Papa Gallo, Fayetteville

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http://www.cnydigested.com/2007/11/papa-gallo-fayetteville/

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uhhhh... october road.

i love that show, especially that eddie latekka. he makes my heart flutter...but it could also be the wine...

did anyone else watch it? is he sam's father?!!? i hope they have all of this seasons episodes filmed and it won't be affected by the strike. i'll have to find out tomorrow.

things that make me smile.

as i drove home from work today i saw that the town has started decorating for the holidays.. i saw a couple of things that made me smile, then i started thinking of other festive happy things and came up with this quick list.

1. i like the white christmas bulbs on outdoor trees that have a blue hue to them. they remind me of those headlights that are crazy blinding blue. an example of these bulbs can be seen on the trees on the corner of the fayetteville town center near the gazebo.


2. i like the way the business park down the street from where i work lazily decorates the trunk and the first couple of bows on the trees. it makes the trees look like little tornados, and tornados make me smile.


3. i heard the original of a song that i have come to love from a remake in the movie "love actually". it reminded me that i love that movie, and i need to add it to my queue, or maybe just buy it.


4. in trying to remember the name of "love actually" i thought of the movie "the holiday". which is another movie i love.

of course with the good comes the bad. :) today at lunch i went into the freezer in the kitchen and found not one empty ice trays but FOUR empty ice trays. what the F!!!! i can kind of understand one tray. but four?!! i wanted to set up a camera so i knew who to punch in the face... at the end of the day someone tipped me off as to who it most likely was. and trust me, the ice cubes are just fuel added to the fire. :(

this friday is my company holiday party. i am looking forward to it this year as i know more people and might actually have someone to talk to this time. it's also on a friday which is good, cause i will have the privacy of my own bathroom to get sick in the next day. ;) lol. j/k, i'm not doing that again! i took some great pictures last year at the bar afterwards.. it's fun to hang out with coworkers outside of work, you get to see all kinds of different sides of people, and i think it makes working with them easier... needless to say, i have high hopes for this years party.

gasoline

i am back from my thanksgiving vacation in the southern tier. it was so nice to have the house to myself yesterday. i got all kinds of stuff done, laundry, dishes, sorting through my paperwork, balancing my checkbook, catching up on my netflix dvds and watching my dvr'd shows.

speaking of shows, i saw the season premiere of October Road. god i love that show, it's kinda corny, but i'm so glad it's back on.

when i went to bed last night it seems the gasoline fumes have soaked into my bedding... i was so tired i didn't care... but now i am wondering if it isn't hazardous to my health. i'm going to ask google...

ruh row, this is what i found...

You inhale benzene every time you fill up at the pump -- that is why most gas or petrol stations now put "hoods" over nozzles, to capture or redirect the vapor. And yes, benzene is very destructive to cells in living organisms, and it is both toxic in the short term and potentially cancer-causing in the long term. Fortunately most people don't get enough of it in their bodies in a lifetime to be very dangerous, but mechanics and forecourt workers which are chronically exposed to it can develop a number of health effects from it.

and this...

Breathing gasoline fumes is dangerous also. Exposure to vapor concentrations can cause respiratory irritation, headache, dizziness, nausea and loss of coordination. Higher concentrations may cause loss of consciousness, cardiac sensitization, coma and death resulting from respiratory failure.

hmmm.. maybe i should wear a hospital mask to bed till all the gas fumes escape from my bed..

black friday - EH style.

if you know me, you know that shopping is not high on my priority list. so about 4 years ago i was talked into going to "the sales" with EH.. going to the sales involves waking up in the 4s and throwing my hair in a pony tail and getting in the car.

last night before all 33 t-giving guests arrived we looked through all the flyers for the next morning. seeing as we are in the sticks there are really not many stores to go to early... so that makes it even more impt to get there early and get a spot. the stores on our list were wal-mart, k-mart and staples.

wal-mart was first on our list cause they opened at 5. EH picked us up at 430 promptly. we drove the half a mile down to the store and i thought we were pulling into a concert at great woods... the parking lot was full and we had to park next door in the parking lot closest to old navy. the line that awaited us was just absurd.



when they opened their doors people literally were sprinting the length of the parking lot towards the masses squeezing into the doors. i'd say a 3rd of the people grabbed carts which totally bottlenecked everyone getting into the place. we had a map of the store somehow and knew where we needed to run to. i was behind mike (making a bee-line for the back of the store) and he almost was smashed by at least 2 carts running full speed through the aisles. we grabbed our items and headed to the checkouts.. we were done with wal-mart at 515.

