2012 – 2013

Happy New Year!!!  Here’s the annual recap…it is so much fun to look back on these and see everything that happened each year.

Kicked off January 2012 right here in NYC with a crazy night at Bathtub Gin, a luxe restaurant/speakeasy complete with yes, a vintage bathtub.  Much time was spent in that bathtub.  The rest of the month was much tamer and healthier, but we went to a few concerts, movie screenings, etc.  I also started weekly French classes, finally!

February was surprisingly eventful! We ran up the Empire State Building, 86 flights up…1576 steps! S and I started at different times but he caught up with me around the 75th floor and we ran the last bit and finished together.  The finish at the Observation Deck was impossibly beautiful.  Snow swirled all around, illuminated by colored lights, and the cold air and snowflakes felt amazing after the hot climb.  The view was incredible and I felt really honored to have my first visit to this landmark during such a unique event.  

The rest of the month was good too!  We went to a few fashion week events.  I got vagazzled. We had a really great Valentine’s Day at Catch, an awesome new spot in our neighborhood.  The decor/food was amazing and the staff was so nice, they colluded with me in surprising S by serving us personalized bottle of wine I’d brought to them in advance.  So much fun!  For our anniversary I had a star named for S, and we did dinner at  Morimoto, which is still terrific. 

In March I took my mom to meet Lidia Bastianich, her fave TV chef, at a lavish dinner for the release of her new cookbook.  I finally visited the Chrysler Building, and we went to several really strange art shows/installations.  We met up with Cat, starshine25, and Ava Andromeda, visited the historic Stonewall Inn and had a lovely late dinner with them.  I got LASIK vision correction and it’s been really great to not deal with contacts/glasses for scuba, swims, etc.  We went to Atlantic City to see Fiona Apple.

April was great – we saw Beasts of the Southern Wild which was my favorite movie of 2012.  We went to the Chaplin Gala at Lincoln Center where Catherine Deneuve was the guest of honor.  Goddess!  Saw a ton of awesome cars at a party at the International Auto Show, listened to a great concert featuring The Pretty Reckless, and attended an epic dinner in honor of the 100th anniversary of the last meal on the USS Titanic.  
 
Throughout May we went to a lot of Tribeca Film Festival screenings and events.  S did a Tough Mudder event with his friends, we went to the Luckyrice Food Festival, and I cut my own hair, drunk, on Cinco de Mayo after a Dar Williams concert.  We went to the opening gala for the NYC Ballet’s Spring Season, and then I took off for a few week’s vacation and French classes in beautiful Antibes.  I visited Cannes during the festival but didn’t see any movies.  My best friend A moved back to NYC from Philly!

June we started outdoor bootcamp, finally saw Lana Del Rey, and went to a benefit on the High Line.  I had my first open water swim of the year and managed to get caught in a lightning/hailstorm, fight the current for the last 3 hours, and finish dead last.  Not the most auspicious start to the season, but I did finish.  (DFL > DNF > DFS!)

In July we went on vacation in Spain and I swam from Europe to Africa.  The swim was scenic, but cold, and par for the course I hit a rogue current right at the end.  Seriously diabolical…I was less than 50 meters away from land and this current was just pushing me away.  S said the pilot said it was 8 knots, which doesn’t sound possible to me, but I was swimming so hard and trying to get in so desperately it was just crazy.  S was scared and I was sobbing underwater at the exertion and hopelessness of it all.  I finally got into a cave that was kind of diagonal from me which I think was the only thing that saved me because swimming in straight on was not working whatsover.  Other than that, we had a great time going to the beach every day, eating wonderfully fresh tuna, a ferry trip to Morocco, and even riding a camel!

I feel like August should be relaxing, but it was a little stressful for me.  Our building was having renovations done and we had to live out of a suitcase even in between trips for most of the month.  But other than that it was really nice.  I broke my crazy swims streak with two successful and non-heinous swims, we went kayaking upstate to Pollepel/Bannerman’s Island, and celebrated my birthday at the London 2012 Olympics!!!  

September I was lucky to meet “Big River Man” – Martin Strel, and knock out the last leg of my Triple Crown.  Catalina was really beautiful too, I want to go back and stay on the island sometime soon.  Other than that I worked a lot, and had my first experience with Jury Duty.

October  I worked a ton and was away from home for work a lot but managed to attend the Opening Gala of the New York Film Festival.  This was the 50th anniversary of the festival so especially nice event.  The movie was really good, Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi.”  Beautifully vivid visuals.  We also went to the 25th anniversary reunion screening of “The Princess Bride,” always a classic – and then there was a party with the cast after the movie, which was funny.  The next day was a Gala Tribute to Nicole Kidman (Loooove!) and screening of “The Paperboy” (Awful.)  Pulled multiple all-nighters for work but also celebrated S’s birthday at Mr. Chow and my brother’s 30th at a bar near my apartment.  The the hurricane came, we weren’t affected but lost power for about a week so had to do some urban camping and candlelit barhopping.

By November we had power back and things were getting back to normal.  We started up five weeks of intense bootcamp, which was grueling but good.  My friend Dana from grad school visited from Mexico City and we had a great night out.  I tried not to go out as much because of the 6am bootcamp start (and 5am wakeup time) but totally failed.  We did go to all the sessions except for 2 when I was bedridden with a head cold.

December was a good month.  We finished bootcamp, had some lovely downtime, then went to Key Largo for a weekend of SCUBA certification classes and diving.  The weather was lovely, we had really nice fresh seafood each night, and went to bed early (!?)  Had a bunch of vacation time I needed to use up so worked from home a lot and went to the gym and did errands in the middle of the day.  Very relaxing.  December is S’s busy time and he was stressed out so I tried to pick up some of the slack, errand and apartment-wise.  

On Christmas Day we flew to Reyjkavik for a really special holiday in Iceland.  I will write a separate entry about our trip but it was wonderfully surreal, like being in outerspace.  We missed the Northern Lights but went SCUBA diving between the North American and Eurasian Tectonic plates, went to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, and saw otherworldly beautiful geysirs and waterfalls.  And New Year’s Eve – it was truly ridiculous, loads of fireworks and all night dance party.  A good start to 2013, hope this one’s the best year yet!