Just a few random comments...

1) Happy Bi-annual celebration to me!- Yesterday marks 6 months of me living in NYC! And, I'm not even thinking of where I'll move next! Good signs.

2) I baked cookies last night to commemorate my friend Viv and my bi-annual celebration of working at Harris. I made cookies last night and it pays to follow the directions. I remember just throwing everything for the cookie recipe together in college and while still tasty, a gooey mess. Yesterday's cookies were spot on. Yum.

3) I am enjoying Facebook.com. I signed up a few months ago and am still having a blast. I never got into MySpace although I was told "you seem like someone who'd be on MySpace."

4) I'm getting really excited for spring. It's in the mid-40's today and GORGEOUS.

5) I'm even more excited that my sisters are coming in t-7 days! Whit gets here on Wednesday night and Ab gets here Friday morning. It's going to be so much fun!

Star Spotting #3

Ok, blurry picture, but it was the one that was most accurate to what he looked like when I saw him.

This is Michael Showalter, who I saw getting on the subway as my friends Lauren, Emily and I were getting off at our stop. I of course, thought he was someone I knew, went to school with or was one of my many subway crushes.

It was Lauren, SATC expert, who identified him as Berger's friend Billy from Season 6, episode 7. If you don't recall, this is the episode where Berger breaks up with Carrie via post-it note "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me."

According to IMDb, he is also member of New York-based alternative comedy troupe Stella along with Michael Ian Black and David Wain.

Rollerama!!

I went rollerskating for a friend's birthday party last night for the first time in forever. Well, I think I took Miss Sarah to a rollerskating birthday party when I was in college but let's just say its been some time since I wore skates. Spending 3 1/2 hours on skates led me to draw some observations on skating,

1) Any woman who has the skill to squat in a tiled bathroom while wearing rollerskates has my respect.
2) The movie "Roll Bounce" had a huge impact on a small segment of the population in New York City. There were people there last night that were full on disco dancing in roller skates. I found this to be absolutely terrifying and was really proud of myself when I could skate to the beat.
3) Rollerskating is for everyone! Black, white, straight, gay, young, old, bikers, non-bikers, men dressed like Russell Simmons, it seemed like everyone was represented last night.
4) Rollerskating did not have a significant presence in the lives of several of my friends last night. Some of them said that it was the first time they had gone rollerskating. Now to my estimation, I have probably been rollerskating 20 times. Midwestern thing?
5) I must have had amazing leg muscles when I was little or I'm just getting old. The combination of rollerskating and lots of squats the night before has made it very challenging for me to sit, walk down steps, walk in general. I'm looking forward to vegging on the couch tonight and watching Grey's.

Booty shaking

For those of you that don't know, since moving to NYC I have started, brace yourself, going to the gym. Pretty soon after my move I realized that, 1) I now have the time to exercise, and 2) it's probably good for me so I should.

For the last month or two, every Monday night I've been going to a Masala Bhangra dance class and shaking my booty; well , in Masala Bhangra you shake everything. I tried to find a good description of Masala Bhangra online but eerily there wasn't one. Most of what I found says that MB is a like an Indian Hip Hop infusing traditional Indian music with western rhythms.

I love the class and the more bouncy you are, the more accurate it looks. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty stiff in my shoulders and haven't found my rhythm there yet, but I hope with time I will. It's a great class and it's always packed. If you have access to a Masala Bhangra class, you should definitely try it or if you don't have downstairs neighbors you can get the workouts from Netflix. You feel like an idiot the first time you do it, but it's really fun.

Adventures in Jersey

I went to Ocean City/Atlantic City this past weekend for my friend Erica's bachelorette party. It was a lot of fun and the time flew by. Highlights of the weekend include:

* Awesome beach house that we stayed at in Ocean City - while not very beach feeling in February, it was huge and full of yummy treats that we definitely snacked on.

* Lots of great conversation - Friday night the people coming up from DC didn't get in until 12:45am so we stayed up until around 4ish chatting. Let's just say that 9 girls talking (and drinking) in a room with hardwood floors is VERY loud.

* Dinner at PF Changs - I forgot how yummy it is.

* Dance party at RiRa (sp?) - the band looked punk/alternative with their stocking caps, vintage T's and facial piercings. Then they broke out into covers from the last 10-15 years. It was AWESOME.

* Piggyback ride from guy with mohawk - I don't really have trouble making new friends so when we left RiRa I made friends with a guy with a 6 in high mohawk, tattoos and interesting back piercings. I mentioned that my feet were tired and he offered me a piggyback ride so he walked me over to where our van was picking us up. Sweet deal.

All in all it was a great time and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again in May. I'll post a picture of all of us as soon as I get some copies from one of the 4 girls with cameras.

Home, Sweet, Home

While walking home from the subway the other day I was thinking about how when I need to get out of the city, it's not just "not city" that I crave, it's the openness of home.

I'll be riding in a bus to Atlantic City this weekend for my friend Erica's bachelorette party and while it's nice to get out of the city, there are trees everywhere along the roadside blocking your view. I guess I'm just used to the openness of SD.

