Ann Taylor Cat Dress

The other day

I got out so late

that I needed to cheer myself up by

browsing the Ann Taylor sales rack.

And I found an XS cat dress.

Little cats!

And it was only $12!

Unfortunately, it fits too snugly around my hips and butt.

It's just inappropriate for someone my age.

So if Wee can't fit it, 

it's going to be a cute top instead.

Cat dress!

Chinese New Year 2013 3.5 (since 4 is unlucky): Our New Year's Feast

The waitress suggested that we ordered too much.

We ate all of this, and then some.

So there, waitress.

Pshh.

This is what I ate at some point,

before refilling my plate

again and again.

Ayee, PoPo, and Ma--so lucky in their pink and red clothes!

Katherine's Hepburn's Pants at the NYPL

I love, love, love living in Manhattan.

It's disgustingly expensive to live here

(did you see the article about the middle class in the NYTimes?)

but there is so much free stuff!

Unfortunately, the headache of getting into or out of the city

from anywhere else in the world 

to take advantage of this stuff 

is usually not worth it.

I'm saying that if you're in town,

it's awesome, but asking someone to trek in

is kind of asking a lot.

Take this Katherine Hepburn exhibit

 at the NYPL in Lincoln Center

for example.

It was free, and it was wonderful because it was free.

Definitely a must-see if you were around and had a half hour to stop in.

Though, most people would probably prefer making an effort to see 

an Audrey Hepburn costume exhibit, I'm sure.

Still, Katherine was adorable 

in her crazy accent/pants-wearing ways.

Her costumes in her plays and movies weren't as beautiful,

but they helped create her memorable characters.

Other stuff, like sketches of herself, and a Dorothy Parker review

of her play (Dottie hated it) were nice touches.

It's hard to tell if I'd be able to fit into her clothing.

Some seemed too long for my stature,

some seemed too small for my waist.

Others seemed huge.

I feel like the pants display would be a good campaign for Gap 

or maybe an older women's clothing store.

They should make replica pants.

These are cute, especially since pleated pants,

aren't the worst things in the world any longer.

By the way how cute is that hat?

Pinterest wish list that baby.

Hetal's 2012 Christmas Tree-Trimming Party!

Hetal had a fun Christmas tree decorating party a few weeks ago.

The tree only fell twice while we were there.

(It fell once a few days later.

I have to find the metal stand my parents have for next year.)

I crocheted a little fish ornament for her.

I used a narwhal pattern without the horn and flattened it

and the tail looks nothing like the pattern actually.

Rana lobster ravioli.

Rana vegetable ravioli.

These were all really delicious.

We're all really grateful that it opened up in Chelsea to satisfy

our pasta needs.

Hetal also made these phyllo dough with spinach and goat cheese tartlets.

So cute!

And so delicious!

She also made a large tart with cheese and veggies

that was impressive and very tasty.

Crazy Christmas socks.

Hetal's three-year-old nephew, Jaden,

decorated most of the tree.

And mostly in the same area of the tree.

Ha-ha!

(See the first photo for comparison.)

It was a great night of catching up with old friends and new,

hanging out with Jaden,

drinking Dani's dad's delicious homemade wine,

eating very well,

and all that good holiday stuff

you can't do any other time of year.

Life Is Shore Good

This summer has passed by wayyy too quickly.

The water was so warm the weekend this photo was taken.

So warm!

(Dani swam well, Mr. Kero. Really well. Not struggling at all.)

Life is "Shore Good"!

We got doughnuts-ice-cream sundaes.

Yeah.

It's a doughnut and ice cream in a sundae form.

What?!

Hetal had very high heels on when she came from her friend's engagement party.

Like ten inches.

(Okay, more like five.)

She borrowed my shorts and flip-flops for a "shore good" life.

Dani told us her small bear/raccoon story,

which was hilarious.

She attacked Hetal with the small bear/raccoon stuffed animals

that night.

Jon's ankle and wrist were swollen from his falls (yeah, two of them that week),

but that got him out of going to the beach.

I love the summer!!!

When the Sun Sets After Yoga

 

I love when there are

delicious berry and orange clouds.

I had a yoga class outdoors,

on the faux grass,

and it was a lot of fun.

The faux grass was very cushion-y.

We tumbled like toddlers,

trying to do headstands and other crazy positions

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

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

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

It's hard to relax,

which I thought was kind of the point

of doing yoga.

The point of these classes seems to breathe

while hurting

a lot.

I'm the only one that wears sweatpants.

I wear sweatpants because

those are the only exercise pants

that hide my panty lines.

Even the old man wears body-hugging shorts.

I just bought a bunch of hiphugger briefs

that will hopefully hide those lines.

I've invested in contacts for zumba classes.

I cannot bounce around with glasses sliding down my nose.

Exercising is nuts.

Cat in a Sombrero!

When Lisa adopted Zara last year for her birthday,

Zara was just a little kitten.

So soft and furry and curious and friendly.

Now she's just a cat in a sombrero.

Ay, chihuahua!

That Time It Was the First Awesome May Weekend in 2012

This past weekend was so warm

that I broke out my shorts.

The ladies need a tan. 

Yes, I call my gams, "the ladies."

