Kenny showed me Google's newest feature, this evening, called Google Street View. This feature is so freaking awesome, I cannot even begin to express my absolute love for it. And I already loved Google to begin with. You might think to yourself, can Google Maps possibly get any better? Yes, it can. You type in your address and click on the street view button. It give you a little man icon and when you click on him, it gives you a 360º view of the point you mapped, via photographs. You can move the man around to check out new spots. The photos look really great, not some pixelated, low-res kind of deal. Basically, I never have to leave the house again. I can type in a place where I want to visit, and I can sit on my couch, and visit it. Which maybe is not a great idea. But, let's say I want to check out what a restaurant/store/whatever that I never been to before and I want to see if there is street parking. Or if the store looks cute. Or if there is a bike rack. You know, important stuff.
Today, We received a letter from Kate Spade and one from The Modern. The Kate Spade note thanked me for stopping by last week and wished me best wishes in wearing my new summer dress. The Modern wanted to let us know that they enjoyed having us for dinner and hoped that we would come again, soon.
Today, I brought my lunch from home — lentils and rice, neatly packed into a spotted tupperware container and wrapped in a red checked dishtowel. As I was eating my lunch, I took some time to read an article in the NYTimes about a system of dabbawallas
The word comes from tiffin dabba, a colonial reference to a box containing a light meal, and walla, the man who carries. The precision and efficiency of the dabbawallas have been likened to the Internet, where packets identified by unique markers are ferried to their destination by means of a complex network.
in India, who deliver handcooked meals from grandma to grandson, wife to husband, mother to son, every day. The service is at once simple and complex. A network of wallas picks up the boxes from customers’ homes or from people who cook lunches to order, then delivers the meals to a local railway station. The boxes are hand-sorted for delivery to different stations in central Mumbai, and then re-sorted and carried to their destinations. After lunch, the service reverses, and the empty boxes are delivered back home.
"There is a service called FedEx that is similar to ours — but they don’t deliver lunch,” said one dabbawalla, Dhondu Kondaji Chowdhury.
Suddenly, my home made lunch pales in comparison. First of all, I made it myself, yesterday. Second of all, I made a giant batch of it, so unfortunately, I will be eating lentils and rice for lunch for the entire week. Which makes me think how much I would love to have a dabbawalla. It is such a lovely idea to have your lunch made by your loved ones and then hand-delivered to you at work, everysingle day. I am not sure who would make my lunch for me, though? If this was to ever happen in New York, we would have to find a bunch of lonely grandmas who miss their kids and who would want to make home cooked lunches for some surrogate "kids." Perhaps we could tell them that we love meat loaf and egg salad sandwiches (not in one sandwich) and then they could take it from there.
This evening we invited Romulo and Liza over for Sunday night dinner, which we used to have way more often, and which we need to start doing again. Dinner was meat. But dessert was the sweetest, juiciest pineapple, I have tasted outside of Ghana. Kenny brought it home from Fairway, randomly one day, and we carved it up after dinner. It was the first time I have ever cut apart a pineapple, by myself.
Kenny downloaded a program from Benjamin Moore that allowed him to virtually paint our kitchen white, so we could see what it would look like. Since we could not get up the energy to acutally paint it ourselves this weekend. Now I am on the fence. And it is making me hate the color of our floors, now, as well. Is this kitchen even uglier than the cheery cherry? So please let me know your opinions, keeping in mind that I want it to look glossy, white and appear to disappear from the living area. To paint it, it is probably going to cost $1000. Should we pay the extra few grand and just put in an Ikea kitchen? I still think I want wood, but shiny and glossy. Melamine chips and can look dingy. Or perhaps we stain the cupboards dark, like a wenge color? I hate all of these choices.
After seeing Yael and Aaron yesterday, I went back and looked at Aaron's website again this morning, as I ate Swedish Fish for breakfast. I particularly love his People + Places imagery — the light quality is so cinematic, in a Christopher Doyle,
the image conveys the emotion or the light conveys the mood or the composition conveys the integrity
In the Mood for Love kind of way. And its like each picture has such a story to tell.
