Saturday, November 18, 2006

New Zealand

Hello to family and friends-
Kpr and I have been in New Zealand for well over a week now, but it seems like we have been here a lot longer. There is so much to do and see every day, yet this is a very small country and we're really only doing the highlights.We started out in Auckland and went to Glyn and Ang's wedding (some of you might remember our friends from our wedding- they were the ones from New Zealand- go figure). We were finally able to meet their kids, J and E (who is Kpr's goddaughter) and were folded quite nicely into their family during the weekend at the vineyard where the ceremony and reception were held. Everything was so beautiful, from the little b&b where we stayed, to the amazing flowers and vines to the sunshine that peeked through the clouds just as the outdoor ceremony began. Gly and Ang had both rain and shine on their day and I think that makes them doubly lucky.

While in Auckland we went to this amazing little island called Waiheki and had lunch on a top of a mountain overlooking these beautiful green coves. Everything in New Zealand is green and looks very fluffy, like you could just lay down in a field and it would be super comfortable. There are sheep and cows all over and they eat very well. Every setting looks like it is out of Lord of the Rings (as it probably was) and most of our pictures are of the awesome landscapes and vistas.

After Auckland we traveled through the North Island, stopping in the Coromundel Pennisula to go to Hot Sands Beach, where you dig a hole in the sand and it fills up with hot water and you sit in the hole and drink wine. Unfortuneately, we weren't there during low tide, do Kpr dug a a lot of holes, but never hit water. We then did a hike to Cathedral Cove, which was an amazing rock formation and, well the pictures we have don't do the place justice.

We drove to Rotarua and had an afternoon in the famous Polynesian Spa, bathing in the hot springs up to 42degrees Celcius, which is really hot. The next day we went to the Tongaririo National Park and climbed a volcano. We got all the way to the top and had to turn back around because it was so exposed and so windy (the weather was pretty horrible) that I almost got blown off the side. We then had to retrace our steps and hike three about three hours of desert brush to get to where the car would pick us up. A six hour trip over the volcano turned into an eight hour 'oh my god is this ever going to end' trek.

We made it to Wellington and took the ferry to the South Island, where we met up with Glyn and Ang and the girls on their honeymoon. We went to this little resort called Punga Cove where you have to drive up a mountain over the twistiest road full of more turns and cliffs and falling rocks- all while driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. We made it though and it only took about an hour and a half to go 45km.

After Punga Cove we said our goodbyes to Glyn, Ang and the girls and made our way through Marlborough Sounds, to wine country. We stayed in this lovely b&b and drove to as many vineyards as possible before they closed for the evening. We had dinner at an English Pub, and went to bed early, gearing up for more wine tasting the next day.
Despite the on and off rain showers, we decided to bike through the countryside, figuring we were wearing helmets, and that meant we could drink as much as we wanted. We had a great time, learned a lot about wine that we promptly forgot, drank a lot of savignon blanc, pinot gris, pinot noir, and the one that starts with a ger- something or other. We biked through the rain and earned our pasta dinner that night.

Yesterday we drove from Marlgorough all the way across the south island to the West Coast, which is so amazingly beautiful. We stayed in a little cabin last night after trecking through the Truman Track. This morning we went to the "Pancake Rock" formation, which are rocks that look like stacks of Pancakes, right on the coast and at high tide the water is sent up these little 'blowholes' and looks like geysers. It is pretty neat.

Tomorrow we take a heli ride up a glacier and hike around a bit and then Tuesday we fly to Sydney and meet up with Anthony and hopefully spend a lot of time on the beach and get to see all our friends in Sydney. Kpr leaves next weekend and I spend an extra week in Australia and return on 12/2.

Hope all is well in your world. It has been great to be unplugged from everything going on back home, but of course we miss you all! We've had updates from the Rs and Barb and both Bonnie and Champ are doing well- but we miss them terribly!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Kpr and I are going to have to have our own little Thanksgiving Feast when we return, as we'll miss it this year.

