Fabric Softener, My New Love

I have always been skeptical of fabric softener. It serves no obvious purpose. It does not clean my clothes. It does not dry my clothes. What use have I for fabric softener?

This claim it makes, to "soften" the clothing. First of all, I'm a bit scared of a chemical that can soften things. Can you imagine a spray that would fluff your pillows? Freaky deaky. The neon coloring certainly doesn't help. The variety my apartment has currently is "Gain," which is Ghostbusters slime green. It looks like poison. Even Downy isn't exactly a natural shade of blue.

Secondly, I didn't believe that it was true. Even if it was innocuous, fabric softener probably did nothing more than make your clothes smell pleasant. And I can live with clean but unperfumed underwear.

But my roommates like it. And they inevitably leave the damned Downy ball in the washing machine so it bounces around anyhow. I decided to give it a spin.... in the spin cycle.

And it was wonderful.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm a fabric softener convert, as I'm still very skeptical of its chemical powers, but my clothes were delightfully soft and well-scented. It was actually the smell, the one property I trusted, that won me over. (I have a very sensitive nose.)

Moreso, I am floored that the company wasn't lying. It softened! It scented! Working in advertising (even on the buy side), I've learned not to trust product claims. But lo and behold! Soft!

Answering the People's Call

The People have called for a recap of this past weekend. And I am nothing if not the People's servant.

This Saturday, I attended a swingin' party thrown by none other than commenter Red Wine (whom those of you who are smart will recognize as an already-introduced luminary on this blog). It was a surprise birthday party for the Editor in Chief, who may or may not have been 100% surprised. It's true she had expressed interest in a party, but I like to think she didn't know one was being thrown. The surprise failed in part due to Red's luscious buttocks that prevented her from feeling her phone vibrate when Patsy texted her that the Editor was on her way. (I have the same problem with vibrating cell phones in my back pocket. It's like the damned thing isn't even turned on.)

The party was held in the lovely apartment of Poshua and the Private Eye - who has been recently emancipated from her investigative work and will be off to law school in the fall. Posh and Private have held parties in their apartment on two prior occasions and I've come to expect two things: red wine and white wine. Before your glass is even empty, someone will refill it - frequently with a different wine than the one you are drinking. It's a little weird.

While there is usually food, this time there was Audrey-Food. Audrey-Food is, quite simply, fancy cheese and really good cupcakes. A+. The holiday party had some baked goods involving cranberries, which confused me. The Private Eye's birthday had cupcakes, too, I believe, but I don't remember the requisite balance of savory food to offset the sweet.

A few of the notable occurrences from the evening have already been mentioned by Red Wine in her comment yesterday, which indignantly (and rightly so) asked me why I had not yet written about the affair. I blame my job.

Thus, a brief synopsis:

Poshua broke a glass (I broke one at one of the earlier parties). Now they can only serve wine to a wedding party of 34 people instead of 36.

Red Wine almost got in a fist fight with another girl on the roof deck of the building (I don't think that happened before). Mean Girls-inspired insults were flung by the opposing party, who was *clearly* cruisin' for a bruisin'. Red, ever the lady, restrained herself.*

There was vomiting (definitely happened at an earlier party).

There was no Christmas tree (Posh and Private Eye finally threw it out in February. They're such good Jews.)**

And the night ended with certain individuals going to Joshua Tree, of all random places that are nowhere near Posh and Private Eye's apartment.

I personally went to BED. Or at least tried to.

The End.

______________________________
*I actually didn't see ANY of this take place, but I like to imagine it happened this way.
**Posh is half.

Things I am Doing Right Now That you Might Find Weird

By "now" I mean "this week-ish."

1. Research on elevators. Historic elevators. Specifically, Otis elevators.

2. Eating unbelievably hot salsa that makes my face sweat. "XXX Hot Roasted Desert Peppers." I'll update with the brand when I get home. It's painful, but I want *more*.

3. Going to work with wet hair because I am insistent that I do not need to use my hairdryer. However, when it is very humid, it doesn't dry.

