Carrrrrrrrnes

I googled searched Carne Taco Bell Commercial this afternoon to find that really stupid, yet somehow delightful, commerical where the lions are talking to each other and the one lion cannot roll his Rs right and sounds stupid saying the word, "Carne." I am not sure why, but I love this commerical. I found it, and all of the outtakes, where the lion is faking a Russian accent, and flipping his mane around. See below:



While I was looking at the Carne video on You Tube, I came across this very cool movie idea where this person took 10,000 photos from one year of their life and created a still video from them. While each individual photo is nothing particularly special, as a whole, it is a really lovely idea. Hmmm, maybe the pictures from this blog get strung together into a video of Aimee's happy things?

My person.

A month or so ago, Sheri and I were talking about who our three "people" would be. You know, those few girlfriends in your life, who know matter what the circumstances are, they are the people you call when you kill someone and need help dragging the corpse across your living room floor. Anyway, I can't remember the context of the conversation now, but I had no trouble determing who my "people" were — although I have four of them, not three. But close enough. Well, tonight I saw Dana. And she is my person. And she has been in LA for the past week for a photoshoot, so we had missed our past two Wednesday lunches. Meaning, I have not seen her in almost three weeks. We briefly met up after my salsa lesson at the AIGA gallery. I was so happy to see her! It was like some little part of me had been missing, while she had been away.

(And guess what?! She brought me two cupcakes from Sprinkles! I feel like I have had Sprinkles cupcakes more often these days than I have had Magnolia cupcakes. Which, frankly, is no comparison, as Sprinkles blows Magnolia right out of the water. It required serious self-restraint to not break out the cupcakes on the subway. The moment I got home though, I took a big bite out of one before dinner.)

Is this suburbia?

Our new house has a refrigerator with a water dispenser built right into the fridge door, complete with its own Brita water filter. Yes, I know. Super nice refrigerators do not have water dispensers. Instead, they have built in air compressors, glass doors or, better yet, they blend into your cabinets, and usually come by the name of Sub Zero or Northland. We have none of those things, but we do have a water dispenser. And since this is a first for both Kenny and I, we are sort of delighting in the fact that we can walk over to the fridge and press the water button any time we want cold water.

Options are good.

So today was an interesting day — I resigned from my job. I had been thinking about what I want to do for awhile now, and this morning I woke and decided that today was the day. Of course, I woke up and felt that way last Friday, but I chickened out. Because you know, it is a bit irresponsible (or maybe its just a little too spontaneous?) to quit, when you do not actually have another job, or at least one with health insurance and stuff like that, all lined up. But I did it. And I really feel so good about my decision. I suddenly feel like I have so many options about what I could potentially do with my life. What if I went took my math and science requirements and applied to medical school? Or I could get a masters degree in Asian Literature. Or perhaps I should finally open my dream fabric store in Brooklyn. Or design textiles?

All in its proper place.

This is my desk.

Today was a productive, albeit long, day. We managed to put the office together, which was really important to me. All of my design and photography books are unpacked, and on their proper shelves. And although I am not quite done unpacking, which was my (ridiculous) goal for this evening, I feel like I can go to sleep feeling like I accomplished something today.

Now, if only the building's project manager would set up our washer and dryer. Please. We have fifteen loads of laundry all sorted out on our bedroom floor. You know its bad when you have an entire load of just socks.

The impossible made possible

Somehow, we made it. We are basically all packed and the movers are coming in five minutes. Considering that the boxes that I ordered last minute from Uline never made it, I am pretty impressed with the job we did. I was especially creative in my uses of that nifty plastic wrap on a giant spool that shipping companies use to wrap crates together. I basically plastic wrapped everything that was not in a box, to something else not in a box. I hear the moving truck, now.

My feet are happy.

If I snore, I imagine that it would be in Akzidenz Grotesk.

