My Neighbors and Elvis

Okay so I just want to take this opportunity to tell you all how much I love my neighbors, Kate and Sarah. I'm so happy we've become friends; they couldn't be nicer people. Not only did they watch my little munchkin Elvis while I was away, but Kate called this morning to see if I needed anything because I'm sick. (I took her up on the offer; she got me some Starbucks. Thank you, Kate.) They're just kind and thoughtful and the world needs more people like them.

So anyway, I'm feeling a little bit better. The Motrin I had was super-duper strong (I got it from the doctor when I had strep throat), so it broke my fever pretty quickly. Having a fever is so terrible... I think I wrote about this the last time I had one. I mean, the way your body aches and your skin hurts, and the chills and headache you get... yuck, yuck, yuck... all of it.

And now back to Elvis (I'm all over the place today; sorry... it's the illness), someone asked how he's doing. He's fine, thanks for inquiring. Kate sent me an email while I was away saying that, while Sarah was petting him one day, he started drooling. I was like, "Oh, he does that." I wrote about him doing this once before on my old website and have since imported it to this blog. Here's a link to it with an awesome picture of him drooling.

BTW, he's sitting on my lap as I type this. Here's a picture:


Okay, bye bye!

The Dinner Report

I'm alive! I'm sorry, I've been out running errands all day.

Dinner was great, the neighbors were great. They didn't poison me. They ended up making a chicken & asparagus dish and it was delicious. The guy at the wine store said it wouldn't be weird to bring both a white and a red, so that's what I did.

Okay, I don't have anything else to report, so that's it!

Dinner With The Neighbors

So my neighbors invited me over for dinner tonight. They asked if there's anything I'm allergic to or can't eat, and I told them strawberries. (I've been allergic since I was seven.) Mark is nervous because he's determined they're going to try to kill me now by blending strawberries into the sauces and whatnot, but I told him not to worry.

Beverly and I are off to get some wine for the big occasion. If you don't know whether or not someone likes white or red and you're unsure about what will go better with the meal because you don't know what's on the menu, is it weird to bring both? I'll ask the guys at Smith & Vine, an awesome little wine store in my neighborhood. They're geniuses there; they know everything.

To Share Or Not To Share

I had this at the bottom of the previous post, but I decided to give it its own space because I want to hear your thoughts on this and I didn't want it to get lost.

For every one story I tell on this blog, there are ten that I don't. It's not that I don't want to share them with you (believe me—sometimes it hurts not to), but more that I'm worried I might hurt or offend someone in the process. I think all bloggers know all too well about the fine line that exists between whether or not to share something.

With regards to my neighbors, perhaps I shouldn't have written about them realizing there was a chance they might stumble upon it, but I did anyway. Here's the thing: when I withhold too much and only write about surface-level crap, I start to feel really fake. I guess I felt like I could give a little something when it came to them because I hold back a lot when it comes to family, friends and boyfriends.

I miss the early days of SaveKaryn.com when I blogged anonymously. There's nothing worse than feeling like I have to write something silly and upbeat when my heart is broken because I'm afraid he will read it. Or on the other side of that, feeling like I have to hold back when I'm giddy with excitement because I don't want to put all my cards on the table. You know what I mean? I suppose I could stop blogging all together... but then who would validate me?

Ha ha! That was a joke. Well, kind of. Aw, shoot... I love you—what can I say? You complete me.

Seriously though, I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. Thoughts?

My Neighbors: The Final Chapter

So last night I was sitting on the couch working when I heard a knock at the door. After getting up and peering through the peep hole, I saw that it was one of my downstairs' neighbors.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with the story of my downstairs' neighbors, here it is in a nutshell:

About a month ago, I offered to rearrange my schedule to sign for a UPS package that they were having problems receiving and became peeved when they didn't thank me for doing so. Rather than shrug it off like most people would've done, I proceeded to write not one, but five posts about the situation, posts in which I called them "bitches," said I hated them, and announced to the world that I was going to tear out a page from an Emily Post book on manners and tape it to their door.

Perhaps I over-reacted. Maybe just a little.

But anyway... back to last night: one of them was paying me a visit.

After slowly opening the door, I said, "Hello," and then nervously waited for a reply. It's not that my neighbor looked daunting by any means—in fact, she was still dressed in her work clothes and looked quite lovely—it's just that I knew I had written all sorts of bad stuff about her on the internet, and now here she was, at my door.

"Hi," she replied. She then hesitated for a moment before proceeding to say, "I didn't know you had a blog."

Yeah... awkward.

As you can imagine, my cheeks immediately flared up—I was at a complete loss for words. "Oh, um..." I eventually mustered up, "I didn't think you'd ever read it."

Yeah... that was my excuse. Seriously. I say random things when I get nervous—I can't help it. I also start laughing, which is what I did next.

"I'm so sorry," I gushed, putting my hands over my face. "I'm just so"—*giggle, giggle, giggle*—"sorry."

I sounded really sincere, I'm sure.

"No, please don't be sorry," she quickly said. "You were right. We're the one who should be sorry. We should've said something. There's really no excuse for our behavior." She then reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of wine. "Here," she said, passing it over. "This is for you. We just wanted to apologize and say thank you."

Now, I gotta be honest... these girls hit a home run in trying to find a way to my heart: me likey the booze.

After thanking Kate (that's her name), I invited her inside where she proceeded to tell me how it so happened that she discovered my blog.

