my wedding and other complications

a deluxe apartment in the sky

2006-07-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

or a deluxe blog on typepad, more accurately.
after almost six years on blogger, i've decided to make the migration to typepad. (particularly since my new work firewall has blocked blogger.)

here i am, come and read me:
http://www.jadedem.typepad.com/

(and if any of you have been so kind as to bookmark me, update the bookmark too!)

it's times like these that call to mind the heartfelt words* of Kermit and Fozzy:

Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can't lose,
This could become a habit.
Opportunity knocked once, let's reach out and grab it,
Together we'll nab it.
We'll hitch-hike, bus, or yellow cab it.

Movin' right along, foot-loose and fancy free.
Gettin' there is half the fun; come share it with me.
Movin' right along (doog-a-doon, doog-a-doon)
We'll learn to share the load.
We don't need a map to keep this show on the road.

Movin' right along we found a life on the highway,
And your way is my way, so trust my navigation.
California here we come, that pie-in-the-sky land.
Palm trees and warm sand, though sadly we just left Rhode Island.
Movin' right along, hey, L.A., where've you gone?
Send someone to fetch us, we're in Saskatchewan.
Movin' right along (doog-a-doon, doog-a-doon)
You take it, you know best.
Hey, I've never seen the sun come up in the West.

Movin' right along, we're truly birds of a feather,
We're in this together,
and you know where you're goin'.
Movie stars with flashy cars and life with the top down.
We're stormin' the big town.
Yeah! Storm is right, should it be snowin'?

Movin' right along, do I see signs of men?
Yeah, "welcome" on the same post that says "come back again."
Movin' right along, foot-loose and fancy free.
You're ready for the big time, is it ready for me?

Movin' right along
Movin' right along

* unsurprisingly, i've chosen a song that doesn't exactly, point for point, mirror the experience of moving from Blogger to Typepad. that said, it is an great song in its own right. and, while appropriate for enjoyable listening anytime, has an especially good tempo for the gym. i kid you not--this song + me on a bike = cardio awesome.

The Day After

2006-07-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

not exactly like the nuclear holocaust movie they made us watch in Junior High School:

but certainly devastating vis-à-vis my sanity.

i'm talking about the Day After the Wedding, folks, and the would-be brunch we're throwing for out-of-town guests. for our guests we were able to block out rooms at three hotels: two mid-range and one high-end (at bargain basement*--eye roll--prices ranging from $275/room to $410/room).

at the Doubletree, one of the mid-range options, we planned on having a day-after brunch. a leisurely affair, including a buffet and an omelet station and, mais oui, an assortment of breakfast meats (mmmm, bacon). as a bonus, the room was also somewhat non-hotel-y/non-conferencey, since it's on the 20th floor, has windows and even has a large terrace area. (in case our November weekend is unseasonably warm).

The Empire Room

however, when the contract from the Doubletree arrived by email, i noticed that the brunch was scheduled for 10am - 12pm. a mere two hours!!

this was much to my dismay since, as my colleague noted, brunch is *not* a meal to be rushed.
i immediately contacted the hotel to see about fixing this grievous error. i figured it would be a thirty-second phone call, followed by a minor contractual revision. ah, would that it were the case.
instead--
it was drama. apparently, the Doubletree Hotel is a union-run shop. which is fine by me--hell, i saw Norma Rae--go unions! somehow the union was dictating a two-hour brunch. this was *so* not ok with me. after much discussion, the catering manager was going to check with the union and see if the brunch could be extended to three hours. the next day, i got a message saying that three hours was a go. hip hip hooray? not so fast.

when i called to confirm and change one of the menu items, it seemed as if the brunch's third hour was going to get the red-headed stepchild treatment. i.e., no replenishment of food, cold coffee (gross!), etc. i was not thrilled.

at this point, Jennifer, my superduper wedding planner at the Wedding Library, intervened and phoned the Doubletree. i have no idea what conversation was had, but suffice it to say, the three hour brunch lives to see another day (hot coffee and all!), and i may actually sleep through the night...

* yes, i realize that $275 is not at all a bargain. even though we blocked our rooms about five minutes after getting engaged (back in December), these were the best prices we could find. hopefully the (once again) awesome brunch will ease the pain. a little. (ok, a very little).

overextended

2006-07-10T19:11:00.000-04:00

...that's me!
since the weekend of the 4th and my (all-too-brief) escape from the city (with Lola and Ted), i've been doing a whole lot of activity but haven't had much time to document it. the weekend of the 4th was a bit of a disappointment, since my parents' pool was a) unheated and b) just filled, making for a chilly swimming environment. happily, the pool heater problem has since been fixed, so if i ever make it out there again this summer, i might be able to bear exposing myself to more than waist deep excursions... Lola and Thurston were braver, getting all the way into the deep end. the boys also got to play catch and whiffle ball and T got to eat a burger just the way he likes it-- scarily cooked.

the rest of the weekend was kind of beat as T had a cold. so i made some Thai Carrot Spicy Soup, which was quite awesome. (since i froze a bunch of it, it's also served as a delicious lunch this week).

we went to Lupa for his birthday dinner and then spent Independence Day gaining our freedom from clutter. (read, we cleaned out some of our closets.) does it get more exciting than that?
the true excitement though (and when is it not?) is born of all the wedding related balls i have been juggling. cakes and brunches and dresses--oh my! and that's just the easy stuff.

but aside from cake appointments this past weekend, we did get to a) see Superman Returns with Sam and Mark and b) have brunch with Evil and Mrs. A at O'Nieal's in Hoboken (where we got to sit outside and have outstanding burgers.* for some reason, i decided it made extra sense to drive to the movies on Saturday night. i was all, "it's Battery Park City--even if we have to park in a lot, it will be so much cheaper than cabs for both ways."
not only was parking *not* cheaper than cabs (cough-over $30-coughcough), it was not even that close to the theater. another one of my hare-brained schemes, go figure.

you might have thought i learned my lesson earlier that day, when, during a cake excursion to Brooklyn, we found a great new way to learn that the car's inspection is up:

because the A/C in our car is shot, we switched cars with my brother (who, on a cross-country road trip in my parents' other car, may or may not be aware of this transaction). in doing so, we neglected to notice that my brother did not get his car inspected as he ought to have done in June. so, yes, another "let's drive to save $" trip has (again) become more costly than a cab ride. hell, even a car service would have been more economical. yeah, driving in the city makes sense.

* yes, i am aware of the weight consequences of burgers and fries, but i also am aware of the me-consequences of burger deprivation. it ain't pretty...

sign

2006-06-30T12:03:00.000-04:00

i saw this sign up on 6th Avenue near 57th Street.

my question is this... how can you move into an apartment (or do anything, actually) sooner than immediately??

stupid billboards.

although the FreshDirect truck in the photo reminds me that i have a delivery of FD food coming today (between 6 and 8), which will help prepare me for my day of sun and BBQ tomorrow, out on Long Island.

Yep, T and i are heading out to check out my parents' newly relined pool, and enjoy some grilled food. i better start on the marinades, i think, since a variety of kabob-ready meat is on its way...

i also need to think about doing some lower intensity workouts. today, with my trainer, i was hella-weak and could barely do 120 lbs. on the leg press with both legs. normally, i can do 12o with each leg alone. pathetic!

swimming tomorrow should be more forgiving, bearing in mind that i'm not that strong swimmer.* sans, water wings, however, i will take to the deep and see what i can do.

not me.

then on Sunday, we're off to the Jerz to see Thurston's family. hopefully traffic won't kill us. and Monday is T's birthday, so birthday hijinx are surely in store. in any event, a surprise dinner is in store for him. the dinner itsself? not so much of a surprise since we generally do that everyday. but the location, unknown to T, will be the shocking part. i know it will disappoint him somewhat, but we aren't going to Pizzeria Uno a/k/a Uno's Chicago Grill. (only because they don't take resos, though).

* ok, this is *clearly* the funniest SNL skit ever (my dad and i both think so, so that's pretty authoritative). i do not know this Chris DiClerico, but i thank him for posting this clip. i pretty much die everytime i see it.

My Other Job

2006-06-30T11:45:00.000-04:00

since i have been working part-time, i have picked up a sideline enterprise-- shopping. this is much to Thurston's dismay. indeed, as he has mentioned umpteen times thus far, i didn't make it 48-hours working part-time before i headed up to the outlets. (where i did, as Lola can attest, an excellent job).

that trip included stops and purchases at MaxStudio, Missoni, Banana Republic, American Apparel and JCrew. here is an (abbreviated) sampler of what i bought.

having honed my craft to some degree at the outlets, i proceeded to drag Thurston to start the wedding band search (we're talking finger-wear here, not ear candy). at the suggestion of wedding planners Farrell and Jennifer, T and i headed to Fragments in Soho on a very rainy Saturday.

in the past (specifically, my birthday last year), we had great success at Fragments, but we didn't plan on buying on this particular occasion. the trip was more of a reconnaissance mission. there weren't a ton of men's rings at Fragments, but there were a couple of contenders. i wasn't allowed to bring my camera with me (cough--strict T--cough) but we especially like a few brushed platinum bands, with some tooling/indented lines and also plain.

then yesterday, taking full advantage of my part-time schedule, i headed to the Fifth Avenue shops to explore more ring options. at Tiffany, i found some classic options:

plain platinum 4.5mm Lucida band

with milgraining

somehow, in my quest to find Thurston a ring, i managed to find a band contender for myself as well:

the Tiffany Legacy ring

aren't i efficient? i kind of love that band for me but, at the same time, my engagement ring has detailing on the sides:

so i wonder if it's a lame idea to block those details with a band that has plain, unblingy sides. i also suppose i could have the place that created the e-ring design a band of the same style, that would incorporate the e-ring band details, sans stone basket.

T thinks i should just switch my e-ring to my right hand once we're wed, but i kind of like the stacked look. do i switch? do i stack? do i customize a band?

and if i switch, then whatever do i do with my Trinity ring, which i currently wear on my right ring finger? and also happens to be the very first gift Thurston gave me, when we'd been dating just under 4 months. funny story there, actually. we were sitting around on the couch exchanging gifts and he hands me this small, square box (ring-sized, natch) wrapped in white paper with a red ribbon. now why i happen to immediately recognize this as Cartier ribbon is neither here nor there, but i do. and i will tell you this-- my first instinct was not "oh, my lord! how wonderful that he went hardcore posh with my gift." oh, no, i actually thought, "if he's proposing right now and bought the ring at Cartier rather than from a diamond dealer thus spending money on name brand rather than carats, i will kill him." aren't i just the sweetest girl ever? i bet you all are just dying to give my ingrate self a gift, no? anyway, it was *not* a proposal, but instead the symbolic trinity ring, which i LOVE.

however, all in all, i now am starting to realize the dangers T warned me about. all this free time is allowing me to go completely batshit insane. i literally just spent the last 1/2 hour photoshopping my e-ring to approximate how a band in its style would look. i think this is my cue to head to the gym. for an entirely different kind of torture and stress.

Wedding Wake-Up Call

2006-06-27T18:37:00.000-04:00

much to my dismay, the following face appeared when i entered my weight into WeightWatchers' online "weight tracker" feature.

for those of you who are robots and, thus, unable to interpret emotions, that is *not* a happy face. that's right, Weight Watchers is not happy with my gain of +1 pound(s). now, to be fair, this weight gain is since December, when i had already lost 9 pounds on WW, and was the last time i was so brave as to enter my weight into the tracker. you see, the engagement and the holidays caused me to gain back most of the 10 lbs. i had already lost on WW, between September and December. slowly but surely, i have managed to re-lose all but 2 of those pounds. which would otherwise be impressive if not for the additional 20 lbs. that i need to lose on top of the first 10.

they do hold out hope for me, though, as the computer tried to take the sting out of its grouchy face with this oh-so-inspirational quote:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."-
Eleanor Roosevelt

so now i embark upon my no holds barred weight loss regime. this involves much kicking of my ass on the part of Matt Hayes, and his intense "bridal boot camp" program. Matt used to be in the Army and does not f around when it comes to torturing me. in addition to the two to three times a week that he comes to train me, i am now on an everyday, no excuses workout program.

my week thus far and looking ahead:

Sunday: cardio combo: rowing and treadmill
Monday: obscenely difficult "homework" weight training (i.e. weight without Matt)
Tuesday: cardio combo: rowing
Wednesday: Matt and his bag of torture
Thursday: cardio
Friday: Matt again!
Saturday: more Matt...

and my diet? also, medieval.

yesterday, for example, i ate the following:

breakfast: Quaker Weight Control oatmeal (3 pts.)
lunch: Campbell's Select microwavable lentil soup (3.5 pts.) and 6 oz. of WW yogurt (1 pt.)
snack: Quaker rice cake with one wedge Laughing Cow Lite cheese (2 pts.)
dinner: Lean Cuisine Enchiladas Suiza (5 pts.)
dessert: Blue Bunny HealthSmart ice cream pop (0 pts.--miraculous!)

this is no fun at all. but since the wedding rapidly approaches, i need to focus up and stop screwing around. if anyone has *any* great diet tricks to share, i would greatly appreciate them. i am desperate!!

the non-existent snack

2006-06-27T00:05:00.000-04:00

endowed with some kind of mystical powers, the Blue Bunny ice cream bar i just ate somehow has zero Weight Watchers points.

i really don't want to know how something so tasty can remain almost calorie free. i'm sure it has something to do with science and/or black magic.
but as i try so desperately to embrace the wedding weight loss, i'll take zero-points items anywhere i can get them.
eat first, ask questions later.

always a wedding guest...

2006-06-24T09:55:00.000-04:00

...almost a bride.

this past weekend, Thurston and i attended (yet) another wedding. this time it was Magnolia and Scott--the couple to whom we entirely owe our happiness, in that T and i met at Mags' birthday. (since i've already used my wedding channel page for the exhaustive summary of how we met, i'll not rehash it here. you can all breathe your collective sighs of relief now!)

the night before the wedding, they did their rehearsal dinner at Maroon's, a Jamaican/Southern restaurant in Chelsea, and then drinks after at Woody McHale's, on 14th Street. although T and i weren't at the rehearsal dinner, we had dinner with another couple of wedding guests (at good, which is, well, good) and did meet up for the drinks thereafter. for better or for worse*, i started my drinking with the impressive array of fun cocktails at good (Pisco Sours, specifically) so was in high spirits when we walked over the Woody McHale's.

when we got there, lo and behold, i recognized the bouncer at the door. indeed, it was Clay, my old pal from when i worked at the-now-defunct-Life nightclub (see #23 on this page), formerly of Bleecker Street. while i was working at Life in my first post-college full-time job, Clay worked security there. honestly, we had the best security guys, and i loved working with 99% of them. sure, they used to tease me over the walkie-talkie (anointing me with the handle "Project Booty" or "Ghetto Booty" and calling me "Hooks" are just a couple of examples) but they always looked out for me and they were a blast to work with. i can say without question, that i will never again work with such a colorful cast of characters. anyway, back to the subject, it was great to see Clay and catch up and also great to see the bride and groom, pre-wedding.

the next morning, after getting my ass handed to me by Trainer Matt, i found out that my sister--coming in from Cali for the wedding--has overslept and missed her plane. despite intellectually realizing that this situation was out of my control, i proceeded to freak out completely, since the control freak in me could not adjust to the idea that there was literally *nothing* i could do to get her here more quickly.

the wedding was called for 7 p.m.
her original, dearly departed, flight was scheduled to land at Kennedy (Kennedy!! the Van Wyck!! the traffic!!) at 3:30 p.m.
the new flight would land at 5:20 p.m.

this scared the bejesus out of me but i tried to relax and, with the help of JadedDad, arranged for a car service to be waiting for her at the baggage claim so she could at least save a minute or two by not waiting in the taxi line.

trying my bestest to be zen, i went for my pre-dress up manicure/pedicure. there was some drama as my "kit" (read: the VCR box where they keep my personal file, buffer, top coat, etc.) was missing! finally it was located, thankfully, as i had not brought my own polish with me and planned on using the one i kept at the salon. (although this may not be a big deal to some, to me, it was a horror. anyone who downplays this clearly doesn't take their nail care nearly seriously enough).

when i got home to start getting ready, CaliSister called and told me she had landed and was in the car en route. it was 5:40 at this point. she walked into the apartment at about 6:20, did the quickest freshen-up-and-change ever, and we got to Bryant Park Grill, where the wedding was about to begin. (this wasn't one of those weddings where it's called for 7 o'clock but actually begins at 7:30. it was starting promptly.)

a still slightly stressed me + my perennially calm sister

we were seated just in time for the nuptials! which were touching and amazing. and the vows--oh boy, they were incredibly well written and delivered with such genuine emotion that it just filled my heart with joy. and i am *so* not the kind of girl to get joyful on a lark. i am usually all about the cynicism. but really, these two are so in love and so happy, even my cold, black heart was moved. did i mention how bee-yoo-tiful the bride was? see for yourselves:

the ceremony and cocktails were on the roof, where the weather was definitely warm, but not unbearable.

please note T's expertly (ahem) tied bow-tie.

the cocktails portion had a crudités station, as well as passed hors d'oeuvres including pastry-wrapped salmon, half-hamburgers, pigs-in-blankets, mini-goat cheese/veg tarts, beef satay skewers, sushi rolls and probably other stuff that i'm forgetting. Thurston being a non-aggressive hors d'oeuvres grabber, i enlisted Tyrone to help me snag the coveted burgers.

this is what Tyrone looks like when the burgers are all gone.

once the hors d'oeuvres were exhausted, it was time to head downstairs to the dinner/dance portion of the evening. our table was in a prime location-- right next to the dance floor and the cake!
instead of one cake, they had tiered cupcakes, but with a single layer of regular cake for the cake-cutting (très forward-thinking, no?)

the tables were simple and lovely:

forgive the askew knife--i managed to do that within five seconds of getting to the table.

and the band! i have to find out the name of this band that kept all people on the floor the entire night despite the warm weather (that somehow crept inside). warmth notwithstanding, everyone was dancing like it was their job (if one's job was a job one enjoyed, while also not being particularly lucrative) and it was a great time. Thurston even cut a rug with the groom's mom, who called him out in a manner not unlike the one The Boss used to get Courtney Cox up on the stage with him in for his Dancing in the Dark video.

except Thurston looked somewhat less winsome.

all-in-all the wedding was a success! the food was (shockingly) delicious. i note this because, so often, wedding food is nothing to write home about. Thurston and i both ordered filets, which were perfectly cooked, mine being exactly rare** as per my request and not some b.s. medium-rare substitute. and the fries that accompanied them were awesome! even my vegetarian sister (and don't even get me started on how this pains me) loved her ravioli option. (the third option was crab cakes, which looked like they would have been good, based on my observation of others eating them).

now the newlyweds are in Thailand, where i am sure they are having more fun than i am, as i stress the f out over planning my honeymoon. thus far, i have even designed a spreadsheet for that purpose. (i thank part-time work for allowing me enough time to become super-OCD.)

* oh, you have to just love that wedding-related humor.
** i really find it hard to talk about how T likes his steaks. it hurts me to think of those poor, little steaks, on the flame for so very long before they are cooked to T's liking. last night, at Bobby Van's with the JadedParents, he actually whispered his order to the waiter, so as not to upset my delicate sensibilities. (isn't he the sweetest?)

America's Got Talent/American Juniors

2006-06-22T09:03:00.000-04:00

ok, i'll readily admit that my taste in TV is questionable, at best. during the summer--even more so. back in the day (the days of 2003, to be specific), i watched a FOX summer program called American Juniors, whereby America got to vote five kids into* an all-kids singing/dancing/being adorable group, aptly named "American Juniors." (i am sure that Thurston is thrilled that this show aired prior to us meeting, allowing him to dodge the bullet of watching it...)

the group consisted of Taylor, Danielle, Tori (Taylor's sister), Chauncey and Lucy (at least those are the names i remember).

but there was a less moppety-cute girl on the show, who was a quite a singer. that girl was Chantal Kohl. sure, sometimes judge Debbie Gibson thought she was dressed a little too maturely, but Chantal was pretty good. she did not get picked for the group, which is why i was not that surprised to see her on another awesome(ly horrible) show last night:
America's Got Talent.

however, as it turns out, the girl on last night's show was actually named Alexis (i don't recall her last name) and just happened to be Chantal's doppelgänger.
although the AGT web site has yet to update photos of its "talent", i have found this clip of Alexis singing Whitney, natch. (why do all reality singers pick Whitney???) and she looks *just like* Chantal:

as soon as i get an Alexis pic, i will do a side-by-side and you will see that strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

* see how they flipped the Idol formula on its head? noone got voted *out* here. just voted *in*. it's so different!

