« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
January 31, 2007
Happy Early Valentine's Day to me...
I've been "tagged" for the first time. I suppose this makes me a real blogger now. I really hate all the blogger jargon, including the word "blogger." Whatever, what else am I supposed to do at work? Here are ....
6 Things You Don't Know About Me
-I obsessively read recipes online, even for things I haven't the know-how, the time, nor the desire to make.
-I've shaken hands with 6 celebrities: Barbara Walters, the youngest member of Hanson, the 3 kids from Harry Potter, and...Scott Baio. And I really only cared about the first and the last encounters.
-My new favorite show is Weeds.
-Ever since I narrowly escaped becoming a paraplegic after a spin on the Michael Jackson "Thriller" ride in the outskirts of Mexico City, I have had intense fear of all carnival and amusement park rides.
-My very first word was "more."
-I have a recurring daydream of walking around town with a big fancy dog-carrier purse. In this purse is a gross subway-style rat sporting a diamond collar, a zebra-print cape, and suede winter booties. When curious passerby take a peek in the bag, I tell them Felipe is the new "it" breed- The Ruggle.
Wait, are these supposed to be 6 embarrassing things you don't know about me? If so, then yeah, those should count.
Posted by debbie at 1:02 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2007
Chuckles
I have a real soft spot in my heart for NPR. Juan Williams interviewed Bush yesterday and they put the full transcript online. I love how they made sure to include this bit at the very end:
MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. President, I want say thank you from National Public Radio.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Juan, thank you, buddy. Glad you're here.
MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate it, sir.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes sir.
MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you again.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Camera's off? (Chuckles.)
(END)
Yes, Mr. President, the camera's off, it has been the whole time.
Posted by debbie at 11:49 AM | Comments (2)
January 29, 2007
This is not actually our bed. But it is the same KIND of bed. And when we close our eyes, this is what we imagine.
Winter is finally here. I only noticed because upon opening the front gate to our building this morning, I slipped on a patch of ice and fell on my ass. Not the most promising nor dignified way to start the week, but I'm fine. Thankfully I've got enough in the trunk to cushion most kinds of ass-bound slips and falls.
What else is new? Oh yes. We is sleepin in style! We finally got ourselves a new mattress. A king-size mattress. The same king-size mattress that they have at the W Hotel chain. I've never been to a W because I can't afford to, but I've heard that it's pretty fancy and cool, so when I spotted a mattress with a big W on it at the 1-800-Mattres Outlet (I left the last "s" off for savings) in Queens, I knew I had found The One. Honestly, I'm a brand whore and I didn't really care at that point if the mattress felt like a bed of nails. It had a purple W on it and that's all that mattered. You can imagine how incredibly difficult it is for 2 very different people to settle on 1 mattress, especially when one person is maddingly indecisive (me) and one can't stand to shop for anything for more than 20 minutes (not me).
Last weekend we had a multi-borough adventure trying to find a mattress and we came home frostbitten and empty-handed. We tried Sleepy's and nearly got swindled by a saleslady trying to convince us that our combined sleep number (??) meant we needed a certain kind of high-tech matrix coil support system. One that cost thousands of dollars.
"I mean, this is your sleep, your health, your wellbeing," she implored, "can you really afford to mess around?" "Well, how much is this one?" I asked, after she steered us toward a regal cloud-like pillow-top mattress that was draped with a velvet cover on which was sewn a golden crown emblem. It was the Rolls-Royce of beds. In fact, I think Rolls-Royce was the manufacturer. "Price is really besides the point here," she said, "and we can work out an installment plan if money is a concern. The most important thing is that you're comfortable." She hovered over us as we tested out each mattress, ordering us to "RELAX!" as her money-hungry eyes bore into our vulnerable reclined bodies. "Really test it out, roll around. Just pretend I'm not here." We smiled politely and tried to imagine a life with a $5,000 mattress but as soon as she turned her back, we bolted out of there as fast as we could.
We then tried this place down the street called "New and Almost New Mattresses" that I had found advertised in the Post and although we weren't immediately turned off by the name (we should have been- I mean, an "almost new" mattress is like being "sort of" pregnant or "almost still" a virgin), we were a little skeeved out by the variety of, um, wear and tear some of the mattresses were exhibiting. These mattresses were from Sleepy's showrooms or customer returns. One had a bright yellow heart-shaped stain on it; we really dug this one, it was perfectly plush, but the stain was hard to overlook. Sure, we could have thrown a sheet on it and who would have been the wiser? But deep down we would have been the wiser, and I wasn't sure if I could live with that kind of dirty secret. Rafe and I joked that it probably wasn't really "used", that it had probably only had been made love on. Hence the heart-shaped stain...a love stain what have you. I feel like I've written about this topic too much (furniture shopping, not love stains). But it's really about sleep (or rather the lack thereof) which you probably know by now has been a contentious issue for me. Anyhow, we now have a NEW, not ALMOST NEW, mattress. Well, I'm fairly sure it's new. Who knows, there could be a posse of mutant Queens-bred rats who have made their home in there between the coils...
