Fluffy white fun

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse. Canon DLSR on tripod with remote timer taking a photo once every five minutes.

Approximately 20 hours in 40 seconds.

Facebook: Mike Black Photography

This evening, the video even made it onto the ABC evening news (the national broadcast, not local).

Me? Am happily ensconced with my family in Connecticut, where my youngest niece was prevented from flying back to SF since all 3 NYC airports were closed today (oops).

One day, I'll experience thundersnow, but it was not to be this weekend.

Still Alive

Okay, so yeah, I've just been in a big ol' funk lately, as evidenced by my disappearance for over a month from here, and eating my way up the scale by several pounds. (I've also taken a hiatus from WW, since it's not about "how do I stay within my points budget?" but rather "need to straighten out my head first"!)

Slept for about 16 hours the other day, and have taken to napping on Sundays before bracing myself to watch the Giants after halftime (and yesterday's loss to the Eagles was truly appalling: giving up 28 points in less than 8 minutes during the 4th quarter! WTF?!)

But thanks to a relaxing dinner and long talk with my friend A who reminded me that I am not my job, and comfortable evenings with my knitting buddies, and time with a remarkably mellow Mom (!!!), I'm gradually regaining my equilibrium. (My home still almost looks like an audition set for HOARDERS, but I am slowly throwing out bits of crap. Note the key word "bits" and not, say, dumpster-loads.)

But really, that sensible comment from A (which I should perhaps tape to my bathroom mirror as a useful reminder) was tremendously helpful. Perhaps I was just ready.

And then I found out that one of my friends just buried his mom today. She had been suffering from stage 4 pancreatic cancer so it was not unexpected but still...

(As an aside, this just reinforces my determination to continue waging war on How Too Spoil Mom -- buy her stuff like a new winter coat, she tries them on, spends a long time considering the pros and cons [now I know where I get my indecisiveness from], then tells me to return it the next day -- lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually I'll find something that she really likes.)

So yeah, there's a light at the end of this particular tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train.

Oh, and the ceramic octopus shown above (which I think is FABULOUS and fabulously fascinating) was made my my friend Diana at the pottery studio. Sooooo lifelike, doncha think?

Weekend(s) in New England

So okay, I've always had a hidden fondness for this old Barry Manilow song, and since I've visited Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut during the past 3 weekends, I figure I'm entitled to use it as my lead in. Heh.

The photo above, and at the end of this post are from Boston, during Halloween weekend, when I visited my friend Tamara. The photo right below is from my sister's front yard, where both she and I love the vivid red of her Japanese maple trees in the fall.

Despite the depressing round of layoffs last week (and the suspicion that there may be more in a few months), on the bright side, 1) I'm still employed, 2) with health coverage that sends me to MSKCC, 3) where my antigen tests all came back negative at the end of October. (Time for the quarterly happy dance!) Next check up is in March, and if I do well then, I'll graduate to semi-annual checkups! Woohoo!

By the way, dunno if I mentioned this before, but there is a certain habit doctors have which is understandable in terms of WHY they do it, but still makes you want to put your head on the table. I refer of course, to the classic exchange of "Does this hurt?" [poke, poke, poke] "YES! OW!!!!"

So the oncologist was examining me during my checkup at the end of October, and feeling for any new lumps (none, thank goodness) on both sides of my torso. This was when we both discovered that my left side is still extremely sensitive, and hurts when jostled, poked, or otherwise insulted, even though the surgery was almost 2 years ago (January 2009).

Her: "I see that this side is still tender." [poke, poke, poke]
Me: "Yes! Ow! OW!! OW!!!"
Her: "Yes, that's normal."
Me: [whimper]

Now don't get me wrong -- I like my onco-doc, and she needed to do that, but still: EEK!!! Ya know?

Yesterday's check up was with the surgeon, who was very pleased with my healing. Despite some slight keloidal scarring (what can ya do? the joys of an olive complexion; plus in the scheme of things, I don't really care, considering the alternatives) he pronounced himself very pleased with my progress, "A good result!" and said my next checkup with him would be in a year. Hurrah!

And I was amazed and warmed by the number of friends who posted happy comments on Facebook when I reported my avuncular, bow-tied surgeon's progress report. Wow.

I also cracked up said surgeon with my comments that it (the surgical scar) almost looks like a coin pocket, and about the poke-poke-poke issue. "Yes, doctors can be a pain, can't they?" (See? I told you I liked my surgeon.) Hey, did he make a joke?! I mean, he WAS smiling when he said that. Hmmm...

Speaking of health matters, I've been struggling with my weight lately but I signed up for the new WW session at work. Right now I seem to be going through a lot of stress / angry eating (which is extremely frustrating, since it has NOTHING to do with actual hunger -- it's never about the food: it's always about The Issues Underneath) but eventually I'll get my noshing under control (I think...). In the meantime, at least I'm gnawing on less bad-for-me food than I used to (e.g., roast chicken and roasted squash vs. fish & chips, or Kame rice crackers vs. potato chips) and eating better breakfasts (what is this croissant thing you speak of? I have not had one for years).

