Tom & Alissa

Watch me go all domestic on you.

Since I’ll be working something like three part-time jobs, editing a magazine, writing a bunch of film reviews, and taking eight credits this fall (which starts in, oh, less than a month), I figure I should start thinking now about how I will keep our household from falling apart. (Again, let me reiterate my praise of tiny living!)

So I’ve been thinking about crock pots again. I have a wee one (2 quarts, maybe?) that is adorable for two chicken breasts or a little soup, but not for a big hunk o’ meat or a whole chicken, and I am all about the leftovers. I’d like to have it be big enough that we could throw chili in and have people over after church, but I don’t want it to be the GIANT FAMILY SIZED one. What size do you all recommend?

And, are there any favorite crock pot recipes you have? (One of our favorites that I think will work in the pot is Rachael’s family’s chicken and dumplings recipe.) I’m particularly interested in anything with lots of vegetables, or beans. I’m also trying to find a time-tested overnight whole-grain breakfast thing, either with steel-cut oats or with other grains. I grew up on millet, quinoa, spelt, and lots of other things that people can’t pronounce, so I am open to anything you can buy at Whole Foods.

I’m also planning to invest in a Mr. Bento, which I’ve been eyeing for months, which can pretty much carry anything around and will hopefully make it easier for me to bring my lunch to work (and dinner, in some cases). Plus, it’s so CUTE!

Tom found this today: Park Slope 100. See why we love Park Slope.

Brief things, written in a tearing hurry:

I wrote a bit about apartment hunting in New York City at ConversantLife.com, and the site appears to have finally, officially launched!

On Monday night we saw Purple State of Mind, met Craig Detweiler, and went out afterwards with a handful of random people who were at the premiere, from musicians to journalists to doctors to famous playwrights. We were up very late, but it was worth it.

Yesterday after work and class I had dinner with my friend Umbereen from college, who I don’t think I’ve seen since I graduated, and eight of her co-workers (IT consulting). We went to a French steakhouse in the financial district, and my French dip sandwich was rather tasty.

Tonight is dinner with the Strauss, of Ontario and Comment.

I mentioned several months ago that Blueprint, my favoritest woman’s magazine (and the only one I really could stomach, because it was for people just like me!), stopped publishing. Its subscriptions folded into Martha Stewart Living, which started coming last week. It’s a nice-looking magazine, but I can tell I’ll never re-subscribe. It’s clearly aimed at the suburban housewife with a lot of time on her hands and decent resources at her disposal, and though I don’t have any particular problems with suburban housewives - though I don’t think I’d make a very good one - nothing in there pertains to me. The recipes are far beyond anything I have time or patience to make, with ingredients I don’t buy, and I don’t have space for things like gardens or sewing nooks. Oh well. The pictures are lovely. :)

But, I’ve made these cookie bars several times from the Martha Stewart website, and they’re great. And very easy.

I chatter a little about books at Conversant Life.

It took about five hours of work, but our apartment is now clean, relatively brick-dust-free, and has half a brick wall on one end (which was intended - it’s the chimney). Our landlord stopped by and we got to talking about the building. Apparently it was built in 1890, and at one point in the past there was a family with seven children living in the building, both apartments. Even with both apartments, though, you’d have to be impressed. That totals about 800 square feet. For nine people.

The brick is very old and all different colors, probably because bits have been replaced in the last hundred-and-twenty years, but I love it. It has so much character and it looks great against the blue walls and adds a lot to the room. Maybe I can get a picture up at some point.

Tonight I have class. I’m looking forward to it. The readings this week were long and arduous but interesting, and I’m one of the few who doesn’t have a background in art history, so I think this seminar format really helps me learn and explore what I’ve read. Also, having class around a table is so much more fun than a lecture hall or one of those hideous industrial classrooms at RPI (which gratefully did NOT include the IT building, but unfortunately did include pretty much everywhere else I had class).

As part of next week’s work for class, I have to make it either to MoMA or the Met. I really need to go early in the week so I have time to write about it, but unfortunately they both close at 5:30 pm until Friday, after which they are opened in the evenings and more crowded to boot. I’ll probably end up at the Met on Friday night or Saturday morning. It’s just bigger, and therefore less annoying when it’s crowded.

I’m reading Slow Food: The Case for Taste (by Carlo Petrini) in my spare moments, and I’m really enjoying it. , I think you’d really like this book. It’s not a cookbook. It’s a history of the slow food movement and a case for thoughtful, flavorful, healthful meals and eating as a communal activity, which is a rather Biblical idea, when you get right down to it.

