I Spy . . .

Where am I?

Chicken + Hotel = Sexy

Images from sites linked in articles--of course.

This is what happens when you read this article about chicken skin from the New York Times and this article from Refinery 29 about the new downtown hotel that they claim to be world's sexiest new hotel.

The new blog design is also what happens when someone sends you a link about this new design thing, and you realize that maybe an updated blog look might be a nice pick-me-up.

Day 36

Had a nice lunch at Bill's Burger in Rock Center with Dani. Heard some scary stories. Had a Bill's Burger and disco fries. We went all out. Dani came up to my office, and I got her some free books. FREE!!

Jon just switched the window on my gmail--where I type this up--to stare at another screen. We exchanged a look. He realized how ridiculous what he did was since I can't actually type without seeing what I'm typing as I type. Maybe one day I'll be able to type something while he stares off into space/another window that I'm NOT typing in. 

Anyway, Doris and Matt also came up to visit. I gave them the grand tour of where I interned a long time ago and my office. They met Giuseppe and Christine. I gave them some books, then we went to the ninth and twelfth floors to get some more free books. FREEEEE!!!

We went to ABC Kitchen for dinner with Joy, Eva, Andy, and Wendy. We ate the scallops, beets, carrots/avocado, and chicken liver. I like how they call it liver and not pate. I ate the pork; Jon had the halibut. We also ate a delicious strawberry (baby strawberries that were still summery sweet) and poppy-seed ice cream. Mmm. Ice cream. I ate some (a lot) of Joy's mint chocolate chip. It was a really nice dinner, and I think a good time was had by all. I'm going to miss Doris and Matt.

Mital is having another baby! BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 35

They're slowly and noisily hoisting up the rest of the building's windows daily.

Day 34

So I've been asked what exactly I'm counting the days for, and I guess the simple answer is the number of days I've blogged while living in NYC.

Mole!
 

Day 33

Work was thankfully slow today. I actually had a fun time on Google+ playing Angry Birds during lunch. I got up to level 1-20 and got to brag a few times to my brother and Sam when I beat their scores. I wanted to play CityVille, but I kept getting an error #5 or something like that. I beat two games of Flood It too. By the way, you can't play Google games on a tablet yet as far as I can tell.

After work I went to get our mailbox key made. $2.50! Pricey!

Then I passed by Casellula where I saw Charleen and Ian. It was really nice running into them! Jon and I had dinner at Danji: tofu, sliders, tartar, fried chicken, and sablefish. Mmm. . . .

The Hour!

Day 32

"Information overload" my ass. Or "too much to read, so just tell me" my ass. In an age with the Internet, these have been some of the lazy man's answers to the mere ten wedding advice blogs that I've written (out of nearly 700 blog posts I've written in total). It's like you might as well plan your wedding based on an about.com or aol advice column with ten easy steps. Oh, I'm sorry, it seems like ten of anything is too long. Here's a tip, criticizing someone's wedding advice is just as shitty as criticizing someone's wedding. At least be gracious that someone cares enough for you not to follow all the cookie-cutter shit out there. And, in case, if I was ungracious to anyone reading this while planning my wedding, I'm sorry. Now I get it. (Phew, good to get that out of my head. I hate thinking about this, letting it build up inside.)

Anyway, yesterday, I went to Sullivan Street Bakery and ordered one of each slice of the pizzas there and some savory bread thing. Slices included: tomato, cauliflower, zucchini, mushroom, and potato/onion. The savory bread thing was a brioche dough with prosciutto and cheese. It was delicious. I stopped here on my way to pick up a famous sour-cream apple-walnut pie from Little Pie Company for Margaret's potluck dinner. PIE! Jon had woken up at 6 or something early to make a no-knead brioche dough and peel some tomatoes. That afternoon, he added bacon and honey to the brioche dough and formed them kind of like Cinnabons for a savory bread, and with the tomatoes he created a composed salad: peeled cherry tomatoes infused with smoked salt, scallops, pickled onions soaked in balsamic vinegar, mint sauce, StellaDoro crumbs and some goat cheese Joy bought at a fancy shopping area in Park Slope where Jake Gyllenhaal hangs out with his niece. Both dishes were really tasty! I think the bread will definitely go over well at Thanksgiving, though maybe a shortcut may be to add the bacon and honey mixture to a Pillsbury crescent roll dough. Eh, the brioche dough worked nicely. It made for a really great bread for an egg sandwich this morning.