Okay, time to haul myself off to work. Ciao, y'all!

Mixed signals

So we had more layoffs today. It was very depressing. My department is fine, but our division had 5 people let go, 4 of whom sat near me.

So I suppose that when our Chief Administrative Officer jokes with me about having Security escort me out in the evenings (because I frequently work late -- though I have yet to meet the cleaning staff at least), this is not a bad thing.

And our Managing Director had a fun, fun day telling each department that reported to him the cheery news in closed door meetings, so I admire him for that.

We got several bounceback messages from people throughout the company this afternoon, so clearly today was a busy day for HR.

Ugh.

Have I mentioned that Open Enrollment for next year's health care benefits starts tomorrow? Repeat after me: continued employment = continued health insurance coverage, so buried somewhere under my moroseness, there is thankfulness. Honest.

Right now though, I am going to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

The Bee Gees

Just a howdy to say that I'm still alive (be grateful I don't post a link to a Stayin' Alive video here to emphasize the point). Lots going on (and yes, my quarterly checkup at MSKCC was fine -- yay, team) but I just don't feel very communicative lately. I think I need to go vent in my journal or something.

Well, the only decent thing about Daylight Savings Time (blech -- now it gets dark after 4ish in the afternoon) was that I at least got to catch up on some sleep: 20 hours this weekend, so I either had some severe sleep deficits going, or I'm a little depressed, or both.

Speaking of sleep, I'm going to bed (yes, at a shockingly decent hour) since I am on a perpetual quest these days to get to the office at a decent time, since I now sit in the fishbowl near a managing director.

Signed,
Your cranky friend in New Yawk City
where the leaves are finally starting to turn

42 going on 17

It's been a long time since I stayed out till 2:00 AM... but apparently us fortysomethings can still close down a place when given proper incentive, like say, a 25th reunion of your high school classmates. (Naturally, I was scheduled to meet some friends the next morning for a 10:00 AM bargain matinee of RED; although fun, it alas did not pass the Bechdel Test, the criteria for which Sam told us about afterward.)

So yes, I do think I looked pretty damn good (thank you Laura Nadeau -- those of you on Facebook can gawk at the various photos I've posted but sorry, they're not going up on here) and apparently I was instantly recognizable (heh) as were several old friends, including Steve, our resident class joker who is pictured here with everyone's name tag.

The evening really did fly by, since we were all surprised when the restaurant staff started setting up for the next day: it felt like 9:30 or 10:00 PM, but it was actually 11:20! Whoops. This did not prevent us all from hanging around, catching up, and taking pictures for another hour... well, actually, maybe it was two. I mean when my friend Jane dropped me off on her way home to Westchester, it was 2:00 AM!

The women generally looked as good as, or much better than, they did in high school. The men, not so much. LOTS of doctors. There were a few guys who looked exactly like maturely attractive versions of their high school selves, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Granted women have the benefit of makeup (even I, one of the most UN-girly of chicks resorted to the magic of facepaint) but there's just overall maintenance which also makes a big impact, if you see what I mean.

As you might be able to tell, even though I had a lot of fun, the evening did leave a weird emotional residue, because I was one of the few people there who had never been married, AND who was also child-free. Granted, I don't WANT children (though I love my niece's kids dearly and can't wait to see them again) but it did make me feel kinda freakish to be so different from the other 160+ people in the room who were either married, divorced, parents, or a combination of the above.

Normally, I'm fine with my life the way it is, and and pleased with my own progress, but perhaps being around people who knew you at your most awkward (14-17 are not years I'd ever want to revisit) -- even when you currently feel pretty confident -- has an insidious effect. Hmmm.... guess I'm going to have to go chew on this some more.

Of course, my view could be jaundiced by the fact that by the end of the night, my feet were in agony: I will NEVER again let people talk me into wearing superchic shoes if they're not something I previously bought. Jane and Laura N. decreed my black pumps were too dull and I didn't have anything else remotely appropriate (see: un-girliness, above) so Laura gave me a pair of black patent peep-toe shoes, which seemed fine when I tried them on at her place, but: my feet still hurt today. Ouch.

So now, I am going to go seek solace in my fluffy bed, while listening to New Chain, the new Small Black CD which I downloaded tonight from Amazon (I already sought solace in 5 WW points worth of chocolate earlier) and get up early for work tomorrow (hey, hope springs eternal!)

Happy anniversaries & RTBT

So exactly a year ago today, I finished my last radiation treatment. I think that deserves a big "Yippee!" Don't you?

Thinking about that milestone makes me happy, and puts a smile on my face.

And thanks to the wonderful / weird / wonderfully weird world of Facebook, my upcoming 25th high school reunion this Saturday (oh my, I am THAT old... even my mom was amazed: "really? it's been 25 years?" yes, Mom, it has) strikes me as lots of fun and not angst-inducing. (By the way, The Social Network [a/k/a The Facebook movie] is very engrossing, even if you never use FB. It's more a story about creation, litigation, and shades of grey, plus it has a script by Aaron Sorkin, music by Trent Reznor, and solid acting.)