One Degree of Kevin Bacon

2006-06-16T10:06:00.000-04:00

clearly, because i promised my first part-time day would bring excitement, the stars aligned for me. at around 7:20 last night, Thurston and i ran out to grab a cab (he, too, was having dinner in the East Village, although separately). as we saw occupied cab after occupied cab go by at the corner of 8th Street and University, T spied a cab that had just pulled over and flashed on its "vacant" light.

we waited next to the cab for the passenger to vacate and when he did, lo and behold, it was a scruffy (but still handsome) Kevin Bacon, sporting jeans and putting on a baseball cap disguise.
if you think the excitement stops there, you'd be entirely wrong. *then* our cab driver proceeds to tell us that he told Kevin Bacon a story about a dream he had. in this dream, our cab driver was looking into an antique mirror, but it was blocked by smoke. when the smoke cleared, he was looking at himself, yet he was dressed in full Civil War battle uniform, including a hat with two crossed swords.

we asked him which side he was on and we were happy to hear that it was the Union. then T asked him if he had been watching the History Channel or some such Civil War stuff prior to going to sleep. apparently, Kevin Bacon had asked him the same thing, confirming what i have long believed--that T and KB, as i will now call him, are kindred spirits. (truth be told, T does have some Footloose-quality moves, as Dr. Sexy and Mrs. Dr. can attest, having seen some of the same at their wedding.)

as it turned out, our cabbie had *not* been watching the History CHannel and was not any type of Civil War buff. he then began searching on the Internet for uniforms that resembled his. somehow or another, he came across this guy:

Charles Hamlin, son of Hannibal Hamlin who was Lincoln's VP, and i tell you this without kidding, Charles Hamlin is the *spitting image* of my taxi driver. (who was clean-shaven, however). weird!!

then i went to Lavagna with the girls and had a lovely dinner. for some reason, i forgot to have a cocktail. well, as *my* Civil War hero once said:

After all, tomorrow is another day.

China Girl

2006-06-16T09:48:00.000-04:00

ok, as i alluded to in a prior post, my china pattern has returned from the dead.

Orsay Powder Blue by Philippe Deshoulieres.

"but, how ever could a china pattern be so swiftly resurrected?" one might ask. the answer is, it's fairly easy when the pattern was, apparently, never discontinued in the first place.

flashback to April 28, 2006. on that day, my mom's friend went to Bloomingdale's, 59th Street, to purchase some china off my registry. an unidentified registry sales associate informed her that the pattern had been discontinued. upon hearing this tragic news (trust me, it *was* bad news--it took us-for-freaking-ever to pick a pattern), my mother also contacted Bloomingdale's, whereupon the discontinuance was confirmed. reluctantly, my mom called me to break the news. i wasn't looking forward to choosing another pattern, but i was definitely far more consolable than Thurston who highly dreaded another scorched earth china search mission.

unwilling, to take Bloomingdale's word for it, i contacted the china manufacturer, Philippe Deshoulieres. in my very poor French, i asked them if this were true:

Bonjour,
J'ai une autre question en raison de, peut-être, la désinformation. à bloomingdales, un magasin Américain, j'ai un enregistrement de mariée. Cette semaine, Bloomingdale's m'a dit soudain qui le Orsay bleu poudré est maintenant interrompu par votre compagnie et que je ne peux plus l'achatil. Je suis désolé pour vous ennuyer encore, mais j'ai voulu voir si cette> information est correcte. Vous remercier si beaucoup encore pour votre assistance. (Je m'excuse de mon français terrible!)
Sincerement,
Lovey

when i didn't receive any answer, my mom--being ridiculously helpful--went to bloomingdale's and switched our registry over to Bernardaud's Elysée, which we had previously seen and quite liked:

the fact that the cost of an Elysée place-setting is roughly 2x the cost of an Orsay setting stuck in my craw, but only for a bit. i came to love my Elysée even more than the Orsay that came before. but then, i received the following email in my inbox:

From: [Bloomingdale's Registry Guy]
To: Lovey Howell
CC: [Philippe Deshoulieres Lady]
Date: Friday - June 9, 2006 2:41 PM
Subject: Fw:
Requête envoyée depuis le site internet Philippe DESHOULIERES

Dear Ms. Howell,
I'm not sure why you were told that Philippe Deshoulieres "Orsay Powder Blue" is no longer made. It's our best selling china pattern from Philippe Deshoulieres. It is still manufactured, we still carry it, and we would be happy to register you for that pattern.
Most sincerely,
[Bloomingdale's Registry Guy]

below his email was my original email, which had been forwarded to him by the Philippe Deshoulieres' national sales manager. she had written the following note:

Hello,
Sorry for not sending this email to both of you sooner but I am still cleaning up from my maternity leave. I will translate and summarize this email from a Bloomingdales bride: She emailed the factory to find out if the factory was still making Orsay Powder blue, the pattern she is registered for because she had been told by the store that the factory had stopped the production of this pattern.
Best regards,
[Philippe Deshoulieres lady]

so, now, what do i do??? do i stick with the pricier Elysée, or do i take back my poor, beleaguered Orsay? (wasn't Helen Hunt faced with a similar choice in that movie Cast Away?)
i need guidance*!

* and, as T knows by now, despite my own request for such guidance, i reserve the right to ignore any and all guidance with a "whatever! i do what i want!" it's kind of my life motto, modeled after the great Eric Cartman.

part-time lover

2006-06-15T17:23:00.000-04:00

as of today, that's what i am. (though not necessarily the type Stevie Wonder had in mind.)
in that i now work part-time and love it.
from now on, i work Mondays, Tuesdays and every other Wednesday. this now leaves me plenty of free time to obsess over wedding planning. and also to go shopping. and to have lunches.
so, yeah, life is pretty awesome. except that it's a little boring being home and unoccupied. however, it's amazing how little activity is required to stave off such boredom.
case in point-- today.
i woke up, ate some olives that the JadedBrother left here before he set off on a month-long roadtrip,
and then met with the contractor who is going to renovate my bathroom and also build an extra closet so that there will be some parity between my large closet and T's not-as-large closet. the olives and the contractor kept me busy straight through 11:36 a.m.

then i decided that i would embrace my inner-housewife and do some laundry, since i had been putting off for over a week. now, usually when T and i do laundry, we do it in the evenings or on Sundays. this is probably the better way for us to continue doing laundry in the future, since today i had a showdown with some of the cleaning ladies and am now none too popular in the laundry room.

here's the deal. our building has two laundry rooms--one on the second floor for "residents only," and one in the basement where cleaning ladies can go. i prefer the basement laundry room since it has more washers and dryers. (10 dryers and as many washers). the thing that i do *not* prefer, though, is when somebody does not keep track of their timing and leaves their unattended clothes in the dryers. when i got down to the laundry room, 6 of the dryers had finished their cycles and were still full of clothing. so, giving this "somebody" the benefit of the doubt, at best case scenario, these dryers cycled off the moment before i stepped into the laundry room. anyway, i go about my business, putting Oxiclean, Downy Fabric Balls, detergent and Shout Color Catchers into each of my machines and starting them up.

then i come back downstairs about 1/2 hour later, just as my machines are finishing up. the 6 dryers remain off and full of the same clothes as before. so in order to put my stuff in dryers, i have to empty each of those dryers into separate little carts, and then use the one remaining cart to transfer my stuff from washer to dryer. i do this and put my dryers up for an hour cycle.

with my hour of freedom, i go to the grocery store and purchase, inter alia, the fat-free salad dressing of which Thurston is so fond (and actually brings to work since his office cafeteria does not stock light dressings at its salad bar.) i return to the laundry room and the carts are *still* full of the dryer stuff and this is now approximately two hours after i first got down to the laundry room. as i am emptying my stuff out of the dryer, two cleaning ladies mosey in and start to assemble the clothes from the carts.

so i say to them (in the most charming way, natch), "you know it's really inconsiderate to leave your laundry down here for so long. other people need to use the dryers in the meantime." the cleaning ladies stare at me blankly, so i repeat myself. needless to say, after some back and forth, i get my point across. then as i am folding my laundry, the cleaning ladies keep throwing me hard looks and start blasting their transistor radio, tuned to La Mega NY (97.9FM). now this is something i have never seen. i mean how long does folding take, that you need to bring a radio with you? i mean, really.

anyway, i now know that i am even less a fan of La Mega than i am of people who leave their clothes behind for hours on end.

look, i *said* that being home was boring. tomorrow promises more excitement as Lola and i head up to Woodbury Common. and tonight i have dinner with the Bean, Lillers, Ivona, Mel and Jen, so that also should result in something. (cocktails and a subsequent buzz, most likely.)

a tale of two showers

2006-06-12T18:48:00.000-04:00

when it rains, it pours.* at least vis-à-vis bridal showers of late.
this past weekend i had the shower of Liz, the (once) little girl for whom i used to babysit (cue the Sunrise, Sunset music right about now) and the weekend before that was Mags' shower. (Mags and her fiancé can be credited with introducing me to Thurston). both showers had a couple of things in common: great food, fun people and lovely brides-to-be. aside from that, they differed greatly and i definitely will plumb both for any ideas to coopt.
in order of appearance:

Shower de Magnolia
Mags' shower was at the apartment of her sister-in-law-to-be. this was excellent for two reasons: a) it was close to my apartment and b) it was a rainy, rainy day. (those two perks may be unique to me but, hey, it's my blog. what did you expect? perspective? ha!)

although i initially fell for the clever ruse of Magnolia's mom, the food was not actually all home-cooked by her, but was from Trader Joe's. the spread included the following:

appetizers: crudité, hummus, another dip (maybe chipotle, maybe crab), coconut shrimp, hot chicken wraps, and probably other things that i am forgetting.
mains: mini-meatballs, sushi, cous-cous with cranberries, sesame noodles
desserts: spice cake with lemon frosting (actually made by Mags' mom) and a trifle with brownies, pudding, heath bars and a whole lot of awesome (made by the hostess).

the shower was low-key and sans bridal games, except for a cute idea that i'd never seen before. as Magnolia opened a gift, the gift giver had to pick a little scroll from a bowl. the scroll contained a question about Scott, her fiancé, and before she could open the gift she had to answer the question correctly. as a bonus, two of the scrolls contained the word "gift" meaning, shockingly, that whomever picked that one got a little gift from the hostess. the questions were insanely tough and had i been asked them about T, i would have gotten maybe 10% right. (happily, ignorance is bliss, so i guess that means the less i know about him, the happier we'll be. or something...)

Shower de Elizabeth

although it's still hard for me to accept**, Liz is actually a grown-up now and about to be a bride. the shower, thrown by Liz's two aunts, was a tea at Café Opaline in the Dahesh Museum. not only did the shower coincide with the timing of the Puerto Rican day parade, but the location was just a block East of the festivities.

despite the proximity, neither J.Lo nor parade grand marshal Marc Anthony stopped by the shower. too bad for them, because they missed:

mini tea sandwiches: salmon napoleon, lobster sausage, mint and yogurt rolls, sesame chicken wraps, grilled cheeses, cucumber cream cheese and maybe a couple of others
petit fours: mocha éclair, chocolate squares, carrot cake, fruit cream tarts
scones, clotted cream and jam

this shower also had one game, and that was one where the mom of the bride-to-be (and the woman under whom i have a subsidiary Costco membership, so big ups to her) asked if you had something in your purse (i.e. thread, food, a train ticket) and then whoever answered first received a book that thematically related to the thing asked for. because i am so utterly charming, i was able to win the book How to Disagree without Being Disagreeable, since i was able to raise my hand for the "who has had an argument today?" question.*** i probably will not read this book, since i rather enjoy being disagreeable and fear that, were i to abandon that trait, my own family might think i'd been taken over by pod people and have to exterminate me in order to save the human race. i mean, probably.

anyway, another shower perk was the favor they gave out:

a little box of two Teuscher champagne truffles. so freaking good!
and, they came in a little decorative box, which you can actually create with a custom color box/ribbon combination.

if my guests are extra lucky, i may well try to incorporate these as favors for some aspect of my wedding events. because they really taste a lot like what i imagine heaven would taste like if it were an edible bonbon.

* ok, yes, "when it rains, it pours" is a lame expressions, but i'm talking about "showers" here, so if the rain expression is going to work anywhere, this is really my best use of it.

** interesting (to me, anyway) aside: when i used to babysit Liz and her siblings, Michael and Andee, i would make them this Orville Redenbacher caramel popcorn, which had just then been invented (thgis was in the late 1980's). anyway, the popcorn was your basic microwave popcorn, except with a twist--it came with this slab/block of caramel that you would put in the bag just after it had finished popping in the microwave, and shake around so that the caramel would melt and coat the popcorn. for some reason, perhaps due to the brown chunky nature of the caramel, the kids all called it "doody popcorn." and to this day, i still think of poop whenever i encounter caramel popcorn.

*** surprisingly, my argument had nothing to do with PR parade hijinx, but rather with the antics of a museum patron who went into the revolving door at the same time as me and then stopped to talk to her husband who was still outside on the street, holding the revolving door still while she chatted and trapping me in my compartment. i had to give her a "jesus, lady, let go of the door and chit-chat on your own time" [edited for content]. she tried to throw me a hard look, but i threw a harder one and she backed off. wisely.

Blogging Miss Daisy

2006-06-09T14:55:00.000-04:00

so, as some of you may have noticed, i am now part of a group wedding blog at Weddingbee. basically, my wedding-related blogs from this blog will be copied over to there. since the weddingbee readers know nothing about me, the following will seem redundant for this blog, but more of an introduction to that one

initially, i love the name Miss Daisy (even though the moniker comes without the Morgan-Freeman-chauffeur perk) and i am also loving my little daisy icon that comes with.

i suppose i should summarize a few of my wedding details for those just tuning in.

i've booked a venue, the Metropolitan Club, which is a private club in Manhattan. (my sponsor is my friend Mrs. A's dad. i introduced Mrs. A to her husband Evil A, so he seems happy enough to do it.)

the Great Hall, with 55-foot ceilings, where the cocktail reception will be held.

my port-in-the-storm, sounding board, stress-reliever is my wedding planner Farrell of the Wedding Library. the Wedding Library is an incredible resource, even if you don't use them for planning, as they do custom invitations/stationery, shoes, accessories and maids dresses there. i can't go on about this place enough. oftentimes, sans Farrell, i would be rocking back and forth in the fetal position, overcome by wedding drama.
my gown is by Monique Lhuillier and i bought it at Saks. but those are all the details i'll give now since Thurston, my groom-to-be, reads this blog (isn't that sweet?) and there is no way he is getting a dress preview!
my florist is the amazing DeJuan Stroud. he is in Tribeca and also did Emma Bloomberg's wedding, so clearly he has awesome (Wall) street cred.
my photographer is Lilian Haidar, who does wonderful photojournalistic stuff. and is someone i could happily spend 10 stress-filled hours with. (and surely will on the big day.)
my band is Soul Connection from Total Entertainment. we worked with Jeffrey Foster there, and he's just a fantastic guy to know.
bridesmaid dresses are from Thread, though i haven't yet put in the order. my San Francisco sister will be in town in two weeks to choose her dress and then, bang, that one's done too.

we're just now deciding on our videographer and are about to embark on cakes, rehearsal dinner venues and brunch spaces. officiants, favors, invitations, veils, headpieces, etc. are still on the horizon. and next week i start my part-time work schedule, so cannot wait to take full advantage of my newly-found spare time.

first on the agenda is deciding what to do about my former china pattern, which, though i had been told it was discontinued, turns out to have been resurrected from the dead. oh, the drama!

hair clip details

2006-06-09T14:12:00.000-04:00

because some people at Weddingbee, were curious about the hair clip i wore to the Dr. Sexy wedding, i took a couple of photos of it. (i'm just so all about sating your undying curiosity).

i bought the clip from my ab fab stylist Adolfo (at Paul Lebrecque), who introduced me to the concept of layers.

my hair, many years ago and P.L. (that's pre-layers)

i adore Adolfo, even though between me and Thurston, T is definitely Adolfo's favored client. yes, for wedding day efficiency, i have also forced T to get his haircut by the same guy as me... happily, T loves Adolfo too, so it's worked out well. (in fact he's getting his hair cut there next week, just in time for a the Robinhood benefit, which we attend with my folks each year. this would be another great hair experiment opportunity, were the event not beginning straight after work...)

anyway, here is a close-up of the front and back of the clip. to be sure, i think i want more Swarovski-esque bling for my wedding day hair, but this clip is definitely a good "night out" go-to...

Thurston giveth...

2006-06-08T23:38:00.000-04:00

my present
Originally uploaded by jadedem.

...and Amazon taketh away. unfortunately, the camera T got me for my birthday had a slightly misaligned shutter. it just sat one tiny bit shy of flush and so, back to Amazon it goes. hopefully the new one will come soon and i'll be back in the awesome gift receiving business.

all defects aside, this was the best birthday present and T is the best guy i know. oh oh oh! isn't love grand?

danke schoen...

2006-06-06T17:01:00.000-04:00

darling, danke schoen.

that's what you'll get if you send us a present. (though, Wayne Newton lyrics aside, it's more likely than not that i'll thank you in English rather than German.)

in order to properly thank people for all the lovely engagement gifts we've received, we have been sending out our pre-wedding thank you notes. (i.e. they don't have my to-be-name on them).

the notes are folded letterpress cards (from William Arthur) with brown tissue-lined envelopes.

very simple and very cute.* (i have to thank the JadedMom and Lil'E, who both helped me order these when i was in full wedding OD mode back in January. it was a scary time for one and all.) i'm not sure what we'll do for our wedding invitations but i am sure that my überfantastic wedding planner Farrell will have some great ideas.

she's already helped me with the cutest save-the-dates ever, inspired by my trusty day planner.

palm pilots? palm pilots!? we don't need no stinking palm pilots!

i don't even know what's going to happen when i have to start picking out the *actual* invites. it's going to be crazy, that's all i know.

*forgive the shoddy photos. T got me spanking new camera for my birthday, but the battery is still charging... so sad!

the omen

2006-06-06T12:01:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by jadedem.

i meant to post this screen shot back when i had 666 hits, but forgot to do.
so today seems as appropriate a day as any to finally get around to it.
spooky!!

what's not spooky, but awesome, is that we're going to see Kathy Griffin tonight with EvilA and MrsA. i am very excited, as is Thurston. we did our homework, too-- watching many a DVR'd Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List episode over the weekend.

i was a bit concerned about seeing the KG show, though, since i was saddened to hear of her divorce from her IT-consultant husband Matt.

so very sad!

however, while listening to Kathy being interviewed Howard Stern this morning, Thurston found out that she and Matt are back together. hooray!! apparently, they were separated for a few months and are now back together, although they're not going to remarry. which really brings a tear of joy to my eye. long live Kathy and Matt!!

other people's wedding

2006-05-31T22:28:00.000-04:00

so last weekend we had a black tie wedding to attend. this gave me the opportunity to a) try out a new hairdo and b) practice my dance moves with Thurston. let's just say that the hair was more of a success even though it was rainy on the way to the wedding (out in Long Island).

five seconds after this photo was taken, i sneezed and actually felt the seams of my dress straining not to bust open.

during the ceremony, Dr. Sexy and his bride-to-be exchanged their own vows. hers included a line in which she stated that her groom was "the sexiest man" she had known. their rabbi picked up on this (as rabbis are wont to do, all of them, in my opinion harboring dashed dreams of a Catskills-based comedy career) and then also referred to the groom as being "sexy." Thurston, from that point on, has refused to call the groom anything other than "Dr. Sexy."*

the freshly wed Dr. Sexy and the missus.

happily, the wine flowed as freely as our rocking dance moves. and somehow, without the involvement of any hydraulic systems, i managed not to fall out of my dress. (see below).

this is what happens when you insist on wearing a dress that fit you when you weighed twenty pounds less.

at the end of the wedding, the somewhat inebriated Thurston and i managed to finagle a ride home with my parents. (who were not at the wedding, but were in Long Island for the day and held off returning to the city in order to save us the hassle of coordinating a car service with the end of the wedding.) i am sure that ride was a super-fun experience for the JadedParents. at one point, T mentioned that he had only had "one drink", meaning he had one cocktail and wine for the rest. the next morning my mom called me and asked me if Thurston had had "only one drink". i told her that he had one mixed drink, but many glasses of wine. "ahh," she said. "that makes so much more sense. because after we dropped you off, daddy asked me if i heard T say that he only had one drink. i said i thought i did. then dad said, 'it must have been a pretty big drink, because those two were *drunk*.'"
that JadedDad. he's a good sport!

