Blue Moon!

Winked at the blue moon for Neil Armstrong.

Took some pics with the new camera.

It was a nice night.

Derecho: Or a Very Cloudy Afternoon

A few weeks ago,

NYC and the tri-state area

faced the evil

DERECHO.

It's simply a hurricane

that comes from the land

vs. the water.

So the things to fear were:

heavy rain

hail

high winds

lightning

I had only heard of the term "derecho"

as I was walking home.

At around 6 p.m.

it was supersunny

and there was hardly threat of any rain.

What actually happened

about an hour later

was just a midsummer evening's rain storm.

It was as anticlimatic as Irene,

which is always a good thing.

Lots of people got cool pics of it.

At the time, Twitter had millions of Instagram photos.

Jon's account of the derecho:

He fell down the stairs of his office building

with his bike.

Then realized he forgot our food to make dinner,

so he walked back up to retrieve it.

He securely fastened the groceries to his bike.

He raced the derecho home,

but since his bike fell

the gears weren't correct,

so he wasn't moving very fast.

He saw a cool opportunity for a photo,

but he wisely decided against stopping to take it.

(It started pouring as he got to the apartment.

His ankle was extremely swollen for the weekend.)

Moda Operandi and Hermes and What the What?!

Today I received $50 from a website called Moda Operandi.

I thought it was a pretty sweet deal.

While I knew that Hermes bags were outstandingly priced,

I was not expecting this: $65,500 for a bag.

What the what?!

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't make that much money in a year . . .

legally and with my soul and first-born child and kidneys still in tact anyway.

And while the sold bags are a little more modest—

the Blue Jean Leather Trim one is a steal!—

they are still CRAZY expensive.

Who has this kind of money to buy a purse ON THE INTERNET?!

Why wouldn't you go to the boutique to get the free champagne and strawberries 

and massages and puppies???

My head is spinning.

I need to lie down.

Friendly's Wattamelon Roll

The Wattamelon Roll has become a staple of our summers.

I'd never had a Wattamelon Roll

until I met Jon.

Per the website

it's described as:

"Refreshing watermelon and lemon sherbet 

with rich chocolate chip seeds."

Unlike a real watermelon,

I think the seeds are the best part.

The bitter chocolate helps

break up the sherbet sweetness.

When we went down the shore

a few weekends ago,

Jon had sprained his wrist

and his ankle

(on two separate occasions of him being a klutz)

and my parents felt really bad for him.

To cheer him up they got him one of these bad boys.

Crabs and a pass on going to the beach also helped.

The Time We Saw Gwenyth Paltrow, Apple, and Moses at the New York Hall of Science

When I spotted Gwenyth Paltrow,

she looked like any ordinary mom:

kind of tired but happy to be out with her kids.

Her kids seemed kind of bored of the place

(they were zooming through it as fast as we were, 

and they're only a third our age),

but they had some fun playing with the giant bubbles.

It was in the animation section 

of the New York Hall of Science

that I spotted her.

We were at the New York Hall of Science because

I had a Google Offer coupon that was expiring.

We didn't go with any kids,

so it was really weird and kind of lame for us.

Seeing Gwenyth

was a lot of fun though.

Gwenyth plays with bubbles too!

To not be too obnoxious,

I took these photos of her through fish tank.

(Kind of like a fish eye lens,

but totally not.)

These photos look really stalkerish,

but it's better than being superobvious, I think.

A few adults recognized her and took

"discrete" photos of her too,

but mostly everyone was concerned about making

giant bubbles.

Jon posed 

so I could try to take a better photo of her,

but I really like this photo the best.

Wee's looking at the poor dead fish 

floating at the top of the tank.

Gwenyth is in the back.

Summer Friday by the Pool

Though I was coughing my head off,

I did manage to have a wonderful summer Friday

by the pool.

August 3rd was gorgeous!

I read a little Caletti,

sweated, coughed,

and took a dip whenever it got a bit too warm.

And when I was done,

I took the elevator back up home.

Soo nice.

Sunsets: Two Tiny Stories About My Neighbors

There once was a man

who thought no one was watching.

He picked his wedgie.

Then sniffed his fingers.

An old man swung

from the hammock on his porch.

His belly hairs swayed gently in the breeze.

He felt like a king

in midtown Manhattan.

Water for Elephants

Elephant and baboon statue
outside of Musée d'Orsay in Paris

Movie time!

