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?”.