* yes, even on the video, he made a point of calling Dr. A by his newly anointed title. sorry 'bout that!!

potential wedding hair

2006-05-31T15:29:00.000-04:00

sabrina and eric wedding 004
Originally uploaded by jadedem.

here is how i wore my hair to the Dr. Sexy nuptials. i was trying to replicate Felicity Huffman's Oscar hairdo, but my stylist decided to editorialize a bit, and added the Medieval-esque twists. hmmm...

compare with the Felicity 'do below. although i have a lot more hair than she does, i think hers looked a little more "organic," and i think i prefer that to mine. well, we have another wedding on 6/17 where i'll experiment yet again. maybe a loose pony... or another updo. who knows!?

lost weekend(s)

2006-05-30T14:54:00.000-04:00

due to many events of late (the wedding Dr. Sexy and Mrs. Doctor; dinner with the Handsomes; my birthday all-you-can-eat meat extravaganza (w/ karaoke bonus!); Memorial Day weekend on Long Island; and my DIY car-washing adventure), i have been a bad blogger, indeed.

more on all the events (with photos too!) tonight.

meantime, i will leave you with a photo of a *good* present.

this is what is on the t-shirt that i got Thurston for *my* birthday, since i am all of a month and a few days older than he... for some reason, it brings him great joy to extol the benefits of "marrying an older woman."
so i say, f my age sensitivities. (hey, whatever makes him smile...!)

gifts i would NOT like

2006-05-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

in case any of you had thought the following t-shirt would make an appropriate engagement gift:

it would not.

video killed the radio star

2006-05-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

or not. in any event, we've met with two videographers so far and have liked them both.

Valerie Barnes
last Friday night we met with Valerie Barnes and saw a few wedding videos that she had done. i had already watched a few videos with wedding-planner-extraordinaire Farrell last month, and from that viewing, Valerie had made my (very) short list. with packages starting in the $4K range, she was definitely within budget and her work was very cohesive, subtle and the opposite of my bar/mat mitzvah video nightmares.
"oh my god, you look amazing! and you did so awesome on your Haftorah!"

the videos told a story and they were really cinematic and lovely. i was particularly fond of the possibility to have Super 8 footage taken as well as some Super 8/grainy effects that could be added to the digital video in the editing process.

i have to say, that meeting with various wedding vendors has become a lot less of a drag since we've been capping off the appointment-evenings with dinners with my parents. post-Valerie Barnes, we hit Bobby Van's (with the JadedBrother, to boot*). i skipped steak at BV's, though, since T and i already had Saturday night plans to hit the Strip House with the Née Whites, and had fish instead. (how responsible!) i will say this: if you get to the Strip House, do not miss the "Crisp Goose Fat Potatoes." my, oh, my, were they amazing. and my rare ribeye was also excellent.

Milk & Honey
Wednesday night, my mom, dad and i went to M&H's office and met with Lauren, who was really enthusiastic and definitely seemed to be flexible as to my thoughts on video. i had seen a M&H video clip with Farrell, and the clip was amazing. a lot of interesting stuff with split screens, showing action/reaction shots and had a very cinematic feel. we watched the whole video at the appointment and not only did i love the video style, but the couple's wedding was a-ma-zing. (probably this is why they were featured in New York magazine's Weddings issue.)

check out their wedding write-up. really!

anyway, we also saw that M&H did plenty of indoor shooting, and saw one of their Met Club weddings. it's easy to get wowed watching someone else's outdoor wedding video, with sweeping landscapes, ocean views, etc. however, i always have to remind myself that my wedding is start-to-finish indoors. happily, M&H's indoor work was also lovely. M&H's price point is a bit higher than Valerie's, starting in the $5Ks.

i have to say, that our post-M&H dinner was not as impressive as our post-Valerie dinner. we hit Black Duck, in the Park South Hotel, and the food was ok. (but it was no Bobby Van's!)

now we have to decide! since Thurston skipped the M&H appointment (stuck at work) this will be a me and my parents decision. which is always a tougher one to make since T and i have a better deciding system. my mom calls it "i defer to you, sweetheart." and, obvs, since i am somewhat of a control freak, the line belongs to T. he (like my dad) will go down in history as a "good sport."

* for better or for worse, T and i have been seeing a lot of my brother lately. not only does he live but two floors above us, but he has also been somehow convinced to join Thurston's supercool darts team, which plays every Monday night. plus, last Friday he already saw me for a Chinatown lunch (at New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, which did not make it onto my lunch place round-up) so i was surprised he came to dinner at all...

all's well,

2006-05-17T16:12:00.000-04:00

that ends in me getting my LoveBird stamps.

i ordered them on Friday:

and, if the Post Office's web site is accurate, they're waiting for me at home as i live and breathe.

sometimes i am scared about how easily pleased i am.
i think i will point this out the next time someone (i.e. EvilA or my mom) calls me "high-maintenance."

let's go to the videotape

2006-05-15T00:20:00.000-04:00

before i got engaged, i had taken the time to prepare and plan an elaborate wedding in my head. despite the fact that these plans were for a wedding that i was pretty sure i would never have since i pretty much exclusively encountered frogs looking to be kissed, the plans were fairly involved. but anyway, this wedding (the imaginary one) did not, in any way, include a videographer. i envisioned a giant tripod laden camera being wheeled around by some guy wielding a giant, foam-covered microphone and was so not having that at my dream wedding.

Beta or VHS?

the concept did not exactly fit in with my romantic, classic wedding image.

of course now that i am actually planning my wedding, there is no effing way that the ridiculous time, effort and investment in the event is going to go unpreserved on celluloid. they say the only thing that lasts from a wedding is the pictures and the video (and, presumably, the loving marriage) and hells yeah am i preserving mine.

so now, courtesy of my brilliant planner Farrell of the Wedding Library, we have a couple of appointments to meet videographers.

the first one was Friday, with Valerie Barnes. more on that one tomorrow... (i've managed to exhaust myself stuffing save-the-dates and sealing envelopes while Thurston enjoys the soothing sounds of Guns N' Roses. hopefully, EvilA, with whom T went, is looking out for T so that he doesn't rush the stage and beg Axl to be his new best friend.)

stamp-gate 2006

2006-05-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

well, yesterday was a close call!
sometime in the afternoon, Thurston went to the post office across from his office to purchase a quantity of LoveBird stamps, the ones i had chosen for our save-the-date.*

the clerk informed him that "those stamps are done."

when T called me with this news, i was in a bit of disbelief. i then sent my brother on a similar errand, to the post office in our neighborhood. he also called me with similar news. the downtown post office was also selling the same story: the stamps are "over" and have been for months.

victims of bird flu??

anyway, i decided to log on to the USPS web site and, lo and behold, they appeared to have the stamps for sale. so i bought many of them. phew!
because i mean, clearly, the stamp is the most important element of the STD, right? that's what people look for, no?

* in emails to T and to my wedding planner i often refer to my save-the-dates as STDs. this please Thurston no end, as he is now enamored of telling people that he will be sending them an STD through the mail. oh, that T...

T-Minus 6 Months...

2006-05-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

that's right. in a mere 1/2 a year, i'm to be wed.

right now, though, i'm trying to decide on what stamps i'll use on my save-the-dates (to be sent to out-of-town guests in the near future).

here are the top three contenders:

Lovebirds-- aren't they cute? this is my first choice.

animals from kids' books--being a huge Curious George fan, i like there. but acknowledge they are probably too babyish for wedding-related mail. (at my age, no one can accuse me of being a child-bride...)

the Post Office's snazzy new "Our Wedding" stamp. perhaps a bit formal for save-the-dates, no?

i know i have been a neglectful blogger of late. it's due to social overextension. since the weekend before last we've been cuh-razy with the plans...
a brief summary:

Friday, April 28th--dinner at Agave with the Thai-talians. our 8:45 dinner really started at 10 because that's when the Mr. was allowed to leave work. Mrs. T (and the margaritas and sangria) kept us company in the meantime. if you go here and do not get the Santa Fe Shepard's Pie (which is essentially mac and cheese on top of chili) you will regret it. (or be forced to eat off the plate of the smart one who *does* order it. right, Mr. Thai-talian?)

Saturday, April 29th--(daytime) Yankees day game for the birthday of one Scotty G. (one-half of the couple who introduced us.); (night) dinner at Salt with Traveling John and my sorority-sister-made-good. this dinner occurred after the horrible Cuba,* on Thompson Street, completely ignored our reservation. Salt was great though. i thank my erstwhile sorority sister for the clutch recommendation...

Sunday, April 30th--(daytime) Tribeca Film Festival chick flick: One Last Thing; (night) dinner at The Red Cat with Dr. A and his fiancée. i particularly like Sunday dinners that i can drive to. happily, i was able to find parking just a block away. the driving bit limited me to but one cocktail (like T would skip the drinking to drive? puh-lease!), which happened to be an excellent one called the 1815 or something like that. it involved bitters and amaro and ginger ale. quite good!

Thursday, May 4--gym with trainer; Veselka with the brother for his 25th birthday

Friday, May 5, 8PM--dinner with the Bean at good. (i highly, highly recommend the Green Chile Macaroni & Cheese topped with tortilla crumbs. the "tortilla crumbs" are actually Frito crumbs. which is so freaking awesome.) 9:45PM--pass out due to Zyrtec plus two Pisco Sours.

Saturday, May 6--(daytime) not-my-favorite-Tribeca-Film-Festival-movie Fifty Pills followed by lunch with Lola and Ted (again, the Veselka, because it is just that awesome). Fifty Pills? not so awesome. kinf of trite and seemed way too efforted. shame on you, Veronica Mars! i expected more from you! then at a street fair on 2nd Avenue, i ran into the brother of the Porn King and his wife; (nighttime) my brother's birthday shindig at the Magician, which was also the going away party for my faux-younger-brother, T-Bags.

and here i am, woefully behind in blogging as well as tv-watching. (i'm have like three weeks of Big Love yet to watch!) wedding planning has taken a backseat to the food and the booze. but with my new WeightWatchers dedication (as of yesterday i am a slave to the points) the social life shall be curtailed. then it's all blogging, all the time. lucky you!

* here is my review of Cuba that menupages and CitySearch seemingly refuse to post: I have never experienced more dismissive and less apologetic poor service than I did at Cuba. A friend made reservations this evening and when we arrived we were told the wait would be a "few minutes." Indeed, another party that arrived after us was seated in the interim. Over 1/2 hour later (and after a few inquiries to the smug host who, coincidentally, looks a lot like the smug Stephen on "Top Chef") our party of four was seated at 2 two-person rounds hastily thrown together, in the bar area that also served as a general passageway. The butts of people at the overcrowded bar area were pressed against the tables. The host was completely unaccommodating and rude, so we left. If you have the option to not eat or eat at Cuba, I say choose hunger.

all about me(me). again.

2006-05-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

i have nothing original to say, hence another meme.
Jolie had it on her blog via Brico who had it on his blog and now me!

This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter on your blog, including an explanation of what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

Jolie has assigned me the letter "L" (as in Lovey, of course!)

Lazy: this is my middle name. really. i am all about the laziness.

Liar: this is not just an awesome Henry Rollins song. (although it is most definitely that as well). it is often me. lying kicks ass.

Loser: no matter how time goes by, this insult stands its test.

Louche: this word is fun to say. and everything it represents rules. it's the perfect "l"-word for debauchery. which is another great word.

Liver: only when said à la Beavis, like so: "ah, my LIVER. MY LIVER!"

Laissez-faire: this is how i ought to be. alas, it remains but an aspiration...

Loud: this is a great word when it's about volume. but also when it's about outfits.

Logarithm: even though i hate all math of the calculus or pre-calc sort, i always had a soft spot in my heart for a logarithm.

Lambada: if you don't know the "forbidden dance" then you are really missing out. it's not every dance that can save the rainforest. (i mean, what has the foxtrot done for me lately?)

Leitmotif: this one's just fun to say. and pretentious to use. hence my often-as-i-can usage. (if P were my letter, it would be all about the pompous.)

those were the salad days...

2006-05-03T15:43:00.000-04:00

ah, high school. where i used to know all kinds of stuff about stuff.

John F. Kennedy High School -- home of the Cougars.

anyway, the Bean just sent me this link:
What Do You Remember From School?

apparently, i remember a lot, as i got an A+ on the quiz.
how well will you do?
(and, to some of your chagrin, the quiz does not include extra-curricular subjects like smoking pot in the parking lot or hooking up with shady guys from other towns. sorry!)

my (new) favorite china pattern

2006-05-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

though it's approximately twice the price of my dear, departed pattern, T and i have now selected Bernardaud's Elysee as our "fancy" china.

such is life!

but, thanks to the generosity of various family members and my mom's friends, we are already well on our way to a full set of Elysee. i am telling you what, if not for my mom's dedication to helping me register, re-register, return merchandise, etc. i would have entirely lost my mind by now. i think she's been to bloomingdale's in my stead no less than five times this week. how nice is that!?? insanely so, i think.

so now we only have to find crystal and silver to match up with the china. i'll post about the contenders anon. (oh, you know you can't wait. nothing's more exciting than tabletop posts!)

reason 1,023 why i would prefer to not be on a diet

2006-05-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

Exhibit A:

i am so obsessed with this site.
so so so obsessed!

i am also now consumed with the idea of a Giant Cadbury Creme Egg. nothing could be more wonderful.

i also wouldn't throw the giant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup out of bed for eating crackers. i'm just saying...

you had a bad day

2006-04-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

oh, Daniel Powter has got my number. and how!
because today, my bad day, i found out that my formal china pattern has been discontinued.
fare thee well, Orsay Powder Blue place setting.

so, yeah, it's not the *end* of the world. but i really, really, really loved my china. (see how i call it "my china" still, even though it's not to be?)
and who better to express my bad day than John Dryden? (oh, come *on*, you did not think i was going to channel my grief through Daniel Powter*, did you?!)

To The Memory Of Mr. Oldham
by John Dryden

Farewell, too little and too lately known,
Whom I began to think and call my own;
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive;
The last set out the soonest did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
While his young friend performed and won the race.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what Nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,
Still showed a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail and farewell! farewell, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

ok, it's not on target point-for-point, but still...

now i have to find new china! what fun that ought to be for Thurston.
some early contenders:

Darley Abbey by Royal Crown Derby

Elysée by Bernardaud

Hampton Court Blue by William Yeoward

* though i will admit that the ending of his Samaire-Armstrong-starring Bad Day video, did bring me to tears just now.

how to be a Howell

2006-04-27T16:38:00.000-04:00

i now realize that i never actually explained how this blog became The Tales of Lovey and Thurston rather than, let's say, The Story of Emily and Justin.

i've actually never had a nickname.* not one that was anything besides a schoolyard taunt (i.e. "Walking Dictionary"; "Eggilbee"; "Smellily"; etc.), and even those never stuck. my sister got to be Dizzy or Lizard. my brother was Basher or Smasher. even my cat Winston had aliases-- Fatston, Fatty, Fatass, Mr. Pickles (ok, i never said most of them were flattering). i did have computer "handles" when i used to log on to BBSes and chatrooms in the early-to-mid-80s. i was unstoppable** with my 300 baud modem and my Commodore 64 and my awesome handles: "Scarlett O'Hara" and "Alice in Wonderland". (i believe one of the boards i used to go to was called Falken's Maze, but my memories of from when i was 11 are a bit hazy.)

i get to law school and, still, no nickname. but the EvilAlchemist, prime minister of nicknames and my first law school friend (Section 5 FOREVA!) , started calling me by my IM name: JadedEm. another law school classmate followed suit, calling me that or JadedE. and i was thrilled. a nickname that stuck! well, for a while, and at least with those two.

later on, EvilA and i end up on the same journal. one of our editors is this seriously uptight guy who has the pretty much exact same voice as Thurston Howell III, so the Alchemist anoints him thusly.

we then graduate law school and forget all about THIII, until...
i meet *my* Thurston, who also has a deep and resounding voice, not unlike Thurston Howell. and EvilA hears him speak and, in a post which fortuitously predicted our engagement, EvilA referred to him as such. it was only natural that i would be Lovey to his Thurston, so... a blog was born.

* it bears noting that one summer at sleepaway camp, when i was in the midst of my very, very awkward early teen years, a super-mean camper/waiter (a teenage boy, natch) decided to call me "Rocky Dennis" after the horribly deformed character played by Eric Stoltz in Mask. the waiter guy (i think his name was Eric but i blocked most of that summer out) actually called me "RD" for short, more often than not. although i don't think i really fit the elephant man mold, my strawberry blonde perm certainly wasn't helping my case. of course, when i got home from camp i insisted upon plastic surgery to ensure such torture would not happen again. the joy that only a new nose can bring!
do you think this qualifies me for some sort of PTSD accommodation?

** i was also *very* underage and reall am convinced that the supposed teenage boys i chatted with online (the phone line, yo) were actually pedophiles. seriously. i have seen all of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" installments and really identify the chat behaviors of these current perps with the ways of the guys i used to make "friends" with. gross!!!!

the last of the florists (Matthew Robbins)

2006-04-26T14:59:00.000-04:00

my meeting with Matthew Robbins of Artfool was my first solo vendor meeting. my mom was at the ancestral home and T was at work. so i took a lunch meeting with Matthew on my own. and, if i do say so myself, it went quite well.

Matthew was great. he was very enthusiastic and had a lot of ideas about flowers and less traditional arrangements. he was all about texture and flow, and i really got a sense that if he does our flowers, they will be very catered to us and original. i had feared his ideas would be too country and "too Martha Stewart" (since his arrangements and bouquets are in pretty much every Martha Stewart Weddings), but they weren't.

this cluster arrangement, is what i consider "too Martha"

this bouquet is lovely and not too Martha.

Matthew is on vacation (lucky guy), so i'm awaiting his proposal. hopefully it will come in reasonably. DeJuan Stroud's proposal was within our budget, but he also didn't include any cocktail hour flowers. this may be an oversight, but if it was purposeful then once we add cocktails he may be a bit high.

Stonekelly's proposal was also high, but included some things i think we don't need. fingers crossed that someone will come in a) affordably and b) with all the elements we need.

i believe our planner has us onto cakes and videographers next. this will mark the first bit of excitement Thurston will have regarding the planning process. he has been eagerly awaiting the day where he will get to consume food as part of the planning. thank goodness for cakes, because i think he's just about lost interest in the wedding. cake-tasting may well lure him back in!

i wonder if she does weddings...