4. Picking up free concert tickets from a Starbucks downtown at 5 PM today. How weird.

5. Dreading the end-of-the-quarter work slosh, because it's going to compromise my blogging time.

6. Dreaming about cupcakes.

7. Eating cupcakes. (You simply cannot eat them all the time. It would no longer be special).

8. Being appalled at Bush & Cheney's denouncement of the New York Times' coverage of secret government bank data monitoring from Belgium. Belgium! And my bank isn't even giving me waffles! Read the letter from Bill Keller, the editor who decided to publish, on why he made his decision.

9. Eating salt packets.

Also - I seem to have flaked out on Haiku Haiku Monday this week.

I'm very embarrassed.

Even though it's not Monday, I will provide you with one Haiku Haiku.

Walking

Is that rain I feel?
Wet drops upon my head - nay,
Air conditioner

So Sorry

No real blog today.

Why?

Because the End of the Quarter is Nigh.



More tomorrow.

Love and Kisses,

Audrey.

Graduation Daze

Yesterday, my younger sister graduated from high school. And good for her, too. But this blog isn't about my sister. It's about li'l-ol'-megalomaniac me.

My high school graduation, five years ago, was great. It was a three-ring circus - a kid with promise paralyzed in a freak lacrosse accident and confined to a wheelchair (unbelievably tragic), a fainting famous political speaker (highly confusing, as no one was sure if he was merely pausing for effect or ill), and a frantic call for a doctor in the house (comedic. I'm sorry - it just was).

But the aftermath was even better - I was done with high school, I was going to my first-choice college in the fall, and I got lots of fabulous monetary gifts from my parents' friends. It was like my Bat-Mitzvah, only I was better looking, I wasn't stuck in middle school and I had won a fabulous one-way ticket to the land of no parents and 6,600 18-to-22-year-olds. Hot.

College graduation was slightly more depressing. I adored college - even junior year, during which I was overworked and emotionally unhappy in the fall and later burnt-out from partying too hard and trying to forget it all in the spring. (The year ended with a painful bout of tonsillitis. Need I say more?)

Naturally, I was sad to see college go, but furthermore, I was looking out into a great big abyss of Nothing. I had no job, no apartment, no credit card, no driver's license, no grad school applications and NO PLAN. (I was still good-looking. Still am.) I packed up my things, drove through the night with the Duchess and her failing contact lenses in a U-Haul and fell into a heap at my parents' doorstep at around 6 am two days after Commencement (my family attended, but they wanted to leave before I did). Whoopee.

But as you can see, I've certainly bounced back. My post-collegiate slump was normal and I now have everything I wanted - and more. All those wackos at my school with jobs lined up by fall/winter of senior year were NOT normal; I just didn't realize it. Class of 2006, I feel your pain. You have a free pass to select one friend of your choice who had a job in February - and punch him/her in the face. And you don't even have to apologize. Feel free to punch yourself if you fit the description.

So what did I get this time, after my sister's graduation? A wake-up knock on my childhood bedroom door from my father at 6:30 am so I could catch a one-way train back to sweet, sweet Manhattan from the Bestchester.

Not great, but certainly not bad.

Off To The Wilderness

I will be hitting the dusty trail that is Metro North this evening, to head back up to the Bestchester for my younger sister's high school graduation tomorrow. Thus, likely no blog 'til Friday. Stop crying.

In the Bestchester, home of my parents, there are quite a few mosquitoes. We have woods, there's a ravine, it all makes sense. Nature! However, much to my amazement, there are many mosquitoes in Manhattan as well. I am dumbfounded. WTF? I understand parks and stuff, but most of my day is spent in an office building with unopenable windows, or in my concrete box apartment, nary a tree to be seen. Ok, I live a few blocks from a park, but it's not like there's standing water or anything. Sheesh.

When I was at school in Boston, I'm fairly certain the school sprayed obsessively. Thus, only cute-approved squirrels, sparrows and maybe a ladybug or two cruised the Yard in the spring. Even at home, I haven't been attacked by mosquitoes since my adolescent summer camp days.

