Brooklyn: My mom, my Aunt Gladys and my Uncle Vic came to stay with us last weekend (it was so wonderful to see not only my mom, but also my aunt and uncle! We ate a lasagna together and hung out in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens), and randomly, my Aunt Sue, Uncle Gene and cousin David called because they were at Prospect Park, which is like 6 blocks from our apartment. So they came over too, and we took a family picture.
Duane Reade: I love this package, because what on earth is Hongo Killer?
Family dinner: Our neices happily eating vanilla gelatto with sprinkles.
Vancouver: We ordered room service on a rainy Saturday night, while watching Grey's Anatomy in French.
Midtown: I adore this dish, which is beef with miso and onions cooked on a Houba leaf over a small grill on your table. Kenny completely surprised me one evening by taking me out for Japanese food at Aburiya Kinnosuke in midtown.
We cranked the radio up rather obnoxiously, and opened the sun roof. We felt entitled, being radio-less for more than a year.
Today, was a Sunday, and a designated Aimee-vacation day. Since I was not feeling well, I stayed in bed until almost noon. This is something that has happened exactly like three times in the past 15 years. And one of those days might have been when I had malaria. After tearing myself out of bed, I decided that we finally needed to get a radio installed in our car. Or else lease a new car. A new radio was way cheaper, so we went to Circuit City. I picked out a handsome Sony model, with Sirius radio and then the guys went to work installing it. Three hours later, they determined that the Sirius receiver was faulty, and that was the last one. They tried to convince to buy a different radio, but I refused, because the Pioneer radios were not a nice looking. A nice looking radio is very important. So I left with only part of a radio — I have AM/FM, but have to wait until Thursday for the Sirius part to be installed. A bummer that I have to wait until Friday to listen to channel 43 Backspin in the car, but at least I now have some sort of sound, other than my own agitated breathing to listen to when the traffic backs up for two straight hours on Route 287. It was so bad that a few times I had to listen, on speakerphone, to an audio book that I have uploaded to my Treo for these sorts of emergencies.
Since the car radio was not a fully done deal, I decided to rent a Rug Doctor® from the Eckerd Drugs on Court Street, hoping to actually check something off my list of long term stuff to get done in the next ten years of my life. Which was, steam clean our living room rug.
We wrestled the Rug Doctor® home, filled it up with special $20 Rug Doctor® solution, and plugged it in. It made a very scary noise, and Kenny immediately umplugged it. So we turned the button to off, plugged it back in, and turned it on. It made another scary noise, sparked a bit, and then died. Um, fuck.
So Kenny called the people at Rug Doctor who told him to return it back to the store. As you can imagine, this put us both into a collectively crabby mood. We drove back to the drug store and got our money refunded, and the manager of the store told me bluntly to just go and buy one from Target; that is what she did. She got a Dirt Devil. Well, we went to Target and bought a Bissel Mini Green or something like that — the Dirt Devils were all sold out. I got sneaky and eyeing the massively long line snaking through the store, decided to pick up a prescription I had waiting at the pharmacy, and took along my steam cleaner and its special steam cleaning solution. There was no line at the pharmacy, and we were in and out of Target in less than 8 minutes. Frankly, this is an Olympic record for actually purchasing something there.
To make a long story short, after crawling around the rug for an hour, steam cleaning it with our miniature wet vac, the living room rug is back to its orginal color of cream; instead of dirt-colored beige. So yay! I can check that off the list.
After yoga class, I met Dana for brunch at Jane, where we proceeded to be ladies who do lunch. She had a mimosa and I had a bellini, and I thoroughly enjoyed the personal-sized bottle of champagne that they served it with. I sort of wanted to ask for a straw so I could drink it straight from the bottle, but felt that perhaps that was not so classy.
After lunch, we spent the entire afternoon shopping. How fun is that?! I bought a Danish bird made from teak (it is $78 at the MoMA store here, but I found it for $58 at Clio); a green change purse; a blue checked, ruffled shirt; a black ballon-y skirt; and another blue shirt, but in stripes. I also bought a baby shower gift at Makie, a store with clothing which I wish I could dress my child in, someday when I have a child. And when I can afford $90 Liberty print jumpers for a six-month old.
