Potatoes in the Mist

So...first off, thanks for all your underwear advice. I have tried several of your suggestions and so far Hanes is the clear winner. I recommend them :) The two books I've read most recently: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield and Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner. Duran Duran: Sheffield is a rock journalist for Rolling Stone and writes about music in a fun, engaging manner. Fly Away Home : I thought this was Weiner's best book since Little Earthquakes . I loved all the characters. And today...I am going to Connecticut to see Heart with a friend. And then I am done traveling for a while...

So I went all crazy!! and got highlights at the salon today. My hairdresser said, "No way...you're getting highlights?!?" She has been waiting for this day. Anyway, here are the results:

Haven't done one of these in a while. Questions: 1. What one food could you eat every single day? Watermelon. 2. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Nope. 3. What kind of cell phone do you have? A Blackberry!! I actually don't like talking on the phone, but I love it for texting and emailing. 4. What did you have for dinner last night? Baked ziti. I make it with Muenster and Parmesan instead of ricotta. Everyone loves it, even my choosy-eater son. 5. What is your favorite candy? I don't eat candy very often, but I do like Snickers.

Here is a heart cowl I made - the pattern is over at Ravelry: Cowls are the new black, if you ask me. I've never truly loved scarves, making or wearing them. Cowls are a nice substitute, easy to make, yet fertile ground for fun patterns. I saw The Kids Are All Right today - nothing to do with The Who song. I'm still mulling it over. I like Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo - and yet they put him in a role where he is kind of, in his own words, "a tool."

I'm currently reading Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman . I enjoyed The Cookbook Collector so much that I decided to delve into her previous works. I've tried Intuition several times (always from the library) and I just can't get into it. This time I got as far as the lab mice they are using to study tumors in vivo. I just can't read that stuff. Coincidentally, Allegra Goodman is reading at a park near me on July 29th. I am thinking about going, though honestly, it is stinking hot here and sometimes it is better to be indoors with the A/C and fan. I got Election from the library because I've read everything else by Tom Perrotta, but he doesn't seem to want to write anything new. I delayed reading this one because I've already seen the movie. Linger is the sequel to Shiver , which I liked...kind of a benign rip-off of Twilight , starring werewolves. Also with better writing. Jennifer Weiner is an old favorite. I met her at a bookstore reading years ago an...

Today, we are going to talk about underwear. I had some old underwear that I love. It wasn't in the best shape, though. I tried getting some new panties at Old Navy, but they changed the cut (on all styles, apparently), so that they ride high on your bottom, and it's not very comfortable. Anyway. So: I'm looking to you, blog friends, to tell me about your favorite underwear. A few guidelines: I don't like thongs or grammy panties (I find both uncomfortable in different ways). I like bikini panties that cover my bottom, don't ride up and are comfortable. It just occurred to me: maybe Target is a good place to get them? There isn't one in New York, not in Manhattan anyway, but there is always good old Target.com.

So, in case you didn't notice, I got a new blog template. I like the rosy color, but I'm a little put off by the chunky thing at the bottom of each post that lets you share the post with Facebook, Twitter, etc. I don't want to share - I like to keep my online worlds separate! (Kind of.) So if anyone knows how to get rid of that awkward thing, it would be much appreciated. (I went through the settings tab, but no clues.) Just finished The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Her writing style is prosaic, but her discoveries are worth reading. I liked this quote: The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced. -Michel de Montaigne I tried to read Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida, but it was just too depressing. On to better books.

I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin - a study of what makes people happy - and came across the following quote: "Both men and women find relationships with women to be more intimate and enjoyable than those with men. For both men and women, the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference." I thought that was interesting. I wonder if little boys fall in the same category as women, though. E is quite cozy...

I saw this question over at Caro's blog and liked it. If you could pick a decade to live in, which would it be? I would choose the 70s. I like the avocado and orange color scheme, the shaggy hair, the disco, the relaxed spirit, and I think the level of "conveniences" was not yet high enough to be inconvenient. Of course, I might just be nostalgic for this decade because I was born in 1975 :) I saw DMB last night. I thought they were inconsistent. I loved some of the older songs, and he really did improvise and change them around live, often for the better. But unfortunately most of the songs were from this new album, something about a whiskey king, and were just not my style. Plus, I am a mother now, and started to yawn around 10:30. So I slipped out then. Amazingly, the train from Citifield (where the Mets play, and the concert was held) to Penn Station is only 17 minutes.