I admit, I went to the Bryant Park movie on Monday, amidst a lawn of yuppie picnickers (pita and hummus, anyone?). I also sleep with my window open and naught but an ill-fitting Bed Bath and Beyond Insta-Screen to protect me from the wilds of downtown. But I started noticing bites on my wrist, under my watch, at work - after I'd been back from lunch for 3 hours. And then I noticed another one on my leg. I'm open to mosquitoes in the office (equal opportunity employment, of course), but I'm baffled that I haven't seen or heard any bugs.

My conclusion? Either I'm psychologically imagining them and mentally willing the bites to appear (cool!) or my office has been invaded by Stealth Mosquitoes. They're sort of like stealth fighter jets, but smaller and itchier.

Or, maybe I'm just losing my mind.

Or maybe the stealth mosquitoes are injecting me with hallucinogenic drugs.

Cool!

My Friends and I Think We Are So Funny

Is it really possible that I have not yet written a post with that name? Wasn't that the point of the blog? No? Ok. (Note: I'm sorry this is not-that-funny. They're making me work again. Honest.)

When: Friday Night
Where: St. Marks Place, exiting a lovely little bar called Angel's Share
Who: Me, the Private Eye, and the never-before-introduced HealthCare Goddess (it relates to her job).
Why: We'd finished our drinks for the evening and were on our way to our respective subways/cab/domiciles
What:

Me and the $12 gentrification drink I had just finished: I wish New York were as gritty and edgy as it used to be. I realize that I couldn't gallivant around like I do, and take walks under the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg bridge at 10pm on weekdays - but still, I miss something I never knew. Did you know there are still some shops with signs in Hebrew on the very edge of the Lower East Side? It's amazing.

The Private Eye, totally missing the point: I hate edgy. Edgy means you have to listen to bad music.

When: Saturday Night
Where: East 14th Street, in search of the Crocodile Lounge and its legendary skee ball tables
Who: Me, Ben, and his out-of-town friend on the phone
Why: Skee. Ball. Oh, and beer.
What:

Ben, to me, while walking: Well, we walked to dinner on this side of the street, and it's between First and Second so it must be on the other side of the Street.

Me: True.

[Ben's cell phone rings]

Ben: Hello? You're there? What side of the street is it on? What?

Me: Did he just say it was on?

Ben: What?

Me: Did he just say "We're here, and it's ON!"? That's definitely something one of your friends would say.

Ben: Hmmph. Really, we *complement* each other, we're not all the same person.

Me: Right.

[It's true. And the bar was on the north side of the street, in case anyone was wondering. And that, ladies and gentlemen who know me personally, is why my Google Chat away message has said "I'm here, and it's ON," all day today. Also because I am lame.]

When: Sunday afternoon, post amazing brunch cooked by me.
Where: My rooftop, in a tiny patch of shade.
Who: Me on the phone, wishing my father a happy Father's Day. Ben lingers in the shadows by the water tower, smoking a cigarette like the Byronic hero he is.
Why: My father, the infamous Dr. Larry, is a weirdo.
What:

[long, 40 minute conversation involving dinner plans, my rampant text messaging, grocery shopping at multiple grocery stores, and why the family dog isn't very good on the telephone (he just sits there silently, then sniffs the phone. He doesn't even listen. Dumb animal. Finally...]

Dad, aka Dr. Larry: Don't forget to bring home pneumatic bagels.

Me: What?

Dad: Essa bagels. They're pneumatic.

Me: With a p? Like inflated?

Dad: Exactly. They're like tires. Pneumatic bagels.

Mother, in the background: Are you comparing bagels to tires?

Dad, to me and to my mother: It's a natural comparison.

Me: No it's not.

Ben: What in the world are you talking about?

Me: Tire bagels. Never mind.

That's all for now, people. Have a lovely afternoon.

Haiku Haiku - For You

Ah, Haiku Haiku Mondays. How reliable. How consistent. How routine and comforting.

There's just not much to say on a steamy summer Monday. My office air conditioning is finally pleasant, as opposed to freezing and I think I'm going to get some Italian Ice after work.

Also - let me know if you want to sit in Bryant Park with me for tonight's showing of The Birds. None of my little friends have volunteered thus far, but I'm going anyhow.

East Village Saturday Night

Sultry summer nights
No coats, no cares, no curfew
Watch dawn from the roof

Sunday Morning

A kitchen attack
Triumphant, I beat the stove
Prize: excellent brunch

Monday Confusion

Sugar Free Cookies
Shoved in my hand on the street
With Splenda? No thanks.

