I Can't Believe It's Already August!

It's like that time we went down the shore

and saw two Hercules movies that launched

the TV series.

Our luck was unbelievable that we stumbled across this

wealth of wonderful TV!

Hercules!, Kevin Sorbo, and Xena (pre-Xena), Lucy Lawless,

you guys are awesome.

(In case you were wondering,

yes, that is a bust of Mr. T in a Chinese Communist hat 

with college honor ropes,

a lei, and Academic Decathlon medal.

He's very accomplished, Mr. T.

We recognize.)

Arrested Development: Bluth's Original Frozen Banana Stand (and Luke Bryan)

I spy an oversize banana,

which could only be:

Some marketing folks from Netflix!

They were giving out stuff earlier,

but by the end of the day there was a line to take a photo

with some strangers.

And on my way home,

outside of Letterman, I saw

Luke Bryan!

(I've never heard of him,

but people seemed enamored.)

Meanwhile my cousin Samantha got her picture taken

with Danny Masterson (Hyde from That 70s Show)

because he was hanging out at her office since he has a friend there.

Dance, Dance!

So we're fortunate enough to have cool things like

this come to our building's gym.

And luckily we didn't have other plans

and the weather was pretty terrible,

so I went to both of these classes.

The class was wonderful!

I forgot how choreography is almost cerebral.

It's memorizing and understanding steps and movements,

then adding more.

I've been taking dance classes for years now,

and I've not had to memorize a routine since high school.

I've always just followed the instructor in the front.

But today I felt my brain working.

John was very nice

and his choreography worked surprisingly well with different genres

of music.

We kept doing the same few steps over and over,

and he built on it.

In total it was about 20 steps 

(8 counts each, so about two minutes worth of music)

and then it looped again.

So much fun!

During the stretch portion of class,

he noted that my pointe

(when you point your toes)

was very good and that I must've danced before.

He said very few people are born with a naturally good pointe.

Ah, all those years of pointing paid off!

A bonus of both of these classes was that

Jessica Williams from The Daily Show was in attendance!

She's quite tall.

I couldn't place where I'd seen her for a short while,

but then after ruling out everyone at work and friends of friends

and moving on to TV and movies,

it just made sense.

She's really pretty and is a good dancer.

It'd be fun to have her in more of my gym classes.

Two Poems Are Better Than One

It's poetry month!

I think the only publisher who actually celebrates this month is

Random House.

I get a poem a day from them

for the month of April every year

in my e-mail.

It's a lovely thing.

Anyway, I'm not sure how prolific I will be this month,

but here are two poems

just for you:

"Two Cats"

*(Wee came up with the first two lines.

When I asked her what she does when she's sad,

she said she hugs her cats.)

and

"Dead Bird"

*(It's about the dead bird I saw this morning of all mornings.)

I'm a little rusty at writing poetry, 

so just laugh with me.

Okay, here goes:

Two Cats

Two cats are better than one

Two cats are so much fun

Two cats, paired like peas in a pod

Two cats, neither of them are named Todd

Two cats, frowning at your skeptical face

Two cats, next on The Amazing Race

Two cats hike the Appalachian Trail

Two cats will never fail

Two cats are asleep in your shoes

Two cats got into your booze

Two cats think your stupid joke is funny

Two cats fart after tasting honey

Buht, buht

Buht, buht

Buht

Two cats slide through a box

Two cats chase the fox

Two cats love, love, love fish

Two cats, they share a splish!

Two cats nap on your head

Two cats, they pretend that you're dead

Two cats are better than one

Two cats are so much fun

Dead Bird

Oh, bird.

You once took flight,

high up in the air,

morning, noon, and night.

You loved what you did,

though perhaps a little too much.

Now you're feeling

a bit out of touch.

As they saying goes:

Pimpin' aint eazy.

But just keep swimming,

just keep swimming,

and life was but a dream. 

Naw mean, bra?

Ducktales and Hall and Oates

After reading this wonderful article

about the acclaimed TV show

Ducktales,

we realized that the theme song was much like

the Hall and Oates song: You Make My Dreams Come True.

Thankfully other people on the Internet did too

and saved us the work of mashing it up to prove a point.

January Twilight

The other day we went to Sushi Azubu.

We eat at the same time as senior citizens

because crowdedness,

nonvacant bathrooms,

and slow service really make me antsy.

So we saw the sunset on our way there.

I love when the sky turns pink and orange 

below blue and purple clouds.

After sushi, we played Ingress a little in Tribeca.

It was fun.

I now have to choose to be a good or bad guy.

I want to be a bad guy with an interesting backstory

that turns into a good guy.

I want to be Nikita.

Our New Year's Eve Party/Homeland Season 2 Marathon

The spread from Dickson's Farmstand Meats.

Cornichons!

Spicy mustard!

Rillette of deliciousness (meat under a thick layer of fat--that you don't eat)!

Apricot chutney!

Let me introduce the meats more intimately:

This is lonza.