So Joy came over, and then Doris and Matt came with Hawaiian treats. Then we all drove down to Somerset, which is like in the middle of New Jersey. (It's about an hour away from our apartment.) At the potluck in addition to the items that Jon made, Joy made Brussels sprouts with pancetta, and brought the goat cheese above, and some delicious olives. Margaret and Gavin have a great, sprawling two-story home and a big, like a hundred-pound big, puppy, Calisto. (She's only one and a half years old.) They made some delicious freshly ground (with her Kitchen-Aid attachment) lamb burgers with vadouvan. (This vadouvan thing is new to me as far as I'm aware, but it was really good!) They were perfectly grilled too. They also made chicken, curried potato salad, creamed corn, roasted peppers, and sauce to go on the lamb burger. So good! For dessert, we had the above pie, and Eva made a lemony cake. We were stuffed and basically had to roll ourselves back to the car. 

It was a night of firsts: Matt's never been into a basement, Doris's never been into an attic, and I don't think I've ever been on the Verrazano Bridge, but that might be untrue since we somehow got from Long Island to Staten Island for Thanksgiving once--though I'm not sure of which route we might've taken.

Today we didn't do much at all, which was really nice. This past week was kind of busy. The last of the boxes are out of the apartment. We don't have to worry about it collapsing and knocking one of us into a coma. 

Caramacs! Sputs! Chili Peppah! Mochi pop! Pop! Pop!

 

Day 31

It's the first day of fall. I really wish I shared everyone's sentiments for loving fall and all, but I don't. The days get shorter and colder and friends go into hibernation mode. The only hour of sunlight is the one going to the office (bleh) and maybe lunch, if you do that sort of thing, outside the office, in the cold. Though fall doesn't entirely suck: I don't mind changing our clocks back. Maybe I used to like fall, but I think I look forward to the summer more nowadays. Summer hours at work, long sunlit days, and everyone just feeling happy because it's summer--now that's good stuff. (Fine, I'll concede that summer is hot, but most of us work in air-conditioned buildings, so it's not like we're farming or working in sweat shops like our forebears.)

So it's been raining so much, and Gilt was selling Hunter rain boots for $75, so I bought a pair. They're taller and lighter/more flexible than my old JCrew pair. I also have a pair from Target, but I don't love the way they feel. Anyone want a pair of size 7 rain boots?

Happily, I got to wear my rain boots tonight when we went to Mitsuwa for dinner with Chris. It was the second day of the Hokkaido Festival at Mitsuwa. We got regular and spicy miso ramen from the special ramen chef that they flew in from Japan. Unfortunately, I don't think it was the greatest ramen. (The ramen at the festival over the summer was so good. The flavor layers were so deep.) If you have to choose one ramen from this festival though, I'd recommend the spicy miso.

I saw Evita, who I went to dance school with in grammar school and part of high school and went to high school and college with, and met her husband. They were there to get the special ramen too. It was really nice seeing her. 

We also ate the giant shrimp shumai and giant squid shumai. (They were tasty and so deliciously crisp and oily--I preferred the shrimp though the squid tasted very similar.) We shared a curry pan (yum pan!) and a baked creamy scallop pan (mmm pan!). We also had some snow-crab sushi. I think there are still a few other treats to eat, but I was stuffed. Unfortunately, the people with the Hokkaido milk-flavored and pear-flavored soft-serve ice creams were not there this year. 

We hung out with Chris and Zara until my mom got home from work. Then we headed to NYC with our car. On the right side of our street you can park on the weekends (on the left, it's just Sundays). We found a spot, and Jon successfully parallel parked. (Parallel parking is hard! So props.) He's figuring out how to make a no-knead bread.

Doris and Matt are visiting tomorrow! DorMatt! Moris!

Day 30

It's my yee-mah and Matt's birthday! Woo-hoo!

