Every Life, Every Fun

Vacation!

2012-02-05T16:10:00.001-05:00

The last time I had taken a full week off was to Hawaii in October 2010. And I had brought a short proofread along too. So maybe the last real week long vacation I had was to Spain in May 2010. That was a freakin long time ago.

I woke up this Sunday morning at 6 a.m. not to pack or try to go to Target to get the Jason Wu pieces but to finish up a 250 page proofread that was mostly boring.

We started packing a 10 a.m. We got to the airport at 3. We leave at 5:30. The terminal we're waiting in is quite nice.

Hopefully it's a good trip.

Chinese New Year 2012

2012-02-01T16:36:00.000-05:00

We made sweet and savory tay-doys,

and we vyed with a Giants doughnut from Dunkin Donuts.

We commented on the odd things PoPo grows

or rather hangs from her trees.

We ate at a restaurant this year.

It's the first year we've eaten before 9 p.m.

and got home before 12 a.m.

for new year's.

Does the oven even work?

My PoPo only had one fork in her utensil drawer--

actually, it was in her sink because someone just used it.

She said, what's the point of having a whole drawer of utensils

if you guys just come here once a year?

(Isn't it ironic?

Like when you have too many fi-doos

when all you need is a fork?)

We went to a Chinese supermarket across the street.

We bought some juice boxes, tea boxes,

oyster sauce, all-purpose sauce, white-meat-making cubes,

haw flakes, and rolled-up butter cookies.

Mmm!

TGIF!

2012-01-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

This has been quite a week.

January has passed by all so quickly anyway, don't you think?

We're heading to Copenhagen to eat at NOMA!

(Uggs vs. Sorels? Discuss ballets, Keds, and Cons for travel.)

Maybe Berlin and/or Hamburg?

Definitely Paris for Valentine's Day.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

(Though I'll probably never go to Burning Man.)

Tomorrow we celebrate Chinese new year part deux.

But tonight we celebrate Charleen's birthday!

Happy birthday (tomorrow) to you!

Gong Hei Fat Choy!

2012-01-23T20:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we went to Chinatown

to pick up some char sui and chicken

with Jon's Por Por.

It was freezing cold, but we got our groceries:

two whole chickens

looks like four orders of char sui

some pastries

Jon's Por Por had her apartment decked out for the new year.

She vyed (prayed) with the food,

then she divvied it up for us

before we left.

Tonight I separated the meat from the skin and bones

of the half chicken she gave us.

(Is that a kidney or some other organ on the right?)

Meat!

No veins or cartilage!

The best!

Here's the tastiest of the char sui--the lusciously caramelized part.

There seems to be a nice collection of meat fat,

meat jelly, and meat juice.

Going to stir fry this all up in a beautiful fried rice!

Hopefully this dragon year is lucky and prosperous for you!

It seems like an okay year for the pig (yay!)--

the dog (Jon) needs to be a bit more cautious though.

TGIF!

2012-01-20T18:21:00.000-05:00

Stealth Mountain
Just look at those peaks!

Despite the freezing temperatures and the chance of snow, it's Friday, and I know this weekend will be awesome:

Jon's back from nearly being ambushed by deer at this scary hotel.

Speaking of scary, this homemade video has been my life for the past week or so.

Check out Stealth Mountain (@StealthMountain). Now to start a twitter bot that scolds people for using "alot" instead of "a lot."

Some DIY/craft blogs with such cute stuff: Thanks, I Made It, with an i.e., Dismount Creative, Wit & Whistle. I'm looking at you Morse code necklace.

It's the last weekend to slide at the New Museum, so it's now or never.

Monday is Chinese New Year's day! Wear some red for luck.

What I want to do for my twenty-ninth birthday.

TGIF!

Reboot

2012-01-19T17:28:00.000-05:00

After looking at some other blogs, I decided to give my blog a reboot. There are actually tons of really cool gadgets and template things to help you out. New year, new blog look!

Note: Writing in script with a mouse is kind of a pain in the butt, but I think the title came out kind of nice.

Day 67

2012-01-10T22:07:00.001-05:00

Mmm . . . So tasty. I love eating dinner. Been eating lots of chocolate otherwise. To keep up energy and blood sugar and spirits and such.

My coworker is having a boy. Yay!

Day 66

2012-01-09T20:11:00.001-05:00

While passing by the David Letterman studio I spied heavy-duty cases that had snowflakes on them. Initially I thought they were holiday ornaments for the set. They had packed it up and were shipping them somewhere to Connecticut for storage or something. But then I saw "Snow Patrol" written on the side of one case. The band? Probably. I'm not at all familiar with the band except that there's a lyric by them and reference to them in the book I just finished cold reading today. What a coincidence.

Mercedes House, 555 W. 53rd Street

2012-01-06T16:56:00.000-05:00

This . . .

. . . is . . .

. . . how . . .

. . . they built . . .

. . . it.

Retiring

2012-01-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

Today is the last day for one of S&S's publishing legends, Beth Sue Rose. She handled subrights for Scholastic. She was excellent at her job. She kind of scared me.

In 2004-2005, I sat outside her office as an editorial intern because that's where a spare cube was. She has the most unique voice that sort of sank into you. In my short tenure back at S&S, I've talked to her once or twice about book deadlines for Scholastic, but I've mostly kept a low profile on her radar.

She had an amazing fashion sense, as wonderfully illustrated above. She sent the illustration to everyone along with her farewell e-mail. It's a great depiction. A bit satirical, but beautiful and more or less true.

Last 2011 Personal Day

2012-01-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

On the second to last Thursday of the 2011 year,

I had the day off, so we embarked on a journey . . .

to New Jersey.

(This seagull is bigger than your small dog.)

We had a private ferry ride.

The gray cloud is smoke across Jersey City into the Financial District.

On a map, I saw that it was called "FiDi."

The smoke came from a warehouse fire in Elizabeth, NJ.

That's about two Turnpike exits.

It was Thursday.

News reports said they wouldn't have it out until after Christmas.

That means they estimated that it'd be at least Monday

before the fire would be contained.

Monday!

We got some genetic testing done to make sure our babies,

at some point in the future,

won't have scales or something horrible.

It seemed like the responsible thing to do.

We also put up a faux Christmas tree and made some paper ornaments

to get in the holiday spirit.

Psst! Want in on a BIG secret?

2012-01-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

This time last year, I was grieving the loss of my grandma and trying to hire a copy editor to rush copyedit the first book in this series. Now there are two books (four, if you count the paperbacks--that have glitter on the covers!--and the hard covers)! With at least five more (or ten, counting the hard-cover format) on the way and in various stages of production (but mostly done).

My boss forwarded this ad to me that PW is blasting with the subject: Psst! Want in on a BIG secret?

It's all pretty exciting when a book sells really well or a series takes off.

Next spring we're launching a new series about a boy that moves with his family to another planet. It's kind of what inspired our space-themed holiday card this year.

Xmas Presents for an Almost Three-Year-Old

2012-01-04T10:04:00.000-05:00

My friend and her little boy were in town for Xmas Eve,

so I went through my book collection and pulled out some of the best ones that I thought he'd like.

I didn't have wrapping paper--it's somewhere in our junk closet, maybe--

so I recycled the craft paper from our amazon.com purchases.

The goal was to spell his name and include a Xmas song lyric with the beginning of that name,

plus a little drawing.

So . . .

Jingle bells = J

Hark the herald Angels sing = A

Rudolph the Red-Nosed ReinDeer = D

(I realized I spelled Rudolf as an alternative spelling when it was too late.

But then I realized that it didn't really matter.)

Have yourself a mErry little Christmas = E

(Nothing Xmassy begins with an E. Nothing.)

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! = N

There was an extra book, so I threw an exclamation point in.

Jaden read each letter perfectly--and got that it spelled his name,

plus he identified most of my drawings too.

He's a genius!

I had planned on singing the Christmas songs too,

but I really enjoyed watching him open the books, which he seemed to have liked.

Xmas success!

