Sweet Blog O'Mine

Author: Laren

  • Dreaming of Truffles and a Clean Apartment

    I didn’t take any pictures at the Gothamist/Slice pizza party at Fornino last night because I was too busy enjoying the outstanding truffle pizza — a white pie with mozzarella and fontina cheeses, generously topped with shaved black truffles and garlicky truffle oil. Thinking about it still makes me drool.  Check out Flickr for others’ pictures.  This morning I left my apartment in the capable hands of Brenda from Zen Home Cleaning — I can’t wait to see the results when I get home tonight after Chinatown dinner with the siblings — probabaly Vietnamese at Nha Trang.

    UPDATE: seem to have caught the plague so stayed home and had a hot date with a bowl of soup, puffs with lotion and Airborne.  But — all the better to enjoy my super-clean apartment!!!

  • Blasts from the Past

    This weekend was all about catching up with old friends — Friday night I had dinner with law school classmates (and some of their respective spouses) and Saturday night I hung out with high school friends.  After dinner on Saturday we came back to my apartment to play a rousing game of Asshole (which I hadn’t played since college) while listening to one of my taped mixes from 1986 — the kind I taped off the radio (WLIR, of course).

    I also spent a great deal of the weekend purging some of the crap lying around my apartment in preparation for the cleaning service I’ve got scheduled to come tomorrow — I can’t wait!

    Finally, I visited the new Trader Joe’s in Union Square.  It was still a bit too crowded for my taste, and the selection was somewhat odd, but the prices were very appealing — I’m sure I’ll be back. 

  • The Picture is Crappy, but . . .


    Image053.jpg

    God, I love my neighborhood!

  • From 700 to Zero

    in . . . oh, about a week.  I’m using 43 Folders Inbox Zero series on how to keep your inbox empty.  Given that for the past five years I have used my email inbox at work as a giant repository rather than a useful tool, this is a huge step for me.  Since I started my new job, I have been much, much better about keeping the inbox count fairly low (thanks to GTD techniques, to some degree), but after I returned from DC, the inbox was bursting at the seams at over 700 messages.  I’m down to about 130 as of today, but aim to have it empty before I head down south next weekend.  Wish me luck!

  • Three Little Words

    The good news: someone told me that he loved me today.
    The bad news: it was some sketchy dude hanging out on 44th Street.

    In other news, a family friend visited last night and I was reminded of how much I like La Nacional; this time, I got to taste the paella, which was so good that I kept scraping the pan to get all the crunchy bits at the bottom (I know this has a name, but I can’t remember it — can anyone help me out?).

  • One . . . Two . . . Three . . .

    Wheeeee! 

    As I was walking up to Union Square yesterday, thoroughly enjoying a healthy dose of early springtime, I spotted two people with a little girl between them, around 2 or 3 years old.  They counted out loud, "one, two, three," and then with a "wheee" lifted her up off the ground by her hands.  It made me realize how some things like that, little simple pleasures, just keep getting passed down from generation to generation.  I remember doing this as a little girl, and hope that someday, I can reach down to my little girl (or boy) and that my husband (future husband, that is, whomever he may be) and I can lift her off the ground with a "wheee" and be rewarded with peals of laughter.

  • Whirlwind

    Sorry for the dead air around here — I’ve just been very busy.  Will fill in the details later, but highlights include:

    And now, a few days of vegetarian detox are in order.

  • Woo Hoo!

    Fotd_button I’m today’s Feedster Feed of the Day (much better than being the Personal of the Day, I’ll tell you that much).

  • You Know Your Hotel is Swanky When

    swanky bathroom the bidet

    The hotel room is not only bigger than your apartment, but on top of the swanky robe, slippers, chocolates on the pillow, the featherbed, wifi, and the orchid in the bathroom, but there’s a bidet.  Just in case. 

  • Apparently It’s Time . . .

    for me to move to Brooklyn.  Why?  Because in one evening between the hours of 7 and 10:30, I not only got to see the folks I came out there to see — Jonathan, Jen and a sleeping Oscar and Doug and Leora, but I ran into not one but two people I know.  First Rich, who I bumped into as he was coming out of a store on 5th Avenue, and then Todd, when he and his girlfriend were seated next to us at Franny’s (which was quite tasty, for the record).

    Well, I’m not making any major life decisions today and my lease doesn’t run out until October or thereabouts, so for now, at least, I’m staying put.

    Except that I’m off to DC until Saturday night for my annual pro bono pilgrimage, although this is the first year that I am actually staying at the hotel that the conference is in rather than with my friend Christopher (who I’ll be seeing in NY on Sunday when he’s visiting, so it’s okay).