Archive for May, 2008

Let’s talk about food.

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

1. There is a Korean restaurant right next to where I work. Actually, there’s a ton of Korean restaurants near where I work, since I work in Koreatown. But my co-workers like to frequent this particular establishment, so I went with them. They had these amazing bowls of noodles and soup, it looked so darn tasty. I took the menu on my way out and tried to see which noodle dish was the one I was so enamored with, and I saw this:

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DEAR KOREAN RESTAURANT OWNERS:
Repeating a festive array of the words “special” “brown” and “sauce” does not help me to know what the hell I’m going to be eating. Those three words are pretty cryptic as it is. That was my favorite part of the noodle menu. There were other similar entries, such as “Seafood Soup”, “Spicy Seafood Soup”, “Extra Spicy Seafood Soup”, “Extra Seafood with Spicy Noodle Soup”, “Extra Seafood with Extra Spicy Noodle Soup”, “Extra Seafood Noodle Soup”, and my personal favorite from this genre, “Extra Seafood Noodle Soup with Gravy Soup”.

2. I know a lot of picky eaters. For some people I know it’s faster to list the four foods they do eat then to list all the foods they don’t. However, I have noticed that almost all the picky eaters eat Italian food, specifically food with lots of Parmesan cheese grated on top. I don’t understand this because to me, Parmesan cheese tastes and smells like shaved foot callus. And not just any callus, oh no, the shaved foot callus of a long-distance runner whose foot has been in a sweaty hot sneaker all day. If I was fussy about what I ate (and I’m so not, I’ll try anything, even stuff I’ve disliked before) I would avoid food that tasted like stinkfoot. No point to this, just something I’ve noticed.

On a totally different note, did anyone watch the season finale of House last night? Did you cry? I cried a little. That was some mighty fine acting on Amber’s part. At one point it looked like her face would split in two. I won’t spoil it yet, but maybe in a few months or two I’ll revisit this episode and we’ll talk more about it.

Update: Just to prove my point about the fact that I am a good sport with eating, I will eat Parmesan cheese if it’s shaved on a salad or something, and I just talked about how it tastes like stinky sneakers. See? Good sport.

A Head’s Up.

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Just so you know, I’m off to Israel on Thursday (a week from today). I will be gone for eighteen days, so there will most likely be no typing during that time. I shall return June 10 and commence bloggery. Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend in my absence.

I painted some fabric. I love you, Scribbles Shiny 3D Paint in Petunia Purple.

Monday, May 12th, 2008

My friend B. likes purple. A great deal. It’s his most favoritest color ever. And he has big feet (size 13), so sometimes it is hard for him to find purple shoes. I took pity on his metatarsal plight and bought some Converse Chucks in his size and just JAZZED ’em right up. They are so purply and peppy, I’m tempted to buy a pair and craftify them fer m’self. I tried to keep these as masculine as I could, but with mine I could use sparkles! Ah, sparkles.

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And here is some of the painting in closer detail. JAZZY.

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And because my purse with the pomegranate/virus pattern on it started to rip a little, I painted my latest purse with a delightful octopus. He’s black, but his spots are shimmery russet and on top of that are aquamarine rhinestones. EVEN JAZZIER.

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My kitchen has a big ole piece of Formica-covered plywood next to the fridge, and I think I will make a cloth hanging with octopi and cuttlefish and jellies and other sea-beasties to hang over it so it’s not quite so… plastic-looking. I’m really going to try to make my kitchen more organic. Incorporate some wood and stones, things like that. We’ll see what happens.

Bamboo flooring. And photos of GCT.

Monday, May 5th, 2008

The flooring is made of strips of ‘boo, and you can see the hinges or links or whatever you call it when the ‘boo does that thing it does with the stopping and starting. Sooo pretty.

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The only problem is that my new flooring is much lower than the original flooring. The doors are all an inch and a half too short on the bottom. It looks stupid. It’s one of those things that I will fix if I get around to it, but I don’t really care. The flooring looks so spiffy I don’t care about much of anything. I loves my boo.

I chose three pictures for my bathroom. They’re not necessarily the most beautiful angles or the most interesting subjects but to me they have meaning and significance and all that junk, so whatever, it’s my bathroom and these are the pictures.

