Ladies who lunch

This is Nancy — my dearest childhood friend's mother. I have known her since I was 8 years old, which would be 24 years. She was in town for a few days visiting family and called me to see if I would like to meet for lunch. Seeing her was the highlight of my day. I miss Lauren and her mom, Nancy, so much.

We had an almost two hour lunch at Fleur de Sel on 20th Street, which is the perfect spot to have lunch with your mom, or in my case, Lauren's mom. The set lunch special for $25 was delicious and not too much food. We both had the corn soup with basil ravioli and white aparagus, blue cod with bouillebase foam, and three types of sorbet (white peach, raspberry and melon) for dessert. And then, when we left, they gave us a little cellophane bag with two shortbread cookies inside. Of course, I ate mine the moment I was back at my desk.

Thank goodness for bungee cords

After work today, I went to Whole Foods to buy some things for dinner. I was riding my bike home, so I had to be very, very selective while shopping — this is actually pretty difficult for me. I purchased four ears of corn, a mesh bag of baby yukon potatoes (which have 40% of your RDA of vitamin C!!), a package of whole wheat wraps, some baby dill, a container of organic ricotta cheese, a pint of blueberries and a small plastic box of lentil and pea sprouts. All of this was neatly repacked (by me) so that it fit into the bag as efficiently as possible, and I strapped it to my bike with three bungee cords to ensure that my dinner provisions did not fly out on Broadway. The entire ride home I felt so proud of myself for being so environmentally friendly. And because of it, I only spent $36 at Whole Foods, which is a near miracle.

Be my watermelon, Charlie Brown

This evening, we went over to Kenny's parents' house to do our laundry, and have dinner. Our adorable little nieces were there as well, and throughout dinner we were also watching "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown."

Side note: It is always nice to be reminded of Valentine's Day, in July. However, I forgot how depressing that film is — everyone gets denied love. Sally gives Linus her homemade valentine, and he is like, "oh, yeah, uh, thanks." Linus misses the opportunity to give his teacher the giant heart-shaped box of chocolates he bought for her, and ends up chucking them, piece by piece into a stream. Woodstock gets a Valentine shoved onto his nose by Snoopy, and then cannot heave his valentine on top of Snoopy while he is sleeping. Charlie Brown gets NO valentines, and then Violet tries to be a do-gooder and gives him one of hers the next day. Schroeder tries to establish diginity for Charlie Brown, and he is like, "move over Schroeder, I WANT that re-gifted valentine." And Lucy gets mad at Schroeder for ignoring her and stomps his piano to bits. Lucy obviously has anger management issues.

After dinner (fried, whole fish; sauteed mushrooms; broccoli with beef; and squab), we had watermelon for dessert — it was the reddest, and juiciest watermelon I have had in a long time. The girls were cut off after two pieces each, otherwise they might have had a whole watermelon apiece. The youngest, Emily, had watermelon juice running down her entire body. It was so cute watching them eat it so seriously. And I was trying to eat my piece while balancing Allison on my lap as she ate her piece. I hope that they do not outgrow this age for a long time.

If you don't like your daisies white

There is something so wonderfully wrong about these dyed-to-match (although I am not sure what they actually match) daisies. Whose idea was this? It is as if someone felt that they could make daisies even more versatile than their already classic shade...of white. Because surely, we all want our flowers to match our _______. (Skittles, perhaps?)

The funny thing is, the flowers match perfectly to the project I have been working on for weeks. The entire piece is on color combinations and personality, and I love that I have a physical embodiement of the project, sitting on my desk.

Thanks to mass transit...

... we see this kind of thing in the New York City subway station. On my way to catch the B train after work, I saw this family of siblings in the subway station — the brother was playing the drums on upended plastic buckets, and the girls were taking turns in the spotlight, dancing. It was pretty impressive; especially since the youngest girl was maybe only 7 or 8 years old. You just don't see this kind of thing in places where you have to commute to work in a car. despite the rats, the heat and the general filth in the stations, you have to love MTA's Music Under New York series of musicians. All for the price of a trip on your Metrocard.

