TGIF

How to celebrate Friday? Frontways? Backways? Diagonallyways?
Nope, Sideways.

Loves it.

This week was sloooow but Monday Wine and Cheese set it off to a good start, and Sig O took us out to Aquitaine last night, and I even started showing my face at the gym again, so at least I was productive.

Up next - planning the great August NYS adventure! First stop: NYC (to kidnap Sassy from Kara who has graciously offered her couch and who will maybe let me look at her ring for a while), then back to Boston to re-pack for Buffalo and the FAIR! Then the bus to Utica (hopefully for like only 20 minutes)! Where my honey can pick me up and drive us to Little Moose! Where I have been promised mixed drinks and lazy days floating on a raft!

moving forward

This weekend we headed up to Keene to help the Sig O's grandparents move into their gorgeous new home. The house itself isn't new, but is recently renovated (save for one garishly wallpapered bathroom: bright pink poppies on a pistachio green background! Too awesome). It's a lovely colonial revival deserving of a spread in House Beautiful. It was a chaotic but productive few days, and it was a great feeling to be able to help out.

We enjoyed a Saturday night in downtown Keene (all six blocks of it) by performing the ultimate going-out ritual: the decrescendo of class. From arancini and wine to nachos and margaritas (both classic AND the kind you put whipped cream on) we sampled a little bit of everything. And let me just say the obvious here: a couple of twenties in Keene takes you MUCH farther than the same amount in Boston. C'est la vie.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theater

I think if Lemony Snicket branched out into collage, this is the direction he might go.

Love it. TGIF.



via modern homebody

i need a vacation

One month, just oooone long month until a vacation. Eek.

In the meantime, this phenomenal blog will do for transporting me to faraway locales. The author is fearless, and her posts are as funny as they are educational. (Chalk another one up for the Canadians!)

Paris, Prague, and Poland are my major wish list destinations these days, but the deeper I get into reading Madness and Beauty the farther East my imaginary itinerary takes me.

I particularly like this post, a logical, clear-headed financial step-by-step for that mythical "year of travel."

the most sensational inspirational celebrational...

Muppetational?

The friends from the Henson workshop have been making some unusual appearances in the wardrobe of one Ms. Lady Gaga. I mean, I guess Animal would approve ("WO-MAN!!!"), but she seems more of a Janice to me.


Fun Fact: At one point in the late 80's, the Swedish Chef actually had his own breakfast cereal, called Cröonchy Stars.

Squee! Er, I mean, BARF!

The story of a recovered love letter reuniting lost lovers. Awwwww even a Monday can't shake this one.

with sprinkles on top

Oh, hello Blog Fairy! What's that? You've come to grant me a wish? Ok... I'll take this in a Medium and then you can kill the people who set off fireworks behind my house and kept me awake all night so that I can barely keep my eyes open today. Oops, sorry, was that too harsh? Okay, permanently maiming would be fine.

TGIF: Special Panda Edition

Check out this awesome slideshow celebrating Tai Shan the panda's fourth birthday at The National Zoo. He seems to dig his cake - though I'd be pretty pissed if someone made my birthday cake out of beets and ice.

if you're bored then you're boring

Routines... The first 35 minutes of every day I'm on autopilot - from there on it's a blur. What fascinates me are those who profess to stick to a hard and fast schedule day in and day out... when an enforced schedule doesn't just while away the day in compartmentalized segments, but goes toward the production of an art.

I love these Daily Routines, describing how "writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." In other words - the Process with a capital P.

The little stories hidden within these described schedules are astounding. This request for this recitation of the artist's daily life is clichéd yet the answer is always still so revelatory - take Satie and Kafka, two "mad" geniuses. A tiny glimpse of their "typical" (and I use that word lightly) days reveals depression as both a hindrance and a driving force behind their art.

The mundane is also so interesting - knowing the fact that So-and-so regularly rises at 5am, eats dry toast with a cup of cocoa at 8:25 am and takes their daily constitutional at 2pm sharp humanizes by making them domestic - not just names in the paper on on a book spine.

As for my own routine, well, I often like to plan in advance (mostly so I can google whatever activity I'm about to embark on) but before I write that Next Great American Novel, looks like I'll have to get an analog watch I can actually read.

Put on a scarf!

I consider it a pretty impressive feat that I'm able to dress myself each day. Sometimes I think I look awesome, but most of the time I'm relieved I've been able to button my sweater the correct way and hoping my skirt isn't on backwards or sideways.

Even if I do my research and pay attention to what I'm supposed to be wearing these days (how I love you, New Brahmin...) it ain't easy getting pretty each morning. I mean, there are a lot of factors working against me.

1) The Weather. The first rule of dressing in Boston is: DO NOT listen to NPR's "local" forecast. If anything it's the report for Boise, ID. I suspect they make it up on the spot - you'll notice that the reporters get slightly flustered when they read out the temps as if they're improvising. Even if you luck out on a seasonally appropriate outfit, all bets are off when you reach the office and the temperature is 40 degrees +/- the outside temps.

