you know you want it, grandma
of late, those dear to me have expressed concern that i may be growing old before my time. we're not talking about progeria, or anything life-threatening, but rather my behavior and hobbies...

Exhibits A.1-5


my (minor) obsession with knitting and crocheting. top to bottom: scarf in progress for T's brother; T's scarf (my 1st project!); the Bean's hat; afghan; baby sweater in progress.

Exhibit B

my old lady shopping cart

Exhibit C

the step stool i have had to use to get into bed after a couple of particularly trying workouts at the gym. (damn those squats!)

Exhibit D

the slip i have taken to wearing under two of my quasi-transparent skirts. (this is not a picture of me, fyi).

Exhibit E

i am a cat lady. in that i own one obese cat. his name is Winston.**

Exhibit F

i dream of this nightly. lust after it, even...

---

yes, it seems that i am embracing my inner octogenarian. so much so that T offered to pick me up some Geritol on his last drugstore run. i disagree that knitting is for old folks exclusively, but, recently, when i realized that my grandma was the only one i could call with a knitting "issue"* that arose, i understood from whence the stereotype springs.
that's why instead of going all Cocoon, and youngifying myself, i've decided to get everyone else around me to be old! for example:

• i now try to get T to use the shopping cart as often as possible (so far this attempt has failed, yet i press on.)
• i have started a knitting/crocheting club for people my age. (a/k/a The Coolest Knitting and Crocheting Club in Town.)
• i am encouraging people to adopt cats. (particularly my mom's orang cat Jack. he comes with a stipend and is available on a trial basis!)
• slips are my new go-to gift for all gift-giving occasions.

and that's just the beginning. they can't stop me, they can only hope to contain me.

---

* i counted all my stitches wrong and did not know what to do. the solution, sadly, was to start over.
** named after a cigarette brand (taste good, like a cigarette should), not a Briton.

Dr. Phil is a good father
that must be why his son looks so smug and happy...



oh, wait, it's because he's marrying a triplet who's also a Playboy centerfold.
ah, now it makes sense. [via MSNBC]

¡Olé!

because i am a good girlfriend and, also, because tacos rule,
this was what i made for dinner last night:



the contents of this box + ground meat* + grated cheese + shredded lettuce (iceberg, natch) + chopped tomatoes + diced onions = a whole lotta awesome.

---

to pretend dinner wasn't entirely unhealthy, i used ground turkey, instead of beef. and lowfat cheddar cheese. shhhh, don't tell! also, i added chopped onions to the turkey during the cooking stage. next time i will add jalapeños and/or chipotle peppers.

it's good to be king

of Swaziland, anyway.*

More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland’s 13th wife. [via MSNBC]

personally, i'd rather live in Zamunda.

---

* except for the HIV and pestilence and poverty and all that...

she's crafty, she gets around

this weekend was spent in the car. T and i made it to Tarrytown and Woodbury Commons on Saturday, and then all the way to Philadelphia* on Sunday.
Saturday was a brunch with T's whole family, scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Striped Bass. although we planned on leaving at 11:30 a.m., we did not get to leave until 12:00 or so, and then proceeded to hit nightmare traffic. at 1:45 p.m., we finally got there. i was entirely stressed out but luckily there was live entertainment at the restaurant. and when i say luckily i actually mean unluckily since the "band" consisted of twin** brothers, in matching flowered shirts, equipped with guitars. you could just tell that they fancied themselves to be masterful singers, with kickass harmonies. unfortunately for them, and for me, they were wrong.



at one point T's mother asked if we thought the "band" took requests. my response? "i request they stop singing." wow, these guys were terrible. and it only got worse when they moved from Simon & Garfunkel and Cat Stevens to their original songs.

fortunately, i knew that my next stop was Woodbury Common-- where the shopping would be plentiful and, more importantly, the music would be prerecorded and piped through speakers. my Tod's excursion was successful, and i was able to land a little purse that matches the tote i already own. hooray!

on Sunday we were off to Philadelphia, to see my cousin the Scientist, his wife and their new baby. my parents procured brunch provisions, picked us up and we were at our destination in 1.5 hours. (if only we had such traffic success on the return trip.) it was great to see the relatives and the baby. she was shockingly cute for 5 days old. in contrast, most very young babies look like space alien/raisin hybrids. we also got to see the afghan i crocheted and gave to the Scientists at their baby shower. this was the first thing i ever crocheted and i am, accordingly, proud of it.














the only snags we ran into were: the horrific traffic we encountered on the way back; the terrible music my father insisted upon playing for the return trip; and the little Scientist's confusion when she was stymied in her attempt to breast feed off of me.

