Potatoes in the Mist

So I did a little more work on the scarf I started yesterday, and began a new one. Some of you may recognize the darker pink yarn I took a picture of before. It's harder to work with than the light pink yarn, but I'm getting used to it. The light pink yarn is like an obedient little child, while the darker pink yarn likes to run around and rip up the playground. I can't wait to learn about sweaters and hats!

So I went to knitting class today. It was a lot of fun. The knitting cafe was buried deep in the Village, further south than I tend to go, but I found it after a little bit of exploring. The cafe itself was just adorable. Their motto is the title of this post. There was a counter where they sold brownies, tea and other goodies (my attention was caught and held by the nice, thick, chocolatey brownies). Two other women showed up for the class. One of them just got a part in a student-written play (she was maybe in her 40s) and had to knit in a scene while arguing with her husband. She wanted to be able to knit convincingly. The instructor commended her for this, noting that often in the movies when people are supposed to be knitting, they're not doing it right and it takes her out of the story ;) Knitting is surprisingly easy if someone teaches you live. As the teacher put it, "Everyone walks out a knitter." I had my doubts at first, because the Internet instructions weren...

This disco ball is integral to my and D's relationship ;) When we met in '99, it was at a friend's birthday party in New York. I thought I'd never see him again...I was living in Massachusetts. Yet, the very next weekend, I saw him at a party in Cambridge. We talked the whole time and he floated the idea of visiting him in New York. I couldn't decide. We had this great connection, but we had just met (well, the previous weekend). Then, somehow, it came up that he had a disco ball. At the time I was very into Saturday Night Fever, both the movie and the soundtrack, and this was just the sign that I needed :) It makes me laugh, because most of the pick-up guides for men probably advise "Drive a Maserati" or "Be mean to her." But the disco ball worked for me, much better than a Maserati or meanness would have.

This is the kind of meme I can't resist, though I haven't been doing many memes lately. Feel free to do it on your own blog or even in my comment section :) The rules are, you bold the books you've read, italicize the ones you want to read, and leave unchanged the ones you're not interested in. A side note: I've had 2 celebrity sightings in the past week. One was Nathan Lane on 5th Ave between 15th and 16th. He was surrounded by a tight little knot of men (entourage or bodyguards? Except they didn't look particularly big.) He said, "I need my time!" and they all laughed obligingly. Today I saw Ted (the chef on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) . I've seen him before, as well as Jai Rodriguez, the guy who does "culture." I wonder if it is still on the air. D and I used to be devotees of the show, and then we got bored. And here is the meme: 1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) 2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper...

So that time has come again. I am looking for book recommendations. Feel free to recommend any and all books you love in the comment section. If you want to leave a long rambly comment with multiple recommendations, so much the better. A small confession. D and I went to Dumont Burger in Brooklyn for lunch. We sat at the bar and D was fascinated by all the brightly-colored liquor (the shiny blue of Bombay Sapphire, the cat's-eye topaz of the Scotch.) Suddenly he started bombarding me with questions about blood alcohol content, and if someone drank the whole bottle of Scotch, would it kill them? I really don't know. He thinks it would. After the meal, we headed to the cat bookstore. There are two cats, a black one with white socks, and Rainer, who has black-and-grey stripes. The black cat is sweet but lacks Rainer's charisma. Anyway, Rainer always sits in my lap. But we entered the bookstore...and (gasp!) Rainer was perched on the lap of another. I was stung, but had to say ...

Blogger just made me switch to the beta version. How fascist of them! I'll get over it, though. Maybe this one has some nifty new features. So my friend, L, the woman who is getting back together with her Edinburgh boyfriend of auld lang syne , sent me her story: Victor and I met in 1977 in a disco in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was a philosophy student at the university, from Wisconsin. Victor, from Kilmarnock in the West of Scotland, was working on an oil rig and had a cute apartment where we gave dinner parties. He was, and is, a superb cook. We had a trip to Paris after I graduated, and to London where we got matching tattoos on our feet, and a road trip to the "low Highlands." Then, I returned home to the Midwest, and went on to New York and a job at The New Yorker, and Victor began working as a photographer in Edinburgh. I always knew that Victor would do very well, and he has. On the web I saw that he'd won awards. He has two daughters, 12 and 21. He contacted me by...