Went home to NB tonight. Chatted with my dad. Ate delicious pork loin with mushrooms and onions and rice that Wee made. Chris kept Zara in his shirt like an alien pregnancy. She slept. Otterpop dessert. Saw NBC premieres. My mom came home. I tried on the JCrew boots. They looked weird. The shirt and dress are cute. Now to wait for the dress to go on sale. Packed leftovers for Jon. Said bye to my dad. I love when I startle him (he sleeps at 9:30) and I say, "Bye, DADDY!" And he realizes that I'm not one of my sister's runaway cats pouncing on him and says, "Bye, Baby." It's not the good-bye that I love, but being called baby. It makes me feel loved by my daddy. Baby!  

Day 29

This morning on my way to work a bum kind of assaulted me and then kind of stalked me. But, because I wear flat shoes, I was able to jaywalk quickly and lose him without being run over. Is "Hey, watch your back" the new way to say "Excuse me"?

On my way home, I saw a black car/SUV caravan: there were suits in the cars/SUVs and the license plates were from NY, DC, and Ontario. Ontario?

We got part of our security deposit back from our landlady. Fuckin' bitch charged us for the mold. I mean, we had to live with it. We probably shouldn't even bothered trying to clean it. What a bitch. But lesson learned--no more renting condos from someone whose defense is, "No speak English," whenever she doesn't want to listen to reason. Like dealing with Ms. Swan. 

Tonight I had dinner with Pam and Jon at ChaPa's again. It was raining so there was no guy-watching to be had, but there were rice noodles. Flat, and kind of messy, but tasty rice noodles. The black rice pudding with bits of coconut was a really nice dessert.

This is a pic from the boat when we passed by the cone end of Governor's Island where there's supposedly hammocks. Pam and I will get to see the hammocks together next summer hopefully. Hammocks!

Day 28

The books are out of the box! And I got a housewarming plant! I'm calling the little flowering plant Nat, since Nat gave it to me. I hope for the sake of Nat, it doesn't die. It's too cute to die!

Nat, Dani, Sarm, and Hetal came over for dinner, to see the new place, and to celebrate Nat's birthday. (We're both going to stay twenty-five for as long as possible. Maybe when we're forty, we can say that we're twenty-nine. Oh, Asian genes don't fail me!) While I didn't have forty-eight hours to braise a lamb to prepare a weekday meal, I cobbled together something that everyone cleared their plates of. Unfortunately, I messed up the freshdirect order, so there wasn't enough of the ravioli I decided I wanted to make. Luckily, I'm a dry pasta hoarder, and I made some capellini instead of the ravioli. Not as interesting, but filling and handy.

For dessert we had cupcakes from Crumbs: red velvet, chocolate blackout, and a berry crumble. Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!

Among the things we discussed were Jersey Shore (dancing out of underwear?), Zooey Deschanel, the failure of the NBHS ten-year reunion, prom-date Chopra, and the guy who spearheaded Modernist Cuisine, which we happened to still have in a box. Our last official box. But tonight, we unveiled it. And despite being so stuffed that I had to unbutton the top of my jeans as soon as my guests left, I was salivating when I came upon the photos of the Onion Stock (which seemed like one thing that might be doable without a centrifuge) from Book 5. Happily, he suggests one can use store-bought items like puff pastry and stuff like that. I just saw a photo of his Poke. Mmmmm! I wonder how much of this stuff could actually be made in our kitchen, and how much might be too fantastic. 

Oh, the guy who spearheaded Modernist Cuisine and being fascinated by penguin poop speeds, and $250,000/week yachts, and graduating college before adulthood. Cankles.

Day 27

This was one of the shirts that I inherited somewhere (I think from my uncle) and wore with a tiny, black microskirt in seventh grade. The shirt looked kind of cool, but it was not very comfortable. I guess it's because it was manskin. 

I went to Lincoln Center after work today. I've not been there in awhile. Not since I walked out of the ballet that second time. The fountain show is really nice, and the park they finished in front of the theater playing "War Horse" is really cool. It's elegantly designed, and there seems enough seating for everyone who wants a seat. At least that's how it was when I was sitting around there tonight.