Thanks to the initiative of my friend Jane, the urging of coworker Dennis, and my memories of never photographing so well as I did during Jane's wedding, I will be following along behind Jane on Saturday to see the fabulously talented Laura Nadeau. Alas, no superfancy hairstylist a la Jenny, but yes, I am actually making an effort to go all girlie. Shocking, I know, but that's what a major reunion can do to even the most un-girlie girl.

The dress is something I bought years ago but have never worn. Through all of the ups and downs of my health rollercoaster the past few years, it has now ironically turned out to be just about a perfect fit, or will be after I have my mom shorten the hem to just above the knee. Like it?

The red bits are the satin "belt" that comes with the dress. I even have a matching clutch (please, pick yourselves up off the floor -- hopefully you didn't give yourselves concussions when reading that).

Oh, and today, we moved my desk from out of the fishbowl lane at the office (right on the outer corner of the aisle near the pantry, where everyone could see what was on my monitor/screen and each scrap of paper on my desk) to a cubicle one aisle further in, and one row further away from the traffic flow. HALLELUJAH! (When I told my mom about the original fishbowl position, she burst out giggling. Yes, giggling. Now you KNOW it's a horrible spot in the cubicle farm if even my mom laughs, as she normally reminds me -- and I agree -- that I should be happy to have a job.)

Speaking of jobs, I need to go to bed, so I will leave you with this song for your amusement, courtesy of my weekend immersion in NPR: The Vaselines play "Sex with an X," on Studio 360. I find the lyrics vastly amusing.

Option Three

pedestal sink anyone?

So when confronted with the options of [1] laundry (and you all know how much I love that). [2] cleaning out and rearranging my kitchen (now that's it's cool enough to make cooking appealing again -- just bought some Japanese turnips at the farmers market near me), or [3] hiding from it all and taking a nap on a cool Sunday afternoon, guess which one sounds most appealing?

(looooong pause for a nap)

Actually, I think the need for napping (in addition to the 10 hours of sleep I had last night) is a combination of factors: (a) I'm either fighting off some wicked-nasty fall allergies [though possibly it's the stupid new office building and its new carpeting and construction dust], (b) a fall cold, or (c) I'm avoiding dealing with a whole bunch of emotional crap.

an early turner in Central Park

And while re-reading a post from a year ago, wherein I mention both Japanese turnips and my now ex, reminds me of just how many things can happen in a year, it doesn't make me think that I made the wrong call in breaking up with him. Quite the contrary (which doesn't mean I'm not still trying to wipe off the emotional residue, if you'll pardon the double negative).

Re-reading that post also made me realize: holy crap! I finished radiation treatments exactly one year ago this Tuesday, October 19th! I think tonight's belated celebration of my friend Marci's birthday at Kittichai will have to include a celebratory glass of wine to mark that occasion. (I was out of town for her actual birthday, and on Mondays only, they have a hot pot special, so since last Monday was Bloody Bloody Sexypants [also with Marci], tonight will be the foodfest. Hmmm... apparently Mondays nights will be full of droolworthy events, for one reason or another. Heh.)

Regardless of whatever the reason for the desire for lots of sleep, it is long past my bedtime now, and so I am just leaving you all with a photo from my friend Curt's happy place, Flora Grubb [top photo] and two shots from my hour long walk through Central Park yesterday (Saturday), for which my right knee is distinctly displeased with me today (Sunday).

All of these shots were taken with my trusty little LG VX11000 cellphone (a/k/a LG enV Touch) and then touched up on my Maxi-Squirrel (the Dell Vostro 1500 laptop), as opposed to my Mini-Squirrel (the Dell Mini 10 netbook).

Back to the grind

Had a brain cramp this past week and completely forgot to "refill" my commuter card for the coming month (duh!) so I will have to pay for the next 40 days of subway fare from post-tax money. DOH!

And I am also teetering on the brink of total overdraft disaster at the bank (yes, I have an overdraft protection account, but I have been using it way too often lately) so refilling my MetroCard until payday on Thursday should be interesting.

So you could say that I have indeed fallen back to earth with a thump. I mean, hey, we don't get Columbus Day off at our company either, so today was (a) a workday, and (b) started off by my locking myself out of the network at the office since I mistyped my LAN password 3 times (two words: case sensitive).

After a helpful chat with the Help Desk, I cleared out a little under 300 e-mails from my inbox this morning (my eyes felt like they were crossing by the last dozen or so). Tomorrow, I rescheduled a checkup with my onco-doc since I still have to finish my third quarter billing (sssshh! we got an extension -- don't tell my boss or she might have apoplexy).

I leave you all with two things: (1) this lovely view of the lower Manhattan skyline taken at the South Street Seaport during sunset this summer, [both my old office building and the new one -- 4 blocks further from the subway -- are in the shot] and (2) the plaintive question as to when I can leave for my next vacation?

(Lest you all think I am ungrateful: I love Love LOVE being employed! I do! And I especially adore my health insurance! Yes indeed! I just really enjoyed my vacation and liked it LOTS. Heh.)

