My evening with Mitt

I realized I never blogged about this and if I don't do it now it probably won't happen. Below is the email I sent my family...

What a fun event. It was held on the 80th floor penthouse in the residence side of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. For those of you familiar, it's located in Columbus Circle, that little area right on the south west corner of Central Park. There's the huge round-about and it's 9 blocks south of where I live. There's two really tall buildings that look exactly alike. We were at the top floor of the north building.

I don't think in all my life I'll be in a more expensive apartment. It was incredible. I tried to find details online but couldn't find anything I knew for sure was specific to this apartment. I read somewhere an apartment like it in the building recently sold for $30,000,000 and the square footage is 12,500.

To say it was incredible would be an understantment. I didn't have time to see the whole place but saw the kitchen which I would say is about 2-3 times the size of Mom and Dad's, if that gives you an idea. The place was basically all floor to cieling windows, and had a complete 360 view of Manhattan. I'm including a picture I took with my phone of the view of the park. I was standing in the living room where Mitt spoke. Oh yeah, the elevators opened up into the apartment also. That's something I've always thought was so cool when I'd see it on tv but I've never seen in real life.

There were about 75 people there and they were all very old-money, Republican types. Everyone was dressed so nicely, huge diamond rings, and tightly botoxed faces. The entrance fee was $2,500. When I went to work that day I was thinking I looked so cute but I think it was pretty clear I knew someone at the event to get in. (I didn't get invited until midday, otherwise I would have dressed nicer.)

The event lasted about an hour. Mitt spoke probably 20 minutes or so, and took questions for 10-15 minutes. It's crazy to see people in real life. Like most people I'm only used to seeing on tv, he was shorter than I expected, and looked older. That being said, he's still a handsome man.
It was neat to hear him speak when he knew he was in a group of Republicans and didn't have to try to be diplomatic. He didn't say anything new or groundbreaking, but he was funny and I found myself laughing out loud a handful of times.

I was lucky enough to be able to meet him and shake his hand. I was more nervous than I'd anticipated. I kept thinking I was going to accidently call him President Obama. Thankfully I just introduced myself and called him Mr. Governor and thanked him for what he was doing. And then we got our photo. It's not the best. We've been having a heat wave and the apartment was actually pretty warm as well. I felt bad for the men in suits.

Shortly after my friends and I needed to head out. We were standing and waiting for the lobby and wouldn't you know it, Mitt and his entourage show up and share the elevator with us. He held the door and let all us ladies out first. I just kept thinking to myself, "What if one day I can say I rode the elevator with the president?"

Anyway, it was a really fun night and I felt super giddy to be there.
I didn't intend for this to be so long but you all know by now how I ramble.

I've included the pic with Mitt, the pic of the view, and a pretty bad pic of Mitt with John Whitehead. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know who he was at the time. For anyone else naive like me, he served as the Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, was a chairman of Goldman Sachs, and the Chairman of the Board of the NY Fed. He'll be 90 years old next year which was shocking to me. He looks great. Someone affiliated with the Jets was there as well, and spoke with us for a minute, but now I can't remember his name! It wasn't Woody Johnson but I guess he does go to some Mitt events.

Much too young to feel this damn old

Tonight I leave for a week of vacation. It'll be a whirlwind, as usual, but I'm so excited. I've got a lot going on with making it to Salt Lake City, Boise, Rexburg, and California within eight days, but the main reason for the trip is to attend my ten year high school reunion. I can't believe it's been ten years already, but it also feels like a hundred since I was living these carefree days.

With Denos and Cindelle at graduation. The very first friends I met after moving to California when I was ten years old.

OOoooooh Kevin. I thought we were going to get married after this amazing night. Senior Prom.
We probably have 24,453,756 cheer photos together but this one with G and Meg is one of my absolute favorites.

I'll be spending this evening

with this handsome man, and I couldn't be more excited.
Romney 2012.

Quotes

From Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:

-So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But is also means you have to let them go!

-What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heartbeat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood? If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green, and if you were angry you'd turn red, obviously, and if you felt like shiitake you'd turn brown, and if you were blue you'd turn blue. Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, "Congratulations!"

-It's hard to say goodbye to the place you've lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.

The first time I experienced this was the last time I walked out of my bedroom in apartment 304 at the Ridge in Rexburg. I'd lived in that bedroom for 22 months. The walls had been papered with pictures and keepsakes and suddenly I was looking at a completely barren bedroom, as if no one had ever been there. As if I'd never gossiped with my closest girlfriends, had arguments over the phone, cried myself to sleep, stayed up all night kissing my boyfriend, stressed about money and school and what I'd do after graduation. It was as if none of it had ever happened. As I walked down the hallway I cried, and even more so as I drove down the hill from Rexburg and looked in my rearview mirror. I can't imagine what it will be like one day when I leave my little apartment here in New York, my very first home that is all my own and which I love so much.

-It was the first time I had ever cried in front of him. It felt like making love.

