Jump Start Halloween

This year for Halloween we decided to go as Kelly Kapoor and Ryan "The Temp" from the hit T.V. show "The Office".

This seemed like a good idea when Dawnell and I were deciding what we were going to be for the upcoming Book Club Halloween Party. I don't think I really thought it through like I should have. I didn't realize that I was going to have to walk close to a mile dressed in a racially politically incorrect costume. The whole subway ride people stared. I don't know if they were looking at me and noticing the stark difference between the color of my face and the whiteness of my arms or looking at Haylie. Either way, when half the population of NYU is Indian, it's probably best not to offend them in anyway.

On the way to the party we were the only ones dressed up. On the way home it was a different story altogether! We saw "Dr. House" and "Laura Croft-Tomb Raider", we saw the Sheriff from Reno 911, there was a guy dressed as Thor walking down the middle of the road. His companions were the two sluttiest witch and referee I've ever seen!

On the way out of the Subway we ran into a friend of Toms from school. They are in the same Dental Practice at school and this was the first time I had met anyone from school. He had to ask if I really was as tan as my faced appeared to be. I asked Tom as we walked away if he was embarrassed that his friend had met me looking like I did, and Tom actaully said yes! I don't know if he really meant it, he may have just really been into his Ryan "The Temp" character, and we all know how lame he can be!

The party was great. The whole "Office" gang was there. In the picture above you will see Angela (Dawnell) and Pam (Jill). In the picture below you will see the whole cast since Dawnells' husband was Dwight and her baby, Beckett was a Beet from the farm. Tom is doing his best "Temp" face, and Jills husband was M.I.A but he was Jim, "3 hole punch Jim" to be correct!

Slum Lord Update!

I just got off the phone with our Landlady. She told me that she feels we are "playing dirty" and that she doesn't have time to "fight" with us. She even claimed that we asked to be let out of our lease because we were not comfortable with the mold. I told her that it wasn't that we were "uncomfortable" but that it was a health hazard and was unlivable. She seemed to disagree. I told her that because she terminated the lease despite what she thinks that we won't pay another months rent or give her two weeks notice.

That said....great news! The place that we really like is ours! I am thrilled to be moving and can hardly wait until next week when I can shake this disgusting hole that I've called home!

Slum Lord

When we moved into our apartment over a year ago I noticed that it had a funky smell, "moldy" if you will. I have always been a little bit worried about this smell, but chose to ignore it because so many other things were going on with the place that were more obvious, like a gas leak or mice (we have killed seven so far, and one ran across the floor two days ago while I was changing Haylie). After the "Flood" in August we decided that we really needed to get the smell checked out. We called a Mold Testing place. The came out and for a mere $375.00 checked the air in our place.

Last Thursday we received the test results. I wasn't totally surprised to find that we did have high levels of toxic mold in the place. The results claim 87% Aspergillius in our place. We gave a copy of the report to our Landlords who live upstairs. On Friday I was checking the mail and who should I see but our Landlady. She then proceeded to inform me that we have to move out. She said that they were going to have to tear out walls etc. It's my opinion that they just want us out. When we are out I assume they are going to rent the place to some unsuspecting new person!

Since then we have been looking for apartments, which is a NIGHTMARE out here! We found one that we really liked. In the meantime we received a letter in writing from the landlord terminating our lease.

Today I see the Landlady again and she informs me that we owe another months Rent plus we need to give her two weeks notice so as not to "leave her hanging". Is she on Drugs?! SHE terminated the lease, not us. They are the landlords and need to take care of the toxic mold, not us. SHE informed us that we needed to vacated the premises since the place is a health hazard . Now SHE thinks we are going to pay another months Rent and give two weeks notice!

I am intensely angry about the situation. Not angry about the new place we found as it is newly renovated and closer to the PATH. We are just waiting to hear back from the Broker to make sure everything is shipshape! Cross your fingers for us!

Dana White and the UFC come to Jesrsey!

I am a Ultimate Fighting fan! Actually, both Tom and I are fans. We love to watch the reality show and tune in for all the fights. I have a slight crush on the President of the UFC, Dana White. It's not like he's really good looking, he can't even claim to have a fighters body, he's just a slightly middle aged man with really good fashion sense. The only thing I can liken this crush to is my long standing crush on Jean-Luc Picard Capitan of the Enterprise. I know it's totally weird! I think Dana is a genius who has managed to bring a little know sport out of obscurity and into the main stream. It's my opinion that Mixed Martial arts is going to over take Boxing. Who wants to watch boxing anyway? It's a totally unintelligent sport! It's not like MMA, they have it all, wrestling, submissions, martial arts, striking, the list goes on. I know a lot of people think it's a brutal sport, where "anything goes". That is simply not true, there are rules, and I think it's more civilized than boxing. If a fighter is unable to intelligently defend himself the fight gets stopped.

UFC headquarters is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rarely do the fights venture out east. Tom and I have discussed this at length and made the decision if there was ever a fight scheduled out east we would make the effort to go. I've dreamed about going to a live fight, even thought out what I would wear. I haven't come up with what my attire would be yet, as this is a crucial decision. I can't be slutty, and wear the usual "groupie" attire, of halter tops, and tube tops, so I have to come up with something just as flashy yet not slutty(in case I make it on t.v) . This is harder than it sounds...but that is so besides the point. Tom came home from Priesthood Session Saturday and announced that our long awaited dreams were about to come true! UFC was coming out east! Not only were they coming out east, they were going to be fighting in Newark, New Jersey! That's Haylie's birth city! Finally something to be proud of!