I met up with Kristy this afternoon, who is in town from Sydney for a few weeks. We spent the afternoon walking around SoHO, where we got gelato from Ciao Bella — I had the maple gingersnap cookie (OMG, way better than Malted Milk Ball. It is my new favorite flavor!). We bumped into Aaron and Yael while we sat in front, eating our ice creams: And then we walked with them towards Chrystie and Grand, where Kristy and I caught the D train to Brooklyn. We then spent the time hanging out in our apartment, chatting. Going to Williamsburg to walk a cute pug named Stewart. Eating sushi at Toro Sushi in Dean Street. And seeing Waitress at BAM. It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday of a holiday weekend. But the best part, after seeing Kristy, (but I already made her Person of the Day, back here) was that she brought me such amazing things from Sydney. Snack sizes of Cherry Ripes and Violet Crumbles! and Moxie tampons! Moxie has to have one of the nicest looking tampon packages that I have ever seen (we will ignore the over-packaging aspect in terms of evironmental impact, just this once)!
This is the defacto junk drawer. Before, it never closed with out something getting jammed.
See these cupboards? Today, we amost painted these cupboards glossy white. Ourselves. You might ask yourself, "why?" Umm, because we are crazy. Not crazy to paint perfectly nice, but boring, cupboards white — that is a given if you know me. Because if you know me at all, you would know that I like that don't stick out, unless I want them too. And those cheery cherry wood cupboards stick out like a sore thumb. They don't match our oak flooring. And they don't match our red dining table. Instead, they practically sing out, "Hey LOOK at me!" It's not their fault. Cherry cabinets look really nice in places other than my house; say, the Prinsky's amazing kitchen, for instance. We would be crazy to paint the cupboards ourselves because it's a way to much freaking work to do for two DIY-challenged people. Over a really lovely Memorial day weekend, when we could be napping on the couch. And eating candy.
So after taking all of the hardware off the doors, and taking all the stuff out of the drawers, and taking the cupboard doors off and cleaning them...I called out "Stop!" I sat on the couch surveying the scene, and knew that we were in over our heads. I was completely exhausted just looking at all the work we had to do. So Kenny put all the hardware back on the doors, and reattached all of the doors, and I put all the stuff back in the drawers and stuck them back ont heir tracks. And in the process, I managed to clean out the drawers and rearrange them in a better way, which sort of made it all worth it. Plus, now are cupboard doors are clean! — although they were not dirty before.
And we are going to call a painter to come in and paint.
I came home from work today and saw these two tiny little granny smith apples sitting on the counter. They were like baby apples, basically. Kenny saw them at Union Market and bought them for me, knowing my love for small, green things. Or all green things, really. They are almost too cute to eat. Almost.
1. Taking a new route to the BQE, involving going down Bergen Street instead of Atlantic Avenue. However, then it hits Court Street and turns into Warren Street, which is one way in the wrong direction.
2. Arriving at work and seeing a pile of snacks for me from my project manager! Stacy's Cinnamon Sugar Pita Chips and some Watermelon Buds — which are a cross between watermelon Jolly Ranchers and jelly fruits.
3. Receiving copy from a design team I am working with, and the copy was absolutely fabulous. (I am so dying to share it, but I think I will keep it a surprise and make you all go out and check out the K-Y® at your local drug store.) I have worked with this copy writer before at my previous job, so it was quite small-world-like when thedesign firm hired Walter. They were like, "We hired this writer, Walter..." and I was like, "Oh my god! I've worked with Walter!" There is only one smashingly good copywriter in NYC, and his name is Walter.
4. Finding a jumbo jar of Band-Aids® in the conference room where I had a meeting. The jar is from India (the conference room was in the global part of the building, and there were all sorts of other global Band-Aid® products in the room) and contains 100 Band-Aids®!! I brought one home with me, despite the DO NOT TAKE SAMPLES sign. Since we are the Consumer Health Care GBU (General Business Unit), I thought we ought to have a jar of bandages in the office, in case someone cuts off their finger or something. I so wish we had the jar of bandages here in the USA. It is so much better than the flimsy cardbaord boxes that everyone has switched over to, in an effort to cut costs and be more sustainable.
This one makes me want to stick a pencil in there.
These pillows looks extremely soft and cozy. Like slippers for your sofa.
I would call this pillow: "Fresh pappardelle sewn to a black pillow."