this was basically the scene at each of the stores we went to.



so the environment really brings out the best in EH.. compound that with alternating exhaustion and the adrenaline of it all and it makes for some pretty hysterical moments. here are some of the highlights...

dunkin donuts was closed when EH went through so we had to go to burger king. we pull up to the menu and EH orders a bkJoe, which is the name for their coffee. the woman on the other end of the speaker lets her know she's ordering an iced coffee. the BK woman was promptly barked at and corrected.

cath has trouble getting in and out of RHs mammoth chevy.. and that just doesn't fly with EH. we arrived at kmart and cath was taking so long i heard EH tell her she's "too slow, lock up" then i heard the keys hit the icy pavement.

at staples she accused the people in front of her in line of not paying attention and the woman promptly swivelled around and asked "excuse me?" cath said they got the evil eye the rest of their time in line.

my purse was on the dashboard of the truck while we ate my hash brown tater tots from BK. EH demands that i remove the purse.. i say, "it's fine". so she slams on the brakes. i went flying into the windshield. as you can imagine this was met by hysterics from EH.

after our exhausting day of shopping we had a little breakfast at perkins. :)



here are pics from the weekend so far.

happy thanksgiving everyone.

today we are traveling to the southern tier.. the weather looks alright here from my perspective, but mike says it looks like rain the whole way! great, i love to travel in pouring rain, it's my preferred way to travel.

i think i am going to bring our wireless router so i can be connected out in the middle of nowhere...

i ran out this morning and bought four bottles of wine and had my oil changed, i am all set!

aaaaahhhh the comforts of my new old bed...

because of EHs "gimmees" the bed in my room has been swapped out with my own bed from the shed. i'm glad to have it back where i know what's happening to it and my box springs. there is a faint odor of gasoline emanating from the mattress, but i woke up this morning, so apparently it wasn't enough to kill me. as i stretched the blue t-shirt sheets over the mattress pad (twice, cause i can never tell which way is right with those darned sheets) i cursed them and swore to buy a new cotton set as soon as my wallet allows. however... i woke up from sweet dreams (of fred armisen, strangely) feeling 180 degrees different towards these sheets. they felt like the softest suede against my bare legs last night. i forgot that i loved them so...i won't be replacing those sheets anytime soon.

while at my last trip to wegmans i happened upon Pete's Tofu2Go. i know most people are immediately turned off by the word tofu, but this tofu is something like i've never tasted. these delectable little triangles of flavored tofu have the consistency of quiche, and i believe the "Thai Tango" flavor i bought had little bits of onions inside it.. so darned delicious. i will be back to wegmans for these no doubt.

exhausted!!

i'm back from my quick jaunt to boston. KW and i made the drive out in 4.5 hours and headed straight for fenway park. naturally the place a die hard yankees fan wants to go, right? she had only been to boston once in the night, so we had a lot of sights to see. lucky for us the sun was shining and the sky was clear. after our tour we drove over to newbury street, boylston street, and then out to JP for a sandwich at "City Feed". i thought of calling CR, but just didn't have enough time on this trip, it was too spur of the moment and we had a lot to do. maybe it was because we were starving, but i think it might just be city feed, but the s'wich i ate was so insanely good...



after our lunch we headed over to fanuiel hall and quickly got fed up with the crowds and went to "the place" for a frosty beverage. the first thing that hit us about the bar was the beer stench emanating from it. it smelled as if the walls and floors had been hosed down with beer. the bathroom had a couch in it that looked like this...



every person in the bar was wearing something michigan, we thought that we were at an alumni event or something, turns out we had just missed the michigan/ohio state game. shucks...

after our drink we headed to cambridge to meet JBP and HEKD for dinner. i felt bad because we were so late with wrong turns and traffic. i was hoping HEKD would be late as she usually is, but she wasn't. :( it looked like she had made some friends at the bar though. the mojitos there were fantastic!!

after dinner HEKD went home and the three of us headed across the street to the lizard lounge. i had no idea how small the place was going to be. i saw a sign in the bathroom saying that the capacity of the place was 105. i would say there were close to 100 people in the place. it made for a very intimate show. :) JBP was able to get rid of her extra ticket too.