I always see a West Highland terrier in the same spot when I take an after-dinner walk. (Last night, dinner was mushroom and Swiss cheese quesadillas...they were good, but for some reason, they made my stomach hurt). Anyway, the dog is always at the corner of 8th Ave. and West 12th St., on the course of its own walk. I bent down to pat it and happened to sniff (I was a little congested) and the dog jumped a mile. I reassured it that everything was ok, it was a very good dog and I just happened to be sniffling. Then it licked my nose and went on its way. This reminded me of my own dog, who lived from 1983 to 2001. One of her quirks was a fear of hiccups. If you hiccuped near her, she was convinced that she had done something terribly wrong. Nothing could persuade her otherwise. She would sit at your feet and look up at you apologetically. It always made me feel bad about hiccuping, though it was cute and funny also. What are your pet's peccadillos? (And...I might have a guest-writte...

A friend of ours (she actually introduced me to yoga!) is reuniting with a long-lost boyfriend. He's a photographer in Scotland, and she'll be living there for the next six months. Pictures from 1977 and 2006: I like the idea of them reconnecting with the past, and each other.

We just got back from Music and Lyrics, which I just loved! 5 stars and a total of four thumbs up (mine and D's). The title of this entry is taken from one of the songs in the movie. We enjoyed all the songs in the movie. I plan on getting the soundtrack :) I would recommend it if you've liked any movie Hugh Grant was in...he does the same endlessly charming/dapper shtick with aplomb, and Drew is lovable as usual. The tall woman from Third Rock played Drew's sister...she is funny even without saying anything. Not in a bad way at all :) There were a few interesting previews. Jerry Seinfeld is going to be the voice of a bee in an animated movie. There was also Knocked Up with Katherine Heigl from Grey's Anatomy (D said, "You can see that with one of your friends") and The Ex with Zach Braff and Amanda Peet (looked like it might be fun in a silly way). I'm not the biggest fan of Amanda, but Zach cancels her out.

So I found out today that Britney Spears shaved her head, and a cat adopted a six-day-old Rottweiler at a Connecticut shelter. (The accompanying picture was very cute...the Rottweiler puppy was all snuggled up with the cat's kittens.) In other news, we met M&M's baby last night! M&M live way uptown. Parts of Manhattan have different personalities, and by the time you're all the way north, the terrain is hilly and the towering George Washington Bridge dominates the view. (I actually met D about 10 blocks from their neighborhood, back in '99, at a party.) We brought a pink rabbit, a small pink dress, a onesie that says "baby shower" (and depicts a bunny sitting in a bathtub with the shower turned on), and a tiny tank top that says "Single and Fabulous." :) In all the excitement, I forgot to take pictures of our own gifts, but I got some shots of the bebe, her mother and wardrobe.

Today, when I went to the library to pick up my reserves and return some other books, I encountered a new librarian. I approached with caution. Librarian: Hah, sweetie! Me: Hi. I've got some returns. Librarian: Ok, hon. [I relax. But then...] Librarian: Oh lawdy! Oh lawdy, this is so embarrassing. Did you check these out? You sure they're not your reserves? Me: Yup. Librarian: Oh lawd, it keeps telling me "X." Why is it telling me X? Why? [looks at the other librarian, who is yelling at a patron. Then she grabs a calm woman with red hair.] Why is it telling me to press "X"? Redhead: [shrugs] I dunno. Press X. [Librarian presses X.] Librarian: [with a sigh of relief] Whew, there we go. That was so embarrassing! Lawdy. Why, when I go to the library, do I feel like I'm entering the Twilight Zone? Oh well. I think it's only my branch, too. The other branches seem eminently normal :) News on knitting. I decided I want to learn from the experts. I was enco...

