my love for you is 4 Real

allright allright, the natives have gotten restless and have pointed out that i left off on a layover and for all anyone knows, i am still stuck in some hellish airport. luckily, i managed to escape airports for a time (this will not be true next week when i fly to virginia beach, return to SD friday evening, then turn around and fly to cincinnati sunday. the horror, the horror.) anyway, there is much to report so this will be loooooong.

I have yet to address the happenings in Albany, which were truly fantastical.
The most eventful night was actually the last night when Misha, my college rommate,

who was my friend from the very first minute we met in our summer program, came up to visit me from NYC. we had a few precious hours and decided to go somewhere to eat and talk as long as possible. we ended up at a place called the Envy Lounge that thought it was very swanky and made a big to-do about whether we would be able to get in seeing as we had no reservations...luckily there were plenty of envious seats available. Now, when you name yourself after one of the 7 deadly sins, i expect a sinfully delicious dining experience...this it was not. the roasted pumpkin soup was super sweet and tasted like goupy pumpkin pie filling...i could go on about the meal (it was dining week in albany so it was a set course for 20.09 at various city restaurants) but the real story is not the crappy food.

the REAL story is how at 9p.m. they cleared the chairs from the main floor and decided to hold a dance exhibition that played out like a high school talent show. First up was a ballerina from the local dance school who was trying to dance en pointe but kept SLIPPING to our horror--we were sure she was going to die, but she valiantly kept trying to save herself and then just danced flat-footed. next up--an anticlimactic white belly dancer. she was neither here nor there really. but next and most awesomely, was SHOCKWAVE the robot:

please note the silver underwear. The contrast of being in a restaurant with people dressed to the nines and who thought this was *the place* to be and the fabulously down-home talent show entertainment was just hysterical. it was like being inside a christopher guest movie. After Shockwave the Robot, whose popping and locking skills were frankly debatable, but who was fun to watch nonetheless, there was a pussycat dolls wannabe group called the Limited edition dancers. at this point mishes and i decided not only could we not talk, but we had gotten the full gist of the evening's entertainment.

so mishes was still hungry after not eating much of the crap gourmet food. we decide to try to find a place for dessert and coffee. but albany actually shuts down at 9:30 pm. it was horrific. so we see this mcdonalds and decide, okay we can get apple pie and ice cream (a favorite of mine from when i lived in beijing actually.) and this produced another wondrous experience. the mcdonalds was closed except for the drive-thru. so i ask misha how much she wants this apple pie. and she is pretty committed. so we wait in line at the drive-thru. behind cars!! when we get to the drive-thru and come face to face with the man who had come to the door to tell us that the mcdonalds was closed, he tells us that the ice cream machine has been closed up for cleaning and there is no apple pie. we stand indecisive for a minute. he then rolls his eyes and says, well, apple pies would take 12 minutes to cook. we both shrug and decide we have nowhere else to be and it's a nice 65 degree evening. he also says we can have milkshakes. we decide this sounds lovely. we decide to wait on the curb by the door rather than in the drive-thru. this leads to a colorful encounter with a crazy/homeless/crazyhomeless man with a little dog. he doesnt respond to the wary small talk we are making, but instead goes on a tirade about how his dog is famous and known by hundreds of thousands of people because it was dognapped and he got onto 4 radio stations asking for it back. it was a well-trained little dog, i must admit, so who knows if we were in the presence of true animal fame. but a surreal experience all the same. so anyway, after that we have no visitors except a cleaning woman leaving the mcdonalds and wearing an obama shirt--we try to helpfully tell her that depending on the local rules she might not want to wear the shirt to the polls in case they have something against passive electioneering--she's like "whatever". then we get our apple pies and shakes. one sip into the shake and i feel violated--the dude put the unfrozen unprocessed shake mix into the cups. it tastes like a vat of chemicals. (just in case you ever thought mcdonalds milkshakes were made of any real ingredients. no they are not--but when properly prepared they are still delicious chemicals.) so we are spitting the foulness out of our mouths the rest of the way back to the hotel, past the crack den bus station.

so it was an eventful evening, another classic in the story of our friendship.

speaking of long friendships, the Sunday after arriving back home from Albany, Charity and I, 6 months late, treated our high school friend Lisa to a very belated birthday present. we had said that we would treat her to a concert (with us in tow, naturally) and she hadnt gotten around to choosing one. but as fate would have it, one of the very weekends she was coming down to visit was the same weekend the So You Think You Can Dance tour was in San Diego. yes. oh yes. so we got our 15 y.o. selves in gear and went to scream our heads off with a bunch of other, much younger, dance fanatics. note the presence of multiple pictures of Will--so hot right now!



yes, we were all totally game for the experience, but i think we all shuddered when the contestants explained that a particular gesture they do involving 4 fingers sort of pulling on their shoulders stood for "4 Real" which alludes to them being the season 4 contestants and that their experience and love for each other was...so real. i was like "oh yeah, i'm too old for this."

anyway, of course there is more to say, but this is enough for now. should have lots of more airport time coming up for bloggage. :)