Christina Tosi's/Milk Bar's/Jon's Corn Cookies

2012-01-03T16:58:00.003-05:00

Nat was hosting a cookie exchange pre-New Year's Eve party,

so we needed to make some interesting cookies.

The most interesting cookies we've had in awhile were the corn cookies

from Momofuku Milk Bar.

To make these cookies, first, you probably would want to

buy the book because the recipes are awesome.

Then mise en place yourself.

Here's the recipe from the book:

To cream (butter and sugar).

So creamed.

(Follow the excerpted page below to cream your cookies.
You get a good sense of the tone of the book too.
It's a good tone.
And it's easy to follow her directions too.)

I love that line: "You can certainly make delicious cookies

without a mixer . . . But not these cookies."

Other ingredients tossed in.

Plopped to be chilled.

Scooped and flattened.

Baked.

Corn cookies.

They were a bit on the salty end, so we'll have to reduce or use a different salt next time.
Jon also made a brown butter sauce for it, but in the end we skipped setting that out for dipping.

Xmas 2011, the Second

2012-01-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

For our second Xmas party (this was two out of three), we did a Yankee Swap with Jon's Mom's side of the family after dinner in Chinatown. Outside, it was whatever you think of when you hear "blustery."

On the way to dinner, I ran into a guy who lived in Metzger 3 with me

my freshman year at Rutgers in the elevator of Confucius Plaza. It was quite random.

I hadn't seen him since our Japanese Poli-Sci class ended in spring 2005.
(Pam, if you're reading this, it was Mike Ling. Crazy, right?)

From the Yankee Swap I got a bag of dark chocolate, and Jon got a bag of assorted candies

that had, in particular, gummi bears.

I've gained almost five pounds this holiday season.

Oof.

Happy New Year! 2012!

2012-01-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

I'd been told that it was probably a bad idea

to walk towards the Times Square New Year's crowds.

That there'd be drunk people throwing up in my hair and peeing on my shoes,

and all that good stuff.

But after watching Bridesmaids, it was 11:20 p.m. on New Year's Eve

and about fifty degrees outside.

And Jon had agreed to embark with me on my little adventure earlier.

The plan was to walk across town to the barricades penning the people in Times Sqaure

and then walk north toward Central Park,

to hopefully see the Road Runners' New Year's fireworks if possible

and maybe some Times Square action looking downtown.

We ended up at Columbus Circle where it wasn't too crowded.

We could look down Broadway, but not see anything significant.

I was kind of hoping to see some of the three tons of confetti

or even just hear the crowd count down.

Instead it was just a drunk tourist family counting down,

and then it was midnight.

Or rather it was 2012, and we saw fireworks!

They did each firework one at a time,

so it lasted for about twenty minutes.

It was marvelous.

At the end, they just blasted all the rest of the fireworks that they had.

We got home about twenty minutes later.

No one threw up on us, though we did narrowly avoid some vomit on the sidewalk.

Happy new year!

2012!

Three NYC Winter Haikus

2011-12-31T13:41:00.000-05:00

It's been warm, and I've

happily snuck out early

to see these sunsets.

Hetal's rooftop view

is really magnificent

for watching sunsets.

The sun sets while the

city rises into the

sky, filling the void.

Day 65

2011-12-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

Running out of days to post things that happened this year. Going to fudge it with some time-space magic.

High Line X-mas

2011-12-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

We thought there was music to be heard on the High Line,

so we went.

But we missed the boat on the music.

Or something or other.

But it was nice and desserted.

SO empty!

There were some carolers that Pam thought were from The Night Circus.

But they were just carolers in black coats and red scarves.

We walked up the High Line and peered into luxurious apartments

that had amazing furniture and Christmas trees.

We met Lakshmi and then went to Bill's Burger for dinner.

Fun fact:

Besides walking on the High Line,

the second most popular activity is kissing.

Holiday S&S Secret Santa 2011

2011-12-20T17:16:00.000-05:00

Jeannie was my Secret Santa. In addition to the giant eraser and calendar/pig/pen holder and the alligator staple remover, she also gave me a froggy bookmark. Such cute stuff from Pylones! She's such a good Secret Santa!

I gave Dorothy a water pitcher and glass from Crate & Barrel that she wanted. I thought the original water pitcher that she wanted was kind of heavy, but now I'm wondering if it'd have been better since it was slightly bigger and she'd have to take less trips to the pantry to fill it up. I don't know. Maybe it's good to have a reason to stretch your legs?

The kind of nerve-racking part about our department's Secret Santa is that we all have to guess who was our Secret Santa. Luckily, I got my guess on the first try! Woo-hoo!

I also brought us some Dunkin Donut Munchkins. I thought I was ordering fifteen, which seemed kind of small now that I think about it, but I got fifty! Turns out that there were three extra mouths to feed though: Dorothy's growing twins and Jenica's little growing one. The Munchkins were down to one layer by the time we came back to our desks, so getting the fifty was a good idea. Also, I had about ten, so I now know that more Munchkins are definitely better than fewer. Mmm . . . do they still make the cream-filled Munchkins though? I didn't get to eat one of those.

S&S Holiday Paaaaaarty!

2011-12-19T16:02:00.000-05:00

There was a smilebooth! (Click to see all my coworkers at S&S. You know you kind of want to see who works here and does this stuff, and what they do when there's a wine and beer table on every floor of the building.) These are the photos I took with my boss, her boss, and a coworker I get lots of cool freelance work from. I love my job!!! There was also a band, Lo Res, made up of some designers (including the head of the Children's Design department) and our Apple IT guy. They were a lot of fun.

Rock Center Tree 2011

2011-12-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

It looks a lot smaller this year. Maybe I have to go at night so that the surrounding buildings don't really feature as prominently as a subliminal comparison.

Day-After-Jon's-Christmas-Party Flower Deconstructed

2011-12-18T15:04:00.000-05:00

The story goes . . .

that Jon was supposed to leave at 11:30 . . .

from his company's Christmas party (or Holiday party--

though we all know what holiday they actually mean).

But he was asked to give a speech.

The punch line was that hopefully the company did well next year,

but if not, then they'd all be fired.

Then he drank some more. . . .

And when he was done, he went to his office to get his bike.

To walk it up the Westside Highway because he was too inebriated to ride it.

But that didn't happen.

(Good thing too!

What a dumb idea.)

Instead, I had a fitful night worrying about him.

And when he came home, he passed out in the bathtub.

And I had a fitful night and morning worrying about him.

And then when he was sound asleep in bed,

I yelled at him.

He remembered nothing.

And then I went to work.

And then I came home to a bouquet of flowers.

This was all like last year. Kind of.

Anyway, all is good unless this happens again next year.

In the meantime, I had a fun time deconstructing the dying bouquet into these smaller vases,

so that they don't die as quickly.

The other lilies actually bloomed!

Chinese Juk (Rice Porridge)

2011-12-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, chicken soup just won't cut the cold. Sometimes, juk does.

In a pot, add 1 cup rice plus 9 cups water w. salt and lots of grated ginger, half leaf of konbu, pork, dried mushroom, and matsutake soup broth. Cook till juk. Add oyster sauce! Mmm . . .

Day 64

2011-12-10T18:33:00.001-05:00

Spot the moon!

Busy good Saturday. Noodletown cha sui! Oh yeah, baby!

Hey Na Na

2011-12-09T19:51:00.001-05:00

Oh, I love that turtle dress! I love it, I love it, I love it! I'd wear it on my private island and just sing "Hey Na Na, Hey. Hey Na Na, Hey. Boo Boo." No idea what the lyrics are yet.

The madewell.com choose-your-own-adventure thing is awesome for two reasons:

1) I found Katie Herzig.
2) It's a fun way to look at clothes.

Day 63

2011-12-07T21:33:00.001-05:00

Wish it were an L&L loco moco, but it's a Dickson's burger simmered in mapo tofu sauce with romaine and an egg. A good alternative. Third straight day of rain. Getting cold again. Rain!

