Tales from La La Land

Before we get started, I would like to point out that I am approaching my two-week anniversary and I am starting to wonder who this person is that I married.

I think we all know about Laef’s extreme budgeting. He was very nervous about the wedding and the honeymoon. He probably thought that I’d go all Bridezilla and insist on Patron, Sea Scallops and Grilled Artichokes as the wedding meal.

That would have been nice, but even I knew our limits.

Anywasted, we did everything we wanted to do in New York, but definitely made a huge effort to cut corners where we could. We didn’t indulge in expensive meals and we certainly didn’t shop as much as I would have liked. We didn’t bother with room service or paying for internet service in our room ($16 per day) – things that would have been kind of nice, but seemed ridiculous in terms of cost.

So, it should come as no surprise that after everything has been said and done, we went under budget. We actually had a decent amount of money left in our wedding account. (A HUGE thanks to all our wonderful friends and family who served as DJ, cake-deliever, guitar player, bouquet-makers, officiant and wedding coordinator. All of those things saved us a lot of money).

I think Laef feels a sense of relief. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I didn’t spend every last dollar to my name – which is how I usually roll.

Yesterday Laef had to make a Costco run to get snacks for a work meeting. He called and asked if we needed anything and I said no because I just went to the grocery store.

When I got home from work, I noticed an industrial size bag of Chex Mix on top of the fridge. I then noticed a box of 80 fruit snacks. The fruit snacks were next to a bottle of 18-year aged scotch.

WTF.

WHO is this person that spends $100 at Costco on fruit snacks and Scotch?

My husband. Who is apparently now a Scotch drinker (Thanks, Sean).

Moving On.

New York City Day 3 – Yankees, Wings and Bar None

The Yankee game was an afternoon game, starting at 1:05 p.m. Let’s be honest, we didn’t do anything in the morning before the game. We slept in again and decided our first meal of the day would be ballpark food.

We took the 4 train to Yankee Stadium and ate at the first place we saw, which had a sign that boasted: “Cheapest Beers at Yankee Stadium”.

So we got two Bud Lite tall boys for $16, a chili dog and a hamburger. It was delicious.

My cousin, Lindsay, and her husband Chris, met us outside with tickets. They sit in Section 203 in the bleachers. If you ever make it to Yankee Stadium, I highly recommend this section.

Lindsay and Chris knew almost everyone sitting near us. They used to have season tickets and met all these other people, who also have season tickets. Same people, sitting the same section for years.

It gives you a great local feel. One of Lindsay’s friends is the leader of what is known as Roll Call.

As the first inning starts, this guy gets the section to start chanting every single Yankee starter. They go through each position, yell the player’s name until said player turns and waves to the section. (ARod, seen below, barely raised a glove because he is a dick, but the rest of them got pretty into it).

It’s awesome.

This is also the section that you will get taunted if you are clearly a tourist and order Guiness with your garlic fries. I don’t know why this guy and his girlfriend thought Guiness was a good idea on a hot New York summer day, but the locals took notice, yelling, “Milk was a bad choice! Enjoy your garlic fries and milk!”

This is also the section that taunted Nick Markakis (who by the way might be my new favorite player because of his hotness factor and because he it a bomb to section 203 after being ribbed for nine straight innings) for the ENTIRE game.

I am pretty sure that the guy in the photo below was yelling this: “Hey, Markakis! We’ve got your mom up here! And we’re shaving her back!”

It was a ton of fun, we drank $9 beers, ate fries and the Yankees won. Good times.

After leaving the game, we headed back to the hotel to shower and figure out our evening plans.

We decided to head to Croxley Ales near NYU because it was Wednesday. And on Wednesday they have 10-cent wings.

The place was packed with locals, which I loved.

There are rules on 10 cent wing night, starting with the fact that you have to order at least 20 wings to begin and have to increase in increments of 10. We made it through the first 20 no problem, but Laef may have over estimated us with the second 20. I think we only managed to eat half of them.

We ended up eating dinner for $4.00 and the drinks were very reasonable so it was another cheap date.

Not too far away was a bar called Bar None, which had $2 well drinks for ladies on Wednesday’s.

This place was a total college bar. It smelled of stale beer and puke, but it was 80s/90s music night and they had cheap drinks. It had Mike Tyson’s “Punch Out” on Nintendo (circa 1987) set up and anyone who was able to beat Mike Tyson won a free pitcher. They say it doesn’t happen often.

The female bartenders took a liking to Laef. He was dancing to 80s music in his barstool and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. We ordered a shot of Patron, a Mikes Hard Lemonade and a beer.

The bartender told Laef, “Just give me $10.”

Seriously? We just spent $9 for one beer at Yankee Stadium and this girl was giving us all that for $10?

Laef quickly tried to figure out how to anull the marriage so he could marry this girl. Or Angie Sit who gave us the book that led us to this bar.

We had so much fun at this dive listening to fun music and drinking cheap beer.

After leaving I convinced Laef that we needed a crepe from the street vendor. The dude was making them fresh right there on a grill. It was so effing yummy. And messy. I dropped half of the contents out on the subway, but I saved the Nutella, so it didn’t matter much.

This was the first night that we slept like babies.