the show was everything i had hoped for and more! scrap was nothing like what i had imagined. i was delighted to see that he was very shy and meek, it was endearing. he read most of the questions from the jar. mike doughty seemed kind of angry for most of the show. he barked at the bartenders and chatty cathys to stop talking a bunch of times. one loud woman bragged that she had sold a pair of tickets on craigslist for $250 and mike doughty demanded that she give him the 250. then he changed his mind and asked that she give it to the bar for anyone that wanted a drink to use. she "coughed" up $100, so he put $150 on his credit card to make up the difference. it was an interesting thing. he wouldn't play "real love" despite many many requests for it. :( that was the only negative part in my opinion. i had such a great time at the show i am considering finding out when/where he plays in NYC and making the trip down..



i took a bunch of video of some of the questions they were answering....



DE was at the show, i read her blog daily, but haven't seen her in the flesh since last years company party i think...



after the show the three of us hit up a dive bar called rosies in somerville. they had some of my favorite oldies rocking on the juke box. after rosies we headed to my old favorite neighborhood and had one at the castle bar. it's crazy insane how different that bar is. the bathroom is somewhere i would want to live, and i am not kidding. gone is the crappy dark old look and it's been replaced by chic upscale trim and decorations. it seemed brighter too. the same old bartender was working, and i can't for the life of me remember what his name was. do you remember LK? he was from dublin, "the bleeding dub". he was the only one i recognized. we stayed for just one, it was nice... that place will always be a reminder of good times for me. i was not surprised to see my old landlords painting van still parked outside our old house...

as predicted, KW and i left the BP hotel and were on the road by 810am. cath called then and i think she was surprised to hear that i was actually on the road. tsk tsk.. when do i saw i'm going to do something and not do it?

i'm glad KW was able to accompany me on the trip, it made the drive to and fro seem like nothing. KW is a lot of fun.. i look forward to many more adventures with her.

as soon as i got home this morning it was work work work. we rearranged two bedrooms and pulled my bed out of storage, it was not easy squeezing that queen sized mattress up the stairs but we prevailed. good thing we had an engineer on our side.

if i am not sore tomorrow from the moving, i will surely be sore from all the laughing i did today. i don't know if i am overtired but everything has been hysterical today. i have almost choked like 3 times..

here are my photos from yesterday.

here was the grand finale...

christmas has come early!!

over a month ago i was alerted that m.doughty was going on tour and stopping in boston. i am on his mailing list and religiously read his blog, so i've been all too aware that he's going to boston. the day tickets went on sale i had 2 browser windows open refreshing like a crazy person in order to secure myself some tickets. before i even had a chance to buy the tix, they were sold out. how could a show of a guy that not one person i've mentioned this to has heard of be sold out that fast? well. it turns out there was a computer glitch and a lot of people didn't get tix. they released more later on that i was also shut out from buying. i took it as a sign that i wasn't supposed to go..

then yesterday someone from the venue emailed me directly and said the band was releasing some of the tickets they had reserved and i could purchase 2 if i was still inclined.

i had to do a little juggling (that is a lie...thanks to my all but non-existent social life here in the 'cuse there was no juggling needed), but was able to commit to going there, spur of the moment tomorrow.. securing a guest to go to the show with me proved much harder for a couple of reasons. 1. the aforementioned problem that noone has ever heard of mike doughty, and 2. most people have lives and plan things more than 12 hours in advance, especially weekends. but much to my delight, i have met my spontaneous equivalent in KW. she agreed to drive out with me without knowing who the show is, to a city where she's only been once, trusting that i can find us a place to stay. she's my hero.. i love people that can just go with the flow!

and i wonder if the powers that be that control the weather read my blog... this morning i woke up to wet heavy snow all over the place. good thing i got the snow tires, and even better that my dad unknowingly bought and installed my new windshield wiper. i'm the luckiest girl alive.

to make this day even better i found out Papa Gallo is opening tonight.

click here for my review and the menu.

life is good.

mad planning...

bring on the snow!! i am 99% prepared. yesterday i bought some used snow tires (1 season) off craigslist and had them installed at the tire shop next door. the only thing i need now is a new driver side windshield wiper, and my roommate is already on it! hopefully this year i will not slide off the road in a ditch, or get stuck in my neighbors yard.

in other great news the red sox schedule came out, so naturally i'm planning my vacation for next year. this is what i am thinking right now...

