Big City Living, Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Subway Dwellers

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Recently, there have been so many problems with the MTA and public transit that I don’t even feel like talking about it anymore. Check my twitter, it’s littered with tweets about the terrible trains. Examples:

https://twitter.com/LongLegsBigCity/status/1022229438333939713

https://twitter.com/LongLegsBigCity/status/1014131211869057024

Also, if you missed my post about the non-air-conditioned subway of death, check it out. Anyway, enough about the actual trains, for today, I’d like to talk about the PEOPLE I hate on the subway and in the subway station. I try not to do too many “list” posts, but it is required here. This is in no way an exhaustive list; I hate a lot more people.

  • People who don’t know how to use a Metrocard. Fine, I hate tourists, you caught me. But is it really that hard? Not too fast, not too slow, swipe it just right. It’s like the Goldilocks of the metrocard swipe. And for those of you who swipe the card with the magnetic strip up?? I have no words. Have you ever used a credit card? A debit card? A food stamps card? What good will it do if the magnetic strip is NOT IN THE READER?! If you tried twice and you haven’t figured it out, step out of the way, I’ve got places to be!
  • People asking for money. I could do a whole post on this one, but I’ll start with my least two favorite categories:
    • Special category of hatred: SHOWTIME. We know it, we’ve seen it; even the MTA has ads that try to combat these juvenile hooligans that believe the subway is their training center for acrobatics. I happen to like my eyes. Both of them. My nose too. I’d like to keep them intact, and your flying cartwheels are making me think I will not keep them that way.
    • Special category of hatred: man with a drum. This guy pulls out a massive drum, sets it on the floor and starts to retell some long history of drumming. Do I care? No. Has the long history changed since last week? Also no. Here’s the main problem with this particular busker, the drum is LOUD and it shakes the ground! I am here trying to read after a 12 hour day and I really do not need to have my head literally pulsating with each of his drum beats.
  • People who put a cigarette behind their ear the minute the train pulls into the station. I do not need to see that advertised. Also, you’re a bad influence for the children. There are a lot more fun ways to die than self-induced lung cancer via cigarettes. Is it that difficult to wait 2 full minutes until you exit the train and go up the stairs? Or will it take you 4 minutes to ascend due to decreased lung capacity? Either way, just wait. And while you’re at it, pull up an old D.A.R.E. commercial on Youtube.
  • Manspreaders. You have something between your legs. We get it. 
  • Smelly People. Do I really need to elaborate here? Shower and WEAR DEODORANT. It’s really that simple. Obviously I know there is nothing you can do about sweating. It’s 100+ degrees outside. It happens. But please do the rest of your fellow commuters a favor and shower daily. It should be a prerequisite before the subway turnstile. Not sure who would want the job of sniffer enforcer though…
  • People who try to get into the subway car before letting people out. I know, I know, you don’t want to miss your train. But where do you think you’re going to stand if you don’t let people off? Common courtesy here. And here’s a little known fact: they actually won’t leave the station if you’re still boarding the train. This is not Japan. Calm down.
  • People with baby strollers that are so large I can fit in them. Y’all. I am 5’11” and I should not be able to fit in your stroller. If your baby needs a stroller, they should be small enough that your stroller need not take up half of the car. If you can afford a $3,000 baby-mobile/miniature car, then grab a cab. Did you run out of money buying the stroller? Then trade it in. I hear ebay has a great black market.
  • People whose loose hair touches me. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. I have literally offered someone a hair tie before. It is JULY for god’s sake. Please, just tie it up. I am so happy for you that you took your biotin and niacin and your hair is silky smooth, but GET IT OFF OF ME. It is sticking to my sweaty arms and that is not fun for either of us.

That is my non-exhaustive list for now. I have many more people I hate, it depends on the day. Do you have any other particular categories you’d like to hear my thoughts on? Let me know below in the comments.

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Miscellaneous

Ikea Delivery Service, XPO, Is THE WORST

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Good Morning Blog-Subscribers! How was your day yesterday? Was it sunny? Was it cloudy? Did you do lots of cool things? I’d love to tell you how the day was here in New York City but I can’t. Because I was homebound for 9 hours thanks to Ikea’s delivery service, XPO. THEY. ARE. THE. WORST.