Dana and I then proceeded to end the most perfect afternoon by sharing some ice cream from Ciao Bella — pistacio and coconut gelato. (Two separate flavors.)
Can we talk about that crazy snarl of hair on my left side? What is that?!
Gone are the days when I would actually go out on weekends, let alone stay out until 4am dancing at Twilo. Ok, maybe that happened like only twice in my life, but I have stayed out pretty late before. Seriously. But never since I entered my 30s. Actually, there had been a steady decline in my going-out-ness since my mid to late 20s. However, there is something so absolutely delightful about going home on a Friday night, eating microwave mac and cheese with a spoon!, and consciously deciding NOT to pick up my stuff, do a load of laundry or organize anything! until tomorrow. I am taking a Friday night vacation.
This means that in about four seconds, I am going to put my mac and cheesy dish in the sink (rinsing it out, but not going so far as to actually wash it), take a long shower (where I forget if I washed hair, and end up washing it like three times) and get into bed with a good book that I have read already. This to me, this is the sort of Friday night dreams are made of.
Sheri sent me the link to this great website, called Type Talk Fonts, that has all of these different typefaces that change what you write. Whenever you are feeling crabby and dark-cloud-like, all you do is type in your nasty phrase, and the Sugar and Spice typeface types it as something different. "Fuck you," becomes, "Go Away!" instantly making you sound like you are a petulant little girl instead of someone who might bite your head off.
Today, Dana Dane met me at my office, so we could have one our Wednesday lunches together. She brought me a miniature potted orange gerbera daisy to put on my new (or not so new anymore, I guess) desk. I stuck it on the lamp base for my Tolomeo lamp — hopefully, the moisture will not rust the chrome.
We went to lunch at the Le Pain Quotidien in ABC Carpet + Home on 19th Street. Of course, I had the honey, fig + ricotta sandwich. And of course, Dane had a cobb salad. There was a special morello cherry green iced tea on the menu, so despite the $3.5 price tag, I decided it sounded too delicious to pass up. It was the most delicately flavored, I-am-drinking-spring-as-a-beverage elixir-ish tonic ever. It was gone in like one long slurp, making me wonder how I can drink some things down without even noticing, and other things (like plain water, a beer, anything other than iced tea, really) it is like the never ending beverage. While I was mentally waxing love poetry over my iced tea, Dana all of a sudden spotted a live lady bug stalking across her salad lettuces. I immediately plucked it out and set it on a tea cup, but I think the salad dressing killed the poor little thing.
I read about these nifty Start Here™ notebooks on Bloesem. They are completely green (as in made from recycled paper) and link to one another, when you want to add another notebook. There are stick-on pockets, and colored tabs, and all sorts of stuff to make them work for your needs. And even though I have a box in my supply cupboard that is marked "notebooks," full of other "to die for notebooks," that I loved to the point of not being able to use them because I loved them so much, I still want a series of these notebooks. I promise that I will actually use them. Seriously.
This afternoon my aunt, uncle and cousin met me for lunch. They picked me at work, and we drove one block to Trestle on Tenth, which has the most delightful back patio for eating lunch.(Bottino is no longer my go-out-for-a-nice-lunch spot after Kenny told me that the kitchen staff pees down the floor drain in the kitchen.) It was such a treat to get to see my family — they live in Michigan + New Orleans, so I don't see them all that often — and slip out for a two hour lunch on such a perfect spring day. We all shared a bowl of asparagus soup to start, which I think is a splendid to spend a meal with your family...slurping delicious soup from a common bowl.