Minor update

Flora Grubb is Curt's happy place ;)

No giganto suitcase of laundry to CT today, only a tote bag, as Mom has decreed that I will be staying over at her place tomorrow night, whereupon I will depart for work in the AM, going straight to a show Monday evening with my friend Marci: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (or as their ad says, "history just got all sexypants"). Thus, no large suitcase will be trundling along behind me for the next 72 hours.

I leave you all with more food porn (I could just taste to luscious amounts of butter in Piccino's ginger scone, a weakness of both Curt's and mine), and one of the plant sculptures (for lack of a better term) at Flora Grubb, which Curt not so jokingly calls his happy place -- and I can see why!

There were so many visually arresting tableaus that I wound up taking at least half a dozen shots (that I do not have time to post right now, since there's a Metro North train calling my name: major BBQ tonight with both the German and Chinese sides of the family, at the "big house" which my sister has returned to after the departure of her summer tenants).

Ciao!

Piccino's ginger scone rocks my world

Back home

Chez Squirrel may be messy (ummm... why do various friends keep asking if I'm going to guest star on an episode of Hoarders?) and lack any discernible / unified design aesthetic (staying in my friend Curt's truly fabulous loft in San Francisco has made me acutely aware of this -- one of his patio plants was so visually pleasing that I'm using it as my new cellphone wallpaper) but damn it is good to be home.

Cluttered and unchic though it is (one day, the cluttered part will be more under control -- I swear! really!) I love my home because -- if you'll excuse the somewhat circular logic -- it's mine (well, excluding the large chunk owned by the mortgage company). I mean, I also love all of the friends I visited in SF, whom I've known for 15 - 25 years each (holy... !!! when our young waiter heard that Curt and I had known each other for 25 years, he was flummoxed... probably because that's most of his lifespan!) but as I get older, no matter how much I enjoy zooming around to other parts of the world, I'm always happy to come home to my little lair.

This is especially true when United helpfully delays my flight home from SF for 2 hours, so my original arrival time of 12:45 AM became 2:45 AM Friday morning. Simply delightful. (On the bright side, the Orbitz cellphone alert really did work and notified me of that fun fact before I left for SFO.) So by the time I got home from JFK, it was 3:30 AM, making me grateful that I'd taken today off as a vacation day as well, since somehow the sleep you get from 4 - 11 AM is never as restful or restorative as the sleep you get from 12 - 7 AM.

Oh by the way, I made another pleasant discovery in the middle of the night at JFK: there is a taxi dispatcher on patrol 24/7 so he called up a fleet of cabs from the parking lot when a flock of bleary-eyed travelers trundled out to the taxi stand at three in the morning.

Since I am a firm believer in packing light (and I despise paying checked luggage fees) I walked briskly off the plane with my carry-on bag and was 4th in line for taxis. Yes, this was indeed all I packed for 7 days/6 nights in SF, with a pit stop on the way out to CA to quickly change in the ladies room from work attire to lounging-on-the-plane-for-6-hours attire.

Today (Friday) was an entirely unproductive day, where I did not step foot outside my door except to go downstairs, retrieve a week's worth of mail, and get waylaid by a highly talkative neighbor.

Eventually I escaped and hid at home again, watching my TiVo'd backlog of Hawaii 5-0 which I found to be disappointing. (By the way, this supersnarky recap of the pilot episode is howlingly funny, more entertaining than the actual show, and would do TWOP proud.) There are some intriguing hints of reverse discrimination (Hawaiians/Samoans vs. haoles) and occasionally Boomer/Kona does show up, but on the whole, eh. In short, I sense a slot opening up on my TiVo Season Pass Manager soon.

I suppose vegging out on The Green Monster is a fitting sendoff for the end of a mellow vacation week, but the laundry monster awaits me this weekend. Ergo, a large suitcase will be coming with me to CT on Saturday, since my sister kidnapped my mom Thursday night (it's the only way to get her out of the house) and my younger niece is back home from San Francisco on a business trip (yes, such irony, I know).

So since Sis kidnapped Mom by car, my mission is to escort her back to NYC on Sunday via Metro-North Railroad.

Oh, and my bathroom scale also decided to start working again and informed me that I have gained... er, maybe 4 lbs (yikes!) which is not surprising considering the majority of my activities in SF consisted of eating, napping, and getting driven around in Curt's cute little chocolate brown Mini as we shopped for furniture for his loft.

Walking his sweet Black Lab Simon, and the pugs Samson (black) and Sadie (fawn) was in no way sufficient exercise. And scratching their ears for aeons didn't burn up the calories either. ;) Hey, did I mention that he lives in the appropriately named neighborhood of Dogpatch?

Speaking of eating, my last evening was at Walzwerk where I shared my gargantuan portion of schnitzel and spatzle and green beans with Curt and one of his friends. Curt had the Jaeger schnitzel, which was tempting, but I was fixated on some regular schnitzel.

Oh, and we started the evening off with some potato pancakes. Of course.

And then on Thursday, we had lunch in Noe Valley at La Boulange where I succumbed to more goat cheese in an open-faced sandwich with portobello mushroom, roasted red peppers, and pesto, all accompanied by lemonade.

