The 7-11 Domestic Disputes

            Lately at nights I've been stopping by my local 7-11 to pick up a nice cup of hot chocolate for a warm late-night snack, and its during these hours where the most odd people come out to also get something from 7-11. This particular convenience store is located near a highway exit as well as a subway station, so its certain to attract the best of the best, or actually the worst of the worst, society has to offer.

            The other night for example some guy who looked like a junkie was trying to make a purchase with a debit card, his wife's or girlfriend's apparently, but the pin number for the card wasn't going through. I'm waiting on line, and the 7-11 cashier had to try to charge the card behind the counter, but the worker still needed the pin code to make the charge go through. So the guy is on his cellphone hollering at some lady to just give him the number and it seems she couldn't remember what it was, so there was one failed transaction after another. The guy was getting more upset by the moment and started screaming at this point for the lady to give him the right number. I was growing impatient and felt my hot chocolate would turn into ice by the time this guy was done. The cashier had presence of mind to make the guy wait aside so I could get through my $1.62 transaction. I was finally out of there, the guy was still on the phone, and I have no idea if he was ever able to use the card.

            Fast foward to last night I walked into the 7-11 around midnight to get a nice cup of hot chocolate and there's two more beauties already in there. This time it was a couple, the man needed a cane to walk, and as soon as I walked in they were arguing with eachother. The guy must have asthma because he was holding one of those breathers near his mouth, the lady slapped it out of his hand and it fell onto the dirty floor. As I poured myself a medium hot chocolate the lady marched towards the back of the store saying she had enough and that it was over. I think the guy wanted her to buy him something because he seemed quite dissapointed and wanted to confirm with her if she wasn't going to get something for him. She also yelled out that she wanted all her money back, so maybe she's been giving him money and buying him stuff for quite some time. The guy limped towards the back of the store to try to get closer to her, but she moved by him and exited the store entirely. I finally went to the line and had my turn to make the purchase, by this time the guy also exited the store and the two of them continued the argument out in the parking lot. I left the store and watched them for a few seconds, but seeing there were no cars and no other witnesses on hand, it would've been awkward to just stand there and watch those two, so I headed home.

            7-11 seems to sell everything these days, maybe they should include free divorce proceeding with any soft drink purchase over $4...

You're Gonna Want to Slow Down that Horse

             For the better of nearly two months another former co-worker and myself had planned to go horseback riding at a place not too far from where I live. With the Holiday Season and being in the midst of winter, its been difficult to find a day to go. Yesterday's forecast called for warmer weather reaching up to 55 degrees, which is nearly unheard of for late-January, so we picked that day to finally saddle up and take a horse ride.

             The Bronx Equestrian Center is located on the outskirts of Pelham Bay Park and offers several different options for horse rides such as an hour ride, wagon ride, pony ride, and even riding lesson. When we pulled up to the place there were horses inside the pen getting all dirty from the mud that was create from the previous day's rainfall. Outside the main office were two cats on guard duty, assuming their job is to chase rats and mice away from the horsefeed. We were aiming for the standard hour ride on a horse which was a very reasonable $30 each. Each of us would get out own horse and would ride along with a tour guide on a trail that would roughly take about an hour back and forth back to the stable. This would be the first time I ever rode on a horse for that long a period of time. After paying, an older looking gentlemen with a grey beard and a cowboy hat, looked at the both of us and went inside the stable to select a horse he thought would be appropiate for each of us. First, he came out with a really tall dark brown horse named Ricky, who was sixteen years old, and I mounted the horse first. The old guy was very serious and gave me some basic tips on how to position myself on the horse and how to steer it left or right. He didn't let me know how to stop it, which was something I would've needed to know later on.

