Did I Say Boring?

Ha ha - I hear God laughing now. Of course, as soon as i said life was boring, stuff happens. Clients go crazy, all extremely busy and each wanting to be most important (the good kind of busy), clients send us random requests for consultants, my boss leaves town, and to top it all off, I'm at work early, because I managed to in-grow myself a toenail last night. It kept me up half the night, then I woke up at 5 and tried to fix it, then took advantage of my dad being in town (poor dad - twice in the last year I've called him at 6 am with medical questions), and went over to his hotel for him to fix it. I didn't have anywhere else to go and going home would have gotten me there in time to leave again, so I'm here at work. Rambling, yes, but I'm sleepy and the iced coffee is just kicking in.

BTW - who would have thunk that a Zabar's operation would have iced coffee for 2.00? To be fair, it's not as big as the one you could get for $2 from Dunkin Donuts, but still a nice size.

Random Email to My Sister

Me:Do you think these emails sound vaguely offensive:

cuch17@blahblah
titig@per@blahblah

Sister: yes

Me: why would someone leave them on their resume?

We may have to have a weekly recruiting column - people are sometimes not very good at promoting themselves.

PS - true story: when I was at Rice, they started giving out free emails when our freshman advisors were freshmen. They let people pick out their own emails then, and one girl picked gspot. She didn't realize the problem this presented until she had to tell her professor her email one time. She claimed she "saved" it by saying it was g.s.pot.

Saturday Errands

This morning we headed out for coffee and took Sasha to the dog park - which is pretty standard fare for a weekend morning. Mr. D had decided that he wanted to make duck confit, and luckily, he realized while we were out that he needed some olive oil. Trader Joe's is fairly close, and much cheaper than Whole Foods, so we went there.

To get to Trader Joe's we have to go out of Madison Square Park on the south side, and Sasha always gets confused when we do that - she always tries to go inside Home Depot, and if we don't go in there, she tries to go in Best Buy - silly dog. We finally get to Trader Joe's, but obviously we can't go in there with the dog, so I waited outside.

I was planning on making an apple pie, so I looked up the recipe on my iPhone and emailed Mr. D the apples I needed. A bit later he came out, with only one kind of apple, olive oil, pomegranates and two pieces of frozen fish - he picked those up just because they were "only $10." Silly boy - if I had done that he would have called me cheap.

Now we're back home and I'm getting ready for an impromptu baby shower, then meeting Mr. D at Hill Country for a UT watch party catered by the Law Alumni group - whoo hoo! Then I have the apartment all to myself tonight while Mr. D goes to a men-only dinner party at R&J's house (J is out of town). More on this later...

You think?

Mr. D and I were just online buying a wedding gift for the wedding we're going to this weekend (procrastinate much?). We were at the online store that starts with Williams and ends with Sonoma. After checking out the registry, which took days, because it wasn't working (and no, Mr. D, it would not be an appropriate thing to bring up with the bride the day before she leaves for the wedding).

As I may be likely to do, I clicked on the sale page. The third item: the SPRING cookie wreath. Shockingly, it was on sale. How can they still sell this? Do you really want to eat something knowing that 6 months later it can still be eaten? Gross.

Randomness

Some things I thought about this week, but was too lazy to post. Blah.

Rain in New York is the most annoying thing in the world. People forget how to walk and that the umbrella makes them wider than they used to be. For some reason, most people don't "get" that you can close your umbrella under the scaffolding.

More annoying rain problems: my subway station entrance floods. Like walk down to the platform and have to step into a 8 ft by 8 ft by 4 inches deep puddle.

I love the clean apartment. We gave everything except the bedroom a total overhaul yesterday. Everything was spotless - J&R were coming over for dinner and J and I made ravioli and pasta while the boys sat and played video games. J&R do not have a video game player - I have a feeling they might be getting one soon...

The Amazing Race

We're sitting around watching TV after a lazy day. I'm wearing my equivalent of sweatpants - a jersey skirt from Old Navy. Very comfy, a good option to change into after work, or when I don't want to get dressed. I've only worn one in public once or twice. One of our favorite shows is back on - hooray. Every time we're watching, Mr. D brings up the fact that he wants to be on the show one day. I predict disaster, but we'll get to see, because I think the guy (Chad?) of the guy/girl team where the guy is going to propose during the race acts like Mr. D. I am pretty sure that is a terrible plan. What if they get kicked of before he does it? What if they break up on the race (as has happened before)?