Day 62

2011-11-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

It was 8 a.m. at the Englewood Volvo dealership about two weeks ago. Who were those other people there in that corner?

Oh, it's those folks. (Jon's so angsty.)

We invited them to IHOP down the block, but they weren't into getting pancakes. What snobs.

Day 61

2011-11-29T19:00:00.001-05:00

The last two days have been extremely warm--mid to upper60s. I'm not complaining. If NYC could be like this all the time, that would beawesome.

Last night I met up with Dani and Hetal to go to TJ Maxx andthen some pretty cute Swedish place by Columbus Circle. Like really cute.Before we met up, I sat in the park by the Chipotle on 56th and 8th for a bitmarveling at how I could do this with just a short-sleeved shirt, cardigan,jeans, open-toed/basket-weave shoes, and a scarf. No coat. No socks. Nochill. Amazing!

Part of me thinks this good weather luck is due tooverwhelming pile of freelance work due this month. Jon literally told me thatI had to finish my work before we could play our new Zelda game. How unfair. Ifeel like the trapped teenager in all these books I'm working on. Or the crankybaby that doesn't exist in the other books I work on. (No one wants to readabout cranky babies. But they exist.) Freaking deadlines. I wanna save aprincess!

Pep told me yesterday that he's moving to Boston. I reallyhate Boston. It's near the bottom of my list of cities that exist in order ofhow much I like them. There's nothing that I can recommend about it. It's adismal place to drive to and around and back from. (Never mind the 7 hour busrides of traffic that I've heard of. Maybe have been in for the visit to Bostonwith honors history class?) The best restaurant there isn't any better than thecute restaurant down the block here. It's where culture and cuisine go to dieor assimilate to the most mundane tastes. What do people do there? Spend hourswalking around their 1000+ square feet homes? Spend hours commuting to the twotall buildings that are there? (I lie. I have no clue if there are ANY tallbuildings.) Or maybe prove me wrong.

In the meantime, Baby Vampire is doing a great job tendingto my Nat plant. There's a flower! Flllowerrrr!

Happy Birthday!

2011-11-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Kanoyama Omakase

2011-11-21T14:15:00.001-05:00

Persimmon in sesame seed/chestnut butter--sweet and juicy

After seeing Nathan Myhrvold speak at Astor Center, we threw the White Truffle Festival at Buon Italia under the bus to go to Kanoyama mainly because it was closer. It was a good idea.

Natto paste with uni;
the natto had aspic in it to help hold the shape.
I've never willingly had natto before because it looked gross.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of uni unless it's Santa Barbara uni.
But the dish was good!
Maybe it's not natto paste?

We were sat immediately at a table, but when Jon asked the waiter about the omakase, the waiter immediately recommended it and that we do it that evening since the chef wasn't busy. Like, the bar that the omakase was supposed to occur at was empty. (We thought it was the drink bar area for guests waiting for tables since that was where some of those people were being stored.) We felt a little bad about how the waiter basically screwed himself out of a tip, but hopefully the tips are pooled, so maybe he got a share for referring us.

Last year I would've given this dish to Jon.
I really don't like uni.
But I took a bite, and it was good!
It was sweet!
There was almost too much of it for me though.
But I ate it all up.
I also found two small uni spines in my teeth.
Be careful eating these.
The uni was from Maine, surprisingly.

I have no idea how much it cost, but it was a really good omakase. As you'll see in a few moments, there was a lot of sashimi. I feel like most omakase have more sushi pieces than sashimi. Then I feel that I have to roll off the bar stool at the end of the meal because of being so full of rice.

The wasabi came in a cute vessel shaped like a shell.
It was also good fresh wasabi, though is there a bad fresh wasabi?

The chef was nice enough. He was relatively young, and he was attentive, but not like those older sushi chefs that for one reason or another try to engage you in conversation. He answered our few questions, and he probably would be your buddy if that's the kind of experience you look for in an omakase. He spoke with friends who had come in, and at the end he had a small glass of sake with the waiter who was helping him with our meal.

Baby blue fin tuna. The veal of the sea.
So delicious!
Itadakimasu, baby blue fin tuna!
(I'm working on a children's book about baby zoo animals.
Maybe I'll put together one about eating baby animals.
That can be the repetitive line.)

We got in at around 9 p.m. and left around 11:30 p.m. It was perfect timing for eating late, and it really didn't seem that long at all. And I didn't feel gross afterward. Score!

Mackerel. I think.
This definitely got more flavorful as I chewed.
I remember thinking that, normally, I'd never eat something that still had
what looked like its skin on it.
Then I was like, well, good thing I don't suck anymore.

The sashimi was so good. So, so, so good. The more you chewed, the sweeter the fish got in your mouth. What magic is that?! The appetizers were so good too. For whatever reason the teapot soup dish with mushrooms (dobin mushi) didn't take. It was the best. I wish I could eat that everyday for lunch.

Grilled tuna. It might be more baby tuna.
He grilled it on one of those smokeless charcoal grills.
It tasted so good.
We had just been told at Nathan's lecture that what gives grilled food
its flavor is the fat that gets released and thrown back on it.
(I butchered what he said. Buy the book. Read the chapter.)
Mmm . . .

The chef basically hand fed us the sushi pieces he made, so we didn't take any photos of those. There was one uni piece from Hokkaido that tasted like the reason I'm not a huge fan of uni. Huge difference from the Maine uni appetizer above or any Santa Barbara uni. Like the juices were making me gag. Oh, uni.

Needlefish! These guys look funny. See link to website below.
Their chins are what make the needle part!
What an underbite!

The restaurant's website is pretty informative about the fish we ate. What's also kind of interesting was that the fish wasn't kept in a kind of refrigerated case. They were in Japanese-style fish boxes behind the bar. The bar where the sushi in the refrigerated cases was was more for prep and making rolls for those at the tables.

Clam piece. I think. It was actually one of the first pieces,
and it got fancier from there. But since it's kind of
difficult to reorder stuff on blogger, it's here.
"Eat with Japanese salt and wasabi.
Don't dip your wasabi into the soy sauce," he told us.
(That's the clientele they usually get it seems.)

The restaurant's bathroom on the main level is tiny--like airplane tiny, but it was clean, which is all it really needs to be.

::ray of light; angel's saying, "Ooh!" sound effects::

This dessert was one of the best in my life. It had apples that were like whipped up. Like apple-flavored whipped cream. With some cinnamon on top. Ingenious and satisfying. The acidity of the apples removed all the oily fish taste in my mouth. It was so refreshing. After this dish, they also gave us a small scoop of ice cream. We both got green tea. It was good, but another bowl of the apple dessert would've been better!

Overall it was a great experience, and I'd recommend going. And I look forward to going back during another season to see what yummy fish are on the menu then. It's different from Yasuda and Yohei and the other great sushi places, but it's definitely not lesser.

Day 60

2011-11-11T18:15:00.001-05:00

Some people come home to loved ones. I usually come home to an empty apartment, but tonight I saw between two buildings the Moon. Hello, Moon! He's shy. Slinking behind the building on the right at this very moment. He's fast. Nearly half gone behind the building as I write up this post while standing in the same spot. Good-bye, Moon. Nice of you to be there when you were.

In other news, when converting today's date from binary to text, guess what you get.

111111 = ?

Fun with numbers!

Day 59

2011-11-09T20:18:00.001-05:00

Jonjon Bap!

No idea what a bap is, but this dinner looks taaaasty!

Lots of ups and downs. Nearly took off Jon's nipple right then just standing and text here. Eep!

Day 58

2011-11-08T18:59:00.001-05:00

My dad's pulled pork with my cornbread from a box. (He asked me to make it. They were his boxes.) So delicious! I have waited two days to eat this meal.

Umaimono Fair at Mitsuwa

2011-11-08T18:01:00.000-05:00

Spicy tuna (my favorite!)

The Umaimono Fair at Mitsuwa was delicious this year. Happily the Omusubi Gonbei people were at this fair.

