The Holly Days

The week of December 10th was full of performances with the NY Dinner Theatre. We performed all over NY, Long Island, and New Jersey. I was exhausted by the end of the week but I’m so glad to be performing.
On Monday night I got to finally hang out with my friend Rachel from college. I ran into her a week earlier randomly at the subway station in Union Square. We ate dinner at the “Chat ‘n Chew” in Union Square. It was a really fun, inexpensive place to eat dinner. I loved it. I’ll have to introduce more of my friends to that place. We’re always looking for cheap places to eat!
I had a callback audition on Wednesday night that was pretty promising. Well, it wasn’t THAT promising because I didn’t get the part. Boo who…and I’m over it.
I went to the “spa” with my friend Annie on Friday before performing in a show. I got my hair “did.” The spa or shall I say “salon,” was very high fashion. Or so it seemed. There was loud techno music, lots of people, and a strong scent of high-end hairspray. I had no idea how I was gonna get out of there without dropping a small fortune. Somehow I managed to do alright, (with the help of my friend Annie’s previously purchased discount). I got my hair cut and highlighted, because the stylist insisted, (ouch) for about half what I probably could’ve paid. Not too shabby. I like my new do too!
I worked and performed and didn’t come up for air until I could let my hair down at my friend Lauren’s Christmas Party Sunday night. She had a few people over to her Upper East Side pad for a little holiday fête. I had a great time and some good grub to boot! This is Murph and I enjoying the party... .
Monday the 17th I worked at Sephora. I cut out early to go to the Knicks vs. Pacers game at Madison Square Garden. My Uncle Dan was in town with the Pacers just long enough to whip the Knickerbockers. He got me a free ticket and a pass to the team visitors’ area. The game was a lot of fun. I got to chat with him after the game for a little while before they jetted off to their next match city. It was really nice to see him.
Tuesday night (after work OF COURSE) I grabbed a bite with Annie before she headed out to Oregon for the holiday. We went to “The Burger Joint” by Carnegie Hall midtown (ish). It’s this popular, tiny burger place within the lobby of a very fancy hotel. The lobby is intimidating but you walk into the corner and right into an inane little dive to get a great burger. It’s a really small place and there where entirely too many people there. It’s definitely a New Yorker favorite. It’s off the beaten path so it’s relatively free of the hordes of tourists that hit the town. I liked it. I don’t eat many burgers so I didn’t have much to compare my meal with. I thought it was pretty good though. I liked the atmosphere most, I think.
Thursday I took the train out to Newark airport to buy a plane ticket to visit Oregon in January! The train ride was a giant pain in the…but I’m glad to have that over with because I’m one step closer to a much needed visit. I am loving it here in NY but I gotta visit home! I miss the good old OR and the family and friends I have there.
After my Newark excursion I went to a birthday party for my friend Murph. We played Cranium and celebrated Murph’s big day. It was so fun to play board games again. I don’t do that often enough if you ask me.
Friday I worked for the psychotic human beings that have decided Christmas shopping is a life or death matter. After that unfortunate endeavor I, once again, partied with some pals. This time we met up at the Belmont Lounge in Union Square. It was my co-worker Denise’s Birthday so we had a little dance/cocktail party with her. Denise is a lot of fun to work with. She does improve comedy like me so we never really stop laughing when we’re around each other. Glad to have her as a friend here; she’s a real New Yorker. haha.
Saturday the 22nd I had some coffee midtown with my friend Jason from church. Coffee midtown the Saturday before Christmas is just a bad idea. There were about 1 million people per square foot. Not exaggerating. Seriously. No really. Avoid midtown Manhattan for the entire month of December if you can help it at all. There are just too many people. All of which have somehow forgotten how to walk. But that’s just the “I really gotta get out of town for a while” Kira talking. But do avoid midtown nonetheless.
Jason is a really great friend I’ve made at church. We talked for a couple hours mainly about music and politics. Separately, of course. He really likes The Beatles too so we had plenty to talk about.
Sunday I went to the “Fourth Sunday in Advent” service at Apostles. There was a wonderful sermon on God’s love to hear. Sounds simple but it was very poignant at this time of year. If you ever wanna hear any of the sermons from Apostles you can hear any of them on Apostlesnyc.com. Good stuff.
Well, I’m up to date DAD! Hehe.