            Then he came out with another horse for my friend, except this time is was a light brown color and was much shorter. This horse was named Martin and was seventeen years old, according to the tour guide rider who was with us. Once we were all of our horses we began our journey on the trail. I had some concern early since the tour guide was on his cellphone for the first few minutes of the ride and not really paying attention to us. Martin was giving my friend a bumpy ride as she kept bouncing up and down and had a look of concern over her face. After being on the trail for a few minutes, we came upon a busy roadway in which the tour guide had to put his hand up to stop the traffic for all of us to cross. Once we got back onto the dirt trail, my horse got bored with following the tour guide's horse and decided he wanted to take the lead ahead of everyone. Since my friend was having difficulty with her horse, the tour guide had to stay along side her to make sure nothing went wrong, my horse took off at a faster pace and left those two about twenty yards behind. The horse must have done this trail hundreds of times before as he knew where to go. I was enjoying myself for the most part as the horse seemed it knew what to do, but I didn't like being so far ahead of the others. A couple of times I tried to pull back the reigns and nudge his side with my heels to get him to stop or slow down, but that was only a five second remedy, soon enough he start up again.

            The trail took us along side a gold course, under a train bridge built for an Amtrak line, and into the woods that surrounded us with a calming walk through nature. Since there was rain the day before, the only noise was the horses' feet clip-clopping into the muddy puddles. More often than not, the horse would avoid the really big puddles, but the trail was so muddy it was hard to avoid any spashing. I was lucky I had such a tall horse, with all the muddy water being splashed, not one drop got on my pants. It was the same story for most of the trail, I kept looking back and saw my friend and the tour guide well behind my horse. We finally reached the turnaround point and headed back on the same trail we came from. There was a moment when all three of us were together again, but that didn't last long as my horse took another commanding lead ahead of the others. We passed another couple of riders heading in the opposite direction, and actually I steered my horse too late and caused one of the other horses to do a circle turn for the guy who was riding it. I assumed the horse I was riding would've naturally gotten out of the way of oncoming horse-traffic. The horse kept going and going and I was beginning to get nervous as I knew the roadway was coming up soon and I wasn't sure how my horse would react.

             I went through a number of attempts to slow or stop my horse, I even asked it to stop, but it would just shake its head and keep on trucking. The problem was the other two were so far behind, even when I did get it to stop, the horse would be impatient to wait for the other two, and would start walking again. As I drew closer to the roadway, I saw two more riders appoaching my way on the trail, and one of them was the old guy who gave me the instructions earlier. When we crossed paths he notified me the roadway was coming up and his advice to me was, "You're gonna want to slow down that horse", as if I've been riding horses for the past twenty years and knew what I was doing. I pulled back the reigns harder and that seemed to work a little better, but it wasn't good enough. Then I looked back and saw the old man must have said something to our tour guide cause he finally hurried up to get in front of me and he used his horse to block off my horse from going any further. We waited a while until Martin showed up with my friend on him, and then we all crossed the roadway together and returned back to the stable. I enjoyed the experience very much, but my friend seemed quite bothered that her horse gave her a bumpy ride. She actually bought some apples to feed them, so we cut them up and gave them to the two horses we used, as well as some of the horses that were in the muddy pen out front.

             Next time I get on a horse, I'm going to make sure its had it's brakes fixed...

Linguini in Clam Sauce My Way

            The other day at the supermarket I was in the mood of dumping random cans into my shopping cart for no good reason, one of these cans was preserved baby clams. I continued up and down the aisles getting the other items I needed, all along keeping an eye on the can of clams and thinking what could I do with it. Then the thought came to my head, how about make linguini in clam sauce. Since I was already in the supermarket, I went to the pasta booth and picked up a package of fresh linguini.

             I had a red pepper in my refrigerator from a previous week, so to spice things up a little I decided to add that into the equation as well. I started out by boiling a pot of water, and adding a little salt, to cook the linguini. Since it was fresh pasta, it only took about twelve minutes to cook. I strained the water out and let the pasta cool off for a moment, while that happened I started to heat up the clams. I took a frying pan, greased the bottom of it with olive oil, and dumped out about half of the can of baby clams onto it. Once those started cooking, I added the linguini into the frying pan as well as poured the rest of the baby clams on top of the linguini pile. Then came the additional ingrediants such as a can of tomato sauce and the red pepper I cut into slices. I used a simple fork to mix everything up and stir the linguini in the pan. I let it cook for about ten minutes, and when I saw that the baby clam pieces were starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, I knew it was done.

            I'm happy I didn't knock a can of tuna into my shopping cart, otherwise I would have been clueless on what to do with it...