We bought a small bag of their rice too, which was a new product, I think, and a bit pricey. But their rice is so good! There's something about it that is better than other rice. My dad would say it's the radiation, since it's coming directly from Japan.

Salmon and roe (mother and child); Shrimp

They have tons of flavors of rice balls. They really should just set up a shop in Mitsuwa permanently or somewhere near my mouth.

Croquettes!

They had croquettes too. And the shrimp ball ones were okay, but they didn't have enough shrimp. It was mostly potato. Apparently the crab ball is full of crab meat, but we missed that one due to lack of stomach space. Croquettes don't taste good unless eaten immediately. The beef one was really greasy and fatty. We didn't finish eating that guy.

Shio Ramen from Nakamura-ya

From the Mitsuwa website:

“Shio Ramen” of “Nakamura-ya” will make their first appearance for this event. Shigetoshi Nakamura hails from Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. At the age of 22, Nakamura opened Nakamura-ya and became famous for his shio ramen and signature “Ten Kuu Otoshi”, a water straining performance. Fast-forward to 2011 and after countless awards, newspaper and magazine articles, interviews and television programming, Nakamura has come to showcase his potential to the people of the U.S. Enjoy Nakamura-ya's delicate shio ramen with a tender and grilled cha-shu. The soup is paired perfectly with a very thin, chewy noodle presented by Sun Noodle California.

Really delicious green tea from the rice ball place.
Again, I have no idea what makes it taste so good. It just does.

Everything about the ramen was delicious, but I didn't love the broth. It was kind of fishy for me. The bits of garlic at the end of the dish were a delightful and tasty surprise. The egg was beautiful. The meat was generous (like a huge slab). The noodles were some of the best I've ever had. I just didn't love the broth. Jon loved the broth and funneled some of it in our tea bottle to take home for a snack at a later date.

Caramel and some other flavors

For dessert we ate these. They were okay. One had a really good flavor that wasn't caramel. They were just really chewy. I have a fear of choking on food, so really chewy things don't really appeal to me.

Day 57

2011-11-06T17:22:00.001-05:00

It is so dark. It is only 5:21. This is going to be a long, long winter.

Smurfs on Publishers Weekly Site + Me!

2011-11-04T11:31:00.001-04:00

They didn't have our whole gang of Smurfs and Gargamel, but I made it into the group shot they used for Publishers Weekly! Awesome! (The CMYK group won first place--a pizza party and a movie.)

Kajitsu October Dinner

2011-11-04T08:30:00.000-04:00

Special supplement to the October menu:
white truffles over grilled tofu
(better than the Babbo truffle egg)

We had an excellent October dinner at Kajitsu after the museum on Sunday, which was almost a close call because Jon had missed their call, about having a table available, when we were inside of the museum. A cab ride from the UWS to LES wasn't fast or cheap, but it was definitely worthwhile.

October thirtieth might have been the chef's birthday. He's an amazing guy to make such thoughtfully delicious food. I hope we get to celebrate many more birthdays with him.

Day 56

2011-11-03T20:04:00.001-04:00

More ABBA at Tehuitzingo. Can't get away from this band. There are fun lights that make me feel like I'm at a dance club. I am starving. STARVING.

Day at the American Natural History Museum

2011-11-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

The Google Offer for the American Natural History Museum was pretty awesome: $5 for a $25 value, which included admission to the museum plus one special exhibit/IMAX film/Space Show. The only bad part about it was that it was going to expire on Halloween, so Jon and I went on Sunday.

To gear up, we went to Landmarc for an onion soup lunch and had roasted potatoes, a bloody Mary, and a ginger ale. Their onion soup hit the spot--I don't think I ever really need to make my own, though it would certainly be cheaper to do so.

Hmm . . . anyway, stuffed, we walked up Broadway and Columbus to the museum and entered at the planetarium side. (It was around 3:30 p.m., and there was barely a line.) This was the first time either Jon or I had been to the museum since grammar school, so it was exciting for us to be going together.

We saw the Hayden Planetarium Space Show, which was awesome, though Whoopi Goldberg's voice kind of ruined it. Also the seats needed to recline more. I think it reclines as much as an economy airplane seat. The top portion of the globe structure is where you view the Space Show; below the equator of the globe, there's a room with a free show about the CMB/formation of our universe and you stand around looking down into the center of the room to view it.

Unfortunately, the whole museum was a bit run-down looking. There was Earth dust on the three meter meteorite--someone should really clean these things.

I saw a kid doing this in the oyster's shell, and it looked cool. The museum is superdark, so it's hard taking a decent pic with a camera phone or anything without a flash. Still this is one way to keep things from gathering dust: allow us to touch it!

The elephants in the halls of Asian mammals and African mammals were too dark to take a picture of, and forget about trying to take a photo of the whale. The whale was big, but I feel like a lot of the animals they have are smaller in scale to real ones. Like instead of average-size animals, they choose to represent the below average-size animals.

This guy though, he was pretty big. Like SmartCar big.

Dinosaur face.

Dinosaur face. Or rather the face you get when you're told you can't make the same face as a T-Rex.

Rarrrrrrrr! Dinosaurs!!!!!

Day 55

2011-11-02T20:53:00.003-04:00

We picked up six boxes of stuff today. Our concierge guy (the one that I don't particularly like) said that we had a lot of boxes. (He is SO the type that would say that and make you feel bad about not picking them up sooner. Jon thinks I'm giving him shit and that he was nice today. Maybe.)

In our boxes were:

1 blanket (it may even be a FREE! blanket because someone didn't register that I already received the blanket I had paid for)

1 huge thing of huge paper towels
5 pine hand soaps
1 spicy pear hand soap

1 Gore-Tex waterproof sneakers

1 1Q84 (properly shipped so the jacket isn't all crunched up like our original preordered copy that I had to pick up from our old apartment in Edgewater, NJ)

1 Lego alien attack set (for Jon's cousin's birthday party this Saturday)

1 set of 3 boxes of super-duper earpugs
1 set of 2 big bottles of shampoo

Duck. Quack!

Octsnober, Snotober, Thundersnow

2011-11-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

We have no heat in our apartment. At first we thought it was because we hadn't turned it on yet, but then it became apparent that our heater is broken or dead or turned on a mode that doesn't emit heat.

On the Saturday during the freak snowstorm when most folks celebrated Halloween, we made a half-assed attempt of going to Totto Ramen, but even with the snow there were tons of patrons waiting outside. Where do all these people come from? What makes them want to wait in the snow to eat this ramen?

We went to ChaPa's for pho and banh mi (their "traditional" has ground meat in it--not sure what that's about since I thought it was supposed to be weird Asian cold cuts). I had written about going there before, but this time the servers were just pretty awful, and I don't know if I'd really want to go back. Also the place has a B rating by the Health Department and when we were there, someone at another table had found a hair in their food. It's like they're not even trying to get a better rating.

When we got back, we bought some waterproof sneakers for Jon so that his feet don't freeze this winter. Then we docked ourselves in front of our TV for hours watching the past week's shows. We were stationary for so long that my legs started hurting from NOT standing up.

When it got dark we finally watched the last two movies of Harry Potter. Best decision ever!

Spicy/Spooky Photo Edits

2011-11-02T02:00:00.000-04:00

Have you yet played with the photo editing options on Google+? They're kind of fun. Like an app on a smartphone, but it doesn't eat all your memory or take a bit to load up. Anyway, I was playing Cityville when I noticed this funny message, and with the Halloween effects, while they're still available, I thought it might spice things up a bit. You like the spice.

Day 54

2011-11-01T20:44:00.002-04:00

I raced home after work to enjoy the sun for a few minutes before it got cold and dark and awful.

I don't have any windows in my office, so it's hard to tell what's happening outside. (Like that time that guy was going to jump from 30 Rock.) Windows are distracting though. When I had them, they made me feel like a fish in a bowl or imagine that others in offices across the street were each themselves fish in a tank. I wasn't very productive.

