Planet Couch

So because Mark doesn't want a fat wife he's forced me to join Planet Fitness. They just opened a shiny, sterile location two blocks from my ghetto castle and so I could go there on my walk back from work everyday. Or I can walk the opposite direction to go walk my dog at my parent's house and somehow manage to never make it.
Not that I don't want to work out. It's more I just don't know where I'm going to put it in my schedule yet. I'm not a fan of waking up at 5am to work out before work and if I work out before walking the dog he'll have an accident. But if I work out after I walk the dog I'll probably be too hungry. So it's all up in the air but I've been a member for 4 days so far and I've managed to go a total of zero days. So that's that.

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She turned [edited for author's safety]. In a truly clever moment my sister's boyfriend asked her "What's it like to turn 16?". I thought it was funny.
It was a slightly sad birthday for her because our precious old dog, Sabastian, was in the animal hospital. He's been sick for awhile and had a scary spell the night before so they rushed him over. There had been talk that he had a brain tumor but the scans turned out negative.
So technically that's great but it's very frustrating because they still have no idea what's wrong with him. I think he might be having seizures but I only hear about his spells. I'm never there when they happen. So we're hoping he comes home soon because I'm sure he's pretty miserable over there and we're miserable and worried over here.

In general though it was a rough night for pets in my family. Hours before my dog was rushed to the animal hospital my parakeet, Claudia, became impaled on a paper clip. Please don't ask how the paper clip came to be in her cage. All I can say is it had been there for 3 months without incident and then suddenly there is a parakeet skewered onto it.
Mark had to slide her off of it as it was through her throat and out of her mouth. It was pretty upsetting to watch her bleed all over the place. You realize how tiny they are and how there is so little you can do for them. Luckily she's got moxie and she seems to be doing okay. We prayed hard that she'd still be alive the next morning and she was. We drenched her in hydrogen peroxide and water and she's eating, climbing around, pecking at Vinnie, and in general seems to be in good spirits.

Oh, did I mention that for my mom's birthday I decided to make a Mississippi Mud Pie for her. It was quite a success because apparently my mom loves mud pie. She gasped in delight and I felt very proud. It was all hand made, including the crust and it was so decadent I'm pretty sure we all had mini heart attacks last night. But as I ate my chocolately, creamy slice I thought to myself 'it's okay, I have a gym membership.'

Canta y no Llores

So I can't get this song OUT OF MI CABEZA!


Go to this page on another tab and you can not only sing along but you can get the translation too! The other day I was riding along on my usual A train, which by the way is a famous song of its own and those little Mexican guys, you know which I'm talking about, came on and starting singing and the song just stuck in my head. Now I'm reading Caramelo by Cisneros and it's about a Mexican family and that song has appeared. It's stalking me.

So, I went to my second (and last) day of baking class at ICE. I was a little less nervous and was stressed about how day two with Jersey Housewife would be. She walked into class chattering away with some ladies from from another work table. Totally ignored me. But my friend from day one, we'll call her English, still wasn't there and I was nervous I'd be stuck with Jersey all on my own.

Well, class started, English appeared, and when we all went back to our work-benches Jersey peaced out and went to work (or boss around) her new friends. English and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and I said "Well, apparently our feelings were mutual." Good riddance! English and I had a great afternoon baking, figuring out how the hell to start the food processor and mixer, and chillin'. We got to split amazing baked goods between just two of us and in the end we exchanged numbers to maybe, one day, call each other and take a class together. We'll see! But it was a nice gesture.

What have I learned: Chocolate is god. No wonder the natives of Central America used to sacrifice humans. If they were doing to it please their gods and the gods gave them chocolate, I too would be frightened that they'd take it away.

This is not a picture of the tart that I personally made but I swear to you, this is EXACTLY what it looked like. Yeah...a deadly thing to have in your fridge.

Crumb Buns and Wide Hips

I just saw a commercial for Nutella. Nutella is making its debut to the wide American public! Here's what I have to say to you America: I suggest enjoying Nutella with a good-quality crunchy peanut butter. But...watch the hips. They spread.