The 80's Party

            For the past couple of weeks I had been looking forward to a party I had been invited to from a former co-worker I stayed friends with, but snow and a trip to Yankee Stadium had made this past Saturday busier than I thought it would be. I knew about the party a good two weeks in advance, but only two days before the day of the party, I was informed I had an appointment for Saturday at 11:30am at Yankee Stadium if I wanted to update or upgrade my season ticket plan for the 2012 New York Yankees. At the beginning of each year, the Yankees invite season ticket holders to come to the stadium before the baseball season starts to either add more seats to their plan, pick a different plan, or even change their seat location. The goal for my appointment was going to be to change my seat location from far out in right field to behind home plate, which I think is a better view, and lower costing, even though I have to sit higher up than previously. So far I had the party, and the Yankees, next came the snow. The night before, snow started falling from the sky and by the next morning it had accumulated a few inches.

            Not only was I facing the prospect of the party being cancelled, which I was looking forward to attending and seeing my former co-worker, but also it was possible my appointment for the Yankees would have been postponed, and who knows, maybe by the time I got there it would've been harder for me to switch seat locations to a place I wanted. That morning I opened my email and received a notice that although it was snowing, all appointments were still being held, so that was a major relief for me. I put on my Yankees hooded-sweatshirt and hat and took the train over to Yankee Stadium. Despite the snowfall, the trains were running normally and I arrived at the stadium in about thirty-five minutes. Typically I'm only in that area of the Bronx during baseball season when its not snowing, so it was strange seeing the place covered in white powder. Once I got inside and checked in, I was told to wait in the club suite in which they were serving coffee, tea, juice, muffins, bagels, croissants, and more, for free. I remember when I went last year there were hotdogs, but I found out that since it was early still, hotdogs would be coming out after 12:00pm. While I waited to be allowed to go out towards the seating area to see what was available, I stopped by the 2009 World Series trophy the Yankees won that was on display in the club suite for fans to view. They had someone watching it, but really a determined individual could just grab the thing and run out of the stadium.

             When it came time for our group to go out to the seats, everyone hurried out like they were on a shopping spree to grab the best avaiable seats. I knew what I wanted before going, so I immediately went to that section and happily found two seats for the taking. Once the stadium representative cleared everything, I went back downstairs to the club suite and worked out the administrative phase of making the change to my seat location. It was also by this time they switched from breakfast to lunch, so that's when they finally put out the hotdogs and soda. I made sure I had one before leaving, as well as stuffed my hooded-sweatshirt with a few cans of soda and a bottle of water for later. By the time I had returned home the snow stopped coming down, but I still wasn't sure if the party was still on or not. Just in case it was, I made sure to clean the snow off my car before it turned to ice later on. Luckily, I was parked in front of a tall house which shielded the car from getting too much snow on it, so cleaning it off only took about fifteen minutes. Some time later that afternoon I received a text message that the party was still on, so after a late lunch and a nap, it was time to get down for business.

            One of the stipulations for the party was that, not only did it require some type of 80's-related clothing, but men were highly encourage to have a mustache. I never really had a mustache before in my life and wasn't sure I would be able to grow one in time. My plan was to go about a week and a half without shaving, and then the day of the party, just shave my face, except for above my mouth. The final result wasn't a full mustache, but it looked hairy enough to do the trick. As for the clothing, I had some wild-looking shirt and pants combo I bought on sale in Marshall's almost ten years ago. I'm not sure if they would be considered 80's style, but the pants were rather tight and I had big sunglasses to go with it, so I felt confidant I could pass for an 80's person. The party was being held at my former co-workers house out in Long Island, which was about an hour's drive. Even though the snow had stopped, there was still the danger of icey roads and dirty salt covering the front window. Plus, more often than not, navigating the roads and highways of Long Island could be quite a challenge. Even with good directions, one is surely bound to get lost by the absurd amount of parkways and roads which all sound the same, and look the same. Inclimate weather, pitch black night, and the Long Island roadway design is usually a receipe for disaster, but luckily I had been to the guy's house a few times and remembered the route, otherwise the night could've ended up worse.