A little Christmas gift...

(I took this picture at the Christmas Party. Lauren had all these tiny little presents for decorations. I just had to catch 'em on film.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Finally, that "continued" part.

The majority of my life, recently, has been consumed by working at Sephora, performing with the NY Dinner Theatre, and being a part of my church.
I was pretty excited when I got to go to a friend's birthday party on Saturday Dec. 1. It was a welcome change of pace; my friend Paul's Birthday. I went to college with Paul and he now lives in Harlem. At the party I got to see my friend David from UE as well. It was so great to see those guys again. It's been a long time since we all hung out. Paul's party was crazy. I met a lot of new people and danced like it was going out of style.

When I finally headed home from the party I was out just in time to see the first snowfall of the season. It was beautiful! The night was so peaceful and the snow looked so pretty. By the time I got back to Astoria the snow was really beginning to accumulate on the ground so I got to be the first to make footprints in the snow. That made my week.
Sunday I went to church at Apostles then hung out with my friend Courtney. We ate lunch at the "Green

Kitchen" near church then went down to Union Square. There is a holiday bazaar on the south side of the square with all sorts of art and random gift ideas. Courtney and I walked around and checked out the vendors. It reminded me a lot of Portland's Saturday Market. I saw a ton of great gifts but, much like PDX's Sat. Market, everything was a little out of my price range. It was really fun to look though. I'm always impressed by the original artwork I see at those type of things.
After we bummed around the market for a while, Courtney and I went and saw the movie "Enchanted." I thought it was cute. The theater was packed but I still enjoyed the movie. Not sure if it quite lives up to the hype but that's just my opinion. Far be it from me to rain on Disney's most recent princess parade.

As for the rest of the week, I worked with the exception of a few highlights: On Wednesday night, (12/5), I auditioned for a play called 36:24:36. It's about how body image is being skewed and handled by society today. The audition went well and I ended up getting a callback.

On Thursday, (12/6), I had my last meeting with my Community Group that met up to read "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis. We wrapped up our discussion of the book and I have a great sense of accomplishment. That book is quite a challenge.

This week I got a Christmas present in the mail from my parents. They sent me a new camera so I can actually show instead of just tell! I'm so thankful for it and I will try to keep put more pictures on here.

The pictures in this post are ones I took with a disposable camera I bought because I was tired of not having a camera. The quality is obviously not too great but at least you get the idea. The picture above is of my community group. From left to right it's me, Cassie, Deirdre, Caleb, Brian, and Charles. They've become good friends of mine and I'm glad you get to finally see them. Oh, the cat in the picture is Deirdre's new kitten, Loki. He's adorable and has a hilarious personality. In our last meeting he slept between the couch cushions while we hung out. We had to be careful where we sat on the couch.

On Saturday 12/8 I had a performance of "Let's Kill the Boss" in Long Island with the dinner theater. It was at a banquet hall called Tivoli Terrace. The show was packed and the hall reminded me of something from "The Wedding Singer." It was due for a makeover. I had a great time with the cast, again. They crack me up.

On Sunday I was on the Load-In team at church. The sermon was on "spending less" and I appreciated hearing it. I'm finally trying to set up a good budget for myself here in the city.

After church I went straight to work. After work I decorated our apartment for Christmas! My parents sent us a tree and some lights and ornaments so we had fun setting that up. Our apartment is so cozy now. I'm so glad it's up to the season.

I better go for now but I'll leave you with some more photos from my disposable camera: There is a picture of a really pretty tree that's on the upper east side at 59th street between 3rd and Lex. A picture of my bedroom (I still haven't decided what I'm going to put on the walls). There's a picture of the view from my bedroom window. At night you can see the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building and it's a beautiful view. I also put a random shot of my street and the street sign marking my street. that's called wasting film. haha. I hate to do it again but, too be continued...

Where am I?