2006-04-24T23:11:00.000-04:00

through Lola, i found Kit's blog and what could perhaps be the single best post in the blogosphere:

here you have the genius of Sondra Prill.

i've been tagged

2006-04-21T16:35:00.000-04:00

by Lola.
and since this is the very first meme with which i have been tagged, i shall take it very seriously. here goes:

My Vote for the 10 Worst Songs Ever
(in no particular order)

Don't Know Much
this Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville collaboration actually makes me feel queasy. just thinking about it now. gah!
Conga by Gloria Estefan
honestly, almost anything by G.E. makes me want to cover my ears. this song particularly having been played at every single Bar/Bat Mitzvah i attended as a youth. (and is it any coincidence that she shares the same initials as my other musical nemesis, G.E. Smith? hmmm?)
I've Got My Mind Set on You by George Harrison.
Lullaby by Shawn Mullins. as Joles would say, gros.
Into the Night by Benny Mardones - a fun statutory rape ditty. (nothing like Jermaine Stewart's awesome abstinence gem: We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off (To Have a Good Time)).
Haitian Divorce by Steely Dan. for the record, i hate Steely Dan generally.
Cats in the Cradle by Ugly Kid Joe (of that also-awful " i hate everything about you" song). i don't hate this song otherwise. just this version. nightmare!
Songbird by Kenny G.
Hard Day by George Michael (interchangeable with Monkey). maybe just because the rest of the album is so fricking great do these two songs seem so godawful. but they do.
Rhythm is a Dancer by Snap!. this was omnipresent during my junior and senior uears of high school and if i never hear it again it will be too soon. so cheesy!

film as literature

2006-04-20T17:18:00.000-04:00

that's the name of a course i took as an undergrad where we'd first read a book and then see the movie made from it. this is also highly applicable to this list of the Guardian's top 50 fifty films made from books. Jolie just posted this list, marking which books she'd read and which movies she'd seen (as did those before her). in the spirit of my own lack of originality, i will do the same.

1984
[B/M]Alice in Wonderland
[B/M]American Psycho
[M]Breakfast at Tiffany's
Brighton Rock
Catch 22
[M]Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
A Clockwork Orange
Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
The Day of the Triffids
Devil in a Blue Dress
[B/m*]Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
[m (again, i've not watched the whole movie]Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
Doctor Zhivago
Empire of the Sun
The English Patient
[M]Fight Club
The French Lieutenant's Woman
[M]Get Shorty
[M]The Godfather
[M]Goldfinger
[M]Goodfellas
[BM]Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
[M]Jaws
[M]The Jungle Book
A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
[M]LA Confidential
[M]Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Lolita
[BM]Lord of the Flies
The Maltese Falcon
[M]Oliver Twist
[P**]One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Orlando
The Outsiders
Pride and Prejudice
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Railway Children
Rebecca
The Remains of the Day
Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List)
Sin City
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
[M]The Talented Mr Ripley
[B]Tess of the D'Urbervilles
To Kill a Mockingbird
[M]Trainspotting
[M]The Vanishing
Watership Down

* this gets a little "m" because i have only watched part of the movie. although Thurston's parents have this movie at their house, taped off the TV and labeled "Shamshank Penitentiary". classic!

** T and i saw this play in London, with Christian Slater as the poor man's Jack Nicholson.

driving Mrs. Kennedy (or another night, another skipped workout)

2006-04-20T16:47:00.000-04:00

well, almost.
last night Thurston and i joined my family (sans the California sister) at the Riverkeeper annual dinner--a benefit to keep the Hudson River made of water rather than poison--at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers.

at the benefit, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who's on the Board of Directors) spoke and due to his presence there, his mom, Ethel Kennedy was also in attendance.

the evening, emceed by Darrell Hammond (hysterical!) and featuring a performance by Carly Simon and her kids--Sally and Ben Taylor (sans their father James), ended at about 11:00 p.m.
at that point one of the event planners asked my dad if he'd driven to the benefit. he had and was planning on driving back to the Upper East, after dropping me, T, my brother and his lady back at our apartment building* downtown. the event planner asked my dad if he had room for Mrs. Kennedy, who needed a ride to UES and he promptly answered "of course," children be damned!

we then hung out for a bit while my dad waited for his fare. i made him promise me he'd treat the car ride as a very Driving Miss Daisy experience, with my dad in the Morgan Freeman role and speaking only when spoken to. (i really thought that if my dad behaved, somehow my family would be weekending in Hyannis Port and the Vineyard in no time at all. i live a delusional life, what can i say...)

in any event, Mrs. Kennedy found another ride uptown and my parents were back to carpooling the riff-raff, viz., their own kids. such a shame!

although our car was light on American royalty, the gift bags were heavy on the Kiehl's products. (yay!) and also included a Carly SImon cd. and also, to top off the evening, Carly sang Let the River Run, which is easily in my top ten songs ever. and she did it as a sing-along. love love love that one. and not just for its association with Tess McGill's triumph.

here are the empowering lyrics that i belt out with all my might on an almost daily basis. even when such singing is not at Carly's behest. (yeah, i'm supercool. you know it!)

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

Silver cities rise,
the morning lights
the streets that meet them,
and sirens call them on
with a song.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching,

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

We the great and small,
stand on a star
and blaze a trail of desire
through the dark'ning dawn.

It's asking for the taking.

Come run with me now,
the sky is the color of blue
you've never even seen
in the eyes of your lover.

Oh, my heart is aching.

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

* yes, i live in the same building as my little brother and his girlfriend. same apartment layout and everything. very convenient when it comes to borrowing sugar and DVDs.

get in shape, girl!

2006-04-18T16:31:00.000-04:00

at pretty much every wedding i have attended, i have noticed the significant bridal weight loss--the complete shedding of what i like to call "wedding weight." so about the moment T proposed, i decided that i, too, would change my name from Fatty McButterpants prior to becoming Mrs. Thurston Howell.

sadly, i was unable to locate my sister's "Get In Shape, Girl!" cassettes and workout gear and was, thus, forced to hire a trainer to get me in shape for my upcoming nuptials. my wedding planner referred me to Matt Hayes and i am now a (semi-)willing participant in his Bridal Boot Camp, which is, how do you say?, kicking my ass. (and, ideally, shrinking it as well.)

i see Matt twice a week and am also meant to hit the gym the five days that i don't see him. i've been trying at that, but, well...

see last night i was sure i'd head to the gym right after my other personal trainer, the one for my psyche (read: therapy). but then at about noon, my friend the Car Wash King called me to see if i wanted to have dinner. since Thurston is in a darts league with his college buddies, i'm a darts widow every Monday night and am always happy for a plan. however, i knew i was supposed to be on the treadmill and/or rower for a 1/2 hour minimum. but then the CW King suggested DB Bistro Moderne. how can a girl refuse?

i can tell you one thing, i sure enjoyed last night's meal a million times more than i would have enjoyed my cardio. (does lifting a fork repeatedly count in any way as "reps"?)

my meal (cut and pasted from the db menu. you think i have time to invent food descriptions? nope!):

appetizer: TOMATO TARTE TATIN with Goat Cheese Frisée, and Black Olives
main: THE ORIGINAL db BURGER (rare, because that's how i roll) Sirloin Burger filled with Braised Short Ribs, Foie Gras and Black Tuffles, Served on a Parmesan Bun with Pommes Frites

cheeses: Ossau Iraty (France) A firmly textured cheese with a nutty, fruity and slightly tart flavor; Selles sur Cher (Loire, France) Soft and charismatic, with a flaky and creamy texture; and another one, but i forget which.

everything was ridiculously delicious, from the amuse bouche (olive tapenade with little bread rounds) to the petits fours. and, while the CW King went on an extended bathroom visit (read: text messaging sojourn), i chatted with my waiter and mentioned that i had met the fiancée of the sous chef at Mrs. Doctor's bridal shower and bachelorette party. about three minutes later, the chef/fiancé came out to say hi. very exciting for me, since anyone who had any hand in that spectacular dinner is clearly genius. as i told Jolie and Lola, even the vanilla ice cream (which the King generously let me try) was sublime. if you have a spare $120 lying around, i highly recommend you hit up DB Bistro. so worth it!

and so much more delicious than water from the gym water fountain!

is there a spell to take her back to her Maxim* days?

2006-04-18T11:59:00.000-04:00

because Sabrina the Teenage Witch isn't looking so much like herself these days...

* yes, i know the Maxim spread was photoshopped to death, but still...

...this is the same person??

well, hello, Dolly!

2006-04-14T16:18:00.000-04:00

ok, this is some simple math:

Dolly Parton
+
a cookbook
=
Perfection!!

i am so so so buying Dolly's new cookbook: Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s
how cute is that title? and what's better than an appliqued, jean-short wearing Dolly replete with hose and
open-toe shoes hawking said book?
well, i'll tell you--

the opportunity to win a backyard barbecque with Truvy herself!!!! just by buying the book!!! i'm not a huge "OMG"-user, but OMG, how much would that RULE?? Dolly in my backyard? (ok, i have no backyard at present but would so coopt my parents' yard should i be lucky enough to win this awesome prize).

honestly, the only way this could possibly be better were if Dolly would collaborate on a recipe with the chicken lovin' Kenny Rogers and create the culinary equivalent of "Islands in the Stream," the *best* *song* *ever*, fyi.

T, can we go to Dollywood for our honeymoon? pretty please?

here are the lyrics for those of you too uncool to know them:

Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown,
I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb
I was soft inside, there was something going on
You do something to me that I can't explain,
Hold me closer and I feel no pain.
Every beat of my heart
We got something going on.

Tender love is blind,
It requires a dedication
All this love we feel needs no conversation
We can ride it together, aha
Making love with each other, aha

Islands in the stream
That is what we are
No one in between
How can we be wrong?
Sail away with me
To another world
And we rely on each other, ah ah
From one lover to another, ah ah

I can't live without you if the love was gone
Everything is nothing when you got no one
And you walk in the night,
Slowly losing sight of the real thing.
But that won't happen to us and we got no doubt,
Too deep in love and we got no way out
And the message is clear,
This could be the year for the real thing

No more will you cry,
Baby, I will hurt you never
We start and end as one,
In love forever.

We can ride it together, aha
Making love with each other, aha.
Islands in the stream
That is what we are
No one in between
How can we be wrong?
Sail away with me
To another world
And we rely on each other, ah ah
From one lover to another, ah ah

i apologize for the bifurcated Dolly-- that's how i had to grab the pics from her web site!

jello-shots for the bride-to-be

2006-04-14T15:06:00.000-04:00

last weekend i had the bachelorette party of a girlfriend, whom i shall refer to as Mrs. Doctor (trust me, she wouldn't want it any other way!)
due to conflicts and what-have-you, i have only been to three other bachelorette parties in my life: that of bridesmaid Sam; Mrs. A and my cousin's wife.
the parties of Mrs. A and the cousin both involved drag queens, with varying degrees of success. (the cousin's party was at the lower-key Lips, while Mrs. A's party was a wilder time at Lucky Cheng's, including a lap dance with acrobatic skills unlike any i have previously seen.)

ah, the phallic-shaped straws at Mrs. A's shindig. a bachelorette tradition!

both Sam and Mrs. A had parties ending in karaoke (at Tracy J's Watering Hole where--pre-Thurston--i had an ever-so-brief dalliance with the KJ*), although Sam's started out at Hunk-o-Mania, which was everything the name implies.

anyway, this last Saturday was also a ton-of-fun. the b-party began with a mini bar crawl-- Mrs. Doctor started out at her apartment with various bridesmaids and her maid-of-honor (also a law school pal) and then headed to the first stop: Tortilla Flats, in the way-West Village. the idea was that the 1st apartment-gathered-group would stop off at bars along the way to dinner and pick up the rest of the guests. our instructions were to be at Tortilla Flats at 7:15pm sharp, and have a shot ready for each of us and the bride-to-be. i, of course, was late for my arrival time and rolled up just as Mrs. Doctor and her crew arrived. happily, the rest of my group got a pitcher of frozen margaritas and there was time enough for me to down a bev and also chip in for my share of the bill.

the group (at least eight of us now) then headed to Automatic Slims, where more girls yet were waiting. all of them, apparently, on time. (show offs!) then, en masse, we went to Matsuri, where we had a table for 17 or so and a *ton* of food. surprisingly, there was more than enough for everyone. the first course was assorted sushi; 2nd: shrimp and veg tempura and miso-glazed cod; 3rd: steak (teriyaki, i think); dessert: yuzu creme brulee or warm chocolate cake. anyway, the food was great and plentiful--as is often *not* the case with large, family-style dinner parties. (huzzahs and kudos to whomever picked the venue.) and the wine flowed like water. and the water flowed like water too as we had carafes on the table. this is something i wish all restaurants did--waiting to snag a waiter for something as basic as water can be a pain in the ass. (even i, entitled lazybones that i am, am happy enough to pour my own water.)

and what to do after dinner? karaoke, mais oui! we headed to Encore, which is on 6th Avenue in the 20's. to say the KJ at Encore was self-indulgent would be the understatement of the millennium. this guy took himself *way* too seriously as he belted out Mr. Big and Cyndi Lauper classics... (the sunglasses indoors and the Lee Hotti hair were just gravy).

we quickly found out that the KJ was playing it like Charon** and pocketing a hefty fee for the "favor" of getting to have a turn at the mike. (about $20 per turn). Mrs. Doctor's bridesmaids ponied up the required ducats and the pink-boa'd Mrs. D took the mike, accompanied by some friends for a rousing rendition of Time After Time. unlike Bucky Covington, no one can accuse the bride-to-be of swallowing her words--she belted that song like she meant it.

sans permission, i shan't out the bride-to-be's backup singers.

for some reason (perhaps in part due to the jell-o shots so classily provided by a shot girl), nostalgia or convenience, Mrs. Doctor decided that Brother Jimmy's was the next destination. ah, BJ's-- the stomping grounds of 20 year olds and other fans of theit jumbo drinks. i spent many an under-age night at Brother Jimmy's and, upon our arrival at the Upper West Side location, i found that the kids were still there. moths to the flame and all that. i felt old. but then i saw the Taylor Hicks look-alike that the bride-to-be was dancing with/near and felt young again.

he looked much more like T.H. when i was drunk. mostly his gray hair (grayer in real life) and jerky dance moves were what evoked the spastic Taylor. (sorry, Tiger!)

anyway, it was a fun night and you *so* wish you were there. really, you do. because i never got a chance to sing my karaoke pick of the night. any of you who have heard me sing must surely long for the occasion where you could be with me in a karaoke bar and *not* have to hear me desecrate one 80's tune or another. i only hope that my bachelorette party goes as well. except for the me not singing part, of course.

* that's Karaoke DJ to all of you cool enough to *not* know that prized but of information. oh, the shame! and, truth be told, i met him *at* Sam's b-party. by the time Mel's party rolled around the bloom was off the rose, however, although KJ and i did manage to perform a rousing rendition of "Summer Nights" from Grease.

** of the River Styx-- not to be confused with Cherone, Gary of the band Extreme.

almost like Valentine's Day (Stonekelly)

2006-04-11T09:24:00.000-04:00

... in that there were flowers and chocolates involved. the fiancé? not so much as he tends to avoid the florist appointments in lieu of more "manly" pursuits. such as darts. (because, really, what's tougher than darts? ha!)
last night, my mom and i had a florist meeting with Stonekelly. my dad, ever the good sport (read: masochist) decided to tag alone and also drive us over to the appointment, which was just about in the Hudson River.

the Stonekelly shop/workspace was filled with flowers and other pretty decorations. when we arrived, someone was working on arrangements that were very similar to the colors of one of my bridesmaid's wedding bouquets. (that would be bridesmaid Sam, since she's the only one of who's yet married.) we met with Jen Stone, who was utterly charming and let me eat Hershey's kisses that were glued* to an ice skate (from a Bat Mitzvah centerpiece). they were hard to pry off, but well worth the effort.

Stonekelly's florals were very up my alley. Jen had a great vision of color and was very familiar with the Met Club space. her ideas about lighting and incorporating the Club's own decor were spot on, and she had great bouquet ideas, especially since my bridesmaids dresses definitely could be tricky colorwise. all in all, it was a fabulous meeting and we all adored Jen and her designs.

then, to top it off, she gave my mom and i each some loose flowers to take home (pictured at right). that part ruled since i do like flowers and i do like free. the free part of my night only got better, though, since my parents then took me out to dinner. we specifically (or, rather, i) chose a place right near T's darts game (East 40's) so that post-dinner, i could pop over to say hi. then, of course, dinner ended and i was sleepy and my parents offered to drive me home. thus, i bailed on the darts visit.** it was only 10pm and the darts thing usually goes until after 11, and i wanted to watch last week's Veronica Mars, which i had on DVR.

once at home, i called T who informed me that they were almost done. so i called my parents, to tell them that "i might as well have gone to darts, since they're almost done anyway." my mom, also a good sport, offered to loop back around "only four blocks away!" and come get me so i could surprise T and show up at the darts game. (later i found out from my father that, to my mom, "four" = "twenty"). anyway, i run down to meet my parents and as they pull up to the curb i get T on the phone who tells me that he and his buddies/darts team have just paid their tab and are heading home. timing is everything i guess. and i got nothing. except for free flowers and glue kisses, that is. awesome!

* actually, the wrappers were glued on, not the kisses themselves. this is why i did not eat the glued-on jelly beans--though i thought about it--those ones had glue/epoxy right on them and i figured that might not be healthy. but glue right there on the thin foil layer? perfectly healthy!

** having had the forethought not to mention to T that i was even in the area, there would be no fallout from my last minute "abort mission" call.

pros and cons: the wedding planner

2006-04-07T09:53:00.000-04:00

back in 2003 or so, i was unemployed. hence, i watched a lot, a *lot* of television. unlike the television i watched in law school, when homebound with mono, which was all Food Network, all the time, by 2003 i had diversified my tv portfolio.

TLC (or, to the unhip, "The Learning Channel") played heavily in my channel flipping rotation. one show of which i was particularly fond was called Pros and Cons: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. the concept of this show was as follows: one party (the "victim") needs the help of an "expert"--to plan a trip, direct a music video, supervise a fashion show, etc. the victim is then presented with three people and he or she has to choose one of them to help them in whatever endeavor is on the table.

the catch is that only one of the the three "experts" is actually a professional in the field. the other two are either quasi-experienced or completely unqualified. for example, on the show where a band needed someone to direct its video, there were the following three choices:

an acclaimed video director;
a video artist, who did experimental videos;
a guy who worked at Blockbuster or something.

the victim gets to interview the three candidates before he/she chooses, but cannot ask them biographical questions--just general hypotheticals.

well, on Pros and Cons they did a wedding show, where the couple sought a planner to orchestrate their entire New York wedding.

this is the cached page i found seeking "victims" for the show.

and this is the relevant portion...

well, on the wedding show, the couple of "victims" had to choose among:

a real wedding planner ("to the stars!");
the party planner for a senior center/retirement home;
someone totally unqualified (maybe a comedian?).

after much debate, the couple chose the real wedding planner! (unlike the ill-fated band that ended up with the video shoot from hell)... however, the couple decided to *lie* to the wedding planner-- telling her that they only had a $20,000 budget* when really they had $50,000 or so, but wanted to pocket the difference.

the wedding planner dealt with all of the bride's lying and hijinx with aplomb. that wedding planner was Harriette Rose Katz and i told myself right then--despite not even having a hope of a Thurston at that point--that should i ever marry, i would use Harriette as my wedding planner. although the bride wanted a tented reception with barbecque food in her aunt's (unspacious) Tenafly backyard, Harriette convinced them otherwise. somehow, magically, on the purported $20K budget, Harriette planned a perfectly wonderful wedding-- at the Toy Building space formerly known as the 200 Fifth Club (now a Cipriani space) and with Soul Solution--Paul McCartney's wedding band--providing the music.

the whole time the bride lied to Harriette and pissed off the vendors. it was actually tough to watch and (not) a small part of me kind of thought that the bride did not deserve this wonderful wedding when she was so difficult and peevish with Harriette!

but to me, Harriette was a miracle worker. as i watched, i said to myself, "if she can do this with this lying bride-to-be and her $20K budget, imagine the amazing wedding she could plan for my honest, and realistically budgeted self." and i committed her name to the memory vault, hoping i'd one day have the chance to call it up.

fast forward to 2005: i have found my one true love and he's proposed. after saying yes; crying for a bit; and registering for a few just-in-case-people-want-to-get-us-an-engagement-gift-better-have-it-be-something-i-like-and-not-something-they-chose-themselves**, i googled Harriette and found her company's web site.

i called her right away, bonded with her over the Pros and Cons show and felt assured that she and i saw eye-to-eye and that i would book her as a wedding planner. then i found out her price: $30,000 for full wedding planning. although this was not "eye-to-eye" as i was thinking she'd be more in the $12-15K neighborhood, for some delusional reason, i felt that this made sense, and tried to convince my parents of the same thing. i think i had a faint hope of winning over JadedMom, but the dad was so not having it. i may have stomped my feet and cried a bit, but to no avail. my father was of the mind that if we were throwing down $30K, it should be to step up the food, the wine, or band--not for planning. this in light of the fact that i have a job that allows me enough time to do research and my mom has plenty of spare time as well, is willing to go on appointments, *and* lives in the city.

so, my dreams of a Harriette-planned wedding were dashed. but not my dreams of a wedding planner. as time progressed (read: another week and a couple of vendor appointments), my parents began to see how very important a planner was to me. i started a new campaign for a planner. more on that to come... and, of course, how it all turned out. (successfully, natch!)