Come to think of it, it's a wonder I only gained 4 lbs!

And as you can see, the late night flight and the time change are really wrecking my body clock. Sigh.

Eating my way across SF

In true vacation fashion, I am eating my way across the city of San Francisco. YUM! Since my bathroom scale broke right before I left for my trip (and after I got back from eating my way across DC at a conference for work) the past few weeks should yield some interesting results when next I appear at my WW weigh in. Oh my.

Given the variety of victuals, I'm going to stick with merely enumerating them, instead of rhapsodizing over all of the treats. Actually, I don't even have photos of everything, but not a one was disappointing (except possibly the fries at In-N-Out Burger).

So here we go, in chronological order:

In-N-Out Burger - which I had never tried but always heard many good things about. Got the cheeseburger (with [raw] onions).

Serpentine

BLTA Sandwich (not memorialized visually) - nueske's bacon - heirloom tomato - avocado - little gems - black pepper aioli - torpedo roll - greens

Savory Bread Pudding (WANT! must go back, as this was my friend Curt's lunch) - gruyere cheese - delicata squash - fennel - sage - apple - onions - with mixed green salad

Koh Samui and The Monkey

Tom Kha Gai Soup - which my friend Matt had

Salmon Chardonnay Salad - "grilled crushed salmon tossed with lime juice, chili flakes, chardonnay, parched rice and mint"

Crispy Soft Shell Crab topped with (deep fried!) garlic and pepper - I was soooo happy, even the plate design looked like a happy face. See?

Coconut Panna Cotta (with mango coulis)

Rosamunde Sausage Grill

chicken cherry ~ smoked chicken sausage with cherries (mine, so good)

weisswurst ~ veal, onion and leek sausage (Curt's, but then we also split a 2nd one 50-50)

Dosa on Valencia

I zeroed in on the Chettinad Spinach-Cauliflower Dosa - "Tamilian-style cauliflower filling with sautéed spinach, onions, tomatoes, spices"

My friend Kristen had the Masala I think - "the classic dosa filled with creamy spiced potatoes, onions, and cashew nuts" Note the size of each entree compared to the dinner forks!

Dessert was at Bi-Rite Creamery.

Kristen (I think) had the chocolate coconut flavor, as it's vegan and she's lactose intolerant.

Mine was Ginger, with chunks of fresh ginger throughout. (Want. More. Now.)

Piccino - Today's lunch, where Curt and I both had exactly the same meal:

Homemade lemonade

Contorno: bianco beans and snow peas with bread crumbs and butter

Apple, fig jam, and goat cheese sandwich

For tonight's dinner, there is schnitzel in my future! Woohoo!

.

Dinner date with a magical animal

Nothing says "I want you to visit NOW" like when your mom oh-so-casually mentions that she just 'happened' to make some pork zongzi, a dish that requires 8 hours of stovetop cooking.

So I got back from my conference in DC laaaaate last night and tonight I promptly wolfed down 2 of the dense delights (pork, fresh peanuts, and salted egg yolks [made separately ahead of time], all surrounded by sticky rice, each wrapped in a banana leaf, boiled for 5 hrs, steeped overnight, and then boiled for another 3 hrs) at Mom's.

Yes, I know that 2 of those babies probably equal my entire WW points budget for the whole day (if not more) but sometimes, you just gotta break the bank.

Mom, meanwhile, was giggling delightedly as she watched my willpower implode in a massive fireball of gluttony, and admitting, "Gee I guess that's not going to help with your weight loss, is it?"

No, Mom. It's really not ;) but I know food = luuuv, so hey :)

Points if you can pick out Mom's building in the distance.

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Institutional ecosystems

You know how I have the acronym RTBT for Reasons To Be Thankful? (And there are always many RTBT.) Well it occurs to me that every now and then (or lately, more often than that) I have gotten supremely cranky, and who better to be the archetype of crankiness than my beloved Marvin The Martian? (BTW, all crankfest posting will henceforth be tagged with MTM.)

I was so fond of his antisocial tendencies that one of my exes once bought me a MTM pillow which I still have. And considering my mom, I come by my crankiness the old-fashioned way: both nature AND nurture!

The current upheaval at work is just stoking the crank-o-meter with premium unleaded: we are moving offices to a building a few blocks away on Friday and boy oh boy has the process been fun (you know, like a root canal). Welcome to our entry area this morning, once they started dissambling the bookshelves (and check out the toolboxfilled with noisy power tools, heh):

We are moving to a place where we do not know how many cabinets or drawers each person will have (we have been wheedling the nice guy from the moving company to tell us how big each filing cabinet drawer is, since he's seen it but we haven't, not even our boss), and to a floor where the library (our vastly reduced reference collection) will be located on the other side of the floor from the librarians (oh yeah, that would be US).

If you picture the entire floor as a square clock, we are at 5:00 and the stacks are at 12:00. So we will be traipsing through another department's cubicles each and every time we need to get a book. (Yes, I know -- time to break out my pedometer and see how many WW activity points I can rack up every day.)

