NY Times Got Nothing On Me

So back on March 14th I wrote about City Mitts thinking it was an interesting product especially for New York commuters. My post then got picked up by Delight.com, which was awesome. Months later the New York Times finally got wind of City Mitts and decided to write an article about it, "Reach Out and Touch That Subway Pole." A little late NYT, you got scooped by When Tara Met Blog, booyah!

Emily Beck, the founder of City Mitts, who I had interviewed for my post just emailed me writing: "Just wanted to say thanks for being the first to write about City Mitts! The NY Times just covered it two Sunday's ago, and sales are going nuts. But you kickstarted it, wanted to give you some recognition."

How sweet was that? I worked for three summers at a daily newspaper, writing one to three articles a day and only recieved two thank you notes during that time. So, if you ever get covered by a reporter they like getting a thank you note or a comment, good or bad, about their article. I try keeping that in mind now in my PR job when journalists cover my clients, it only helps the relationship building too.

The Washington Post also recently wrote about my cousin's Take Pride shirts that I blogged about too. The article is, "Group Designs Clothing To Show Support for Troops ." Coincidence? I think not! lol, so just kidding.

Link: Kittlers. Have you seen this site? It features a bunch of cats that look like Hitler due to unfortunate spots. This one is the best of the bunch:

Don't Sweat It

So it's freakin hot here. A heat wave in fact and they say today might climb to 106 making it the hottest day in New York City since 1939 (or was it 1936, either way you get the point--it's hot).

It's not the heat that's the problem but the repercussions of the heat, power outages, heat stroke etc. Also, everyone you pass on the street is just plain miserable; I didn't see one smile today not even on the little kids whose arms were practically being pulled out of the socket by their parents in order to escape the rising temps. No one wants to be outside in this humid oven (I know Oxymoron) but that's what it feels like and there’s no breeze.

The smells are the worst part of it for me though. Everyone is sweaty and the men that normally smell of BO is now heightened and tenfold. Sucks for me that I just happen to be at arm pit level too. Then there's the piss, both animal and human, that's on random corners of the streets and poles in the city and  near the subway entrances, which is now just baking in the heat and smelling even worse. Sorry did I loose you at the piss? I'll move on to other matters. Last night, while in a cab (escaping the subway heat) heading to the Lower East Side for a comedy show at Mo Pitkins, the cab driver "Ramin" lifts his head up and asks me in a booming voice "You gonna party all night long?" These are the times I wish I did podcasting because I'm so nailing the accent right now and his dragging out each word to make his possibility sound very creepy. I was like, um, not really, just meeting a friend/former coworker and seeing a comedy show. It was like I had let this stranger down, he practically slumped back into his seat and lost interest.

The show Chicks and Giggles (cute name, no?) is a FREE weekly showcase of female comics in New York.  The show maintains an improvisational feel, characters and plenty of socializing at the bar. Its co produced by a fellow Blogger Who Brunches, Nichelle, who writes, Cupcakes Take the Cake.  The brick walled, leather booth lounge is very intimate and lively plus the drinks and food were good too. I had a baybreeze and fried mac and cheese. The talent that night included: Susan Prekel (Live at Gotham), Lang Fisher (Drink at Work Presents), Margot Leitman (UCB), Michelle Collins (VH1), Ophira Eisenberg (Premium Blend), Jiwon Li (Check Your Cool). They were all pretty funny, some more so, but I especially liked Michelle, Susan and Jiwon. Each one though also brought up the hot weather as a topic, how could they not? The crowd meanwhile was mostly 20 to 30 something’s, mostly women, who continued to come in just after the show started.  Good stuff, I'd definitely go again.

News: City Remains Under Heat Emergency With Triple-Digit Temps On The Way

The Long Way Home

I spent a lovely weekend on Block Island (home of the BI sticker) with my mother and friends. It was a great trip except for when it came time to leave, which is always difficult to begin with, but add in a broken ferry motor, Amtrak and a few other bumps, then it can be down right miserable.

The plan seemed simple, I'd take the 4:10 high speed ferry to New London, CT and wait at the station for a half hour until the 6:18 train to Penn Station and arrive home around 9:30. Easy enough. However, the ferry hit a lobster pot and was running on one engine making it  the slowest high speed ferry that I've ever been on. They still promised all the  riders on board who were taking the connecting train that we'd be there by 6:05 giving us a 10 minute window that would be just enough for us to catch it. The doors opened at 6:18 though just in time for all of us to watch the train leave.  I was like, ok I'll read my book and get the next train at 8:16 train. I should have wiped the fairy dust out of my eyes, because that wasn't happening either. All the trains to New York that day were sold out.

Everyone then waited in a long line to at least take the 8:16 train to New Haven so then we could switch to Metro North (always more reliable) and arrive at Grand Central. OK I'll do that then. Again, I was thinking to optimistically. Literally the person in front of me at the ticket window got the last seat to New Haven. Now stranded in New London, I started talking with two others about getting a taxi to New Haven ($98) to then catch a local 9:16 train on Metro North ($19).