Now, Kate said she has a friend who's been telling her for a while now about a writer that she likes, a writer who happens to be me. (Hi, Kate's friend, if you're reading this!) "She lives in Brooklyn," her friend said, "and she's written two books and has a really funny blog—you need to check it out." So, Kate did.

After logging on to Pretty in the City, Kate saw my name and picture at the top and thought to herself, Hmmm... this girl looks familiar. "I think I know her," she said to her friend. She then realized how. "I think she lives in my building."

"Your building?" her friend replied. "She writes about her neighbors all the time!"

Not thinking that she was one of the neighbors, Kate found the posts, read them, and quickly realized she was.

Seeing as though she was really nice, I felt bad and apologized to her again, but she told me not to worry. She said she and her friends ended up getting a big laugh over everything, so no harm done. (She also said that she travels a lot for work and was crazy-busy during the whole UPS-thing, so that explains her flakiness!)

So anyway, that's the story!

To both of my neighbors... I'd like to publicly apologize for the things I said about you. You seem very nice and I look forward to getting to know both of you better.

To Kate's friend... Thanks for telling your friends about my books and blog!

Okay, off to write my thank-you note now!

My Neighbors: A Trailer to the Final Chapter

Offering to sign for a neighbor's FexEx package: Zero dollars.

Repeatedly blasting them on my blog because they didn't thank me for doing so: Zero dollars.

Having one of them knock on my door last night and say, "Hi, I read your blog...": PRICELESS.

Story coming in a few!

UPDATE: Don't hate me... I have to run to the post office before they close and I don't want to rush through writing the story just to get it up, so it'll come about 7:30. It's only because I love you that I'm making you wait. I'm committed to providing you with nothing but the best. (Do you like how I tried to turn that around?) xx

Another Neighbor Update

The UPS guy rang my bell today because he had a package for me. (Sorry that sounded sexual.) While I was signing for it, he said he had two more packages for my neighbors. (Sorry again.) Because I was feeling nice, I accepted both and put them by their door.

If they don't put a thank you note on my door and assume I'll sign for another one of their packages again without asking, I'm going to write them a short letter about etiquette, tape it to an Emily Post book and put it by their door.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Almost-Thanksgiving!

I'm at my sister's house in Connecticut. My mom and step-dad came into town from Chicago for the big day, as did my step-sister and her family from Rochester—there are eleven of us in all. (Plus Beverly. Woof!)

To update on yesterday's post about my neighbors... the UPS guy came and I didn't sign for the package. I didn't even answer the door because I was in the shower when he came, but oh well!

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving. I'll update tomorrow a bit more. I'm a little toasty right now from one-too-many brandy eggnogs. ;)

My Rude Neighbors - Part III

OMG, omg, omg!

I just woke up and went downstairs to get coffee and you'll never believe what was stuck to the front door of my apartment building:


They never even asked me if I'd be home!

Oh, those rude girls—I hate them! And I am NOT going to sign for their package today.

I mean, am I being crazy here? It's totally bad manners, right?

I need to leave them a note of some kind today. Or maybe I should just wait until they actually do come up and knock to see if I'll be around to say something.

Thoughts?

My Rude Neighbors - Part II

Guess who has a UPS delivery attempt notice stuck to their mailbox right now?

And guess who's not going to sign for it tomorrow if they're not around?

My Rude Neighbors

Two girls moved in to the apartment below me a few months ago. We've passed each other in the hallway a few times and have said hello, and they seemed nice enough, so when I saw that they were having problems receiving a package last week, I offered to help.

We live in a brownstone on a very busy street, so delivery people can't just leave packages for people in the building—even if you sign the little slip they leave for you. Someone needs to be home to accept it, which can be a problem if you have a job that requires you to go to an office every day. If you miss the three attempts most delivery people make, you have to go to the UPS or FedEx receiving place (which are far away and inconvenient) and pick it up there.

Anyway, last week I saw that my new neighbors were leaving notes for the UPS guy, trying to get a particular package, so I left a note on their door saying that I work from home and don't mind signing for packages if they need me to. I said, "If you know you are going to be receiving something, just pop up and let me know, and then put a note on the door for the delivery guy, asking him to ring my buzzer. If I'm not home, I'm usually in the neighborhood and will be happy to rearrange my schedule."

I never heard from them so I assumed they didn't need me to sign for this particular package (I thought maybe they picked it up or something), so when I woke up the next day, I made plans to run errands before going to my sister's house for the weekend. When I went downstairs to get coffee, however, I saw a note for the UPS guy from them that said, "Please ring Buzzer X. Neighbor will sign."

I thought it was kind of rude that no one popped up to 1) Thank me, and 2) Say, "Yes, we do need you to sign for a package tomorrow," but whatever. Maybe they were in a hurry leaving for work or something and didn't have time. The delivery guy ended up coming before I left anyway, so I signed for their package, brought it inside, and put it by their door. I then left for the weekend.

When I got home yesterday morning, there still wasn't a note on my door thanking me, or even one just telling me they received their package. I didn't do this to make friends, I was simply doing a neighborly thing, but I don't think it's too much to expect a thank you. They took time to write the UPS guy five notes last week, they could've taken two seconds to write "Thank you" on a post-it note and stick it on my door. Right?

I don't know why I posted this except that I wanted to comment on how rude people can be. I mean, it's simple manners. I'm not a doorman—I'm a neighbor who volunteered to rearrange my schedule to sign for a package that wasn't mine.

See if I do it again, bitches.