Which, of course, I say as I’m about to finish up at work and wolf down a Clif bar on the way to class. But though I long for a really yummy meal, prepared with love and served around a table with friends, I’m okay with the Clif bar for now. It’s just a phase of life.

A year ago, I moved to Brooklyn; I can’t really believe it’s been a year, but there you have it. I’ve lived in Brooklyn longer than I lived in Manhattan, two weeks longer, and I love the borough, though we still hope to move back to the Village some day. I’m in a lovely cafe fifteen blocks south of my apartment because we still don’t have air conditioning and the air in the apartment is too muddy to breathe.

This all means I’m coming up on two years in New York City. I mentioned this to mom recently and she sort of gasped. “How things have changed,” she said, and she’s right. In those two years I’ve graduated from college, ended one relationship, began another, got married, moved twice. My father was diagnosed with leukemia a few months after I moved here; he passed away last August, right before my wedding. My brother went to “real school” for the first time, after eleven years of homeschooling, and he’ll graduate from high school in three weeks. My mother went back to work in an office for the first time since my brother was born eighteen years ago, and my family moved from the rural house where I spent my teenage years to the house where my mother grew up. Our lives bear almost no resemblance to what they were two years ago, in some good ways and some very sorrowful ways. But I suppose that is what makes a life; the changes.

Also, tomorrow is Tom’s 25th birthday. He’ll be two years older than me for about five months. (Okay, I know that’s bad math, but math is not my strong point.)

I chuckled at Josh’s description of my mad editorial skillz when I saw it last night. I didn’t think I was that brutal, but on the other hand, man, you asked for it. Anyone else want to have their book torn to pieces? I am especially good at lambasting excessive use of the infinitive.

I went to the dentist on Friday; no cavities and my gums are healthy (which I feared), but I will need to have my wisdom teeth out. Only on top, as I have no bottom wisdom teeth and probably never will. Also, either dental technology has gotten very good lately, or Albany is way behind the times; the hygienist took X-rays that were sent directly to the computer. I feel it is hickish of me to be as impressed as I am.

I took some work calls and headed northward to the Cloisters - the photos are now labeled and tagged - and spent most of the remaining sunlight there. Came back down to the Village and met Tom on set to go to dinner at what I thought was the Spotted Pig but turned out to be the Little Owl. Pricey, but oh so tasty.

Tom worked through the weekend and I spent Saturday mostly at home, editing photos, cleaning, trying to stay cool, then headed out to the Bowery Poetry Club to shoot the first installment of the Zoae Series which was fabulous and drew an audience of nearly one hundred. Pictures will probably show up on the Zoae site soon (as in, when I finish editing them).

After church on Sunday, I had lunch with Annie and Carey, then went to Joe to work on a feature I’m writing and struggling with.

People talk to me randomly much more when I’m alone; at Joe, several people just struck up conversations, including one of the baristas who was pretty sure he knew me from someplace I work (not bloody likely), Chicago (I’ve been there twice, see previous comment), or maybe Portland (a place I’d like to visit, but haven’t). Another guy wanted to know what camera I use. People at the Cloisters kept coming up to me and asking me random questions. I think I’m not imposing, maybe.

Anyhow, on Monday morning we had brunch at our favorite finer diner in Park Slope, then stopped into Barnes & Noble on the way home, which was a mistake. We bought three books and came home and ordered eight more, but some are necessary and the rest should keep us busy through the summer. And last night Tom shot portraits of friends with a new baby in Prospect Park and we had dinner with them and watched a very old and very slapsticky Woody Allen movie.

I finished All the Pretty Horses on the way to work today. Oh, wow. I have much respect for this Cormac McCarthy fellow.

There’s a lot going on that I can’t even keep track of; this is one of those times when life swirls about my ears and I can only really watch helplessly and keep my fingers crossed.

It was pretty lovely here this weekend, lots of warmth and a fair amount of sun . . .

On Friday night, after work, we had dinner at Risotteria and then to Film Forum for Goldfinger - I kid you not, on the big screen - which was appropriately followed by a Goldfinger sing-a-long. Yep. Gotta love New York. Everyone was very into it. And we passed Dominic West on the way down 7th Ave.