Anyway best quotes from this week:
I can't feel my face.
I have the worst headache ever.
Maybe we're our boat.

Before and After

No, this isn't a post with my elbow in it, and I am alive - it didn't kill me.
Despite the whole elbow thing happening this week, we managed to finish the living room rearrangement. Well sort of finish. In the ideal world where we had infinite money we would probably get a new carpet, the couch from the HGTV Urban Oasis apartment, and maybe a new chair. Eventually, eventually. For now, getting rid of the IKEA bookcases (nothing really wrong with them until the movers punched holes in them when we moved in - so yes, we've lived with them like that for two years) and my old TV stand (when I made the dumbest purchase ever and, in my cheapness, bought the last non-flat screen TV ever made).
So, the old bookcases did not look bad, by any means:
Note: The white thing all the way on the right is a cabinet that we used as a printer/supply stand. Yes, those are Mr. D's socks drying on the Rock Band drums.

This is what new living room looks like:

Not nearly as dark, and not just because the lighting is better. Honestly, part of it is that we got rid of (taking to the Strand (kind of like Half Price Books) and I say taking, because they are boxed up in the bedroom right now) a LOT of our books. While I would like to have bookshelves full of books, we decided to only keep ones we use all the time (ie cookbooks or bar books) or might actually look at again. Lately, we've been reading on the iPhones/Kindle (Mr. D got one for Christmas - actually two in the year of multiple Christmas gifts), so we don't have books, except for cookbooks or ones that are given to us.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. The printer is now on the wine fridge, which was previously a junk repository. The only issue now that white cabinet is gone, is that the curtain that just went to the top of it now doesn't cover the newly exposed section of window. The curtains are just panels from Bed, Bath & Beyond, but now they're out of the long ones - everywhere. So a new window treatment solution is in order. Sigh.

Big thank you to Mr. D for arranging for Salvation Army to come pick up the old TV stand (he called Salvation Army, and I talked the doorman into keeping it in the package closet until they came). They're one of the few places that will pick up donations in NYC. We (I) decided the bookshelves were too damaged to salvage - the fact that they nearly fell on top of me while I was taking them apart and wobbled from side to side (as in you could make the shelf not have right angles) made me think Salvation Army wouldn't have taken it anyway.

Life of Leisure

My sister called me last night to see how my week of leisure was going (I finished up work last week and don't start the new job until Tuesday). My week has not been very leisurely. Monday we spent driving back from Mr. D's parents' house, then swapped out the TV stand. Tuesday, I went to the dentist (at 9 am), made sandwich bread (since I had time) and swapped out the old bookcases for the new ones - and it was hot in the apartment - thank you, heat wave (oh, and I made Alton Brown's spaghetti sauce, which probably didn't help the heat situation).

Yesterday I took the dog to the park, did some "fitness yoga" on the on-demand exercise channel, then collapsed, took a shower, and made some ravioli. The ravioli turned into a disaster; when I went to take the food processor bowl out of the fridge, the top popped off and half of the shrimp paste plopped in the refrigerator and then on the floor - fail. When Mr. D came home, we stopped by Eataly - which is basically an Italian food store/restaurant/theme park started by Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and maybe someone else - in the hopes that we would be able to eat there. Umm, the hordes of people (literally) and hour-long wait to eat in the pizza section led us to eat elsewhere (craftbar - yum). We did see Mario walking around helping the employees. He's kind of like part of the family - we did go see Avatar with him (or, his family was sitting next to us in the theater - same thing. If you watch MasterChef (of course we do - it's a reality show with food), then you know that Joe Bastianich is the token jerk on the judges panel who rarely has anything nice to say and throws food in the garbage.

Today, I plan to take the dog to the park, take some change to the Coinstar machine, order the last piece of the bookcase (we weren't sure we were going to get it), sell the books we don't need anymore, make red beans & rice, and make another batch of ravioli (chicken this time). Order the bookcase, done. Dog park, on my way so I can get iced coffee (we're out). In order of probability of happening today - red beans, ravioli, coinstar, and books - I still have tomorrow off, so the last two could happen tomorrow (except I remembered that I have to do laundry so we can pack for our trip to NC - not the coast, so no real Earl worries).