You know what I love about the NYC Subway. I love being in a moving train inside the tunnel and passing by another moving train. Often times you're going slow enough that you can see into the other train's windows. What I think is cool is that the windows appear to be quick snapshots into the train. Everyone is frozen in this one position and the dirt on the windows and the darkness of the tunnel gives everything a strange 'sepia' light to it. Ride the train, keep your eyes out, see what I mean.

Today I took a class at the Institute of Culinary Education. We made focaccia, bakery crumb buns, fougasse, rosemary olive bread knots, pecan sticky buns. Tomorrow we'll make sweet and savory tarts. Is it really a big surprise that I'm super excited for the bitter chocolate tart?

We worked in teams of 3. Luckily there was one lady I got along with very nicely. She was soft-spoken and seemed to be quite a rookie like me. It was great because we ended up working with this other lady who doesn't seem to quite get the 'team work' thing. We're supposed to all read the recipe together, work together. She starts up the mixer and just goes. She's a Jersey Housewife type. Lots of makeup, little summer dress, enormous diamond ring, funny accent. She's taken classes there before and just dived in with no interest in including us.
Because I was so out of my element I kinda just stepped back at first but then my pal was like "No way! We all paid our $220 for this class! You go. It's your turn" So we gently let her know that we weren't going to be invisible and so we started to step up and take turns.
Part of the reason I tried to stay under the radar was because the chef was classic "chef" in that he yelled, embarrassed, made people feel uncomfortable. He definitely had his funny lines here and there but it was ideal to stay out of his way.

So now I've got just a few treats in my kitchen after saving them from my father's hands. I plan on having some yummy bakery crumb buns with my coffee tomorrow! I'll definitely be making those again, they're delish!

A Moment for Books

So I just finished reading Anita Shreve's Testimony. This woman is amazing. I devoured it. I love everything she creates. The first of her books I read was Sea Glass. I can't remember exactly what made me pick it up. Was it free? Or the cover intrigued me? It was an unusual read for me. I remember being caught off-guard by the way she writes. Is it that she doesn't depend on dialogue in any way? I don't think I immediately loved Sea Glass but then I read another of her books...which I can't remember, but I think I was hooked.
Since then I've tried to read almost all of her novels. Whenever I see them for sale at a thrift store I jump at the chance to own them. I can't say I identify with any of her characters in the usual way - they all tend to be extremely WASPish, wealthy or well-off, formal. But at the same time they're all so tortured and eloquent, they're all in such pain! The tension, the suffering: you don't have to be a WASP to identify with that! I don't know, I just really love her tempo, her style.

The Time Traveler's Wife is coming out as a movie in just a few days. As much as I love Rachel McAdams, I'm not interested in viewing this movie anytime soon.* Usually when a book turns into a movie I can potentially get excited for it, especially if while reading the book I picture it cinematically. And vice versa, if a really good movie turns out to be based on a book I'll run to read the book before I watch the movie just so I can compare them.
But I remember reading The Time Traveler's Wife and it was a pretty complex, imaginative book. I can't imagine how much will be lost in the film. I mean the time travelling and the following Henry around when he's with himself, and keeping track of which age Clare is and where they are in their relationship. I mean, I'm rambling but that just goes to show you how confusing yet awesome this book was and how a movie just won't work. I recommend the read however. I loved it.

*Due to boredom I viewed the movie trailer online. Okay fine, it does look entertaining enough...

Love and Pastries

It's really hot. But you already knew that.

These lovely people got married. (College Sweethearts!)
It was a really pretty event and I was glad to have been invited. The groom, because of Title IX, was my softball teammate on the Women's team for a while at Purchase College before the baseball team came to fruition.
The bride is from a French background and many guests had made the trip over the Atlantic to take in the nuptials. It was really fun to hear all the pretty French words being thrown around. It really seems to be an impossible language to understand.
The French relatives and friends were quite the bons vivants you might say. The Frenchies made the event very high energy which was great because after viewing it all, my wedding will probably be quite boring. Mark and I will have to rethink inviting a lot of heavy drinking friends just to up the festive appeal.
Also, we've suddenly realized that we both have completely different ideas of what our wedding should be like. Which kinda freaked me out! I thought we'd both be 'let's go casual'. Reasons being we're not really fancy-pants people and the fact that the more casual wedding means, at least to me, more budget conscious. But apparently Mark is into the highly structured, fairly formal wedding. WHA?!
Are you as surprised as me?

