Holiday Weekend

As we all know this past weekend was Labor Day weekend. AKA a holiday weekend, which means lots of traffic, family and the dreaded overtime. To start off with I worked both Friday and Saturday, full days. It didn't get too crazy thankfully. I was feeling a little lonely though, knowing that I hadn't seen Chancho in a week and I wasn't going to for another 4 days. I thought it was going to be another terrible holiday weekend. Low and behold, I was wrong.

Saturday night, I took it upon myself to keep myself occupied. I told myself that being home alone wasn't going to change the fact that I was lonely and I needed to go out and do something. That was exactly what I did. I made plans during my lunch break at work to go out with a coworker, whom I'll name Nadia. She had just recently broken up with boyfriend and she needed some girl time. I had $2 dollar drinks at a local bar for a few hours so we thought we'd take advantage of it. Then to spice things up we invited another coworker, whom I'll name Fisher. Fisher is a very flamboyant gay who will not hold anything back. He guarantees the night to be fun. He in fact was the reason we wound up going to the city. He took it upon himself to show us around the gay district of the city. The first bar we entered was called Barracuda in Chelsea. It was a little shady place, jam packed with guys. I've never seen so many guys, gorgeous guys, all in one place. Nadia and I were convinced that some of them were straight, but convinced otherwise after seeing them for a longer period of time. It was extremely dark and it wasn't very clean. No places to sit, only standing room and it was small. I wasn't a big fan of it so we ventured off to our next place. Therapy was the next bar. So much different than the last one. Brighter and much spacier and clean too. It had two floors. The upstairs was the dancing floor. I believe it had a mini stage. Or at least one guy made a stage. He performed Single Ladies by Beyonce. Terrific performance I must say. He knew all the dance moves. It was great. It was so great and wonderful atmosphere that that was where we ended our night. There were booths for us to sit and talk while Fisher danced the rest of the night away. My only bad opinion about the bar was that there was only a men's room. Luckily there were plenty of stalls for us ladies to use, but I thought it very odd that they wouldn't provide a ladies room. I know that it is a gay bar, but they must know that women are going to come too. It was a great night ending at a 4am arrival at home. Thankfully I did not have to be awake for anything the next day.

Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing day and a family day, but neither of those occurred. Nadia called me up and told me we were going into the city, end of story. So that's what I did. She took me to this place called the High Line. It's an old subway rail that was up in the air that they preserved and made into a park. It was a great idea because now instead of walking on the streets you're up in the air enjoying plants and the views. I think I may be going there more often now that I know where it is. I think it's a great thing that they've done. And it's a little unknown treasure of NYC.

As for Chancho's life this past weekend, it was work filled as well. He worked his usual shifts Friday and Saturday and he made an arrest Saturday night giving him court in the morning on Sunday. Then straight from court he worked overtime. He had the tour of the "pre-west indie" parade. He was in charge of making sure that nothing serious happened prior to the parade happening. I found out that his presence was the only thing needed. That if something happened, violent or illegal, he was to let it slide. The city gets a lot of money from this parade and if the police keep reporting the violence they won't be allowed to have the parade anymore so unless someone pulls a gun out in front of a cop they aren't allowed to do anything about it. I think this is ridiculous. Something I can't quite grasp. He worked all day Sunday into Monday morning until 8am. That was when I finally was able to see him again! We napped for the rest of the day together. He went back to work at 4pm for Atlas. Atlas is a program where they send police officers to areas where there has been a recent shooting or stabbing to show that they are aware of the problem. Chancho actually just texted me and told me he got an arrest!

Chancho's grandmother is back, visiting for 6 months, living with him. It will be like old times again. Take some getting used to having another person in the house. Hopefully this time around we'll be able to communicate further than "hi, how are you?". I'll have to start practicing some more Spanish. Nothing I am good at, believe me.

Back to work tomorrow, getting prepared to do an overnight this week. I hope all goes well. I keep telling myself I'm young and I can handle it. I hope I don't get sick with the changing weather. (fingers are crossed)

Listening to: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol