I Made a Wrong Toin at Albukoykee!

Hopefully I won't repeat Bugs Bunny's fateful mistake and inadvertently find myself in the middle of a bull fight. (Side note: Until I read "The Sun Also Rises", I had a very romantic notion of bull-fighting all because of that very Bugs cartoon. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening. Thanks, Mr. Hemingway.)

Anyway. Special K and I are rendezvousing in New Mexico for a proper vacation for a week, so I will be MIA for a bit, but I promise I'll return with tales of llama treks, hot rock massages and goodness knows what else.

Typical Saturday Morning on the UWS

Saturday morning, I threw on a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, my runners and I set off for a walk. I had no real plan or any particular destination in mind, so I ended up walking up Broadway from about 62nd to 95th and back again. According to Yahoo! Answers, there about 20 north-south Manhattan blocks in a mile. That means I walked about 3 miles. Not bad. (Someone check my math, please.)

Here's what the Upper West Side was up to on a random Saturday morning:

-- Lots of power walkers cruising hurriedly along, pedometers in place.

-- Actual groups of joggers. I haven't seen groups of joggers since my days in The OC.

-- The Avis car rental place was positively teeming with customers... Manhattanites gettin' their drive on to get out of the city for the day or the weekend.

-- Zabar's market already absolutely packed, with a row of curly-haired ladies lined up at the window counter, all with reading glasses perched at the ends of their noses while they read various papers and consumed various Saturday morning pastries.

-- Early bird shoppers at Fairway scooping up the freshest fruits and veggies before the crowds hit.

-- Men pushing strollers, but said strollers full of groceries instead of small children.

-- The weekly farmer's market in the triangle at Broadway and 65th.

-- A few random drunks still left over from Friday night.

Against the Odds

So this is my 100th blog post. No, really, it is! Which means that I have beat the blogosphere odds. I read somewhere that a new blog is started every eight seconds, but that fewer than 50% of blogs last past the initial three months.

Blog on, dude.

Fastest way to Identify a Symphony Rookie

It's the clapping. Seriously. And I have been completely guilty of it myself. The trick is that you are supposed to wait until the LAST movement of the symphony (or concerto or whatever) has been completed before you applaud. And I ALWAYS feel compelled to clap between movements.

This past Wednesday night, my friend Josh was playing at Lincoln Center with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. He is one of the best violinists in the world and once again, he did not disappoint. I love watching someone perform who I know personally, but almost as enjoyable as watching Josh was watching the other musicians in the orchestra watch Josh. You could tell that even they were blown away by his talent.

Josh played a very ambitious Prokofiev concerto and before the first movement was over, he had already broken two strings on his bow. I still marvel at the fact that his violin is a 300 year-old Stradivarius with an amazing history of its own.

After the concert, I met up with Josh and a few of his friends for a drink and a bite to eat... and as always, it's so refreshing to be reminded that such a successful, accomplished and talented person continues to be so down-to-earth.

“Strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government”

I think that’s my favourite line from Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail”. (The “She turned me into a newt!” exchange is a darn close second.)

Special K was in town last weekend and we spent our Saturday night at the Shubert Theater watching “Spamalot”, the musical adaptation of “The Holy Grail”. While the show was undoubtedly hilarious and had us laughing all night, I think I actually gave my seat mates an even grander show that night, albeit quite inadvertently and unexpectedly.

Rewind to earlier in the evening as we’re getting ready to go out and I wriggle into a grey knit shift dress and because I don’t currently have full-length mirror in my apartment, I ask Special K if he thinks the dress is too short. Of COURSE he says it looks great (he is a boy after all) and off we go.

At the theater, we find our seats and Special K goes off to the restroom. There is one man already seated in our side of the row and our seats are on the other side of him. He is currently absorbed in a conversation on his cell phone. It’s only a few minutes before curtain, so I don’t feel bad making my way down the aisle to sit down, even though I’ll obviously have to disrupt his phone call.

He doesn’t even realize I’m there until I lightly touch him on the arm, say “excuse me” and motion to the seats on his other side. Instead of standing up properly to let me pass, he cradles his cell phone between his right ear and shoulder, uses his hands to hoist himself up by using the armrests as resistance and ends up sort of perched on the edge of his now flipped-up seat.

As I’m trying to slip past him, he loses his grip on the armrests, his seat flips back down under his full weight and his knees and legs shoot forward, right between my legs, pinning me in place as I’m now straddling this strange man (in a short dress …Me, not him.) Even at this turn of events, he still does NOT hang up the phone. “Oh, I just ran someone over” is what he says to his conversation mate on the other end of the line.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only about 5 seconds), I manage to extract myself from this man’s lap and I sit down with as much decorum and class as I could muster.