There is the Cagle family, whom I have been watching and listening to for the past 9 years — I feel like I have watched those kids grow up. (Does anyone know if Susan is part of this family? She must be, I think. HWat are the chances of two sets of musical Cagles performing in the subway?) And who doesn't love — while simultaneously finding him creepy — the Cuban guy who tango dances with the life-size doll. And then there is the didgeridoo guy. Plus the tons of other musicians who don't have a MUNY banner — for instance, the guys who play the erhu, my favorite.

Sephora Japonica is not a store

Out of the middle of nowhere, Adelphi Street has been caught full force in the deflowering of the Sephora Japonica trees lining both sides of the street from Greene to De Kalb. Every morning and evening for the past few days, home owners have been outside sweeping the sidewalks and stoops, as more blossoms continue to fall. As I spoke to my neighbor, Richard (who has lived on the block for 30 years and was part of the block committee who chose these particular trees), about the green snow that is covering every available surface, a blossom bounced off the top of his bald head. The leaflets have been mashed into the bottoms of all of my shoes. And despite a shoes off policy in the house, I found some in our closet and one lone blossom on the bathroom floor.

I like it. It is like the trees are making themselves known — and forcing us to acknowledge them, when we usually just take them for granted for their shade (see Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, for reference).

Scripted

I never tire of the above typeface — School Script, available from Monotype, I believe. Honestly, I think if you designed a tombstone using this typeface, it would actually be cheerful. Together with Akzidenz Grotesk, I am completely set, typeface-wise. I need nothing else. In fact, I tried to use this typeface on every project I worked on when I was at Martha Stewart, and it never worked. I always was told to change it to something more legible looking. But if this is not legible, why is it that we are all taught to write this way — beginning in second grade?

My goal for 2006 — to get a project printed using this typeface, in some way! Then I could finally quit working as a designer and become a cartographer, my secret daydream. When I am not fantasizing about becoming a pastry chef. Or owning a fabric store in Brooklyn....

Air Mail versus Email

My friend Joni wrote me a very long letter, which I received yesterday. I decided to save it until this evening to read, and have been looking forward to it all day!

A little good humor goes a long way

It is officially summer, because I had my first ice cream sandwich of the season this afternoon. I went for the "giant" ice cream sandwich which was $3...I do not remember an ice cream sandwich being so expensive last year. However, I enjoyed it very much. This is despite the fact that it was so stale (perhaps left over from last year, too?) that it crunched when I bite into it, not unlike the sensation you get when you eat that freeze dried ice cream from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

I love how Good Humor (and hey, they are from Ohio!) describes the Giant Ice Cream Sandwich. "More of the good stuff. Two chocolate wafers hold loads of artifically flavored ice cream." Yum.

I do have to admit that I was a little swayed by the Lifesavers popsicle...it looked so stripey, and therefore, delicious, on the decal.

I also ate one and a half Rice Krispie® treats

I ordered a salad for lunch today, from Guy & Gallard, on 29th Street. It was a small romaine salad with dry tuna, blue cheese, green peas, walnuts, hearts of palm and green apple. And it was perfect. I had been looking forward to a yummy lunch, after a long morning of talking — to all sorts of people. Crunching through romaine hearts is a very nice antidote to too much talking. I also ate lunch in my creative director's office at his Eero Saarinen table (instead of my desk), since he is on vacation. I enjoyed the change of scenery — from wood laminate to marble.

Snappish, Crackly, Pop-like

I had planned on making Rice Krispie® treats last week for my co-worker's birthday, but since it was 98 degrees in our apartment, making anything involving a stove and personal energy was out of the question. Today, it is a cool and cloudy 69 degrees, so I felt more inclined to turn on the stove. In the middle of making two type of treats (chocolate and regular), I decided to jazz them up a bit. I sprinkled the chocolate ones with sea salt — effectively turning them into Sea Salt and Bittersweet Chocolate Crisped Rice Squares. And I mixed matcha (green tea) powder into the plain batch, and also sprinkled the top with the powder, magically turning them into Green Tea and Crisped Rice Squares.

Please note: I used 4 tablespoons of butter, instead 3, and made 1-1/2 batches per flavor. This is because the average box (15 oz) of Rice Krispies has 9 cups of cereal and I didn't want leftover cereal hanging around. And the bags of marshmallows I used were not 10oz, but rather, 16oz. So my recipe ratio is a 16oz bag of mini marshmallows + 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter + 9 cups of cereal.

