v. 2.0
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Happiness Is . . .
New sneakers. -
You Know You’re Too Busy When
You have to get up early, not to work out, not to write, but to clean your apartment because it’s the only free time you’ve had to do so all week and your dad’s coming. Gotta love vacuuming at 8 a.m.
You haven’t written anything decent on your blog in ages (and I don’t have time now, either, but I’ve got a few good posts up my sleeve. I promise I’ll get to some of them soon).
And on an unrelated note, I’m very excited about three little words tomorrow morning: Din Tai Fung.
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By the Way
I forgot to mention one thing about this weekend. At the beginning of the summer, I decided to get my hair highlighted. I had done it once before, about five years ago, and figured since I’d be spending so much time at the beach, it might be a fun thing to do. I didn’t really like it all that much. But, I figured I’d ride it out through the summer and put it back to its natural color in the fall. This past Saturday was the day I decided to do that. Let’s just say that I had a bit of a run in with the box of Clairol — it’s not quite the shade I was going for — it would have been great with my goth look, though. All I can do now is be patient and hope that it fades a little. It’s funny — people aren’t quite sure what’s different. I had two people at work yesterday ask me if I had gotten a haircut. I’ll try to get a picture up here at some point.
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The Weekend Wrapup
After the Vendys and a whirlwind of a week, I stayed in Friday night. I must have been exhausted because I slept for 12 hours. Saturday I went to the gym, visited the Dosa cart, then headed up to Westchester to spend the afternoon with a group of my high school friends and their kids. It’s quite overwhelming as the one single, childless person the group, but it was great to see everyone. The kids I had met before had gotten huge! I’ve got to tell you though, there’s nothing like spending an afternoon with your friends who are married and/or have kids to make you realize that there’s absolutely no rush to get there. All in due time.
I came back to the city to spend a mellow night with my cousin Sara, who’s a sophomore at Barnard. We went to see Shopgirl (my advice is to wait for the DVD), then had a late night snack at Village Yokocho. Every time I go there I remember how much I love it. Late night yakitori, dumplings, and other Japanese small plate dishes. Mmmm. After that, I finally took my friend Brian up on his offer to come over and sing karaoke at his apartment. Brian, who I met through my work at Gothamist (he represents cookbook authors and was with me the night I was out with the author of The Vodka Cookbook), was recently featured in an article in the NYT real estate section — he’s got a karaoke stage in his apartment. So Sara and I headed over and sang until the wee hours of the night. Can’t wait until next time.
Today I had a delicious brunch at Augie & Lauren’s and had about two minutes to breathe before heading out to Brooklyn for Katie’s mom’s beer stew. Stuffed, I spent some time cleaning my apartment tonight, gave myself a quick mani/pedi, and am heading upstairs to give Augie a little blog tutorial. After that it’s a good night’s sleep before my last session of boot camp. Woo hoo!
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The Coveted Cup
Not only was the Vendy Awards celebration so much fun, but I spent some time chatting with the AP reporter, who ended up quoting me in an article that’s now all over the place. You can’t hear the emphasis ("riDICulous") in the quote, but those of you who know me can surely imagine how I said it. Apparently there’s an NPR piece on Weekend Edition tomorrow, a WNYC piece early next week, and a Food Network piece in January or February. I’ll keep you posted. Before I head out to Westchester for to see my high school friends and their respective broods (I’m the only single, childless one in the bunch), I’m going to head over to the Dosa Man, one of the finalists, for lunch. I’ve been dreaming of his coconut chutney since Thursday night!
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Whatcha Doin’ Tonight?
If you don’t have plans, support the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center (run by my friend Sean) and taste the wares of some of the city’s favorite street food vendors at the Vendy Awards. There will be an open bar of wine and beer, and the finalists will be selling their food (at their usual street-level prices) to guests in attendance. A team of esteemed judges (including yours truly) will determine the winner. After the honors are bestowed, DJ Diallo Internationale will spin world music into the night.$35 tickets available online or at the door. 7-10:30 pm, 27 East 4th Street in Manhattan. -
Non Sequiturs
Those of you in the beach house know I’ve been talking about this all summer — there should be an alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of bacon. Guess what — my birthday’s coming up.
I was walking home from the subway last night, when I passed by Reservoir. As I approached, a guy stumbled out and said, "can I ask you something?" "Sure – quickly." (I wasn’t slowing down my pace) "Can I have your number?" "No." "I have money," he offered. "Great," I replied over my shoulder. I didn’t stop to find out how much he would have paid. Sigh. At least he got right to the point.
I was asked to be the fire marshall for my floor at work. Apparently this is a very important position which involves jumping into action when I smell smoke or hear a fire alarm — my job is to call a few other key people on my floor. Hopefully I’ll have time to do this before the smoke gets too close to my office. Oh yeah . . . and I get a nifty flashlight.
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Fall Bounty
How much do I adore the Union Square greenmarket at this time of year?
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A.W.O.L.
After walking around in agony since Wednesday morning, I made the executive decision to skip boot camp this morning in exchange for more sleep and a Pilates video. I am still so ridiculously sore that I’m moving like an 80-year-old woman — this weekend I’ll attempt some light cardio, go to yoga with Nikki to stretch out all the creakiness, and I believe that a good, solid schvitz is in order. After all that and some decent rest, I think I’ll be ready to re-enlist at 6 a.m. Monday morning.
Wednesday night I had the pleasure of eating at my friend Ron’s new restaurant with Erika and Jeremy. Pair of 8’s, on the Upper West Side, is going to be a huge success — on their second night they were already full and turning people away. They have a fantastic special on Monday nights: $25 prix fixe for two courses and a drink. It might even be enough to make me go uptown more often.
Congrats, Ron! Last night I had the pleasure of attending an awards ceremony where one of the associates at my firm was honored for her inspirational pro bono work on behalf of domestic violence victims for Sanctuary for Families. Yay, Hannah! After that, I had a top secret meeting with a fellow Vendy Award judge to determine our criteria for next week’s event — go buy your tickets!Tonight I’m hosting a wine tasting dinner with Jenn, Vivian, and Melissa. At our last one, we went through six bottles of wine among the four of us, so I’m definitely looking forward to this one! Now, I just need to figure out how I’m going to clean up this pigsty of an apartment and buy dinner (pumpkin ravioli with sage and brown butter) sometime before 8:00 tonight . . .
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Yeehaw!
Believe it or not, I went square dancing last night. Many thanks to Sean for being up for the adventure. We’re going to recruit a large group next time and make an event out of it, so get ready. We also discovered (thanks to a tip from Nicole), the Leela Lounge, a great new upscale Indian restaurant right nearby. More on that later. And for those of you who asked (Dad), yes, I’m still doing boot camp. It’s not getting any easier and I still come home and crash for another 45 minutes after my shower. I think it’s killing me slowly.