I got some cotton-candy-colored acrylic yarn today...it's supposed to be good for people with sensitivity to wool. I've learned to cast on with some proficiency (that's basically the beginning of a scarf), although knitting itself is harder. I kept dropping stitches (a phrase I never really understood before) but it becomes clear when all your yarn slides off the needle! Also, knitting is a workout. I taught a yoga class today, but knitting is definitely harder on your shoulders. Maybe I will develop new "knitting muscles." I'm a little irritated by the concept of holidays. I don't think you should be forced to celebrate anything. Or maybe I'm just becoming Scrooge-like in my dotage. Anyway, here's a picture of where I'll start tomorrow:

So I might take up knitting. I like the scarf that DG's ex-girlfriend made for him, and wouldn't mind having one of my own. Then I started reading The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, and noticed knitting directions in the back. So you can make a scarf. It must be fate. (There was also a muffin recipe). It seems like a good book, and Julia Roberts is going to star in the movie version. I'm not sure whether I'll really get into knitting or not, but I like the idea. D pointed out that all my hobbies involve media (books, movies, CDs) or exercise (yoga and Pilates). Knitting strikes me as similar to playing the guitar in terms of manual dexterity, and I gave up guitar after a brief attempt many years ago. But we'll see. I'd like to knit a rosy sweater and scarf.

Our friends, M&M, had their baby! They're our first friends in the city to have a child. A high school friend of mine has a girl and twin boys, but she lives in Houston. M&M's baby girl is 7.7 pounds and has a fun and unique name. M had actually put together a program before her birth, compiling names. However, it was a warped program. M&M cast votes on which names they liked best and least, and the program gave preference to names that neither had strong feelings for. M joked that, as a result, the baby would be named Pizza Hut. Fortunately, that is not the case :) D likes to give large stuffed bears to babies, but he was crestfallen because they're only appropriate for 1-year-olds and older. I told him he can give her one later. I can't wait to meet the baby! 7.7 pounds sounds like a nice birth weight, also. The babies in my family were bruisers...my brother clocked in at 10 pounds, I was 9 and a half, and my twin sisters were 5 pounds each, which is appar...

I'm watching Justin Timberlake perform at the Grammys, and he's actually pretty good. Hopefully D won't read this entry ;) He hates him with the passion of a thousand suns.

I have a bit of a travel bug. Usually I want to stay firmly rooted in New York, but a few places are beckoning me right now... London. Our friend P is there, I like it, but I have been there before so it won't have the novelty thing going on. However, they have many books by British authors before the US gets them...always a perk. I don't know what the weather is like there right now. Oh, I think it's snowing (based on British blogs I read). Tokyo. Maybe by way of San Fran or L.A. Thailand. If we went there, we would go after D's friend moves there. Or maybe just San Fran by itself. Last night we went to a resto with DG. I used to love the place to the utmost, but they've brightened the lights, killing the atmosphere, and it's obscenely crowded. As usual we were relegated to a couch under the stairs. And the waitress seemed to be on crack (until DG asked her if she was an actress, due to her dramatic energy. This seemed to anger her and she faded away.) So, I do...

This is addictive, though I think it's harder than the Atari version.

So D and I saw a movie last night, The Lives of Others. It was a foreign film playing at the Angelica (an "artsy" theater), but due to a positive review from A.O. Scott in the New York Times, the place was packed. The movie was about life in East Germany before the wall fell. It was extremely interesting (it was actually a bit of a thriller, with a fair amount of suspense), but it was depressing also. It got under my skin more than D's...I was still thinking about it that night and this morning. We went to Good for brunch and I had my usual bowl of mixed fruit with vanilla yogurt, but also tried their corn arepas. They had a strong, sour flavor (maybe lime?) so next time I would probably get a side of two pancakes instead.