I don’t generally use my blog to complain about things unless it really irks me to my core. Example: Soulcycle. But one of the things I hate the MOST in this world is wasting time. I am a born multi-tasker. You may know this since I have a full-time job, a part-time side-hustle, I upkeep 3 Instagram accounts, braid 2-3 people’s hair/day and post on two twitters. The twitter upkeep I don’t do so well. Anyway, as you can see, I am a busy person. I don’t have time to sit around and waste, especially not when I am paying someone specifically to not waste my time. I think I aged 50 years waiting for this delivery.

Let’s start at the beginning, on July 9th, I ordered one dresser. Since I hate wasting time, I decided to pay Ikea to deliver it instead of trekking to the store. Also, I don’t have a car #NewYorkCityProblems. Delivery was scheduled for July 19th. On the 19th, they didn’t deliver. Why? Well, they said it was because I wasn’t home. Here’s the problem with that: I HAVE A DOORMAN. WHO WAS THERE! It would be one thing if Ikea had a “no delivering to doormen” policy, but they never said that. Also, I know for a fact that they do not have this policy because they have delivered to my doorman before. In April. Of this year. But whatever. They didn’t deliver so I had to go online and reschedule the delivery.

I rescheduled the delivery for yesterday the 24th. Already, I was upset because in the age of Amazon I am not used to waiting more than 2 days for a delivery, and I had already waited 15 days! Also, OF COURSE, the only delivery options were Monday through Friday.

The XPO website said I would receive a call with a “delivery window” the day prior to delivery. I was scared I would miss the call. Beginning at 8:30 am, I had my phone on me the entire day. Literally. I brought it in the bathroom with me. Don’t worry, I sanitized it. Do you think they called me at 9 am? 10 am? Maybe 1 pm?? NO. I tried calling the XPO number listed in the email confirmation: (888) 888-4532. Guess what? IT ISN’T IN SERVICE.  I tried looking for a direct Ikea phone number. SAME NUMBER. Fantastic. So I waited.

They didn’t call until 4:32 pm. I should have taken this as foreshadowing for the next day. Hindsight is 20-20.

They gave me a delivery window of 1-5 pm. It could literally not be any more inconvenient. It couldn’t be the morning so I could just go to work after it arrived. It couldn’t be late afternoon so I could leave work early. No, it had to be in the middle of the day so I left work at 12 noon, because god forbid they came 30 minutes early and I wasn’t there. So, I got home at 12:30. And I waited. And waited… and waited some more.

At 4:45, I still had no delivery. I decided I should probably call Ikea or XPO, in case they closed at 5 pm. I had very low expectations for them at this point. However, as I said before, none of the listed numbers were valid. But I did have the phone number they called me from the day prior!

I tried it and after 3 automated menus I got a real person! I told her my order number and she told me I had a delivery window of 1-5 pm. At this point it was 4:55. I informed her of this fact. She told me she would “check on the status” and put me on hold. And I waited… and waited.

34 minutes later (yes, this is an exact number), another woman picked up. She asked how she could help me. I was barely containing my anger at this point. I told her that I had already spoken to someone and asked her to promise not to put me on hold again. She told me she would check on my order, and SURPRISE, she told me that I had a 1-5 pm delivery window. It was 5:33. I informed her of this fact. She told me she would try to check in with the driver. True to her word, I didn’t hear any hold music but I think she put herself on mute. 4 minutes of complete silence later, she told me that my truck had “mechanical issues in the morning” and that they were running on an “extreme delay.” THIS MORNING?? I lost it.

I asked her why, if they had problems this morning, I was never informed of it before I left work. She said she didn’t know.

I asked if by “extreme delay” she meant 7 pm or 9 pm. She said, “9 pm… hopefully.”

I asked, isn’t this delivery coming from Elizabeth, NJ? She said yes. She blamed traffic. I told her that traffic will account for a 1 hour delay. Maybe 90 minutes. Not 8 hours. I told her I could WALK to the store in New Jersey faster. This is a fact, I checked on Google Maps.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. She told me she WAS a supervisor.

She told me that she could tell them to hold the delivery and deliver on another day. I hysterical evil-laughed at her. I asked her how she thought that was possibly a solution.

She told me she would call me again in an hour with an update. She did not call.

I tweeted at Ikea (multiple times). They did not reply.

https://twitter.com/LongLegsBigCity/status/1021899474942271489

https://twitter.com/LongLegsBigCity/status/1021899962697875456

7:26 pm: I get a call from an unknown number. SURPRISE it’s my delivery guy. He is “2 minutes away.” How in the world is that helpful? If I wasn’t home, I couldn’t get home in 2 minutes. And if he had the ability to be calling me, shouldn’t he have done that in the morning? Before I took off of work? I was livid.

