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October 31, 2006
Halloween Costumes of Years Past
Kindergarten and 1st Grade- A skeleton. A cheap plastic head to toe costume with bones painted on it. For some reason, I wore this costume for two consecutive years.
2nd Grade- An old lady hobo. I had a latex old lady mask out of which I could not breathe. I wore old baggy old lady clothes and walked with a cane.
3rd- 6th Grades- I honestly can't remember any costumes from these years. Were they that bad?
7th Grade- Judge Ito. I thought it was a timely and clever choice, with the OJ Simpson trial going on and all. Again, I went with the latex mask. I wore a nun's habit for the judges robe. At one house, the person who answered the door said, "Oh, what a neat costume. An old Asian man!" Not one person correctly guessed who I was.
8th- A joker card. My best friend was the Jack of Spades. We thought these costumes would be a big hit but we were 13 and easily prone to embarrasment. After the first person heckled us in the street we ran home, which was difficult considering we were wearing styrofoam sandwich boards bigger than we were.
I have since wised up and now only dress as characters who I resemble in real life: Pippy Longstocking and Velma from Scooby Doo. This year, though, I am costumeless, having had my Halloween fun already. We went to Kristin's farm and castrated a lamb (among other things). Photos to be posted shortly....
Posted by debbie at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2006
The Blur That Was London
Swans at the Heath
Though by now it seems but a distant memory, our week in London was an absolute blast and it was uncharacteristically sunny the ENTIRE time. London is a very bi-polar city. When it's sunny, you can notice a real difference in people, in the service, in the energy in the air. But when it's cloudy and gray, which it is most of the time, there's a blanket of blah-ness draped over everything. Unfortunately we were too busy skipping down the sunshine-covered streets that we failed to take too many photos (for some reason, I photographed nearly ever meal but there are only like two photos of us). Anyhow, we got in late on Saturday night and met up with Amit in his neighborhood, a charming mixed Turkish/Boho hood called Stoke Newington. Every neighborhood seems to have a New York equivalent so Stoke Newington was kind of like BoCoCa (I should really stop using that word. It's not a word). There was the ethnically diverse main/"high" street (like Atlantic Avenue) and then the yuppified cool street (like Smith Street). CLICK DOWN HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS:
We had delicious kebabs the first night:
We were pretty zonked out after that point, so we just had a couple of pints at a local pub called The Dylan Thomas (many pubs have literary/famous intellectual namesakes, perhaps so you can feel a little bit smart as you drink the night away?) and then called it a night. Amit lives in the cutest little townhouse-like house on the cutest little lane. A lane! It's actually a "place" but for all intents as purposes, it was a lane. Children play in the street, the neighbors know one another, and people leave their doors open! This the photo of a lovely little boat (of course) parked in front of his house:
On Sunday we had the famous Full English Breakfast (including rashers, bubble AND squeek- if you don't know what those are, you don't want to know) and then checked out the markets at Camden. I remembered frequenting the markets when I was but a wee student in London five years ago now. I remembered this very specific area where they had the most amazing antiques and old curiosities. There are tons of markets and tented areas around Camden and after hours of walking around, Amit and Rafe were convinced I would never find this Shangri-La of Antiques. Here they are near the canal looking not very amused:
But then we found it! We were all excited (ok, maybe only I was)
I was completely overwhelmed, in a good way, and we bought some cool old maps. I wanted to buy this, too, but I practiced restraint:
Then we ambled on down to the Heath which is like Central Park but more natural and wild, or so Amit described it to us. It was huge and very nice:
Later that night we had dinner back at Amit's house. His roommate cooked up a nice Lebanese spread and then we went to a strange jazz bar in the hood. We were still pretty jet-lagged and wonky, and the next morning we (um, or just I) had some difficulty rising out of bed. We managed to make it to our hotel in the West End, a strange place where we had a room on the top floor. It was like a seventh floor walk-up and the hallways were like something out of The Shining and the room had a very jail cell/insane asylum feel to it (barebones furnishings, a sink jutting out of the wall) but it was super cheap ("super cheap" being extremely relative in London) and the view was top-notch:
The hotel was also pretty close to where I used to live, on Newman Street. And if you take a little turn off Newman Street, there is this little hidden winding alley way that leads to the Newman Arms, a miniscule pub with loads of English charm. And upstairs there is the Pie Room, which has the best meat pies in all the land. This is a Beef and Guiness pie:
Later we had many beers, beers in pubs and beers on the street (yeah, pretty classy, but you can drink legally in the streets so it's not like we were brownbagging it.The cans were fully exposed). And the next morning was...Rafe's Birthday! We did a bunch of stuff that day. He climbed The Monument, which is a huge old tower that is over 300 winding steps to the top:
Then at the top he was rewarded with this breathtaking view of two construction workers having lunch on a building:
I courageously waited in a pub down on the ground. Rafe got a certificate saying "I climbed the Monument!" I did not get a certificate. Then we went to St. Johns Cathedral and walked across the new-ish Millennium Bridge. Here's Rafe, looking very bearded, right after we crossed the bridge, on the other side of The Thames:
The Tate Modern was literally right at the end of the bridge so we decided to waltz on in. I was only really interested in the gift shop but unbeknownst to us, it happened to the first day of this interactive exhibit. Slides!