---

* for Sunday's trip we went in a car with my parents, and hit Jersey traffic (on and off of the Turnpike alike) so really it was the equivalent of driving to Virginia at least, maybe even to one of the Carolinas...

** they may not have been actual twins, but for the purposes of my story they were twins. the lack of talent, on the other hand, was actual.

Right on Track




when i was in junior high school, the Breakfast Club (Madonna's old band) played a free concert for the 7th and 8th grades in the Merrick Avenue Junior High School* auditorium. the vice-principal Mr. Gilroy had connections since his brothers were in the band, so he was able to finagle a performance. (say what you may now, but in 1987-88 the Breakfast Club was where it was at).




i only remembered this because of my last post on elementary school. i won't deny that i'm a nostalgic girl, but really i am in nostalgia overdrive at present. more posts born of this mood to come.

p.s. Debbie Gibson also went to my jr. high, but she was older than me. and Amy Fisher was in my gym class when i was in high school, but that's a whole 'nother post.

---

* what is it with these school name changes? MAJHS is now Merrick Avenue Middle School. my memories are rapidly becoming obsolete.

famous



when we were younger they instituted a program at Lakeside*--my elementary school--called D.E.A.R., which was the acronym for "Drop Everything And Read!" very urgent stuff, that reading. anyway, DEAR meant that on certain weekdays at 3:00 or so, we had to drop our other work and get to reading. and we could read fun books--not just book report books, such as Elizabeth Blackwell, Girl Doctor.**

it was around then that i decided i would aim to be a contemplative child (rather than merely a spoiled brat) and got "into" poetry. instead of reading the latest Christopher Pike book or one of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series, i would read Poe (Annabel Lee was a favorite. wasn't i such a cheerful child?) or Emily Dickinson. mostly because she had the same name as me, i'm sure.

then i sort of got over my poetry kick. but in high school i had the best English teacher ever (Mr. Joseph Hallstein). and in his class we studied some really awesome poetry. this poem has always been a favorite:

Famous
by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to the silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men,
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

---

* Lakeside is now called "The Norman J. Levy Lakeside School," named after Norman Levy, a state senator who died a few years back. he lived within my Halloween trick-or-treating zone and, as i recall, his wife gave out pennies instead of candy. that was no good at all. Lakeside apparently now serves lunches too. back in my day the only day we got lunch served to us was on Fridays. that was Pizza Day, where moms from the PTA would set up a table at the front of the lunchroom and sell pizza for $1/slice. man, Fridays ruled. for the record, Lakeside was not next to a lake, but a pond. just to clarify...

** yes, i did a book report on a "girl doctor." who says that?? i mean, really! that's like when an older attorney, looking for me, asked a colleague to speak with "the lady law clerk."

the horror, the horror...



a vegetarian Chipotle burrito has 52 grams of fat?!?? [via CityRag]


i am so getting back together with the King of all burgers.

Race for the Cure

this is where i attempt to convince you all to join my Race for the Cure team. the team of which i'm co-captain. (this in itself is pretty impressive since i am not good at racing. frankly, i have some issue when it comes to walking without complaining as well, if i'm being honest.)

anyway, come September 25, 2005, my Race for the Cure team will be walking (or running, if you're into that sort of thing) to raise money that will fund breast cancer education, screening and treatment programs in the New York community, and will also support the national research for a cure.

this cause is particularly important to me as Shaye, my "big" (sorority) sister, at the age of 30, was diagnosed with breast cancer. she fought it-- with multiple surgeries and months of chemo--and today she's a survivor. the money raised at this Race aims to not only make breast cancer a survivable disease for all women, but to find a cure. so please join me in this very important cause. neither Shaye nor any woman should have to suffer through this disease.