Also, they weren’t 2 minutes away, they were 20 minutes away.

When they arrived, I tried very hard not to take my anger out on the delivery guys. It was probably not their fault. But then they asked me how my day was. I couldn’t hold it in. I told them I had a terrible day because I was homebound waiting for them, and I had to order in dinner because I couldn’t go to the grocery store. I had to miss work. One of the delivery guys tried to one-up me by saying he had been outside since 5 in the morning. To which I said, “Ok, well are you getting paid for that? Because I am specifically NOT getting paid because I am here waiting for you.” That shut him up right quick.

They brought in the boxes and left. And I fumed. And I wrote this blog. And now, I will work on my SEO for this piece, so that every person who thinks about using Ikea delivery in the future will find this in page one of their Google searches and will think twice about using XPO. They have a monopoly directly with Ikea, but you can hire someone else to pick it up AND assemble it! Use Taskrabbit! They are more reliable AND have better customer service because their business literally depends on your rating and feedback. Many of them have 5 stars.

I will also be writing to Ikea, attempting to get compensation for the HOURS of my life I will never get back. Hopefully an update will come soon. Although I do not have much hope, as I was retweeted by an account that is literally call “IKEA fucked me too.” Seems like a common problem. They even asked me to sign a petition.

 

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Miscellaneous, Travel

Sara’s Beacon Bachelorette

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This may sound unbelievable to you, but over the weekend, I went to my FIRST EVER bachelorette party! I know, I know, you’re all calling me a hypocrite since I always talk about weddings but it’s true! I am a PROFESSIONAL wedding guest but a total novice bachelorette attendee. I think this is because most of my weddings are out of state, so it is either impossible to attend both the wedding and the bachelorette, or I’m just not invited to the pre-festivities because my friends know I can’t come. In the case of last weekend, it was the opposite! The wedding is out of state, and I can’t go because I’m DOUBLE booked with weddings, and they are on the same day in different states! Since I can’t go to the actual simcha (HEBREW WORD ALERT!), I knew I needed to go to the bachelorette to shower the bride.

Even though this was my first time attending a bachelorette, and it was the least bachelorette-y bachelorette ever. Thanks to the bride-to-be, of course. She is a very low-key gal, and she insisted on no sashes, tiaras, penis necklaces, etc. When asked if we were a bachelorette party, she insisted we were just a “group of girls.” (Cue “Huge Group of Girls” below.) One of them just happened to be about to be married.

Our festivities started at Grand Central Terminal, where all great festivities begin. Clearly being facetious there, but to be honest, it’s nicer than any airport, and it’s less of a hassle because I can carry any liquids I want. Our fearless leader, aka bachelorette-organizer-extraordinaire, aka Arielle, got to Grand Central early and purchased our tickets. We were all miraculously on time, and boarded our chariot to Beacon, NY. Chariot = Metro-North Train.

There were 6 girls total, which is a great number. Not too many girls, but not too few that someone feels left out. Also, it turned out none of us knew each other too well, which was fun! I feel like I got to meet awesome new people, and since we weren’t close to begin with, there were no cliques. Arielle told me she was not a big photo-taker, so I nominated myself to be the picture-taker. I have plenty of practice thanks to this blog. (Do you know how many ice cream photos I took during #30Years30IceCreams?? More than 400.)

Anyway, after taking the obligatory train selfie, we arrived in Beacon, and grabbed a cab to our hotel. We stayed at the Roundhouse in Beacon, which was a very bougie hotel. Unfortunately I did kill a bug on our bathroom, and the sheets had questionable stains on them. But hey, we got money knocked off our bill, so #WorthIt!

We dropped our bags down, and boarded our second chariot of the day, a large black SUV! Arielle had liaised with a concierge-type service for wine-tasting, called Hudson Valley Bucket List. We had our own private driver who doubled as our Instagram-bf for the day (Shoutout Jonathan! Awesome pics!), and they took care of everything. They dropped us off first at Nostrand Vineyards, where we tasted 6 wines, and decided on two to buy to accompany our lunch. Our concierge wine tour set up an adorable pop-up picnic on the lawn behind the tasting. We had private cheese plates, bread, and sandwiches. We even had a green salad. Everything was perfect, besides the heat. But I am basically in a constant state of sweating from May-September, so I cannot blame the wine tour for that. After lunch, I didn’t think I was too drunk but… I guess I was. Because I forgot my phone. I was too busy taking pics, I guess! Double shoutout to Jonathan for turning around and getting my phone. Also triple shoutout to Jonathan, driver-extraordinaire, for having warm chocolate chip cookies for us in the car! Once we picked up my phone, we headed to the second stop: Glorie Farm Winery. This one had a much more rustic feel to it, but it was fun because it had actual grape vines we could pose with. Jonathan came in clutch with yet-another photo opp. We shared another bottle of wine and then packed back in our SUV to return to the hotel.