So a friend of mine, on Facebook, announced that she has an extra ticket to see Dave Matthews on Saturday night. I'm going! I'm very excited. I wanted to see him in 1998, but was unable to get tickets. In other news, I'll be seeing Heart in a couple of weeks, in Connecticut. I was invited by an old friend from work, who has been dying to see Heart his whole life. I am looking forward to hearing their 80s hits. Funny how life works, isn't it? I can't even remember the last concert I went to - sometime before giving birth, I'm sure - maybe Madonna in 2006? and here I am going to two concerts in a month.

So my 35th birthday is coming up. I am not viewing it with total dread. I made a point of scheduling a party for that night. So I'll be at a yummy Indian restaurant with friends, and I plan to have at least one Indian Rose (a cocktail with a rose petal floating on top). Years ago, my sister-in-law ate the petal, just to see if it was edible. Her words: "You can eat it, but I wouldn't recommend it." My book pile is quite huge. I picked up two extra books at Books-a-Million in Chicago, and also hit the library. Here are the titles: 29 by Adena Halpern : About a seventy-something woman who time-travels back to age 29. She has several pearls of wisdom, such as: "Don't pluck your eyebrows completely off! They *won't* grow back." I don't pluck mine at all. The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives by Josie Brown : Looks completely trashy, but maybe fun. What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen: Memoir of a woman who finds herself divorced and pregnant ...

So I just got back from Chicago, it was very nice (kind of a combination of St. Louis and New York), but I think it will be my last plane trip for a while. I am just kind of planed out. While there, I finished The Cookbook Collector, which I loved. Except...they had to work in this whole 9/11 thing at the end. I hate it when they do that. Currently reading Olive Kitteridge. Which is well written but very, very depressing. They are actually short stories (I hadn't realized, because it looks like a novel), with a few characters in common. Got an ARC of The Good Psychologist to review. So yeah, all set with books for a while.

Here is this week's pile. I am currently finishing The Girl Who Stopped Swimming , which I am loving. When we were at Barnes & Noble yesterday, E snagged a sticker book. His favorite place to put the stickers is his chest :)

Here's a hat I finished today: I'm thinking of knitting a yellow cable scarf next. It's too hot to exert myself much. I had a piece of apple pie with (subtle) crunchy topping and just a hint of vanilla ice cream at lunch. It was delicious. I watched a movie on Netflix called Cashback . It was not for everyone - too much nudity, for one thing - but I liked the quirky British narrator and how the actors all looked like real people. The idea of freezing time was also interesting.

So we took E to the beach yesterday with two friends. I slathered on sunscreen and then I romped in the ocean, assuming the sunscreen was waterproof. Um, it wasn't. Fortunately my skin has always been a bit olive, so I didn't burn, or at least too seriously; I do have one red patch. But I put a bunch of lotion on today and it feels much better. One of my friends recently had a baby, and another is about to. Neither woman is married. It's interesting to me how there are so many ways to come into the world - planned, unplanned, parents married, parents not married. I saw a 3-D ultrasound of the growing baby. She looked peaceful.

So here is the shrug I finished, from the back. The back is more interesting than the front. I'm not going to bother with the brooch; it looks perfectly fine left open. I'm going to Chicago not this weekend, but next. Whee! Hopefully it will be different enough from New York to be an adventure. While there, I will meet up with a friend I haven't seen in 13 years. So that will be fun. Tomorrow we are taking E to the beach. D bought him some sand toys in preparation. And we have a little yellow beach chair for him with a sun umbrella attached.

So I saw Eclipse today with a friend of mine from college. It's funny, when I saw the first two movies, I was firmly pro-Edward. This time, I was drawn to Team Jacob. He was just so sweet to Bella, and kept her warm at night in the tent! Edward is too cold (literally) to do that. And she has to die to be with him! That is too much to give up for a guy, if you ask me. Afterward, T and I went to a restaurant for wine and dessert. She wanted her own dessert, though (not that I blame her), so I ended up having a whole pecan brownie with ice cream. And, um, two small muffins that they brought over in a basket. And, uh, a glass of Riesling. So, in other words, more than I eat in a week. I have food guilt. Also, I've been having some trouble sleeping. D actually has a hypnosis thingy on his iPod Touch that is supposed to help you get to sleep. I'm going to try it tonight, if I remember.

I think life is seldom perfect, but right now...I do have a perfect feeling in my belly. For lunch, D and I took E to an outdoor cafe, where we had veggie burgers with greens on the side. This dish is good, but never quite filling. So then I couldn't decide between a glass of Riesling or a slice of key lime pie...and decadently opted for both. It was delicious. Later, when I got home with the baby, I ate a bit of cheese from the fridge. I may actually be a Frenchwoman deep down...I think there are few things more lovely than wine and cheese.