I was also falling asleep at my desk. I think I have daily experiences of slight hypothermia due to being stationery most of the day. My office is really cold. I wear so many layers of shirts and cardigans and shawls and scarves that I might be mistaken for a bag lady and chased out of the building without my ID.

When I stepped outside the building today, I was warm and awake and felt alive again. Like a freed fish cleared of that white goop. Free!

Morning Commute Haiku

2011-11-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

A limo driver

loves his ABBA, and he blasts

it out his window.

A Tale of Two Dinners

2011-11-01T10:30:00.000-04:00

A fancy store's window on Fifth Avenue

On Thursday, Lakshmi and Pam came over for dinner. It was the rainiest day of the week, and that they still wanted to come despite the rain, cheered me up. I made the last of our rice (our usual sushi rice supplemented with some sweet rice to make at least two cups of rice for four people), ground lamb with apples (the Macoun apples provided a nice contrast to the slightly gamey lamb and the cracked black pepper ties it all together; the head chef was a bit miffed by the white pieces of sliced garlic that were added as basically an afterthought, since they didn't brown, but whatever), and spinach (with oyster sauce; the spinach turned out kind of watery, but at least it wasn't burnt like every other spinach I've made in the last few months), and apple crumbles for dessert. (I'm not sure why Lakshmi calls it a streusel in her blog, but it's all good. Lakshmi peeled and cut the apples for this dish and the lamb because I was doing a crappy job of it.) Lakshmi brought her mom's homemade coconut chutney and spiny melon chutney. Both chutneys were delicious and went well with the meal. We caught up and watched the Halloween episode of Community together.

The back/unfinished part of our apartment

After the utter failure of not placing in the Halloween contest at work, I thought of another masochistic thing I could do: try to get Laduree macarons for dessert that evening. I walked up there from work, and forty-five minutes later, I realized how dumb it was because the line was really long (though inside the store, which I suppose is great), but after waiting a few minutes, I realized how dumb it was to wait with the tourists. Cause after a few minutes, I realized that they had to be all tourists since they all looked so confused.

(Laduree, you need to get your shit together. You need to have flavors posted like an ice-cream shop and prepackaged assortments of macarons and all. You need someone taking orders from people who know what they want and not just want to gawk at the variety of flavors. I have money. I want macarons. I want efficient service.)

I took the M66 across town and walked to D'Agostino to get my mozzarella ball. (If I'm serving salad, I feel like there should be mozzarella as an option too.) Hetal came soon after I got in and watch in horror as I cut up the apples for another apple crumble. (We have a chef's knife to cut up things. I like seeing my fingertips when I cut things so I know where they are. Apparently, this is a bad way to cut things. But I've yet to cut myself, so I don't see any reason for alarm.) Then Dani came with Crumbs cupcakes--one with a vampire guy on top of it. And Nat came shortly after too. I forget what happened, but I think Hetal was cold, so I went to grab a sweater that I didn't want anymore and told her that she could keep it, and I suggested they all look at my "give-away" clothes bins. I had three bins, and they each took a nice bundle of clothing. One bin is entirely empty now. I'm excited that I had desirable stuff! I feel like when I try giving stuff to my sister or mom they look at me like I'm nuts or try to convince me to keep it. I just haven't got any room though I have relatively lots of room. Jon came home at some point and started cooking the meal while I finished prepping. Aditya came and showed us photos of his engagement party and beautiful fiancee.

Our menu included: olive bread, pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage, rye bread with carmelized onions (we made that on Wednesday for an onion soup that we ultimately never made) topped with some Swiss cheese (so like onion soup without the broth), and lettuce with mozzarella and the "good" balsamic vinegar. One should never fill up on lettuce or eat lettuce while the other food is warm anyway, is my motto. For dessert we had apple crumble (this time with MiniWheats in the crumble as well) with amaretto-almond crunch ice cream and split the vampire-baby Halloween cupcake. I had the lemon cupcake for breakfast the next day. So nice and lemony!

Day 53

2011-10-31T21:36:00.000-04:00

Baby Vampire

When I was maybe four or five, my mom taught us how to play a variation of the "Trick or Treat" song on a little toy keyboard. I think she threw in some Chinese somewhere, but I can't seem to remember now.

Witches, ghosts, and goblins.

Stealing down the street,

Knock on every door way,

Trick or treat!

When your door is opened,

This is what you meet,

Scary creatures shouting,

Trick or treat!

There's a home video of me playing this song on the keyboard, and my brother trying to help me. I, ever the awesome big sister, swat his hand away and say, "I know!" when he tries helping me figure out the next note. I had been pausing for a two beat count. Jeez! (Jon likes pointing out what a brat I was in that particular recorded moment.)

I tried figuring out a way to convey what this song would sound like on a keyboard, but it doesn't seem like the Internet is equipped to do that yet. I found a virtual keyboard site, but not one that has a record button. Maybe next Halloween.

When I was maybe nine or twelve or somewhere in between, I recorded myself on my sister's tape recorder thing with a microphone. I had a my first Sony, but she had a different device. I forget what it was, but it was easier singing into it for whatever reason. And boy did I love to sing though I was/still am incredibly tone deaf. Or rather, I can identify notes, but I just can't sing them for my life. Anyway, I recorded an awesome song about the night before Halloween: Mischief Night. And how dumb it was to waste toilet paper and eggs. My siblings dutifully played it to our neighborhood kids to embarrass the hell out of me. (I highly doubt it was because they loved my song/singing.)

Boo.

Haiku: Waiting for Justin Timberlake

2011-10-31T12:04:00.000-04:00

My camera's view of
Dave Letterman's studio:
Didn't see JT.

Smurf the Smurfing Smurf!

2011-10-28T16:59:00.002-04:00

I hate losing, but it happens. We lost the Halloween contest. We MADE the hats and WORE paint. What else do you people want?! Eh. Halloween is not my holiday.

*Update: Click here to see what other people dressed up as.

Haiku: Weather Update

2011-10-28T12:16:00.000-04:00

Did you know that it

might snow tomorrow and be

a terrible mess?

Day 52

2011-10-25T22:49:00.001-04:00

My mom helped (totally did all the work) me sew up the costumes for my departments' costumes. I pathetically tried to thread the machine and properly bobbin it. My mom worked as a child laborer in a sweatshop for a bit. And she's made award-winning costumes she's designed and made herself. I hope we win!

Ferry!

Day 51

2011-10-24T23:30:00.000-04:00

On Friday, I went to Mercat with Dani and Nat and used a Google Offer coupon. (Mercat is really nearby Hung Ry, which was also a delicious dinner a long time ago.) Here's a quick rundown:

CROQUETAS DE GAMBA
3 pieces: shrimp in cream sauce neatly package in friedness; these I'd get again.

CROQUETAS DE POLLASTRE

3 pieces: shredded chicken (not as creamy as the shrimp), fried up; these I'd probably pass on due to them not being as creamy as the shrimp; I wish they had a pork croquetas though.

PATATAS BRAVAS

Great dish to share; really good fried potatoes; these I'd get again.

TRENCAT D'OUS

Kind of messy to share, but it was really satisfying; per the menu: Mushrooms, Fried Egg, Truffle Vinaigrette, and Fried shoestring Potatoes; I'd want to get this again--I want to eat this right now--but there's a lot of other stuff on the menu to try.

VEDELLA

Sliced into 4 pieces: I think we had this, but it had tomatoes too--and I don't remember the potatoes; per the menu: Grilled Hanger Steak, Cipollini Onions, Fingerling Potatoes, Watercress and La Peral Sauce; same as above--the steak, whichever one we had, was cooked and seasoned so nicely though.

SOUFLE DE XOCOLATA

The size of this dessert was like a Landmarc dessert (so, small), but it was satisfying; same as above--I'd get again, but there's other stuff to try, like churros! It's less souffle-y than molten chocolate cake-y, so would really hit the chocolate spot; we decided on this dessert because Friday was cold, and when the weather is cold, it's time to eat warm chocolate.