I went to the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) on Tuesday, hoping to become inspired. Unfortunately, I arrived 45 mintues before closing time, the last day of the show. The upside was that the woman working the registration desk let me in for free, since otherwise it would have cost me about $1 a minute. As I speed browsed, I kept looking for that one thing that was going to make me stop and rethink my entire life plan. As in, wow, I need to be making X, instead of doing Y. But that design ephiphany never struck, sadly. Not that there was not a bunch of nice stuff there, because there was. I now know that I want an Alno kitchen with a special drawer to hold my dog's food bowl (the MyWay Pet Center). Whenever we get a dog.
And that I also definitely want some felt wall panels by Anne Kyyrö Quinn, to hang on the wall in our bedroom. These were my favorite thing at the whole fair. They are made from 100% sustainable wool felt, fully biodegrable and recyclable, and most importantly — they would block the unmistakable sound of my neighboor eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal at midnight while watching the basketball finals with his friends.
I came home from work this evening and Kenny showed me a letter from Allison, our niece. I opened it up and it was a thank you note drawing for Mother's Day Brunch, or Buunch, rather. Our niece is only in kindergarten, yet check out the way she made the word "pancakes" wrap around the drawing of the pancakes! And if you click on the image to zoom in closer, you will see that she even draw in the butter (blue) and the bacon (green). However, our favorite illustration is of the froot. It is like one giant slice of pineapple. For those of you who are picky, yes, Allison did spell my name slightly wrong, with a transposing of the vowels — Amiee instead of Aimee. First of all, I have had relatives spell my name as Amy, so at least she got all of the vowels right. And secondly, if you look closer, you can see that she spelled my name right, but ran out of room for Kenny's name, and had to erase it and start all over.
I immediately ransacked the supply cupboard looking for a picture frame. Because a picture this lovely needs to be immortalized in a black wood Pottery Barn picture frame. I propped it against our newly re-grouted kitchen tiles and gazing at it, thought (perhaps insanely?), "Wow, maybe I should have another family brunch, soon."
Those of you might remember back in February, when my mom and I tiled our kitchen backsplash. I am not sure if I ever posted the follow up was that when the grout dried, it dried back looking like the body of a dead and crusty star fish. This so dejected me, that I pretended to ignore it. Never mind that the bucket of grout is still standing in the kitchen with its little yellow and cheerful grout sponges expectantly waiting. I also never pushed the stove back against the wall, because the job was not fully done. Now, three months later, and having adjusted my trajectory from the sink to the fridge to take into account the stove jutting out, I decided that we needed to re-grout. Once and for all. So Kenny and I got down to business with the Q-tips and filled in all of the grout lines on 1/3 of the backsplash, as a test to see if it would work a second time.
My co-worker just sent me this link. I am not usually into such kawai stories, but check it out — the penguin is wearing a penguin backpack! I have lately been lusting after the idea of having a pet turtle. I might be having maternal instincts since almost every person I know is pregnant. Or it might be because it is illegal turtle season in Chinatown, you know, where you see all of the tourists carrying around little baby turtles in those plastic containers with pink trimming. I had an idea that we could get a baby turtle and keep him in our jacuzzi tub. Since our cleaning person broke off the knob that controls whether or not water stays in the tub, I don't imagine us bathing in there anytime soon. Which would make it a perfect turtle habitat. But having a penguin as a pet would be even nicer. We could give him the bedroom with the tv set.
Last night before I went to bed, I had the sudden realization that a hedgehog on wheels was not enough of a baby shower gift despite how cute it is. So I unraveled the half of a baby sweater that I started knitting two years ago, before any friends were pregnant, in anticipation of someone getting pregnant. I never finished the sweater and basically pilfered it to make it into a hat, super quick. This morning before I even got out of bed, I began knitting. And I finished it in the record time of two hours and some change. That is the cool thing about knitting: you can take apart a sweater, and in two hours have a hat. And if you didn't like the hat, you can unravel it and knit some socks.