My New Favorite Toy

...Is surprisingly no longer this blog. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, like some people. And the blog will likely lie and cheat its way back to first place.

The first internet toy I can remember obsessing over was Java Applet chatting. We didn't have AOL when I was growing up, and before the days of free AOL Instant Messenger, chatrooms were a novelty. In high school, I graduated to the AOL Instant Messenger chatrooms with my camp friends and this great game called Bejeweled.* Freshman year of college brought a 3D Pong game, sophomore year my friends and I played with the Trogdor game, and junior year marked the onset of TheFacebook.com - the reigning heavyweight champ until I created this here blog.**

But now I have a new master. And I'm shaking like an addict just thinking about its grasp.

It's the Netflix queue and movie rating system. Sigh.

I'd been meaning to sign up for Netflix as soon as I was completely settled in my apartment, which as you know, took five months. Finally, on a lazy Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, I took the gift certificate the Duchess had so graciously given me and I signed up. I entered my information and then proceeded to create my queue. The queue, for those of you not in the know, is a giant LIST.

And you know how I feel about lists. That sound you hear? It's my heart fluttering with joy.

As there are an embarrassingly large number of good movies that I have yet to see, along with countless TV shows I've been too lazy to follow, Netflix is actually going to make me a better human being. Unless, of course, it holds me prisoner in front of a computer screen, endlessly rating movies, hitting "Continue" and adding them to my queue. Indeed, not only does Netflix give me the power to create and reorder a list, it also provides me with the ability to PASS JUDGMENT ON MEDIA - a favorite pastime. Better still, you can add "friends" to your profile and see their queues, their ratings, and through that, their abominable taste in culture.

Really, the membership is worth the money just for the queue and the ratings. I highly recommend it. (Oh yeah, they send them directly to your apartment, no late fees, etc. Not important. No, they don't pay me.)

_________________________
*Experimentation in the past 15 minutes has given me a headache and confirmed that I am still so good at this game, it hurts...as much as that pun. (Score after playing just once: 9095)
**Sense a pattern? I'm not really into internet toys that ever *end*.

Sometimes, I Just Love my Job!

Meaningful Work.

(With Apologies to Explodingdog.com, a fantastic website by a fantastic artist.)

Fork You, New York

I think I got charged for the "courtesy kit" that the local deli gave me with my lunch today. And I'm not sure I mind.

As my loyal readers already know, I often purchase by-the-pound salad for lunch. They usually put it on the scale and weigh it *before* bagging it up and dropping in the plastic packet containing a knife, fork, napkin and packets of salt and pepper. This time, it went on the scale IN the bag WITH the packet. While I doubt the scales are sensitive enough to pick up the miniscule weight of both items and it's not like it amounted to more than a few cents anyhow, I was intrigued.

The cashier corrected the food bagger guy and removed the courtesy kit, but it got me thinking: should they charge for the courtesy kits? Or at the very least, not automatically put them in your bag?

If I was charged even a nickel, I might consider bringing in my own fork to work and washing it. No, even I'm not that cheap, but the charge would cause me to think about the unnecessary garbage I create every day. I don't have figures to quote (and I'm not about to look them up), but I can't even imagine how many tons of trash are generated by Manhattan's fully disposable lunch containers and flatware every day. I like to think that charging me for my utensils might cause me to think more about the consequences of my actions and hopefully encourage me to be less wasteful. Others would follow in my footsteps and together we'd start a Green Revolution!

But I could be wrong. New Yorkers are famous for paying for their pampering. And God forbid they wash a fork.

Hair Dryer Season is Officially Over!

I have a confession to make.

Until this January, I, a twenty-two-year-old heterosexual female, had never owned a hair dryer.

Do not take that to mean that I have never used one. It's more that I'm not very good with them.

Not me, because I would never be that happy if I was blow drying my hair.

My mother owns a hair dryer, and I've wrastled with it and ones belonging to college roommates on a few occasions. Likewise, when I get my hair done at an Ugly Parlor (one of my friend's father's inspired names for a beauty parlor, not an actual establishment), they perform wonders with the device.

But unlike me, the stylists are able to walk a full 360 degrees around my head. They also have magical powers which enable them to grab pieces of my hair, chop it at funny angles and have it look good. When I tried this myself in high school, it looked amazing for about two weeks before growing out into a disaster.

It's not as if I don't care about my appearance. I'm totally presentable and cute. And I have great hair! But aside from my inability to do anything sensible to myself with a hairdryer no matter what "product" I put in it, the damned thing dries my hair out. It feels crackly and ceases to be Luxuriant and Flowing.

Award-winning Luxuriant Flowing Hair.

So, I prefer to let my hair air dry, with a some strategic guidance from a hairbrush and a ponytail holder.

However, while it may have been "charming" to go to class with wet hair, alas, it is not quite so charming to show up to work with it. But while I was looking for an apartment and commuting from my parents' house, my hair had ample Metro North time to dry. Perhaps I arrived at work a little smooshed-looking, but no worse for the wear after running my fingers through it a couple of times.

Then I had the good fortune to find an apartment 15 minutes away from my job. And the misfortune to have shoulder-length wet hair every morning. So I invested in a high-quality, $15 hair dryer from Bed, Bath and Beyond. (Which I later "exchanged" for a $20 model.)

But I still don't know how to use it. If anyone ever compliments my hair at work, it's merely one of the days I've had better luck with that damned machine.

But no more! It is now OFFICIALLY WARM OUTSIDE, and my hair is nearly dry when I get to work, even if I take the subway.

Luxuriant Flowing Hair, here I come! Now if only I hadn't decided to ditch my plans to be a biomedical engineer, I could join the club.

What I Will be Doing in Union Square Park Next Weekend

Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Geysers!

I used to drink soda while eating pop rocks as a kid, but this is fantastic. You WSJ.Com subscribers out there, there's an article about it in Media & Marketing today!

Speaking of weekends - your weekend Haiku roundup awaits. Enjoy it while you can, because tomorrow, it's back to my usual questioning of bread and complaining about hairdryers. Bah!

Note To Self

Going to a bar
One hour before dinner plans
Unshowered - bad move.

Note to Self, II

Crowded restaurants
Don't go to Macdougal Street
Sans reservations

Note to Bars

A tough decision
Drinks or sushi, the same price
Well done to the bar

Note to Bars, II

Three drink *maximum?*
Two small beers, Irish Coffee -
My wallet leaves now.

Paul Noonan Is to Blame for my new Starbucks Habit

And he's looking for an apartment. See if you can help him out.

I'm Old - and Green Day is Still Great

Ok. I'm 22. I'm not actually old. But I was rummaging around some old junk in my parents house recently (things that they want me to "throw away") and I found one of my notebooks from 6th grade. You know what I wrote on my notebooks in 6th grade? In addition to the usual "I [heart] [boy's initials]," I wrote, "Green Day Rules '95." (I am a huge dork. I always have been, and I always will be. And I was in 6th grade.)

When I found this notebook, I realized two things: First, 1995 was ELEVEN YEARS AGO. Second, Green Day still rules, '06.

I listened to American Idiot this morning while getting ready for work - an album which I have embarrassingly not purchased, but merely copied from my younger brother. And it's great. Absolutely fantastic. But the best part about it is that it's still the Green Day I knew and loved when I was 11. The lyrics are better, sure, but it's not like they've changed their identity. They still play power chords and you can still jump around your bedroom in your pajamas and sing along.

And they were from CALIFORNIA. The "San Francisco Bay Area." How cool and foreign that sounded to a little girl from Westchester (the Bestchester). Even though I had no earthly conception what "the Bay Area," meant, I still told my best friend that if the world was ending in a week, I'd hop a plane to San Francisco to profess my love to Billy Joe Armstrong.

So is Green Day's music exclusively for 13 year-olds? Or is it for everyone? My brother is currently 16, but when he was 13, he asked to burn my copies of Dookie, Insomniac, Offspring's Smash, etc. Why? Because there apparently wasn't any good 13 year-old boy alt rock on the radio in 2003, and he needed mine. (No, I wasn't a 13 year old boy, but I was a pretty weird 13 year old girl.)

