Socializing

As I write, I am trying to recover from really bad sinuses and the remains of a scratchy, sore throat that I woke up with on Sunday morning after realizing my apartment was hotter than a sauna and drier than the desert. I know I've been MIA. That's because for the past several months, I've turned into some type of crazy workaholic/socialite, and when I get two minutes of downtime I usually spend them in my bed trying to catch up on sleep. Today I did something I have never done since I've been in the Twin Cities. I left work early (well, if you consider 4:30 early) because I wasn't feeling well, and I came home to rest and try to recuperate. That hasn't been going so well but I did make a lot of progress on packing for my trip home next week. This past weekend put me in the holiday spirit. I volunteered on Saturday morning as a holiday "elf" for the Santa Shop at Cornerstone - a local organization dedicated to preventing domestic abuse. Despite not having attended a meeting since last winter, I'm still on the Minneapolis Urban League Young Professionals email list, and that's how I heard about the event (after Erin forwarded it to me because otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen it for a good week). The Santa Shop consisted of several rooms filled with gifts donated by organizations and good samaritans (like yourselves I'm sure :-) ), and each room was for a specific child's age range (ie. 0-3, 4-11, teens) or for parents (there was a mom room and a dad room). As "elves", we were responsible for walking around with each child that showed up to help them "shop" for a gift for each of their siblings and for their mother. Once they selected their gifts, we sat with them and helped them wrap the gifts then returned them to their families. It was a really neat concept, and over the course of the three hours I was there, I must have shopped with about 6 or 7 kids, from as young as 3, to as old as 17. For the kids who were unable to find anything appropriate for their siblings or parent, they had gift cards that had been donated as an alternative. I had a lot of fun and it put me in the holiday spirit. So I vowed that before the weekend was over I was going to find me a Christmas tree. Sunday morning, I went to Target and bought me a full size artificial tree (I had ambitions of a real one, but it would've required too my maintenance for my "on-the-go" lifestyle). I came home and spent a good part of the day putting the tree up and decorating it. Something else I accomplished this weekend was finally solidifying my travel plans for the holidays. It looks like I'll be spending New Years in Vegas with Crystal - my PIC from Wharton. I can't even begin to explain to y'all how much fun we're going to have (barring no major catastrophes), and it seems like forever since I've gone out and partied, so suffice it to say...it's going to be good times.
Some fun stuff that I've been up to lately....spent Saturday night having dinner with some MBA buyer candidates who are considering their full time offers. It was cool - the two candidates were both guys, one at HBS and the other at Michigan - both cool guys. We had dinner at Cafe Lurcat, which I had never been to but everyone had been telling me how phenomenal it was. Maybe there was too much hype, but I thought it was just ok. They did have some cheese grits that I'd go back for, but their beef tenderloin had nothing on Mission (my new favorite spot for Beef Tenderloin in the city). I volunteered (again) with Ignite Models last week for their Glitz and Glamour fashion show at the W Minneapolis. I always love working with them because the ladies that run it are sweethearts and I get to partake in the festivities free of charge. I actually lucked up because initially I wasn't planning to volunteer, I was just going to go as a guest but I reached out to the ladies to see if I could get VIP tickets through them (since they were supposedly sold out online). In my negotiating for VIP tickets, I offered to work for the first part of the night only (the trunk show) so that I could enjoy the fashion show as a guest. That worked in getting me one VIP ticket, but I wasn't able to get a ticket for Erin who was attending with me. So as it worked out, on the night of the show, the ladies ended up giving me two of the top level VIP tickets, which scored Erin and I seats at the show along with two top of the line gift bags (yes VIPs got different size gift bags based on level of VIP ticket...didn't quite understand that but was glad I got the best one). Among other things, our bags had PAMA liquor minis, stainless steel W flasks, and the latest edition of Metro magazine (a magazine I really need to subscribe to). The show itself was typical of Ignite - a good variety of items I would actually wear, with others that didn't resonate, and a variety of fashion faux pas that are acceptable only because this is Minnesota (can we say pockets and splits that were still sewn shut as the models walked down the runway???). Of course I had a good time though, and afterward we had good old fashion grilled cheese and tomato soup at the bar downstairs in the W. Oh yeah, I've been making my rounds on the movie screening scene. I saw Invictus last week and 2012 a few weeks back (I already blogged about that one). Invictus was actually better than I expected (y'all know you had the same reaction I did when you saw the previews of Matt Damon as a South African and Morgan Freeman failing miserably trying to pull off Mandela's accent...c,mon really???) - the story was inspirational enough to make up for the poor casting. I had tickets to go see a screening of Everybody's Fine a few weeks back as well but the date clashed with something else on my insanely ridiculous calendar. Oh well, more to come...I need to go make me some tea and try to nurse myself back to good health.