I could not post yesterday about what made me happy, because it was not until I was in bed (and the day was actually over) that I finally determined that I was so happy to just finally be in bed. You know where you are so tired that even your feet are tired? There is nothing lovelier than that feeling of your feet touching the sheets, where they practically are thanking you for finally going to bed.

oh yeah, it's that time again

This is my absolutely favorite time of year — it's Easter candy time! I went into Duane Reade this evening to get some cold medicine and got completely sidetracked by the Easter candy aisle. I never even bought the Ricolas I had planned on getting, and actually had to leave the store before I went nuts buying Gobstopper Eggs and Peanut Butter Eggs.

TODA Girls Reunion

These are two of my favorite co-workers who became friends, of all time. We all ordered Clam Chowder for lunch.

Sometimes, a little s is all you need

I left work early today because my head cold had taken over and rendered me completely useless to the working world. As I was walking to the subway, I was suddenly struck by the thought of sauteed celery over rice, and the image of how delicious that would taste would not leave my mind. For the entire subway ride to Brooklyn I dreamt of celery. To get the weird celery fixation out of my head, I stopped at the Chinese take-away place on my way home from the subway. When I asked for sauteed celery, they looked at me like I was stupid. They were like, "Celery?!" Like it was a vegetable that no one had eaten for like 75 years. So, I asked them to make it with some chicken so I would not sound like the crazy person that I actually was. (I mean, who dreams about stalky vegetables? Seriously.) I was like, "You know, chicken with string beans. Well, make this chicken with celery." The guy behind the counter listed all of the other vegetables he had on hand, like maybe I really wanted broccoli or green pepper also, and just forgot to say so? No. Just celery. Oh, and make that over brown rice.

Despite all of the head shaking, they prepared the dish exactly the way I wanted it. The celery was bright green and crisp-crunchy and the chicken was pounded flat and in partially shredded pieces the way Chinese food chicken always is. And quite frankly, chicken and celery over brown rice is the best dinner to eat when you have stuffy sinuses and a sore throat and that I-feel-sick-and-want-to-whine kind of general crabbiness. I ate the entire styrofoam container of chicken and celery, like it was the last meal on the planet.

Red is a good color

Hello, my new dining table!

Today, two things happened that made me happy, in an otherwise bleak and cold medicine-induced haze of a day.

1. First of all, since I was feeling so crummy, I went online to window shop at DWR; basically, I wanted to visit the dining room table that I wanted. Since Kenny and I already own a perfectly lovely 1950's teak dining table, we do not need another table. But that table won't fit right in our new apartment. So I proposed we buy another and save the Danish modern table for whenever we own a weekend home. (Kenny was skeptical about this idea.) So when I went to DWR, lo and behold, the object of my affections was on sale! This stuff never happens to me. So, I bought it. That was my only bright spot the entire day. Not even the ginger breakfast bread and tomato soup from 'Wichcraft compared to the red dining table.

The artist of my friend's new painting.

2. However, when I checked my email this evening, a friend had sent me an email saying that he bought painting from Elephant Art! A few months ago, I found this site and posted it on my blog because I was in love with Lucky, the elephant from Cambodia. I am so excited that someone I know actually bought a painting from an elephant, and therefore helped support the global cause of all elephants.

Kitchen adventures, part 1 + 2

The food cart in the Home Depot parking lot.

I am spreading ceramic tile adhesive on the wall.

My mom, donning protective gear.

My mom, using power tools on our balcony in sub-zero temperatures.

My mom's birthday lunch — turkey + ham sandwiches,
grapes, potato chips and chocolate cake.

I am too tired to write any more than some photo captions; so lame, I know. And I cheated and lumped yesterday and today into one collective post. But the overall happy thing for the weekend was that my mom and Andy came to visit and helped us put all of the Elfa stuff up, in our new apartment's closets, and to tile the kitchen backsplash. As a bonus, we also put up the homasote in our office. Yay. Now I am going to bed for like 20 hours.