But I think it's for everyone. I'll never outgrow the warm chords of 2,000 Light Years Away or the timeless angst of Longview. Or maybe I'm still an awkward sixth grader at heart.

I Enjoy Walking Around Manhattan Dressed Like a Slob

In the time I have today, as blogger was down most of the afternoon, I'd like to briefly profess my love of walking around New York looking like a slob.

I frequently walk the 20+ blocks home from the gym in sweaty workout clothes at around 7pm. The stares I get are delightful. I honestly can't imagine that I'm the only person (only female?) in all of Manhattan who uses a gym in a nonresidential part of midtown and then walks home in the nice weather. Granted, my gym is in my (inexpensive because I'm young and rightly assumed poor) university club, which is on one of the clubbier midtown east blocks - but come on.

Thing is, I enjoy the stares. My comfy shorts, shapeless T shirt and post-workout flip flops are far superior to your stilettos and cigarette pants for your fancy schmancy dinner reservations, your strangling necktie and pinched business shoes leftover from work, and your ego. However, aside from the funny stares, it's pretty uneventful. And even the stares stop once I hit the 30s - everyone smells funny in Herald Square.

But I had a more satisfying slob experience last week, at the end of sweltering hot Memorial Day. Even though I was sunburnt and sweaty, I was the only one at home in my apartment and I didn't want to waste the airconditioning. (I'm sure I'll get over myself fairly quickly once it gets hot again.) I had a movie pass that I needed to use before the end of May and the one thing movie theatres have in abundance is AIR CONDITIONING. Sweet.

I was not in the mood to put on "real clothes" because I was sweaty from hauling my bag back from JFK and I covered in Solarcaine. Instead, on went the gym shorts and the T-shirt. The movie I decided to waste my pass on, Keeping Up With the Steins, was only playing at Kips Bay, so I decided to dress for the occasion. Camp Ramah shorts (I never went, I got them for free at a rummage sale) and a free Abercrombie t-shirt advertising their "college recruiting tour" from Fall 2004's job fair at school. And of course, flip flops (also free, also from the job fair, from the Gap. I tell you, the job fair was great. Too bad I didn't get a job there.)

I struck out eastward at 9:45 pm on the Monday of a holiday weekend, headed for Murray Hill's main drag. Granted, it wasn't as hopping as I'm sure it had been on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, but I walked past many confused boys and girls all shined up for one last night of revelry before the work week commenced. Perhaps because these individuals are my age, as opposed to the midtown clubbies, the looks were less "dumb kid" and more, "oh my god, like, ew."

Ultimately, a more satisfying walk than my walks home from the gym. But if you see a sweaty red-haired girl in shorts in midtown, be sure to say hi.

My Friends have a "Unique" Sense of Humor

Where do I start?

Perhaps the 150+ email thread that keeps rising to the top of my inbox and will, as of tomorrow, have done so for the past month? Did you know that Gmail breaks your conversations after they hit 100? Isn't that precious? But thank heavens for Gmail and its conversation feature, otherwise people would be dead. And I would have no friends. And I would be sad (and likely in jail.)

Or should I instead regal you with the entire text (or what I can remember of it) of the rhyming war that I had with Patel and Bedtime last week in a pizza joint near Washington Square Park. I'm not even going to attempt to recreate this one, but the main words used were park, dark, lark, stark, mark, and jark. Like jerk, but, you know, jark.

No, instead I'm going to turn to the conclusion that the Private Eye, Bedtime and myself came to last night, over a few beerz (Beerz!) at dBa:

We need to bring "Sike!" and "Not!" back to prominence in the English language.

(As you may recall, I used the former in a previous post.)

I bring you the always-reliable (not!) Urban Dictionary.com for usage:

Sike:

a dearly missed term from the late 80's and early 90's denoting that the immediately preceding statement was false and told to mislead another person.

I really miss that show Blossom....SIKE!

Not:

A word made popular in the early 90's by the movie Wayne's World. You add "not" to the end of a sentence to make blatant* the sarcasm in the sentence itself.

"What a totally amazing, excellent discovery...NOT!!!" - Wayne Campbell

Since these words obviously need to be brought back, only one question remains:

Wherein lies the difference betwixt the two?