We went to ChaPa's up the block for dinner. (I'd stopped by Whole Foods for a second before I realized how bad an idea it was--there were still so many people.) ChaPa's was good. I'm not sure why there are  bad reviews about how crappy the pho broth is, etc. I think those people just ordered the wrong thing. I'd go back. As usual, Danji and Totto Ramen were packed to the gills. I've never not seen a line to Totto Ramen. Is it just really small or is it really that good?

My mom's cousin's daughter (so my third cousin) is getting married next month. Usually that side of my family just has a reception (one reception even had karaoke porn!), but she's having a church wedding (I had no idea that she was Christian--or that her fiance was) and a reception in a different borough. Brooklyn/Staten Island or vice versa. My dad's cousin's son (also a third cousin) got married last month, and his wedding is going to be on this terrible, terrible show on TLC called Four Weddings. (I wasn't invited, but I'm sort of glad I wasn't. It was a crappy Saturday, and we were packing anyway.)

On Twitter one of the things I followed was making a big deal about it being talk-like-a-pirate day. Arrgh!

Today is Nat's birthday! Nat!!

Lincoln Center

I had no clue this was here. Really nice!

Day 26

Finished keyboarding a really great book called In Honor. It's about a girl whose brother, who was a marine, was killed, and she goes on a road trip with his best friend to grieve. I also keyboarded the author's first book awhile back. Her stories and characters and settings are just so good.

Stupid taco. Stupid. It's like dealing with a pigeon or seagull sometimes here.

We listened to about half an hour of covers of "Sunny" today. It was pretty awesome. Sunny!

Day 25

Just got back from dinner at Romera. It was a fun/interesting experience. Will write it up in more detail at another time. Some highlights though: the owner of the Dream hotel (where the restaurant is; and omg, he was in Zoolander!) stopped by to welcome his parents and their relatives/friends, who were sitting right behind Jon. It was one of the relative/friend's birthdays, and the whole waitstaff/kitchen (except the chef it seemed) came out to sing "Happy Birthday." Guests seemed to have a good time. The food was cool, but stacked against other comparable cuisines, we've had better, so in the coming weeks, google searches will probably have lots of reviews by "foodie" types that bitch about not being allowed to take photos, the cuisine, the decor, the service, and the price. I mean, maybe it'll get better. It was only their Day 2. I don't know if I'd recommend going though. I think one should try Per Se or Le Bernardin or something like that first, since those are all kind of in the same price range. (Though the studiokitchen meals we've had have been phenomenal as far as this kind of progressive cuisine goes.) I'm happy we didn't have to fly out to Barcelona--just flew in a cab down to 16th street and back. (Btw, I've never been by the Meatpacking District so late at night and seen the CROWDS--ENORMOUS CROWDS--of club kids. It's so sad. Masses of people paying money to pay more money to drink and dance and feel like shit the next day. How illogical is that? I can do that at home. I'm doing it right now. Un-seh, un-seh, un-seh ::club beat::)

This morning I had brunch with Tina and Cristina at Jo's in Soho. It was fun and cheap. We used my Google coupon that I bought the other day. Then we went to Bloomingdales, where I got a free bag of kettle corn popcorn for looking at jeans. Yay! (They were giving out water bottles too, but I didn't want to lug it around.) Then on our way to the subway, Sabra was giving out small samples of hummus and Stacy's pita chips. Score! Tina and I walked through Macy's in Herald Square and the Banana Republic. When I came home, I bought some stuff from JCrew online because I had a gift card that expired this past Thursday, but it still worked. Double score! I bought a T-shirt that ties up in back, a dress, and a pair of boots. I intend to return the boots and dress because they weren't on sale, but I needed to get them to qualify for the free shipping and wanted to see how they fit for when they do go on sale. 

I got to wear my aunt's Gucci boots to dinner--always fun. I feel so posh when I wear them. In the restaurant they played a crazy saxophone cover of "Sunny." Man, that's a good song. Sunny!

Day 24

Finished the proofread. My brain is mush. Kept typing "close" instead of "cover" in an e-mail at the end of the day.
Ate Teragawa Ramen. Good ramen. Love the lady. She is a no nonsense, kinda deadpan but polite. I feel that if I were her, I'd be really awesome at my job.
Saw a bunch of pilots: Ringer, Up All Night, Hank Azaria show, and Whitney. I love the baby! There should just be a show about babies. Babycom. I love when Buffy buffifies everyone. Buffify!