* i know it may sound ridiculous to say "only $20,000", however, if you have contemplate a wedding in the New York area, $20K doesn't go nearly as far as you think. trust me.

** is this bitchy? who knows. but it didn't work anyway.

spring has sprung (finding a florist)*

2006-04-03T23:33:00.000-04:00

the weather is warmer, baseball season has begun, and my ability to breathe freely has been greatly compromised. so it's only appropriate that we now begin our florist search, allergies be damned. to recap, so far we've got a wedding planner, a venue, a lighting designer**, a band, a photographer and a dress (no details on that one. a girl's got to have at least one secret...)

just as everything else is important, so too is the florist. just to clarify, a florist is about more than flowers. way more. table coverings, stemware, china, silver, candles, napkin rings--all of these fall within the florist's domain.

florists we are currently thinking about:

DeJuan Stroud
thus far, we've met with DeJuan and loved his portfolio. importantly, he has worked in the Metropolitan Club plenty of times. when my mom and i met with him, he had immediate ideas about the shape and height of arrangements that was 100% in line with my taste. although "low and tight" has been my flowers mantra, i am starting to rethink that. looking at DeJuan's book, there were many fluid arrangements with which i was entirely enamored.

DeJuan was also completely charming, easy to talk to and easy to understand. i know little about flowers and/or tabletop decor, but he made a lot of sense and took time to explain anything i was unfamiliar with. since he's the first (and only) florist we have yet met, we are going to have other appointments. but as it stands now, i really liked him a lot and would feel confident working with him. (his ideas for my bouquet were spectacular!)

* yes, the alliterations are painful-- they hurt me too! but i'm hopped up on my Singulair/Zyrtec/Nasocort prescription cocktail and to my drug-addled brain, they seemed, for a moment, inspired.

** happily, our venue has an exclusive lighting contract with Bentley Meeker, so that's one decision off of our plate. apparently he did Eddie Murphy's wedding. what's good enough for Eddie is good enough for Thurston! (after all, like Eddie's, T's girl likes to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time.)

In-N-Out follow-up

2006-04-02T23:55:00.000-04:00

i ran into Dr. A today at his fiancée's bridal shower. and he had no idea why i posted photos of my lunch on the blog. i found out that, tragically, he had never been to an In-N-Out Burger. the horror!

so, for Dr. A's benefit, here is a link to the web site.
In-n-out is home to the best burgers ever to be labeled "fast food."
alas, one needs to cross the Mississippi to get near such greatness.

unfair, no?

this is why i miss California*

2006-03-30T23:31:00.000-05:00

oh, glorious In-n-Out Double Double, why can't you live in New York?

i also miss California because it has my sister. but, to be fair, she can fly out here. the Double Double? it doesn't travel as well...

photographer search (cont'd)

2006-03-30T15:20:00.000-05:00

with Tanya Tribble still our number one contender, Thurston and i (or, at times, my mom and i) continued to meet photographers.

Gruber Studios

Gruber Studios has the advantage of being part of a studio. i found the idea of a built-in back up plan somewhat more comforting than the idea of working with a solo photog. although the style of Gruber was a bit less photojournalistic than Tanya's work, i was still happy with our meeting there. they had done their share of celebrity weddings (the Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta-Jones nuptials being one example) and their price (with a 2nd photographer) was comparable to Tanya's, though a bit less. alas, i just was not over the moon after meeting with them. as i told my wedding planner--i would be more than happy with Gruber and, had we not met with Tanya, i probably would have booked them on the spot. however, i'm now comparing all photographers to this Tanya-based standard, which they do not meet.

the Tanya price point was still sticking in my craw (not to mention the craw of my poor beleaguered dad, who--like Thurston--just cannot comprehend the amount of money that all things "wedding" seem to cost). so the search continued...

Karen Hill

Karen's photography was wonderful, and her price point was a bit more reasonable. i really liked her work, and there was no reason *not* to book her, except for the omnipresent Tanya Tribble comparison. Karen's work was 100% photojournalistic and completely the style i sought. but there was just a certain chemistry that we did not have with her. nothing specific, and nothing negative about her-- i just did not have any strong connection with her and was concerned that that might play out in the photos from the wedding.

Lilian Haidar

pretty much resigned to paying more than we'd planned and booking Tanya, we met with Lilian. and loved her. love love LOVED her. her work captured the *exact* look i'd been seeking. and the price, though more than we'd originally contemplated, was less than Tanya's. plus, Lilian was fun, smart, and Thurston thought she had a lot of spunk. she really "got" my ideas without being obsequious--no small feat. and she seemed to somehow manage to be both an artist *and* a wedding photographer. like we found with bands, a true Photographer (capital P intentional) might not be able to do the table pictures that my mom so desired, but a wedding photographer might not give me anything beyond a Bar Mitzvah style album, that i so eschewed.

we booked Lilian and i can now sleep at night. for a while anyway...

booking florists comes next. what fun!

i'm going back to Cali...

2006-03-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

Going back to Cali, stylin', profilin'
Growlin', and smilin', while in the sun.
The top is down, on the black Corvette...

that's right, i'm off to San Francisco for an extended weekend of visiting the California sister, the wine country and the Matterhorn. be back next week!

ok, like a dork, i forgot to actually post the above, rather than "Save As Draft."

so, yes, i was in California and now i am back.

more on this (with photos!) once i have upoloaded them.

just like "bum fights"...

2006-03-24T13:17:00.000-05:00

only with your own kids!

Police said the tape shows the soldier commanding his daughter to knock the victim down, kick him and hit him in the face. The girl follows her father's instructions as the boy cries and pleads for her to stop, police said.

via MSNBC

say cheese! (the photographer search)

2006-03-17T15:57:00.000-05:00

...but not just any cheese-- pick a really expensive cheese. like a $40/lb. Roquefort.

yes, when Thurston and i began to seek out photographers we suffered from the same sticker shock that we did during both the band and venue searches. (and don't even get me started on the majorly high price tags involved with wedding planners. more on that to come...) when we spoke to people about what photographers might cost, they gave us some numbers. these numbers did not sound low to us. then we met with photographers and heard price quotes of twice what "people" had advised us they'd be. fun, no? to give you some context: the actual album (with a decent amount of photos in it) can cost upwards of $5,000. the parent albums? oh, maybe $1,800 or so each. (maybe more!) and this does not even include the 10 hours of wedding day photography + a second photographer. you could ask yourself the question: photographer or car?; choose "car"; and still save some money. scary stuff, y'all.

so far we have considered and/or have met with, the following photographers:

Mark Nelson

we knew we wanted a "photojournalistic" approach to our wedding. upon browsing photographer web sites, i immediately loved Mark Nelson's work. the photos of all the weddings were beautiful (as were each of the brides) and he really "got" my style. plus, Mark had worked in the Metropolitan Club before, and was on their "recommended vendors" list. we met with Mark on New Year's Eve day--it was snowy and wet out but we trekked down to Wall Street to meet with him.

i still loved all of his photos, but my mother was keen on table pictures/portraits. this came up at our meeting and my mom and i quickly realized we were polar opposites on this issue: i say it's gauche and she says it's necessary.* it seemed that Mark, like me, was averse to table pictures, although he could bring in a second photographer to get them done. (table shots or no, with a wedding of well over 200 people, a second photographer is kind of a given--there's just no way one guy could cover all that's going on.) we left Mark Nelson's and all were starving so we went to grab a bite and think about his proposal at the most expensive T.G.I. Friday's in the world, at 47 Broadway.

Harold Hechler Photography

we then spent January scoping out planners and dresses and bands (oh my!) so we did not get back into the photographer hunt until early February. our next meeting was with Harold Hechler Photography. HH does not advertise and has no web site. all its referrals are by word of mouth. Thurston and my mom *loved* the guy with whom we met. i liked the photos but found them to be a little not my more "photojournalistic" taste. which was sad because Art would have been superfun to work with and also HH's price quote was reasonable. i didn't yet rule them out, though, since we had a few more appointments coming up...

Tanya Tribble

Tanya Tribble is genius. her photos were exactly how my dream photos would be. and my mom and i adored her--bearing in mind that on your wedding day you spend, oh, about ten hours with the photographer, personality is more important than you might think. and she did Lulu Johnson's wedding. for-freaking-ever, i have been a huge fan of Betsey Johnson and her fashion show cartwheels (i think this somehow relates to her being written about in Sassy, but i could be wrong) and was very excited that should i choose to book Tanya, i'd be echoing Betsey's taste.

my mom had some qualms about working with a solo studio photographer, i.e., if Tanya gets sick on my wedding day, who takes the pictures? Tanya reassured us that she had a network of other solo photogs who came to each other's rescue in the rare event such aid was needed. that seemed to set my mom at ease. Tanya's price tag did not. but, her stuff was on a par with no other we'd yet seen, so... we kept our fingers crossed that a) she's negotiate; b) we'd get over our sticker shock; or c) we'd find someone else just as good for less. i was pretty sure we'd end up with a combination of a and b.

ok, to be continued. this is an overly long post!

* with the JadedParents footing the bill for this whole affair, i am sure you can just guess whose opinion triumphed. wedding guests, get ready for your close-ups--tableside and all.

a man of wealth and taste

2006-03-14T17:09:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stones concert tonight, and i'm invited!

yes, Thurston, wonderful fellow that he is, took me to my first Rolling Stones concert back in September. i was happy, thinking that it was probably the one and only time i would see the old guys play a show, bearing in mind how freaking old they are.

well, come 2006 and a private benefit concert being put on at Radio City Music Hall. tickets are only available to those who have donated to Robin Hood (an amazing charity--"venture philanthropy," they call it). lo and behold, T is a Robin Hood donor (since meeting me and JadedDad, who are great supporters of the foundation) and gets the passcode to obtain tickets.

and now we have seats in the center of row A of one of the mezzanines. yay, Thurston! and yay for me since seeing the Stones in a venue of this size promises to be awesome.

we'll be hitting Cité Grill for dinner prior to the show, which includes a three-hour open bar. the B-52's* are opening, which i that much cooler since they just played the Planet on my favorite non-HBO-pay-cable show, The L Word.**

*Sheryl Crow was scheduled to open but had to cancel when she underwent surgery.
** yes, i do realize that only Jolie cares about this reference.

Thurston Howell, you're my hero...

2006-03-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

this morning, Thurston got down to the subway platform and spied an unattended backpack. as a clear rule-follower (such a good boy, that T), he immediately left the platform and reported the backpack to the guy in the token booth. then, since his train was pulling into the station, he went right back onto the platform, unattended backpack notwithstanding, to catch his train.

me, i would have told the booth guy quickly as i hightailed it in another direction from the station. but maybe that's just me...

in any event, 1010 WINS and NY1 have not reported any transit delays, so maybe it was just a carelessly forgotten item.

ok, this scares the bejesus out of me...

2006-03-08T09:02:00.000-05:00

Divers have discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.
Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.

this is so not what i want for dinner. to be sure, it may even turn me off plain old, bald lobster for a while. yuck!

my club perspective...

2006-03-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

in the mid-to-late nineties, before i did the whole "become a lawyer" thing, i used to work at a nightclub.* and in my capacity as a receptionist/cashier/promotions assistant there, i had a hand in the administrative process of hiring new bouncers/security guards. that is why i am so surprised that the main suspect in the Imette St. Guillen tragedy is Darell Littlejohn, the bouncer from the Falls, the bar at which Imette was last seen. apparently, the bouncer was an ex-con with a history of violence. last night i was talking to my mother about how such a person could end up bouncing at a bar. maybe the club where i worked (the now defunct Life (at the Ki Club)) was an anomaly, but we did such extensive background checks, hiring an outside security firm to perform them, that an applicant such as Littlejohn--guilty of the instant crime or not--could not have been hired.

i guess i could see how a small bar might not spend the time and resources to do background checks on employees. but the Falls is not a small "one-off" bar; rather it's part of a chain-of-sorts that includes Dorian's (hello, Robert Chambers) and Barna (on Park Avenue South). to me, this gives the Falls' owners little excuse for not checking out their employees pre-hiring.

see Clublife for a more extensive take on the situation.

* as any of you who know me are well-aware, having been regaled (read: bored-to-tears) time and again with my "i used to work at the coolest club" stories.

by the power of greyskull...

2006-03-05T15:07:00.000-05:00

emily robin [last name omitted] --

[noun]:

An immortal

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

ah, yes, these little quizzes rule. thanks for the link, smellyknee!

what comes around...

2006-03-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

...goes around

Mo'Nique Wants You: Auditions Start Next Week

i just received the above photo in an email that asked me the following question:

Do you have what it takes to be the next "Miss F.A.T." (that's Fabulous And Thick)? If so, come down to one of our cross-country open casting calls and show Mo'Nique—and the rest of the world—what it takes to be a larger than life beauty queen. Find a Casting Call Near You

i guess i shouldn't have been so quick to criticize Mo'Nique. apparently, i could be a winner!

wedding bands (but wait--there's more!)

2006-03-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

Total Entertainment

Total Entertainment represents a couple of "marquee" bands.
i had seen one of them, Soul Solution, play at the wedding of a family friend and they were amazingly excellent. i *hate* to dance, and could not help but stay on the dance floor the entire night. T's one reservation about Soul Solution was the "soul" factor; in meeting with bands so far, we'd found that the rock n'roll component of soul-centered bands was a little bit lacking. it's not that they sucked at singing the Boss or Bon Jovi, they just were a little out of their element.

Soul Solution, however, has an impressive pedigree, having been the band that Paul McCartney booked for his wedding to Heather McCartney née Mills.

then Total also represents Soul Street, another band with a celeb wedding to its credit-- that of Billy Joel to his child bride a summer or two ago.

according to the rep at Total, they also had a "new" band--nothing like the others, and people either love or hate. this band was called "White Light," again furthering Thurston's speculations on Aryan rock. (again, happily, he was wrong!) since we met with the agency, it seems that White Light is now known as Soul Connection, to fit with the soul theme, i guess.

we watched the DVD of Soul Solution (about $23K) and really liked them. then we saw Soul Street ($18.5K) and were pretty sure that this was it. we had a wedding band! they were young and had great energy and did a remarkably unembarassing version of "Milkshake," which i insisted that we have played at our wedding.* i was ready to sign on the dotted line, but T wanted to hear the last band.

sure enough, we all (mom, dad and Thurston) loved them the most. the thing was they actually rocked when singing rock. (what a novelty!) in booking rither Soul Solution or Soul Street, T had resigned himself to request that the band sort of avoid the rock genre altogether. a tragedy of sorts, since T is kind of rock-obsessed. (anyone who has seen his Billy Idol karaoke performances knows this all too well.)

so that was that. except that we still had a meeting left with

Greg Denard
the thing about Greg Denard, is that he used to be the lead singer for Soul Solution (and was in this gig when SS played at the aforementioned family friend wedding.) he was really quite the entertainer and had a great crowd rapport. however, at one point between 2004 (when said wedding occurred) and now, Mr. Denard and Soul Solution parted ways, with the former starting his own band-- the Greg Denard Orchestra. they looked great to me, so i was excited to meet them.

however, as the appointment approached, i was more and more convinced that White Light** was the band for us-- so i called to cancel the Greg Denard appointment. as it turns out, they were about to call me, since Mr. Denard did not really have my date available. alls well...

so we now had a band and a venue. what's next? oh, the fun of finding a wedding planner and a photographer. good times!

* and not just because Kelis admired my change purse/keychain at the bloomingdale's gift wrap counter, where we she was waiting with Nas. although, it sure didn't hurt.

** they may officially be called Soul Connection, but they remain White Light to me.

wedding bands (part II)

2006-02-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

Starlight Orchestras
we met with the booking agent for Starlight Orchestras in their lovely Upper West Side offices.
the Starlight Orchestras schtick is that all the bands are led by female bandleaders. cute, no?

although the two principals of Starlight Orchestras (Valerie Romanoff and Marianne Bennett) were booked for our date (at their going rate of about $28K per wedding), there were two orchestras still available: Laurell Eastman and Sarah Scott (just under $20K).

both singers were very talented in their genre, but we felt that when confronted with hip-hop or rock, their interpretations left something to be desired. for some reason all the Starlight bands evoked the Sweeney sisters to me.

however, the booking agent told us about one other band he had, which was "the anti-wedding band." we were informed that this band was "like no band you have ever seen and people either love them or hate them--there's no in-between." the band we were about to see (on DVD) was called "One Nation" and Thurston was convinced, from the name and the description, that what we were about to see was clearly going to be something truly offensive, such as a white supremacist band. this was not the case, however. One Nation was a (mostly) black band that kicked some serious ass. the musicians were actually talented and the singers had chops.

we all loved One Nation, but were concerned that as great a band as they were, they might not be a great wedding band, a category unto itself. setting up the timing and keeping people on the floor, all while incorporating the toasts, the romantic first dance and breaks for the guests to eat is a lot to handle. this notwithstanding, we walked out of the Starlight offices with the feeling that, in any event, we would be happy with One Nation. our worst case scenario was not so bad!

then we headed to Harlem's Dinosaur BBQ and the night ended on the highest of notes. T was able to down the entire portion of his Tres Hombre and i was no slouch in finishing my two-pork combo.

when i hear music, it makes me dance...

2006-02-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

when i hear music, it makes me dance...
unless, of course, the price of that music is the same as a small car. ah, yes, searching for a wedding band certainly was an eye-opener.

you might think you know what a wedding band costs. you are probably underestimating. before i begin sharing with you the "process" of winnowing down bands, i will give you some perspective.

although these two sites list about a zillion acts, here is a brief sampling of the (approximate) prices to book a famous act to play a concert:

The Village People (the effin Macho-est of Men!), $25,000+
Lee Greenwood (he's proud to be an American), $25,000
Montell Jordan (this is how we do it!), $20,000 (with a live band!)
Darius Rucker, $20-25,000
Fatboy Slim, $25-30,000
Jordan Knight, $6,000+
Tiffany, $5-7,500
Ryan Adams, $15,000+
Funkmaster Flex, $10 - 15k
They Might Be Giants, $15 - 20k

ok, just to make sure we've got this straight, you can get *Hootie* to play for you for under $25K. got it? good.

here are some of the bands that we entertained booking for our wedding (a couple of these are entertainment pureyors that have a "stable" of a few bands that they handle):

Bud Maltin:

the first meeting we had was with Bud Maltin, bandleader of The Bud Maltin Orchestra. my parents had been to the wedding of their friends' daughter, where Bud's band was the entertainment. my dad loved the music, danced all night and took Bud's card. (mind you, this wedding was in July 2005, *well* before T and i were engaged. apparently my dad is quite the forward thinker.)

when Thurston found out we'd be meeting Bud at the Penn Club, he was entirely thrilled, thinking Bud was a fellow "Fighting Quaker." when T found out that Bud did not go to Penn, he was a bit disappointed, but quickly bounced back when he saw Bud's super moustache on the web site.

we loved Bud, his vast wedding experience and his repertoire included all the songs of which T and i were fans. we couldn't complain about his price tag either-- under $10K.* but this was our first band meeting, and we had three more to go, so we didn't sign anything.

more on the next bands we saw in later posts.

