wall street refugee

I a little past 8pm last night, kevin came out of the apartment office and started messaging furiously over his macbook pro, simultaneously reading a lengthy article on bloomberg. alerted by this somewhat abnormal behavior, i asked him what was going on?

apparently a writer at bloomberg, who had been hounding kevin, his current, and former colleagues, finally published the article he had been working on for months that evening. the title was "meet wall street refugees running bonds at freddie mac".

the article was filled with suggestive, yet unfounded innuendos, inaccuracies, and some outright errors. it is unclear why an editor would approve an article like this, which skirts around any real substance or an interesting angle, but it definitely cast a shadow over their team and processes.

it has now been nearly one year since kevin made the difficult decision to leave his career of 12 years at citigroup as a sell-side mbs trader to join freddie mac as part of a team which manages its $400 Bn mortgage portfolio. the transition required a bit of faith, patience, and flexibility, but my wall street refugee has far less political office nonsense, overnight stress, and work-related travel these days, and is happier as a result.

there is light at the end of the tunnel.

a year older

today was my birthday! :) 

and kevin spoiled me rotten, starting with this adorable bloomberg message. apparently he had to keep resending and retracting it because i didn't see it and he wanted to make sure it was on the top of my bloomberg messages. those donut flags are actually dynamic and the donuts get gobbled up over a 5-second cycle. it's the little things, right?

the day flew by and +175 facebook birthday posts later, we were on way our to the river cafe on the brooklyn promenade for dinner. the restaurant is seating right along the east river almost directly under the brooklyn bridge. you couldn't ask for a more amazing view of the water and lower manhattan skyline.

what stood out to me was the quality of service, cute and extensive style of dishwares, modern preparation and presentation of some traditional dishes, and how the place could completely fill up on a night as chilly (10F) as last night! to start, we had the pear salad and grilled octopus. for our entrees, kevin had the rack of lamb and i had the branzino. i was expecting a whole fish, but it was a beautiful filet with a roasted tomato on the side - this is difficult to describe - the tomato skin had been torched such that the it had become a crispy sculpture on top of the tomato! for dessert, we had the apple gallette and chocolate souffle. kudos to the chefs!

and when we got home, kevin gave me a little gift to help me get educated and started on bringing the outdoors inside our little apato :) apparently he learned about thesill.com from the blogs listed on my blog. LOL. i didn't think he paid any attention to this ... 

anyways can't wait to visit the sill and get my fiddle leaf fig tree!

ps. surprise #2, we've got the http://www.inourloft.com url! :) thank you!

snail mail

we tried to go for our first run back in nyc this morning, but the gusty winds made it near impossible so we ended up running to the chelsea piers instead for some strength training.

first day back at the office was a little hectic at the start as my bloomberg connection was having issues, which resulted in massive issues with a few of the overnight automated processes, but it was pretty nice to be back. i thought about it the other day, and i realized that i work with a pretty nice bunch of guys and have been quite blessed throughout my career to work with people who are respectful and kind.

i expected to be tired in the afternoon from jetlag, but actually was so busy i didn't even realize the afternoon flew by! we went to our favorite viet place in the west village by kevin's old apartment, pho sure, for spring rolls, pho, and pork chop over rice on the cold wintry night. i sure wish they would open a chelsea location :)

when we got home, i received the CUTEST postcard ever in the mail from my friend, saya! it's an adorable disney hologram postcard!!! thank you saya :) now you've made MY DAY, and possibly, MY WEEK! i love sending and receiving snail mail from close friends. while email and texts are great, there is something so touching when a friend picks out a card and writes a personal message, just. for. you.