The original plan was to take a nap or freshen up for 2 hours before dinner. Most of us realized that if we went to sleep, we’d never wake up again, so we went to explore the town of Beacon. We left our one California girl to take a nap, since she had been awake for about 30 hours at that point. We took a (sweaty) walk down main street, looking in the shops, and had a stop at the end for ice cream at Beacon Creamery, much needed by that point. You know I love me some ice cream, especially in new places, and this one did not disappoint! They had a lot of obscure flavors, which is my favorite. I opted for Ginger-flavored ice cream, which was yummy and even had pieces of ginger in it!

We went back to the hotel, SHOWERED, and changed for dinner. Then we walked to dinner, and thankfully it had cooled down a bit. We didn’t know at the time, but that was because it was about to torrential rain. We got to dinner just in the nick of time. We ate at The Kitchen Sink, an amazing farm-to-table restaurant where everything was fresh and yummy! Props to Arielle, our organizer, for making a reservation, because multiple people were turned away! We hung out at the table, trying to wait out the rain, but eventually made a mad dash next door to a wine bar for dessert. The wine bar was… interesting. It had live music so we thought it might be raucous. But no. It was veryyy romantic. And date-y. We stuck out. We didn’t even order wine. We decided to walk back to the hotel in a light drizzle of rain. Another girl in our party had the foresight to call the hotel and ask if they could set aside dessert/coffee/tea for us, and they said they would.

When we arrived at the hotel, there was some miscommunication about the desserts, but the GM had our backs. The main bar area was closed for a wedding afterparty, but he brought us coffee and tea to a side lounge area. He apologized for the miscommunication about the desserts, but luckily we had Jonathan-warm-chocolate cookies leftover that we brought down from our room. 5 minutes later… SURPRISE, the GM found our desserts! The pastry chef had set aside macarons for us before he left for the night. They were delicious! Not as good as the chocolate cookies, but still.

FREE MACARONS!

We called it an early night (I told you it was a non-traditional bachelorette!), and woke up early-ish for breakfast in the hotel. After some frittata, I started braiding. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. Remember, it’s my new obsession! Our activity for the day was hiking, so we had to have our hair up and away from our face!

The hike itself was great, but HOT! The humidity was stifling, but the views were worth it. We hiked Mt. Beacon, specifically we hiked the Casino Trail. It’s named after an actual casino that burned down. The cool part is, many of the old ruins are still there and you can climb on and around them! There are also ruins from the Mount Beacon Incline Railway,  which was shut down in the 1970’s. Pretty cool. As opposed to the temperature. Unfortunately, since we had already check out of the hotel, we had to settle for a bathroom-sink-shower. You all should be lucky you were not sitting next to us on the train home. We stopped for a quick lunch at Royal Crepes, which was SO GOOD, and then took an uber back to the train station.

 

The night before the weekend, emoji boyfriend had asked me if I was excited, and I told him I was, but I was also nervous because I didn’t know anyone. Luckily, none of us really knew each other, and we all ended up as friends! One of the girls friended me on Facebook, and it turned out we had 56 friends in common! Small world. I’m totally down for another Bachelorette. Who’s next??

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Miscellaneous

Braid In Manhattan – My New Braiding Obsession

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Helloooo Blog-Readers! I have a confession to make. I spread myself too thin. I love to keep busy, but I have been TOO BUSY. Even for me. And the first thing that I gave up were my blog posts. I apologize but I will try to be better at it from now on!

So… what have I been up to?? A lot of things. But mostly, braiding. A lot of you guys probably just re-read that sentence because… what!? I know, I know, this is not a normal thing to be busy doing. But it’s true.

I started braiding hair when I was 18 and I was a camp counselor at a Jewish camp. I had a cabin of 20 girls, and all of them had a total of 3 hours to get ready for Shabbat Dinner on Friday nights. Inevitably, at least 12 of my 20 girls wanted French braids in their hair. I can remember hours of sitting on the stairs of our cabin braiding hair. By necessity, I got very fast at it. And by practice, I got fairly good at it.