Day 23

Around 6 pm, 9/14/11

About an hour later

My phone has been too fickle to send photos directly from it anymore. And I had a lot of proofreading to do, so I couldn't fight the phone without furthering my nerves towards a breakdown. (I've asked Jon to help me rig up a real camera on a tripod, so I can hopefully take better photos of the same location daily and make a flip-book out of the photos or something cool.)

It was windy and raining when I left work, and I was a bit underdressed for the weather since my sunburn precluded me from wearing pants. And due to the massive amount of ads I've seen for the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) and the fact that I had to try to stay up to work on the proofreading, I got a venti PSL. And I drank most of the five hundred some odd calories of it. Let's just say that the sunset was much more interesting than the nearly three hundred pages I proofread. PSL!

Type, Type, Type

I think I have two typewriters--there might be a third. My family gives me a lot of grief for keeping them because they're bulky and heavy and have completely dried out ribbons. The one my grandma kept in her closet is in great condition. It looks like one of these, but is a nice vintage green/blue that was popular a few decades ago. I think it's a Smith Corona. Underwoods were always very sexy though. One day I'm going to write something great with one of my typewriters.

Day 22

Pi

Day 21

My right nostril is running on and off. It may be allergies.

I just saw two more episodes of Skins UK. I have at least five more hours of freelance to do by Friday, but I really don't want to fight the stupid comments the author has made. Why are authors so dumb? Stet (for voice). No, you ass, stet for grammar--in particular, IF you don't know how to write in proper American English, (<--comma) THEN don't mess with the copy editor. (The author has very consistently--at least--stetted the added comma for voice. It's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Also, he keeps saying to remove the comma that denotes direct address: Hi, dumbass author.) Watching Cassie not eat and Syd being oblivious is much more satisfying.

Also, if Merriam-Webster is the copy editor's main spelling source, then why do so many copy editors spell their titles as "copyeditor"?

Socializing with people after work really makes a difference. Yesterday was so much more exciting than tonight. Maybe I should've had another dinner party tonight instead of promising myself that I'd do work.

My skin hurts--it's completely burnt. Especially my thighs, shoulders, and stomach. It's awful, but I do feel a lot less depressed about going into winter looking the same color all over like some kind of doll. Crispy tan!

Day 20

Today we had our first dinner guests: Dani and Pam. Jon cleaned the apartment while I was sleeping last night, and since Dani wasn't on call and Pam decided not to go to the gym today, they came over to see the new digs.

I went to D'Agostino around the block from my apartment after work since dealing with the craziness at Whole Foods sort of ruins my day. At D'Agostino I picked up a small ball of mozzarella. As I learned from my trip to Whole Foods when I bought grated cheese for $12, I looked at the total price, and the mozzarella ball was going for $0.01. That's right. A penny. I was thinking that it must be wrong, but the next one I picked up was also a penny. And the next one and the next. Finally I found one that was going for $5, which made a lot more sense, but I took a chance with that cent ball. It wasn't until Dani came that I thought to check the receipt to see what it actually rang up as. The receipt said $0.01. Oh good fortune in cheese! So after dinner, Jon, Pam, Dani, and I went to D'Agostino and found at least eight additional one cent balls. And we picked up some other grocery items to, you know, maybe hide the cheese price and just because we were in a market. What can I say? We are bad ass NYers. Jon rang up his stuff (well a woman named Bertha did), and Dani rang up her stuff (Bertha did), but when it was my balls that Bertha rang up, her computer froze and basically asked her if what she was actually ringing up was balls of mozzarella. That's when our cheese fortune ended. She made Dani give back two of her three balls. Same with mine. Pam had one ball and was only charged a cent even after Bertha let all the cashiers and managers and stock boy know the mozzarella ball mistake. I guess it was nice that they weren't mean or ridiculous about our cheese balls. Balls.

The happier highlight of the evening was that Dani brought macarons from Laduree: pistachio, chocolate, vanilla, and raspberry. They were amazingly delicious! We all agreed that each flavor had something great to recommend itself. We need to try more flavors now. Macarons!