The place was really cute and cozy. Kind of like a Spanish version of the original-Landmarc. The waitress was incredibly patient with us too because we were waiting for Jon to show up and just ordered to pass the time initially. (He was stuck in a meeting the entire time and didn't make it though.) And the coupon shaved a nice little portion of our final bill. With all these coupons and discounts all over the place, you feel kind of like a chump paying regular price to eat out anymore.

Today, I cut out pieces of my department's costumes for our Halloween party on Friday. Tomorrow, I will sew them up. I also bought the big thing of blue body paint from Ricky's. Blue.

Day 50

2011-10-22T10:11:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I woke up to a faint sound of construction. It was great. It wasn't the sound of hammering and drilling that usually bores a hole in my soul. (On a weekday, it's been the construction that makes me want to go to work, for some peace and quiet.) Anyway, they're quickly assembling the rest of the building thankfully.

When I was little, there was a building in Fairview, NJ on Bergen Blvd. that took awhile to construct. I was maybe seven or eight and the word "sexy" had entered my vocabulary somehow. (I mean it totally made me blush. Similarly, "s-e-x" was a three letter word that made my blood pressure rise so quickly that I'd get dizzy.) So because this building didn't have its walls up, it was naked. Because it was naked, it was sexy. I dubbed it the sexy building.

I now live in a sexy building that is slowly, slowly getting dressed.

Day 49

2011-10-20T23:10:00.001-04:00

Today, Lakshmi came over for dinner. We had Dickson's sloppy joe over linguine and olive bread and baby lettuce and marked correctly priced mozzarella and Financier tiramisu and chocolate something with raspberry. It was good times.

On her way over she ran into the guy who plays Ben Linus on Lost and is now on Person of Interest. Thinking he was someone familiar, she said hi to him. And he smiled back. He was walking his dog.

We watched the latest episode of Ringer. Jon can get the TV characters on that show to answer his questions. It's like he's the Ringer whisperer.

Yesterday, I learned about not cooking smelly chicken. The smell doesn't disappear by cooking. And it tastes as bad as it smells, which might be vomit inducing. And today I saw a bridesmaid dress that might be reused as a chicken costume for Halloween. Just raise the hem a bit and the normal bridesmaid dress stuff. Easy peasy. Cluck.

Day 48

2011-10-18T20:34:00.000-04:00

I had some enrichment time at work today, so I read one of the classic reference for copy editors: Words Into Type (WIT).

I started with abbreviations.

e.g. = for example

i.e. = that is

I've not used the above abbreviations since I've had to take notes to study as dictated by a professor of some sort. I remembered "e.g." was used for examples because "examples" sounds like "eggsamples" and there you have the "e.g." If that was "e.g." then other one is "i.e." and was used for something specific/definite.

when using "such as" do not also use "etc." or "and so forth"

I feel like most rambling characters use "etc." and "and so forth," so it's interesting that they're not allowed to use "such as" as well. (e.g. I love meat, such as salami, prosciutto, etc. and so forth. i.e. all cured meats especially.)

"US" when this book was written was designated to include periods, but even then, they admitted that the trend has been moving toward no periods. Per Chicago Manual of Style 16 (CMS 16), there aren't any periods. What's interesting is that they use the "Soviet Union" and the "U.S.S.R." as examples too. I really think they should come out with a new edition. It's been more than thirty years!

p.m.

(small caps) A.D.

I forget if this concurs with WIT, but it's the house style I'm supposed to use.

cf. = compare

et al. = and others

i.q. = the same as

Q.E.D. = which was to be demonstrated

sup. = above

These are abbreviations that I think I've seen in Infinite Jest.

q.l. = as much as you please

q.pl. = as much as seems good

q.v. = as much as you will

WIT said that these are abbreviations that might be seen on a prescription. I think their ambivalence is kind of fun.

Fun fact: WIT recommends not using a period for any abbreviations of measurement except for inches since it can be confused as the preposition "in." Though I guess I just demonstrated that it could still be confused for the preposition "in," and now this sentence ends over there (see period at end) to avoid that.

I thought I'd get to commas, but numbers was up next. Numbers. They make me so sleepy. Zzz . . .

Day 47

2011-10-17T17:45:00.001-04:00

Chrysanthemum (Lorem Gult Centar)

On Saturday we went to the dentist, ate at Mitsuwa, ate Blizzards at DQ, and then saw Mr. Popper's Penguins (not terrible, and Jim Carey is surprisingly funny) and part of Dune (Kyle MacLachlan! Sting!). I totally forgot to sing the "DairyQueen in My Dreams" (c) 2008 Christina Solazzo song! Next time.

On Sunday we went to the New York Botanical Garden. (It's the one in the Bronx.) It was awesome.

Chrysanthemum (Superflufficus Blanc)

The weather was gorgeous; we got to see Lakshmi and Bryan; and Lakshmi got us in for free!

Chrysanthemum (Strictusendens)

The NYBG had a Japanese chrysanthemum exhibit (Fall Flowers of Japan) and Halloween exhibit (The Haunted Pumpkin Garden). The chrysanthemums were beautiful. If I had a fall fete, I'd definitely try to use chrysanthemums.

The above picture is made up of tons of the below picture, but it's all cultivated from the same plant.

The NYBG does a better job of explaining how it's done.

The really fluffy chrysanthemums start as a tangled flower in the picture below.

They are shaken (not stirred) and are fluffed into shape. They come in three different flavors as far as I can tell: marshmallow, superfluffy scrambled eggs, and berry.

In the pavilion there was a gardenia tree that smelled like a hotel room. Jon really liked that tree. He stood underneath it twice.

We saw Monarch butterflies hanging out too. The phone camera was still set on macro, so you'll just have to trust me that a butterfly is there. There were maybe two other ones elsewhere, unless it was just the same one that stalked us.

Again, the photo above was taken set on macro, but in any case the pumpkin patch was basically jack-'o-lanterns displayed in interesting ways. We're not really sure if they're real or plastic.

We ate at the garden cafe with the hot food: chili with the works, hamburger, apple crumble. We visited the rock garden (not a garden of rocks, but plants that can grow on rocks and stuff) and took a ride on the tram before we headed home.

We went to Yakitori Totto for dinner. It was a good weekend.

Today nothing has happened yet, and it's 5:30. Absolutely nothing.

Tori!

Day 46

2011-10-14T18:50:00.000-04:00

I feel like it's been the rainiest fall ever. I don't like it, but I guess it might as well rain if I have to be at work and the sun sets at 6 p.m.

It's hard doing anything on this computer nowadays because the sofa mouse has just gotten really terrible. Since we're situated basically two feet in front of the monitor/TV though, I think it's dumb that we don't just have a wire mouse. My wrist hurts from shaking it--as if shaking it would actually help the situation. Maybe I need to blow the dust out from somewhere. That worked for Nintendo games anyway.

Make it rain, tassle lady. Make it rain.

Day 45

2011-10-13T19:33:00.001-04:00

Another animation. Click the stars.

This Photoshop animation is one that I've been working on for about a week from conception to drawing the water towers and stars and then putting it all together. (The first Google link on how to animate in Photoshop is incredibly helpful and easy to follow.) Hopefully, I'll soon get beyond the sun rising and get into something grittier. Like a noir piece. Or a rap video.

Speaking of rap videos, have you seen this?

She's my hero. I'd be her for Halloween or at least the little blonde next to her because I have no idea what this "Super Bass" song actually is and they're dressed like princesses (!), but Jon wants to go as Terence and Philip from South Park. Ehh . . .

Whoa. I just looked up the lyrics for Super Bass. Wow, kids are hilarious.

Eels.

Day 44

2011-10-12T21:20:00.002-04:00

Click the sun to see animation. I dare you.

Trying to teach myself how to animate things in Photoshop. Trust me. When I figure this ish out, it's going to be awesome.

Day 43

2011-10-11T22:50:00.001-04:00

So I went to Zara by 54th and Fifth Ave. to ponder those shoes again. But they weren't on sale. Lisa said they're like a mullet. I don't think a mullet shoe design is a bad one.

