May 2005 Archives

Summer hours start today, which means no more work for me on Friday afternoons. That feels like such a luxury. When we used to have half days in grade school, they would give us milk and cookies as a mid-morning snack in lieu of lunch. You had to give your milk orders to the teacher the day before (white, chocolate, strawberry) and then some lunch lady would come around with the milk cart and deliver the goods, along with peanut butter cookies in wax paper pockets. You had to remember what milk you ordered and the teacher would distribute them. Once a kid grabbed a white milk and was in the process of chugging it when another kid realized there was only a strawberry milk left and he’d ordered white. I have this very clear picture of the poor kid with a white milk mustache, looking really guilty, and getting reprimanded for not taking what he’d ordered. I also remember thinking: who likes white milk better than strawberry milk, anyway?

So far the UPS, Fed-Ex, and some messengers have stopped by, but no milk cart yet.

Oh oh oh, we saw Mad Hot Ballroom last night (this year’s Spellbound). Lots of grade school kids enrolled in school-sponsored ballroom dance classes that culminate in the schools vying for a championship trophy. If there’s anything cuter than kids spelling things, it’s kids doing the tango. There’s this one scene where the camera’s focused in on a couple that consists of a sort of nerdy, chubby boy and a girl. The teacher yells, “Switch partners!” and the girl untangles herself from the boy quickly and moves along. The boy, however, is left flummoxed and tries unsuccessfully to find a single girl. He approaches the one next to him, who turns towards him, and seeing who he is, continues turning until she’s facing the other direction. It’s sort of awful, but of course the teacher comes to his rescue and pairs off the remaining single people. A lot of personality shines through at 11 years old.

Fox morning news anchor conversation:

Jodi: Well, I bet everyone’s watching waiting to hear what the weather will be like for this holiday weekend. [to anchor on right] Jim?
Jim: [reading newspaper] Some of us are looking at Lindsay Lohan!
Jodi: [uncomfortable] ha ha. What?
Jim: Well, it seems she has a new skinny body. [holds up picture in paper of Lindsay in bikini looking sickly. ]
Jodi: Oh?
Jim: Yeah! She used to be, uh, used to be a little, she was a chubbette awhile ago. And now she’s thin! How 'bout that.

Last, but not least, you should all drop in on Willow and give her a little lovin’ after being booted off the internet in the latest Ultimate Blogger competition. I thought she served up some fine entries, and I’m sorry to see her go.

Off to Great Barrington for the long weekend for some barbequing and catching up with friends. Have a lovely Memorial Day!

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While getting a ginger ale the other day it struck me that they don’t do much brand marketing for the soda. I definitely have days where I’m in the mood for a Diet Coke over a Diet Pepsi, or a Mug root beer over a Barq’s, pretty much based entirely on how whatever current advertising has molded my instincts towards the drinks. But ginger ale? I stood there in the bodega with the door open trying to decide whether I should like Schwepps or Canada Dry and was receiving no signals whatsoever from my subconscious. Schwepps makes me think: classic, bar, mature. Canada Dry just makes me think: Canada. Which I guess sounded more thirst-quenching in the end than Schwepps, because that’s what I got. --------

I’m having a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the new neighborhood. Before Park Slope became super gentrified over the past 10 years or so, it was more of what you might consider a “typically” Brooklyn neighborhood. Friends of mine who grew up in the area are tell me it’s completely unbelievable how quickly things changed from a somewhat deprived area to a place now known for cute high-end boutiques, great restaurants, hip clubs, and expensive apartments. Even though I understood this on an intellectual level and have certainly traveled around Brooklyn enough to understand it from a visitor’s perspective, I don’t think I fully comprehended how luxurious the Slope is in relation to other near-by areas. Specifically, say, Sunset Park, where we know live. We’re only 30 blocks away, and once we get bikes, the trips to visit friends or go out to eat or whatever won’t be very difficult. But when we moved in, I didn’t really take into full account the fact that our immediate neighborhood—the place from where you want to run out for ice cream, order take-out, or go to the gym—is not equipped like the Park Slope I’m used to.