Bedtime claims that "Sike!" refers to action, like when you say you're going to give someone a high-five and then pull your hand away. "Not!" on the other hand, refers to verbal agreements, more along the lines of "I like Jagermeister...Not!"

A valid distinction? Or merely hogwash? Discuss. And make sure to tell Bedtime that he's dumb, and that he absolutely cannot grow another summer beard - because it's disgusting. What kind of weirdo grows *more hair* in the summer? On his FACE?

The beard discussion, of course, reminded us of the great Neck-Beard-Off of 2004. One dorm at school officially had a competition, whereas my male friends... simply didn't shave. It was gross.

And on that delectable note - lunch!

__________________________________

*The grammarian in me cannot let this awful usage error fly. I refuse to discuss it, see the dictionary.com link while I continue to pound my first on the table.

With Love From Canada

As promised, I've updated my Niagara Fell series with photographs. I had a lengthy, internal debate over whether to create an entirely new post with the photos or simply update the old entries. (Trust me, it was like all those scenes in Fight Club).

In an effort to Stop Talking About Canada, I've updated the old posts (You know how to scroll down, don't you? You just put your finger and the mouse together and... cliiick.)*

So, I insist that you walk, not run...

They have these absolutely *fantastic* "walk" signs in Canada! (Yes, that's me. No, I'm not embarrassed. I actually wish I were making a funnier face, but I was attempting not to get run over by people and/or cars. You can smell the fear.)

... back to my Canada stories, Part I and Part II. Updated with new tales of intrigue about how bad I am at air hockey and how Ben and I have a combined mental age of 10!

_____________________
*To Have and Have Not. (It's famous and stuff.)

Rain, changer of plans

After a holiday hiatus over Memorial Day, Your Favorite Feature*, Haiku Haiku Mondays, has returned.

The theme of this past weekend was "rain," as in, "It's raining, or it could be raining, so let's not go to Brooklyn/see the Al Gore movie/have brunch/go outside." At least it wasn't cold.

In other news, I have my Niagara Falls pictures back! I'll post them soon and update accordingly.

Rain on Saturday

Saturday music
Trip to Deep Brooklyn, ditched when
The weather turned poor

Rain on Sunday

Sunday movie plans
Al Gore gives a Powerpoint?
Lincoln Square too far.

Saturday Night Mystery

Fratty east 50s
Bars with cheap bad booze abound
Why are birthdays here?

____________________
*Unless I'm mistaken, Haiku Haiku Mondays are my *only* feature.

Niagara Fell, Part II

Part II in a two-part series. There's no way this is hanging over until Monday. The problem with this vacation was that there was no problem. I had a very nice, normal time. I have no complaints and it wasn't exotic enough to merit much shock and awe. But without further ado:

The Weather:

Overwhelming humidity, but otherwise pleasant. It rained the first day we were there, but it was sunny and downright hot for the next three days. I suppose humidity is no surprise when there are 37.4 MILLION GALLONS OF WATER BEING DUMPED OVER SOME BIG ROCKS EVERY MINUTE. I also got sunburnt, which was lame.

The Attractions:



Obviously, The Falls. Really, it was a very nice bar in a trendy neighborhood. But I can't shake the feeling that the bouncer really wanted to give Ben and me a ride home...*

Oh wait, *wrong* Falls. Whoops!

Niagara Falls were impressive and very pretty. Did I mention that there were 37.4 MILLION GALLONS OF WATER BEING DUMPED OVER SOME BIG ROCKS EVERY MINUTE? No? Furthermore, those Canadians have created every way imaginable for tourists to pay to see the falls. Of course, you can stand on the main overlook, but how gratifying can that be if it's free?

Gratuitous pictures of Niagara Falls that I took. Pretty!

Ben and I went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride near the falls, the Journey Behind the Falls walk, and enjoyed the nighttime fireworks display over the illuminated falls. We opted not to pay for a helicopter ride, a tethered balloon ride, a trolley down a hill near the falls, admission to ride up an elevator to either the Skylon or the Minolta towers to view the falls from *really high up* and go shopping, or, my personal favorite, the IMAX movie about Niagara Falls. Why do they play this film at Niagara Falls? I don't get it.