As you may remember from my half-marathon training posts last year, as part of my pre-race superstitions, I also braid my own hair. What I didn’t know was, there is a whole #BraidingCommunity out there on Instagram and YouTube! It was all down the rabbit hole from then on.

About 3 months ago, I started to follow a few braiders on my longlegsbigcity Instagram account. I mostly followed the big names like MissySue, and CuteGirlsHairstyles. Soon, I began looking at hashtags and tried to replicate the braids I saw. I realized I was really good at it. I started to post pictures every once in a while of my braid creations. However, as I started to follow more and more braiding accounts, and I realized that many of my LongLegsBigCity followers probably did not want to see braids on their Instagram feed, I decided to create a brand-new Instagram, JUST FOR HAIR. I asked the Facebook Hive Mind for names for my new account, and I settled on my best friend’s suggestion: Braid in Manhattan. Like Maid in Manhattan! Get it!?

 

CHECK OUT MY BRAIDSTAGRAM! @BraidInManhattan

 

I am not a very artistic person, but I am VERY crafty. Again, something you may remember from my many DIY Halloween Costumes, including the Gum Ball Machine from last year. I found that hair braiding was an awesome craft because the result looked awesome, and the person whose hair you braided got to parade your craft around all day long! (Sometimes they can parade it around for two days, depending on the style.)

Once I created an Instagram, I truly committed to my new hobby. I quickly followed 30 braid accounts, and then followed the people they followed, etc. I really picked up my stride in the month of June, because I found an account JennisHairDays, and she was hosting a challenge with a different type of braid for every day of the month. I dove into the challenge head first. I probably knew about 50% of the braids, and I challenged myself to learn the other 50%! I successfully posted a braid every single day.

The first question people always ask me about my braiding is “how do you get good?” or “how do you know how to do it?” The answers are pretty easy: practice, and YouTube. But also, I have found that my unique skill is not really in the actual task of braiding, but in the recognition from a photo of what the braid is, and figuring it out on my own. Sometimes I cheat by using a YouTube Tutorial, but as I continue to hone my skills, I am able to look at a photo on Instagram, realize it’s a 4-strand waterfall braid with a ribbon, and replicate it quite easily!

The other question I get is: who do you braid? The main issue with my braiding obsession is finding people to braid! Most people in the #BraidingCommunity are moms who do their daughters’ hair daily. I don’t have a daughter. This presents a problem. Thankfully I have a lot of friends who are willing to be my hair models. More specifically, I have coworkers who spend 9 hours/day with me and love to be walking billboards for my styles! I usually spend half of my lunch break nowadays braiding my coworkers’ hair. I love trying out new styles, and they love having their hair done! I always tag my photos with #DeskBraiding.

Speaking of walking billboards, I am in the process of making business cards, so my walking billboards can hand out my contact information. I am also in the process of building a website, and hopefully by next homecoming and prom season, I will be available to do braided updos and make a little bit of extra cash! (New Side Hustle, anyone?) Do any of you out there need someone to do your hair? Your daughter’s? Bachelorette? Bridal shower? Wedding? I remember when I had my hair braided into a crown for Barrister’s Ball in law school and I paid $100!! I don’t plan to charge nearly that much, but even at 50% of that, I could make some nice mulah.

For now, I have been braiding completely free of charge to build my portfolio. I did my two friends’ hair for the Pride parade. I also recently did my coworker’s 11-year-old daughter’s hair for her 5th grade graduation, and she loved it! We met up at Barnes And Noble and I created a mini hair salon in the Starbucks café. I have a portable hair spray, spray wax texture spray, comb, and many many ribbons and elastics. A few weeks ago, I offered my braiding services for a friend’s church event with a panel of women, and they set up an adorable Braid Bar for me.

 

Also, last weekend I went to the Jersey Shore to a family friend’s house where I did her hair, and her daughter’s hair. At almost-4-years-old, she was my youngest-ever client! She went on my Instagram and picked out the style she wanted, plus, of COURSE the colors of elastics and ribbons. Somehow, she sat still for a full 12 minutes and it paid off! She totally LOVED her hairstyle.

I won’t FORCE you to follow my new Instagram, especially if you already follow me on 1 or 2 other accounts (I told you I’m busy!), but I do post pictures almost every single day. And I’m getting better every single day! Maybe someday I will start a YouTube channel and post tutorials, but for now I am sticking with the photos. Spread the word and help me pay off my student loans!

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