Have you seen my chest?

There's nothing to brag about there.

I sat in the sun until my butt felt like

it was burning on the bricks.

Jon wore his new "dry technology" polo shirt

from Uniqlo.

The dry technology worked.

He wasn't a soaking mess.

Success!

Easter Was Egg-cellent!

My cousin Samantha

made these cute little deviled eggs

for our Easter Saturday soiree

at her mom and dad's house on Long Island. 

They're like in a jacuzzi,

being eggs.

She found the recipe on Pinterest

and was resolved to make it.

Olive eyes, carrot beaks and feet.

Egg heads and bodies and innards.

Mmm . . . tasty innards!

It's the best kind of deviled egg too

because it's two servings in one!

My PoPo said she got full 

from eating two of the eggs herself.

I imagine this is what it looks like 

when a bunch of eggs

watch another egg

break dance.

Or going back to the jacuzzi scene,

when it floats in the middle of them all.

A kind of egg synchronized-swimming scene.

Speaking of eggs,

"Eggs, I really love you like the sky above!"

Hey Na Na

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 61

The last two days have been extremely warm--mid to upper 60s. I'm not complaining. If NYC could be like this all the time, that would be awesome.

Last night I met up with Dani and Hetal to go to TJ Maxx and then 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 bit marveling 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. No chill. Amazing!

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

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

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

Octsnober, Snotober, Thundersnow

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!

A Tale of Two Dinners

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!

Smurf the Smurfing Smurf!

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.

Day 42

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.

Four Weddings . . .

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.

Hot!

According to the National Weather Service, it felt like 116 degrees in New York.--NYT 7/22/11

When I left for lunch, I was freezing. FREEZING! I had goosebumps all over my arms. When I went outside, I could feel the heat make water droplets and gas off the cool air on my skin. It was a weird sensation. It felt a lot like what I imagine taking a cold shower and then running a blow dryer over that skin while standing in the sun is like. (In case you wanted to try to simulate it later for fun.) It was like I was a cold front interacting with a really hot front, and I was just waiting for a cloud to form around me and a miniature tornado or thundershower to spontaneously pop out of that cloud. At the very least, I thought I'd have my own contrail.

It makes me really want to try one of those mango-pineapple drinks from McDonald's.

It's also so hot that trying to move faster is just too hard:

Like my brain is like: Stop walking like a tourist.
And my body is like: But too much exertion will produce dire circumstances. Believe me, Brain, you know how I like fleeing instead of fighting. I just can't move faster. Slow and steady wins the race, etc.
And my brain is like: Yes. You're right. I'm sleepy. I'm so, so sleepy anyway.
And my body is like: Well, look, I'll put on a sweater to keep warm, and you can sit at your desk in the cold air for the rest of the afternoon and not have to worry about the heat for awhile.
And my brain is like: High five!
Body: High five, Brain!

Now I'm back and wearing a mohair sweater over my sundress, trying not to put my head on my desk to take a quick nap.

E. B. Browning + Cookies

Pepperidge Farm Verona Apricot Raspberry Distinctive Cookies,
how I heart thee.
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the apricot and raspberry and rich buttery cookie
my mouth can reach,
when feeling too stressed out to be nice and graceful,
while yelling in my mind at people for being idiots.
I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need,
by fluorescent and computer light.
I love thee freely, as much as leggings and a drawstring dress allows.
I love thee purely, as the filtered water I drink.
I love thee with a passion put to use to avoid little fires throughout my day.
In sad times, and when I'm daydreaming about things I used to do as a kid.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose when I press your shimmering pool of fruit against my tongue to the roof of my mouth and you crumble.
I love thee with the breath, smiles, and tears of all my life!
And, if God or my stomach choose, I shall but love thee better after your bag is empty.

Morning Commute: Post-Snowmablizzgeden

Our sidewalk was mostly clear. It snowed at least a foot inches and then drifted higher in some areas. It was also really sunny yesterday, so maybe a few inches melted?



I waited between these two cleared sidewalk paths for the bus for a short while. The other stop was beyond the snowbank, and it was hard to know how packed it was. Then I got worried about how packed the bus could be, so I moseyed over.



If they plow the sidewalks and presumably the paths to the crosswalks, why do the crosswalks always end up so messed up? Why?



Waiting for the bus here. About a foot and a half of snow.



Knee high snow. Cooler than knee high boots? Or maybe it proves that knee high boots have a purpose?



Probably not.

Veteran's Day

When I worked in VA, nearly everyone was off for Veteran's Day because nearly everyone worked for the government there. It's kind of nice to be surrounded by people who don't have off today.



While in Oahu in October, we went to Pearl Harbor. It felt like the hottest day.



We went to Target to cool off. They were selling hats and glittens there.

Then we drove northeast and then west along the coast looking for some surfers riding giants, but there were none so we got shaved ice, tote bags, and T-shirts. We stopped at the Pali Lookout before heading back and then went to Yohei for omakase dinner at the sushi bar (amazing!). I think we stayed up past midnight (first time during our vacation) deciding on I Melt with You as our intro wedding-party song while playing WordJhong Party on the Wii.

My feet and hands are really cold today. Oh, to be warm and on vacation!