monday april 21st, marathon monday game - fenway park.
monday-tuesday june 16th-17th, sox at phillies..
monday-tuesday july 21st-22nd, sox at seattle..
monday august 11th, sox at chicago white sox

and of course there is the wedding in cancun in february!

i had my dr's appt this morning and clay/liverpool/north syracuse is like a black hole in my mind.. i can never find my way to my dr's office (north medical center). that god MB is retired and ready at a moments notice to be my human gps...

i thought that since i was at least 15 minutes late my blood pressure would be elevated (which would have been the 3rd or 4th time in a row) and that would be terribly bad, however she said my BP looked fine. thank god. i've been paranoid as of late that i'm going to have a heart attack. sometimes i feel like when i am laying in bed my heart is racing, maybe its in my head. i hope so. i'm also drinking one of those god-awful dunkin donuts iced teas today that must be made with caffinated water cause i'm so jittery my attention span is less than 10 seconds. i feel like a junkie with shifty eyes. starbucks really needs to open a store closer to my work... dunkin donuts was on my way (and they have a drive through..double score) and i was short on time. but i guarantee i would not go back to DD if starbucks was closer...

october 31st has come and gone.

it was brought to my attention (but i've been thinking of it for a while) that my prediction that wFischers blog would come and go by halloween was indeed wrong. i can't believe i have to admit this, but i was wrong.. and so was everyone else.. wow, i really didn't think he had it in him, but wFischer has been an avid blogger.. and a pretty hysterical one at that. i really enjoy checking my feeds in the morning and seeing SyracuseNews.org lit up. so i encourage everyone that doesn't already, check out his blog.

it has a name!

cath and i took p-head for a walk after dinner and walked right up to the new restaurant. i got some blurry photos, but we did see the name of the place! its going to be called papa gallos.

the roommates and i went to The Mission today to use my gift certificates. good thing we showed up right when they opened because we didn't have a reservation and seeing as its such a small space they get full fast. the hostess let us have a booth but only for 1.5 hours, then she needed it for a reservation. cath and i asked to share the carafe of sangria straight away, and when she brought it back we asked her if we would be able to use both gift certificates at the meal... no, we couldn't, they don't take gift certs on fridays and saturdays. we thought about leaving. :) we got chips with the table and decided to spring for the guacamole and salsa sampler. the pico de gallo was great, and a little on the spicy side. the guacamole was good, but could have used more salt and garlic. the tomatilla salsa was pretty good. the sweet potato salsa was the spiciest of all.

we ordered our meals, me, cheese enchiladas, cath a quesadilla, and mike steak enchiladas. mike and cath got their meals a good 10 minutes before i got mine. they must have dropped mine or something. ugh.. i was kind of full already from the sangria and the chips we housed while waiting for the meals..

i have to say the meal was nothing spectacular. my favorite mexican dish is the enchilada and i had a choice of chicken, steak or cheese. i wish there was something more creative and vegetarian in there.. spinach, etc.

i will go again however, since i have 2 gift certificates still.. the space was cool, it's in an old church.

check out the pics i took at the mission, my lunch from friday, and the new restaurant..

the darjeeling limited.

so i had a blind date tonight with someone i met on eharmony. i had seen a picture, so does that still count as "blind"? either way it was a date with a total stranger. we saw The Darjeeling Limited. i liked it a lot, it was a weird movie with lots of stars... i think the same guy that made it made the royal tennenbaums, so if you've seen that movie, you get the idea about what kind of "weird" it was.

i must say i was a little nervous. i usually don't "feel" nervous for things like dates and interviews. asking for things though, totally nervous, making phone calls to people i haven't spoken to in a long time, or people outside of the handful of people i talk to regularly, totally nervous.

we met at the mall. i had misread the movie time so lucky for us i am chronically early. he paid for our tickets, check plus. i offered, but he insisted. i secretly like when the guy pays (well, not so secretly since it's here on my blog). don't get me wrong, i am always prepared, but it's nice when they pay.. we didn't have a lot of time to chat as we were kind of late, and he's not got a lot to say, check minus. there were a couple of random sex scenes that i wish i had known were coming. i don't have a problem in general with sex scenes, but on a date with a stranger, i'd prefer not to be surprised by these kinds of things. i'd also not enjoy the movie to be sad to the point that it makes me cry. thankfully this movie contained no sad parts. but check minus for the unexpected sex scenes.