Ok, I LOVE guacamole. But I rarely eat it because avacadoes make my stomach hurt. However, every so often, I choose to ignore this salient fact, because I love the idea of guacamole so much. First of all, it's green. Secondly, it has such a lovely texture. And at Maria's on Fourth Avenue and Union Street, they make the guacamole fresh right there for you. So last night, we went to Maria's because we had been wanting to check the place out and see if the guacamole was really all that fabulous. And yes, it was really good. (The food itself was just ok, but the guac was the show stealer.) So, I of course, I ate so much of the guacamole that I could not finish my dinner (which is not unusual, as I am NOT a member of the clean plate club by any means). I had a Negro Modelo, and the guac was flowing — good times all around.
However, at the end of dinner, I began to feel light headed and nauseated. During the ride home I was curled up in the passenger seat trying to not throw up on my new skirt. When I got home, I spent about 45 minutes curled in a bunny rabbit position on the cool marble bathroom floor, wishing I would just throw up already. I tried to stand up to shower, and just could not make it. And ended up brushing my teeth while laying on the floor, half naked, while Kenny rubbed my back. I crawled into bed at 10:30pm (for me, this is like going to bed while it's still light outside), without showering (!), and promptly fell asleep in a state of distended-stomach-cramping-yuckiness.
So, the next time you hear me even mention the idea of guacamole, tell me no. Slap that green loveliness on a chip out of my hands. But DO NOT under any circumstances let me eat the poisonous apple. Or avacado, in this case. It amazes me how something that brings me such delight and pleasure at the onset, can cause me such suffering once I past the point of no return. But I have to say: it was great while it lasted.
(note that this was posted past dated, since I felt like death last night.)
We spent the afternoon in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, looking at the pregnant cherry blossoms, wondering when they were going to burst forth. Sadly, they did not bloom during the two hours while we were there. But, even better, ALL of the turtles were loving the warm and sunny weather — sunning themselves on the rocks like they were on a beach in Bermuda. Every so often, one would haul itself out of the water and try to fit onto an already overcrowded rock. All of the turtles would move over, grudingly (like 2 mm) and the recently emerged turtle would have to perch precariously on on the edge until another turtle would give him a some more room.
This morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn (well, 6:30am), to watch Kenny compete in the Prospect Park Biathalon. As he looped around the park, he would call out my name and wave at me, and I would scream, "Hi Kenny!" It's funny how I could spot him even he when he was still so far away. But then I completely missed him as he rode in (the girl next to me was like, "Hey, isn't that your husband?") because two participants in front of Kenny almost got into fisticuffs over some stupid thing, like "hey, you rolled your bike on the back of my shoe." And of course, I was watching them avidly, like a soap opera, and missed the perfect picture of Kenny's transitioning from the bike part to the second run part.
I was so proud of Kenny — he finished 7-8 minutes better than last year!
This morning I woke up and remembered that my peas were in the upstairs stairwell, and had not been in the sun for an entire week — with the monsoon and all, I thought it was wise to bring them indoors so they did not wash away. And when I went upstairs, the peas has sprouted, despite having super minimal sun exposure in the stairwell. After I watered them, I swear I could see them grow even taller. It was so cool. I spoke to them in encouraging tones, hoping to elicit some faster growing time, to make up for the week in the stairwell. If sprouted plants could be cute, my pea shoots would win.
The rain has finally ended, thank goodness. And therefore, I had sunny skies for my entire commute to New Jersey this morning. In fact, I am not sure if it was the cloudless sky, or the fact that I got wise and listened to my iPod via one ear bud (our radio is not working in the car), that made my commute so absolutely pleasurable on the way to work. I was singing really loudly in the car, and since I had one head phone on and one off, I felt like I was in a recording studio. You know, like how they always show pictures of Madonna or whomever, recording something like "A Very Special Christmas," and she has one headphone hanging off, like a d.j.
A few weeks ago, I made a decision (sort of ) to no longer order San Pellegrino whenever we go out to eat. This is because the water is flown in from Italy, and it makes no sense to drink water that comes from a spring more than 4,000 miles away. Since I love the taste of San Pellegrino, and this is my pretend Champagne whenever we go out to dinner, I am a little sad about my self-imposed rule in order to be more environmentally friendly. So either I move to Italy, or I drink New York City tap water. Since I am not able to move to Italy right now, I bought some Fred water, today. Water from the Catskills in New York state, Fred water is bottled on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I think this means that some person in Red Hook opens their tap, and bottles the water straight from the faucet. And yes, to be more sustainable and support this idea of slocal living, I bought 600ml of water for $2. When I could have opened the tap in my own apartment in Prospect Heights (less than three miles from Fred's tap), and filled up my thermos, for free. And funny enough, Fred might be the only water with a MySpace page.
