New Year Consequences :(

I haven't told you guys yet..... but I am sick at home with the dreaded COVID :( I tested late on Thursday night, and it was faintly positive. So I will be home this week. So far it's been pretty fine. I tested because my throat was slightly sore (usually it becomes painful but it honestly wasn't even to this point. It settled more into a tickle than anything). Yesterday (Saturday) was worse because my nose was super runny and I felt more tired. Waking up today, I feel a lot better and like I can do the things I want to do. At least so far, I actually like being home. There are a lot of things I've been meaning to do and I think I'll have time to do them now :) Silver linings.... I don't know where I got this, but I don't think it was my family. I will elaborate on how New Years was for me (I definitely have the time haha), but generally I spent all my time with Mary and Zach. We also saw Stephanie, Steven, and two of their friends. Otherwise I was just at work and public transport.... That is to say, to my knowledge, no one I know of has had Covid in the recent days.

So I made it 3 years evading this highly contagious virus.... Preferably I would never have gotten it, but it could have been worse. I have all the possible vaccines and I like to think it helped make things not so bad. In New York, I think it's better than the rest of the US generally, but I feel like it's a half and half split of whether people wear masks or not. At work, most of my colleagues don't. But I do most of the time. As you can probably tell, I definitely go all of the places I would regularly (restaurants, theaters, stores, etc), but yeah... c'est la vie!

Anyways, I was meaning to share how my New Years had been so I'll go ahead and do that ! I think I'll just put pictures and explain them a bit. That usually helps me keep track of the order of things.

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Between Christmas and New Year's, I was cat-sitting my coworker's cat. She was super sweet and adorable and always would lie down like this with her paws crossed. Their place is close to our work but far from where I live, so there were some tricky routes home after (with some sketchy characters...). It was okay in the end though.

The Thursday night before the New Year's, Stephanie and Steven arrived from Virginia, where Steven's family lives. They were staying with Steven's friend, Fran, in Brooklyn. We got dinner at a yummy Greek place. This whole platter fed us all!

The next morning (Friday), we had a whole day planned with Stephanie. She got us tickies to a cool exhibit about lace (my second lace dedicated musuem experience ;) ) at the Bard Graduate Center. They had the pieces on loan I think from a textile museum in Switzerland. It was a really cool exhibit and we were surprised by how many objects they had on display. I'm happy to know about this center now too! They had other exhibits upcoming I'd be very interested in seeing.

After, we went to the Lincoln Center to see the NYC Ballet's Nutcracker! Even though it was after Christmas, it was still very magical. Even though in ballet class, we would do things Nutcracker-related, I never was actually in a Nutcracker, and I don't think I have ever seen it in full before. Despite the problematic nature of some of the story composition/features (as is the case with many classical ballets), it was really amazing! I can see why people make it a tradition to see this every year. If you're looking for a fun documentary to watch, I recommend one I saw on Christmas Eve, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. It's about Debbie Allen's "Hot Chocolate" Production of the Nutcracker. Going to this made me also want to try and see more ballets while I'm here :) There are so many things I want to do!

After the ballet, we had dinner at Clinton Street Baking Company. We've tried going here several times for brunch since they are supposed to have really good food. I have to concur... this is the best brunch food I think I've had!! I'm never a pancake fan, but these blueberry pancakes were to die for. I shared the chicken and waffles and peppermint hot chocolate, and it was all absolutely stellar. I think all the butter helps.... but really, I can't think of better brunch place.

Stephanie and Steven spent New Year's in Brooklyn, but I went over to Mary and Zach's place (Uncle Philip was in Dallas for the holidays). It was really fun! We made a whole menu. Since it's going to be the year of the rabbit, that was the theme. Mary's tanghulu grapes didn't get hard and glassy like in the ASMR videos, but she tried again the next day and succeeded! We rang in the new year after having watched..... LES MISERABLES. I know how much you guys love that movie.

New Year's Day, we saw Stephanie again in Chinatown. She treated us to a tea and we walked around. I haven't walked around Chinatown very much yet, so it was fun and new :) New Year, new places!!

After all of this, I got back into things at work. I wonder if I got this virus at work.... Anyways, for the new year, I will also make it a point to be more consistent at blogging. I'll be back at ya Wednesday :)

Here are some hand warmers I finished for mary (those are her initials haha) on Friday.