We immediately started looking for tickets. This is where it gets sad and depressing. Although tickets had just gone on sale that very morning, they no longer had any affordable tickets left. Unless you think 203.00 per ticket is affordable! The odds of getting two tickets are about the same as Tom and I buying a car. We entertained the idea of spending the money, we figured we could give up our Tom and Jenny's Days gifts to go to the fight. We went to bed that night firmly decided that we were going to go "No matter the price". The next morning dawned bright, and muggy and harsh reality set in. We knew in our hearts we weren't really going to be able to go after all. The dream is dying as I type. I think of the fights I wanted to see and a tear slides down my cheek. We haven't talked about it much since, I think we are both in denial. It's okay though, just like JSP (Saint-Pierre) will come back and beat the New York Crap attitude out of Matt "the terror" Serra, Tom and I will eventually make our dreams come true too!

P.S. I challenge you all to watch the reality show. It's on Spike T.V. and it's well worth the time. In case you were wondering Haylie is showing her disappointment that we will not attend the UFC inNewark.

Womens Confrence-Don't be fooled this is not a spiritual post.

As most of you know Saturday evening was General Womens Conference. A couple of friends and I decided to head to the stake center together to watch the broadcast. Our stake center is about 45 minutes away, or an hour and a half if you have traffic and aren't exactly sure how to get there. We were in the later group! Sadly we didn't arrive until well into conference, in fact we only saw Sis. Thomspons talk and Pres. Monson. I'm not going to lie and say how sad I am that I missed most of the conference, because my main reason for going was all about "sisterhood", and the fact that we had decided to go to dinner following the conference. I use to go out to dinner with my Mom and sisters after Women's conference and I've really missed the tradition since moving away. Luckily all of my friends were more than willing to humor me. In reality, I was looking forward to dinner more than the actual speakers.

As previously stated the broadcast was in a different city than our own. We didn't really know our way around town, except that just around the corner from the stake center massive mansions had been discovered. Mansions that put all other homes that we once thought to be large to shame! At least according to Addy, as she is the one who inadvertently discovered the homes while lost trying to find the stake center for stake conference. This is important for the story I am telling. Remember that we live in New Jersey, and New Jersey is head quarters for the Mafia as all those who watch "Sapranos" already know. It's been rumored that the Mafia is alive and well in New Jersey, particularly around our Stake Center. Which makes sense when you think about it, that the best and the worst of the earth would be in such close proximity to one another. In an effort to be adventurous and save time we decided to eat at a restrautn close to the stake center. We had passed an Italian restaraunt on the way home and figured it would be just as good as any place to eat, and the parking lot was full of cars. From the outside the restraunt kind of look like a "hole", but we walked in anyway. To our surprise when we made it indoors, it was kind of fancy looking. There was a live band in the corner, when I say band, I mean a key board player and a singer, and maybe someone playing a tambourine, I don't remember clearly. Two things happened when we walked in, firstly the whole restaraunt turned and looked at us in disbelief and all talking stopped. Secondly, the weird, bony, Italian speaking host made a beeline for us, and basically said he wasn't gong to seat us. I asked if the kitchen was closed for the night, and he said no but then motioned us to a table, and said "sit here, I will be back". He went into the back to ask if we could be seated, which really made no sense since the place was hopping and there were several empty tables. He came back a few minutes later after apparently receiving permission for us to stay, and asked us where we would prefer to sit. We chose a table in the corner, because by that time we felt the awkward stares of the other customers and wanted to be as far out of the way as possible. It wasn't until we were seated comfortably in our corner that we were really able to look around at the others around us. Here is what/who we saw. White linens tables clothes, candles, a bar in the back, a band, women with big, teased hair, gaudy chandelier earings, scantily clad women, large men with Italian accents, dressed in suits clasping one anther on the shoulder, and waving their large hands about. This is about the time it started dawning on us that we had walked into a Mafia Den! I'm not joking, it was obvious that we were unwelcome not only by the attitude of the other customers who kept giving us the evil eye, and by our waiter who made it very clear that he did not want to serve us. He was rude, and made snide remarks and distorted his face when we let him know we didn't drink. At one point I asked him to wrap up my leftovers, he tried to refuse by telling me that I hadn't eaten enough. One of the other girls also later asked to have her meal boxed and he told her that she needed to eat more, so she told him she had eaten plenty of hers and had even had a few bites of Addy's ravioli. "There were only three" he exclaimed about the ravioli, apparently in an effort to let us know that he thought we were pathetic. I've never had such a critical waiter in all my life. I think he found us a nuisance since I could tell he was trying to schmooze with the mafia people, probably trying to get his foot in the door for some bigger money.

We paid the bill and were walking out the door just in time to hear the beginning of a "disagreement" between two men at the bar. One yelled at the other "why don't you just leave". Addy looked back at Shannon and I and said "we should leave before the guns come out". She was just kidding, but we were in a Mafia Den and those guys can be unpredictable!

Hands down most memorable Womens Conference ever! Is it wrong to hope for something just as exciting next time? I think we need to make it a tradition, we can go somewhere less exciting next time. Maybe someplace with Karaoke? Can't you just see us in our church attire up on stage singing "Spice Girls- If you Wanna be My Lover"? Awesome!