             At first, I thought it was just a normal party with an 80's theme, but more than that it was really my friend's birthday. I didn't know that beforehand, so I actually stopped by a bakery first to pick up a cake to bring over. When I got there I saw they already had a cake, a huge cake, made to look like an old Apple computer. It put my little cappuccino cake to shame. The house was incredibly designed with so many small detailed items from the 80's such as movie posters, concert posters, toys, candy, games, cartoons, and other items to take everyone down memory lane. Even the dog was equipped with its AC/DC t-shirt. The bathroom featured a Smurf's display on the wall and even had fake mustaches for guys who didn't want to grow one, or ladies who wanted to have one for the night. One television set was playing 80's movies all night with such titles as 'Revenge of the Nerds', 'Airplane', and 'One Crazy Summer'. Another television set was hooked up to a pac-man arcade-style video game. All along the speakers were pumping out hit songs from the 80's such as 'Love Shack', 'Beat it', and 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'.

            The basement had a knock hockey table set up and most of the guys made sure they made their way down there for a few games. There were also a few drinking games as well, highlighted by battleship, but instead of hitting someone's battleship, you make your opponent have to take shots of beer. In addition, there was a shots roulette wheel in which if the ball falls on your color and number, you have to take a short. I don't believe my number ever came out, but I was given a shot anyways to take. In addition to the usual chips and pretzels found at a party, they had it catered with quesadilla slices, chicken-on-a-stick, and the highlight of the foods, pulled-pork sliders. When it came time we sung happy birthday and my friend's wife presented him with a nice collage as his birthday present which was made up of pictures of him when he was growing up in the 80's. The party went on till about 2am and then slowly people started to file out. Once it got quiet and it was only my friend and his wife left. The wife retired to bed and I had a chance to catch up with my old co-worker as we discussed the good ol' days as well as what we would like to do in the future. While we spoke for a few hours in the living room, we were also watching the Marlon Brando classic 'On the Waterfront' to make the switch from the 80's to the 50's. I was told earlier in the day that I could spend the night there if need be, so seeing it was late, the roads weren't the greatest, and I had a few drinks that night, they let me sleep over in the guest bedroom.

            I was able to get a few hours of sleep, but their cat decided it wanted me awake sooner as it scratched on the bedroom door until I opened it. Once I opened it, it saw I was in there and then went down the wall, guess it didn't want to come in. That morning I had a cup of coffee with my friend and his wife, helped pitch in a little with the cleaning, and had a few more knock hockey games in the basement. More people were supposed to come to the party, but due to the snow and some other previous engagements, a number of people didn't show. As a result, a large amount of extra food, drinks, candy, and 80's paraphernalia left over. Since I was the last guest standing, I was able to take home some posters, cases of soda, beer, big league chew, a slinky, silly putty, quesadillas, and of course, the pulled-pork sliders. I threw all those items in the backseat of my car and made my way back home. That night, I was going to meet up at a friend of my uncle's house to watch the next football playoff game for the New York Giants which was going to take place on the road against the San Francisco 49ers. As soon as I got home, I went to the gym to try to burn off all the calories from the party the night before. Also, not knowing the ridicule I would receive from showing up to the football party with a mustache, I decided to shave it off when I got back from the gym.

              The house the football party was going to be at was a short drive away, and good thing I burned off the calories that I did, because when I got there I saw pizzas, White Castle burgers, and a super long hero sandwich. That, and bowls and bowls of potato chips, pretzels, cheese doodles, and nacho chips, plus endless bottles and cans of beer to wash it down with. There were about ten guys there, but it was enough food for thirty. I didn't the know there was going to be so much food, so I also brought the leftover beer, soda, quesadilla slices, chicken-on-a-stick, and pulled-pork sandwiches from the 80's party. A little while later dessert was brought out in the form of cannolis, oreo cookies, lemon cookies, and a cheesecake, with coffee. The only problem was it was a very intense and gut-wrenching game to watch that nobody really had any appetite. I wanted to eat more, but my stomach turned upside down so many times from the action in the game that I couldn't think of food until the game would be over. The tension was high in the room as the winner would go on to play the New England Patriots in this year's Superbowl, the loser would have their season finished. The game kept going back and forth with momentum until the Giants got some breaks late in the contest and went on to a 20-17 victory. Everyone in the room jumped out of their seats in joy as all the anxiety that had been building in our chests slipped away.

             I was finally ready to eat something to celebrate, but all the food was already put away...