High on iced chocolate

This afternoon, I took a small detour on my way to my friend's house — stopping at Chocolate Bar on 8th Avenue. I had planned on buying some chocolates for Susanna (Cherry Lime Rickey, Salted Caramel, Bergamot, Creamsicle and one other flavor which I forgot), but then decided that an I needed an iced hot chocolate, as a magic elixir to coax me out of a particularly grumpy mood. I was not dissappointed — by the time I had slurped down the last mouthful, the chocolate had reached the serotonin spot somewhere deep in my brain, and it was like I had taken some mood enhancing drug. Which I did, I guess. I spent the next half hour blissfully reading a book in Abingdon Square Park (during a freak spell of sunshine) watching a cute little sparrow fluff his feathers on the bench next to me.

Homemade versus handmade

This is a photo of the linen wrap skirt I finished making this afternoon, before my sewing class. I wish it did not look so ... greige. However, I am pleased with it because I made it myself — I just wish it did not look like I made it. I think that I sew the same way I bake...I kind of make it up as I go along. This is why the skirt is slightly longer in the back, on one side. Perhaps if I walk really fast while wearing it, no one will notice.

I work for treats

So, it has been a pretty crummy day...and not even because it rained torrentially off and on. Since I haven't been outside since 8am, this was not really the problem, thankfully. Which was good, since I do not have an umbrella on me today.

My solution to *blah* days is to go online and treat myself to something on one of my numerous wish lists scattered throughout cyber space. Kind of like, "You know, I think I deserve {a new pair of shoes from Camper, a pair of gray cords from J. Crew, multiple yards of Marimekko fabric, a Nesso lamp, a box of Pierre Herme chocolates, a dozen french maccarons from Payard, a Vanilla road bike, a few balls of Manos del Uruguay yarn in black and gray, et. al....} because I worked really hard today." What can I say? I respond to postive reinforcement. However, I don't always purchase something — sometimes the mere act of putting those things I covet into my shopping cart, is enough to make me happy. Then I close the browser window before I actually make the purchase. Usually.

Tonight, I decided that I wanted an Orla Kiely handbag. Another one. Despite the fact that the Orla Kiely handbag that I already own is heavy and I use it like once every two years. I felt in the mood to be an Orla Kiely multiple handbag owner — I want the kind with the leaves printed on the fabric. (My current bag by her is brown leather and not as cute as the leaf ones.) So I went to the website, and I just fell in love with her home page. It might be because it is so gray and rainy outside, but those blinking little leaves just cheered me right up. To the point of not even needing to buy the handbag after all! Try it out yourself. Seriously. There must be some sort of subliminal message in the blinking leaves, along the lines of "You don't need another bag. Go home and make yourself some Annie's Mac & Cheese, instead. It's cheaper."

So, that's what I am going to do.

A litte more real estate

My desk at work had gotten so ridiculously out of control that I had to take drastic measures this morning. I snagged a second filing cabinet from an empty desk — and now my granola bars are no longer comingling with my toothbrush and tampons. I cleared the top of my desk off of all the accumulated things deposited under the guise of "here, check this out" and "I thought you might find this interesting," filing everything in my new filing cabinet, in neatly labeled file folders. I have so much space now! It is like the messy desk was a metaphor for my brain — I suddenly feel so much more creative, now that I have room to spread my stuff out. Let's hope it lasts...

Snickeropolis

I love Snicker's new advertising campaign — it completely appeals to my nerdish lust for new vernacular combined with my love of minimal advertising campaigns. I first noticed the billboards this past weekend (on Queens Boulevard) and then on Varick Street as I drove by in a car. Tonight, as I was on Park Avenue in Union Square, I felt like I had walked right int0 the middle of Snickerdom. Everywhere I turned, there was a Snicker's phone kiosk with some delicious (or perhaps disgusting, depending on what a hungerectomy is) snickerabulary on it. Taxis passed by and every one was advertising the new campaign. It was surreal — like I was living in some alternate universe city; instead of Gotham, it was called Snickeropolis. Check out Thomas Sherman's comments on the campaign, here.