* ok, i fully recognize that it's tacky to name numbers, as it were. with that said, what i have found to be exceedingly frustrating in the wedding planning process is the complete dearth of hard numbers to which i can compare price estimates given to us by various vendors. so, tackiness be damned, i am at least going to give ballpark ranges of quotes we get so that some bride, somewhere might have the budgetary context that i did not.

this time it's personal

2006-02-27T10:10:00.000-05:00

this time it's personal

looks like Lloyd Grove's Lowdown was also at the Underminer performance. and, thus, thinly veiled becomes *unveiled.*

Jennifer Aniston probably wishes she'd been nicer to fellow actress Nancy
Balbirer, who shared a West Village apartment with her in the late 1980s.

read the whole column for the Aniston camp's obligatory/half-hearted denial.

UPDATE: what's better than being Gawked?

The Underminer

2006-02-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

The Underminer

last night Thurston and i headed to Joe's Pub, expanded our horizons and saw the hysterically funny benefit celebrating the paperback release of The Underminer (by Mike Albo with Virginia Heffernan).

full disclosure: our friend Nancy Balbirer was behind the production, with her husband/our friend Joel contributing original music, playing the keyboards and singing back-up.

the show was insanely hilarious and featured readings from The Underminer as well as people sharing their own experiences with being undermined. Alan Cumming was (is he ever not?) fabulous and Nancy definitely stunned the crowd with the scathing and oh-so-thinly-veiled story of her own personal underminer. the simultaneous conveyance of heartbreak *and* snark is a hell of a combination to pull off, but she sure did it... Mike Albo was the kind of funny that makes you unexpectedly laugh so hard you spit a full mouthful of pinot grigio on the person in front of you. (hypothetically speaking, obviously.)

Thurston was once again impressed (read: indifferent) to my gleeful recognition* of Lindsay Robertson but i still was happy that a) she was part of the show and b) i knew who she was. although i don't read lindsayism daily (it's blocked at work-- damn web sense!), i always find it a good read when i do. (much appreciated her candid take on the Stephanie Klein pregnancy/miscarriage fiasco).

anyway, i have yet to read The Underminer but have already ordered it (2-day shipping with Amazon Prime, bitches!) and will have it in hand shortly. i have a feeling that this book will definitely evoke friends that have come and gone. some of the excerpts/underminer quotes might as well have been transcriptions of morsels shared with me by a one frenemy or another. more on this (i'm sure) once i've read the book!

on top of all that relevancy, there were a couple of performances that were unexpected but intriguing no less. definitely not what T and i had expected. See The Dazzle Dancers (hello naked!); Pu Pu Platter (doing to Rent what we've all dreamed of doing); and Murray Hill (whom i'd met back in my "i work at a night club" days and have always found to be a great entertainer!).

* ok, maybe recognizing a well known blogger is no coup, but since i sometimes don't even recognize people who were at my own parties, i think it was a decent showing.

late to the party...

2006-02-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

late to the party...

although Jolie has posted more extensively on the Olympics, and i've yet to do, can i just ask if anyone else is as frustrated as i am that i have to read figure skating updates on msnbc to see what's going on and then wait all the way until, like, 11 tonight to actually see the programs?!? so unfair!

this chart though is all right.

2006-02-17T10:46:00.000-05:00

is there a point...

to this Johari test? i am unsure. but i do know it is definitely fun!
if you want to contribute to mine, follow this link: http://kevan.org/johari?name=jadedem

Arena

(known to self and others)

friendly, intelligent, loving, observant, tense, witty

Blind Spot

(known only to others)

able, adaptable, bold, caring, cheerful, clever, complex, confident, dependable, energetic, extroverted, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic, independent, knowledgable, logical, organised, self-assertive, silly, spontaneous, sympathetic, wise

Façade

(known only to self)

Unknown

(known to nobody)

accepting, brave, calm, dignified, ingenious, introverted, kind, mature, modest, nervous, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, relaxed, religious, responsive, searching, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, trustworthy, warm

Dominant Traits

57% of people agree that jadedem is intelligent

All Percentages

able (14%) accepting (0%) adaptable (7%) bold (21%) brave (0%) calm (0%) caring (50%) cheerful (7%) clever (28%) complex (21%) confident (14%) dependable (7%) dignified (0%) energetic (7%) extroverted (35%) friendly (7%) giving (35%) happy (7%) helpful (7%) idealistic (7%) independent (7%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (57%) introverted (0%) kind (0%) knowledgable (28%) logical (21%) loving (35%) mature (0%) modest (0%) nervous (0%) observant (7%) organised (7%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (0%) relaxed (0%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (0%) self-assertive (28%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (0%) shy (0%) silly (7%) spontaneous (14%) sympathetic (7%) tense (14%) trustworthy (0%) warm (0%) wise (7%) witty (21%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 17.2.2006, using data from 14 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view jadedem's full data.

and the winner is...

2006-02-16T09:11:00.000-05:00

and the winner is...

the Metropolitan Club!

yes, after all our searching, we opted to have our wedding at the Metropolitan Club. we just could not get past its architectural elegance and grand scale.

the winner is also ME, since for Valentine's Day Thurston gave me a limited edition, leatherbound book about said Club:

number 82 in a printing of 2,000!

wow, this was a thoughtful and amazing gift. especially in light of the fact that we don't officially "do" gifts on V-day. oh, that Thurston, he's a keeper...

that's my autographed copy, Kenny!

T also sent me pretty flowers because, despite his not being down with flowers ("they die!"), he knows that girls (often) like them, imminent death notwithstanding.

to his dismay though, i was not at work on Valentine's Day, foiling his plans to send the flowers there. (due to the blizzard, a wedding we had planned to attend on Sunday night was postponed* to Monday night. thus, i took Tuesday as vaca-- a girl needs to recuperate, after all!) but they were just as lovely in my own home and i adore them. (him, more so!)

*more on that and the fear it instilled in me in another post.

2006-02-15T11:32:00.000-05:00

i'm this bunny

i love boys. they're stupid.

at least according to this quiz (Who's Your Happy Bunny?) i am. (thanks for the link, Lola!)

scarily, this is somewhat accurate since, with some regularity, i affectionately tell T he is stupid all the time. stupid like a fox, though! kiss kiss!

venue search (continued)

2006-02-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

two down, two to go

now that we'd seen the Met Club and the Rainbow Room, the final two venues we were considering were The Pierre (a location that had long been my "that's where i'm going to have my wedding"-spot) and The Newark Club, where a good friend of mine was married and had a wonderful wedding.

The Pierre
happily, the morning we ventured up to see the Pierre (Friday, 12/23/05) the transit strike had ended. we also were excited to see the place because my parents had already scoped it out for us the night before (hey, they live in the neighborhood, and there were no trains!) and thought it was wonderful. because we were pretty sure we'd be having under 250 people, the Cotillion Room was the ballroom in the Pierre that would accommodate us best.
the Grand Ballroom required a guarantee of 250 people, and we did not think that made sense in light of our list. further, my mom greatly preferred the look of the Cotillion Room to that of the Pierre's Grand Ballroom, our other (250+ guests) option.

when we got to the Pierre, i agreed with my mother (a first!)
something about the Grand Ballroom just evoked an auditorium vibe to me. i also greatly preferred the color scheme/decor of the Cotillion Room. however, the Pierre, too, had the dreaded "flip". the ceremony would be in the Cotillion Room, with cocktails in the Regency Room and then back to the Cotillion Room for the dinner dance. although the pre-ceremony "invitational" would be in the Rotunda--a seriously gorgeous room with a staircase on which a classical trio could play while people entered pre-ceremony--this was not really making up for the flip issue.

the Rotunda ... lovely!

then, though, we were taken to see the bridal suite, in which i could get ready on the wedding day. this suite was lovely and BIG (two bedrooms, mais oui). Thurston was particularly impressed with the full bar that it offered. then, though, when i asked "at what time will the suite be made available to me?" i was informed that they could only guarantee that i could have it at 3:00 p.m. now, as any girl with common sense knows, you need a room in which to get dressed, made up, etc. for a 6:30 wedding, *well* before 3 o'clock. by three we would already be in "taking pictures" mode--first checking into the suite was hardly on the agenda.

all-in-all the Pierre was not leaving me wowed. i kind of felt like i was really being "sold" when we met with the catering guy, and he was very big on backtracking off positions he had taken when he initially met with my parents the night before. suddenly, our date wasn't really on hold--"oh no, we *never* hold dates. how could we do business that way?" and the bridal suite "of course it can't be available until people check out. but you can guarantee that you have it early. we let you reserve it the night before for 50% off the regular rate." such a bargain! especially since the regular rate is $2,000 a night.

pros: wedding location of my childhood dreams; beautiful room (Cotillion); very good food; Sylvia Weinstock cake included; the Rotunda(!)

cons: we felt like we were being hustled; no room in which to get ready (for under a $1,000 premium, anyways); another wedding would be going on simultaneously in the Grand Ballroom; the flip

The Newark Club

despite my mother's (and Thurston's. and my father's) inclination to stay in Manhattan proper, i wanted to explore options outside the city. particularly, the Newark Club, where in 2003 i had attended the wedding of my most put-together, fashion-forward friend* and her equally charming husband. the food was wonderful, the space was great, the dinner table chairs were comfortable--for what more could you ask?

so i made an appointment with Erica at the Newark Club and on a freezing Saturday afternoon, my mom, dad, T and i headed to Newark. forget what you know about Newark-- the Newark Club is in the business district of Newark, which hardly evokes the images of gunfire and abandoned cars that one's preconceived notions re: Newark might otherwise dictate...

the room was spacious and had great views (since it's on the 22nd floor) of New York and all around.

the one fatal flaw: the Newark Club had no dates in 2006. not a single Saturday.
as much as we all loved (i cannot emphasize enough how amazing this woman was and how well she presented the Club, the wedding schedule, and how she just had a handle on *everything*) Erica, the wedding coordinator there, i love Thurston more (oh, oh, oh!) and did not want to wait until 2007 to officially become a Howell. so, the Newark Club was out.

* further props should be given to her since anyone who was able to live with my 18 year old self and still hang onto their sanity is in a league of their own.

venue search (Part II)

2006-01-31T16:11:00.000-05:00

and then there were four...
(venue search, cont'd)

as we continued to winnow the venue field, we had four places that we still wanted to see, viz., The Metropolitan Club; The Rainbow Room; The Pierre; and The Newark Club. transit strike be damned, we made appointments to see these four places and each had its own pros and cons.

The Metropolitan Club

the Met Club is a gorgeous private club in Manhattan. happily, i would have a sponsor here as Mrs. A's dad is a member. further, i am in good standing with dad-of-Mrs. A, since i introduced his daughter to her now husband, the EvilAlchemist.

anyway, Thurston and i went to see the Metropolitan Club at 9am on the first morning of the transit strike. if you can imagine a less-than-fun commute, imagine our drive to midtown that day. it took us a good hour to get up there from the Village and then, upon our final approach across 61st Street, we were stopped at Park and had to circle back around. it was a) way-too-early to have already been commuting for an hour and b) fuh-reezing. we parked somewhere east of Lexington and then hoofed it over to 60th and 5th Ave.

however, these factors notwithstanding, i adored the Metropolitan Club. the space was grand (a Stanford White building, don't you know), the location was ideal (close to plenty of hotels and the park (for day-of photos)) and the space was the right size for our guest list. (and also had a lot of flexibility with different room permutations should our numbers vary).

exterior

the grand foyer with 55-foot ceilings (!) and an incredible staircase.

Thurston was not nearly as keen on the Met Club, finding the space a bit intimidating. he also felt strongly that it "called for" a black-tie affair and T was really, really intent on not having a black-tie wedding. on the other hand, while viewing photos of previous weddings at the Club, T recognized Chuck Knoblauch as one of the groom photographed. this, to a major Yankee fan, was definitely going in the "pro" column of the Met Club.

pros: grand space, classic elegance, many rooms; one wedding per weekend; Chuck Knoblauch had wedding here.
cons: potentially intimidating; specifically formal space; lots of stairs

The Rainbow Room

for T and i the Rainbow Room held a special sentimental sway with us, since we were engaged just below, in Rockefeller Center. the idea of a glamorous room, overlooking all of Manhattan was also intriguing. when we got there (also during the transit strike, another fun trip-- this time an hour in a shared cab), the views looking out were all we had hoped they'd be.

the views of the inside, not so much:

the Rainbow Room was more modern a space than i liked. i also thought it sent more of a Bar Mitzvah or office party vibe than a wedding one. at least for the wedding that i had envisioned. i really thought that i needed a venue of a grand scale to be able to handle the style of dress i planned to wear.

however, T love-love-*loved* the Rainbow Room. especially the revolving dance floor.

he is also more sentimental than i, (difficult to believe, i'm sure) and was keen on getting married right over where he proposed. such a softie, that one.

so, although i wasn't loving the idea of the modern decor and the "flip"-- this is where the ceremony is in Room A, then everyone goes into Room B for cocktail hour, during which the staff reconfigures Room A into the dinner/dance room--i kept the Rainbow Room high on the list for T's sake and because the food is done by Cipriani, which is a major plus.

pros: close to proposal; ultimate NY views; Cipriani food; revolving dance floor; u-shaped seating arrangement
cons: the "flip"; potentially two weddings at once (there's another floor where a smaller wedding can be held at the same time); modern decor; wedding bathrooms shared with clientele of Rainbow Grill (restaurant open to the public at same time as wedding).

ok, that's enough for now!

the other two in our search will be written up later or tomorrow!

next post:
The Pierre (Cotillion Room)
The Newark Club

2006-01-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

ladies who lunch

as a dedicated government worker, i rarely use my lunch break to take an actual break and leave the office. the dearth of restaurants in the area is surely a contributing factor, as is my laziness. however, yesterday i had cause to trek up to 64th Street for a lovely lunch with my big sister,* in town for an ever-so-brief visit, and Sim-Sima.**

we went to Alice's Tea Cup: Chapter II, and, boy, was it a great spot. (thanks, Mom, for the recommendation!)
i had:

curried chicken salad sandwich with red onion, celery and granny smith apple on semolina with golden raisins and fennel $11

which was absolutely delicious. the sandwich was not too big, but plenty filling. and the bread--oy, was it wonderful! obviously, i had tea as well, and that impressed equally. the only annoying part of my lunch experience was that i had just been in the area (walking my parents' dog) on Sunday, and being unaware of Alice's, i went instead to Burger Heaven. poor Lovey, making such errors in eating...!

next time, the Nibble will be my meal of choice...

the nibble: a lil' bit hungry? $22- pot of tea- choice of one scone with preserves and cream- choice of one sandwich- assorted cookies

oh my gosh, you all so want to come with, don't you?

* of the sorority--not the biological--sort.
** who, incidentally, did not have the keys to my bimma.

2006-01-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

NOCD

ok, in 1987, when watching The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (surely one of the greatest mini-series ever) i heard a bit of dialogue with which i became insanely enchanted. it went something like this:

1st snotty lady: "he loves her, but she is N-O-C-D."
2nd snotty lady: "NOCD?"
1st snotty lady: "Not our class, darling."

now, even as an 11 year-old, i knew that were i to use this phrase in my day-to-day life, i would come off as gauche and ridiculous as i would were i to adopt the speech patterns of one Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter Morrell*. this knowledge, however, did not stop me from intoning (in my snobbiest voice), "NOCD," when referring to boys who liked my friends (until i was about 16 or so, they'd not really taken to liking me). oh, was it the funnest thing to say!

well, years went by and NOCD ebbed and flowed in my vernacular. all i can say is that it's back, baby! and how! i am falling in love with it all over again.

viva la NOCD!

* not sure the exact order of the names-- forgive me, Joan!

2006-01-27T17:32:00.000-05:00

1, 2, 3, 4-- PRESENTS!

that is how i countoff presents for any and all gift-giving occasions. well, apparently to some of my mom's friends, our engagement is such an occasion.* which means Thurston has been subjected to this cheer-of-sorts on many occasions lately.

here's how the engagement gift opening goes down...

first, i open the giant outer box which is filled with those loathesome styrofoam peanuts. then i manage to extricate the inner box (wrapped, natch) without letting too many of the peanuts escape, lest our giant cat Winston ingest them.
this is what you may find inside:

check out the nifty faux-crocodile embossed wrapping paper. ooh la la!

then i open the card and see from whom the lovely gift is.
finally, i tear through the wrapping paper and all the bubble wrap and see what the gift actually is--

oh, look! a large platter!!

so far we have received gifts in our "everyday" china, viz., a medium vegetable bowl, a gravy boat and a large platter.

gravy will be so much awesomer when served from this boat!

we have also received some off-registry items, from T's family, such as a hand-blown glass bowl and a crystal vase. the bowl looks akin to this:

except our version had a bright blue inside and yellow rim. this bowl wanted to travel though, and now lives at Thurston's office.

* this occasion is very different than the pseudo-gift-giving occasion T and i faced a few months ago when i allegedly sent us an engagement gift well before our actual engagement. i still contend that i did *not* register pre-engagement!!

location, location, location (where to get married?)

2006-01-25T13:35:00.000-05:00

location, location, location

when my mom (briefly) dabbled in real estate, those three words were pretty much her mantra. after all, location is what it's all about, no?

well, come wedding planning time, my mother again took those words to heart, deciding that a wedding in New York proper was the order of the day. now, you won't hear me object to a Manhattan wedding--indeed, in my wedding dreams of yore, the Plaza and Pierre featured quite prominently--but the cost of such a wedding is actually appalling.

to put this in perspective, i am hardly one to bat an eye at overspending. to be sure, Thurston might even suggest that i affirmatively look to find ways to spend money where money needn't even be spent. but, my lack of the thrift notwithstanding, even a spender such as i can recognize that when you pay the price of a Manhattan wedding you are paying, once, twice, three times for location.

accepting this, i began to look at venues, trying to narrow them down before making appointments to see them in person.

some contenders that didn't make it to the "viewing" stage:

The Ritz Carlton at Battery Park
although i loved the idea of a wedding that incorporated New York itself (if you're paying for it anyway, you may as well use it!) The Ritz, which overlooks the Statue of Liberty and the Hudson, seemed perfect for the task, because with views like these you can't fail:

alas, i then found out the Ritz's ballroom does not have the views at all and, while lovely, is decorated in a more contemporary style than i was looking for.

then i found out that their complimentary honeymoon package (5 nights in the Ritz of your choice) was not being offered anymore... bye, bye, Ritz!

The Essex House

the Essex House never called my mother back. then when i told T where it was located, he noted that--to him--the mere mention of Central Park South evokes the smell of horseshit. so, Essex House was off the list.

The St. Regis

the St. Regis is gorgeous and in a great location. however, our numbers did not mesh well with their capacity. my mother adored the guy there with whom she spoke and i would have loved to consider this space if the numbers had permitted it. (if you're ever thinking of the St. Regis for an event, let me know and i will give you this guy's contact info!) to my dismay, the St. Regis was also off the list.

Cipriani 42nd Street

it turns out that, unlike most spaces that were too small for the amount of people we plan to have at our wedding, the Cipriani space was just too big.

numerous "wedding" people in the city informed us that our party would be dwarfed by the space and look "dinky" in the massive greatness that is midtown Cipriani. this pains me. i really, really loved this place.

The Mandarin Oriental
another space that takes advantage of its NYC location-- on the 36th floor of the hotel in the Time Warner Center, it seemed like it would rule. but again with the modern-- the carpeting, pictured in miniature below is maddening, really.

to be continued...

2006-01-24T12:04:00.000-05:00

American Idol

if Simon were to so wittily tell a contestant that the audition "sounds like bad karaoke from an East Village karaoke bar," he'd be throwing a great compliment. that's because on Saturday night Thurston and i broke it down at Sing Sing and East Village karaoke never had it so good.

our Saturday night began at Chelsea Piers for bowling with Kate and the Cuban and the Bean and her feller.