What is up with this Castle episode? It's oddly artsy. Fartsy. Buht.

Saw Hawaii 5-0 too. Ate a Caramac. Mmm . . . the perfect way to enjoy an episode of Keanu, NJ guy, Jin, Locke, the cylon, and the blonde. I can't believe Alex Mack is in cahoots with Iron Chef America. Tsk.

HIMYM (is it supposed to read kind of like "hymen"?) wasn't the best, but at least it had Ewoks. Man, those things kind of scare me. I find them intimidating. Those guys, I'd cross the street, definitely. Ewoks!

Day 42

2011-10-10T20:04:00.003-04:00

It was so sunny this morning, but now it's kind of cloudy and dark and depressing. It's only 6 p.m. I have to finish proofreading a kind of scary middle-grade book about a girl who turns her friends (and mother) into dolls. The designer didn't use the character styles, so none of the italics picked up. I had a lot to underline and mark to ital.

This weekend's weather was perfect. I tried absorbing in as much of it as possible. My parents went down the shore and to the beach. In an e-mail from the beach:

Water is fine! Lots of schools of baby fish!

I am so jealous.

Around noon on Saturday, Jon and I went to the New York Mutual Trading Japanese Food & Restaurant Show 2011. We passed by the line to get into the Gilt Warehouse sale. (It stretched to the end of the block.) There were tons of women and some men. Anyway, at the NYMT show, I felt a little too overwhelmed after I nearly trip over a kid and knocked over a sign, so I went towards Fifth Avenue to touch things and maybe buy something.

I stopped in Paper Presentation and spent a long time looking at paper products, stamps, pens, inks, flocking powder (!), glitters, ribbons, etc.

Then I stopped in at Zara. All the dresses I saw that were really nice pattern-wise, sucked material-wise. There's no way I'm going to pay for anything that's made out of viscose or polyester or nylon or crap like that. There were also a cute pair of shoes: pointy black in the front; faux-snakeskin party in in the back and had a nude-color ankle strap, but I couldn't imagine them being comfortable for more than the two minutes I had them on to see how cute they actually were on my feet. (Oddly the price in the store was more like $30. Maybe online shopping isn't all that great?)

Last stop was at J.Crew. I have a story about that for another day, which ends in buying booties and wedges. I love happy endings.

Jon and I met up with Dani and Hetal at MARKT for an mid-afternoon brunch. Brunch was tasty though kind of expensive for what it was, but I guess that's just how brunch always is. Then we went back to J.Crew for Dani to get a pair of wedges too cause they're just that cute. Hetal very bravely resisted any urge to buy anything.

Then we went to Eataly, which I've never been, to get fig sorbet and some grocery items for dinner. While Jon got some skirt steak, pasta, tomatoes, apples, and red cow cheese, which he turned into a delicious dinner the next day, Dani, Hetal, and I waited on line for gelato and sorbet. I got white peach sorbet, sweet milk gelato, and pistachio gelato. (It looked like the Italian flag since the white peach was kind of pink.) Unfortunately they ran out of the fig. Dani got mixed berry sorbet, and Hetal got the banana with chocolate chips. They were all so tasty. So, so tasty. We ate outside at some tables until the sun set. It was a lot of fun just hanging out without some predetermined activity of seeing something or doing something and reminded me of all the hours we used to spend whiling away the hours together when we were like twelve through eighteen. So many awesome hours without any pressure of doing something with our time. I think that's a really terrible part about growing up. We see our time now as valuable or something. Blah.

On Sunday, I woke up early and prepared to go to brunch (more like breakfast since we were meeting at 10:30) at MARKT again. It's not that MARKT is amazing or anything. It's just convenient, and on Saturday it was new. But, yeah, on Sunday morning it was just convenient. I wasn't in the brunch-talking kind of mood, though it was nice seeing Tina, Lina, and Cristina. It was an "-ina" bruncheon.

I then met up with my sister and aunt at P.J. Clarke's and we hung out in front of the reflecting pool thing at Lincoln Center until their "War Horse" play started. When I got home, I wanted to go back out, but it was nice being alone with Jon in a quiet apartment.

I painted my toes and cleaned my hair out of the drain this weekend too. Glug, glug, glug. Hair balls.

Day 41

2011-10-07T22:17:00.001-04:00

roasted tomatoes and garlic, blue crab, and cheddar

"kitefish" with japanese flavors

"surf and turf," sprouts with bacon salt

kiwi uzumaki, scent amandine

jacques torres's ice-cream sandwich

Four Weddings . . .

2011-10-07T21:35:00.000-04:00

Trying on bridesmaid dresses.

So this morning I got an e-mail from my dad's cousin, who said the worst thing possible. It's so bad that I have to dig it out of my trash folder because it just pissed off so much that she would've actually said it.

"It was the most fun wedding we have ever been to."

Considering that the wedding she's referring to is on the most terrible wedding show out there that COMPARES weddings and REWARDS the "best" wedding a "dream" honeymoon, I guess that's where her head is at. My cousin (my dad's half uncle's daughter's son) Cosimo and his wife Renee is on the TLC show Four Weddings tonight in case you're interested.

I Worked On This!

2011-10-07T10:48:00.001-04:00

THE FOLLOWING BOOK RECEIVED A STARRED REVIEW IN THE NOVEMBER 1ST, 2011 ISSUE OF KIRKUS REVIEWS. PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR THE REVIEW:

Aesop’s Fables

By Kees Moerbeek and illustrated by Chris Beatrice and Bruce Whatley

(Little Simon; ISBN: 9781416971467; October 2011; Fall catalog p. 226)

Huge, extravagantly designed and detailed pop-up illustrations for 10 classic cautionary tales showcase a trio of uncommon talents. Beatrice and Whatley collaborate seamlessly on the visuals, producing in traditional outdoor or rural settings a cast of realistic but broadly expressive animal figures. Many of these, particularly the wonderfully snarky-looking goose laying gold-foil eggs and the frantic, massive lion that lunges up at viewers through an entangling net as his spread opens, will elicit involuntary “Whoa”s of startled admiration. The fables, one per opening except for a miraculously un-crowded quintet gathered on the central spread, are paired to large central tableaux and smaller but only slightly less complex pop-ups in corner booklets. All are pithy versions of the usual Aesopian suspects written in a fluid, contemporary style (“You do indeed have a beautiful voice,” the fox assures the cheeseless crow, “but you don’t seem to have a brain!”) with some morals embedded and others laid out explicitly. Veteran paper engineer that he is, Moerbeek concocts ingeniously multilayered, interwoven constructions that are vulnerable to grabby little hands but, with careful supervision, sturdy enough to survive multiple shared readings. Timeless wisdom, splendidly decked out.

Day 40

2011-10-06T22:12:00.000-04:00

Ever had one of those days when you feel like the world is against you because you've seen or read too many teen angst-y type things? Yeah. . . . I'm trying to not make this one of those blogs, so I'll talk about the best part about today:

Jon has one of those fancy new phones that has a webcam, so on his bike ride home he called me, and I saw his sweet face wrapped up in his helmet. We rode up West Side together, and he showed me the Intrepid (my favorite landmark--it's a tie with the Empire State Building, but that building has gotten a little too hoary for my taste lately). It was awesome. It was like riding on Jon's handlebar (at some unsafe speed to be actually riding on his handlebar in real life) while sitting on the sofa.

Also every day this week he's also made me a sandwich for lunch: mini brioche with capicola, smoked cheddar, and the baby fennel leaves. Mmm . . . lunch!

Day 39

2011-10-05T23:05:00.001-04:00

I had an allergic reaction to acetaminophen last night. It closed up my throat a bit, and I coughed a lot. My throat was sore and itchy like an intensely gushing postnasal drip. It was kind of scary. I took some Benadryl and passed out. Then I woke up and took some more Benadryl and stayed mostly passed out for the night. All was well this morning except for a sore throat. Now I feel much better than I did twenty-four hours ago.

