But hey, what comes around goes around! Less than twenty-four hours later, I managed to snipe this photo of Meredith's very own unique way of "relaxing" while she watches TV. (Yes, she really sits like this)
About an hour later, everyone's stomachs had settled down enough to have room for dessert! So I went and woke up the mysterious lump! Because there's only one thing that Meredith likes more than sleep...
After our meal, we went back to the apartment, packed up our bags, and hopped on NJ Transit to head out to my parent's house for Thanksgiving! Here's Meredith's impression of "someone from New Jersey."
And in no time flat the two soon-to-be-Battjer-ladies came out into the living room to see what all the commotion was about - and ended up being in our first band.
Then it was time to clean the rat cage. It got expensive constantly buying cage bedding for the rats so Meredith decided to order huge industrial rolls of brown paper and a paper shredder and make her own bedding!
Meredith holds up the final work! Seriously, even if you're not a vegetarian, if you live any where in NYC you should check this place out. It's small and usually pretty crowded, so we usually order take out.
If you're gonna give it a shot, I highly, HIGHLY recommend the following: The Cubano Sandwich, the Buffalo Blue Cheese Burger (I get that shit with bacon on it!) or the Open Face Turkey Sandwich with Cornbread Stuffing. OMFG, soooo good. Every single person that's a non-veg that I told about this place was skeptical and every single one of them came back and apologized for doubting me. Hahah.
After a long day of unpacking, Mer and I decided to treat ourselves with a celebratory dinner at Curly's Vegetarian Lunch, which, in my option, is pretty much one of THE BEST restaurants in the East Village. After we ordered, Mer got busy drawing thanks to the crayons and blank place mats they have on every table.
Seriously, even if you're not a vegetarian, you should try this place. It's insanely good. I highly recommend the
Then, we headed back up to our brand new apartment! Here's Meredith, totally over-joyed back at the new apartment after discovering that our new apartment had FIVE big closets which meant that one of them could be used as the new Rat Hole. (Meredith likes to drag a mattress and blankets into a tiny closet and read books and take naps INSIDE the closet with the door closed.)
Something we didn't discover until like an hour later when we were trying to leave the apartment for dinner! Luckily for us all, Scott is handy dandy, and after a couple of minutes with assorted drills and hammers (sorry about the noise, brand new neighbors) he had the door (sort of) closing again! Yay!
We finished around 5:30. Here's Scott, Matt, Mer and Murdo celebrating after getting the final item into the apartment. After all the lugging, we decided to all head out for Thai food and feed everyone that helped with the move. Thanks so much for helping everyone! Every day I feel lucky to have the friends that I do. ;)
Meredith's not much for "going out on a school-night," so I said farewell to her (and to Hector dressed up in his little Hulk-a-mania shirt) and headed out to hit the town all skulled up!
After Edie had finished walking, we heard it would still be a while before the results were in! We were too hungry to wait around, so Mer and I headed over to Odessa for some diner-tastic breakfast.
Right after we'd finished eating, the word came in via text message that Meredith's handmade school bus outfit had won Edie an honorable mention!
We kicked off the Halloween weekend with a late night, low-key game of Cranium at Siege and Katie's place out in Brooklyn. It was Girls (Marissa, Meredith, Mara and Katie)...
On Thursday afternoon, Meredith and I found out that we'd gotten the apartment in Stuytown that I loved. Meredith agreed to sign the lease with me without even seeing the place! She was like "You're WAY pickier than me. If you love it, I don't even need to see it to know that I'll love it." Here she is proudly showing off her Orwellian Stuytown ID card.
When I got back to our apartment that evening, Meredith was proudly showing off the huge, new, four-level rat cage she'd purchased earlier in the afternoon. We needed a bigger rat cage to make room for...
On Monday night, a whole bunch of us went to a pizza-party that Grant had organized to introduce all his friends to Aki, his new girlfriend that had just moved to NYC. Here's Meredith, Cat and Maureen chowing down on pizza! After the pizza was finished...
Siege and I drove over to their new apartment in the moving truck. When we arrived, we found a whole bunch of new people who had showed up to help unpack!
Animal FunTime Party House got even better when Leigh came by and dropped off Edie off with us! Look how excited Meredith is to have two little lap-weasels!
On Tuesday night, Meredith and I were coming home from dinner in Nolita and we passed David's apartment. We called for Lord Alred and he ran to the window to greet us. A couple of minutes later...
Here's where we left off! Meredith in a cab smiling about picking up our two pet rats that Mandy was nice enough to look after for us while we took a month-long trip to the United Arab Emirates and then Thailand!
We spent Saturday afternoon getting settled back into our apartment. Meredith was jet-lagged and called it a night...
We dropped off our bags and immediately went uptown to Mandy's apartment to pick up our two rat ladies that she was nice enough to take care of in our absence. (Thanks again, Mandy!)
Friday was our last day in Thailand! We packed up our bags, checked them into our hotel's storage closet, and set out to do some sightseeing before catching our plane home later that night!
After checking in and catching a quick nap, we headed over to Mai Kaidee's for some lunch. Here's the bananas and black rice covered in coconut milk that we got for dessert! Yum!
Twenty minutes into the ferry ride, and Meredith was totally sleeping. (I don't know how in the world she can fall asleep in the pretzelly shapes she does - but it never fails to amaze me)