Things I made from Ratio this week: bread, mayonnaise (a bit of a fail, but I'm not sure exactly why), pasta for the ravioli, and filling for the ravioli. Have I mentioned I love this book?

Before and after (so far) pictures of the bookshelves:

I have two new heroes

The first is my husband. He apprehended someone on the street this weekend. No, really. We were going to look for a pair of pants for Mr. D, walking along the street, when we saw one guy (gesturing as if he had been robbed) running through the streets chasing another guy. For some reason, two tour-bus ride hawkers were also chasing the duo. The ran across the intersection across from us, then the "robber" came running towards us. So Mr. D just stuck out his arms and stopped him! No, really. Then the bus ticket guys came over and held the guy while the other guy came over to yell at him, and someone else started calling the police, so we headed out on our way.

Hero number two is AB - from her facebook status, it sounds like she is in labor! Hooray - go A!

Random thoughts

• When I said "on the wagon," what I should have said is that I am hobbling along next to the wagon. Which means that I have been to the gym twice in the past two weeks (or twice in the past 10 days, technically).
• My dog is super-cute tonight. She has this game where she holds her stuffed animal in her mouth and plays soccer with the ball. Tonight she's in the mood to go get it twice, then take it back to her bed, until I get comfortable on the couch again.
• Did I mention we went to Mr. D's coworkers apartment to watch the Fourth of July fireworks? And that immediately after the fireworks, another guest plugged in his camera and we all had to watch 70 photos of the fireworks show that we just watched?
  
• I finally updated my Goodreads shelf, but I don't know why I didn't get a notification that Michelle was waiting to be my bookshelf friend (or whatever they call it). Notes on the books:

1. I guess I am technically still reading "Too Big to Fail," but it's not exactly a read-before-lights-out-in-bed book, unless you want to immediately fall asleep.
2. I have been reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel" since we got back from Italy in May. Normally, I don't read this slowly, but it's a dense book. Interesting, but dense.
3. As soon as I finish #2, I'm going to read the new Stieg Larsson (sp?) book, but if I give up #2 now, I don't know if I'll have the willpower to go back.
4. I am always reading Ratio (a present from J&R). I lurve it - I have used it to try to get away from recipes without creating disasters, but this would be an excellent choice for anyone trying to learn how to cook, too. Michael Ruhlman (blog here) wrote the book to explain the most basic recipes in cooking, from a chart he found in a professor's office at cooking school (which he wrote about in one of his other books). I use Ratio all the time, but I still feel like I should use it more (I have another post on this in me, but it will need a few days to put together). In the meantime, check out Michael Ruhlman's blog, where he elaborates on some of the ratios in each post (unless he's having fun adventures, like eating his way through cured meat in Italy), and you can always click on the book on the right to find out more about the book.
   

Confrontation

Today was hot, like Houston hot. Despite the fact that our real estate agent was convinced that south-facing windows were ideal for our northern climate, I know better. Growing up in Texas, you know that south-facing windows are the equivalent of having your oven on with the door open (without the potential for gas-poisoning). Given the heat, Mr. D and I decided to check out a movie (Cyrus - very good, you should go see it).

We bought the tickets when we entered the theater, and since we used our loyalty card, we got a coupon for a free large drink & popcorn or a free ticket, which is exactly as it is written on the coupon. This theater chain has been running the promotion at least since I was in college, so 10 years (yes, that's scary). I really wanted a soda, so we decided to go ahead and use the coupon to get a popcorn - until the kid behind the counter tried to tell me it was for a soda or a popcorn.

Me - "No, it says popcorn and drink or ticket"

Kid - "No, it's for a popcorn or drink or ticket"

Mr. D - "That doesn't even make sense, a popcorn is $5, and a ticket is $13"

Kid - "Sorry, it says popcorn or drink or ticket"

Me - "No, look - putting coupon in his line of sight - popcorn AND drink OR ticket"

Kid - "I'm sorry, that's not what it means"

At this point, I marched over to guest services, which was conveniently located 10 feet away and asked a "manager." He immediately agreed and literally shouted across the lobby to the kid.

We then sort of cut in front of one guy, but we had already waited in line, and when we told him that, he was ok. When we walked up, the girl behind the counter was CONSOLING our guy, for having difficult customers. Right, even though if he had actually read the coupon, much less known about the promotion that has ALWAYS been in place, or even THOUGHT that the CUSTOMER might be right, this could have all been avoided.