If this all doesn't sounds like much to be all MTM about, consider that there are many things I am NOT posting here out of discretion (what little I apparently still possess), but here's on factor for ya: on a floor of almost 90 people, there are 4 ladies room stalls. Yep, a whole whopping FOUR.

According to the American Restroom Association (yes, there really is such an organization; no, I'm not making this up), there are designated ratios based on occupancy for such facilities (we're not even going to get into gender disparities here, people) and they are remarkably chintzy.

So on this particular topic, I leave you all with this thought: I drink 8 - 10 glasses of water / beverages a day.

But also, all of the moving will have an unfortunate ripple effect on our support staff: the security guards, cleaning staff, newsstand operator in the lobby, etc. None of them know if they will be transferred over, and some of them already know they will be unemployed at the end of the year, when the current building is completely emptied. When you see people every day for 6 years, saying hello/goodnight with a smile, you do wind up worrying about them, especially since they are all uniformly pleasant and friendly.

So RTBT: they are keeping us and we will remain employed (with good health coverage -- YOWSA!)

And on unrelated but droolworthy note, I leave you with French pastry p*rn (hazelnut and coconut macaroons, French butter cookies, and chocolate-covered almonds, oh my!) each of which is bigger than my palm. They're from the Financier Patisserie mini-chain scattered throughout downtown.

Also, I have been requested by my relatives to no longer post photos of their superadorable offspring here. So while I may rave about their fabulous cuteness, I will no longer be able to put my memory card where my mouth is.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

When will I learn that no matter how much I am infatuated with my new cellphone (well, new to ME, as of July) that for truly mouthwatering food porn -- or heck, even food photos that are correctly exposed -- I need to rely on my trusty 4 year old Canon digital camera?

Witness tonight's cholesterolfest with my friend Sam, whose culinary company will surely cause me to need Lipitor soon, as I cannot for the life of me persuade him to meet for a meal that doesn't make my arteries feel all funny. (We're going to have to Have A Talk about that soon as his restaurant preferences are the antithesis of WW suggestions for healthy eating and I am really trying hard to at least go to restaurants where not every single thing on the menu is deep fried.)

For Pete's sake, even Dallas BBQ has a spinach salad option, but it required some really creative negotiations with the (cute friendly) waiter to order a plain baked potato (which I had been craving all afternoon) as one of my side dishes at RUB BBQ, since oddly enough they offer a stuffed baked potato as an appetizer but no plain baked potato as a side.

So hey, since it was RUB or nothin' tonight (I seem to be held hostage to other people's dining preferences lately -- this is going to have to change) I opted for one of their specials this evening, "the gigantic beef ribs" (yes, that's what it said on the daily menu). Considering the fact that the BONE is as long as my entire forearm, from my inner elbow to my wrist (!!!) this was not mere braggadocio. (Actually, I really felt like Fred Flintstone when I held the bone up and started gnawing on it, since it was considerably wider than my head!)

The photo up top doesn't really give a sense of scale, even though the whole potato looks a bit teeny next to the rib. (But the shot does show all the glistening, fatty goodness of the well-marbled beef.) The photo on the bottom of the post shows how puny the steak knife and fork look next to the meat. (But does not give a good idea of how tasty it actually looked.)

So yes, I came home with probably two more meals of beef in my future (I still have 8 oz. in the fridge!) along with the vinegar-based cole slaw and am trying to figure out if I (or my mom) can use the rib bone for beef stock or something. heh.

As a minor attempt to feel like I had not swallowed an anvil for dinner (it was delicious but not exactly light fare) I hopped out of the subway at Columbus Circle and walked for 25 minutes (carrying my beef bone and slab of rib meat). It was in no way going to work off the dinner, but it salved my conscience just a teensy bit.

And now, it is once again, way, WAY too late. I need to go to bed. Ciao!

Purely P*rn

There was a reason I bought this tiny print many years ago: it does indeed express my acute... fondness for doing laundry.

So while I have made VAST improvements on the state of Chez Squirrel (my knitting lady friends can now be allowed back into my home as there is somehwere for them to SIT) one of my 2 laundry hampers [brights vs. darks] is stilll staring reproachfully at me. Oops.

But I put my shredder through its paces today, oh yes indeed. And I'd made a mix CD for my morning exercises which turned out to work equally well in terms of getting my a** moving a la housecleaning.

Lady GaGa may have eaten my brain, but she and many others (Tom Jones, Rihanna, Nelly Furtado, KC & The Sunshine Band, The Shanghai Restoration Project, and Lisa Stansfield circa 1990) powered me through several hours of cleaning on Sunday.

The cleaning was wedged in between two evenings of multi-course feasts at opposite ends of the budget spectrum.

Saturday night I went out with my friend Jane and the other 2 bridesmaids for dinner at A Voce in the Time Warner Center, which should've been a tipoff that it was a good thing I'd just gotten paid this week.

Does not the facade intimidate, er, I mean, indicate that you'd better be prepared to be swarmed over by hordes of black-garbed waitstaff? (Um, do I sound bitter? But actually, the staff was very pleasant and unobtrusive, and the evening was entertaining. And as A helpfully reminded me, it did indeed generate some luscious food porn.)

