy visits, I’m totally taking her there… I dare say it was perfect, but I think it requires further testing.  Yeah.  oh oh

After listening to a few sets and chatting with the singer and trumpet player for a bit (the latter’s Kind of Blue was swoonable), we wrapped up the evening with a drink no longer on their menu: the After the Show.  We’d had it there before and were surprised to see it off the menu, but they were happy to make us a couple.  It’s Stoli Vanil vodka, Kahlua French Vanilla, Bailey’s, espresso and a drizzle of chocolate in the glass.  *faint* So good… so so so good.  Again, like fruity drinks, I’m not much of a “dessert cocktail”-type, but I do make a few exceptions. When they’re not overly frou-frou, too creamy or too sweet, it’s fine. There’s a subtlety to it and most bartenders have a heavy hand.  I think this one is a keeper… I just need to get them to give me the measurements.  smirk

It was yet another fabulous night at Anthology.  Whenever I go, I’m overcome with “Why am I not singing more? Why am I not up there doing that?” It always lights a bit of a fire under me… we all need that sometimes.  GFI and I agreed that we don’t mind indulging our budgets once in a while because the quality of the evening is so much richer.  I guess that’s part of getting older… it’s more about the experience and the company and no longer about what the well drink specials are and “gosh, do I have enough change under my couch cushions to buy shots tonight?”

After our last cocktail, we hailed a cab and rode the mile and a half back to our place and were in bed by 10:30pm.  *sigh* God, I love being a grown-up.  It’s more expensive, but I get way more sleep…

Like They Do on the Discovery Channel

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GFI and I have acquired a new regular at Casa Cocktail (that’s my building — I just decided it needed a name for reference purposes).  Well, we haven’t — Slick has.  He’s got a new girlfriend.  This while the seat on his old girlfriend’s bike that lives on the landing is still warm. But whatever, I’m not here to judge him on his relationship decisions.  I’m here to mock his new girlfriend. Duh.

Let me give you a basic schematic of our building.  If you’re looking at it from the front, I’m on the bottom right, GFI’s on top of me, Slick is to her left and downstairs from him, Nurse New York.  So, we share walls, specifically that one main wall and ceiling/floor where all of our apartments connect.  On our side of the wall, GFI and I have our bathrooms. On the other side?  Slick and NNY have their respective bedrooms.  You can see where this is going.  Oh yeah.

Now, we never hear a peep from NNY. Once in a while I’ll hear her on the phone in her room, but usually she’s off being busy and nursey. However, Slick and his new girlfriend get downright National Geographic up in here!  National. Geographic.  It’s insane.  GFI and I have dubbed her Project X because when she and Slick go at it, it sounds like caged chimps.  Forty caged chimps.

One night on the terrace, GFI tells me that she had to brush her teeth in the kitchen because the thought that a mere 2-foot wall and a medicine cabinet was all that separated her from Slick’s grunting body was just too much to bear.  Then, the next night, I could hear them going at it from the living room.  When I went into the bathroom, it was like they were humping at the Hollywood Bowl it was so loud. 

[insert chimp screams here]

I think last week, mikey came by and he came out of the bathroom saying, “Dude. You can hear your neighbor and his girlfriend going at it.” Oh yes, I’m aware.  They seem to have no concept of time, which is fine. It’s monkeys in the morning, monkeys in the night, monkeys in the afternoon.  (And yes, I know chimps aren’t monkeys.) Hey, I’m all for sex at any time of day. Spontaneity is fabulous… don’t get me wrong, but I try to keep in mind that perhaps the entire neighborhood doesn’t want to hear the result of “my O face”, as it were. And from what I understand, I also don’t sound like a B-grade Matthew Broderick movie.

It really doesn’t bother me all that much… I think it’s pretty funny, actually. Especially now that we have a good name for her. It makes it all that much more entertaining, but I know it’s bugging GFI. Their monkey love woke her from a dead sleep the other night… that’s no good.  So I think next time we’re all out on the terrace, I’m going to warmly rib him about this new girlfriend and suggest that he move his bed to the opposite wall.  Hint, hint. Nudge. Nudge.

Now, props to Slick. He’s either really good (which is just not something I wish to consider) or she’s been watching too much porn and needs to refine her faking technique, but either way, let a girl wash her face in peace, would ya?  Sheesh!

The Really Long One Where I Say Creepy More Times Than I Can Count

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Last Friday night, I grabbed a bottle of vodka from my freezer, a jar of blue cheese olives, threw on my coat and climbed upstairs to GFI’s place for some ‘tinis on the terrace.  Before I could even made it to her door, Slick poked his head out his screen door and said, “OOo!  Are we having martinis?  I’ve got my own vodka!” and he ran over like an eager kid with his own bottle of Kettle One.  So, there we were, neighbors hangin’ out, having vodka. 

About half a martini later (I know, I don’t know what was up with that), I left to go to Target but when I came back, there was some guy up on the terrace with GFI and Slick. It was dark and I couldn’t see who he was, but GFI shouted down to me, “This is Chester!  You’ve got to come up and meet Chester!” I wasn’t really in the mood, it was cold, but she sounded like she really wanted me up there and I didn’t like her being up there in the dark with two guys, one a total stranger.

So I got up and there’s Chester.  He’s an older guy, like in his 60’s with white thinning hair, a golf shirt, jeans and white tennis shoes.  He looks slightly grizzled, like he’s spent time in a whiskey bottle and smelled a bit like it, too.  He was swigging a beer and moments after introducing ourselves, he tells me he’s had half a bottle of tequila before he came upstairs to meet the neighbors.  Charming.

Anyway, this guy is kind of creepy.  He’s lived in our building for 3 years on the opposite side and is a chauffeur. He’s got a town car and a Corvette he parks in the back. We’d never met him or even seen him before Friday night.  Something about the way he looked at me made me really uncomfortable, same with GFI.  He has this wide thin smile (slightly open-mouthed but doesn’t show teeth) and kinda beady eyes that make him look like Robin Williams and Jonathan Winter had a lovechild.  He was nice, so I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I’m usually a pretty good judge of character.  I usually know how to call it and this guy… he just didn’t sit well with me.  But again, I didn’t want to make snap judgments about a half-drunk stranger in the dark.

(Why do I feel like I’ve said that before?)

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The Weekend Warrior

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I’ve been getting to know my neighbors a bit here and there.  The English Couple from across the street invited GFI and I over for a drink during the holidays, which we’ve not had a chance to do yet, but I think we will soon. They’re really a nice older couple and I’m dying to see their backyard (what I can see of it looks pretty sweet).

I know the guy upstairs next to GFI in Furley’s old apartment.  We call him Slick. Then there’s The Lawyer next to him. Downstairs from him is Granola Guy and between the two of us lives a really cool nurse. I have no name for her other than her first name, so for the purposes of this blog, we’ll just call her Nurse New York.  In the building next to us is Crazy Pajama Bird Man.  He’s got parrots, a poor relationship with his baby mama and can often be found outside in too-big socks and ratty pajama bottoms using a cherry-picker to trim the trees.  And finally, also in the building next door, we have The Patio Lesbians.  Man, those women sure love their patio.

I figured I’d gotten to know enough of the characters for a while, but that was before the man next door to The English Couple got a Harley for Christmas.

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