i find that people either fall in the "comfortable silence" category, or the "uncomfortable silence" category. he fell in the latter. check minus. he does have a cool accent, check plus plus. we got dinner at ruby tuesdays after the movie, i was surprised there was a wait at 930. i didn't take a photo of my meal in case you were curious. but i did have their "mini" burgers.. a little raw inside, good thing i like rare meat.

because he didn't have a lot to say and made little attempts to keep the conversation going i felt compelled to ask him millions of questions. i don't really think i touched on any one subject that he was passionate about. check minus.

i feel the check minuses stacking up. he did drive over an hour each way to meet me. that deserves a check plus.

maybe i am too critical. actually, the checks balance themselves out. the jury is still out on whether or not i would go out with him again.

things are looking up!!

before i get to that...

<what's going on in fayetteville>

the mexican restaurant is coming along very nicely. there are all sorts of wall decorations, even outside... aztec looking suns and i think i saw a whole head on the wall in there.. earlier this week i saw bench/booth seats going in. there is even a structure that will end up being the roadside sign in place!! my mouth is watering.

</what's going on in fayetteville>

today was my court appearance for the cell phone ticket. cath met me at the courthouse. we pushed and shoved our way towards the front of the mob that was queuing to sign the register knowing that last time we were in court for this ticket we didn't get to see the judge till after 8pm. to our delight the baliff called a bunch of names of people that were to see the DA and we were called! this fast tracked our appearance.. we waited in the hallway for the DA to call us and when she did, she quickly and politely DISMISSED my ticket because i was a first time offender and i had a copy of my clean driving record. after the great news from the DA i had to wait back in the courtroom for the judge to sentence me and give me my fine. because it was dismissed i didn't have to pay a thing! so great!! the DA was so nice, and the judge was too.

i have been nibbling on this pomegranate all night now and i feel like i am maybe halfway through. i wonder if i can put it away and eat more of it tomorrow.



here is a shot of the table and the trivia lady and bar from last nights trivia.

nudey magazine day election day.

today was election day. most of the recent stress i am having at work will be gone by tomorrow, making room for the bigger more drawn out stress to move in. :)

cath and i took patty over to vote after dinner. she was not old enough to cast her votes. maybe next year. she'll have to reregister in PA though.



i have been so busy lately that i have a list of things i need to do in my personal life that i have been neglecting.. one of which was locate the paper i received back in july stating when my next court appearance was in the event the DA didn't get back to me in time. i never found the paper, but i did call the court and i need to appear again thursday at 5. :( it's for my cell phone ticket...if i don't appear i could have my license suppended. adn then if i drive and get pulled over i could go to jail just like paris.

i think its time i start wearing my coat to work. there was little to no "in between" time i don't feel like. it was nice weather, now its winter.

i've located some winter tires to buy on CL.. woo who!! when the deal is final i'll report further.

i bought a pomogranate at the grocery store the other day. it was too expensive not to eat. but i really don't know how to eat one. is it too messy to bring to work? who eats pomogranates, and how?

nightmare before christmas 3-D

in continuing with my friday night movie series i saw "the nightmare before christmas 3-D" last night. it was still cute they gave us these 3-d glasses to where and they weren't your cheapo red and blue paper glasses, they looked like slightly tinted black rimmed geek glasses. in the beginning of the film there were quite a few 3-d elements, but the whole of the movie had very little 3-d ness. it was a little disappointing. and movies are up to $12 now? when did that happen? jeez. maybe it was just that one to cover the glasses... whoa.



there were some punk kids that were shouting out all the text that was on the screen (like, "please put on your glasses now") i'm glad they left almost as soon as the movie started to sneak into another film i would presume.

i have a lot of errands/organizing/laundry to do today. i can't wait to write myself a list so i can cross things off as i go.

halloween continued

yesterday was a contest at work and trivia.. i took 2nd place at work, and as a whole team, we won 1st at trivia..

here are photos of work/trivia...

here is the video of me at work in my costume. thanks SLI.

i have one more halloween function to attend. i might go as wendy though. marge's hair keeps flaking off..

i took p-head for a walk tonight and it was so bitter cold out. my hands froze off and my lungs turned to ice. :(

today was flu shot day at work. TL, our old neighbor across the street from us in manlius gave me the shot. i was highly surprised to see that she is a nurse.

everytime my calendar reminder popped up telling me that it was flu shot day, i couldn't help think, "it's nudey magazine day!". every single time. i think i need more sleep.