here's how to do it:

join my team, which is team JALBCA (Judges And Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert) by clicking here and then click on "Join My Team." and you do not need to be a lawyer or a judge to be on the JALBCA team! all are welcome!!

bonus! a FREE t-shirt!! by joining the team you'll get a hip JALBCA t-shirt (designed by Ivona) for your troubles (and that's in addition to the Komen shirt that you get for registering).

also, if you aren't keen on joining the race team, you can also pledge to support me in the race.
look, i hate to part with money myself (unless it's for shoes and/or cheeseburgers) and, even more than that, hate to solicit money from my friends. so i'll be brief and use "official" information about how much your donation can help: your contribution is tax-deductible and will fund outreach and awareness programs for medically underserved communities in Greater New York City, as well as national breast cancer research. you can do this by clicking "Support Emily!" on my page.

i thank all of you greatly for any support you can give.

happy anniversary to ME!








well, to paraphrase Tony Toni Tone: do you know what [Satur]day is? it's our anniversary.
ahhh, those Tonies sure knew how to lay down a smooth groove.
yes, Saturday was my one year anniversary with Thurston. to make it especially romantic, i got us some custom m&ms, which were not only sweet (in the figurative sense) but sweet in the delicious sense as well.

T was also very sweet (figurative again) and had made a dinner reso at Woo Lae Oak, the restaurant where we had our very first (official) date. i dominated on the bbq grill (as all aspects of the kitchen are my domain, even when the "kitchen" is a grill in the middle of the table) cooking rare for me, and hockey puck style for Thurston's refined palate. he accomplished his goal of making me cry (tears of joy, people. JOY!) at dinner with a romantic card.

ok, enough of the lame-itude. the rest of the weekend was filled with various errands, BBQs, and cleaning. on Sunday, i had lunch with an old sleepaway camp counselor. she and her husband (and little boy) are in the city to set up the New York outpost of their Chicago massage company, Windy City Massage. it sounds like a super cool company as it does high-end, residential massages. i can honestly say that this makes sense to me because, frankly, on the days i could use a massage, the last thing i want to do is drag my sorry ass to a spa to get one. (yes, i am lazy. one step down, eleven to go). i also got to lunch in a neighborhood i rarely visit, up by Columbia (see sorry ass: reluctancy to drag). come to think, that was my second uptown meal of the weekend.

Friday night was lychee martinis and pan-asian food in midtown east for an impromptu girls' night. after not drinking hard alcohol for a couple of months, my return to the sauce was less than triumphant. however, i did make it home in time for a midnight m&m binge. awesome.

Guardians of the Earth, united we... murder?

Judge John Conley ordered 26-year-old Skylar Deleon, who once starred in the "Power Rangers" TV series, and his wife, 24-year-old Jennifer Henderson Deleon, to stand trial for the murders [via CNN]

kinda makes you wonder what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are up to now...

UPDATE: ok, you no longer have to wonder what the TMNT are doing now. indeed, one of them was busy starring in a movie on which my brother was a P.A. way to go, Raphael!

a little touch of the "crazy"

i returned from Vermont last night, a little tired, a little bit fatter,* but happy to see a big package from bloomingdales. it seemed that, in my absence, my new glasses had arrived.
i waited to open them until T got home from work, so he could have his daily a glass of scotch in one of them.

upon his arrival, i happily encouraged him to open the giant cardboard box. he did. and in it was another large box, wrapped like so:

indeed, it appeared to be a wedding gift. upon further inspection, the "gift receipt" noted that it included "BLM COMP REGISTRY WRAP."** in many situations this would not be a particularly interesting or strange turn of events. however, Thurston and i have not registered. this is primarily due to the fact that we are not engaged. therein lies the rub. but wait-- there's more! there was a card attached. ah, yes, a card! that ought to clarify everything.

except it clarified nothing. of course, to T it all became clear. this was my Anne Heche/Mariah Carey/Courtney Love moment. for a little while, he was convinced that, while he was away in Montreal, i'd gone and registered us for our housewares. (EvilA's shouts encouraging this theory were of no help. NO HELP!)