Day 19

Today I busted my butt on fixing widows and tight lines and stuff, and the designer just did his own thing and created a bunch of unnecessary tight lines and more widows. WTF. I just asked him to check the dingbats and print out the next set.

I left work on time today though to get my haircut. Kazue moved from Pirka to Kiyora (like the violinist from Nodame!), and I followed her. The space is much bigger than Pirka--it's a full service salon vs. just a haircut place. It was relaxing and really nice to see Kazue. Today I learned she has an older sister and a younger sister and brother. And that her family has been to visit her here in New York once. Her parents are presumably old and they're from the farmlands of Japan. She also said that the plane ride is about fifteen hours, but I guess that's with a layover since I think a direct flight is thirteen hours. Eh, I could be wrong. I like my haircut. It was a hard decision to cut it since I've been having really good hair days this week. But it was better now than later.

On my way to get a haircut, I saw someone hail an ambulance. At least that's what I thought was happening. It seemed that a man collapsed, and an ambulance was called. So the guy on the street was really just telling the ambulance where to stop. The man on the ground didn't look good. But there was already a small crowd around him. There was nothing I could do. He was pale. I hope he's okay.

After my haircut, I walked up to City Bakery and got a chocolate chip cookie and walked northwest to the 23rd street CE. My cookie was gone and the sun was going to set soon. 

We're going down the shore this weekend. NYC. 9/11. Peace?

Day 18

Ah, the Internet coupon. It seems like such a good deal at the time until it's a week before it expires and then it's the mad rush to figure out when to use it up. With our fandango.com livingsocial coupon we saw Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame at the Regal on 42nd. We saved $30 by buying the coupon and then the livingsocial pyramid scheme ultimately made it a free coupon. Still, adult movie tickets, plus the surcharge, is ridiculous. Another $15 on snacks, and it's almost a $50 date at face value! The movie wasn't the best quality--the CG wasn't the great and the titles were pixelated. The movie is available online nowadays, and seeing it on a huge screen didn't add much to the experience. The Regal seats were kind of nice though and the theater was relatively clean and empty. I'm not sure I'd recommend the movie, but I guess if you like martial arts-y Chinese movies, you should give it a chance. The fight scenes were well choreographed, and it was nice to watch a story about the ascension of China's only empress. The Sherlock Holmes parallel isn't too far off--there's forensics and wisdom and a drive to solve puzzles.

We went to Kyotofu for dinner: curry (from a box) and soba (probably the same kind in our Japanese food pantry), but the chilled asparagus soup with croutons was good.

I got out from work late again today--even though I got to work right on time. (It really doesn't get lively around there until 9:30 I've determined, and until everyone gets back on regular-hour mode, they seem to hang around until 6ish still.) When I got home, I saw the third episode of Skins UK. (Jal plays the clarinet! Though the actress couldn't really piece the instrument together correctly. She tried putting the horn on the top part of the instrument--realized her mistake and then got it right; she also didn't hold the key down to prevent the adjoining parts from being smooshed when assembling. I've not played the clarinet for nearly ten years now, and I think that scene was nonsense. But whatever.) 

It's hard to leave the apartment once in it, but when I left I saw the cab from Cash Cab and the van that drives behind it, right in front of the entrance of my apartment building. The cab/van had too many white people around it to be anything but something for television or something. (It was inauthentic to be a real cab and a real van.) The cab had some serious electronics in the trunk and the van had some equipment and a monitor. It registered what it all meant after I crossed the street. I posted the photo of it on Google+.

It didn't rain on me today--I can't tell if it's rained at all today. I hope it stops raining. There are a bunch of sailors in town. Arrrgh, matey! Narwhals.

Day 17

Just unpacked the last box of books--aside from the box of Modernist Cuisine. Hooray!

It's odd trying not to work summer hours. Like leaving at 5:30 is considered late. On the other hand, I've been getting to work late because I've been leaving my apartment the time I'm supposed to be there. Kinda sorta. No one else is there at 9 on the dot, so I don't feel too bad. And things don't really come into my in-box until 3pm-ish, hence the leaving kind of late. I've been meaning to come home and do work and make dinner, but I end up unwinding by watching Skins UK on hulu. It's really not bad. It's like those movies like Kids or Gummo or Bully and Gossip Girl combined. Not sure I'll watch the US version. It seemed like they cocked it up pretty good.