We got home and discovered that our landlord had gotten a new window put into our shower (checking my voicemail later, I found out that the date had been unexpectedly rescheduled, and he apologized profusely and said he’d stay there the whole time). There is a window directly at the head of the shower, and it was so old that the wooden frame had practically rotted out. Plus, since the window started at waist height, extended to the ceiling, and looked directly into the kitchen of the dude across the airshaft, there was a mildewy curtain over it that skeeved me out tremendously. But now! A beautiful, modern, frosted window that lets the lovely light in but keeps us hidden, with a metal frame so as not to be susceptible to the moisture and steam. It makes me happy just to look at it.

Tom had a job on Saturday, so I got up mid-morning, cleaned up the apartment, showered (squee), then grabbed the camera and headed to Central Park to take pictures. The light was bad, but the blossoming trees were pretty, and there were cute small children running around with balloons and kites. I don’t get uninterrupted camera time often. It was just lovely, and very zen. I used to go out and take pictures all over town when I first moved here, but my time has decreased substantially since then. So it was therapeutic.

Then a jaunt over to a surprise birthday party, and then I came home and roasted some cod and potatoes for dinner (salt and pepper and olive oil; so simple, and yet scrumptious) and made a salad. And after Tom came home, we met friends at the Chocolate Room. A late night, but a lovely one.

After church on Sunday, we went to SmorgasChef and had a bunch of celebrity sightings (or, some of us did). Good meatballs. And then we came home and finished Season 2 of the Office, including all the special features, and I had to talk Tom down from going on iTunes to buy Season 3. I did realize I’d actually watched the season finale (”Casino Night”) about a year ago when I was stuck in a hotel room in Chicago that inexplicably did not have cable.

I am excited; tomorrow night we’re going to see Michael Chabon read at the 92nd Street Y. He has a new book coming out - The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - and I suspect we’ll be buying it tomorrow night. Chabon’s books currently number among favorites for both of us (Tom loves The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which won a Pullitzer, and I adore Wonder Boys, which was made into one of the most perfectly-cast movies I’ve ever seen). We bought these tickets back in February, I think.

Also, by way of breaking my weird book-related ennui, I started not one, not two, but three books this weekend. I never do anything by halves. So far, What the Dead Know is gripping (I only haven’t finished it because it was too big to fit in my bag), In Cold Blood is amazing, and I’m finally finishing On Writing (by Stephen King) because Josh (of the celebrity non-sightings above) is continually referencing it, because I need some help starting this new season of my life (hey, it occurred to me recently that if I sold more than just a handful of articles I might not have to stay in this godforsaken industry, and I can’t do that if I’m not writing anything of consequence), and because it’s actually quite good. I haven’t read a single thing Stephen King’s written or seen any of the movies that are based on his books, but I might have to because he seems like the sort of down-to-earth, no-nonsense, I-stumbled-into-success-inadvertently guy that would be good to know.

Did you know? My mom’s birthday is this weekend. We’ll go home the following weekend, though. (Mother’s day, and my brother’s 18th birthday.)

Read this excellent article (The Wives of Others) by Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker yesterday. Strikes at an issue close to my heart - choices that women make regarding family, career, and home. It’s all a lot more real now that I’m a grownup. (For those who don’t know me well - my mom made the choice when my brother was born to leave her job, and she homeschooled us both; me through graduation, and my brother through 10th grade when my father was diagnosed with leukemia and she had to go back to work.)

The book under question is “The Feminist Mistake” by Leslie Bennetts.

I’m just going to excerpt pieces of it:

She barely considers the possibility that a woman might clear-sightedly find the rearing of her children the most rewarding work she can do, not out of a sense of self-sacrifice but out of a sense of personal fulfillment . . . Nor does she consider whether the flight from the workplace might be a justified rejection of a culture that assumes that parenting can be dealt with in the margins of one’s work life . . . Nor is the defensive crouch that Bennetts recommends likely to enhance a marriage, marriage itself being the epitome of a good-faith enterprise. Bennetts does women a service by pointing out the dangers of financial dependency in marriage, but emotional dependency is at the core of the marital relationship . . . The briskness of her mandate (get a job) and the alarmism of her monition (you never know, he might leave you) hardly do justice to the complexity of married life, which encompasses vulnerability in the present and includes the hovering prospect of loss.