Symphonic

1. In yoga class this morning, I was ohmming and really deeply feeling the vibrations inside of me. I felt very connected with my classmates, while also feeling this really delicious sense of personal space. Perhaps it was also because I felt like my ohms were in tune with everyone elses (not usually the case); I could hear my own ohm and at the same time, I could hear the entire group's collective ohm. It was really lovely. Apparently my teacher felt the same way, because afterwards she commented on how our ohms had sounded truly wonderful.

2. Tonight, we took my mom and Andy to hear Mos Def perform at BAM. He was amazing. And he had some great line about looking into New York's eyes and not recognizing who he sees anymore. I can totally relate, since some wack hipsters sat in front of us and talked through out the entire performance. The guy had a mustache, for goodness sake!

Coloring at the dinner table

Tonight we celebrated Chinese New Year's Eve a day earlier, with my in-laws. Dinner was at East Buffet off of Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst. After stuffing myself on the best dish of the dinner — the Peking Duck pancakes — my niece and I spent the remainder of the meal coloring on the back of a power point presentation, that I found in my book bag. In the picture above, I drew a purple girl (self portrait) and Allison drew a picture of the plate of longevity noodles that I was eating.

I heart things with stuffing

I just looked at the time, and was realized I had not posted anything yet today that made me happy. Looking back on the day, there was not a whole lot that made me super ecstatic, or even mildly chipper, except for talking with Dana on the phone. (And eating the leftover bit of chocolate soufflé straight from the fridge.) So with only 44 minutes left to find my slice of happiness for the day, I decided to peruse some of my favorite blogs, which invariably always lead me to something awesome that I want to immediately purchase. I was not disappointed. I was on Irene (of Bloesem)'s blog, and found a link to Rosa Pomar's adorable little stuffed dolls. If you were not thinking about having children anytime soon, this might change your mind. Having a kid would allow you to buy all sorts of cute things like this, and then you could pretend that they were actually for your baby. I can only aspire to be the sort of mom who makes her kids all sorts of homemade stuffed dolls and lovely little toys, although just thinking about that makes me exhausted.

Well, this was it. I am now happy, and can go to bed. Where hopefully I will dream of cute felt flower-eyed little creatures.

Be my valentine.

Kenny woke me up this morning to give me a red-checked tunic.

I made Kenny Sea Bass baked in tinfoil and sauteed brussel sprouts with an arugula, proscuitto and goat cheese salad. And Fresh Direct chocolate soufflés for dessert.

I used to love Valentine's Day, so I am not sure what happened. Like when was it exactly that I lost interest and therefore stopped sending Peanuts or Ziggy valentine's and buying Necco conversation hearts. This year, I had an extremely blasé attitude towards it, especially since the weather was crummy and my snow boots gave me a big blister before I even made it to the subway. But it was really special to wake up to a gift being handed to me in a nice box with a bow. And if the red checked shirt was not nice enough, Kenny also gave me a box of letterpressed note cards — green birds on a green patterned background. And despite finding Valentine's day annoying — because I am in a crabby state of mind these days — it is lovely to realize that I married someone who knows me so well, and knows just the things that I will love without me having to always tell him. And seriously, that is a real gift unto itself.

Sprinkles vs FedEx...

...and it was a TKO by FedEx

Last Monday, Sheri sent me a lemon cupcake from that splendid cupcake bakerey — Sprinkles — in LA, via FedEx. My yummy lemon cupcake might have had a chance, had the hotel not forgotten to mail the package for three days. And then I was out of the office on the day it arrived, so it sat on my desk for another four days, in its little cupcake tupperware container. But this morning, when I opened up my package, it was so nice. Well, the cupcake was a bit bedraggled looking and perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say that rigor mortis had set in (making the cupcake tupperware now a cute little coffin). However, I ate it anyway because my friend went through so much trouble to send me the best tasting cupcake on the planet. So even though it was stale and a little scary, I ate the whole thing. And depsite the week in transit, the cake was still moist in the center, and I could taste the lemon yumminess it once had been. And again, I am incredibly grateful for having such terrific friends who constantly go out of their way for me, showering me with such love.