Jon made a pretty good dinner: steak in an ginger-scallion sauce that he made yesterday for some tiny but fresh sole, potato/truffle ravioli, dried mushrooms.

It's still raining today. Nat rightfully called it a monsoon. It's going to potentially rain through Saturday and then start up again Monday. 9/11.

Day 16

This is a rose from a small handful from my PoPo's backyard that she brought over yesterday and gave to me. Note too that she carried it from her home in Queens to her friend's wake in NYC Chinatown to my apartment in midtown west. She kept them in her purse and the stems in a damp cloth. Today I thought I smelled something rosy when I was making hot chocolate, but then I scared myself thinking it was something overly metallic (poison?). Then I realized it was the blooming flower. Pungently good!

My coworker announced today that she's been three months pregnant with twins! (I feel like twins without the exclamation point is weird. "Twins." It seems ominous. "Twins!" It's exciting.)

I saw (on the five seconds I went on facebook [to find some dirt about the new editorial assistant that started today (there was no dirt)]) that my cousin Kimberly is engaged. She's my dad's cousin's daughter that just graduated from college. The one we went to the barbecue for on July 4th weekend. ENGAGED!

Happy birthday to Lakshmi too. Plus, since when is Beyonce only thirty?  I feel like she's at least five years older, and then I find out that she's thirty. Crazy! 

On my way home I was splashed by a car speeding through a make-shift river of water when I was across the street from the entrance of my apartment. My butt and everything below got soaked. There's a lot of rain today.

Umbrella ella ella. Bootylicious! Twins! 

Day 15

Labor Day weekend was productive. We unpacked a lot of boxes. There are about four more boxes of books and then to sort everything we dumped out of the boxes. We ate pretty well and saw family. It was supergreat. We found our shower head. It was in the first box I told Jon to look. Jon has the Being Erica theme song in his head. Bada ba baa!

Day 14

For dinner I took my leftover Kajitsu spaghetti squash and other vegetables that were in a delicious broth and added some pasta to it. Voila! Summery pasta leftover-Japanese-food salad. I also had an apple-cider doughnut from the Rockefeller Center farmer's market at work today. (My coworker bought a half dozen and shared them.) It was pretty tasty.

Today I finished a proofreading job about a girl who gets an infection from a cut. Her mom's an ER doctor though, so that the girl didn't show her mom the cut didn't seem realistic. Like, what does the girl think her mom does all day? Fluff pillows? There's more to the book, but that's the gist. The next proofreading job I have is about a robot brother from Paris. I think it might be like that creepy show about that V.I.C.I. robot from Small Wonder. (I had to look that up. That show creeped me out.) But I bet the book wins some accolades of some sort because it's just that quirky and weird. And it has illustrations.

Jon really wants to create a kind of booth in our tiny, tiny apartment. I have no idea how that's going to work. For the past few days, I've been sitting in his little nook of a den. I don't think it's working for me. The boxes surround this nook area and are taunting me. The items in the boxes are saying, "Let me out!!! Use me! Need me!! Rarrrrr!" Rarrrrrrrrrr!

Day 13

Today I mailed our keys from our old place to our landlady. It's a bit sad. This afternoon was gorgeous out. I would've loved to have had a porch to rock on. Wee said that she was outside today in the backyard, rocking out on our old rockers.

Dom came home today. We both didn't know that Wee was in the backyard until she said that she was. I tried setting up something funny:

Me to Wee:

4:05 PM me: dom is wondering where everyone is

4:06 PM Lisa: Oh hes home? I was reading and rocking in the backyard

me: you should try to scare himlike make agonizing cat noises

Me to Dom:

4:06 PM me: dom

lisa's in the backyard

you should try to scare her

like make agonizing cat noises

4:07 PM Dominic: Meeeooow

me: not to me!

It was hopeless. I thought it'd be funny if they managed to scare each other. (Wee would be worried about why the cat was making a weird sound and/or Dom would worry about being mauled by one of the cats because she's cat-angry.) It's fun being the big sister though even if all my hopes and dreams for my younger siblings don't always work out. Reow!