At the cafeteria today, I bought a package of JellyBellySport Beans™. Yes, sport beans. According to JellyBelly,
Sport Beans™ jelly beans are formulated with electrolytes, carbohydrates and vitamins B and C to sustain and replenish your energy during intense exercise. This revolutionary product maximizes performance and ensures ideal portion control, with four delicious flavors that will keep you going through the toughest workout. Tested and endorsed by elite endurance athletes, Sport Beans™ jelly beans are suitable for sports enthusiasts of all levels.
Wow. So I decided to break them out on the ride back to New York City (a day of almost back-to-back meetings counts as vigourous excercise) and I have to say, they are pretty good, sort of like Gatorade® flavored jelly beans. And the Sport Beans are bigger than the regular JellyBelly beans, imagine a giant green bean seed. And the packet I had must have been extremely fresh, as the beans were incredibley, well... succulent.
1 black long sleeve pima cotton tee + 1 black wool cap sleeve dress + 1 pair black merino tights + 1 black merino and fleece cardigan + 1 pair black Troentorp clogs = Business casual
I am not certain if this means it celebrates all of those cheesy people who wear goofy tee shirts, and say corny things. Or is it a day of recognition for that ubiquitous suburban hors d'ouerve — the cheeseball – made from port wine cheddar, that looks like rainbow sherbert, and rolled in toasted nuts? Or rather, is it instead, national acknowledgement of that food that dissolves magically when pressed forcefully up onto the roof of the mouth with the tongue — the puffed air ball of processed cheese dust that children of 80s associate fondly with after school snacking, while watching The Brady Bunch?
What I find interesting is that you can find Cheeseball Day e-greeting cards online, here. Apparently, some people actually take this holiday seriously, and send their loved ones cards in celebration of it. There is also a Lima Bean Respect Day (4/20), and National Jelly Bean Day (4/22), and let's not forget, Hot Dog Day (4/21). Apparently, April is the month of bizarre holidays, as listed here. WTF? I just saw this one — Rubber Eraser Day (4/15)?
This is both scary and funny at the same time. A lima bean being a ticket to fun?!
Note: Since I am working from home today, I took a small break to check out some of the blogs on my list of daily perusing, but which has since been relagated to after hours viewing, at like 1am. Which is why I am now drink a diet Coke every morning.
So, I saw this link to the Seattle Times' Peepapalooza on Cupcake's blog this afternoon, sent to her by a friend. Now, my dad lives in Seattle and he never shares this sort of interesting Seattle news with me. The above picture, Peep Elephant by Ken Hale, was my favorite entry. I like the graphic simplicity in his use of color and form. Plus, he did not go for anything that suggested that perhaps he took this a little to seriously, like Peepiary (a topiary hedge made from green Peeps® — scary), peepPod (an iPod made of Peeps® — layed out on someone's bed!) or the Leaning Tower of Peepsa (ok, this was cute).
Last night, I decided to clean my closet. And then I had the brilliant idea of taking my miniature cutting mat and using it as a folding board for all of my tee shirts. Specifically, all of my white, long sleeve tee shirts. I had no idea that I had so many long sleeve white tee shirts from J.Crew. It's like they were secretly procreating in my closet all this time. But now, check it out! A perfectly aligned and folded stack of tee shirts. I then had to go and fold everything in my closet using my cutting mat. This is why I never get anything on my real list of things to do, done. Because I am too busy in my closet, folding stuff. However, I keep going to look inside the closet, every so often, to check out my handiwork. I half expect to catch those annoying closet elves who throw everything all around. You know the ones I am talking about. They throw your stuff on the floor, and stack your clothes in a big messy heap of rejected outfits.
