Shake Shack, Ice Skating, oh and a Car

Making an effort to take one day a week off and not do anything work related has been a a hard but needed change. I love my job and when you work for yourself, there is always, always something you could be doing to make things go smoother, or provide a better experience for your couples or learn more about X new technique or product. But when you run yourself into the ground working 24/7, your no good to anyone. You feel crappy about yourself because ‘If you just pushed harder’ or ‘Just woke up an extra hour earlier’ you would get more done, right? But it never works that way. So 2012 has been the year I slapped my wrist, told myself I needed to finally be consistent about Shabbat, and take a darn day off!

And February has been just packed with experiences I haven’t allowed myself to have in a long time. Going out with friends? Uh, yes! Reading Oliver Sacks by the fireplace? Or *gasp* starting a new installation piece for a gallery show? I’m doing it!

And I have come to really relish all my New Haven friends more. We almost ALL ‘work for ourselves’ and 95% are getting their PhD here at Yale. So we kinda do have to push each other to step away from the screen and go have fun.

So we teamed up with Emily and Sean to go have a wonderful winter day. Yummy food (with lots of vegetarian and gluten free options) at the Shake Shack. If you haven’t been to one, go plunk yourself down and order a custard milkshake. So. Good. And Natalie got a shake she swore tasted like pie in liquid form. So if that doesn’t sell you, I’m sorry. You’re made of stone. Plus, I’m a sucker for all their cool design and graphics all over the shop. I’m easily swayed.

I love ice skating. Please don’t take that as ‘I’m really good’. I’m lucky if I escape the ice unharmed. But I remember in grade school taking field trips all the time to a local ice rink. And eating gobstoppers because they had a vending machine (!!). My friends and I would hold hands and all skate around the rink. Me praying my giant purple glasses wouldn’t fall and get crushed. I was soooo cool. And then the cool kids would whip around the ice and get reallyclosetoskatingintous and promptly, we all fell.

I very quickly felt the uncool factor when Emily and Sean brought their own skates! What?! Who has their own….crap. I forgot Sean plays hockey. So about a billion and a half Canadian jokes were made…lovingly. But I had picked an outdoor rink because I wanted to just feel the cold. I wanted to see the winter-sky that was super dark that day because it was supposed to snow. And holding my mitten hands with Natalie’s as we carefully skated around the rink was just what I needed. Bad teeny bopper music. And kids skating around on these tripod things so as to not fall- but one kid was not supervised and kept skating in completely random patterns into just about everybody.

And for the BIG finale of the day, our car came in. That’s right! Our first car we bought together was waiting for us at the dealership! I bought my own Honda Civic when I was 18 and that wonderful, beaten up car is the apple of my eye. I love how it drives. I don’t care that it has giant dents and I get told once a week by some guy driving that he can ‘fix that’. I has bought it with money I saved up since I had been working every summer in high school and worked a job my entire senior year at a vet office. It was mine! But I also knew it’s getting a bit old. And Natalie can’t drive it because she needs back support. So this year I said I refused to shovel out our car a million hours like last year. We needed an all wheel drive car that could haul some big photo equipment. We researched. A lot. Natalie’s parents came up to New Haven to make us buy a damn car already and stop researching before winter ended.

So there we were. Our Kia Sorento ready for us. Keys in hand. I wanted to puke. Which happens anytime we make a big decision. I can’t be happy. I have to think for hours if I made the right choice. Then get happy. A product of growing up with my Mom. But really- this car is perfect for us. And we even got to open the moonroof for a briefly warm day. I still can’t believe it’s our car when I park it in a lot. I love that even the mirrors move automatically in to the side when you lock the door so they don’t get knocked off. Brilliant.