America's Next Top Something

I was tallying up expenses in my checking account register Saturday when I wrote down a withdrawl made at the corner ATM. When I glanced back over the entry, I found myself wondering, "Why did I just write a charge from America's Next Top Model?" And then in utter horror I realized that my mind made the association between "ATM" written in the ledger and "ANTM," which would have been the correct acronym for the CW's ever popular runway show. Ahh! My vocab is slowly becoming not my own!

I also added a few more foreign phrases to my repertoire yesterday, such as "bottom of the ninth." Yes, yours truly got her first taste of an MLB game at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets!! My friend from Seventeen, Sarabeth, offered me an extra ticket from her family's season pass, so I rode the 7 train 45 minutes out to Queens, packed in between die-hard fans in full-on gear. And after a whopping $13.25 spent at the concessions stand (outrageous!), I was happily settled in the stands with an amateur sports-commentating couple behind me. By the time I left, I wanted to suit up with all the natives, my loyalties now fully possessed by the blue and orange. That is, if I'd had any baseball loyalties to begin with. How have I grown up as a full-blooded American without ever learning how to score a baseball game?



But I'm glad to have kicked off my last week in the city with such an Americana experience. And so commences the frenzied quest to fit in all activities I've yet to do, all before next Saturday! After work I'll be traipsing around town like a total tourist, taking pictures of everything I've put off, a task I must complete before I don the role of tour guide when my Mom arrives Tuesday! Yay!