Eating Haribo Perl Eiers before Helen tried on her dresses.
The nice bathroom at Hotel Rivington
Today, I met Helen and Sheri so that we could look at two wedding dresses that Helen had picked out. First we ate lunch at the new Whole Foods on Houston Streen, and I went crazy with Indian salad bar — I love chana masala. Of course, I never eat Indian food for a very good reason. As Helen was about to put on the second dress, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I was going to be sick, rather imminently. Neither Sheri nor I had any Po Chai pills, which meant I had to either find a clean public bathroom or get home, immediately. I refused the offer to use the bathroom at the wedding dress salon, because it just seemed way too personal to use their bathroom. I needed a good anonymous bathroom, and Sheri suggested the lavatories at Hotel Rivington. Hello, great idea! She and Helen found me to a secluded little personal bathroom upstairs off the library lounge, and it had music piped in, and candle light and everything perfect for when you feel like might lose an organ via your intestines. When I was back to my usual self, I met them back downstairs for a beer, at the bar, where our bartender was wearing a negligee.
Today I had to go to New Jersey for a meeting in the afternoon, so my creative director and I went in his rental car, a white Dodge Charger. It's been almost 8 months, since I canceled my Sirius radio account, so I had forgotten how amazing channel 43 — BackSpin — is. It plays only old school hip hop, and seriously, I have never found a station that plays so many of my old school favorites. Monie Love. Queen Latifah. The Tribe. The list goes on and on. I sort of wished that we could just drive around, listening to the radio all day, instead of going to our meeting.
I miss our old house, the one from two houses ago — which was less than a year ago. We went from an incredibly charming (albeit, always freezing) duplex on Lafayette Avenue to a dark and freezing garden apartment that was less charming (but had great neighbors!), on Adelphi Street, to a charmless yet always warm, newly constructed condo.
When people mention that they are homesick, they usually mean it as a state of mind, like they miss a feeling of being in a familiar place. For some reason, I do not feel like I am uncomfortable where I am now, it's just that I am secrelty pining for our old apartment. I miss it. I want to go home. Because to me, that apartment is still home. I miss laying in bed and hearing the G train doors closing. And the absurb, drunken fights at the bus stop in front of our stoop, late at night. And I miss my geraniums in their dining room window boxes that the new owners promptly killed out of neglect and the fact that they installed child-bars on the windows and could no longer lean out the windows to water them. I miss having my own office, with is own window. And the squirrel who would visit me at the window while I was going to the bathroom. But mostly, I miss the light.
So whenever I am feeling homesick for the old apartment, I look at these pictures. And then I also make myself think about the rat that ate my cookies in the pantry and then jumped across my arm, and suddenly, I feel less homesick. It's quite miraculous, actually.
My huge shipment from German Deli arrived today and I am in awe of the array of Haribo products spread out across my kitchen counter. I am going to try to maintain some sort of restraint, and not eat everything all at once. I already have made arrangements to share the Perl-Eiers with Sheri while Helen models wedding dresses for us. And the Dinosauriers (Dinosours!) I plan to share with Dana while we watch some DVR'd episodes of the Addiction series. The Happy Colas, well, they are already gone. But if you want to join in the Haribo fest, let me know which packet you want to share. There is no way I can be allowed to eat all of this alone. Lara, I have you penciled in for the gummi bunnies.
My fabulous striped knee socks from J.Crew arrived this week. And today, I planned my entire outfit around them. Interestingly enough, when I checked the package, it said the socks were made in Korea. When I was in Korea, I actually bought two pairs of red striped knee socks from a street-side sock vendor, that are practically identical to the J.Crew ones (no contrasting heel colors, though), and they were about $11 less expensive. Now, I am wondering if some buyer from J.Crew also saw those street-side striped socks and thought, "Wow, those would be great for Spring '07!" and then had the manufacturer add the contrasting heel to make them more a J.Crew item and less a street-side sock purchase.