When I looked at the menu at the office on Friday afternoon (to scope out food options for my WW points), my hair turned a little whiter than it already is (from the prices).

But I sucked it up and resigned myself to the $$$$ since I had had weeks beforehand to poke around and raise an objection. Next time I know, that as Anthony Bourdain says so succinctly in his new book, Medium Raw (which is hilarious, by the way -- thank you Kobo and New York Public Library!) Chapter 3: The Rich Eat Differently Than You and Me. (I plan to read that chapter on the subway in the morning, so no, I dunno how differently, according to Mr. Pottymouth.)

My appetizer, though delicious ("Insalata di scarola - escarole, warm pancetta vinaigrette, soft boiled farm egg, pecorino romano") I did not capture for posterity as it was, well, a salad. And my wine ("Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Rocca delle Macie, Tuscany") though delightful, was also not memorialized.

My entree I tried to capture without a flash (BIG mistake) but I present here nonetheless the yummity Cappelacci del brigante ("hand crafted pasta, marinated mussels, garlic, marjoram") which I demolished happily.

For dessert, Jane ordered the semifreddo ("semi-frozen chocolate chip mousse, bitter orange, cocoa pizzelle").

Meanwhile, I was torn between this option below, the torta (chocolate walnut tart, cinnamon gelato, caramel) and what I eventually ordered.

When I appealed to our server (who remained elegantly nameless, thankfully) for help she grinned and laughed. (uh oh...) One was the house specialty and the other (the torta) caused the pastry chef to be hired/stolen from her previous employer. Heh. Decisions, decisions...

Since the other two bridesmaids helpfully ordered the torta, I was free to head straight for the house specialty, the Tuscan doughnuts ("Bomboloni alla Toscana - tuscan doughnuts, bittersweet chocolate"). That innocent description did not do justice to the superfluffy dough, dusted with crystal sugar and filled with warm custard.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Since they were huge and plentiful, everyone got to try some, and also the chocolate dipping sauce. There was no graceful way to eat them (that I could figure out anyway) and so by the end of dessert, my fingers were a sticky mess and I was a happy camper.

Since it is now very, very late (or early, depending on how you look at it) I will have to hold off on describing Sunday night's feast with two neighborhood friends.

In The Closet

You know the Closet of Disaster beloved of sitcoms and home organization shows? The one where you throw all sorts of crap in there and slam the door shut, knowing that to open it again would unleash an avalanche of garbage? Yeah, THAT closet.

Welcome to my psyche post-engineer.

On the other hand, you could also make the case that my apartment is already physically manifesting the eruption of my emotional trash, both aspects of which I've been studiously ignoring for weeks if not months now. (For those of you with hygiene phobias, fear not: my crap consists of papers and not anything that would generate new mutant life forms.)

Well this week's session with my Pearl of Wisdom started the process of at least cracking the door open to see how much I've stuffed into that clown car of a closet.

All of the above could explain why I am suffering from one of my periodic bouts of what I jokingly refer to as SMDS: Severe Motivational Deficiency Syndrome (a/k/a can't I just stay in bed forever?)

Being the perverse creature I am, however, I scheduled a 6:30 AM - 8:00 AM Fresh Direct delivery Thursday morning instead. While getting up before dawn is highly undesirable, it did provide me the chance to catch a spectacular sunrise.

Enjoy!

Dojo & mojo (redux)

So today's weekly WW weigh in was finally positive news (-1.6 = hurrah! such a relief).

My friend the tapeworm (well I'm not pregnant, so I often joke that my post-lunch yen for food must be from a run in with one of those critters a la the X-Files) insisted that I buy a bagel at 2:30ish. My counteroffer was to buy a 9-grain bagel (see? trying to at least do the best I can, though I wonder if it's akin to negotiating with terrorists or just being pragmatic).

Ergo tonight's dinner on the run was not the usual sneak attack at Two Boots Pizza, much as I love their kitschily named pies (though I doubt Mrs. Peel would've looked the way she did in her catsuit [yowsa!] if she snacked on the Mrs. Peel pie regularly).

Instead I took a stroll and ate at Dojo's on West 4th near Bway. Although my roommate and I would go often when we lived there 20 years ago (eeek! yeah, I feel old) I haven't been there in ages. I got yakisoba with veggies and chicken + homemade ginger ale. Tasty!

Addendum on Thursday:


So I have replaced the yakisoba photo with a slightly less blue-tinted shot, and while it may LOOK odd and vaguely slimy (sorry), it WAS actually quite good. And the homemade ginger ale was so milky looking because it had a giant pile of shredded ginger at the bottom, with some lemon zest thrown in for good measure. Delicious!

Rorschach Test

I looked around my living room this weekend (before I took off for CT with a giant load of laundry in my 3-weeks-in-China suitcase) and realized that I literally had no room in my life for anyone else at the moment. Hell, I have no room on my couch for anyone else!