For those of you who haven't been to SD, here is a photo gallery of the towns/area around where I grew up (Jefferson). Isn't it pretty?!?! Thanks to Deb Truhe for the link!

New Crush

I'm the worst at uploading photos so here is a publicity pic...

HOWEVER, I thought I'd update you on my new music crush. I went to a Joshua Radin show a couple of weeks ago and he was amazing. I first heard him on the Last Kiss soundtrack that Ashley sent me and absolutely fell in love with his sound. It's very Simon & Garfunkel sounding so if that's not your thing I'd probably avoid it.

The show was a steal, $15 to see him, his girlfriend Schuyler Fisk and Ingrid Michaelson. He was so excited to have sold out the Bowery Ballroom that he kept taking pictures of the crowd and himself in the crowd with his digital camera. I love performers that are new enough they still realize how cool it is to make a living doing what they love.

You can check out his music on his MySpace page and if he's in your town, you should definitely check him out.

Oh the weather outside is...

...really dang cold. The last two weeks in New York have been absolutely freezing, which while compared to SD, it's tropical, but like I've mentioned before. I walk a lot more these days.

Walking around the other day when my jeans started to get stiff because of the cold, I was reminded of this really fun game that my friends and I used to play at recess during the winter. Ok, the game goes like this, We all huddled in a corner of the building, and we sat on our heels really squished together. If you were lucky that day, you were in the middle of the huddle and therefore warm, if not, you worked as the cold barrier for everyone else. I'm not sure how we decided who would be in the middle, maybe we traded off, I hope so. Any of my friends from childhood that could shed light on this would be greatly appreciated.

Not all recesses were like that though, once it snowed so hard we were able to make a snow castle in the snow with kid size ceilings, separate rooms, it was awesome. I obviously was not the architect of this, I'm sure the boys actually made it and I just enjoyed wandering around. Until the teachers broke it because it could "collapse" on us. Dang safety rules!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Nope, not today. But J.K. Rowling announced that the final installment of the Harry Potter series would be released on MY BIRTHDAY! July 21st.

Hopefully, no one will tell me how the book ends since I will likely be celebrating my 26th throughout the weekend of the 21st-23rd and won't get to it until Sunday night.

I'm Famous

...or, I just live pretty far from my alma mater.

I was looking through the KU Alumni magazine this past weekend (after a long happy hour) and went to "Class Notes" which is the closest thing to gossip I get from KU. For those of you who don't know, Class Notes is where they list where people are living/what they're doing, if they've gotten married or had a baby.

I always assumed you got in the class notes by sending the Alumni Association something you wanted to include. Turns out I was wrong. I was scouring the "b'03" listings and I run across one, "Hey! Like me!". No, actually me.

"Roxanne Karpen, b'03, is living in New York City and works as a Senior Research Associate at Harris Interactive"

Turns out they just go through the records and I'm assuming, pull those that live furthest from Kansas. Regardless, I was pretty excited.

Hey. How do I know you?

To my knowledge, I have never been accused of being shy. So, it should not come as a surprise to any of you that instead of sitting and contemplating how I know someone before approaching them, I make them help me figure it out.

This has happened on two such occasions when watching KU basketball in recent weeks. The first person I saw we spent about 15 mins trying to figure out how we first met. We have connections through about 4 different paths but we couldn't remember how we first met. We finally figured it out by her descriptions of my cute, really short hair. Ding. Freshman year English.

The second time happened this weekend watching the Kansas/Texas A&M game (don't want to discuss the result of the game). I saw a guy that I definitely remembered and he had on a Kanas shirt which, of course, led me to assume he went to KU. He lived in Lawrence but went to Baker, a college nearby. After he moved from Lawrence he moved to the Plaza (like me) and yep, lived a floor above me. He lives about 6 blocks away now. Small world.

Random stuff

#1
After watching several episodes of L&O this weekend I hope that once I live alone again that I am never suspected of a crime. I would never have a good alibi.

#2
I am thoroughly entertained by the fact that one of the new UPS commercials has a song from "The Postal Service" playing in the background.

#3
I think the TV show Brothers & Sisters might be my new favorite TV show. It's about a family of 5 kids and their relationships with each other and their mom. Super characters.

#4
HBO OnDemand has some great movies right now. Today I watched, Two for the Money, The Cowboy Way and I watched my Netflixed The Collateral. All good movies. It's funny how much more you understand when you watch a movie as an adult that you used to watch as a kid. The adult references in The Cowboy Way apparently were way over my head when I watched it as a kid. I wonder how many other movies are like that.

#5
I have started taking Masala Bhangra dance classes and it's a great time. "The bouncier you are the more authentic it looks". If you're interested in coming with me to a class let me know!

Christmas Means Carnage

I've been planning on blogging about this forever, but was going to upload a picture to support my findings. If you don't live in NYC, you'll just have to take my word for it.