Pleasantly surprised!

My flight home to JFK was canceled after spending 9 hours at the Santo Domingo International Airport, last night. So I was have less than stellar thoughts about what my breakfast voucher would bring me; especially since I had just spent three days in a really lovely Sofitel and now I was esentially slumming it for a night at the Quality Hotel in Santo Domingo, compliments of the super service oriented (joke) American Airlines. However, much to surprise, the breakfast buffet was quite sufficient, to say the least. In fact, I was really happy with my breakfast. The restaurant was all sunshine-dappled with placemats and egg cosies — it was not the tacked-on greasy spoon cafeteria I was expecting.

In fact, I had a nutrituous bowl of müseli with fresh grated coconut, walnuts and raisins (ok, and some puffed cocoa balls, too); a hard boiled egg (I am practicing the don't ask, don't tell policy in regards to the whether or not the eggs are organic are here) and whole wheat toast. All washed down with some chamomille tea. I overlooked the little (and dead) bol weevil on the inside flap of the tea packet because I am sure it's just because no one comes to the Quality Hotel and actually asks for chamomille tea. Plus, it was dead, anyway.

And now I am at the airport, on the free Wi-Fi network. Free! Free!

Destination: Calle de Hostos

This is my most favorite street in all of the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo. The street is pretty steep, so the sidewalks are all a series of steps, bringing you intimately close with the front doorsteps of all of the houses. If I had a large (or even a modest) chunk of money, I would buy a a nice little house on this street — for some reason, my heart keeps going out to that shabby little turqouise house. But since it has no windows, I think its a little impractical. And perhaps, a little dark inside. Sigh.

¡Fue splendito!

This is a sexy bus.

Watch out! It's a pole-eating shrub!

The most delicious falafel for lunch — made by a Israeli-Dominican guy. And it beats the pants off the falafel at Pita City.

Even pigeons need to sit down once in awhile, too.

This is what I look like on vacation.
Lying on a wicker chaise thing in the louge part of the hotel.

Today I woke up at 8:30am, had breakfast at the hotel breakfast spread, and then decadently came back and got back into bed. By the time I tore myself away from some Spanish movie on TNT, it was already time for lunch. Or so I thought. I have no idea what time it is here because I did not bring a watch, the time is an hour ahead of New York time. Consequently, I am wandering around eating when I am hungry, and sleeping when I am tired. This has led to some minor problems, because last night I was feeling snackish at like 11:30pm. The kitchen was closed, and there is no candy in this entire hotel (!!). I had to settle for three scoops of pistacio ice cream delivered to my room via room service.

After consulting my Rough Guide for lunch options, I decided on the non-traditional Dominican food of falafel and hummus. The falafel was sooooo good! Super crunchy on the outside, and chickpea-y and full of fresh parsely on the inside. I ate myself into a mild food coma and then had to walk around the neighborhood to keep myself from gaining like 10 pounds immediately. While I was out walking around, I chatted with a woman from Deer Park, Long Island who is here visiting her family. She saw me take a picture of an old woman sleeping on the sidewalk, and called down to me from her balcony. Somehow, she knew I was a foreigner, although I am not sure what gave it away? Perhaps it was the green clogs. And somehow the only place on my entire body that has gotten any color is my neck, which means that I am now a big red neck. Nice.

However, there is a guy playing Spanish songs on an accoustic guitar on the patio where I am writing this. I hope that when I die, heaven is like the Sofitel Nicholas de Ovando.

You can check out my pictures from today, here.

I heart Biscocho

The drive from the airport on the way to the city center.

Hello, green house. I want to live in you.

Biscocho and naranja-piña ice creams from a local heladeria on El Conde.

Diapers are conveniently sold singly at the local La Dispensa.