You should read the article to get the full picture (it’s short by New Yorker standards - only two pages), but I’m liking where this discussion is headed; that if you want to have a career that fulfills you and be a mother and you can do it, by all means, then do it - nothing inherently wrong with that. But if you want to stay home and raise your children, then do it, and don’t let anyone judge that decision.

I’m going home today for the weekend to see my family!

Tom’s shoot wraps on Sunday night and he will be able to sleep again!

There’s a new baby Greider!

IAM Conference registration ends on Sunday night! (You should come, if you haven’t already signed up. I will be there with a large and bulky camera, yet powerful and sexy camera in tow and will take a flattering picture of you if you so desire.)

I am reading good books! Currently, Gilead, which we gave away to our wedding party but I’m only getting around to reading now. I am completely flabbergasted that such an intensely Christian book not only won the 2005 Pullitzer Prize, but has rave reviews from such publications as the New York Times and Elle that say things like “OMGZ! BEST BOOK EVAR!”. It is that good. It has no chapter breaks and no distinct narrative plot. You should read it.

It’s Friday, and my tax returns and bonuses have just landed in my bank account, and I have been working very hard all week, so I think I deserve a coffee. I depart.

Two more sites I fell for recently:
• I Heart Luxe - so, while I have lovely things and purchase judiciously, I can’t exactly afford a lot of the items that are considered “luxury”, like a designer handbag or $800 shoes. But, I’m slowly evolving my ideas of simple luxury - the richness, even sumptuousness that can be found in daily life, a sort of less-is-more attitude, with a side of really great hot chocolate. And on that note . . .

• 3191 - Two women are photoblogging their (early) mornings, and their pictures are just lovely - they’re inspiring me to get up a little earlier and enjoy the luxury of a quiet, unrushed morning at home. Maybe I’ll even make myself a latte before work one of these days.

Mmhmm. I’ve heard stories of 80-square-foot apartments in NYC with no kitchen and a hall bathroom (i.e., a dorm room) going for $900 a month, but people do it to be able to live in Chelsea/the Village/whatever.

For perspective, the main living area of our apartment is just over 200 square feet, with a postage-stamp kitchen and a similarly sized bathroom (though, we do have a bathtub). We briefly considered a 200 square foot place (including kitchen and bathroom) in a stellar location in the Village (on Horatio Street) and with exposed brick, but someone got it before we did.

Funny thing is, the picture makes it look vaguely roomy.

I’m not good at coming up with subject lines. I also cannot title articles, stories, books, or movies unless a bolt of lightning hits me. Not a common occurrence.

Somehow all my deadlines seem to come up right before Christmas; at work, in freelance design and writing work. I purposely decided not to take on any more writing projects with deadlines in December so that I could have some sanity this month, between the painting and the programming and oh yes, Christmas!

We are nearing the end of le painting project. The light at the end of the tunnel becomes brighter each day. It actually looks quite good, better than I expected. I think we’re both a little bummed out that the bathroom and kitchen still need painting, probably in early 2007. In theory, we could just not paint them, but there’s stains from a cappuccino incident covering all four walls and the ceiling in the kitchen, and the bathroom paint looks pretty dingy. At least there’s no hideous moldings determined to turn our straight painting lines into ghastly bumps and holes. Mmhmm.

Being two weeks before Christmas, this is also busy catering season. Tom worked last night, and when I said good morning and goodbye this morning, he sleepily mumbled something about having a last-minute lunch catering job today. And another one Thursday! Good time of year for a little extra cash.

For my part, I stopped by Target to buy Christmas lights (unsuccessfully) last night on my way home from work. Then I remembered I had a Bath & Body Works giftcard from my birthday, so I stopped by there, and then ducked into Payless for nonskid pads for the inside of my more treacherous shoes. It’s handy living near the only really big shopping center in Brooklyn.

I got home and scrubbed paint chips off the bathroom floor, did the dishes, put away the laundry, and generally cleaned up the apartment as best I could. It’s a bit embarrassing how much I’m looking forward to cleaning my apartment when the painting’s all done. I felt so much more cheery after I finished cleaning last night. I think I have a distinct love of bringing order from chaos. That would make sense - my favorite jobs have always been those where I take large piles of mess or intensely disorganized situations and make them work.

I had vacation time to burn through before the end of the year, so I’m off from work tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday. Lots of plans and lots to do in that timeframe, but it will be nice to get enough sleep, for once. I’m going to a screening of The Wind That Shakes the Barley on Friday (it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year).