I can remember perfectly the first time I cried in front of a boyfriend. I was 21 and in college and in his bedroom and we'd just argued about something and I cried. So embarrassed and so bonded from this first experience.

-You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

-I put my hand on him. Touching him was always so important to me. It was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches. My fingers against his shoulder. The outsides of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus. I couldn't explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?

My love language is physical touch and this sums up my feelings so perfectly.

-I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

Does anyone else see people and make up little stories about them in their mind?

-...it broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of...

The most painful feeling.

From The Help:

**Warning, final quote is a spoiler.

-...he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness..

It is a wonderful thing when you have someone with whom you feel safe enough to purge all these sad feelings, trying to find the floor of sadness.

-Cause that's the way prayer do. It's like electricity, it keeps things going.

-I don't know what to say to her. All I know is, I ain't saying it. And I know she ain't saying what she want a say either and it's a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation.

-I used to dash by, feeling like a dartboard, a big red bull's-eye that Mother pinged darts at.

-No one tells us, girls who don't go on dates, that remembering can be almost as good as what actually happens.

There is nothing like the day after a great kiss, being at work, unable to focus, and replaying it over and over and over again in your head. It really is almost as good as what happened.

-Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body -- my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.

Heaven.

-I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.

-He moves closer and leans down so I will look at him. And I feel sick, literally nauseated by the smell of bourbon on his breath. And yet I still want to fold myself up and put my entire body in his arms. I am loving him and hating him at the same time.

I don't know if there's anything worse a person can feel than equal parts in love and hate for someone.

-There is so much you don't know about a person. I wonder if I could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. If I'd treated her a little nicer. Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us.

-"Are you sure it's alright? If I leave you, with everything so..." "Go to New York, Miss Skeeter. Go find your life."

-Because it's like I had this exact conversation five years ago.

Summer by the numbers

74

The current temperature, at 12:31am. I love summer nights in the city.

4

Seasons I've embraced. I am officially a seasons person. Earlier this week it was insanely humid and I didn't even care because this is New York in the summer. I love it all.

5

Mosquito bites on my right foot. I do not love those suckers. I get eaten alive in the park.

570

Steps from my apartment to Central Park.

7

Weekends I've been out of town since April 22nd.

4

Weekends I'll be out of town from now until Labor Day (not counting Labor Day.)

76

Percent of The Help I've read on my Kindle. Loving it.

10

Days until Maria moves to Utah. I hate it.

4

Number of sisters who will be in New York in a week (my mom and her sisters...and my grandma! Wahoo!)

14

Days till a full week off of work for vacation.

10

Years since I graduated high school. The reunion is in three weeks.

85

Years of my perfect grandma's life we're celebrating this month.

10:22

AM train my friends and I will be taking to the beach tomorrow.

40

Minutes I waited in line just to get into the Alexander McQueen exhibit at The Met tonight. Totally worth it. It was insanely beautiful and haunting. The best words I can think of to describe it.

So true.

I can't tell you how many times I've told people I went to school in Idaho and they start asking me how I liked being in the midwest.

Date night

7.7.11 @ Koi with two of my very favorite friends, Britt and Maria.

This weekend

This photo pretty much sums up my weekend. It was filled with way too much junk food, and hours, yes, hours, spent watching Jeter coverage.

The highlights:
-walking home through the a very empty Central Park with Court due to the rain
-dinner at my favorite mexican joint, Harry's Burritos
-running into Phil, one of the nicest guys from my Wall Street days
-both of us (Courtnie, not Phil) passing out at my place, and then convincing Court to head to Hell's with me so I could get my favorite concrete at Shake Shack, the It's Pretzle.
-sleeping a hard, uninterrupted ten hours
-brunch with some of my favorite girls, Ash, Britt, Maria, Alisa, Court, and Jen at one of my favorite places, Agave.
-getting home one inning too late....:(.....to see Jeter's 3000th hit live, but then watching most of the rest of the game, as well as lots and lots of replays, coverage, interviews, etc.
-late nap
-stroll through Central Park to the east side
-picking up Sprinkles for Maria's going away party
-Maria's party with way way way too many treats (we were told to bring our favorite NY treats since Maria's moving to Provs.) Yes, I'm aware Sprinkles is originally a west coast thing, however Maria just had it for the first time and is sad to leave it behind. I also think their red velvet cupcake is the best cupcake I've ever had in my life. And, how can I buy any other cupcakes now that I know they make Yankees cupcakes??!!
-a run in with Jamar
-watching more Yanks/Jeets coverage from 11:30pm-1am
-getting almost caught up on the shows which have been on my dvr for about two months and have managed to not automatically delete
-slept in again (oops)
-watched CC throw a complete game, first time I've seen that as far as I can recollect.
-fourish hours in the park reading
-Shake Shack for din
-caught up with Mattgician, whom I've successfully phased into the friend zone. Booya.