Tonight we had dinner with Joy and Adam at db Bistro Moderne. Joy used her savored registration to get the reservation. (30% off!! and it's discreet.) It was delicious (terrine, seasonal vegetables, lamb, veal ragout with handmade pasta, and a concord grape dessert), but I guess I'm still a little hungry because some chocolate ice cream would really hit the spot now. Hint, hint, Jon. (Jon went to get me some ice cream.)

During dinner Adam left the table momentarily and when he returned he told us that Steve Jobs passed away. It's sad. I'm going to miss his blue jeans and black turtle necks. Hopefully there will be someone out there that continues to try to make innovative/usable/nicely designed technology.

It's Tiffany's birthday today.

Chocolate ice cream!

Day 38

2011-10-03T21:49:00.001-04:00

I used to have a great uncle named Giuseppe. At least I think that was his real name. He called himself Tony. When he first came to visit, I was maybe six or nine or somewhere in between. I remember bouncing to the door, thinking it was my grandma back from wherever she was. I peeked through the mailbox, and my blood ran cold. I was terrified and confused because I've never met my great uncle Tony before and he looked like the bum who roamed around our neighborhood. (My dad likes to call the bum "Mommy's boyfriend," as in my mom's boyfriend--not his mom's boyfriend.) I don't think my dad was expecting him either. But it was all sorted, and I remember playing school and writing a story for my siblings for "Reading class" about Uncle Tony's visit. He passed away earlier this year. He and my grandma's sister, Elisa, were married for more than fifty years. Till death and all. They lived on a farm near Naples with chickens and dogs and a handmade fountain that they built at some point. Uncle Tony smoked tons, even while needing to be on oxygen.

Anyway, this guy I worked with, Giuseppe, quit today, and that reminded me of the tidbit I had about my great uncle Tony.

After work I went home and watched multiple episodes of Awkward. Jon made these burgers. Mmmm . . .

Tidbit from Modernist Cuisine/Jon-ernist Cuisine: don't use binders (eggs/bread crumbs/etc.) in burgers--they inhibit good mouthfeel unless you like rubbery mouthfeel. The more loosely you pack it the juicier it is. Try it. Mouthfeel.

Weekend at Mr. and Mrs. Krisher

2011-10-02T11:38:00.000-04:00

I went to the MoMA after work on Friday because it was free, just a few blocks north of work, and on the same street as my apartment. I walked through the sculpture garden outdoors, then up to the de Kooning exhibit. It was crowded.

His initial works reminded me of Miro, but then it became his more familiar works quickly.

Then there were a bunch of these kind of paintings that made me kind of anxious to be around. It felt like confusion and pain on canvass. I wondered if I should take a pill to calm myself down. It was hard to tell if it was the crowd or the paintings that were causing this. I vote the paintings since I've survived the McQueen exhibit crowds, which were much worse.

Then at some point I came across this painting: Weekend at Mr. and Mrs. Krishner, and I didn't feel as lost or anxious anymore. It looked like watercolor or Chinese calligraphy. It was simple because it was just black and white, but it evoked much of the same feelings complex feelings as his colorful pieces, because in the giant brushstroke you could see how much of the ink was applied from the brush--base to tip--more transparently than with his normal paint I think. It's like an X-ray. That gradient of one color and all that happens in between. There's air in the dried paint that adds texture and life to this piece.

The room with his final works (it's retrospective of his career so earliest works to latest) were so incredibly calm. And it seemed like he used a lot more white paint in these works. Though Weekend at Mr. and Mrs. Krishner was my favorite piece, this room seemed ethereal, especially compared to the more hectic/panic-inducing pieces earlier.

And then on the floor directly below of the de Kooning retrospective you have Seurat and Van Gogh and Picasso and the rest of the gang. And when looking at these pieces, as a casual neighbor stopping by to say hi and not as an anxious tourist who must take a photo of a masterpiece, it made me feel really lucky to be living so close to it all right now.

Wedding Advice XI

2011-10-01T12:32:00.000-04:00

Oh, wow. Have you seen this site about wedding venues yet? It's pretty awesome.

On further inspection, it's like everything about planning a modern wedding without all the hysterics of weddingbee and is more detailed than magazine blogs/theknot. Check it out!

I'm not really certain how I got to this page: I was on my GoogleReader to see what Cup of Jo had to say this afternoon, then I clicked on Blue Hill and saw that we missed buying tickets for the Harvest Festival tomorrow. Then I noticed that they were renting out the Hay Barn for events and Google found a link that brought me to her site. Oh, the webs we weave.

Still, holy moly--$105,000 wedding at Blue Hill for about 150 guests?! Our rehearsal dinner there was about for eighty guests and wasn't as much as that--but I guess at least the Hay Barn is actually an option now, which is nice. (The only option we had was using the private dining area or shutting down the place for about $60,000.) Weddings are expensive.

In the meantime:

Jonathan: little

you are already married man

Sent at 4:11 PM on Friday

Yeah, but I have a big birthday coming up in a few years, and I need to keep my options open.

Day 37

2011-10-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

Last night we went to Kajitsu for our monthly meal. Their theme for this month was chrysanthemums. It was pretty delicious as usual. The best dishes were an braised onion soup with mushrooms--the onion was so incredibly sweet--and the dessert mochi with fig filling--which was so lavish-tasting because the mochi tasted so fresh and melted in my mouth. The pictured dish was made from potatoes (shredded and some colored to look like chrysanthemums) with a chrysanthemum-shaped pasta, and had some edible flower petals, and mushrooms. It's a small dish, but it very successfully whets the appetite for the dishes to come. Oh, and his ginger rice dish always hits the spot. Mmm. . . .

It was my uncle's birthday yesterday--I completely forgot to call him. Happy birthday, Uncle Al!

I Spy . . .

2011-09-30T17:24:00.001-04:00

Where am I?

Chicken + Hotel = Sexy

2011-09-30T14:40:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-29T23:17:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-28T20:24:00.001-04:00

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

Day 34

2011-09-27T23:26:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-26T20:19:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-25T22:45:00.001-04:00

"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

2011-09-24T00:20:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-22T22:28:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-21T21:59:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-20T23:22:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-19T22:59:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-19T18:35:00.001-04:00

I had no clue this was here. Really nice!

Day 26

2011-09-18T22:05:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-18T01:34:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-16T22:44:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-15T11:31:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-14T23:33:00.001-04:00

Day 21

2011-09-13T19:50:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-12T22:08:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-09T20:16:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-09T00:19:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-07T20:59:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-06T22:12:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-05T22:13:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-02T20:49:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-01T19:55:00.003-04:00

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!

Day 12

2011-08-31T19:33:00.002-04:00

Bought flowers this morning for my boss's boss because she had to euthanize her cat, Willow, yesterday. She was pretty upset. She says that she loves animals so much that she doesn't even eat them. She said that they gave Willow tons of pain killers, and Willow seemed like she was better. She said the hardest part was wondering if it was too soon to make the call to euthanize her. That's probably the best reason to not get a pet.

Speaking of pets. The people on our floor with a patio are quite young looking and have two dogs. They look my age, if not a year or two or three older, but these patio apartments must be excessively priced. Like, I've never even seen these people in the hallways or elevators. And they're home at 7:30 on their patio. (Their patio is at least as big as our bedroom.) What the hell?!

Dinner in an hour for our monthly dinner at Kajitsu. Corn soup!

Day 11

2011-08-30T22:42:00.002-04:00

It's Dani's birthday! We went to Landmarc to celebrate. Watermelon martinis and cheeseburgers, sangria and carbonara, mussels and a julep. "Happy Birthday" was sung and the table's candle was blown out in lieu of one stuck in the diverse array of desserts. Caramel drops to finish it all off. Lots of laughs and recollections. Some napkin folding art was done by the table too: baby seal, baby doll, a bra, and a pillow.

Happy birthday, Dani! Also positive thoughts on Charleen's knee surgery. High kicks soon! Birthday!