Delicate and salty,

like a thin prosciutto.

This is ham.

Thicker, bolder tasting,

but still like prosciutto.

Hetal also brought some delicious chicken spring roll things

that her mom gave her to bring over.

It's a new product at Sam's Club.

It was actually a great complement to the cold platter.

Hetal, Dani, Jon, and I watched season 2 of Homeland on NYE

and New Year's Day.

That's about 12 hours of TV.

An hour per episode.

12 episodes.

Yeah--we did it.

It was quite the journey.

Some of us even fell asleep.

The photo above demonstrates one of our many frank conversations

about Saul possibly being killed off

since we'd heard that someone was going to die.

Well, Hetal was convinced that the big death of the season was going to be Brody,

so she wasn't too concerned about Saul.

At some point our Fresh Direct arrived,

and Jon cooked us up a quick spaghetti bolognese.

I really enjoyed the spaghetti he picked up from Chelsea Market.

Really thick strands and lots of texture for the gravy to cling to.

He's such a good husband.

And Dani brought desserts!

Bombolini from Sullivan Street Bakery

and cupcakes from Amy's Bread.

Mmm, mmm, mmm!

She told us that in Croatia she eats bombolini for breakfast.

I want to go to Croatia.

Back to watching Homeland 

like it's our job,

making sure Saul doesn't fucking die.

We took a break to walk up to Central Park and watch the fireworks

and ring in the new year.

We watched episode 6 with champagne.

It was all good.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary!

Three years ago,

we had a pretty kickass day.

Two years ago,

we also had a kickass day.

Last year,

we also had a kickass day.

Today,

being at work,

at a meeting that lasted two hours,

instead of walking down the aisle

in a pretty white dress,

with all my beloved family and friends,

or at a historic b&b in Virginia,

or even at home, 

it just wasn't as kickass.

Hopefully, the last few hours of the day will be though!

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!"

Boobies on Showtime

After watching the first few episodes of Showtime's Homeland and House of Lies, the simple conclusion is that Showtime loves showing off boobs. Gratuitously. I'm not sure it makes the shows better or worse. (Maybe a bit awkward, depending on with whom you're watching them.)

Still while the pilot episode of Homeland had "gritty"/"realistic" scenes of nudity and sex, the pilot episode of House of Lies was just like a soft-core porn. While Homeland got better after the first few episodes, I just gave up on House of Lies after that first episode.

I love Kristen Bell, but I just didn't get House of Lies. Does anyone know if it gets better?

How do you feel about boobs or other nudity on TV shows?


(photo taken of a New Yorker cartoon)

My Hour and a Half with Marilyn

Movie time!

Who would've thought that the saucy blonde from Dawson's Creek would have made it this far in her career?

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

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

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

My Week with Marilyn 

:)

I had no expectations for this film to be good or for Michelle Williams to actually be quite great, but it was good and she was quite great.

Overall: A young Englishman, Colin, with family connections, uses those connections to work on Laurence Olivier's movie with Marilyn Monroe. Colin proves to be brilliant at everything (he did write the books the movie is based on), and while Arthur Miller's in America, Colin becomes Marilyn's "big spoon" in bed for about a week. Marilyn's nuts and insecure, but she's also smart. Olivier can't figure out whether to love or hate her. Judi Dench is just adorable in this movie too. It's a movie about making a movie. And what's interesting is that even though Michelle Williams isn't exactly as adored or even entirely as new to show business as Marilyn was, I wondered if making this movie with these extremely seasoned foreign actors, by playing this role of such great expectations, she felt as much pressure personally as she portrays in being Marilyn. Also, the scenes of the countryside are so warm and beautiful. If only I could take my shoes off and walk around there!

Surprise: Hermione gets dumped by Colin! Ron apparates onto the set to save her dignity. (Kidding.)

Daydream Believer

Oh, Davy Jones.

I used to love The Monkees. I had no idea who the Beatles were until I was in maybe middle school. I couldn't even tell you who was the real band and the, ehrm, fake. The episode of The Simpson's when Marge is made fun of for liking The Monkees made me kind of wonder why people thought they were cheesy, but people are dumb and mean about cool things all the time.

Anyway, the Monkees! They were the best.

I remember that they had a TV show after preschool and kindergarten. I couldn't really understand fashion at that point, so I guess they looked normal to me. I watched it with my dad when he got home from work. My grandma would come home from work in the city as the show was ending, and that all meant that dinner was coming up soon. Mmm . . . dinner as a kid. I guess my mom was dealing with my siblings or something. I don't remember watching The Monkees with her, but I know I watched it a ton, so she must've seen it with me at some point.

But those four guys, they sang and danced, and got into pratfalls and high jinks. They were hilarious! It was my favorite TV show besides The Elephant Show with Sharon, Lois, and Bram.

