I live in the greatest American city

and I'm sitting on my couch, laptop open, watching American Idol for the first time ever. Even a city girl's got to have some downtime, right?

If I had a death wish, I'd call Katie right now to ask her what she's doing for her birthday on Friday. Katie is more into American Idol than anyone I know and the finals are tonight. Figured I should watch so I can participate in American society.

But since I don't really care whether it's the grey haired guy or the super-styled girl, I can half watch while I post some more pictures.
I'll start with a photo of me on my way off to work on my first day. When I was growing up, my mom had a tradition of taking a picture of me on the first day of school and the pose was always the same: carrying my book bag, at the door, with my hand on the door knob. I would have done that on my way to my AP job, but since John went back to Ann Arbor the night before, I had to figure out how to shoot it myself. I borrowed John's trick of taking my own picture in the mirror.













Here's what my new office looks like, and the view from the east-facing windows in my office. In the foreground is some sort of vent thing in the roof of the next floor down, and the Empire State Building is just right of that thick, black building in the right third of the photo.





























This is roughly what our kitchen will look like if we get the place at 2 Lincoln Square. All new appliances, a pass through counter and swinging doors that shut the kitchen entry off from the foyer. It's actually a better set up than our kitchen in Ann Arbor, especially if we have people over. They can hang out at the counter instead of trying to crowd into our little galley kitchen.










Lara and Rob responded to my angst about corporate fashion with a little gift -- a little pink furry coat with coordinating high heels and purse.
They are now decorating my printer.















Finally, Brett only learned this week that he's got a starring role in BigAppleBound. To welcome our Wolverine alum real estate agent to the blogosphere, here's a little gem Google turned up on the U-M business school web site: Brett and his family at a New York alumni function.




Now that I've embarrased him a little, here's the plug -- Brett has probably shown me 20 apartments and I don't even want to know how many times he's called the guy at 2 Lincoln Square trying to badger him into letting me see the apartment there.
Need a NY rental agent who'll do what it takes to get you the apartment you want, including driving you all up and down Manhattan in his Cooper Mini and dialing a building so many times he memorizes the number?




2224 Frederick Douglass Blvd
New York, NY 10026
P (212) 678-7233
F (212) 326-3061
E brett.grabel@corcoran.com
http://www.corcoran.com/agents/profile.aspx?region=NYC&userid=BGRABEL

OK, Brett, now the pressure's on... :-)