Month: June 2007

I’ve completely exhausted all the take-out food places in my neighborhood, so I broke down and took a cooking course. It was great!! I’m in the best mood now. I went to the Institute of Culinary Education on 23rd Street, and the experience was wonderful from beginning to end. Everyone who works there was very nice, and the person who taught this class, Jackie Newgent, picked such perfect recipies, for my needs anyway. Healthy, easy, and all were vegetarian except for a couple. And she taught me how to use a knife and I feel like I just learned a whole new language or something. I know that sounds crazy, but learning how to chop things up easily and quickly and well was amazingly empowering. I CAN RULE THE WORLD.

The name of the course was Superfoods: Summertime Fresh and Flavorful and my group made: Organic Mexican Layer Dip; Basil-Walnut Pesto Pasta Salad with Baby Spinach; Lebanese Tabbouleh with English Cucumber; Heirloom Tomato Caprese Spaghetti; and Natural Cocoa Smoothie.

Of all the dishes the other groups made, these were the two best: Mesclun Salad with Goat Cheese and Fresh Raspberry Dressing; and Avocado Huevos Rancheros Torta.

Seriously, I am just so excited. Maybe I can cook myself once in a while. Who knew?? That cooking didn’t completely suck, I mean. KAREN!! You should have told me!! You are the cooker in the family!! But I will need easy dishes like this for the winter, too, now.

Part of me always regrets not taking a Keith Haring drawing when they were everywhere, all over the subway and no one knew who he was yet. But I felt that would be wrong. They were there for everyone to enjoy and I shouldn’t be so greedy and grasping about it. So I didn’t. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes that I am. (Mostly.) Except few would have cared and one of those drawings would be worth a fortune now. Poor Keith Haring though. Life is so unfair.

I just came across this on 1st Ave. between 3rd and 4th. I think it’s by the same guy who did the peace one on 14th Street. Like before, I wasn’t really tempted. I still think whoever puts them up is putting them up for everyone. I liked the peace one better, except it has since been vandalized. “Everyone” can be such a jerk sometimes.

Should be editing again today, but I’m a little burnt out. Too lazy to go out and do anything else though. I took the long way back from the dentist. I went by way of the lower east side to pick up some moisterizer by Christine Chin. This is the place to go for facial and having your eyebrows done, by the way.

Oh GOD, could this be a more boring post?? Proof I need a vacation. Which I never take.

Thank you Don Vassallo for the choir pictures! This is from our last concert.

Did I mention that I hurt my arm and have been going to physical therapy? Well, it keeps getting worse and worse and worse and so they are scheduling an MRI. Of course it’s Arm Cancer. I just get over the Bleeding Face Cancer and now this.

Here’s my plan for the day:

– Coffee and blogging and Echo.
– Start reading book again (I’ve tinkered and now I see what I’m left with.)
– Shower.
– Mediate (who would have freaking thought I would turn into a meditator??).
– Gym. (A little backwards, I know, showering before the gym.)
– Finish reading book.
– Look at myself in the mirror and obsess about my eyebrows.
– Oh, eat! At some point I must eat. At two points, really.
– Spend a few minutes expounding on the wonders of Finney’s belly.
– Perhaps take pictures of Finney’s belly.
– I hate the word belly when it comes to humans by the way, I prefer the word stomach, but with animals, belly is the proper word.
– Look at my own stomach/belly and go back and forth between “it’s cute” and “uh-oh, you have a stomach.”
– Call father at some point.
– Worry about something (dying, the cats dying, never finding love again, Joss Whedon never doing a TV show again, world cluster-fuck getting worse, our current government … oh I shouldn’t get started about that, I will implode, a spider might walk over me while I sleep, my cats might eat a spider, my hair is going to take forever to grow long enough to put in a ponytail again, the apocolypse. Just kidding about the last one.)
– TV TV TV TV TV. The 4400 starts up again tonight!

I love spanish moss, but this is over-kill I thought. I shot this on Morton Street, and you’re not seeing the piles and piles of it that is laying along the outer edges which I cropped out. Also, the color seems wrong, although for the life of me, I’m not sure what color I think it should be.

I’ve been working like a dog, editing editing editing, and for the past two days I’ve been wrong, apparently, about what day it is. It’s freaking Saturday, it turns out. How did that happen??

Howard and I went down to the river to work, and it was an incredibly nice thing we discovered. We want to do it again. At a certain point a storm came up and we got to see a fantastic lightening storm over in New Jersey. It was beautiful. I felt energized. Looming darkness. Flashes of bright light. Possible destruction. I feel reborn. Go figure.

I walked by this cop and his horse on 11th Street, on my way to the gym. Doesn’t this horse look way too small for this policeman? I thought, ‘well, maybe he’s a baby horse in training, out on his training run, on the quiet streets of the West Village,’ but still. He looked too small to carry that guy (not a comment on the guy, who was an average sized guy). The horse loved those kids though.

I found this absolutely adorable YouTube video of a mounted cop, I think I read it was made by the guy’s daughter. Very cute.

OH. I almost forgot. I found the most perfect song. The number one most perfect pop song in all the universe. I didn’t find it, my friend Aly told me I’d like it and he was right. It’s called Couldn’t Be Done and it’s by Tim Finn. I have to make myself stop listening to it over and over. Everything about it, the words, supported by the most perfect, mood-lifting, everything’s-going-to-be-alright melody. Go find it and listen to it. You’ll thank me. No seriously, go find it now. (Excuse me, but are you still here?? GO. I mean, please go.)