Tonight was my tenth year Carnegie Mellon University Design Department reunion. It sounds so formal, but really, the celebration part was Christina, Dana and I having dinner — celebrating the fact that we have been friends as a trio for ten years. Because, believe it or not, we were not actually friends in college. (Well, Chris + Dane were. And Dane and I knew that we would be friends, it just was not the right time.) And now, they are my people. Its amazing how that happens. So much has happened in the last ten years, and its like it was yesterday that we were graduating, and its also like it was a decade ago. Which, I guess, it was.
After dinner at Bread, (where we talked about boys), we moved to Vig bar (where we hung around talking about important things like underwear), and where more members of our design class showed up. And some of our architectural counterparts (Hello, Joe Calabrese and Evan!).
My friend Elizabeth I have known each other since like the second day of college — remember that freshman orientation cruise?! It was great to see everyone (Judy, Alyssa, Jeany, Lily, Christina from Switzerland! And of course, Josh!).
Tonight, we went to Sheri and Marc's MSLK studio party, in celebration of the fact that not only is their new studio open and looking fabulous, most importantly it was celebrating that A. they survived the ordeal of the construction (I LOVE the bathroom!) and B. that they are so freaking successful and awesome. It is such an amazing feeling to see your friends doing so well. I felt so proud — of them, and all of their accomplishments that got them to this point, and frankly, I felt proud that these two super talented, super special people are my friends.
Everyone needs a Sheri + Marc in their lives, I say. To keep you inspired — reminding you of the fact that indeed, life is one big project, and therefore to remind you that there could always be more drama.
Thankfully, I have my Sheri + Marc. Do you have yours?
Today, my last meeting ended at 4pm, and the goal was for me to then get into our car and drive to New York, in order to make my yoga class with the least amount of stress. Surely, 3 hours is enough time to drive 59 miles, right? I anticipated this perhaps being a close call, by ingeniously wearing my yoga clothes to work, creatively layering a skirt on top of my yoga pants, and a striped tee shirt over my tank top. The green clogs were added, as a diversionary tactic. But whatever reason, I did not get out of the office until 4:45pm. And then I knew I was in trouble. Nothing could calm my fidgetiness, and I was stressing out the entire ride to Manhattan, obsessively checking the clock, EVERY minute. Traffic was not awful, not great, and I made it to the Holland Tunnel at 6:18pm. Where I then proceeded to sit amongst stupid cars for another half an hour. I fumed. I ranted. I even considered getting out of my car and walking through the tunnel. I was strapped into my seat, but every nerve ending on my body was twitching, jumping, and I had to turn the radio off because the music was causing my even more anxiety.
As I sat there, all twitchy, ranting, and basically melting down into a puddle of Aimee-stress, I was thinking that perhaps I need to learn how to meditate. Because obviously, yoga is not relieveing my stress, it is causing me more stress. Not being able to meditate (Hello, how on earth can I concentrate on making every organ in my body happy when I might be late for my yoga class?! — I know. I have issues.) So I called Kenny instead of meditating, and asked if there were any parking spots that he could see — he was waiting in front of the yoga institute. He was like, yeah, there are lots of spots. I was like, ok, stand in one until I get there. He balked a bit, but when I drove down 22nd Street at 6:58pm, he was standing in a spot for me. And although we missed the beginning Oms, we made it in time for class.
Tonight was the first time in my ENTIRE life that I have been able to get my hands to touch one another in Gomukhasana (cow-faced pose) — the pose where you shove one arm up your back and the other arm behind your neck and try to clasp your hands behind your back. While there are many poses that I want to try attain at some point in my life, my goal this year is to achieve a hand clasp in Gomukhasana. Sounds attainable, right? Sigh. But since my shoulders are the barometric indicator of the level of stress in my life, and I swear that I must store drama (and all of my issues, and flaws, and stress and other junk) in my trapezius muscles, even getting my hands straight above my head can prove to be a challenge. I try not to let those bendy people in clas get me discouraged, but I really really want to be able to get my hands to touch. They WANT to touch, ok?
So tonight, our teacher had us do the pose against the rope wall. We grabbed ahold of the cutout in the wall, in the same manner as you would shove your arm up your back. Then we bent our knees into Utkatasana (chair pose) and as our backs moved down into the pose, the hand behind our back (at the wall) naturally went further UP our back. She had us stand and move away from the wall, and reach the other arm back behind and I felt the fingertips of the hand that was behind my back! Yeah, I know, it was no hand clasp. But I felt the other hand, it was there! Every other class (ever!), I have stood there in this pose with my hands blindly struggling behind my back, reaching for one another. But since I cannot see them, I have no idea how close or far apart they are from one another, and that gap between them is like some giant ocean. But this time, I touched. And although it might be awhile before my hands touch again, I know that I can do it.