I got back from my Christmas holiday and found PILES of Christmas trees laying on the side of the street. There were seriously 8-10 trees per pile, about 3 on my street alone. It smelled great but I was a little worried someone would throw their cigarette in the wrong place. Apparently people just leave them by the street and then someone comes with a wood chipper and grinds them up for fertilizer in Central Park. Yay!

The best thing about it is that several people were unwilling to store holiday lights and tree holders. I saw more than one tree with it's decorations still on it. Wonder how those fair in the wood chipper.

Weather Update

Yay! It's snowing in New York! We're getting a light dusting this afternoon but I'm not entirely sure you can call it that when as soon as it hits the ground, it melts.

After the amazing weather we had in December it is suddenly FREEZING in NYC. Literally freezing, like I have step over the ice path from water spilled on the sidewalk. I personally feel like I'm being a trooper, by only complaining about being cold 10% of the time. I told my mom yesterday that it was freezing here and she reminded me that 24 degrees is not even crunchy coat weather (if you know what that means you have two thumbs up in my book).

We agreed that new standards of "cold" have to be created for me since I walk approximately a mile each way to work, whereas I probably never walked a consecutive mile when I lived in South Dakota. Well, except for the Presidential Fitness test.

Ok, this is cute

Since I haven't posted anything about my niece and nephew lately I had to put up this picture.

How cute are they!?!?! Abby blogged about how Gabrielle is getting good at feeding Colin but this is too cute to handle. This will be a favorite picture of mine for a long time.

Law & Order Junkie

I've watched Law & Order for YEARS. And ever since they have been showing reruns of the original and SVU on TNT and USA, these have been my go-to channels when they're nothing to watch on TV. I love when they have marathons of L&O back to back. I was talking to someone about it or reading it, that the best thing about this show is that every show is different, they rarely bring up things that happened in past shows so if you miss one you're fine. They're also so formulaic that if you miss the first half, you can still have a pretty good idea of what's happening.

Lately, I have found that Without a Trace also fits this profile and is ALSO shown on TNT. Sadly I realized that I was watching a Without a Trace that I had seen before. This is the problem I've run into watching L&O for so many years, I think I've seen them all. I think I just need to keep finding shows I love in syndication.

Random rant

Everyone has a special skill. My mother's is that she can spot an expired SD license plate from 2 car lengths away. In SD you are assigned a month to renew your license plates based on the first letter of your last name and it is represented by a sticker in the upper left hand corner, 01 - January, 02 - February, etc. I want to say ours were sometime in the summer, July maybe? They are also color coded by year so if in June she sees a red 05 and the sticker for 2007 is blue then, yep, they have expired license plates.

Anyway, I think my skill is spotting, then telling people, when the string that holds together the slit at the back of their coat hasn't been cut. I know, it's weird, but it drives me crazy when the slit is still sewn together. When they're walking it tends to gape open and look like you have an opening for a tail or something. With all the new coats out there after the holidays I feel like maybe I should walk around with a pair of scissors. Sadly, I have stopped telling most people because they look at me like I'm crazy. Hopefully, the string has not been cut because they don't look at the back of their coat and they don't see it and not that they think it's meant to be that way.

Happy Anniversary Abby and Matt!

Five years ago my sister and brother-in-law were joined in wedded bliss.

Two kids and two moves later they are still going strong.

Happy Anniversary!

I love you guys!

Note: I am no longer allowed to use subtraction before January 15.

Family Heirlooms

This past Thanksgiving my sisters and I started laying claims to family heirlooms from our childhood. Were we fighting over priceless china? Jewelry perhaps? No, we were fighting over a green plastic alligator medicine spoon.

Whenever we were sick as kids (ok, well into our teenage years) we took our liquid medicine from this alligator spoon. He has legs, he's fancy.

I am happy to say that I got the alligator, my argument being, "I was the sick one". I've never been so happy to have been susceptible to ear aches, bladder issues and a variety of other ailments in my life!

To make it up to my sisters for stealing a priceless heirloom I bought them alligator spoons from a medical supply company. If you come visit, I have some spares. Don't you want an alligator medicine spoon, or, "cuchara para medicamentos" of your very own?

Ab and Whit - cereal sugar shaker. It's on.

Resolution #1

Blog more. I've pretty much been on hiatus for the last 2 weeks. If you're still checking my blog you're the best!

I had some issues with Blogger but most of the issues have now been resolved. I think.

I was at home in South Dakota for a week or so for Christmas. I got to see lots of family and friends, attended the 4th (?) annual Casey Christmas party but there was no snow. I was all excited for snow and wintery mix on my flight home and I got nothin'. It wasn't even cold. I know I should knock on wood but there is something wrong with the weather. This week in NYC, mostly low 50's every day. It's so weird.

Movies I've seen lately, The Holiday - two enthusiastic thumbs up. The Pursuit of Happyness - great story but could have held out for the DVD.

For all those who sent holiday cards/pictures and letters - I LOVED them. At some point I will become more of an adult and actually send them out.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and I will attempt to prevent further disappearances on my part.