He finally hangs up his phone, leans over and says “Geez, I’m really sorry!” and then with WAY too much enthusiasm, he says “We’re gonna have a GREAT time tonight, yeah!!”

Not THAT great, buddy, trust me.

Modern Day Ziegfeld Follies – with John Travolta in Drag

I have been meaning to go see a movie at the Ziegfeld simply because it is one of the last grand movie palaces built in the United States. When I first heard about the Ziegfeld, I thought it might have actually been the original theater built in 1927 and now just repurposed for film, instead of live performances. But the original theater was actually razed in 1966 and this new theater was built just down the block from the original location in 1969.

It turns out that the original theater was not only a live performance venue, but had also been used as an NBC television studio, it had hosted the Perry Como Show and it had hosted the Emmy's twice. The original building was tore down to make way for yet another skyscraper (like Manhattan needed MORE of those) and a piece of beautiful New York history was lost forever.

The “new” Ziegfeld is gorgeous inside – miles of sumptuous red carpet, gold trim and detailing. You feel like you really should be dressed in something more than just shorts and flip-flops when you're surrounded by so much gilt and velvet. Oh, and the bathrooms have private sinks in each stall – your own private powder room. Tres chic.

On the day I decided to cross “See movie at the Ziegfeld” off my list, “Hairspray” was playing. Being a Sunday matinee, there were probably fewer than 100 of us in a theater that holds over 1000 people. People were spaced comfortably apart, no one sitting directly in front of anyone else. That is, until two 50-ish women, scurried in just as the previews were beginning, slid into the aisle in front of me and proceeded to sit directly in front of me. I sat there in disbelief with my hand suspended in mid-air, on its way to deliver a few fluffy pieces of popcorn to my waiting mouth. Are you KIDDING me?? An empty theater and you are sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?? One of the women realized what they had done, nudged her friend and they moved over a few seats.

In retrospect, I think they were just literally SO EXCITED to be there that they momentarily forgot themselves as they were choosing seats. As soon as the film began with the good morning Baltimore song, they were bopping and weaving in their seats to the music. And it wasn’t long before they started singing along with the lyrics. And so did the women a few rows behind me. As a Hairspray virgin, I was starting to feel a little out of place, but I persevered.

It wasn’t until a few days later when I rediscovered my ticket stub in my bag that it all made sense. The ticket read “Hairspray – Sing-A-Long!”. Ah ha. THAT explains A LOT, including the karaoke-style lyrics on the screen all throughout the movie.

Ziegfeld Follies indeed.

(Photo note: The image above is the original Ziegfeld -- can you believe they tore this down?)

Nice Umbrella, Dude!

Today, it rained. ALL DAY. While everyone else was scurrying around like mice, darting from building to building, brandishing umbrellas, wellies and rain slickers, trying to stay dry, one single, solitary man in the city of New York seemed completely immune to the pouring rain, and in fact, appeared to openly taunt Mother Nature by exhibiting complete disregard for the weather surrounding him (and indeed, beating right down on him!).

Holly, Ally, Jesse and I set out for our rainy day favourite, The Daily Soup, at lunch today, and as we rounded the corner in front of our building, Holly and I see something quite strange which makes us do a double take.

There is a rather normal looking guy in khakis, collared shirt (tie completely askew) and windbreaker, standing at the corner in front of one of those standard newspaper vending boxes. Above his head, he is holding what used to be a complete umbrella, but which is now simply the metal skeleton of an umbrella without a speck of actual umbrella fabric anywhere to be found. He is soaking wet. (Duh.) He is also casually flipping through a newspaper which he has laid out on top of the newspaper box, at just below his chest level. The newspaper is, of course, just as wet as he is and flips in clumps instead of page by page.

There are a lot of (ahem) interesting people in New York, so this guy could have been anyone, but we were wondering if this is some sort of rainy day prank for the Letterman show (which tapes right across the street from our office).

Somebody needs to stay up tonight and see.

(We never did see what happened with the tubing they ran from our Jamba Juice, across Broadway and into the Ed Sullivan theater... There's always something interesting going on in our neighbourhood.)

Photo credit: Holly and her camera phone

Dove -- The Director's Cut!