Randomly: related to my fixation on turning mess into order, I have a penchant for making lists. I’ve justified this obsession in the last year, when I realized that if I just do the things on the list, it’s even more successful. So, I tend to make a lot of lists at year’s end - favorite books/movies/music from the last year, books/movies/music to check out in the upcoming year, resolutions, plans, etc. I feel more organized going into the New Year if I do so. Call me a freak and stay tuned for said lists’ appearances.

We had a scare last night while painting; Tom had painted the “bedroom” first. (I use the term loosely; it’s all one room, but an archway divides it in half.) The paint looked purpler than I remembered, but it’s a really funkycool shade and I like it. After we ate dinner (honey-lime tilapia, spinach couscous, and pearl onions in cream sauce), he started on the living room. Suddenly, the paint (exact same paint) looked very blue. What?

We finally determined that the lightbulbs were probably different colors. The one in the bedroom is significantly pinker than the one in the living room. Reddish + blueish = purplish, and that’s what we got. We weren’t sure of our hypothesis until the sun came up this morning, and in the morning light, we love it. Very East Village-y.

Tom wants to touch up the walls a bit tonight, then do the trim in a darker shade of the same blue, and then voila, we’ll be done - at least until we do the bathroom and the kitchen. The trim is no easy task, especially since it covers significant portions of the bedroom walls, but we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at long last.

I’m leaving at noon today to meet up with Tom and my grandparents, who are in town for the day. We plan to give them the grand tour of all the places we rarely go (up Fifth Ave and over to Lincoln Center). It was a natural choice for them to meet me here; I work near The Most Fussed-Over Tree In The World.

First things first: check out the December issue of Paste (the one with the cast of For Your Consideration on the cover and flip to the film reviews. Behold: the Volver review is mine.

A busy weekend. Tom finished up priming the apartment on Friday night and we had Mexican, then came back to the apartment and watched American Beauty on the computer, as the TV is buried right now. I’d read the screenplay in the spring; it was exactly the film I thought it would be. No more, no less.

We slept in Saturday and after cleaning up a little, we trekked down to Eighth Ave and 9th Street to have brunch at Dizzy’s, which is a hike, but well worth it. Best brunch in the Slope, hands-down.

We then trekked even farther to the movie theater at the bottom of Prospect Park and saw The Departed. It’s a remake of Infernal Affairs, a Chinese movie we’d watched a couple of weeks ago, and it was so much better. Plus, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a theater that did matinees in New York City - $7 a ticket! A bargain. We loved the movie, too. I had to chuckle as neighborhood after neighborhood was mentioned and I was like “Ooh! My grandfather grew up there!” My dad always said that he spent time in rougher neighborhoods as a kid. No joke.

We had dinner with our friends Brendan & Julie in the evening; swapping dinner parties, and it was their turn. They made madly good food (my mouth is watering thinking about it). We’re all grown up and stuff now. Dinner parties?!

Sunday, as always, equaled church, some wandering around the Union Square Christmas Market in vain hopes of finding stuff for presents and/or decorations, and then Casino Royale. Yeah, baby. It’s the only Bond movie I’ve ever seen, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A week later, we’re still under plastic. We had to cut into it to get our hamper of dirty clothes, since it’s looking suspiciously like we won’t have our lives back until this weekend. But hurrah! That will mean Christmas decorations! And being able to sit somewhere other than the bed and look at something other than the computer.

This is an incredibly busy week. I have some projects with major deadlines this week, both at work and freelance. My grandparents are visiting NYC for the day from Albany on Wednesday, so I’m taking a half-day and spending it with them, then going to a gallery opening in the evening. Thursday night is an Over the Rhine concert at Joe’s Pub. Parties all weekend (Christmastime is here) and hopefully getting the apartment back into some semblance of order, picking paint colors for the kitchen and bathroom (yes, folks, there’s more), getting a Christmas tree . . . and retaining our sanity.

Wow, it’s been a while.

We went to the Fairfax area for Thanksgiving to visit Tom’s extended family. Never been that far south for Thanksgiving. I really wanted stuffing cooked in the bird (not this silly “dressing” stuff), but other than that it was fairly uneventful. Lots of watching the boys play video games.

On Friday Tom and I headed DC-ward, where we traipsed from the Library of Congress to the National Gallery of Art to the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, and all the way to Mr. Lincoln’s feet. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to DC, so it was great to see it at night, without a large crowd of people to keep together. We have pictures - they are coming soon, I hope.