East Coast vs West Coast

Photo courtesy of S. Hollowood.

My friend emailed me these photos of the bubble tea she got last night on her way home from work, in Portland. This is because we discussed the fact that on the West coast, they use a nifty little plastic sealer to close off the cup. Meaning, you could basically toss the drink into your book bag — without it spilling!!! — until you are ready to drink it. This is brillant. Whenever you then feel thirsty, you stab a straw through the plastic as if you were drinking a Capri Sun.

The problem is, I do not think this technology has reached the East coast yet. (I have not had a bubble tea in awhile, so perhaps this season, is THE season.) Mind you, I went to LA three years ago, and they were onto this sealing thing. And yet, the TenRen in Chinatown is still using those giantly bulbous lids. I am convinced that the sealing technology is hung up somewhere in the midwest, where the people are probably scared of what the bubbles [in the bubble tea] actually are, anyway.

I love bubble tea.(Here is a recipe to make it at home!)

Presto, pesto

Tonight on the way home from my salsa class, I had to think about what I was going to make for dinner, that took less than 2o minutes to prepare — and used up some of the massive quantities of spinach that was/is slowly on its way to rotting, in our fridge. I thought that perhaps a spinach pesto would be perfect. The recipe is as follows:

1 huge box of prewashed baby spinach
1 plastic box of grape tomatoes
1 bag of frozen, organic peas
1 huge bunch of green beans
1/2 plastic container of pecorino romano, shredded
1 lb of whole wheat, organic fusilli
fleur de sel
*a blender

Put on the water to boil — add some salt. While water is heating, sort through spinach and throw away any leaves that look slimy and wet. Add 1/4 of spinach into blender. Pour in olive oil through the hole in the top. Turn on blender and keep a steady stream of oil pouring into blender, until it starts to pulverize spinach. Keep adding spinach and oil until it is a nice, pourable consistency. Add all of spinach. Once it is a nice texture, add in cheese, with blender still running, until cheese is mixed in thoroughly. Now the sauce is done. Trim off beans' ends and cut into 1" pieces. The water will be boiling by now, so add the pasta. Let cook for about 10 mintues. Wash the tomatoes and pat them dry. During the last one and half minutes of the pasta cooking time, add beans. Pour beans and pasta into a colander and rinse with cool water. (Reserve some pasta water to thin sauce if it is too thick.) Pour pasta and beans back into the pan and add sauce. Using the same colander, run frozen peas under warm water for about 2 minutes, until they have thawed. Drain. Add peas and tomatoes to pasta and sauce, and mix it all together. Spoon into pasta bowls and sprinkle with fleur de sel to taste. Eat together with a nice glass of very chilly Reisling, while watching the Tour de France on television.

Virtual Snowglobe

I took these videos on January 22-23, 2005 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It is really hard to imagine it being so snowy, when it is now 90 degrees outside.

Please note that I am aware that this video is hogging up more than its alloted space when this blog is viewed in FireFox and sometimes Safari (making the posting look ugly), for reasons that are unknown and beyond my technical capabilities at this point in time.

Fry an egg on the sidewalk

Its going to be a hot day today. It is already 85 degrees and it is only 10:28am. It is supposed to get up to 98 degrees and then when you factor in everyone's air-conditioner on full blast, the bus exhaust, the melted gum on the pavement, and the lack of trees on most main avenues, the heat index swoops up to like 108 degrees. I personally love the hot weather, despite the sweat that collects in my inner elbows. Ridiculously hot weather provides the perfect excuse for eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I plan on having Vanilla Haagan-Dazs® for lunch. And maybe a Fudgsicle® for snack.

Ink Sniffer

Last week, I ordered some books from Jordan Crane of reddingk, and they arrived this afternoon. All of the covers are hand silk screened, and in the most delicious color combinations. The books have that chalky feel that comes with hand silk screening, and the inky aroma of fresh printing — which for graphic designers is like the smell of tuna fish to a cat. The books are so beautiful, I just keep staring at them, thinking, "Wow, I own these."

Lemon Ice is Nice.