Yesterday we went to a birthday brunch at Renu's where her boyfriend Jon whipped up a three course menu, each coarse containing an element of pork: a salad topped with prosciutto, a pasta studded with sausage bits, and a challah/egg souffle with some hidden porkiness I can't recall. What a guy. Plus bloody marys and champagne and the worlds' most expensive baklava. Baklava is some heavy shit, all those nuts and all that honey I guess, and when they weigh it by the pound, watch out. Seriously. I was so hungover from the party the night before, but somehow I was able to pull through and then spend the next few hours mattress-hunting in the bowels of Queens. One good thing about mattress shopping is that whenever you are tired, you can just lay down. But Queens. Oh Queens! Last weekend we got so lost, it wasn't even funny. Not as lost as this unfortunate fellow, but lost enough.
Also, I finally saw Laura perform her shtick as a not-gay opera singer from Bensonhurst and it was a riot. Marie and I went and pretended to be girlfriends because it was a lesbian comedy night and it only seemed appropriate. Also, there were midgets in french maid outfits dancing on the bar and we both felt slightly uncomfortable but we could not look away...and I'm admitting that even though it's not very p.c. of me. Sometimes midgets can be intimidiating and this was one of those times. That is all for now.
Posted by debbie at 3:23 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2007
You know it has been an especially weird day when you spent most of it talking to this man,
One of the most notorious paparazzos, negotiating the price for his videos of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke. How could we even settle on a price, you must be asking yourself, for moving images of the one and only Jean-Claude:
AND Mr. Rourke:
Those videos are surely PRICELESS. Really I couldn't think of cheezier b-list actors if I tried. I fear I'm going to have nightmares tonight of all three of those guys.
Posted by debbie at 4:15 PM | Comments (1)
Support the Troops, Have a Tootsie
I haven't blogged in a while. This much is obvious. I've had a lot of things on my mind lately and I had wanted to start blogging again by writing down all my new year's resolutions... Unfortunately a mere 23 days later, I've managed to let myself down on all of them (on the list: no television, wake up without pressing the snooze button ten times, get organized- whatever that means, start exercising again, blah blah blah...actually I took a yoga class on Monday, so that's something!) Anyhow, I thought I'd just skip ahead to more important topics. For example, lately I've been really into mini tootsie rolls. It wasn't a resolution per se, the taste for tootsies just happened spontaneously. Little did I know these miniature chocolatey chews are thought of by some candy snobs as "low class." Low class my ass. Someone else, who shall remain nameless, proclaimed the chews "ghetto candy" when I offered him one. In fact, four out of five people in a unscientific survey refused my tootsie roll offer. What is this about? Who doesn't enjoy a a few midgees now and then?
They're a classic American candy. Ghetto? The Tootsie Roll is perhaps the most patriotic of all candies. There's nothing ghetto about being patriotic.
A girl can't live on Jacques Torres chocolates alone. Unless a kind gentleman friend buys her some because as high class as those 98% cacoa-chipotle n' earl grey flavored bon bons may be, they do not come by the bagful for the low low price of 99 cents.
Posted by debbie at 11:22 AM | Comments (4)
January 10, 2007
2 Seconds of Fame
So that's me and Laura, slurping tea on Japanese TV. Notice how my expression in this frame (taken from a different part of the segment) is exactly the same. I think I was just trying to suppress my laughter so as not to appear rude, which in a formal Japanese tea ceremony is, of course, of utmost importance. If you live in Japan, and were watching the Fuji channel on Friday night, you just might have caught a glimpse of us. A literal glimpse. The whole show was over an hour long, all about Westerners who have "turned Japanese" or something, but we were only on for around two seconds. They edited out all the good parts, like when Laura attempted to stuff a testicle-esque mochi ball covered in powdered sugar into her mouth and laughed so hard the powder exploded all over her face and shirt. Can you believe they cut that out? I'm just relieved they didn't show any shots inside that tea ceremony hut when the camera guy angled the camera behind me as I knelt. I was wearing a pair of old ill-fitting pants sans belt that day, and as I sat contorted in a very awkward position, my butt crack was surely on view. That would have been so embar-ass-ing. Sorry. All in all, my least traumatic television appearance yet. In other news, after spending five days convalescing on the couch, I'm on the mend. I'm wide awake and ready to start the new year off right, which right now basically means buying some new calendars for the house and eating a lot of SuperFoods. SuperFoods, what are those? Let me tell you (unless I already have, which in that case, feel free to stop reading). The fourteen most nutritious, antioxident rich foods you can and should eat as often as possible. The fourteen SuperFoods are...
Beans
Blueberries
Broccoli
Oats
Oranges
Pumpkin/Squash
Wild Salmon
Soy
Spinach
Tea
Tomatoes
Turkey
Walnuts/other nuts
Yogurt
Plus:
Apples
Kiwi
Dark Chocolate
Yep, it's that simple. I'm a new woman people. Thanks to SuperFoods. More New Agey babble forthcoming.
Posted by debbie at 11:41 AM | Comments (2)