I am now in the Dominican Republic for the weekend, having left Brooklyn this morning on a 10am flight to Santo Domingo for a quick weekend of rest and relaxation.

The line to check in at the American Airlines counter for Central and South America was so ridiculous, I actually left my spot in line to go buy some books at the Hudson News (I was freaking out that I did not have enough reading material for the weekend), and came back to my place without the line even moving at all. However, this turned out to be the best idea I have ever had because the book I bought was Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. (This book has been on my Amazon Wish List for a few months, but I was not in such a hurry to get around to buying it, or anything. the only reason that I bought it today was because my choices were beyond slim, limiting me to a selection of works by Michael Crichton and a book about Jesus.) All I can say is that the book struck such a chord with me, starting with the introduction. Normally, I never even read the introductions on books, finding them to be boring and/or a waste of time. But I was hooked on Liz's book from the second sentence. There was even point when I openly burst into tears and could not stop crying. My nose began to run, and I had no kleenex forcing me to blow my nose on a paper towel that I had brought in my bag of snacks. Her book had moved me to the being of my core.

After that emotional outburst, I felt all fragile and sensitive. And felt like I, too, wanted to go to an ashram in India to study meditation and how to be a more open and loving person. Just then the plane landed and everyone started clapping, and then I thought darkly, "Clapping is so freaking corny!" as I immediately jumped up to be one of the first off the plane. The sensitive, open-hearted, meditation-wanting Aimee was gone, and I was back to my usual self.

However, I am in love with this country. The smell alone just breaks my heart and I rolled the taxi window down just so I could sniff it in the whole way to my hotel. Pretty much, I was like a dog with my head practically hanging out the window.

Thus far, I have had a huge lunch of arroz con pollo, washed down with an El Presidente. And a huge ice cream cone with a scoop each of Biscocho (cookie) and Naranja-Niña (orange-pineapple) ice cream. Immediately after eating my fill of the ice cream cone, I saw a corn vendor selling huge ears of roasted corn on the street corner and was trying to figure out if I had any room, anywhere, where I could shove in more food. But I was too stuffed — I will have to eat corn from the street vendor tomorrow.

You can check out my pictures so far, here.

Hello, Dell-y!

Today marks a new era. Finally, Kenny is saying goodbye to his beige tower for good, now that his shiny new laptop has arrived. Due to the new Vista operating system, I could actually navigate around his new computer. Usually, PCs leave me in the dust with their completely unintuitive navigation, but Vista is almost exactly like OSX. Way to go, Microsoft! You are only like three years behind Apple, now.

Bed headed

Hmm, obviously, I am having a good hair today. Somehow, my hair looked a bit more normal when I left the house this morning, so I am not sure what happened between there and here. But the beauty of it is, due to my creative profession, I am able to get away with wearing massively dented hair to work. Which makes me so glad that I do not work as a bank teller or a mortgage broker — could you imagine someone with hair like this deciding whether or not to loan you half a million dollars?! However, I bet you would trust me messy hair and all, if I said, "You know, it really needs to be two points larger and in red instead of black."

Laughing makes you live longer.

There is something about Natalie Dee's work that just makes me laugh at loud. Perhaps it was the her title for this picture, which was "Paid for by lemon growers to foster lemon awareness."
And there was this picture, which made me laugh so hard, I almost choked on my pudding-ified hot chocolate. Natalie titled this one, "Bummer, dude."

Come on, let's get cozy...

After a very boring and uninspired dinner of take-away pizza from Mario's Pizza on DeKalb, I made Kenny and I some hot chocolate using my new Mariebelle hot cocoa. Somehow, as I was taking the picture for my blog, the cocoa transformed itself into chocolate pudding. Which means that Kenny and I are now slurping down hot chocolate pudding. Weird, but still delicious. Now, if only we had some of those coconut marshmallows from the MoMA café on on the fifth floor, we would be all set.