After one and a half months of deliberation and unnecessary anxiety I've finally decided to register for a recreational, 2-day baking class at the Institute of Culinary Education. As soon as camp is over I'll spend two days baking sweet and savory breads, tarts, and pastries. In my dreams I discover I'm a natural in a kitchen baking bready treats straight from heaven and decide that culinary school is my future. But I'll probably just spend hundreds of dollars taking classes and loving it (I hope) but still spend my days flailing around pretending to be interested in early childhood education.

So Best Wishes to Samantha and Congratulations to Mario. At the wedding I said Congratulations to Sam knowing there is some archaic rule about what you're suppose to say to each member of the married couple and knowing that solely because I hadn't looked it up, I was fairly sure I was saying the wrong thing. I know in the end it's only total asses who really care about that stuff but still...tradition must live on!

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

It's hot as balls today. We're already prepping ourselves for the inaugural use of the $$Air Conditioner$$. It's very fitting since we got our ConEd bill today and it progressively goes higher and higher. It could be because our fans have been running non-stop but it's still frustrating because we don't turn on any lights until it's so dark in the apartment that the birds stop eating out of their dishes because they think they've been put to bed.
Our bills are estimated because they "never gain access" to our meter that hangs inside my cabinets but I can assure you they never knock on the door either. Next month I'll just submit my meter reading and hope that I've been overpaying long enough that my bill is smaller. But I doubt it. I can still hope.
It's not so much that I'm cheap it's more that we don't have very many paychecks coming our way for awhile and those that are coming are more like...small reminders of what money is but not enough to really do any comforting.

Hold on! I hear a breeze.

Today we decided to go wild and finally use our Zip Car membership. We zipped up to Tallman State Park where my parents use to take my sis and I for a dip in a state pool, some trees, and ample bugs. Mark and I used my parent's never-been-used already-needs-tightening tennis rackets for about an hour.
It was interesting because Mark took lessons when he was still a growing boy and never liked it and I've never played. I've swung a racket. Once. With Brad Cohen behind the Purchase Gym. It swung straight into my kneecap and I limped for days.
So today Mark ran after balls I attempted to hit while standing on a decrepit court in my bra and a pair of shorts. It was actually quite fun. We hit up the pool for a quick cool down, drove over to Palisades Mall for some impulse buys at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (all items have since been deemed 'to be returned') and then zipped on back home.
It was fun being able to ride around in a car. When you're all comfy in a clean and speedy vehicle you can almost understand why so many people continue to drive instead of shoving their bodies into the filthy, slow, steel earthworms we call the NYC Subway.

Thanks for Checking In!

I emerge from the depths of blogger death. I'm walking away from one light and stepping towards another. The light of a laptop screen. I had nothing going on. I wasn't working at the nursery school. I wasn't cleaning poop in Super Hero pants. I wasn't sobbing myself to sleep because of my lack of direction (I hate you PMS. I love you hormone therapy).

I still have no direction. My arms are still flailing wildly in the sea of career and fulfillment. My summer has been filled with the life of Nature Counselor tid-bits. Everyone asks me what kind of bug is this? The answer is I don't know.I've smelled like campfire for 2 weeks. My legs, my only attractive feature, are scarred with bug bites. I'm broke.

My apartment is coming along nicely except for the pests that are ruling my kitchen. No matter how much I scrub, wash, dry, put away. It's embarrassing. Disgusting. I want nothing but evil, skin destroying chemicals. I want to blow the fuckers away. Mark insists on natural things that involve flour and brown sugar and borax. Brown sugar sprinkled all over my kitchen. Yeah...brown sugar...that will make the nasty pests go away. I haven't bought the terrible chemicals only because I live on the top of a walk-up and whenever I remember my murderous tirade I'm not in the mood to walk up and down an assload of steps.

Anyway, here I am again. I hope you'll come by and read me.