Geoff, the director of the Dove video, emailed me last week with a link to his director's cut of the "Fried" video. It's a really cool cut and shows a few 'do's that didn't make it into the final version of "Fried". (Behold the Marge Simpson/Amy Winehouse combo to the right here -- holy beehive, batman!)

Check it out on Geoff's site (you need to click on "Commercials" under "Motion" in the left navigation in order to find it -- sorry I can't link to it directly.)

My Teeth Hurt

When's the last time you had cotton candy? That's right, spun sugar on a stick, usually in either a bright pink or blue hue? If you're like me, you haven't had it since you were about 10 years old, and probably not even so much because you tired of the sugar, but simply because you couldn't stand how sticky it made your fingers. (Oh wait, that's probably just me... goes right in line with the fact that I eat pizza with a knife and fork and will under no circumtances order ribs because I can't STAND how sticky my fingers get -- even with a cute little bowl of lemon juice handy at my place setting. This probably gives you all way more insight into my "food rules" than is strictly necessary.)

Ashley, Mahala and I were out for a girls' dinner on Friday night at Landmarc in the Time Warner Center and when it came time to order dessert, OF COURSE we were each going to order an ice cream cone (!), but Ashley delighted us all when she noted that you could also get cotton candy. (It wasn't on the menu -- you simply have to know to ask for it.)

As soon as our waiter told us that the cotton candy flavour of the night was Pina Colada, we ordered a big fluffy stick of the stuff faster than you could say "cavities on a stick" and we were just like our 10-year old former selves again as we marveled at the way it simply dissolves against your tongue.

And then we all went home and brushed our teeth for about an hour.

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Electronic Gadgets

That's not a commandment, is it? Not the last time I checked. The ten commandments talk about wives (no husbands??) and houses, but there's not a speck of language about thy neighbour's electronic gadgets. And thank goodness. I admit it -- I am coveting my neighbour's iPhone. Yes, it's true. Mahala had one at dinner last Friday night and with just a few minutes of hands-on experience, I have decided I need to begin an extra-curricular relationship outside the scope of my current long-term commitment to my Motorola Razr.

I mean, come on, just for the YouTube videos alone! At dinner on Friday, we watched "Filipino Prison Thriller", "Indian Thriller" and "Random Wedding Party Thriller". Can you beat that for dinner entertainment? (Only the break-your-heart, hand-holding otters can come close.)

Covet away. There aren't three day long lines to buy iPhones anymore.

Huh?

I forgot to blog about this a few weeks ago when I first saw it and I just stumbled across the little note I'd written myself about it.... The note says "Mired.cow". You don't know what that means?? Heck, I couldn't remember what it meant and I wrote it!

After a couple of minutes of reflection, it finally came to me.... I was down in Battery Park a few weeks ago and there's a little marina there with lots of little sail boats docked. Many sail boats had logos on small, pennant-shaped, semi-transparent flags that were being whipped around by the wind.

One boat had a Wired.com logo on its flag, but as the flag twisted upside down and backwards in the wind, it looked like "Mired.cow" and it took me a minute to figure out what the heck muddy barnyard animals had to do with anything.

Toby Likes Noodles

Apparently, Toby also likes vegetables. Or so he says. But Toby has a habit of just repeating things he hears, so it’s hard to place a lot of stock in what Toby says.

I met Toby this past Saturday evening. Nick, Reny, wee Ryan, Jay and I went to Riverside Park for a picnic and some live jazz. As we were walking through the park, we passed a beautiful garden with a wrought iron fence bordering it, and I thought I heard a voice coming from what sounded like a radio. I turned to look, but didn’t see anything. Reny was actually the first to see the brilliant green parrot perched on the top of the iron fence, but once we zeroed in on him, he ironically had nothing more to say.

Toby’s “mom” was sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the sidewalk and she made introductions. Apparently Toby is only a year and a half old (and since parrots can live for 80 years, acquiring such a youngster is literally a life-long commitment) and he already knows over 40 words and phrases. His first full sentence was “Toby is a good boy, SUCH a good boy!”

I think parrots are fascinating, but with my luck, I’d stub my toe in front of the bird, curse aloud and be stuck with a foul-mouthed fowl friend until I died.

Dove Update

So, I misspoke previously. My Dove hair print ad is actually coming out in the September issues of Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar and in the October issues of Cosmopolitan and Redbook. (An extra magazine that I didn't even know about -- bonus!) Here's a little preview for y'all.

And if I can make a shameless plug, I use the "Sheer Moisture" formula every day now and I really love it -- I definitely recommend it!