T rolling bombs.

after bowling (the Cubans won, if i recall correctly with T and i losing by a lot), we all were ready for another destination. headed to Tracy J's Watering Hole to undertake some karaoke. alas, that venue was chock full and the waiting list to croon was about 20 deep. after a short time bonding with Tracy J's proprietor, former Duke basketball great Art Heyman, Thurston suggested we head to Sing Sing, where we could get our own karaoke room and forego the painful waiting. all were on board so we headed there immediately.

the room to which we were assigned at Sing Sing was really for four people, but a little thing like crowding was not about to stop us. the Cuban kicked things off, and then T sang a painful version of some Guns n' Roses song that i have thankfully blocked out. Mrs. Cuban busted out Lisa Loeb's Stay, the Cuban broke it down on Fake Plastic Trees, the Bean did a very, very passionate Ain't No Mountain High Enough and i made everyone ridiculously uncomfortable with a heartfelt version of Nasty Girl. nobody writes better lyrics* than Vanity 6. nobody!

the weekend finished off at Red Lobster, a place i'd never visited before. how empty my life has been B.R.L. (that's "Before Red Lobster," thank you very much)!!

although, to my great chagrin, there were no "All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp" promotions going on (there weren't any all-you-can-eat anythings going on, to be sure), they were offering a Jumbo Shrimp special whereby i could create my own Shrimp Feast.
and feast i did! i chose a skewer of fire-grilled garlic shrimp paired with jumbo lobster and crab stuffed shrimp and, boy, was it delicious. i highly recommend you hit your nearest Red Lobster to partake of this special. you'll be thanking me!

* That's right, pleased to meet you
I still won't tell you my name.
Don't you believe in mystery,
Don't you want to play my game?
I'm looking for a man to love me,
Like I've never been loved before.
I'm looking for a man who'll do it anywhere,
Even on the limosine floor.

'Cause tonight, living in a fantasy,
My own little nasty world.
Tonight, don't you want to come with me,
Do you think I'm a nasty girl?

I guess I'm just used to sailors,
I think they've got water on the brain.
I think they've got more water upstairs
Than they've got sugar on a candy cane.
That's right, it's been a long time,
Since I had a man that did it real good.
If you ain't scared, take it out,
I'll do it like a real-live nasty girl would.

Please, please
Please, please
Nasty girl, nasty girl, do you think I'm a nasty girl?
Nasty girl, nasty girl, do you think I'm a nasty girl?

I don't like this groove.
Try and give me something I can croon to.
Catch my drift?
That'll work.
That's right, I can't control it.
I need seven inches or more.
Tonight, I can no longer hold it.
Get it up, get it up, I can't wait any longer.

Uh, It's time to jam,
Dance nasty girls, dance !!

Is that it?
Wake me when you're done.
I guess you'll be the only one having fun

2006-01-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

my theme song

when my sister, brother and i were younger, we used to listen to lots and lots of showtunes. mostly because those were the tapes my parents kept in the car. thus, every car trip i can recall was filled with the sounds of Ethel Merman, Shirley Jones, Julie Andrews and many others singing (surprisingly) practical thoughts on love like:

I'll snap my fingers to show I don't care; I'll buy me a brand new dress to wear; I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair, And start all over again.

And I would like him to be more interested in me, Than he is in himself. And more interested in us than in me. And if occasionally he'd ponder what makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great, Him I could love 'til I die.

but the most apt lyrics of all, were penned by the great Irving Berlin and belted out by Ms. Merman (accompanied by the California sister and myself, as loud as we could sing, which, in retrospect was probably cruel since we were three in the backseat of a car but i digress...):

I want a wedding in a big church,
With bridesmaids and flower girls.
A lot of ushers in tailcoats,
Reporters, and photographers.
A ceremony by a bishop who will tie the knot and say
"Do you agree to love and honour?"
Love and honour: yes, but not obey.
I want a wedding ring surrounded
By diamonds and platinum.
A big reception at the Waldorf,
With Champagne and caviar.
I want a wedding like the Vanderbilts have--
Everything big not small.
If I can’t have that kind of a wedding,
I don’t want to get married at all.

poor T! when he proposed he had no idea what he hath wrought... i've had these giant wedding plans floating in my head since 1982 or so, when Annie Get Your Gun was the JadedEm-family musical cassette of choice.

it's funny though, that i never became nearly as attached to the male half of the lyrics, that complemented Ethel Merman's "big wedding" verse:

We’ll have an old fashioned wedding
Blessed in the good, old fashioned way.
I’ll vow to love you forever;
You’ll vow to love and honour and obey.
Somewhere in some little chapel,
Someday when orange blossoms bloom.
We’ll have an old fashioned wedding,
A simple wedding for an old-fashioned bride and groom.

sorry, T!

2006-01-17T11:37:00.000-05:00

change is good

that is why i am (temporarily) changing the name of my blog to "my wedding and other complications"* since planning my wedding has essentially taken over my life. (and the lives of those around me.)

so you will now be able to read a (semi redacted) chronicle of the steps i take in planning such wedding. maybe if i write about it here, i can stop boring poor Thurston to tears with the minutiae...

* credit Jolie with the name-change idea.

2006-01-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

pride goeth...

...before a sliced finger.

(and my bling finger too, no less!)

despite this minor injury, dinner was a success-- chicken with chipotle tomato sauce over whole wheat pasta. mmmm, mmmm!

i got mad skillz

2006-01-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

i got mad skillz

knife skills, that is. last night at the Institute of Culinary Education, i saw the light. i now know why i have been so inefficient in the kitchen. i was working against my cutlery! chopping when i ought to have been slicing; sharpening when i ought to have been honing-- the ignominies were countless.

but thanks to the genius (and i do not use that word lightly) of Norman Weinstein, i now know how to, inter alia: grip my knife properly; slice garlic paper-thin; make a rose out of tomato skin; and, very importantly, cut an onion with as few tears as possible.

now i only need to acquire a home collection of Wusthof knives i used at class. thank goodness for the registry... !!!

2006-01-05T14:55:00.000-05:00

Merry New Year

(albeit a tad late!)

i'm hoping that 2006 will bring some more posting from me, but with wedding planning (the horror!) i seem to have just enough time to eat, sleep and inflict misery upon all those around me. ah, happiness!

meantime, i am happy to steal Lola's meme and make it my own.

Four jobs you've had in your life: dot.com soldier at Snap.com (R.I.P.), promotion assistant at Life (nightclub), sneaker salesperson, babysitter

Four movies you could watch over and over: Fletch, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, the Big Lebowski, Coyote Ugly

with the afro, 6'9"

Four places you've lived: New York, San Francisco, Ithaca, Merrick

Four TV shows you love to watch: Law & Order (all), American Idol, Veronica Mars, Good Eats

not too shabby

Four places you've been on vacation: Mexico, Australia, Barbados, Fiji

Four websites you visit daily: jolie1.blogspot.com, gawker.com, stephanieklein.com, msnbc.com

Four of your favorite foods: mozzarella sticks, Whopper with cheese, salmon sushi, pigs in blankets.

Four places you'd rather be: in bed, in a hammock in Mexico, at tea in London, at Ron Herman in L.A.

Four albums you can't live without: Travis - The Invisible Band; Guster - Goldfly; Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton.

2005-12-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

Dear Santa

each holiday season, at Thurston's work, they have stacks and stacks of letters, in which children ask Santa to send them a Christmas gift. the kids are either in group homes or some other foster-type environment and, let me tell you, the letters will cause even the hardest hearts to soften. as he does every year, T brings home a few letters and then sets off on finding the gifts that the children want.

Dear Santa,
I wanted a Barbie for Christmas, but my sister says
we need clothes more than Barbies. So can I please have some
clothes?

how can that not just break your heart? well, this year, we ended up with six letters, each more heartrending than the next. there are many reasons why i love Thurston. this week has showcased one of them, to wit, his generosity.

it took us many a day to assemble all the gifts but, happily, we have finally finished. for those of you who are not yet parents, i warn you, gift shopping for kids in Manhattan is no fun task. my advice? birth control until you move! anyhow, here is how our Santa Week went down:

Day One: Sunday Morning, 11am
T and i set off on a mission to what is surely the scariest place in the world: Toy 'R' Us, Times Square.*

imagine this scene with the addition of snow, slush and a million screaming kids.

first of all, right when you walk in they have photographers taking your picture, in case you want to purchase it (framed, for only $17.99!) on your way out. for the record, we didn't. second of all, there's a freaking ferris wheel in the middle of the store. like Toy 'R' Us wasn't enough of a kiddie-scream provoker in and of itself without adding the attraction of a carnival ride... and third of all, it's in Times Square and, thus, has morphed from a store into a tourist** destination.

we knew we needed to get Barbies and Bionicles. the Barbies were fairly easy to locate due to the following display:

yes, the Barbies are sold within a giant replica of a pink Barbie house. Justin and i perused the entire section before finally settling on a couple of My Scene Barbies and Barbie accessories.
here is one of the Barbies we bought for a kid. it's called My Scene Barbie Goes to Hollywood

now this Barbie seems a nice gift. what i was horrified to discover, is that Mattel/Barbie actually make a My Scene Lindsay Lohan doll. now i am a fan of Lindsay, her dysfunctional family and their madcap hijinx as much as the next person (more, probably, since she's from my classy hometown. Merrick, represent, yo!) but, she is *no* role model! even less of a role model?

would your mother let you leave the Dreamhouse dressed like that??

i give you Bling Bling Barbie.
what the f? this Barbie is, in the parlance of our times, a complete ho!

after the Barbie session, wherein we bought a few My Scene Barbies and also a My Scene Party Pad (with working black light-- groovy!), we headed to the Bionicles section to get the little boy some of these new fangled Legos.

this guy is called Keetongu. i have no idea how he factors into the Bionicles story and, i assure you, there *is* a story. it involves the War at Visorak's Gate and the Tua and other Titans and other stuff about which i haven't a clue. bless the Lego Corporate lady who was stationed in the Bionicles section and was able to advise us.

since this is the longest post ever, i will save "Day Two" of our journey (Macy's--ack!) for another time. suffice it to say, i am still tired from this endeavor. don't even get me started on the horror involved in wrapping a Barbie "Party Pad."

* we're not idiots. the Toys 'R' Us Union Square became a Babies 'R' Us and Times Square is now the only Toys 'R' Us in the city.

** tourists = nightmare when it comes to efficiency and speed-of-walking. because it was the holiday season i refrained from my normal tack of dropping my shoulder and walking in a straight line whether or not people are milling aimlessly in my path. also, because it horrifies T when i do this, i did not mutter loudly as i walked by/around people, "it's called a sideWALK and not a sideSTOP for a reason, damn it."

thank you, Mike Myers

2005-12-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

thank you, Mike Myers

i really feel as if Mike Myers has played an integral role in my relationship with Thurston. indeed, on our very first (official*) date, at the do-it-yourself Woo Lae Oak, we ran into Mr. Myers on our way home from the restaurant. as we walked by the Angelika, he exited a large cargo/service door. he was alone, and it was random.

fast forward to Saturday, December 10, 2005. we're leaving Cedar, our local bar and scene of our first unofficial date (with good food too, if you happen to be hungry), at 1am or so and who should be walking in as we were walking out? Mr. Austin Powers himself. you might be asking yourself, Lovey, why is this significant?

well, i'll tell you--

on Saturday, prior to seeing Mike Myers, and prior to hitting Cedar, Thurston asked me to make it official and marry him. i said yes. and our guardian angel Mike Myers must have stopped by Cedar to make sure it all went down all right. that's what i tell myself anyway.

this is what i look like when i am shocked and mid-sob. this is what T looks like when he is ridiculously proud of himself for rendering me so.

* T and i met at our friend Mags' birthday party on a Friday and scheduled a date for the following Thursday. on Tuesday night, however, he called me on his way home from a late night at work and asked me "what are you wearing?". not knowing where he was going with that, i told him i was in jeans (truth: i was already in PJs but i felt lame to be bed-ready at 9pm). anyway, what he was looking to know was whether i were dressed and decent to go out, because he didn't want to wait until Thursday for plans. (oh oh oh! so sweet!) neither did i, so we went out Tuesday. to Cedar. but i still consider Thursday to be our First Date (emphasis on the capital letters, please...)

2005-12-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

brrrrr! it's cold in here

when it's 30°F (feels like 22°F!), i miss my old apartment.

my view from my old place in San Francisco. where it *never* gets this cold. at least not until the summer.

2005-12-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

yarn sale

Saturday morning was a brunch with T's college friends and wives. said brunch included a "Yankee Swap." the rules of this one were "bring an item $20 or so, regifts are ok." i had garnered a Kiehl's gift set at a charity dinner

so i brought that. perhaps it was worth more than $20 (or three times that) but it was free for me, so that equals "$20 or so" by my math. anyway, i almost ended up with two cans of Chef Boyardee and a $20 iTunes gift certificate. but, alas, that was not to be. the Cuban's new wife stole away my Chef Boyardee and music. for my trouble, i ended up with a couple of DVDs (Forrest Gump and As Good As It Gets) and T got a book on wine tasting. all in all not so bad!

happily, i had been able to convince T that we needed to drive to the UES so that after brunch i could easily hit an annual "Yarn Sale," located in midtown west at the local (i kid you not) Holiday Inn conference room. the yarn sale was billed (by its own flyers) as a "YARN RIOT!".

although, being that the majority of shoppers were women of 70 years or more, i would say a riot was pretty much wishful thinking. there was a bit of a skirmish between Thurston* and me as he tried to convince me that two garbage bags (tall kitchen size) of yarn was plenty. T won out and i departed the sale chock full of wool. too bad i have been knitting the same sweater since August. but i am rich with yarn, y'all. you're so jealous.

* yes, i made him go to the yarn sale with me. so what? who else was going to carry the yarn!?

2005-11-30T12:26:00.000-05:00

all about me

my favorite book growing up was My Book About Me. that's because i am all about Lovey, all the time. those who have ever done karaoke with me know this. it's the Lovey Show, so sit back and hope your ears don't bleed...

for this reason, i was especially happy when Mrs. A sent me the below email fill-in-the-blanks about yourself. it's not the hardcover Dr. Seuss book, but it'll do for now. i will post it here since My Blog About Me seems an appropriate enough venue for stuff, well, about me.

here goes. and i encourage all of you to respond in the comments or your own blog, as you see fit:

Here's what you're supposed to do and try not to be lame and spoil the fun! Just do it. Copy (not forward) this entire email and paste it into a new e-mail you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send it to a whole Bunch of people you know, INCLUDING THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about your friends.

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
White, with a raised fruit and lattice design, as pictured below:

2. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?

very slowly reading Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

3. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

Klimt's The Kiss.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Encore. because nothing's better than forcing people to listen to ME!

5. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL?
Mothballs. (Gag).

6. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING?
Is it 9:30 already?

7. FAVORITE COLOR?
Blue and green.

8. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR?
beige

9. HOW MANY RINGS UNTIL YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
it varies. (however long it takes for Thurston to bring the phone over to me.)

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
like i'm giving up this info? don't think so!

11. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
chocolate

12. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
yes. my passengers may not like it as much.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
not officially. although T is pretty hairy.

14. DO YOU LIKE THUNDER STORMS?
not a bit!!

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
1992 black 2-door Acura Integra, with Ivory leather interior.

not my actual car. as far as i know anyway. since i sold mine back in 1993, this could theoretically be my car that someone bought and put a picture up on the Internet, but that's unlikely, no?

16. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN?
Gemini

17. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
sure do!

18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Mrs. A was all over this one, and i agree: "A lady of leisure"

19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
oh, sweeties, i've already achieved this one!

20. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL, OR HALF EMPTY?
half full. (of Fresca, preferably.)

21. FAVORITE MOVIE?
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, mais oui!

22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
they get to the right keys when i need them to be there but i don't use any official "touch type" method.

23. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
4 or maybe 7.

24. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
football or baseball, i guess. (is American Idol a sport, though? it's competitive, after all, so...)

25. YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST INTENSE PAIN?
Thurston. ha! just kidding-- probably my right knee. ouch!

26. PERSON MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
you!

27. PERSON LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND TO THIS?
the Bean

28. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD?
varies. ketchup on burgers; mustard on dogs.

29. HAMBURGER OR HOT DOGS?
d) all of the above.

30. WHAT IS YOU FAVORITE SEASON?
springtime

31. THE BEST PLACES THAT YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?
London, Fiji and, the bestest of all, Xcalacoco.

32. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER?
standard issues Windows logo.

33. FAVORITE FAST FOOD?
Burger King. the Whopper. all other burgers are but subjects of the King of All Burgers. Behold the Majesty!

34. WHAT IS YOUR BIRTH NAME?
Emily Robin ______

2005-11-21T12:18:00.000-05:00

still Trashy after all these years

well, once again, my White Trash party was an amazing success, if i do say so myself. ha! (i, for one, will never complain about a party that costs about 50¢ to throw.)

but it really was a good time. this was approximately the 8th annual party* and, although calmer than in previous years, fun was still had by all. the "catering" consisted of Fritos, Cheetos, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, Spinach Cheddar dip, Ranch dip, Ritz Crackers, Miss Emily's Famous Pigs-in-Blankets and assorted Costco frozen hors d'oeuvres. the hooch included Schlitz, PBR, Boone's, Bartles & James, and Jack Daniels. and this doesn't even include the awesome guest-contributed stuff such as: Double Stuf Oreos, Marshmallows, Mini Frosted Donuts, Nati Lite, many cans of OE, and more.

here are a couple of photos, in case you want to witness the magic!

give me back my wine cooler, Colette!

the Bean only wishes she could work at Roy's

this scares me too. i promise.

thanks to Thurston's horrifically revealing cut-offs, the authenticity abounded. his Roy Rogers' apron--a souvenir of his tenure at the greatest restaurant of all--was a big hit too. EvilA held it down in his touchably soft velour tracksuit, although kept his edge with a t-shirt bearing a giant B.I.G. portrait. the MVP of costumes was clearly Dr. Steph, although i won't post her photo here until i run it by her. suffice it to say, Strawberry came through with a sheer red top and awesome camo pants. many other outfits were esp. notable, such as John's "Let's Do It My Double Wide" T; Liller's WT socialite shirt and Amy's turn as a Hooter's girl.

you all so can't wait until next year. i promise to try to bring back the trannies and the meth lab, most recently seen at the parties of 1999 & 2000.

* i have to estimate since this party has been going on since around 1997 or so, but there was at least a one-year hiatus when i (briefly) moved to San Francisco.

2005-11-15T18:33:00.000-05:00

Hitler Cat

this cat lives outside the hotel where we stayed in Florida. it also bears an uncanny resemblance to Hitler.

Hitler Cat may appear friendly. but his eyes (and Hitler moustache) tell a different story!
Hitler Cat recruits other disenfranchised cats to his cause.

2005-11-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

Thank You, Hurricane Wilma

without you, the following pictures would not have been possible:

Thurston (with the rag top down so his hair can blow)

me, multitasking. actually, i was on the phone with the Monkey Jungle to see if they were open late enough for us to get there before they closed. much to T's dismay, they stopped selling tickets at 4. this photo was taken at 3, and an hour from said Jungle.

see, without the hurricane, Hertz would have had the car we ordered (Full-size: Taurus/Camry/or Comparable). since they didn't have the car i'd reserved, they tried to give me a Mazda 6, sans Sirius radio (an important element in a rental car). but i was not having that. now, i did not know there was a Jaguar XK8 for the taking, frankly, i was looking for a car with the satellite radio. however, then the lady at the counter said, "well, we have no cars with satellite radio left so we are going to give you one without it." i asked which one, and she told me "the Jaguar." i then assumed it was a Jaguar 4-door. this was no disappointment to me at all. but to add the opposite of insult to the opposite of injury, happily (oh, so happily) i was dead wrong. the car she had switched us to was the lovely XK8. ah, Hertz rules! of course, now i have decided that this is the car i *must* have. this leaves me with a difficult choice*: wedding or convertible? wedding or convertible?
anyway, more on this trip later!

* those of you who know me, know that there's no choice here at all. the car can wait.