I wasn't a Davy Jones groupie as a four- and five-year-old. I liked Mike's floppy hats, and Micky too sometimes, when he didn't remind me of an ape (and kind of scared me). I don't remember Peter--just that they had four guys, so I guess he was one of them.

I have to admit, that I didn't understand why Davy got all the girls. He played the tambourine at most of their gigs! I could play the tambourine! With the help of YouTube I now see that he played or "played" a bunch of instruments, but mostly the tambourine in the very famous Monkees songs.

Anyway, Davy Jones, you daydream believer, you made me a very happy kid once upon a time. Rest in peace.

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!

Day 45

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 43

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 38

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.

Day 6

We don't have internet yet, so when I'm home I have to use my cell phone for most things, like Pandora for music and Twitter for news. Anything else is just painfully slow to do, so I read e-mails but don't respond. And I see tweets with slideshows but don't click through, so I retweet it, mostly for myself. (Those children's clothes for petite women slideshow was weak. J.Crew Cuts definitely aren't more affordable than their adult clothes.) Anyway, we may have internet on Monday, which will be so nice!

Tonight was M. Wells dinner with the husband on Long Island City. (Queens!) Most delicious rib eye! We got a compliment on how good our steak looked. Why thank you, stranger. The steak was rare and tasty and came with a bunch of chanterelles. (We've leftovers to eat with our hands, as meat and mushrooms were meant to be eaten!) Ate raw steak and a Caesar salad too. (It was better than it sounds--not boring at all. Trust me on this one.) Topped it all off with pineapple upside-down cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. (Doggy box #2. The cake wasn't a slice--more like a personal-size pizza than prompted memories of personal-pan Pizza Hut pizza and my favorite childhood friend of Jon's that I've never met before--Coreysmith! I've forgotten his real name.) What I took away from M. Well besides leftovers to look forward to was that Quebecers can definitely cook well, even in an old diner in Queens. Meanwhile I accidentally made our fridge into a freezer. Ice milk sculptures!

One Week Ago + One Day

I turned 27.

Even though I took a sick day because I thought I had bronchitis or asthma and had to go to the doctor, I still had the best birthday ever.

Wee hung up on me because she thought I was a creepy man.

Wee came over with my two favorite donuts: strawberry glazed with sprinkles and a Boston cream. She also gave me the best card: a baby with a princess crown--such a cute baby!

We went to the pool for a few minutes. It was really cold. REALLY cold. She beat me at laps.

We ate Chinese food for lunch with Grandma--who was lucid enough to remember my birthday!

We watch 15 minutes of Gilmore Girls and then went to the doctor.

The doctor made me take a test to make sure I didn't have asthma. It was 20 min. of being drugged to induce asthma and drugged with Albuterol and LOTS of breathing. Breathing is hard, yo.

We picked up my Fudgie the Whale cake from Bergenline and dropped it off at our parents' house.

Then we went to my apartment where we ate Pam's delicious green tea flavored treats before heading to the roof party where the weather was perfect. (It looked like it might rain for a second.) There was baked macaroni, a bunch of delicious little puff pastry wrapped items, fresh fruit, string beans, cannoli, etc. Music WAS provided by a DJ. Lux danced for all of us and there was a standing ovation.

We took these photos of us and the sunset against Harlem.












We had Fudgie the Whale cake.



The next day I had a summer Friday off, so Wee and I got her car fixed and then went to the mall where I bought 3 rompers, pants, shorts, and a tank top. We ate the leftover Chinese food and passed out while watching Party Down. Dani came over and brought delicious cupcakes from Crumbs, and I made a butter pasta dish to eat on the roof. It was really nice and then it got cold. When Jon came home, we had more treats that he brought from Sarabeth's.



I think there's still more Whale though. Mmmm....Good, good birthday!

Sesame Street

Anyone know how they got the name Sesame Street? Sounds pretty delicious.

At 1:30, there was supposedly an e-book meeting. We all showed up with notepads in hand, but then the department's assistant shows up with champagne.

Everyone likes those kinds of meetings! *I'm a little buzzed myself...and it's about an hour later...Oh, Asian flush*

It was to celebrate one of our head production manager's ten-year anniversary. TEN! I want to be here for ten years and have to debate whether to get a slow cooker or a binocular with a camera in it. (Apparently for your five-year anniversary, you get to choose a CD-walkman. Nice!)

(Sidenote: Coconut has been here for eighteen years--since she's graduated college! She's been in my department since 2000 though.)

Anyway, one of the topics of conversation was Sesame Street. I've not watched the show in awhile, but apparently it's still as hip as ever.

Jason Mraz's I'm Yours is covered as Outdoors:



Norah Jones's Don't Know Why is Don't Know Y:



And OMG, Feist!



My favorite of all time though is:



Those pigs are crazy. I remember watching it when I was three and being so transfixed on these pigs. How cool are they?

and, though they're not Sesame Street, the Muppet's version of Kokomo:



and, She Drives Me Crazy:



What are your favorite Sesame Street/Muppets music numbers?