There are a lot of local Mexican food places. There are women selling mango slices and coconut nectar on the street, there are sparsely stocked hardware stores, a plethora of dollar stores, some neon-lit Chinese take-out places, and little corner stores. All things considered, I’m conflicted about how I feel. Guilty that we’re renting a beautiful apartment for a comparatively high price in this area, thus adding to spreading gentrification? Happy that we’re finally in a spacious apartment? Sad about leaving a convenient area? Proud that we’re not bowing to Park Slope’s now-outrageous housing prices? Ashamed to feel sad or proud?

One of my and J’s small luxuries is that we do drop-off laundry, which is a bit more expensive than doing it ourselves, but it saves so much time that we consider it money well-spent. The place we’d take it to in Park Slope might have elicited some initial guilt from me the first few times we dropped off clothes, but the place was always busy and friendly, had a computerized system for everyone dropping off, and it was obvious the drop-off service comprised a majority of their business; we became friendly with the people working there and I didn’t think much of it. Last night, we went to bring our laundry to the new place for the first time.

It was a small business with just one woman in the back who didn’t speak much English. A couple was waiting for their clothes to dry in a nearby machine and watching a Spanish soap opera. They stared at us. After getting across to the woman that we were dropping clothes off, she had J fill out form by hand. At the Park Slope place, I felt like I was conducting routine business, on par with dropping off dry cleaning. Here, I felt very much like we were handing someone else our dirty laundry to clean. Which, well, is what we were doing.

I know there’s an adjustment period to any new area, so I’m prepared to wait it out and explore. There’s just a lot more to get used to than I first thought.

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After getting home late last night after a surprisingly long, and yet non-season finale, episode of Alias, I forgot to set my alarm clock. Turns out it didn’t matter because at precisely 7:36 we were woken up by some passionately angry guttural cat screams. Soterios Johnson mumbling a weather report and an update on Iraq it was not. Turns out our apartment comes with a bonus neighbor cat (Angel?) who lives in our yard. Max and Pinky are beyond fascinated by this and I can’t quite grasp the relationship they’re establishing with this new cat. Since our cats aren’t allowed outside, all the interactions happen with a window screen between them; they vary from alert stares to lots of yelling and hissing. The fights can actually be fairly humorous, like when Max was sitting in the window on Sunday afternoon, not noticing Angel sneaking up below him. Angel suddenly popped up like one of those gophers in the Bop-em arcade game and spit: HIIIISSSSS!

This left me with the task of putting my cat back into his skin from which he’d leapt and that, my friends, is not fun. Fun-NY, yes. But as it tends to go for the rules of cat antics in general: happens at a party or in the afternoon = comedy gold; happens in the middle of the night or break of dawn = consideration given to overseas shipping charges for live animals.

The apartment itself is quite lovely. We have tons of space now and the spacious kitchen and yard are so far living up to their expectations of increasing my apartment dwelling quality of life. It’s strange moving into a new place at first, because you have to work out the functionality of all the little nuances. The outlets, for instance. I drew some pictures so I could show you more effectively the random placement of some key outlets. Here is the kitchen:

You will notice that there is lots of counter space to the left of the stove, but all the outlets are on the RIGHT of the stove, above a little square of counter space where the microwave and KitchenAid mixer live. Where does the toaster live? GOOD QUESTION. Right now it is on the left of the stove, unplugged-in. In fact, if I wanted some toast, I would have to bring the toaster over to the microwave KitchenAid neighborhood and have a crowded appliance party. I think I’ll have to run an extension cord behind the stove, but is THAT safe?

Now, the bathroom is a whole other issue. There is but ONE outlet (we quickly got a three outlet plug-in) and look where it is located:

Now imagine you have gone several humid weeks without bothering to blow dry your hair, but it is THURSDAY and you are having drinks after work and are feeling like you want to spruce up a bit and decide, what the hey, I’m blow drying my hair today. Now imagine you would also like to employ the straight iron for kicks. NOW imagine where you would put all those things and where the cords would be stretched and how you would have to contort your body to get your hair dry and straight but also not get yourself electrocuted. Mornings are fun! While I’m not sure about the stove, I DO know I can’t run an extension cord along the foot of the bathtub and up around the sink to give me better outlet access. Right? Water + cute hair instruments = not so good? Wow, we have lots of math in this post!