The Lemon Ice King in Corona, has been a Queens institution for more than 60 years. With more than 20 flavors of ices, the line is usually around the corner on hot days. I was shocked when I went this afternoon, and there was NO line. I decided on the chocolate ice for me, and a tangerine ice for Kenny. The chocolate ice was delicious — like iced hot cocoa (imagine the kind of hot cocoa you can get at the ice rink, and then if that was frozen). And Kenny thought that the tangerine ice was also quite good — although orange lips are the result.

Mid Summer Night Swing

I went dancing at Lincoln Center with some friends (look closely in the video to spot them), as my salsa teacher recommended that I go and "feel" the music. The plaza was packed, and the people watching was out of this world. I cannot wait to go back next year. By then, I might even know how to dance salsa.

Sounds from the beach, part 2

Sounds from the beach, part 1

Escaped

I sat on the fire escape and chatted on the phone for a few minutes during my lunch, today. I had a great view into all of these other offices, and what looked to be a dance studio. It was very reminscent of the feeling of cutting 9th period gym class in high school and walking home early, the last week of school before you were out for summer vacation — should you have ever done that.

Look before you sit

In the building where I work, the restrooms are on par with the average urban high school ladies room. Which means they are pretty disgusting. Since there are only two offices that use the bathrooms (ours and another company whose name I won't mention) we have determined that the other office is full of women who are slobs. It is that simple.

This has sparked quite a debate within our office over what we should do about those women who refuse to flush. Or those who pee all over the seat.

There was someone who clogged the toilet with a maxi pad and flooded the building, effectively knocking out the plumbing in the whole building for an entire afternoon. (What woman doesn't know that maxi pads do not get flushed down the toilet?) Although, to be fair, I think this was someone on another floor.

Regardless, the women next door are not very conscientious bathroom mates. The final solution was to post notes in the bathroom, reminding the women to wipe off the seat should they dribble. Every time I see the notes, I almost pee my pants laughing so hard. Thankfully, I am in the bathroom....

Found this article about how toilet seats are actually clean enough to eat a turkey wrap off of, oddly enough.

Born in the year of the Tiger

I am not sure why I find Hello Kitty to be so adorable. Mind you, I do not have the Hello Kitty appliances, or any licensed apparel, like this person, here.* However, I spotted these Band Aids® in Target this afternoon, and they were calling out my name. Maybe its because Hello Kitty and I were both born in 1974... or maybe its because, according to the Sanrio website, she has no mouth because she speaks from her heart. Or just maybe, it is the scripty typeface that her name is written in. Not to be disloyal to Akzidenz Grotesk, but I am always a sucker for a cute scripty typeface.

*I do not think cell phone charms from 4 cities in Japan counts as overboard on the Hello Kitty gear.

Sharing for beginners

My salad at 5 Points Restaurant this evening combined almost all of my favorite summertime foods in one dish! Green beans, wax beans, fava beans, maybe another type of bean, corn and hazlenuts — all bound together by some sort of hazlenutty pesto. It was delicious. And the best part was the sharing...I shared this dish with Helen. But they brought us each our own portion, on our own separate plates! I love to share dishes this way — it is pseudo-sharing. Or sharing without the stress of watching your friend eat the last green bean that you had your eye on.

In addition to the salad, the best part of the meal was talking with Helen. We talked nonstop for more than two and a half hours...and now I need a Ricola throat lozenge.

PMS Warm Red

Tonight on my way to dinner with Helen, we saw these two different ad campaigns on Great Jones Street. It seems like both Uniqlo and Apple got the memo that PMS Warm Red is a hot color this month. (Which, coincidentally, is the accent color in my living room.) I loved that someone felt the need to spray paint their tag right in the white space of the Apple logo. Like it was begging for some sort of additional ornamentation — I guess. And the Uniqlo campaign (check out their website...the logo animation is great) of comparing New York facts to Tokyo facts only hit home even more why I want to move to Tokyo — they have 50,000+ cabs in Tokyo, and we only have 12,000 here in New York. And the taxis have doilies on the headrests in Japan.

A mouthful of sock lint

Walking to the subway this morning, I looked up and (to my delight) saw this poster, which was not there yesterday. I think because I am too old to watch cartoons and too young to have cartoon watching children, I fall smack into the demographic of people who have no clue who this toe-obsessed, little blue character is at all.