i called Mrs. A to verify my story a/k/a the truth, which is that i exchanged one set of glasses for another, they were out of stock, so they offered to ship it to me. (for free, even, as a perk of having a bloomingdales charge). alas, she was at the gym and unable to corroborate. however, Mr. A was home and in rare form, screaming about my multiple personality disorder and how Thurston should run and flee from the crazy. as mentioned before, this was not helpful.

anyway, after drinking some scotch from one of the new "registry glasses," and a callback from Mrs. A confirming my version of the events, T was laughing and apparently had not thought that i really sent them to us as a registry gift. which was cold comfort after my time of stress trying to prove it really was bloomingdales' attempt to gaslight me (and not my own craziness) that was responsible for this whole incident. besides, like i would ever sign a card to myself "Sincerely." ha, it's all about the "Love," around here.

---

* if you ever happen to be in Manchester, VT, do not miss the Little Rooster Café, as their sandwiches are fantastic. the "Black Russian Rooster," which is grilled pastrami on rye with cole slaw, swiss and russian, is outrageously delicious. the pink lemonade is awesome as well. i want to live in this restaurant and, thus, i went there for two lunches during my vacation. Day One: the aforementioned Black Russian Rooster and Day Two: the Reuben. Day Three: would have been the Ethan Allen (grilled ham, cheddar and granny smith apples), which was to be the final element in the Sandwich Trifecta, however, i was forced to capitulate to the whims of others and had lunch elsewhere. curses!

** thanks to my Holmesian acuity, i have translated this as "Bloomingdales Complimentary Registry Wrap."

Happy Birthday, Old Feller

in honor of the Bob's big six-oh, the JadedEms will all be heading up to Vermont for a long weekend of golf, shopping, spa-ing, shooting and falconry. (ok, maybe not so much those last two. however, let it be known, i am an excellent skeet shooter.)

and to all (4 of) my readers, have a great weekend!

at least he has his health

this poor guy.

British police confirmed that after Melvyn Reed woke from his triple bypass heart operation earlier this year, his complicated marital affairs took a turn for a worse. All three of his spouses had turned up at the same time, despite his efforts to stagger their visits. [via MSNBC]

i don't know why but i always am fascinated by bigamists. i just don't see the appeal of extra sets of obligations. i know that no one would bigamize* me. mostly because i think that men can actually OD on whining. Thurston's probably reached some level of whine-poisoning in the last 24-hours alone. if he caught any extra whining from an alternative source, he'd be done for, for sure.

* yes, i realize that bigamy is not, in and of itself, a verb. i don't care. i like it that way.

color me unimpressed



i am severely bummed out that i no longer have this phone.
thanks to EvilA* (via his anti-Jon Stewart/pro-Jon Arbuckle musings), i've been reminded me how kickass my old Garfield phone was. that phone had eyes that open and close. how many phones today open their eyes?!? none that i know of! Garfield was a real nonconformist.
even my brother was in on Garfield with a little plush doll he had. if you pulled its string it said stuff like, "i hate Mondays" and "color me unimpressed." ah, Garfield. such a shame you had to be sullied by starring in a movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt. that girl should have stuck to dating Bailey and left it at that.

* i should also thank EvilA for treating me to a bacon cheeseburger and chocolate cake this past weekend. boy, do i love burgers.

all i want

this is it:

so perfect.
so delicious.
so very, very far away.

girls gone mild

this weekend Mr. Howell was in Montreal, partaking of bachelor party festivities in honor of the upcoming nuptials of his college buddy, the Cuban. this left me to my own devices for the first time in a while. (embarrassingly enough, "my own devices" turns out to be shopping and lunching with Mrs. A).

first we headed up to the Follow Me Café, where i decided to forego my diet's restrictions and get "tuna salad." f- calories. i was all about the mayonnaise. alas, our waiter and/or the chef had different plans for me. instead, the salad was tuna--sans mayo--on mixed greens with the barest hint of dressing. i guess you know you need to be on a diet when the restaurant staff starts counting your calories for you. damn it.

luckily all was not lost as, thanks to the tasteful judgment of Mrs. A, i managed to get some crystal barware.
hopefully,

+



= a very happy Thurston. the glasses won't ship until next week or later, so fingers crossed...

this seems like a terrible idea.

