laughing all the way

I'm working with one of my coworkers (working, yeah yeah...but it's not what you think!) to start a bookclub! We've gotten some great responses from Craigslist already - and now we just have to figure out WHAT to read and WHERE to talk about it! (The "when" I'm not too concerned about...)

Perhaps we can use a church community room or something. A cafe or restaurant is possible if and only if the other members agree that it's ok to spend a little something each meeting. I certainly don't want to be the annoying crowd that wanders into a pub every few weeks and sits and gabs without providing much business. Um, I'm getting pushy already. Oops.

I'd be happy with a no-frills outlet where I can intelligently discuss a book I loved (or loathed) with people who care enough to share their own opinions with others. But I'd also be happy to meet some interesting locals, wander across to some shelves I've previously avoided (cough, biographies, cough), and find a good excuse to seek out food and drink.

We're promoting the group as for "recovering liberal arts students" who miss their English departments. I think six people would be great, and I have high hopes. High, nerdy nerdy hopes.

12 Days of Christmas Burnout

Let's play Good Idea, Bad Idea.

Good idea: work through the weekend to get comp. time for holidays to travel home to family in Buffalo (with boyfriend in tow!)
Bad idea: work 12 days straight to get comp. time for holidays to go home to family for whom I have not yet had time to gift shop (whining to boyfriend all the way!)

Can't...look...at...computer screen...any...longer...


Oh well. At least the weekend work was fun and festive, and I shall see Miss Andrea next week. And 9 days until Christmas!

Fifty is nifty

Welcome to the 50th Peckish Post Extravaganza!!!

So much to cover - where to start?

Saturday
...featured a trip to Providence - namely RISD and the Dale Chihuly Exhibition.
Look at this.



Okay, now pick up a wine goblet, or look at your vision correction lenses. Heck, look through a window. It's the same stuff. YEAH. I know. And Chihuly's visions make it look effortlessly organic.

I was really excited to bring Mr. Boyfriend, since I tend to run my mouth around "aht" and practice Visual Thinking Strategies on him, and all the poor guy wants to do is have his own pointilistic up-too-close moments, a la Cameron and the Seurat. Viewing the Chihuly exhibition is fun like that - you can just have your moment with these wildly awe-inspiring pieces and let it stand at that.

The rest of the RISD museum was a great surprise - a fair amount of 20th century American and European fine art, and entire wings of Ancient Greek and Roman work... It's definitely worth another trip someday. Especially with reciprocity benefits!

We drove back to Boston and, after dinner, finally saw Quantum of Solace. That was a bit of a disappointment, it just lacked a bit of the finesse from Casino Royale, and it was like they didn't even bother to explain the ridiculously convoluted evil multi-national corporation takes some vaguely-defined aggressive action against innocent peoples plot. By the time the chases peaked and Craig pouted his way across a handful of countries (mourning Vespa's loss just briefly enough to shag a fellow Brit), I was jaded and bored, much like Bond.

Oh well, at least the company was excellent.

Sunday

...Mr. Boyfriend woke me up to show me our FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE YEAR: the first snow! The first one that stuck, anyway. We tossed on clothes and dashed to our favorite brunch spot, Zaftig's, where we beat the rush and had a record 2 minute wait. Take that, Brookline. But if we keep going there, I'm gonna look like this:

But in this weather it would probably help to have the extra warmth. After an amazing breakfast of poached eggs over potato pancakes, spinach, and smoked salmon, I bundled up and waddled through the snow downtown, window shopping along Newbury. Around 1:00 I made it to the Bizarre Bazaar - a sort of hipster craft show featuring mostly New England artists - I got some great holiday shopping done and bought myself a cool headband. Definitely worth the block-long line to wait in the snow. Though, who am I kidding, I loved every minute of it. Yay New England!