We unexpectedly stumbled upon a display at the Library of Congress of the St. John’s Bible project. I’m completely amazed that I haven’t heard about this yet; it’s been going on for many years already. The Benedictine monks at St. John’s monastery/college commissioned a modern-day illuminated Bible from a scriptorium in Wales. So far, they’ve finished the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gospels & Acts, and they’ve got a few more years to go on the rest of the Bible.

They had several of the originals there, including the first pages of Matthew, Luke, and John, the Creation, the Ten Commandments, and the Parable of the Sower. This is not your run-of-the-mill Christian bookstore cheese illustrated Bible. This is beautifully handcrafted/painted/gilded/collaged reverential interpretation of the Scriptures. The frontispiece for Matthew is a menorah that acts as a family tree for Jesus, including an acknowledgment of the common ancestry of the Jews and the Muslims (both descended from Abraham, one by Hagar, one by Sarah), with names in Hebrew, Aramaic, and English. All rendered with dignity and artistic integrity.

Sadly, it looks like the New York exhibition (at MOBIA) ended two days ago, but there are upcoming exhibitions in the US, so if you’re near one, you should go see it.

We traveled back on Saturday and got home late. I’d been feeling under the weather all week with a sore throat, and by Saturday I knew it had developed into something worse. I stuck a Maglite in my mouth and saw a big sore on the right side of my throat. Mmm. I felt too lousy to go to church on Sunday, so I stayed home and rested, and yesterday I called in sick to work and went to the doctor. The sore is still there, and it’s making it hard to swallow (i.e., eat), and the residual pain is going up into my right ear and making it painful, but the doctor says it’s a virus and not an ear infection, so I kind of just have to let it run its course. I had something similar last year, but it was concurrent with the mono, so at least it’s not THAT bad this time. I am at work today, trying not to swallow too much, and counting the minutes till I can go home and rest in comfy clothes.

Last night I helped Tom pile all our furniture into the middle of our miniscule apartment (as a reminder, we have a “two-room studio”, consisting of two 9′x12′ rooms stuck together with an archway, and a teensy kitchen and bathroom) and tape it all up in preparation for painting. He’s home priming the walls now, and we hope to paint tomorrow and Thursday and hopefully be done by the weekend so we can decorate for Christmas (hurrah!). The apartment will be blue, so I think our Christmas decorations are going to tend to the blue/silver/darkdeepmauve scheme. Red does not work so well in a blue apartment. We’re not going for “patriotic Christmas” here.

I finished Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller (the Blue Like Jazz guy) on our trip, and I have to say, I thought it was really great. He spends much of the book helping us to examine our motives in our promotion of morality/politics/justice/religion - is it borne out of love and a desire to see others find Christ, or is it because we need to feel superior? As he says, a reading of Romans reveals a Paul who would say difficult truths about people’s actions, and then in the next breath say how desperately he wished he could give up his own place in heaven to save them. I don’t know a lot of people with that attitude. A grace-full and incredibly true premise, in a well-written book.

Nota Bene: I am known for becoming slowly obsessed with all things Christmas-y during this season, so I apologize if you’re sick of Christmas already. I find joy in the season.

That said, the Rockefeller tree lighting is tomorrow night, and I beg you, don’t try to go. It gets more crowded than Times Square on New Years’ Eve. The tree is, however, bigger than it will even appear on your TV screen.

Confession: I’m kind of hoping we get some snow before Christmas. I used to hate snow, but now I don’t have to drive in it.

I was wound very tightly by the time I left work on Friday and pretty much took the entire weekend to relax. So while we weren’t terribly productive, we did have a good, fairly relaxing weekend.

Saw
- Little Children. Recommended as a picture of the depravity in every human heart, but only to mature viewers. Superb acting and storytelling.
- The Prestige. I think I enjoyed it more than Tom did, but it’s quite good, and worth seeing. The consensus I’ve heard/seen/read is that you may have to see it twice to really enjoy it.

Read
- Well, I finished Specimen Days. Mixed feelings on this one. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t hang together as well as The Hours and parts seemed to drag, particularly in the third section. Still, it’s a much better read than most of the fiction out there.

