Monthly Archives: February 2012

February 27, 2012 · 9:49 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – My Spot (one year later)

Last year on February 22nd, I wrote this post. If you are not inclined to go back and read it, the short version is that there is a spot in my house that is my perfect place. I am sure many of you have one just like it. The place you go to read, to rest, for comfort, to chill. YOUR spot. Sometimes it comes with a cup of tea and others it needs a glass of wine. And when things get really hectic, a vodka on the rocks goes perfectly.

Needless to say I have clocked many an hour there. What always made that spot one step more special was having my dog at my feet. For those who don’t know, I lost my dog Mel at 12.5 this past October. I was completely devastated and lost without her. Thinking I would never be able to do it all over again with a puppy at this stage of my life I soon proved myself wrong.

We were lucky enough for the stars to be aligned and not long after we lost her, Iko came into our lives.

And wouldn’t you know it, that puppy just KNEW where  she needed to hang.

She is freakishly Mel-like in this shot, but oh so welcome. I am sure the essence of Mel lured her there. This is not the only spot of Mel’s that she has taken as her own.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of my old girl. Somehow this makes it both much harder and infinitely easier.

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February 23, 2012 · 9:43 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – The Blue Note

Note: This never made it up on Tuesday, so forgive me if you cry on Friday instead. As a consolation I permit you to start drinking early.

Monday night we had the privilege to celebrate Dr. Jimmy’s birthday at The Blue Note to see Monty Alexander (highly recommended). For those who are not familiar, this is the historic jazz club in the Village in NYC. Seeing a show there is a comfort;  the place has hardly changed and every time you walk through those doors you get the feeling that you are part of the real New York.

I arrived a little late and when I got there our table of 11 was mostly full. There were a couple of open seats at the end and a table next to us with a reserved sign on it. “Look at whose names are on that sign”, said Dr. Jimmy.

And there they were. As if every day I get to sit RIGHT NEXT TO one of my favorite recording artists and his wildly talented wife. Yes, my friends. Krall and Costello meant Diana Krall and Elvis Costello. AT THE NEXT TABLE. And if you have ever been to the Bluenote you would know how these tables are right on top of one another.

So, a little while later, in walked Elvis and Diana and sat RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Being the very cool and respectful NYers that we are we refrained from bothering them. Which by omission made us so not cool because we were deliberately ignoring them. I can’t tell if they were relieved or thought us rude and stuck up.

I posted this sign on Facebook and impressed all my friends. I am still wondering if Elvis did the same.

Since I am still uncomfortable with having not having acknowledged them at all, I would like to say here that sitting next to Elvis Costello goes up there with one of my greatest thrills. My first concert with Gary was Elvis Costello at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester when I was a freshman in college. It was raw and exciting and the beginning of what would become the sound I grew to love.

So, Elvis, if your social media monitoring picks this up I would like to say the next time we sit next to each other at a show it would be my honor to buy you and Diana a drink.

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February 17, 2012 · 5:22 pm

Mannequin Malfunction

Only in South Beach! For a moment it seemed that this was perhaps a practical joke by a passerby until we thought about it and realized the store probably did this on purpose. I have never seen so many mannequins with over-sized boobs and nipples in my life. I mean nipples? Isn’t the best part of mannequins their vague anatomical construction? (like the male ones with the penis-less bulges) And correct me if I am wrong but does her arm look like it is on wrong?

Coming up Ocean Drive after a magnificent beach path walk and a wonderful breakfast at the News Cafe, this was a sharp reminder of the other side of South Beach. The one that dresses like hookers day and night and everyone is someone in their own mind. Or wardrobe.

I, on the other hand, am no one and every one. And I am happiest on the beach side of Ocean Drive, far enough away from this silliness. Although I am not immune to the humor in it all.

Hey, do you think that suit looks as good with both boobs in?

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February 14, 2012 · 12:21 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Love Ever After

I saw this post on Kickstarter today and it made me cry… because you know, it’s Tuesday. AND Valentine’s Day. Double hit.

A book by Lauren Fleishman, Love Ever After will share the love stories of couples who have been married for at least 50 years. Inspired by a letter her grandfather wrote to hergrandmother during World War II (and rediscovered after he passed away in 2007), she began photographing and interviewing couples in the New York area as a way to preserve their stories and to illuminate our universal experience of love.

After just spending a few days in Florida visiting my parents who have been married OVER 60 YEARS, I do believe in love ever after. Listening to them talk about the way they feel about each other after all these years is the main reason I remain a hopeless romantic. (Yeh, this shot is a killer, right?) I can only hope that Gary will refrain from running me over with his car for the next 34 years so we can hit that milestone.

 

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February 9, 2012 · 11:04 pm

South Florida Visit – Volume 2

This is a quirky place, I will give you that. Where else would you see…

1. Crematory Services in a strip mall. (this is not one of those sign generator website images… this is real.

2. An ambulance in the parking lot BOTH nights that you went out to dinner.

3. Second night it went something like this:

Me: What’s with the ambulance outside?