:) -- Ooh! -- I wouldn't be too embarrassed about recommending this.

:/ -- Err. -- Maybe if you've got nothing else to watch at all.

:( -- What?! -- As in What is this garbage?!

Water for Elephants

:(

It was visually appealing--how could it not be? It's the circus after all. With an ELEPHANT. I didn't read the book, nor do I want to after seeing this movie.

Overall: The elephant was the star, and if it were two hours of that elephant playing in a puddle, I'd have watched it. I don't know though. I hate Reese Witherspoon for some inexplicable reason, so her being miserable was okay with me for awhile, but then she gets her happy ending. Pssht. Oh, and the Twilight guy/dead guy from Harry Potter is in it. I thought he'd be really terrible as a lead character, but he was watchable. You almost forget that he's Twilight guy/dead guy from Harry Potter. Almost. The main bad guy (who in the movie is a combination of the two bad guys) is really obnoxious and crazy. He treats animals and people equally cruelly. I don't like seeing that kind of stuff.

Surprise: I can't think of anyone or anything about this movie that really surprised me. The elephant was excellent though.

Pink Clouds

These clouds

are the ones I want to taste:

Pink cotton candy

or berry-stained whipped cream

or Mr. Bubble's bubbles

or Bubblicious Bursts or BubbaTape

or beets that got mixed with tons of cream. 

When the Sun Sets After Yoga

 

I love when there are

delicious berry and orange clouds.

I had a yoga class outdoors,

on the faux grass,

and it was a lot of fun.

The faux grass was very cushion-y.

We tumbled like toddlers,

trying to do headstands and other crazy positions

that would seem dangerous and impossible (to me) on a studio's wood floor.

I was the worst at yoga of the whole class of four students.

Everyone in my yoga classes seems to do it really seriously.

It's hard to relax,

which I thought was kind of the point

of doing yoga.

The point of these classes seems to breathe

while hurting

a lot.

I'm the only one that wears sweatpants.

I wear sweatpants because

those are the only exercise pants

that hide my panty lines.

Even the old man wears body-hugging shorts.

I just bought a bunch of hiphugger briefs

that will hopefully hide those lines.

I've invested in contacts for zumba classes.

I cannot bounce around with glasses sliding down my nose.

Exercising is nuts.

Skate! Sole! Pasta! Stone Fruit!

I'm a bigger fan of sole than skate when put on a plate side by side.

Skate's flesh is just too floppy compared to a sole's.

Jon and I traded.

Stone fruit are delicious.

Elastic tart skin.

Juicy bursting flesh.

So much bursting juiciness!

So sweet.

Summer Cough, Cough, Cough, Wheeze, Cough, Heel-Toe-Slap-Ball-Change-Stamp-Hop-Step-Shuffle-Shuffle-Shuffle

So for about the past month

I've had the most horrible cough.

I've tried not to let it slow me down,

but it has.

From July 13 to August 13,

I coughed my head off.

I coughed so much I thought was I going to pass out.

I coughed and wheezed,

and talking and definitely laughing made it worse,

and my friends and family are hilarious,

so it nearly killed me to hang out with them.

The cold air-conditioned air, 

the new gym, the evening showers, the wet hair,

a whole slew of things contributed to it

I believe.

In any case, a few weeks ago,

after antibiotics didn't work

(so no pneumonia! YAY!),

there was only one thing to do:

Go to another doctor.

I went to one up the block

who is a DIPLOMATE

according to his placard in the office.

My dad called him: Dr. Prince.

It just took two hours to see him

after my appointed time,

but see him I did.

And luckily enough

I coughed tons and wheezed!

He nebulized me,

gave me some prescriptions,

and two weeks later that stuff

STILL didn't work.

He said I had

bronchial spasms.

Thankfully, they aren't contagious,

though I did buy a large bottle

 of name-brand hand sanitizer

since a lot of my work involves me

getting up in and passing around paper.

I was about to make another appointment when

I just went to my gym's sauna

and I took a lot of Benadryl 

and started feeling better.

Though I felt completely dizzy today,

and the cold air-conditioner

and some stressful situations at work

got me a bit cough-y the last two days,

I feel much better than I have in about a month.

Summer colds SUCK.

Avoid them at all costs.

And if you can't avoid them,

get thee to a sauna and a doctor!