Quickly: can you believe Naima won? It was like finding out there’s no Santa Claus when Ahe’s pick was wrong. I want a cookie.

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Willow won immunity for her interview with J! Congrats all around.

Moving went well. But I'm dead. On. My. Feet.

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I left my reading glasses over at Krista’s last night after the Apprentice viewing party, so had to leave early this morning to retrieve them. I don’t often get early weekday morning strolls through my neighborhood, and it was really nice, especially since tomorrow is the big move and it was probably my last early weekday stroll through that neighborhood. We’re not really moving very far away, but I think I’ll still miss living in the area. I have a t-shirt with a squirrel on it that says “Park Slope” that I coveted for awhile before J surprised me with it. Now, I have never been one for wearing shirts with team names or school logos on them; I don’t own any band t-shirts that aren’t for sleeping in and generally shy away from that line of “Ithaca is Gorges!” hipster shirts. But I love this shirt. It had a squirrel on it and it wasn’t even ironic: I actually lived in Park Slope. Now I’m not sure what to do with the shirt. I’ll feel self-conscious wearing it in Sunset Park, and if I wear it elsewhere I won’t really be advertising the place where I live anymore. It’s a shirt of and for Park Slope. Damn cute squirrel.

There was something specific I wanted to remember about the Apprentice so we could laugh together at it, but now I don’t know what it was. Let’s just remember some highlights anyway. Remember when Tana left the governor outside and wouldn’t go meet him? Remember when she told the one official that she wanted to punch her team member in the face? Remember when she thought the Puerto Rican flag was the American flag? And then after the huge disaster of her event, remember when she squawked, “That couldn’t have gone better!” The. Best.

Willow chose a very exciting special someone to interview for her Ultimate Blogger challenge. I believe everything is posted tonight, so those of you who aren’t moving big boxes to a new apartment and who have internet access over the weekend can check in and learn more about my mysterious J (you may have to scroll around for Willow's entry). Did you know he worked in a cheese factory and had a psychic dream about becoming a hurdy gurdy man? Well.

UPDATE re: Apprentice moment I wanted us to remember together: J just called (he has those comment allergies) and reminded me. Remember when the last shot of Tana was her hiding in the lobby waiting for her "employees" to leave, hunched over a seran wrapped bowl of pretzels? And she bit into a pretzel and said, "I paid for these bitches, I'm taken em home!"

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"It took a California company named OnTech seven years and $24 million to create the self-heating cans, which are activated by pushing a plastic button on the bottom."

This gave me a major mind blow. Like I am living in the future. Of course major drawbacks include an 8-minute wait time for things to heat up and, oh, a can that weighs over a pound.

Today I erased something with a giant pink eraser and it was completely exhilerating. The only erasers I use these days are on the end of mechanical pencils I grab out of my desk when all my pens are missing, and those erasers are always leaving greasy smudges that look worse than the offending pencil mark. The pink eraser just felt nice to hold, nostalgic-like, and it turns out they actually erase things cleanly. Where am I in life that I've forgotten the functionality of a simple eraser?

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Abby outdid herself once again with a Kentucky Derby barbeque on Saturday, where she filled up an entire kitchen with tiny corn muffins, beer cheese, little cups of ambrosia, mint juleps, and red velvet cupcakes. Actually red and blue velvet cupcakes.

As I mentioned before, Abby is going to be our baker for the wedding and is going to create a tower of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the reception. This party was the perfect chance for her to try out two competing recipes and pit them against one another before a gaggle of hungry judges. With competitiveness in the air from the horse races, it seemed an ideal venue to test the two recipes. (Unfortunately, we didn’t think to place bets until it was too late.)