Then I came home, we made soup, and curled up to watch In Bruges. The movie was great, odd, dark, and disturbingly funny, and really showcased the city - well, as much as it could have on Kara's favorite joke: the Tiny TV. But - aha! - we hope to soon to be in possession of a 46" Sony flat screen, so keep your fingers crossed that we'll soon be able to see Colin Farrell's unibrow larger than life in hi-def!

Monday
...was a Monday.

Fun to come...
I hope to give the Tiny TV a proper viking funeral on the Charles.
Or, more likely, donate it.
Also, I'm working Saturday and Sunday to earn some comp. time for the holidays. It'll be a long weekend and not very weekend-y at all, but worth the vacation time.

Even to the clouds, if that's what your heart commands.

New colors. I tidied my cube yesterday, so why not my blog today? Ha.

I'm off to Davis and Tufts to see Urinetown with Dave, one of Mr. Boyfriend's old roommates and an all around awesome dude who wears a beard quite well. I hope the show rocks, but not too much to make me jealous that we never did it while I was there.

I'm such a sweetie.

Let's not talk about real life

Thanksgiving had its ups and downs. I wish my mom lived in Boston. And Gypsy was - is? - very sick and spent the whole weekend at the vet's office. She's about 15 years old and the best cat ever.

And today I should have stayed in bed. The same goes for yesterday.

I should probably mention that to cheer myself up last night, I read and read for hours and had Saint Agur while nursing a Chouffe Houblon IPA Triple.

But if I told you I had beer and bleu cheese for dinner while reading Anne Rice, you might judge me.

Bohemia Bagel

I already knew all good things come from Poland. That's a given. Pierogi, Chopin, my people...and bagels!

Well, kinda-sorta for that last one: Slate - A short history of the bagel

What I love, though, is that when I lived in Prague, a short train ride from Poland's amorphous borders, bagels were nowhere to be found in the charming Czech bakeries or sidewalk cafes. My fellow students (in the NYU program) were jonesing for their New York bagels...the rolls were like the red velvet cupcakes for the residents our dorm in Vinohrady - coveted and rarefied by hipsters each convinced there was only one game back home that could really provide the ultimate fix.

There was indeed one bagel purveyor in Praha, a locally-owned chain called Bohemia Bagel. They provided their bagels to another place called Cafe Ebel, so once you knew where to get them, you never had to suffer bagel deficiency. I frequented those establishments easily 4 or 5 times a week. They were open late, served breakfast ALL DAY, and had amazing soups and hummus. Ebel had phenomenal lattes that I still dream about, and not even 1369 in Cambridge can compare.

Kinda funny that bagels may have traveled all the way to the States only to turn around and head back to Eastern Europe, with a slight detour. Dangit I'm hungry.

I don't speak that accent

I have found my abs. Not through yoga, or pilates, or by spotting them on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge. Instead I know where they are because they hurt.

For our 3.5 year anniversary I got the Boyfriend and myself tickets to see Robin Williams, live at the Orpheum. Nothing (not even the obnoxious guffawer behind us - I know, I know, at a comedy show! But this dude was seriously ON something! Or the parents in front of us who brought their TEN YEAR OLD SONS to see one the most creatively foul-mouthed comedians out there) could put a damper on the night.

The show was spectacular. I did not stop laughing once, and Mr. Boyfriend loved it too. The audio technicians cranked up Robin's microphone so he could be heard over the crowds, so nary a word was lost to the guffaws of Woody Woodpecker behind us.

Topics covered included: GPS systems, alcoholism, children, Disney, China, Nazis, drugs (all of them), depression, dogs, sex, the French, Nascar, cloning, cell phones, football, African Olympic runners, cats, Obama, the Irish, doctors, Mr. Williams' hirsuteness, divorce, paraplegics, pole dancers, Scots, baseball, phone ladders outsourced to India, inbreeding, Mormons, Canadians, the South, women's gymnastics, the human body, coffee, Seattle, earthquakes, and Christopher Walken in adult films.

In summation: Holy God that was amazing.