As anyone who's been to the Falls may have gathered, we stayed on the Canadian side, because apparently, the American side is pretty scummy these days. That's because the Canadian side has a *casino*. It never ceases to amaze me how casinos revitalize tourism and de-scum old tourist attractions. Because casinos are classy, right?

In Clifton Hill, the main tourist drag, there were more bad wax museums and surprisingly scary haunted houses than you could shake a stick at, along with what seemed to be the same restaurant over and over. It was uncanny. There were three Starbucks within a three-ish block radius, leading me to bestow the misguided title of Real Place upon the town of Niagara Falls.

We also saw this really cool Floral Clock. When I get my pictures back, you'll see just how cool it was.


Not nearly as cool as the picture *I* took of the Floral Clock!
(I need to keep insisting it was cool, because Ben didn't think it would be all that great - and I can't very well admit that I was wrong, can I?)

Ahem.

The Floral Clock was beyond cool.

The Super Cool pictures of me in front of the Super Cool Floral Clock!

The Liquor:

Unsurprisingly, Canadian Beer = Amazing. Canadian Wine = Lacking. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to try the "famous" Niagara Region Ice Wine - but it was really, really expensive, even in Canadian dollars. We drove through the Niagara wine country, and it was scenic. That was enough for me.

The Crap:

In the nearby Victorian-architecture-d town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, I bought an adorable stuffed mallard duck as a souvenir. Ben bought a smutty t-shirt that said "Real Men Eat Beaver" in Clifton Hill. We bought some fudge. Neither of us found anything useful to bring back for family/friends. Unless you count the nasty fever/cold that Ben came down with on Tuesday that he surely gave to his roommate.

The People:

Tons of tourists in the tourist areas. The locals? What happens when you mix upstate New York with carneys? But they were all amazingly nice, including our bed-and-breakfast hostess Kathy - even though she didn't understand sarcasm.

Ben: We were worried we wouldn't fit in with the "local culture" at the Canadian bars.

Kathy: Oh, don't worry, Canadians are *just* like Americans! You'll do just fine!

She did make some damn fine French toast.

The Food:

Utterly uneventful. But New Yorkers don't really take vacations for new gastronomic experiences unless they involve flights longer than 3 hours, do they?

Ben and I did create the masterpiece depicted below on the paper covering the table at one restuarant. There was only one crayon color that worked. Sophisticated stuff, no? Note hangman games using British spellings and the "portrait" Ben drew of me on the left.

The Conclusion?

I had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. It was nice to get out of New York and visit a new place. Highly recommended for a long weekend - not quite enough to do for a week unless you tour every vineyard, or something. Check out Ben's review for more inane comments.

The Addendum:

I am terrible at air hockey.

Ben is awesome. And extremely mature about it, of course. You can just make out the score of 7-3 at the top of the photo.

Appropos of nothing, there was a sale. We got the feeling this sign was up year 'round. Still, I was excited, as you can see. Note the tree behind me trying to bend over and get to the sale, too. (I don't even remember what the store was selling.)

__________________

* Half of that is Ben's joke. We're twice as funny together!

Technorati is Insufficient for my High Power Blogging Needs

At any rate, it doesn't seem to be picking up everyone who has linked to me. Or maybe I'm just impatient. I'll keep my fingers crossed that Site Meter will reveal such blogs on the referrals page. Apologies to anyone who may think I'm ignoring them. As I said before, I'm in awe of the congeniality of the blogosphere.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to use Technorati or other (free) tracking tools more effectively, don't be a stranger.

And yes, I will write a "real" post today.

I am So Not Staying at Work to Blog

Hence, Niagara will continue falling tomorrow. I promise.

As a consolation prize, I offer you the following joke that I adore:

A girl walks up to the checkout stand at a grocery store. The clerk begins scanning her items. She has one TV Dinner, one bottle of diet coke, one rental video, one carton of ice cream, and an US Weekly. The guy at the checkout smiles at her and says, "Single, huh?"

The girl smiles back sheepishly and says, "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Because you're f*cking ugly."

xx

Audrey.