And then my writing group had a belated anniversary party with an awesome strawberry cake. Juliet hosted at her lovely new apartment and also provided spring rolls:
And then this past weekend it was time for my birthday! Sarah, my birthday twin, and I decided to have another joint party on Friday. Being the obsessive planner that I am, I made up an itinerary of things I really wanted to do a couple weeks in advance. This included Shake Shack and karaoke. Then I had to research a good bar near the karaoke place to go in between these awesome activities. My yelping led me to Ginger Man, and after scoping it out in advance, decided it would be a good spot to have everyone get their drink on.
Friday was raining alllll day and it was stressing me out, but by some miracle the rain stopped around 5:30 and it was actually quite sunny when we gathered in Madison Square Park for dinner at Shake Shack. I had a cheeseburger, fries, and a black and white shake that I shared with Kinks, my awesome roommate from London.
Then we all headed to Ginger Man and were met by lots more awesome people. Everyone wanted to buy me a drink, which really made me wish it were my birthday every day. Somehow the hours flew by and it was time to usher everyone to the karaoke place. I had decided against reserving a private room and just thought we could all pay per song in the main room, but when we got there it was pretty crowded and the people already singing were AWFUL. Luckily some other friends had arrived a few moments earlier and snagged us a private room. So we got to have good singing times without suffering from strangers' poor song choices. I know I sang a lot but what sticks out most is trying to do a duet with Kwangs towards the very end to Beyonce's Irreplaceable, but by that time my voice was mostly gone.The other birthday girl:
Saturday was ladies' brunch at Maialino. We all went into carb food comas afterward, but it was pretty yummy. I had a cappuccino, croissant, and ravioli with ricotta and egg yolk. Afterward we went shopping for several hours to walk off all the food, and I think the highlight of that trip was petting the most adorably soft shiba inu dog at Anthropologie while we waited for a rainstorm to pass.Sunday we fulfilled my wish to go out to Flushing, stuff our faces with cheap Chinese food, and then get cheap massages. My shoulders are currently sore from the elbow digging as my masseuse attempted to get some knots out (I think she failed) but it was definitely a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Next time we're gonna try and go a bit early so we can get dim sum and not have to wait in a massive line. Maybe I'll even splurge on an $8 manicure while I'm there.
Been setting up things on my new Kindle, so now I'm off to read the second Game of Thrones book! Only 800 more pages till I'm done with this one!