2005-11-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

Just Dew It!

this is what gets me through the day. a twenty-ounce of Diet Mountain Dew, and i am good to go. i'm not sure if Mountain Dew actually has more caffeine in it than brown colored soda, but it's so bright and lively that i imagine it does. and believing is at least half the battle when it comes to staying awake at work...

partaking of the local cuisine certainly would knock me right out. you see, i work in Chinatown, where starch and MSG reign supreme. there is a dearth of dining options that are a) within a three or four block radius and b) are not Asian. now i love Chinese food as much as the next guy, but (and there's always a bit but, Monique) it is not conducive to daytime, at-my-desk dining. it's too filling, it is too much of a gray area in Weight Watchers points*, and even if the foregoing reasons did not exist, Chinese food five days a week is about four days of Chinese food too many.
so the options that remain are as follows:

WOW Café
that place was pretty good, as it "tosses your salad"** for around $7. but one day i ate there and then immediately was taken ill with the stomachaches. "wow, this sucks," i thought. however, i thought it rash for me to assume that i got sick from the WOW food. maybe, it was just a bug going around. a few weeks later, i gave WOW another try. wow, am i an idiot. i promptly became ill again and will no longer frequent that establishment. (WOW also lists a web address on its menu and you end up at a ridiculous web site, containing no information about food, but featuring large photos of smiling Asian children.)

Happy's
Happy's is decent sandwich place, albeit poorly ventilated. if you spend more than 15 seconds in there you will reek of bacon grease for the remainder of the day. i would argue that this is not a bad thing if you can eat bacon. however, i think bacon is approximately one billion points on WW, therefore the bacon scent is just a reminder of what i must forego in my quest to lose the T-weight (named thusly since i gained the majority of it in my first year of dating Thurston). also, Happy's does not have any low-fat cheese for sandwiches nor does it have salads, save the do-it-yourself salad bar, which appears as if it has seen better days. the Happy's clientele seems to consist of people who are appearing in court rather than working there and therefore the idea of sharing serve-yourself food with the other Happy's patrons is less than desirable. (ok, truth be told i cannot abide a do-it-yourself salad bar in any venue save Roy Rogers. the Fixin's Bar is immune to any castigation. oh, how i miss Roy's and the Riese Restaurant Roy Rogers franchises--the only only Roy's available in NYC--are utter CRAP! EvilA and i went to a Riese Roy's back in the summer of 2001, giving it the benfit of the doubt, and were severely saddened. what Riese has done to T.G.I. Friday's is also unbearable, but that's another post.)

fun fact: Thurston used to work at Roy Rogers.

Bagel Deluxe European Café a/k/a (to my intern) A Taste of Paris
this place is not deluxe at all. they never have any variety of bagels. they rarely have light cream cheese. and they also have the pervasive bacon grease smell. and their grilled "chicken breast" is a reconstituted patty, making it the chicken equivalent of particle board. not delicious, not deluxe. European? who can say. (although from my best guess, the proprietor appears to be Asian.)

Subway
this Subway franchise is not one of the better ones. the Sandwich Artists are more like Sandwich Assemblers. and they're no pros at assembly either. i am forever reminding them that more than two olive slices would be appreciated. and they are just as stingy with the other vegetable toppings. lame, lame and lame. on the plus side, they often have Baked Doritos, which i greatly enjoy.

Mikata

a good Japanese place with a good lunch special. the combination sushi roll lunch special = $8.25 and comes with soup, salad and "any 2 rolls, no substitution: Tuna Avocado, Tuna Cucumber, California, Salmon Avocado, Salmon Cucumber, Yellow Tail Scallion, Salmon Skin, Ebi Avocado, Ebi Cucumber, Avocado, Cucumber, Oshinko Maki, Eel Cucumber, Eel Avocado." (i'm a salmon avocado + yellowtail scallion girl, myself). but sushi for me is a once a week lunchtime option. more than that and i get sick of it. if you're my friend and serving jury duty and call me to meet for lunch, we will likely have lunch here.

Broadway New Fancy Foods a/k/a the Good Deli
for the first year and three quarters of my employ, the Good Deli was my saving grace. it:

seemed clean enough
was in close proximity to the discount yarn store
stocks alpine lace cheese and fat free dressings
carries Tab and Fresca (my sodas of choice when i don't need the caffeine infusion of the Dew)
has many varieties of Dannon Light & Fit yogurt

then to make it even better, they added a salad bar where the deli worker remains in exclusive control of the salad and its topping. genius, i say! but little did i know my world would only improve, with the addition of...

Quiznos

ah, yes, Quiznos. home of the Turkey Lite, Honey Bourbon Chicken and Broccoli Cheese Soup. all of which are WW friendly. all of which are awesome. and Quiznos is even closer to my office than the Good Deli.

while i'm not saying my lunch life wouldn't be improved by the addition of a nice coffee shop or an Eva's-type restaurant, i now have choices. however, i still recommend not working in Chinatown if you have the option.

* don't even get me started on steamed vegetables. what's the point? i might as well microwave a a package of Green Giant and call it a day. not that i have access to a microwave at work. yeah, another perk of working for the Man...

** full disclosure: the "we'll toss your salad for only $5.99" sign is actually posted outside of a deli near Gramercy, near the brief and former home of Thurston.

2005-11-02T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Return of Luke!

ok, so Alec Baldwin is coming to Off-Broadway in Entertaining Mr. Sloane, a play about a brother (played by Baldwin) and sister competing for "the attention and sexual favors of the play's young title character." sounds interesting enough, especially if Alec Baldwin evokes his finest performance yet--as the would-be paramour of Canteen Boy.

but then this news goes from good to GREAT!

Also in the cast are Chris Carmack, from television's The O.C., as the object of their pursuit. [via Houston Chronicle]

oh, Luke, how we've missed you! we may not have you in Newport, but New York is much closer. all hail Luke!

who's going to see this play with me??

2005-10-31T12:43:00.000-05:00

my new knife

not for a scary Halloween costume but for cooking!
after watching every single Food Network tv chef use one of these, i finally went out and bought a Santoku knife.

my life now rules. as does Thurston's since i will be using this knife as often as possible and, thus, he will have more homecooked dinners than ever before! and don't even get me started about the meals that will come forth from the slow cooker currently en route to our home (thanks for the idea, Jolie!):

using my new knife i made the recipe below. which is entirely unrelated to Halloween but i made these last night and they a) ruled and b) were of minimal Weight Watchers points value.

Smashed Potatoes with (Turkey) Bacon

1 bag of baby red potatoes (28 oz.)
1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
pinch Kosher salt (or to taste)
1/4 cup fat-free chicken broth/stock
Pam spray
2 slices turkey bacon (i used Louis Rich)
1 medium shallot, diced

Bring large pot of water to a boil. Add kosher salt and potatoes. Cook until potatoes are fork tender.

While the potatoes are in the pot, cook together in a skillet bacon (according to package directions) and shallots. You could also microwave the bacon and just cook the shallots alone, if you want. Once bacon is crispy, remove from heat and shop bacon into small pieces.

Once potatoes are fork-tender, drain them in a colander and return them to the still warm pot. Add the sour cream and chicken broth and mash around with a fork, spoon, spatula, masher, whatever, leaving as many chunks as you like. Near the end of the smashing process, toss in the bacon and shallots and kosher salt. Serves 6.

2005-10-30T23:03:00.000-05:00

oh, look, a drawing of a pumpkin! you all probably think this is a pumpkin i drew in elementary school or something. but you'd be wrong. i drew this right now to decorate our door for Halloween. wow, we have the weakest Halloween decoration ever. i can only hope that people assume a child drew this one. hopefully the Nestlé Crunch bars and Butterfingers we hand out will take the edge off the sad pumpkin attempt.

fingers crossed!!

2005-10-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

Plantation Mint

well, i'm not on the sunporch of my Georgian estate, but i sure am enjoying me some of that Plantation Mint Tea.
it is freaking cold in my office. it may well be colder in here than it is outside. (and it's not summertime out there either.) this is not good at all as i attempt to recover from the sore throat (cough, cough) that kept me home from work Monday and Tuesday of this week.

this cold/sore throat started out in the guise of a hangover. Friday night was dinner with the ladies and Thurston at Yuca Bar. we were meant to start the night at KGB for a reading by Jen. but i was home late from work and missed the reading timeframe. (lame, i know.) T and i got to dinner first, beating Lillers and Mel by a hair. Melissa showed up next and Ivona and Jen brought up the rear. by the time all had arrived i was already one (or two by then) with the Yucatan Sunrise, which was sangria topped off with frozen margarita. after dinner we headed to Orchid Lounge, where i kept my streak alive. the streak consisting of me drinking myself into a painful next morning with overly sugary drinks* served at Orchid Lounge. two for two, baby.

so i wake up on Saturday convinced i am hungover. but, see, since i stayed sick through Tuesday, clearly i was just starting to fall ill and the booze had nothing to do with it. the lesson i take from this is that i should get right back on the horse. and have it take me to a bar. ASAP!

* my last visit to Orchid Lounge occurred as the second half of the inaugural Girls' Night and consisted of multiple Cosmopolitans, which i had never drank prior to that occasion. (T does not believe this, but it's true.) on that night though, the case of wine consumed prior to Orchid may have also had a hand in the pain. T had just ordered a case of his favorite sancerre. but his timing was terrible! since it was right there in the refrigerator begging to be a part of Girls' Night, what were ten drunk ladies to do? i think we left him a bottle or two, though. see? after all, we're not cruel!

2005-10-18T10:08:00.000-04:00

Chipotle Renaissance

just in case anyone confused my hating on Chipotle® with my hating on chipotle, let me clarify:
= BAD!

= AWESOME!

with this in mind, i have been on a chipotle kick these last two nights.
Sunday night:

Shrimp in Chipotle Sauce over whole wheat pasta (adapted from epicurious.com recipe)

1 pound uncooked medium to large shrimp, peeled, deveined
1 1/4 cups marinade (see recipe below)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, chopped/minced
2 tablespoon minced canned chipotle chilies (plus some adobo sauce from can)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Place shrimp in 1 gallon Ziploc bag. Add marinade, squeeze out most of the air, seal
and shake around to coat. Refrigerate between 15-30 minutes. Drain shrimp; discard marinade. Place shrimp in large bowl.

In food processor, add 1.5 tablespoons olive oil, 2 garlic cloves, chipotles + sauce, and dried oregano and process until smooth. Transfer chipotle mixture to bowl with shrimp; toss to coat.

Heat remaining 1.5 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add remaining garlic clove(s) and shallot and sauté approx. 1 minute. Add shrimp with chipotle mixture (dump in everything from the bowl); sauté until shrimp are cooked through, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve over whole wheat pasta.

Marinade:
1 12-ounce bottle light-colored beer (i used Amstel)
3/4 cup fresh lime juice (i used lemon)
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon powdered chicken bouillon base (i used liquid concentrate)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Whisk all ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Let marinade stand 1 hour before using. (Can be prepared 1 week ahead. Cover marinade and refrigerate. Rewhisk before using.)

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

next time i might make some extra chipotle mixture and cook that up in a small pot with some seafood or vegetable broth and crushed canned tomatoes to create some extra sauce for the dish. it was HOT but, boy, was it a great meal.

continuing with the theme (and because i had both extra marinade and chipotles left over in the can)--

Monday night:

Chipotle Chicken with corn, peppers and shallots

1 lb. or so of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into fingers or approx 1.5" cubes
1 1/4 cups marinade
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
3 ears of corn, boiled in salted water for approx. 3 minutes
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper (or whatever color you like), chopped
1 shallot, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 chipotles, minced
a few shakes of dried oregano and grill seasoning (i used Tequila lime) a handful of grape/cherry tomatoes cut in halves or thirds
a couple of Tbsps. of fat free chicken broth/stock

Cut chicken into pieces and place in one gallon Ziploc bag. Add marinade, squeeze out excess air, and shake to coat. Refrigerate approx. 1 hour. While the chicken is marinating, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add three ears of corn. Boil for approx. three minutes and remove corn with tongs; set aside corn.

After almost one hour is up, chop up peppers, shallot, and garlic. Cut corn kernels off the cob and set aside ina small bowl. Remove chicken from fridge, drain and mix in a bowl with chipotles, oregano and grill seasoning.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over med heat and add peppers, shallot and garlic. Cook these until slightly softened (a couple of minutes). Add chicken + mixture to pan. After chicken cooks for a minute or two, add broth (whatever amount seems right to just over the bottom of the pan in a thin layer). Cook until chicken is almost cooked through (over medium or med-high heat) and toss in tomatoes and corn kernels. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve alone or over rice.

Serves 2 hungry people or 4 not-so-hungry people.

this dinner was also awesome and a little less spicy. i must have used less chipotle than the shrimp recipe, which is fine by me as the shrimp recipe had my mouth ¡en fuego! but in a good way.

all in all, i love chipotle and wonder why i have not used it more often in my kitchen lately. in any event, it's back in a big way, and it rules!

2005-10-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

i dare it to rain

that's because i am the proud, new owner of these:

GALOSHES!

i fondly remember my last pair of galoshes. it was 1993 and i saw them in the Ralph Lauren store. they were navy blue boots, almost to the knee, with a minor heel. i wanted them so very much, despite my mother's insistence that they were "ridiculous looking" and "overpriced." no matter-- i had to have these boots! and have them i did...
that Fall, i took to wearing them with pants akin to riding jodphurs and a pink or navy sweater. i really think i deluded myself into thinking i looked as if i fell out of a Town & Country shoot. apparently, when i conjured up this image, i managed to "nevermind" the bangs and dark lipstick* that i was all about in those days:

Lovey + some guy from a mixer, at a bowling alley as i recall, circa '94

Lovey + (pre)California sister circa '93

well, i now recognize that the Long Island in me greatly overpowered my Town & Country dreams. but i still love me some galoshes. and i won't be sad when next it rains.

* and let's not get started on the belt/bag.

2005-10-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

isn't it ironic?

or just plain old sad?
the powers that be (in this case egreetings and other holiday-inventors, i'm sure) have created a day to celebrate Native American heritage.

Happy Native American Day!!

why not take a day off to celebrate and multi-task by honoring the man who essentially made your lives miserable?
so, while i'm at it,

Happy Columbus Day!!

2005-10-10T23:15:00.000-04:00

Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis

well, actually don't. because i'm not there anymore. but i was this last weekend. Thurston was a groomsman (first time ever) in the Cuban's wedding to Midwestern Kate. the wedding was incredibly wonderful. Kate was the picture perfect bride and a grand time was had by all. although T and i did not visit the Arch, we did visit near the Arch, and were able to memorialize that near-visit in the picture below:

this is the scenic parking lot near the Landing, where we had lunch.

obviously, the highlight of the weekend was the wedding, but the second most amazing part of the weekend was something i ate. behold, toasted ravioli:

if you ever go to St. Louis, or if i ever get around to buying a deep fryer and invite you over, you must must must try toasted ravioli. it's like cheese sticks, but better. wow, i miss this ravioli.

2005-10-10T17:33:00.000-04:00

is it normal to obsess about wrapping gifts?
i sure hope so, since i actually do research on bows before i give a gift. the one pictured above was for a first birthday. i do wonder however if a trip to the ribbon store isn't wasted on a baby gift. no matter, i will wrap on.

UPDATE: the link to the bows seems to not work. try this one. otherwise, just go to Martha Stewart Living and go to Crafts --> Wraps & Bows. and if *anyone* can decipher the blueprint for "Martha's Perfect Bow" for me, i'll be indebted for life.

2005-10-05T16:40:00.000-04:00

Skee Blue Balls

well, this weekend qualified as more socially eventful than most weekends of late. T and i went out both weekend nights. which is even more remarkable when you factor in our two day weekend gym attendance. we are just so awesome, no?

Friday night was the Yankees/Sox game at some NYU-esque sports bar.

chosen by me, actually, so i oughtn't to complain, but since complain is what i do second best (after my #1 skill, napping), complain i will. truthfully, the bar wasn't so bad. but the music sure was. it was like 1998-era club jamz played at a deafening volume. this made no sense at all, since every person in the bar appeared not to be grinding to drums-n-bass but rather watching the all-important baseball game. with multiple large screen tvs i thought the bar could figure out its purpose but it got confused. i had seasoned waffle fries (i got flex points, yo) and was, thus, happy overall.

Saturday afternoon we showed incredible restraint and hit the gym instead of the penultimate street fair of the season outside our building (the last one is November 12th, in case any of you were planning on going, by the way).
post-gym my fabulously amazing hairdresser cut Thurston's hair in a style befitting a would-be-shipwrecked-millionaire.

much later that night, we met up with the California Sister, my brother, the Bean, Targs, T's brother + gf, and sundry others at Ace Bar.

i was informed that Ace Bar now has skee-ball machines. i was, appropriately, psychotically excited about this, as was the Bean.

well, it was all for naught.
let me be the first to tellyou that Ace's skee-ball machines suck. a) they cost $1 per game. which is a rip off; b) the machines are right next to a bench where people sit, thereby limiting one's ability to wind up; and c) NO TICKETS. that's right, you can have a kickass game and walk away with nothing to show for it. i call shenanigans.

2005-09-30T15:04:00.000-04:00

California Love

that's the ringtone that plays when my sister calls me. anyway, my California hippy sister is coming home tonight to visit for a long weekend and i am so happy that i will get to see her!

despite the fact that i constantly torture her for being a vegetarian,* truthfully i appreciate the comic opportunities that her eschewing of meat creates. the vegetarian mocking just never gets old. and she also drives one of those 1/2 electrical cars.

i used to make fun of it, as did my brother who claims "it runs on smiles and good vibes" or something like that, but i have recently become truly jealous since it now costs about a $1,000,000 to fill up my gas guzzling car. even though the Prius a) has a gear shift that's very similar to an old Atari joystick (in that it returns to the center position even while it's engaged in another gear)

and B) has a Power button, not dissimilar to my computer's "on" button, rather than an ignition operated by a key that turns, this car would save me mucho dinero. i wonder if this is truly ironic, or Alanis Morrissette ironic. either way, the hippy wins. damn tree-huggers!

* somehow, with great luck, i managed to fall for a guy whose brother is not only a vegetarian, but vegan. only he can understand the great pain i have suffered to be denied my second meat option at holidays, only to have it replaced with tofurkey or some such invented foodstuff. PETA may think T's brother was a candidate for "Sexiest Vegetarian" in 2004 but i contend that no such category should exist!

2005-09-27T10:33:00.000-04:00

T hits the big time

finally Thurston gets a Gawker nod. sort of.
alas, the mention refers to the saddest moment in recent T times.
poor, poor Thurston.

i fear that this Chad Pennington injury may crush T even more than his 0-3 fantasy football record this season. but at least our weekend went well.
Saturday was a 1st birthday party (our second this month) and then a matinee of Spamalot with my family.

the show was hysterically funny. i had heard this from an ahead-of-the-curve friend who prefers not to be mentioned on this blog. suffice it to say, he was on point and the show ruled. earlybird dinner was at Bravo Gianni, which is super old school Italian. as i am now on WeightWatchers, i did not partake of everything i would have liked to eat, but i still managed to have a nice dinner.

then Sunday was the Race for the Cure. which i won* for the second year in a row. our shirts were awesome this year, thanks to Ivona's awesome design:

(l. front, r. back)
this is me before the Race, not realizing which camera i was meant to look at:

after the Race i looked tired. but i don't have that picture yet.

* this means i did not give up halfway through. which, believe you me, i wanted to do! not because i was tired, but because walking is pretty boring. it takes a long time. i prefer watching television.

2005-09-21T14:37:00.000-04:00

man's best friend
well, Thurston's best friend anyway...
i just received the following email from T:
"here is something to blog about......can we get one for Pickles?"
Pickles a/k/a Mr. Pickles né Winston is our giant cat. he is also T's favorite.

they spend a fair amount of time together, especially when i am watching Rock Star: INXS or some such reality show and ignoring both of them. it should be known that i'm allergic to Winston. and, as a result, have considered finding him a new home (maybe even with his other BFF, the Bean). but T says that "if Pickles goes, i go." so despite my sneezing, i keep the furry guy around.
now if you were wondering what T wanted to get for "Pickles" (which is T's invented name for the cat) it was either one of the two items pictured below:

Thurston is a scary, scary man!