So I'm not going to meet the three-year-old tonight. Hopefully I'll meet her another time. I did hear a fun story about her, though. Today the little girl visited the publication where her mother works. She met the editor-in-chief. Their conversation went as follows: Editor-in-chief: You're cute! Three-year-old: You're cute! I bet the editor was happy to hear that :) For lunch, I had one of my favorite meals ever: a signature salad from Cosi (greens, grapes, pears, dried cranberries, and pistachios) and a slice of their bread, fresh from the oven. There are very few things better than that.

I love the book I'm reading! I knew I would fall for it when the first section was called "A Piece of Cake," the epigraph was a Dr. Seuss quote about cake, and one of the main characters is a baker. (Along these lines, I also love the book Pastries by Bharti Kirchner, about two rival bakeries in Seattle. It almost made me want to jump on a plane and sample the goods, but I remembered it was only fiction and Seattle is pretty rainy. I'd take snow over rain any day, except maybe in the summer, because that would be strange.) The book I'm reading now is called The Whole World Over by Julia Glass. I actually like it better than her previous book, Three Junes , which won the National Book Award. Part of it, I'll admit, is the baker thing and the fact that it's set in New York, a very familiar world for me. I'm always fascinated by the different ways people see New York, which makes it a million different cities all at once. The Whole World Over has some sim...

D and I watched Sweet Home Alabama tonight. I didn't like it all that much. It was ok, but I actually liked Because I Said So better. Reese Witherspoon is just hard to like sometimes. Plus, the plot was painfully predictable. I mean, the title basically gives it away. She's not going to go for the New York guy with a title like that. And they kept playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," of course...I liked the way they used it in Forrest Gump better. Grr. Moving on, D told me there was an article in the Times about baby gender selection and how it's easier to control what you have now. The Times has a feature where you can comment on certain articles, and that was one of them. The article has already collected over 200 comments. I don't have a strong opinion on the subject. In a way, I think you should leave it up to fate, but I understand if people want to influence the outcome. What do you think?

So I saw "Because I Said So" with K today. She said, "That mother was awful!" but I like Diane Keaton so much that I had trouble separating the two. We decided that chick flicks get bad reviews because they're being judged by the wrong people. We both enjoyed it (though the graphic mother/daughter sex talk was a bit much). Also, we discovered on the escalator that neither of us knows where the Colts are from. The Bears were easy, but the Colts? Who knows. As you can see, I'm not a huge Superbowl fan ;)

D and I stopped at the Hungarian bakery tonight. It's actually featured in the novel Model Student... the protagonist went to Columbia and ate there. Anyway, my favorite thing to get there is the lemon petit four. It's big enough to share, which we did. And I remember once I got it when we were with MF, and I waxed so enthusiastic about it that he said, "It's a petit five!" Another dessert memory: in high school, a group of friends and I went to the Sylvan Street Grille (in Massachusetts). Tantalized by the dessert menu, we decided to return someday and order every dessert on the menu. Sadly, we never did this. (Actually, it's probably a good thing...we would have been sick.) This brings me to the dessert hierarchy. I bet every woman has one (unless you are equal opportunity). Mine is as follows: Pie - not so much, except apple and pumpkin on special occasions. Blueberry pie = meh. Brownies - good. Cake - good, unless it's chocolate. Italian-style cookies ...

At Pilates today, my teacher explained that before she moved in with her boyfriend, she used to sublet her apartment (just for a weekend or week) when she went away, and make $150-$300 a night. She found subletters through Craigslist. Part of me thinks this is a smart, enterprising idea; the other part of me envisions the scene in every teen movie ( Shag, Girls Just Want to Have Fun) where the party crashers burst through the plate glass window (miraculously, no one is injured, despite the shards of glass flying everywhere) and trash the place thoroughly (top to bottom). Sometimes they even chant, "PURPLE JESUS." In short, I don't want to open our home to hooligans. Netflix continues to supply us with an array of movies. Last night we watched A Midsummer Night's Sex Dream , which was kind of disappointing. It was Woody Allen's take on the Shakespeare play. I read in Wikipedia that the Mia Farrow role was intended for Diane Keaton, so I just kind of sulked througho...