Waitress: Someone at the bar had a seizure.

My aunt and I (simultaneously): What was he drinking?

The waitress did not get it.

4. This super sensitive billboard:

Can’t make this stuff up.

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February 8, 2012 · 11:08 pm

The Real Reason I am Here Today

I am in Florida visiting with my parents. I am happy to say I am here, not because of emergency health issues, but on a planned visit to hang with the Rents for a few days.

As we were getting out of the car after dinner we noticed the beautiful full moon. For some reason we got on the topic of menstrual cycles coinciding with the moon and my dad shared with me that he had dated a woman before my mom who had a 14 day period. “That was never going to work out for me!”, he shared. Then he proceeded to tell me that he recently read her obit in the paper.

I stopped on the walk and said, “OMG, the whole reason I am here today is because of some dead woman’s freakishly long period?”

What? This is not the common conversation to have with one’s octogenarian parents? You didn’t actually think I came from a normal family did you?

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February 5, 2012 · 11:04 pm

Easy Feet

No more bending to clean your feet? That just about says it all. These suckers suction cup to the shower flo0r and scrub-a-dub-dub your little piggies without that huge hassle of bending over to wash them. Because, you know, bending over in the shower can be dangerous. In some contexts. Or perhaps if you are morbidly obese.

So, the question is, are those two populations big enough to sell this item to or is that the reason I found this on the sale table?

Have to admit I am a little temped by the over 1,000 bristles…

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February 3, 2012 · 2:38 pm

Komen Foundation Shoots Itself in the Foot

Literally.

Fresh off the biggest PR disaster of the week/month/year, the de-funding of Planned Parenthood;  the Susan G. Komen Foundation hits the wires again. Only hours after changing its policy on funding and reinstating the Planned Parenthood dollars.

Yes folks, they have partnered with a likely brand… Discount Gun Sales.

Discount Gun Sales is proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman [sic] Foundation to offer the Walther P-22 Hope Edition in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A portion of each P-22 Hope Edition will be donated to the Seattle Branch of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The P-22 Hope Edition has an exclusive DuraCoat Pink slide in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Utilizing the same reliable controls and firing mechanism that has made the Walther P-22 America’s top selling handgun, the Hope Edition will be a limited production pistol offered exclusively through Discount Gun Sales.

Funny, that link is suddenly dead… pun intended. And partnering with gun sales, I suppose you could call that a different kind of birth control.

Seriously! Is no one paying attention over there?

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February 1, 2012 · 10:14 pm

Munchies

This one was sent to me from my friend Doreen. Dor and I have been known to get into a bit of trouble together. We met in college and traveled cross country together after graduation. Do the math on that one.

This photo presented itself to her as a gift from the universe. How else would one explain that being with the enormous ass and the minuscule head on the left side of the shot. Actually, she said she had stopped to take the picture and he just walked into the frame. Ahhhh… the blog gods were working overtime that day! Hey this place has beer, wine, liquor, lottery and ATM… seriously what more do you need. Maybe a little Slim Jim or a Twinkie and I am sure they have those too.

Places like this should be declared landmarks so their signage is preserved. I cannot imagine a world without them.

Thanks Dor.

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February 1, 2012 · 1:00 am

Lord of the Flies

Or in this case, Lady. This story was just too bizarre to not share. And I am thinking of it as a sort of public service announcement in case this happens to anyone else.

A friend Facebook messaged me about an email she had sent that I did not receive for a project we are working on. This is what she said:

trying so hard to get stuff done but my house is infested with flesh eating flies…you should feature me on your blog… really…..ive been at that about to cry point since last sunday when i walked downstairs to 500 flies in my living room….uch…..

Wow, I thought, that is quite an opening line from someone I have not heard from in awhile. The visual of her lovely home infested with flies had sort of a Steven King feel to it. My response:

omg that sounds like a horror movie and no i did not get the email. what address did you send it to? flesh eating flies? WTH

I can be so sensitive.

Now here is where it is obvious that even a woman with flesh eating friggin flies in her house can still multi-task while telling her woes of this horrible episode. Here was her response:

where should i re-send to….i’ll send now…. and yes…. eat flesh of dead animal……took exterminator 3 days of coming back to finally find dead squirrel…. flies laid eggs…. on to 2nd batch hatching….. nothing they can do about it…. now that squirrel is gone waiting for them to die of starvation if i don’t get to them first…

So here is to you, my friend. Even though your lovely husband (and I do think he is wonderful) was in CA for the football game while this went down, and the little buggers seem to hide at night when he comes home so you are left to be the crazy woman in the house killing thousands of flies while your lazy dog does nothing, I still hold to the idea that we are never given more than we can bear.

And yes, I was not alone with my suggestion of mass quantities of alcohol because what else can you do in this situation but drink those little bastards away. Here’s hoping you are sweeping up fly carcasses (or is the carci?) and this will be behind you soon enough.

And hey, the offer to have the puppy come over and exterminate them still stands.

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