A Cupcake, a Massage, Thai Food, a Party and a $3 Tinkle

Yesterday, Kenji and I ventured into NYC once again - this time to attend a birthday party in Brooklyn. Although the party didn't start until 9:00 p.m., we took the Path train into the Village at around 4:00 p.m. just to poke around and have some dinner.

We got off at the 9th Street station and wandered south a few streets in search of a cafe where Kenji could enjoy a cup of coffe, and I a cup of hot chocolate, and that was not full of a bunch of people hogging all the tables, surfing the 'net on their laptops. We turned down some street and saw a sign for "the best damn cupcake in New York!" How could we refuse?

The cupcakes were good - mine was called Chocolate Kiss, and Kenji has a Lemon Top. The hot chocolate I got wasn't so hot. Tasted good, but probably should have been called luke-warm chocolate instead.

While we sat at our relaxing little table by the window, I noticed there was a Chinese massage parlor next door to the cup cake shop. They had their prices listed on their door, which we could see from where we sat. We had a good four hours or so left before the start of the party, so in a moment of sheer spontenaiety we decided to each get a 46-minute massage. I think my massage was too short - she poked at a whole bunch of crunchy stuff in my shoulders for quite a while, but I think I had too many because they didn't really go away. Also could be that it wasn't a very good massage. But I enjoyed it anyway.

Next we wandered around looking for food. Although there was a Thai place that was also on cup cake street (no this isn't the street's *real* name, hence the lowercase letters!), we decided to go to a different Thai place that was several streets and avenues away instead. This was not for any reason in particular, in fact, we didn't know the other Thai food place was even there until we saw it. And it's a good thing we went to it too, because if we hadn't, we would not have seen the Forbidden Panet store that was along our round-about way.

This was the first time Kenji and I have had Thai food since we moved here from Hawaii. I really missed Thai sticky rice and curry. The food was really yummy, and I think we'll have to make it a point to go out for Thai food more often. I'd tell you which Thai restaurant we went to, but I can't remember the name of it, or where it is exactly.

After Thai food, we backtracked a bit to pay a visit to the Forbidden Planet store just to look at all the toys. My favorites were the Ugly Dolls, and this other one that's called Booted Glamour Cat. I was disappointed, however, that Forbidden Planet did not have any Totoros.

With all that eating and other activity out of the way, it was finally time to go to Kenji's friend's birthday party. Kenji's friend, Gene, really knows a whole lot of people, because his apartment was packed! I think the last time I was in an apartment so crowded was when I was in college.

The party was fun considering we really didn't know many people there at all. One of the rules of the party was you had to wear a name tag that contained both your real name as well as the name of a person who you think other people would think you might look like. I naturally wrote Marcia Brady, since I hear "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" at least three times a day. Kenji wrote "$50 bill" on his name tag (actually he had me write it for him), which is some reference to the movie Goonies which I have not seen, so I don't get the reference. Anyway, we met a funny chick at the party named Lana who wanted so bad to "get" the reference, but couldn't figure it out even though she's seen the movie before (and owns it too). Kenji wouldn't explain it to her, and insisted that if she wants to know, she'll have to watch the movie again. When we left the party at around midnight, Lana gave us her business card so that we can get together in the city sometime - maybe we'll have a Goonies movie night.

Ok, so we covered the cup cake, the massage, the Thai food and the party... now it's time for the $3 tinkle. Not much of a story really, just that the moral of it is to make sure you go to the bathroom before leaving a party in Brooklyn and taking the train all the way back to New Jersey in the middle of the night. No, I didn't pee my pants - but I darn well near busted a kidney.

I didn't start to really feel it until we were on the F train, coming into the 14th street station, where we met the Path train. While on the Path, it just got worse and worse. And because it was a weekend, the Path doesn't go directly to Journal Square - you have to go to Hoboken first, and then backtrack a bit before it pulls into the Journal Square station. All the while on this segment of our journey, I was trying really hard not to think about peeing. But that 80's song by Foreigner, Urgent, kept playing in my mind. I kept trying to change it to Ella Fitzgerald singing Jersey Bounce, but before I knew it, Urgent was back. Arrrgh! Then I saw a bottle of water rolling on the floor towards Kenji's foot. With the sight of the water sloshing around as the bottle rolled along, I had to look away. The the train kept slowing down for no apparent reason, then speeding up, then slowing down...

Finally, we got to Journal Square, where we needed to catch the train to Newark. For some #@$%! reason the Journal Square station had no good signage to help us figure out which track we needed to catch the next train, which would have only been a couple minutes wait. At this point, I was certainly in no condition to be rational about figuring it out, so I insisted we go upstairs and look for a bathroom, which of course meant we'd have to pay another $1.50 each to get back on the Path. And no, I was not going to go wander around the Journal Square station at 1:30 a.m. all by myself just to save the $1.50 for Kenji's fare. Of course Journal Square station has no toilet facilities, or at least none that are open at 1:30 a.m., so we were forced to go outside the station in the hopes of finding an all-night McDonald's or maybe just a nice big bush.

Well, there was no McDonald's in sight, nor was there a nice big bush. But fortunately there was a pub across the street, with neon signs in the window, though none of them said "open." On the other hand, none of them said "closed," so I pretty much ran as fast as I could to find out what the deal was. To my extreme delight, it was indeed open, and they did have a ladies room and it was not occupied! Releif at last! I had it so bad that as I ran from Journal Square station to the pub, my kidneys really did begin to hurt, and for a few moments after I finished, I even felt slightly nauseous. But those feelings passed, and we paid our $3 to wait another half hour to catch the next train back to Newark Penn Station. Yep, last night I think I felt that was the best $3 spent ever. =)