Since when does Google maps have the buildings drawn in 3-D?! Holy cow! If you zoom in closer, it renders the Starrett-Lehigh building in wireframe format. How cool is that? Of course, not all neighborhoods are created equal. In my new neighborhood of Prospect Heights, my apartment building does not have a 3-D model on the map — however all of Fort Greene and Park Slope are modeled in there. That is the difference between an "emerging" nabe and an established one: you get to be rendered 3-dimensionally on Google Maps. I'm jealous.
Today, after six days of limping along with severe email issues, my email was up and running! I exist! When I saw that all of my calendar events were magically back in on my calendar, I literally almost cried out of delight — while on the phone with the IT department. Seriously, my voice choked up. But having my email up and running — on a my Mac! — is the best thing that has happened all week. Thus far, at least. I feel so much more connected. And organized. I can look at my calendar and see all of my appointments and things that are due. And like a big nerd, I have already color-coded my contacts in my address book and arranged them by category.
Note: I think its a combination of me being overly prone to crying since I entered my 30s. It is like my emotional barometer is so finely tuned, that I cry at anything that requires even a flicker of emotion. I see a dad holding his kid and I tear up. I openly cry on the subway, on airplanes, while walking down the street, and even when reading in bed. Its so bad, that even telling a moving event (and I use the word "moving" loosely here) can prompt a quick welling of tears. Forget recounting the plots of my most favorite movies or books. Oddly enough, I only seem to cry at the most banal things. Those things that would make me seemingly the most sad — someone being angry at me, the death of my goldfish, losing my favorite wool hat from Agnés B....I take it all in stride.
Sometimes, I am a vapid baker. Those are the times when I have failed to realize that my non-stick pan is not really non-stick, thus causing me anguish and such extreme stress that I hated baking. At least for like 20 minutes, or so. But somtimes, I actually remember this pain, and actually use parchment paper to line my baking pans. I cannot for the life of me understand why I would not do this all of the time. But I don't. However, this time I did. And it made for such a delightful morning today, when I simply lifted the edges of the parchment paper out of the pan, and out popped a gigantic brownie with perfect edges.
For the first 18 years of Easter I was not so interested in the holiday itself, as much as I enjoyed the act of eating clandestine jelly beans during church, with the little plastic eggs my mom reused every year for our Easter baskets, stuffed into the pockets of my Easter outfit. After gorging on Easter candy, the congregation would sing my favorite song, a Shaker hymn, called Lord of the Dance. (of course, I am now checking online, and this is a Psalm Sunday hymn, but whatever. I love this song, and associate it with Easter, for some reason.) And then we would go home and eat a HoneyBaked Ham® and carrot casserole for Easter lunch. Easter was the only meal of the year, usually, that my mom would order a ham (although there were a few ham Christmases)...and I loved eating cold ham sandwiches for days, afterwards.
So, my first Easter away from home was when I was 19, and living in Ghana, West Africa. I went to church that morning with my friend Charles, and everything was a little off. There was obviously no Shaker hymn-singing. And certainly no sneaked in jelly beans. (Although, my mom did send me an Easter basket that arrived in May, with the jelly beans fused onto the green plastic grass, which I licked clean in a candy-fueled act of desperation.)
And of course, after church, there was no HoneyBaked Ham®. Instead, I bought some kenkey at a road side vendor, on my walk down the lane to my house. I came home and unwrapped the corn husks and placed the ball of cold corn dough in a bowl with some shito (hot pepper sauce), and a entire dried fish, head still attached, and then sat down to my forlorn little Easter luncheon, alone. I think that I later cried — so sad that I had no ham for Easter, and that my family was eating ham without me, and instead I was eating cold balls of fermented corn dough in 95ºF weather.
That corn ball Easter in Ghana broke me, being my first holiday away from my family. Since then, I have spent most of my holidays away, missing my mom's traditional Easter ham, and her Christmas Eve lasagna, and really pining for her amazing Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. But I now have new traditions, and have chosen to celebrate the holidays in other ways, and I have never had another Easter ham since that one year that I cried – perhaps I realized that I was growing up and creating new traditions that were different than the rest of my family. They still eat a HoneyBaked Ham every Easter in Cleveland — a ham which I have finally stopped dreaming about.