2) No Valet. Did you know you can pay someone to take care of all your personal effects? There is a MAJOR disadvantage in not having another person to wash/press/iron/match/lay out/lint roll your clothes for you. Lord knows what their annual salary would be. Perhaps I can find a summer intern.

3) Not Enough Money. The other day it dawned on me! If only I had more money, I'd dress better (see point 2, above).

I'd just about given up my dream of appearing on the Sartorialist in a cerulean beret and thigh-high boots with my fawn pug, Arnold, but the people over at Refinery 29 came up with a way to help me out.

How to Succeed in Fashion Without Really Trying

Timbits Take Manhattan

My favorite coffee and doughnuts chain - Tim Horton's - is moving in on NYC.

Featuring porcelain eat-in cups and in-house made deliciousness, this chain is responsible for one of the world's greatest foodstuffs: the Timbit. Initially on moving to Boston I'd have to get my doughnut hole fix at Dunkin (ew) and would order Timbits instead of Munchkins.

Oops.

Both names, upon reflection, are equally gross. The Timbit, however, is far superior in taste and awesomeness.

Long live Timmy Ho's.

Julie & Julia

Last night was the bestest, girliest thing I've done in a looong time.

We traipsed over to Julie & Julia after work, collecting sandwiches from Beacon Hill's Cafe Vanille (just walk in and try not to drool at the pastry case - I dare ya) and settling in for the free preview!

I could get used to this movie screening thing, enjoying a smart film about smart women... the movie was really sweet and very funny. Meryl Streep as Julia Child is just enchanting, and though I haven't seen many of Child's shows she just exudes this phenomenal energy and spirit. Amy Adams's character is a little hard to love, but it must has to be tough to play a "fanatic" opposite a genius (Hollywood/Culinary alike) and she is fun to watch.

In all honesty, while I enjoyed the past/present division at moments, as the scenes switched to "modern day" I just wanted more Julia less Julie. The drama in Julie's life is rather shallow and kind of minor (though she does work for NYC as a pencil pusher in a 9/11 recovery center - that could be a film unto itself and the writers gloss over it, even making it maudlin at times). The real human drama was in Child's life - her childless but passionate marriage, her international intrigue and her husband's interrogation by the McCarthy administration...

The movie left me wanting a biopic on Julia Child herself (more Meryl more Meryl!), and I'm determined to read the autobiography she wrote with her grandnephew - My Life In France.

After watching 2 Days In Paris last week this is just fanning the flames of my francophilia. My attempts to "learn French by Kindle" are failing miserably and I can't understand for the life of me why someone hasn't created an audiobook/read-along language primer for Kindle. Is that available in Kindle 2? I need to do me some research.

Oh - also we stopped at La Patissier at Troquet on the Commons afterward and had divine desserts.

buff-uh-lah

The Fourth! Family and food, food and more family. Mr. Boyfriend was a GREAT sport through all the craziness at Chautauqua... lifting heavy things, making guacamole, fanning me in my sedan chair, the works. So to reward him we strapped him to a floaty and tied him to the back of a speed boat.

On the way from Chautauqua to Buffalo (incidentally, a drive which says "summer" to me more than anything else in this world, even guacamole and sedan chairs) we stopped in Lily Dale for an evening service at The Stump. Yup. Go ahead and read about that...

It was interesting but... Kind of reminded me of a cross between a Billy Mays commercial (RIP, oh bearded one) and a community theater production of the Sixth Sense. I counted no less than eight elderly maternal figures and seven elderly gentleman who have "passed" and are maintaining connections with their living loved ones. Only one medium delivered a worthwhile message: to the hillbilly with the ponytail and tattoos who slumped on his bench while his skinny, bedraggled daughter colored next to him: "Take better care of her."

Also, one blue parakeet.

In awesome (and belated) news... my question was selected last week for one of Apartment Therapy Boston's "Good Questions" and I asked people to suggest paint colors for the condo. Commenters confirmed my main thoughts: taupe or white. But as predicted "a pale grey would be really pretty." Oh you silly SILLY AT Readers - WHO PAINTS A ROOM GREY??? I'll tell you - those who have never lived in the Eastern Bloc.

Also, we're finally having someone in to repair the drywall from the infamous Upstairs Girls Who Wear Heels On Hardwood Floors Only At Night Decide to Pretend Not to Have Flooded Their Toilet and Create Leaks In Our Ceiling The Night Before We Leave the Country for a Week Incident. That means I have until Saturday to pick paint colors for both of the bathrooms (where the leak damaged the dry wall) unless I just want white. Eeeeeeeeh white would be nice but but but what about BRIGHT AQUA or Granny Apple GREEN??? Because I'm FUN like that.

Anywho tonight I'm off to see a sneak preview of Julie & Julia! I've never seen a preview before! And it's free! I never get free stuff! How COOL.