Where have I been? Apparently in some parallel universe where I thought I had written on this thing much sooner than now. Weird.
So let’s see. Thanksgiving I ate dinner in Valley Stream, Long Island with my friend Jana and her fiancé Alex. We ate a “3 person meal” from the local Boston Market. It had turkey, corn, mash tatoes, mac n’ cheese, cornbread, and punkin pie. It was super good. I had forgotten how tasty the Boston Market could be. They went bankrupt in Portland years ago and I hadn’t eaten at one since. Well, I’m here to tell you that if you can’t eat some home cooking for turkey day, Boston Market offers a lovely alternative.
Jana, Alex, and I had a great evening. I got all caught up on their wedding plans. Jana even asked me to sing in her wedding so I’m really excited about that! We have to decide what she wants me to sing now. Any suggestions?
After dinner and dessert we watched the Broadway production of “Legally Blonde” on MTV. I just love that show. It’s so cute. I think it’s so cool how MTV played it on TV. When else in history has that ever happened? Well, at least someone got to watch the show, with the stagehand strike on Broadway it’s tough to see any theatre!
After the showing I took the LIRR back to Manhattan and walked right passed Macy’s in Herald Square where earlier that day there was a live TV broadcast of the parade. There was confetti all over the street earlier when I passed by. On this pass everything had been cleaned up and you’d never be able to guess there had been a huge parade with thousands of viewers on the very spot. Good clean up crew.
I got home pretty late and hit the hay ASAP so I could be bright eyed and bushy tailed for my shift at Sephora on Black Friday. Dun dun dun!
The next morning I woke up before my alarm clock in a panic thinking I had overslept. I hadn’t thank GOD but my boss had called and left me a message. She wanted me to come in early. We had head honchos of Sephora coming to visit and she wanted me to come help out. Nice, come check us out on Black Friday. Nice!
So, I went in early. The store wasn’t ridiculously busy because we don’t have crazy sales but boy did we have some weirdies come in. Bargain hunters, if you will. They, (as I saw many), carried a lot of shopping bags. They actually looked kinda funny. The day went by relatively quickly so it wasn’t too bad. I went straight to the gym after work. I didn’t even want to attempt any shopping. I was scared for my life. I thought I was gonna drown in other peoples’ shopping bags on the subway. I was tempted to stop by Old Navy, though. I heard they were handing out iPods with certain purchases. Is this true? I can’t even imagine the chaos. Ouch.
I worked pretty much all day Saturday and then Sunday I set up at church. I was also on the greeting team. That was fun. I met a bunch of new people. I love my church. After church, you guessed it, I worked. Monday, I worked and thus, I finished the craziest, longest week of work. I should be pullin’ down big dough for all that. I finally got to come up for air on Tuesday.
Tuesday, being my first real day off in a while I ran a bunch of errands. I found the “Panera Bread” restaurant that’s near my apartment. It was lovely. I just love that place. I ordered some soup and a sandwich. I ate while I talked to my lil bro Kyle. That was fun. It’s been too long since we talked.
After Panera, I met up with my friend Courtney for coffee.
Wednesday I went back to work. After work I went out to Long Island for a read-thru of a new show the NY Dinner Theatre wants me to work on. It’s a murder mystery called “Candidate for Murder.” I would play the candidate’s wife AND the murderer. Sorry to ruin the ending for ya. Ahaha. The read-thru was fun because the play is funny. I don’t think I’ll work on the show though. I kinda wanna move on.
After the reading I took the train back to Manhattan with a new friend I made named Anthony. He’s a very talented actor who is a little older and has lots of good experience that I could learn a lot from.
Thursday, as if by some miracle from God, I had the day off. I was exhausted. I slept in. After that I ran around a bit then eventually met up with my community group at a restaurant just off Union Square. It’s called “Piola.” It is a really popular Italian/Brazilian restaurant. I loved it. The food was great and the atmosphere was fun. I had some good bonding time with my community group friends.
After dinner a few of us went to Strand Bookstore. It is just like Powell’s Books in Portland. Powell’s is a lot more crunchy granola hippy than Strand which is more like dusty granola hippy. Ya follow? Haha.
My friend Cassie and I both bought a copy of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” It was ober cheap. We decided we’d read it and talk about it whenever we saw each other. So far I dig the book. I love how detailed it is.
After Strand we stopped by a famous chocolate shop/restaurant called “Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man.” We had heard of it and wanted to check it out. We where pleasantly surprised by free samples. Hehe It’s a place where you can get just about anything chocolate. You may have seen it on the Food Network.
On that sweet note, I’m headin’ to bed. To be continued…