A spicy sauce that gives flavor

Tonight, I had my weekly private salsa class at Dance Manhattan. After my last class (where I suddenly realized that I had no rhythym — why didn't anyone ever tell me this?!) my teacher asked me to please bring heels to my next class. So this week, I brought a pair of green suede strappy sandals with 3 inch heels. And I think I can say, I am getting it! (It is all because of the shoes, I am convinced. Hot shoes and a good partner = being able to dance.) Slowly, but surely, I am grasping the concept of How To Dance Salsa. This is despite having a massive sweating attack due to nervousness...every time Walter took a break to change the music, I had to blot my underarms with a sweatshirt. It was not really very glamorous. But when I left my class, I was glowing. And not with sweat, either. I felt like I was beaming. In fact, I smiled at everyone I saw on the street. Learning how to dance is such a terrific feeling.

And hello, back to you

I received this poster in the mail today from Mohawk Papers, inviting me to a lecture given by the creative director from VSA who redid the Strathmore materials. For some reason, the combination of the hello in italics, in an apple, was just so darn happy looking. I felt like the poster was speaking directly to me, "hello, aim." I love friendly designed things...which should be whole genre unto itself. These would not necessarily be user friendly designed things, but instead, friendly designed things for a user — things designed in such a way that makes you want to have a conversation with them.

Frozen Peas on TV

I cannot believe it! We turned on the television this evening, and frozen peas were the special ingredient on Iron Chef America! Flay versus Morimoto. Bobby was doing his usual stuff with some some codfish mashed with peas and Morimoto had an unusual (and vaguely midwestern sounding) pea and cream cheese in popsicle molds thing going on.

Just this morning, I moved over the frozen peas from our old apartment to our new one. I threw everything else out (many knobs of ginger root, some macaroni and cheese from New Year's Eve, numerous ziplock bags full of random strips of bacon, some cornbread muffins, a few bags of cranberries from last November, a ziplock bag labeled "Pork," and some flax seed and granola), but there was no way I was going to toss out an unopened bag of organic frozen peas.

Going home

I love riding my bike across the Manhattan Bridge — going home to Brooklyn. Especially at this time of the evening, when the sun is not so strong, and the light is really warm and gentle looking. I tend to daydream as I ride my bike across, thinking about what I might make for dinner. Many times, I have had great ideas come to me as I ride across the bridge on my way to work. The 10 minutes I spend crossing the bridge is time solely for me, before I have to enter the real world again.

Bike Ride in Bed-Stuy on a Saturday

Perhaps I am a Bike Stalker...

I spotted my dream bike again, this past evening. This time it was on St. James Place, between Greene and Gates. I love you, green Schwinn.

Truffula Trees on Girard Street

On my way to the beach today, I spotted the most curious looking bushes, on a street deep in Brooklyn. Many houses on the block had them, although as you can tell in the photos, some people manicured theirs better than others. The fluffly, puffly, marvelousness of the round tufts made me think of The Lorax, by Dr. Suess:

But those trees! Those trees!
Those Truffula Trees!
All my life I´d been searching for trees such as these.
The touch of their tufts was much softer than silk.
And they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk.

I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart.

Of course, at this point, the story gets a bit sad, since they guy chops down the truffula tree tufts to build all sorts of stuff. Basically this story was/is a commmentary on the world's lack of regard for the environment. And Dr. Suess has The Lorax step in and stick up for the tree's rights — because even truffula trees have a union.

I knew just what I´d do!
I unloaded my cart.

In no time at all, I had built a small shop.
Then I chopped down a Truffula Tree with one chop.
And with great skillful skill and with great speedy speed,
I took the soft tuft. And I knitted a Thneed!

The instand I´d finished, I heard a ga-Zump!
I looked.
I saw something pop out of the stump
of the tree I´d chopped down. It was sort of a man.
Describe him?...That´s hard. I don´t know if I can.

He was shortish. And oldish.
And brownish. And mossy.
And he spoke with a voice
that was sharpish and bossy.

Mister! he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I´m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs--
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed--
What´s that THING you´ve made out of my Truffula tuft?