This year for our Easter dinner, Kenny and I ate tom yung, som tam and pad see ewe at Joya Thai in Brooklyn (the entire meal was under $24!). And maybe next year, I will make some kenkey and dried fish.
While I supposed to be working, I was taking a break. Which is something I have increasingly been needing to acknowledge: I am a procrastinator. (This was a freelance project, ok?)
Anyway, I thought I ought to take a little lunch break, and as I was eating some leftovers, I was reading the NY Times Art section online. I came across an article talking about the last season of the Sopranos, and how its time for it to end. Personally, I lost stamina somewhere in the middle of the second season. But, then again, I am not really a tv person. I mean, we do not even had a DVR or a TiVo. The Sopranos article had a secondary link to Virginia Heffernan's tv blog, where she featured this great synopsis made by Paul Guylias and Joe Sabia. It's a 7 minute video that summarizes the entire six seasons to date. This is perfect for non-tv watchers like me. I can now participate in all of those Soprano conversations at social gatherings, and not feel like the loser who A. does not have HBO, and B. fell asleep half way through season 2 on DVD.
It took Paul and Joe more than 100 hours to make this video, and its brilliant.
For some product packaging research, last night I went to Sephora. I came across Stella McCartney's Stella in Two fragance. Neatly thought up, it combines two elements — Peony in the eau de toilette and Amber in the solid perfume. I happened to buy the solid parfum, because the packaging was such that I was having issues putting it down. It is made from heavyweight metal with beveled edges, and a swivel top to reveal the perfume. It feels absolutely marvelous to hold in your hand and I could not stop touching it.
So today, it was sitting on the side of my desk, and I kept looking at it of the corner of my eye. Which meant I had to keep reaching over to touch it. And then I had to keep smelling it. Because the smell has grown on me and it has this intoxicating scent of yumminess, that I can only describe as tobacco meets flowers in a foreign country with high humidity. Even now, as I looked at the website, I was like, "oh my god, I can imagine the smell of the perfume — I am going nuts." But then I then remembered that I had actually rubbed some of the perfume onto my wrists, when I hoped that no one was watching me actually using the sample products, and I could still smell the scent lingering on my skin. So now I am finding myself sniffing my own wrists, unconsciously. Which means that tomorrow I have to go back to Sephora and buy myself my own Stella in Two metal pocket perfume — so that I can relieve my stress by rubbing the package like it's a worry rock; all the while smelling like some delicious seductress from an equatorial country.
Ohne Fett means unlubricated in German? Somehow, this seems so very wrong.
In my usual roundabout way, somehow I ended on a website that sells the entire assortment of Haribo gummi canides from Germany. My blood sugar is rising in anticipation of the amount of Haribo goods that are already piled in my shopping cart. Check it out! I am going beserk. Gummi bunnies? Jellybeans covered in those yummy little candy raspberry bumps?! Schneck Lecker (foam snails)? Coffee Gums? Sour Dinosaurs? Easter Mix? Forever Fun? Fruit flavored sour french fries? Süsse Maüse?
Oh dear. So when I start complaining about my awful stomach ache, please just tell me to shut up and pass the Happy-Colas.
Brooklyn: My mom, my Aunt Gladys and my Uncle Vic came to stay with us last weekend (it was so wonderful to see not only my mom, but also my aunt and uncle! We ate a lasagna together and hung out in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens), and randomly, my Aunt Sue, Uncle Gene and cousin David called because they were at Prospect Park, which is like 6 blocks from our apartment. So they came over too, and we took a family picture.
Duane Reade: I love this package, because what on earth is Hongo Killer?
Family dinner: Our neices happily eating vanilla gelatto with sprinkles.
Vancouver: We ordered room service on a rainy Saturday night,
Midtown: I adore this dish, which is beef with miso and onions cooked on a Houba leaf over a small grill on your table. Kenny completely surprised me one evening by taking me out for Japanese food at Aburiya Kinnosuke in midtown. 