After a particularly long phone call about something work related, I was seized with the sudden need for lemon sorbet. Upon entering the staff kitchen for the aforementioned sorbet, I noticed that someone I work with had left a note to everyone in the office, on the paper towel liner of a snack basket. Oddly enough, this note was positioned right next to a basket of gigantic cupcakes that were open for the taking. Obviously, this poor snacker must have missed the window of opportunity. I feel like we have all been there at one point in our lives. You know, when we rush to the kitchen for the free cake, cookies, give-away, whatever, and all that is left is crumbs.
Today I had lunch with Sarah at Song Kran, our old lunch spot. I have not seen her since March (how can it be that long already?!) and it was soooo nice to see her. I rode my (her) bike to work today, so I was able to easily zip on over for lunch to 8th Avenue and back, within an hour's time.
I still find it hard to believe that I used to see Sarah EVERY day, and then we went for so long without seeing one another. I wonder how that happens? I think it's the same reason why I have not regrouted my kitchen tiles yet, or organized that mammoth stack of magazines that I have now moved to two different apartments, or why I owe Joni like 15 postcards. I need more hours in my day. I am putting in a request for a 30 hour day. Ok? Those extra five hours would be solely spent on friend things: writing letters to friends, hanging out with friends, visiting friends in foreign countries like Israel, etc....
For some reason, today's NetFlix choice was oddly apt:
We made breakfast for our family this morning, and it literally wiped me out for the remainder of the day. Somehow, I would like to think that I am a pretty good cook. And yet, whenever my Eng family comes over (all three times), I have managed to screw up whatever I planned on serving. This morning, I made eggs. I make eggs all the time, and have perfected this really lovely way of making an open face omelette, so that the eggs puff up, sort of like a cross between an omelette and tamago. Whatever it is, this morning, I burned the eggs. And then they turned gray. And holy cow! Just now I realized that the hash browns I made at 9:45am are still sitting in the oven!, where I placed them to stay warm while I finished the distastrous eggs. Merde! So we never even ate the hasbrowns, and they might have been the best part of the entire breakfast. Which is why next Mother's Day, we are going OUT for brunch. Because you know why? Brunch in a restaurant was invented specifically for Mother's Day. Or at least, that is my theory. Because you are not supposed to cook for your mother. Or your mother-in-law. This causes too much stress and I think it could be the cause of all stress-related deaths in the kitchen.
So, again, I digress. After dinner, we decided to watch my NetFlix film: Delicatessen. I have no recollection of putting this on my NetFlix que. I am assuming that maybe someone recommended it to me? I have no idea. Anyway, the movie is takes place in an apartment building with a butcher shop in the ground floor. Set in some futuristic, yet past time frame in a very hungry Paris, the butcher every so often hires a new handyman, and then kills him after he fixes some stuff, so the tenants in the apartment building (all a quirky set of characters) all can eat him. It was the most bizarre, yet engrossing, film I have seen in a long time. Filmed in the same amazingly super saturated colors the way that Amelie was (all reds, greens and yellows), the movie was lovely, funny, gross, and weird, all at the same time.
Which is a good way to sum up my brunch this morning.
These glasses look a lot nicer on me, in real life. I hope. This picture is not so flattering.
Today, Sheri and I spent the afternoon shopping — she was on the quest for a pair of two toned eyeglasses frames (brown and pink). I was just along for the ride, although sadly I never am able to just browse. In Selima Optique, I spied this extremely hot pair of frames, sort of similar to the "don't mess with me" glasses that I already own. (Also from Selima.) I was so digging the green accent on these frames that I did not want to take them off. Ever again. This is depsite not being able to see anything while wearing them, since they did not have real lenses in them. So in lay-away fashion, I put down a $50 deposit, which brought the price into a range that no longer seemed as stratopheric. And now they are almost mine! At least, they are in a little box, with my name on it, and no one else can buy that particular pair.