Here comes the eerie Identity part. The girl who was calling the taxi and who I was planning to ride with then introduces herself and goes "Hi, my name is Tara by the way." I go um, so is mine. Then just a few feet away from us we hear another woman introduce herself to another stranded passenger and go "my name is Tara." We shouted over, "three Tara's???" How is that possible? It's hardly that common of a name. I could hear in my mind The Twilight Zone announcer speaking in that monologue part saying "a group of passengers, stranded, all trying to get back to New York only to discover they had more in common then they thought, do do do (Twilight Zone theme)." Sorry, I was tired and hungry remember and at the verge of laughing or crying, but I just couldn't figure out which so instead I daydreamed and pictured I was in a black and white episode.

So Tara, Sam (that's was the guys name) and I waited for another 20 minutes before a car arrived. We were making good time though but not enough to make the 7:57 express :( Along the way I discovered that Sam and I went to the same high school, but 10 years apart and that Ralph our driver liked braking at the last possible second.

So anyway to make an already long journey short, I had Subway at the New Haven station, chatted with my new found friends until the non air-conditioned train came and brought us into the City at 10:59. At that point I figured, why not just continue to blow my money and I hailed a cab to my apt, which ironically was playing "Took the long way home" on the car radio. I started laughing til a tear dropped.

Video: Check out this New England white rap it's too funny, Tea Partay Yo

Guest Blogger

Today we have a special guest blog post from Aliza Sherman-Risdahl, author of  “The Everything Blogging Book” which comes out July 31 and features When Tara Met Blog. Yup, I’m in the book! Anyway, back to Aliza, she is a Web pioneer, online marketing expert, published author, blogger and was named by Newsweek as one of the "Top 50 People Who Matter Most on the Internet." She has spoken around the world about the Internet, entrepreneurship, and women's empowerment. Go her!

 

So I had asked Aliza to share some of her memories of living in the City when she was just starting her career out. In an honest slice of life recap she graciously writes about some of her best and worst memories from that time and the relationships along the way....

 

"I moved to New York City from North Carolina in 1987 with a shiny new job in the music business (a major international booking agency), an innocent mind, and tender lungs that seized up the minute I walked outside and inhaled the concentrated exhaust fumes of city living. I had a hacking cough my first six months in Manhattan, and then I got used to it. Like the way you quickly adapt to walking in the city – resisting the natural urge to look up in awe at the skyscrapers and instead, looking ahead with determination and intent, and with your purse locked under your arm.

 

My first years in the City were full of parties, nightclubs and drinking copious amounts of alcohol where most nights blurred into days and days into nights, and I retained only slide-show memories of what had transpired in any given timeframe. Being in the music business meant being on the VIP guest list wherever I went, and to stretch already tight budgets, my girlfriends and I would hit the clubs early during happy hour when the open bar was flowing, since two-fisted drinking was our way of making the most of the perk. Other perks included rubbing elbows with rock star wannabes and rock stars of the time, from Kip Winger to Sebastian Bach to the guys from Def Leppard and Metallica and getting to watch concerts from the stage.

 

One of my worst memories came after a dubiously successful two-fister evening where all I could remember was the cool white tile of the club bathroom floor, a bouncer carrying me to a cab, a friend helping me up the stairs to my apartment, and waking up still wearing my red mini skirt and crumpled top. Luckily, someone had been kind enough to remove my puke-splattered black cowboy boots and place them standing up beside my bed. And like every other hungover morning, I'd step out into the cruel, glaring sunlight to the shock of a million people streaming by my door and a million cars honking their horns. I'd press my sunglasses a little closer to my face and crawl down into the subway station for relief.

 

One of my best memories was coming home just a little tipsy one night, the hot streets steaming from a summer rain, streetlights bouncing off of puddles and the only sound the hiss of an occasional cab. The neighborhood was quiet every night after the throngs of shoppers and commuters went home and the stores all closed. As I found the keyhole in the downstairs door to enter the small brownstone building, I heard a CLOP, CLOP sound and turned to look down Seventh Avenue toward 34^th Street. Horses, maybe? And there, right before my eyes, walking through the mist, were elephants. Elephants! They were walking at a slow clip, trunk to tail, heading west toward Madison Square Gardens. I held my breath and watched them disappear down the street

 

For me, love in the city was fleeting, often a series of little flings that never quite progressed to full-fledged relationships, until the day I was pursued by a waiter…" (click here to continue reading more about Aliza’s dating ups and downs in the city—it’s worth it!)

When will I learn

not to open the yogurt seal when it's facing me? I swear my nice blouses have been sprayed with "yogurt farts" for years, but every time I'm still somehow suprised and then annoyed with myself when it happens.

Today, I thought ahaed and opened it away from me (smart) but then realized too late that my awesome leather Kooba purse was underneath my hand (stupid).

It's funny how you can be having a good confidence day, feeling good in your outfit and then bam a little yogurt spray and there went that feeling. It's like when I have a powdered donut and am wearing black and go from looking NY chic to looking like a NY coke addict within one bite causing white powder to fall all over me.

Link: Light 'n Fit Carb Control with Fiber