They were like waterslides but without the water and there was a real media frenzy. I guess England doesn't worry so much about liability so much, as there were 3 year old children and old men with canes going down the slides along with everyone else. I was a bit scared to go down the slide as I was having flashbacks of this one time at a crappy day camp when I was maybe 6. The whole camp went on a fieldtrip to some rundown water park and I was forced down this mammoth waterslide. No one asked if I could swim (I couldn't) and when I shot out of the end of the slide, I splashed into a pool ten feet deep. I remember flailing around and gulping in water and the lifeguard dragging me out of the pool. That was my last day at camp. ANYHOW, this experience was slightly better as you can (sort of) see that I have a smile on my face:
We walked all around the Southbank and had some great fish and chips and then raced to a 3-course Indian dinner (I had stupidly made very early reservations so as to take advantage of a "pre-theatre" menu) at one of the fanciest restaurants in London. This was The Birthday Meal. We were already stuffed from the fish and chips so it was a real challange to get everything down, even though everything was scrumptious. Whatever, we were on vacation. We washed the meal down with a few exorbantly priced cocktails, just to see if we would pop. I don't remember a whole lot from the evening from then on except that first we went to this smoky hipster dive bar:
This was before we went into Soho with Amit after most of the bars closed (most places still close at 11 still) and had multiple bottles of wine in various after-hours clubs. The only thing I can clearly recall is buying an expensive bottle of wine at weird club I don't think any of us would have gone to if we weren't already completely sloshed. This bottle came in its own silver bucket with a little towel and I carried it around like a precious newborn. The night was capped off with some falafel and fries at this garishly-lit place near Oxford Circus. With bellies full once more, we laughed all the way home. And so that was the gluttonous end to the most gluttonous week in London.
Posted by debbie at 1:26 PM | Comments (1)
October 17, 2006
Well Hot Dog!
While searching for a hot dog costume for myself and Rafe (He'd be the bun, and I the dog. What, do you have any better ideas?)..I came across this website. I admire small business owners, but this is nuts! And I see a lot of nutsy things during the course of my day here. Can you imagine the loan conversation at the bank?
Yes, it will be called DogBuns.
What will you sell?
Hot dog costumes for dogs of course!
I see.
What kinds of dogs will you market to?
Only small ones.
Approved!
Maybe there is room for another hot dog costume site, except for humans?
Posted by debbie at 1:05 PM | Comments (4)
October 16, 2006
Bouncing My Way to Job Satisfaction
I used to make fun of people who sat on these at work. I would mock them- what, you think you're too good for a chair? You think that ball makes you look cool? Oh, you have a spinal disorder? I'm sorry to hear that. I was ingorant of office balls until the boss here got balls for everyone! Apparently in Japan it's a hot trend. And what's good enough for the Japanese is good enough for me. And what an ingenius (and low-cost) way to boost morale! My life and spine are forever changed. Not really, but sadly this has been the most exciting thing to happen all day.
London photos with captions are coming soon...
Posted by debbie at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2006
Mmmm Jamon
They confiscated the Spanish meats at the airport. In leiu of the meat, Vince sent me this photo:
Ahhhh...streets full of whores and little children selling jamon. My kind of country.
Posted by debbie at 3:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2006
"We saw whores"
Vince and Tina are galavanting around Spain right now. I sent them an email inquiring about the status of my Jamon Iberico, and in return I received these very amusing Blackberry messages. First, a message from Vince:
Hey thibgsd going well here headIbg back toniorrow should returb ib the late afternoob in madrid now out on the towbn driving aroubd was cookl blackberries are hard to type obn easpecially after three marhgrtiads how wsa cape cldo cod
catch u later
And then a few minutes later I get this from Tina:
Vincent very drunk, can't find proper keys on my blackberry. We are very drunk. We have an awesome hotel room. We bought you something to help you sleep.  Just bought a cool postcard size painting for your dad from some crazy guy who walked up to our table to show us his art. Going to check out the street we saw whores on earlier this afternoon, wanna see what they look like during ther day. DrunK.
Xo tina
Um, very drunk? Really? You don't say. I'm just hoping that whatever they bought me to help me sleep has nothing to do with the whores they saw. But what do I know, Spanish whores probably know a lot more about sleeping than I do!
Ok, it's time for me to turn off the computer. My blepheritis is acting up (see below).
Posted by debbie at 4:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2006
A Few Photos From The Cape
Walking around The Cape...
A disgusting crab shell Rafe found...it was huge!
The view from Provincetown whilst drinking Dark n' Stormies...
The McBride brothers on the obligatory McBride hike...
I swear the Cape looked exactly like I had imagined it...just like this...
Me eating my very first lobster roll....it was the best...
Posted by debbie at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)
Called Your Bluff
For the past few days I've been suffering from some strange dull aching pain behind my eyeballs. It started on the Cape (which was a great little place to relax this weekend, by the way- photos to be posted shortly) and it has been continuing all day today. I wonder if it's because I haven't been sleeping so well lately? Could it be a migraine symptom? Glaucoma? Cornea cancer? I was poking around google today trying to diagnose myself (my favorite hobby) and came across an entry for something I was actually diagnosed with a long time ago. It was when I was in California and right around the time I met Rafe. My eyes were itchy and the white part of my eyeballs had a slightly yellowish tint to them. I went to the eye doctor and he said, "It's probably blufferitis. It should clear up on its own soon." I was worried that on my first real date with Rafe, he would notice my eyeballs and get grossed out. Thankfully, he was so nervous he overlooked my yellow eyes and the rest is history. But many months later when I confided in him that I was worried about my eyes that day and I had actually gone to a doctor about it, he laughed at the part when I told him it was called Blufferitis. He asked me if I realized that the doctor was pulling one over on me. Get it, Bluff-eritis. Similar to Fakingtons Disorder and Nothings Disease I guess. Well today, I found out that BLUFFERITIS IS REAL. HA! And it's spelled Blepharitis. A victory for hypochondriacs everywhere.
Posted by debbie at 1:41 AM | Comments (0)