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This is a shot I took at about 9:15 in the morning from under the overhang of GCT. The Chrysler Building is one of my favorites in all of Mannyhanny, and the clouds looked really cool that day. You can see the atmospheric haze. I see this everyday on the way to work and it makes me happy. I always think that the Chrysler Building is a giant hypodermic needle poking the fleshy clouds. Why that should make me happy I don’t know, but it does. Perhaps I have a secret affinity for diabetics and heroin addicts. Moving on.

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This is a swirly architectural detail near Posman Books. I pass this all the time as well and I love that this could have been a boring old bracket and the architect decided to make it into a charming bit of design. And it’s about a foot above my head, so I can really see it, as opposed to many of the other neat-o things in GCT that are too far away to appreciate (the famous astrology ceiling, the chandeliers, etc.)

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This is right under the boards for the New Haven line. I like three-sided things and I like light fixtures, ergo I LOVE this lamp. And there are so many textures and shapes in this picture. I’ve actually never seen these windows open, only the ticket windows on the other side of Vanderbilt Hall. They should really switch over to this side soon, the floor is starting to wear down on the other side. Anyway, I lived in Rye for most of my life and I took the New Haven line, so it has a great deal of significance to me. Now I’m going to live in White Plains and I’ll be taking the Harlem line, but the New Haven line will always have a place in my heart.

Remember how I said I wouldn’t be talking about owls for a while? Yeah, I lied.

Monday, May 5th, 2008

I went to visit B. this weekend and his wife D. graciously took Cricket and me to see where she works (Tenafly Nature Center in NJ). We hiked around and that was nice, but even better… There was an owl! And two hawks! And two snakes and a toad (which I got to hold, wheeee!) Here’s a picture of me holding the corn snake. It was shy and disoriented because it’s about to shed. You can see that because its eye is blue and opalescent and its colors are muted.

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I also held a hognose snake named Henrietta who was just the sweetest. She likes holes and caverns, so she slithered into my sleeve and hung out there for a while. I think that was my favorite part. Cuddling with snakey-snake!

They also had an owl, a barred owl named Mitzi. Mitzi was found with a broken wing and it healed, but it’s weak and so he/she is unreleasable. I say he/she because nobody knows what sex Mitzi is. Female owls are larger in size, males are smaller and Mitzi is… in between. They’d have to knock Mitzi out to be able to rummage around in he/she’s tender regions, and birds don’t do well under anesthesia, so everyone is content to leave Mitzi alone. In the other aviary are two red-tailed hawks. The male had his right wing amputated at the elbow and the female’s left eye is damaged. The first pictures I took of my new raptor friends I took through a chain-link fence and my stupid camera insisted on focusing on the fence. The pics look kind of cool, actually.

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But then D. let me get closer and I could place my camera on the chain-link fence and get far better photos. Here’s a picture of the female hawk. You can appreciate her wonky eye. She looks like a pirate. Arrrr.

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And here’s Mitzi. I was tempted to sneak into the enclosure and give Mitzi a big hug ‘n’ snuggle, but I think that would be frowned upon and most likely it would end badly and I would be bleeding, so I stayed outside the fence.

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I was thrilled at the opportunity to see the beasties, and the Tenafly Nature Center is lovely and I recommend you go visit it.

Check out my NY subway-style bathroom!

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

I got my master bathroom done with subway tile and hexagonal floor tile and I chose a dirt-colored grout which accentuates the white tile and makes my bathroom look grotty like the Victorian-era New York subway. I LOVE IT. I took photos of some of my favorite elements of Grand Central Station yesterday and I’m going to hang three of those pictures in my bathroom. I might even install speakers and pipe in the sounds fire trucks and homeless people yelling to complete the tableau of greatness. An air freshener scented faintly like sewage and the look will be PERFECT. No, really, It’s exactly what I wanted and I’m thrilled to bits. Let me take you on a journey of my bathroom.

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I’m standing in the shower to take this picture. You can see the hexagonal floor tile and the lovely wall tile. I’m having the painter paint over the grout smudges all over the walls that you can see there.

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And this is a photo of the inside of the shower. My contractor (who is a genius) used leftover marble floor tile from the other bathroom for the seat in here. It feels like a sauna on the Lower East Side. I want to sit in there and sweat and then have a large Russian woman throw cold water on me.

Now the floor man is laying down bamboo flooring throughout the apartment and then the painter comes and paints and we’re DONE. FINALLY. And then I can move in.