Those of you who've seen the giant sofa I fondly call The Green Monster know what a scary concept that last statement is. (In fact, this Craigslist posting from Long Island [most likely soon to expire] gives you an idea of the size of my beloved six year old coccoon of sage green coziness.)

So yes, even my knitting buddies have been banned from my home for months now (sorry ladies) as I stubbornly resist dealing with the cluttered interior that is my brain and emotional cupboard. No room for anyone except me and my baggage (which I am working on getting down to carry-on size: right now, it's more like an entire car of a freight train). Once the emotional crap is cleared out, the physical mess always follows.

By the way, when I told my sister about last weeke's dream re: Engineer, she snorted that it was wishful thinking (very true) but the fact that I had it at all is kind of a timely reminder about that river in Egypt: just because I refuse to consciously think of the wreckage strewn in his wake, doesn't mean that my brain isn't chewing on it at some level (and yes, there's some level of anger I'm just not facing yet).

Ironically, the last time I mentioned a Rorschach test here on the blog, the world was a much different place: the Engineer and I were still on our "honeymoon" phase, and my brother-in-law was still (mostly) the man our family knew and loved. It's hard to believe that it's just been two years since he was diagnosed...

On a determinedly different note, I leave this lunchtime posting with a fabulously porkerific photo of dinner at Blue Smoke on Friday night with A. My favorite was actually the gi-normous beef rib with dry rub, and yes, this was the rib sampler for two!

Don't worry fellow WW fans, we rounded it out with chopped salad, collard greens (with bacon, natch), and cornbread, so I tried to minimize the damage points-wise, but oh was it tasty! (And rounded out by a nice glass of Malbec -- yum!)

Let's not and say we did

That's the amusing URL for what looks to be a mindnumbing teen film called EASY A, based oh-so-loosely on The Scarlet Letter. That could also be the motto for my TiVo watching and churchgoing.

The church part is only appropriate since my cab cruised by the house of Hollywoodland on the way to the Metro-North station in Harlem today. I blinked at the storefront and then snapped a photo. The other photo was taken a few weeks ago in Greenwich by A. We BOTH blinked at that sign and wondered what it was about the monkeys that we were supposed to consider.

As for my 5 y.o. TiVo that's hooked up to my 15 y.o. TV, it's been faithfully recording and deleting shows (according to my programming rules) for weeks without my actually turning on the TV. I wonder if I'll spend the entire new season virtually watching shows that way? But then how could I sate my girlcrush on Grace Park in the new HAWAII FIVE-O? Okay Daniel Dae Kim and Alex O'Loughlin also aren't hard on the eyes.

Oh! It's my stop!

Hamster Town

So I often joke that the thing powering my PC at work is a very tired little hamster, as it seems to be going slower and slower these days (according to the specs, I was last upgraded in 2007, with a not top of line desktop, for what that's worth) as it will frequently freeze due to lack of processing power and RAM. (Believe me, you fellow Windoze folks would laugh uproariously if I told you the specs -- CPUs that you no longer remember, RAM outpaced by my low budget Dell Mini netbook, the list goes on.)

With our upcoming office move later this month, there is a faint glimmer of hope (smaller than an exhausted Tinkerbell) that we might get new PCs, but my coworkers are resigned to achieving detente with their own PHs (personal hamsters, which sounds wrong, but if what we've taken to calling them).

On the bright side (well, we either find a bright side or our heads all explode, so that's motivational) we've learned to be more zen about the whole thing, like when I was working in our China offices on an even older loaner laptop. Patience, grasshopper. Or as I used to joke at an old job, a day without rebooting is like a day without sunshine. Oh wait -- our current offices have no windows.

Despite all that whinging, I really am happy to have a job I like, with coworkers I like, and of course, excellent health insurance! Woohoo! Life is pretty darn good. It's just a NYC pastime to make sarcastic comments, in a hopefully amusing manner, but if I ever turn into my perpetually complaining mother, you all have my permission to smack me upside da hayed.

Another NYC habit is to run at 90 mph, which is what my mind feels like sometimes. Just like when people land in one of the airports after a relaxing vacation on a tropical isle and start snapping at each other about the overhead luggage, my mind's been chasing pirates again (if you haven't already, you really should check out the lyrics to see what I mean).

In general though, I've been sleeping better, and the mile / two mile walks I've been taking up CPW most evenings have been helping, as has the pounding away at the keyboard of my netbook, venting all the ravings of my inner hamster on a wheel. So while the weekly WW weigh ins have been stubbornly unencouraging, my clothes inform me that I'm moving in the right direction.

And last night (!) I had a dream where The Engineer wrote to me that he was working out his things in his mind and would soon be ready to get in touch and be friends. (WTF?! Where did THAT dream come from?) My dream self then thought about it and realized that no, I didn't really want to be friends with him. Now is that reaction anger or mere acceptance? Who knows?

I do know however, that I'm off to work, to keep said nifty job, and will leave you all with the comment that the above photo was taken the night I came back from Boston and is of the main USPS building in Manhattan, that is no longer open 24/7, due to budget cuts. Isn't the Farley Building beautiful? And the cars streaking by looked cool too.

Ciao, mis amigos!