"Deluge Brings New York to Its Knees"

That's the lead story on the NY Times web site tonight. And it's completely true.

I was woken at 5:00 this morning (along with most of New York) by bright flashes of lightning and violent cracks of thunder. Almost two inches of rain fell between 6:00 and 7:00 am alone. There was even a tornado in Brooklyn that blew out windows and left the twisted wreckage of cars in the street. (Oda's in-laws were one of the impacted homes, losing a number of windows from the sounds of it.)

Between 7:00 and 8:00, the rain let up, but it was already over 85 degrees and it was just like walking out into a sauna. According to the giant time/temperature indicator outside our office window, it hit at least 95 degrees today -- it was definitely the most disgusting, humid, sweaty day I've experienced yet this summer.

Many main roads were under water, but even more debilitating was that the sudden downpour sent water gushing into subway tunnels, paralyzing the mass transit system just before the busy morning commute. Oda and I are lucky enough that we live close enough to the office to walk, but most of our colleagues were significantly delayed because of the subway disruption and some weren't able to make it to work at all.

Just to give you a sense of how complete the chaos was, here was a sign posted in Penn Station:

“No trains at this time: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, N, R, S, Q, W, V, F, L, J, 7 to Queens.”

Um, that's pretty much ALL the trains to Queens.

Many trains still weren't running by the time the afternoon commute rolled around.

Oh, and by the way, this is the same darn storm that kept me in Chicago all night on Monday. I talked to a colleague in Chicago tonight and he said they're sending another big storm our way.

Is there a Noah out there anywhere?? We may need your services.

My RENT was Overdue

Last Wednesday night, Nick, Ally and I went to see RENT on Broadway. I’ve seen RENT once before (back in the day, in Los Angeles, when Doogie Howser played Mark), but this was something special because both the ORIGINAL Mark (Anthony Rapp) and Roger (Adam Pascal) have returned to the cast.

When Mark and Roger first appeared on stage, there was more screaming and shrieking from the audience than you see in old black & white footage of Beatles concerts. Seriously, the girls behind us nearly blew our ear drums and then they sat literally whimpering and on the verge of hyperventilating for the next two hours and forty minutes.

We were completely surrounded by RENTheads. Actually, Ally and I were accompanied by our very own RENThead. Nick has seen RENT seven or eight times now and knows all the words and all the lyrics. It was really fun watching the show with someone who loves it so much.

I personally enjoyed getting reacquainted with the storyline and the characters and you can’t help but enjoy Jonathan Larson’s clever lines and lyrics (and the actors’ individual interpretations of such), but at the end of the day, I still find myself musing over the question “Why don’t they get JOBS?”.

Quick Trip to Canadia

(No, that is not a typo and yes, someone did ask me once if I was from Canadia. Sigh.)

My cousin, Krishan, married beautiful Lana this past weekend in Vancouver and so I popped over to the west coast of Canadia to participate in the festivities. Because I don’t see my extended family on a really frequent basis, I forget what a bunch of social butterflies we all are. The weekend basically consisted of us moving around Vancouver, en masse, from party to party. I felt a little like Jay Gatsby. (I also got to enjoy the ferry ride from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay (and back) to go see the gang on Vancouver Island.)

Everything was going great until I tried to “pop” back to New York yesterday. Although I should know better, I booked my return flight connecting through Chicago. (Such a rookie mistake, I know.) Due to severe thunderstorms in the Chicago area, when we landed, we were just added to the dozens of already landed planes on the tarmac who were all waiting for gates. (Ground personnel is not allowed to work outside during electrical storms.) The tarmac full of planes looked like one of those awkward cocktail parties where everyone is just standing around, shifting from foot to foot, trying (but not very hard) to make small talk. Eventually the storm passed enough that we could get into a gate and deplane, but then most flights were late or cancelled. I finally got back to New York at about 3:30 this morning. I am dragging my proverbial you-know-what today.

But big virtual hug to Chrissy who saved the day with a sugar rush in the form of a delivery of cupcakes from Burgers & Cupcakes (hard to tell what they serve, isn’t it?) as a belated birthday treat and many, many virtual kisses (poor substitute for the real thing obviously) to Special K who sent the crispest, reddest group of 11 roses with a lone orange one for good measure. Happy sigh.

My Face on a Cake - What More Could You Ask For?

Nick’s face, of course!! Nick and I are both Leos. And narcissists that we are, we are big fans of this sort of shameless self-promotion.

It all started innocently enough with cakes featuring our web sites for a party we threw in June and now look what it's devolved into.