"Mo'Nique's Fat Chance," a two-hour reality show crowning a "full-figured" winner, airs tomorrow night at 8.
NY Post

the crowning of Ms. F.A.T. (which stands for, i kid you not, Fabulous And Thick) will premiere tomorrow night on the Oxygen channel. the contestants' weights aren't listed on the web site but their dress sizes are included. while some of the contestants clock in at size 14 or 16, others are above size 20. size 26?! i am not saying that the models put before us in Vogue, InStyle and Glamour set up any realistic body-size goals, but to encourage obesity? this hardly seems a brilliant idea. if you're a size 26, i'd venture that you are not in good health. one need not have a medical degree to figure this out. i posit that there is no such thing as weighing in at "a healthy 275 lbs." if you weigh that much, it's unhealthy. period. i'm not suggesting that people of that size be discriminated against, but rewarding such girth? bad idea!

thank you, Captain Obvious

let me preface this by stating the following: i love Gary Sheffield. he makes me happy. (almost as happy as the Matsui "Spelling Bee" clip makes Thurston.) however, after reading his "explosive" interview with the Daily News, i can only wonder how he's managed to get himself so confused:

"It's not a family-oriented team. In L.A., wives can fly on the plane; with the Yankees they can't," the former Dodger said. "With other teams, the wives always have functions to bring them together. Not here."

maybe, Sheff, they just aren't keen on bonding with the star of an R. Kelly sex tape. i mean, i'm just saying...

priorities.

“The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her,” the judge said. “Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant.”

See Berserk sports fan to die for wife's slaying at MSNBC.

there's some type of lesson here, i think.

kitchen-envy
right now, i am deeply lusting after this:

majorly. instead i live with a drop-in range, and a fairly beat oven. (the oven only works after an extended rest. this is achieved by keeping the #7 circuit breaker off but for the specific times when it's being used.)

i suppose i ought not to complain as my "city kitchen" is hardly lacking in perks--i've got the ginorm sub-zero, granite counters, glass doors on the cabinets. yet somehow i still want more. (and i'm sure EvilA has his own "theories" on what causes me to succumb to such dissatisfaction, but i'm not going to go there).

broken oven notwithstanding, i managed to bastardize a "30 minute meals" recipe and make kickass (and somewhat healthy) chicken fingers last night. first let me qualify: my use of a Rachael Ray recipe is in no way an indication that i'm a fan of that show. in truth, it works my last nerve. "EVOO" is not a cute way to say extra virgin olive oil. it's an annoying way to say it. (even more so when intoned by Ms. Ray.) but i digress. as for the recipe alterations, i just switched out the honey-nut cereal; switched in corn flakes, italian herbs, red pepper flakes and minced garlic; and cut back on the oil. and, BAM! spicy chicken fingers that i can eat on WeightWatchers. (ok, at 11 points/serving, maybe not the healthi*est*, but still...) and Thurston was happy that there was breading and spicy ketchup, so that compromise worked out.

great, now i'm starving. i'll have to remember not to write about food while at work and nowhere near food.

of all the gin joints...


ok, this is entirely too random. so i'm scrolling through the comments on Stephanie Klein's blog (post: undoing), and i see a comment by a guy called "FrankfurtHans." now it's my understanding that the name Hans is not that common, so i mouse over the html link. surprisingly enough, the email appears to be that of a guy who was once my sort-of* boyfriend.

this, of course, does not mean it really is a comment by the guy i once dated, because--and i mean this less as a criticism of him and more as recognition that our relationship was less than communicative--the comment seems so much more, well, thoughtful and quasi-self-aware than he ever seemed to be to me. is this obnoxious of me to note? perhaps. indeed, i don't imagine that, during the time we dated, i came across as particularly endearing or even nice. so there's that. but, he says:

We are adaptable, we are forever changing (with every post Stephanie, you/we are changing), and we will all survive, and it will not take a hundred years to realize this, because in less than one year (before we even realize a year has passed)we will have new friends, new challenges, new loves and we will once again... change.

this just seems so not "of" the guy i knew.

* i say "sort of" since, although we called each other boyfriend/girlfriend, our relationship was not one of deep emotional connectedness. also we met online via nerve, which made it seem a little less "real".