I was quite proud of us, as I was the one who stood up for us, and Mr. D didn't start yelling at the guy (though it came close when he heard the girl consoling him).

Owie

So, a few of my roommates from college came into town this weekend to visit. I think a fun time was had by all, until they had all gotten on the bus/plane. I sat down and put my feet up for a little rest. Then I put them down, walked to the kitchen and realized my toes needed some attention - I had ingrown toenails on both feet on my big toe. :( Yes, gross, but it's genetic, so not my fault.

I set about fixing them, and thought I had, until I finished walking Sasha to daycare, hopped on the subway and sat down at my desk. Owie. After I elevated my right foot for most of the morning, things were feeling better, but not before I decided that my going to the gym tonight would just make things worse - how's that for logic.

Reflecting on my rationalization, I remembered a time in elementary school when I had an ingrown toenail, and my dad (the surgeon) fixed it. Not that he was necessarily more willing to inflict pain on my toe than I was, but he wasn't attached to it. :) The next day at school was "lap" day in P.E., where we went outside and walked/jogged/ran around the black-topped parking lot in the heat of the day, in Texas, in the summer (anything between April and October should just count as summer in Houston). After each lap, you collected a popsicle stick from the kids who got to sit out, in order to keep track of how many laps you had done. Mrs. Tilton asked the class if anyone had an injury and couldn't run. Of course I raised my hand, I hated lap day. Unfortunately, this led to me explaining to Mrs. Tilton in front of the entire class that my excuse was that I had an ingrown toenail. Right. Hilarity ensued - for everyone else. I think Mrs. Tilton felt bad for me, not bad enough to let me hand out popsicle sticks, but she did admit that it was probably very painful.

Ahh, memories.

Hanson?!?

Please excuse the picture - I didn't want anyone to see me outside the deli at work stopping to take a picture of the poster wall, much less the Hanson poster , so I had to do it super-fast and super-secretively. I am sure I did not succeed, I'm just not capable of it. I don't know which is weirder - that Hanson has a new album, or that they actually look kind of cute...

So Tired

Why am I so tired? We can attribute this to multiple reasons:

1) Work was exceedingly frustrating today. Everyone was tired, it seems, so that just made it worse, because we were testy with each other. And made me grumpy on the way home, especially when I had to watch some idiot vomiting in the subway station at 6:15 - St. Patrick's day fun!

2) Daylight savings time. I used to love it - and now I think it is stupid. My body has been under the impression that I am trying to wake up at 4:30 am every day (in the dark), so I should fall asleep at 9:00 pm. I do like that I have gotten out of work early, but then I get annoyed that I'm too tired to go to the gym because I don't want to get sick (leading to #3). My theory is that if I'm tired and go to the gym and am exposed to germs, my body won't be able to cope with all three (it makes me feel better).

3) The hubs is sick, which I could tell was happening on Saturday. His co-workers always go to work sick - silly lawyers, so this is the third time he's had a cold since the fall. Since I'm trying to make myself stay awake until at least 11:00, I stayed in the living room while he was asleep. Problem - I didn't not take my preventative NyQuil yet, so was not going to be sufficiently drugged to sleep through his snoring. Normally, I just say his name and tell him he's snoring and his subconscious self changes position and he stops, but when he's sick, he wakes up. I didn't have the heart to wake him, and I hate not being able to sleep, mostly because I just sit there getting more annoyed, so I grabbed my pillow and went and slept on the couch, which wasn't that much better of a night's sleep, but at least the snoring didn't keep me up.

Baby Names

I know it has been a long time since I've posted, but I had a random thought today and wanted to share it with more people than my husband and J of J&R (our downstairs neighbors from Austin).

A client of ours sent out an email a birth announcement (though he did forget to use bcc instead of cc, so now people are hitting "reply all" with polite, but inconsequential responses). Apparently, our client and his wife have named their children with a hybrid last name, ie part of the dad's last name combined with part of the mom's last name. What would ours be (Mom, this is STRICTLY hypothetical)? Dunarty, Dundarty, Dunty, Fogdon, or my personal favorite: Fogartidon, pronounced Fo-GART-i-dun (mostly because it reminds me of a nickname a friend made up for me in college).