To differentiate the two recipes, she made one batch with the traditional red food coloring, and one with blue. (Did you know the only thing that makes red velvet cake red is red food coloring? It is.) The Cake Man’s recipe (red, made with oil) was a favorite to win, but in a surprise push from the dark horse, the blue cupcake (made with butter) pulled ahead and won the race.

There was something very touching about the blue cupcakes, made only for the sake of improving a recipe by degrees. Of my very close friends, I’m one of the first who will have a wedding in a rented space with catered food and a professional bar. The rest have been these very beautiful family affairs in parks, and new homes, and grandparents’ hand built houses. There is homemade lasagna more often than not, and a wine station manned by a cousin or friend of the families. Doing the wedding in New York—with small spaces, little kitchens, and lack of friends with cars—sort of limits what we’re able to do on our own. Yet we’ve made a big effort. Friends are doing flowers, music, and photography; I don’t feel like it’s an event being planned out of someone else’s hand.

As we stood in the kitchen with the grill fired up in the night outside, attacking cupcakes with a spare butter knife to divvy them up to tasters, tipsy with mint juleps and orange blossom beer, I thought briefly about our taste testing a couple months ago for the wedding hors d'oeuvres. It was a very tasteful affair at the caterer’s place in the middle of the afternoon with my parents. She brought us out different plates of goodies and we all sat around with cloth napkins and goblets of water, picking out the very best things to serve. There were serving platters, silverware, and a tablecloth. And though everything was very good, I see now that there will always be something—the blue cupcake factor, if you will—missing from a caterer, and I am even more happy to have that little bit of extra friend help in the food.

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I am busy this week! Which is totally uninteresting for you! Because you have to look at the same thing at the top of my blog all the time!

I keep wanting to tell you a story about a champagne* party us girls went to over the weekend that was wicked fun. There was lots of champagne (obviously) and all these gourmet treats the culinarily schooled host kept coming around with. How many parties have you been to where it is midnight and the guests are toasted and the host sidles up with a fresh-from-the-oven tray and says, “Cream puff?” I have been to: one.

Three things re: party:

There were a disproportionate amount of girls wearing, what can only be called, “Saved by the Bell” dresses. Remember when Kelly would show up in those skin-tight monochrome dresses that ended shortly below her ass (they must have had Ahe’s school’s rules) and you would think how nobody would wear a dress like that? Well they do. Not that they should.

This guy I was introduced to was very excited I was in the publishing industry because he was an author. When asked who published him, he said PublishAmerica. Which…well. It’s like the publishing equivalent of drawing a pirate or turtle and saying you went to art school. But, y’know…good for him! I tried very hard not to feel like a snob.

There was some girl there who was rumored to have had phone sex with Leonardo DiCaprio. Or continues to on a regular basis. Or something. This tidbit was so asinine that we of course became obsessed with figuring out which one she was and standing in her general direction. When I left the party, she was in the lobby talking with her friend and the last comment I heard her make was, “So I was totally crying watching the Academy Awards.” Which is, like, such a goldmine statement to overhear. So much can be read into it. Was she sad for Leo? Jealous of Giselle? Who knows!

Yes, this is what I find entertaining. Well, and also this. Abby made me addicted! If you see Pinky, she is always the cuter one.

*I was going over the list of things Crate and Barrel “suggests” we put on our wedding registry. Champagne flutes are on there, and like with many such items, my first thought is “When would I use champagne flutes?” But then I thought that all the champagne flutes at the champagne party were lovely glass ones and the hosts obviously found good use for them. And then I thought, “Who are these unmarried people with glass champagne flutes?”

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Here's a quickie to tell you two things:

1. We got an apartment! It's not the funeral home one, either, (the main problem turned out not to be death, bells, or carpeting, but four very dreary flights of stairs and the words "walk-up") but a gorgeous one in a brownstone with a garden and eat-in kitchen.

2. Willow has been selected from over 300 applicants to be a contestant on The Ultimate Blogger, which is basically a blogging reality show, with tasks and drama and the kicking off of people. The main page there tells you about the next challenge. Here's where you can check in to see how everyone's doing. Go lend your support to Willow, who is obviously destined for reality show fame.

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