Ate
- Tom engineered Friday night’s dinner, which involved chicken wrapped in pancetta and sage, apple risotto, arugula salad with an orangey vinaigrette dressing, and his crowning glory, crepes suzette, wherein he (purposely) lit the pan on fire. All for our friends, the Haferbeckers, who were duly appreciative.
- He also made some very, very good scrambled eggs on Saturday morning with bacon and English muffins.
- We had the good fortune to partake of BAM’s popcorn on Saturday night during the movie, which is quite good. A little too buttery perhaps, but not as yellow and fake as normal movie popcorn.
- And a big hurrah for lunch at Heartland Brewery with Todd & Albert before The Prestige yesterday.

Plans for the upcoming week include a lot of work, mostly. And some more entertaining. We’re making the most of our four hundred square feet.

Last night, I worked late on the IAM website. Tom was catering. I finally went to bed at about 1am, and I heard him come in not long afterward. We are tired this morning.

As a result, someone (::coughgrinwhowasit::) didn’t affix the pressure valve on the Mukka properly and it proceeded to pressurize, pop off, and cover the entire kitchen in a nice light brownish cappuccino. Yumm. Including the ceiling. And did I mention this happened in the middle of a discussion about the potential benefits/stupidities of minimum wage?

There are various and sundry movies being released this weekend that may or may not be worth seeing: Flags of Our Fathers (Clint Eastwood on Iwo Jima), Marie Antoinette (I know it was booed at Cannes, but really, can the French be expected to cheer a movie about that woman?), The Prestige (Hollywood - not so good with keeping magician movies released far enough apart to make them distinguishable from each other, and it’s not just magician movies - witness the recent release of Infamous), and Running With Scissors (which I was personally rooting for becasue the trailer rocked, but is getting horrifically bad reviews).

I have succumbed and started using del.icio.us. I know there are other social bookmarking apps out there, but frankly, I like the vaguely renegade Web 2.0-defiant look of del.icio.us. It’s like Wikipedia. No bubbles or 3D, just straight-up hypertext.

Good concerts upcoming - The Weepies on December 2 at the Canal Room, and Over the Rhine doing two back-to-back shows at Joe’s Pub on December 7.

I procured the new Craftivity book via Felicia and am madly in love. I have a serious aversion to “crafts”, stemming from some scarring experiences as a slightly dorky twelve-year-old with craft books from the 70s in the public library that smelled of old milk. But this is cool. Interesting projects with actual lovely results, from knitting to wood stuff to glass etching and some bizarre things like underpants made from T-shirts and crocheted skulls. And it’s all nicely designed and photographed.

And to leave you on a cheery note: The 7 Worst Fonts Ever. I think I picked this up from kottke. I’m grateful that they included Bradley Hand and Papyrus in the mix. Bleh.

Our weekend, in a nutshell.

Watched
• Punch-Drunk Love on Friday, to finish our P.T. Anderson kick. (Included in that series was Boogie Nights and Magnolia. This was very different.)
• Since Otar Left, Tom’s favorite film of all time, with eight others we managed to cram into our apartment. I’ve been hearing about it for a year, so it was good to watch (and it was just plain good, as well). The director was Kieslowski’s assistant director on Bleu, which is one of my favorite films of all time.
• Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, also on Saturday night with the large crowd. Does that make it a triple feature?
• La Promesse, by the Dardenne brothers. We saw L’Enfant earlier this year, and since the last several films they’ve made have won the Palm d’Or at Cannes, we figured we should watch them. Good stuff.

Cooked and Ate
• Thai food at the inexpensive-and-trendy Song in Park Slope. I had chicken satay and pad thai.
• I made Belgian waffles for ten people (about thirteen waffles), and whipped cream. Everyone was duly impressed that they were made from scratch. I smiled, remembering that I was about eleven before I realized that you could not only buy waffle mix, but buy a waffle frozen, in the supermarket. I wouldn’t consider doing it any other way but from scratch. So cheap! So easy!
• Ridiculously awesome muffins (mine was raspberry kiwi bran, Tom’s was something with coconut) from Blue Sky Bakery, which we grabbed on our way to the train on Sunday morning.
• Satisfied my cravings at Le Pain Quotidien yesterday with a tarragon chicken sandwich. Love that place.
• After coffee-and-a-book yesterday afternoon, came home to finish the waffles and drink apple cider. And mint tea. A lovely end to the day.

Read
• Not much to say here, except that I started Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham (author of The Hours) and am enjoying it greatly.

We spent a lot of time trying to relax. It has been very hectic lately. Very thankful for Sundays.

I’m absolutely in love with this chandelier from Plug: