july 4th rundown & runaround with anne!

happy belated 4th! yip yip!

just my luck, anne came to visit this past weekend, right in time for beautiful weather & a mix of fun random activities. thursday night i prepared by ostensibly trying to clean the apartment, woke up early on friday for a long sweaty run on the beach, and then scooped her up from the airport. first stop, south beach- lunch at big pink diner, a favorite staple that anne likened to the well-missed bendix in chelsea. after catching up & replenishing on salads and guac, we headed up to my apartment to soak in some pool-sunshine-time. although there was talk of motivating for bowling, anne informed me that, in tajikistan, bowling is for the nouveau riche. yes. she said it. true to form. apparently the new-money bling-bling tajiki's play rather frequently, and anne somehow got into the habit of playing regularly herself, so there was no need to relive this activity state-side.

every now and again, laying on the roof, large dark clouds would hover above us, slightly rain, causing us to scurry to a covered area with our us weekly magazines, and wait it out. eventually the sun returned, we napped a bit, and then peeled off to do some minor-shopping for our bbq the next day, july 4th. on the list? ingredients for the soon-to-be-fabulous spiked sweet iced tea. little did we know that in the south, they actually sell a vodka that is sweet-tea flavored. dangerous, eh? the best part of the liquor store was anne wandering around marveling at all of the choices of alcohol. welcome home, dear. she also helpfully pointed out which vodkas were really russian, and which only claimed to be russian. very necessary information for future russian food nights. assuming id like to be a hampster in a nest of towels on the bathroom floor again, that is.

after our little jaunt around the neighb, we headed out for dinner at katana, the sushi-boats place, where we sampled our little plates and anne ingested 12 iced teas (non-spiked). then home to change & get ready to go out: our plan was to meet justin & ashley at the raleigh at 10, but of course neither party was ready to do anything at 10... we, on the other hand, were fully dressed and out the door (anne letting me wear her fabulous peacock feather headband, which i am obsessed with). being that we had the extra time of course, it was necessary to go to sandbar for a round or two before we cabbed it south.

the raleigh is, i think, one of the classier hotels on south beach: kind of old-school feeling, in a charming way. we found ashley & anton, got drinks, and sat outside on the porch-ish area, where there was a deadringer of one of the "real housewives of orange county" next to us. serious plastics. somewhere in there we were presented with free cocktails involving champagne and some gross green or blue liquor (hypnotic or something like that?). i took mine for the road, mind you. even though no one else did... we took the backway and walked north on the beach a few blocks, all barefoot, up to the ganesvoort to the club there, louie. we've previously tried to get in here, but they always have excuses: no tee shirts, no jeans, no flippie floppies, whatever. this time we got in, and realized how not cool it was. regardless, we had fun dancing for a while in the narrow cavern back of the club, and eventually kicked it out around 2.30 or 3. being that we were somehow hungry (and anne had a mad passion for empanadas), we tried our luck at this colombian restaurant right next to sandbar: they were totally closed or closing, but the owner let us come in and made us up some empanadas. next to us at the bar-counter was a random dude just hanging and drinking his beer-- anne's guess was that he was the classic drunk cousin or brother. full of greasy empanada, we headed home.

saturday was bbq time! partial celebration of america, partial celebration of rachel's belated birthday. our iced tea was out of control, and we brought along muffins, bean salad, baked tofu, and portabella mushrooms for the grill. of course, once we drove down to south beach, we realized that there was no parking anywhere, so dropped all the food off at ashley's bbq outback, and then went home to park, and cab down. ridiculousness. apparently some people start their 4th of july before 1pm. (who knew?). once we were back, it was fine: there were about 12-15 of us at any random time, and it basically involved lots of sitting, eating, talking, and a fair share of ocean- and pool-swimming. it struck me what a grown-up anne is when she insisted on changing out of her wet bathing suit, whereas i was sitting there with a soggy bottom wrapped in a towel for several hours. go figure. (that, and her refusal to partake in vodka watermelon. granted, it was gross, but still. what class she has for saying no).

before we knew it, the sun was down, there was a mini-dance party inside the gazebo, and then we had to locomote down to the beach to watch the fireworks: some were going off on about 5th and ocean drive, and more were up north by the fountainbleu, so we all charged into the ocean and were able to see both vantage points without any crowds or distractions or anything. somehow we managed to stay in the ocean for a few more hours, lazily standing around (seriously. maybe 2 people actually engaged in swimming. the rest of us were lolling about). post official- fireworks, the unofficial-fireworks took place, involving randoms on the beach setting off the shit they bought at walgreens and publix and whereever else people buy cheap explosives, some of which almost missed our heads in the water (danger! danger!). eventualy we got out of the water for some more dance-party on the beach, until people started getting hungry again, circa midnight. anne and i peeled off shortly thereafter, stopped for some pizza on the way, and went home to bed. somehow, a totally exhausting day, but so utterly relaxing.

sunday morning, pre-trip to the airport, we had some brunch at a local cuban spot (anne got the steak, obvi). deliciousness. and then, sadly, time to say bye. wah. sadly, she will only be in the states for a while before her next mission: impossible in afghanistan comes along, but it was so nice to have her.

of course, i spent the rest of sunday "recouperating" by the pool and doing nothing, until justin convinced me to go try out hipster bingo at the standard hotel. so we had dinner with some other friends of his, and then hit up bingo for a round or two- bumping into ashley, anton, and rachel there, all coincidentally- and then went a short distance to purdy lounge (another random hipster spot) for a spelling bee. ashley & i made it through round one, but both choked in the second (thank god, on that one: for every correct word, you had to take a shot of jaeger. gross). after the bee, a little dance party formed, which was also a randomly fun event: the best part, i think, is that none of it was planned, and we were all just unexpectedly having a really awesome sunday night. knowing that i have less time here makes me much more apt to do silly things like this, silencing that voice in the back of my head that says, "um, its sunday night." of course, that little voice woke up this morning saying, "i told you so," but amazingly enough, ive been relatively productive today, so i cannot complain.

what i can potentially complain about is that i just agreed to try to make it to boxing in an hour. this means ill have to run home and change and kick the shit out of a bag for an hour. i guess its better than doing nothing... or just going home and gouging on more cuban food (which is honestly all i want to do right now)...

with that, im off! ill update with some pictures of anne's trip asap!

xoxo