Love,Love-
divinemissk

Monday, November 06, 2006

off to new zealand

kpr and i leave tomorrow for new zealand and australia. we're going to a friend's wedding and then we'll travel around the north and south island and make our way over to sydney. i'm super excited!
this will be my third continent this year! after this, i'll only need to visit antarctica to have seen them all! anyone want to go to antarctica?

i'll be back in early december. while i'm gone, maybe you would like to vote for me in this finesse hair care contest?
the top five winners are part of the 2007 advertising campaign and i thought it would be really neat if i were in that top five....
that's where you come in- if you would be so kind as to go here each and everyday and give me highest marks, i would love you forever!

what are you waiting for? go now!

love ya!

http://finessecontest.com/users/110406124005Q6y4NqBF

dear abby

this past weekend, i traveled to ohio to be with my parents and my sister as we said goodbye to our beloved family dog, abby. she had been a part of our family for the last twelve years and was diagnosed two weeks ago with several tumors on different parts of her lungs. there was also something else troubling her as she lost the use of her legs, her eyes were pretty bad too, she had had bad cataracts for some time now, and we wondered if she could see at all. her breathing was labored, she was unable to go outside without my father carrying her in and out and it got the point where she was suffering so much that there was really only one decision we could make for her.

we were all there with her as she passed, it was heart wrenching, but i think we all took a little comfort knowing that she was no longer in pain.

we adopted abby when i was sixteen, shortly after we moved to ohio. we had adopted a german shepard/yellow lab puppy, named braeburn, and had him for over a year, but he had horrible epilepsy and it got to the point where the medication was no longer working... after braeburn, my parents told us that we would have to wait a while before we looked for another dog. i think this decree lasted about a month and a half before we went back to the little house that served as a dog shelter and started our search. we had also went to the big fancy aspca building and had our eye on a little puppy, who was adorably cute, but it was at the little house that we found abby. she was the house dog. so sweet and gentle that she was allowed to roam freely, made her bed under the front desk and was loved by all who worked there. she was a sight to see- part dalmation, part border collie, part god knows what (beagle it seemed as she aged, her legs got shorter and her belly began to hang just like a beagle's). she had some spots, some black patches, some white patches, a long snout and the loveliest eyes you ever did see. i remember thinking she was probably the ugliest dog, but boy was she sweet (my opinion changed in no time short as we all fell under her spell). when we decided to adopt her, i remember the teenage boy who volunteered at the shelter had tears in his eyes as he said goodbye to her. we knew we had picked the right dog.
they told us she had been found wandering at the side of i-270, someone had dumped her on the side of the highway and abandoned her. it was apparent that she had just had a litter of puppies, even though the vet didn't think she was much older than a year. she had been horribly abused and was so afraid of everyone, especially men. whenever my father raised his voice and she was in the room, she would role over on her back in a submissive position. it was heartbreaking. she soon grew to trust us all and lived up to her reputation of being the sweetest most loving dog.

she greeted everyone who walked into our home with a wagging tail and an insistent snout that demanded she receive proper attention. if you were sitting down, she would come up to you, put her nose on your knee and just look at you with eyes that said "my ears sure do need a good scratch." there was nothing you could do but oblige her and the second you stopped scratching the nose would return, more nudgingly insistent this time "you didn't think you were done, did you?" she was beloved by everyone- my friends from high school would visit even after i went away to college, all to hang out with abby (and my family too, i guess).

abby was the neighborhood dog, the little kids who live on our street would often knock on the door and ask if abby could come out and play. she loved nothing more than holding court in the backyard where all the kids would crowd around her and rub her tummy and her ears and then run off to play ball. she would sit contentedly under her tree, keeping an eye on them all as they roughed about, coming back now and then to check in with her, give her another treat and another good scratch. most of those kids knew abby their whole life. it was hard when the boys next door came over to say goodbye to her, i had to escape to the kitchen and then upstairs while they were with her, because it broke my heart to witness it. abby used to go over to their house and wander about. they had their own stash of treats, just for her.

she soon solidified her role in the household as the 'queen.' my parents set up the biggest, most lush bed in their room for her to sleep on. she was afraid of thunderstorms and would insist that one of my parents lay on the sofa downstairs and pet her until she fell asleep. she kept my father active, with daily walks down to the schoolyard. she was a constant companion to my mother and was very protective of her after her surgeries on her feet. this past summer, the house next door to my parents was broken into and robbed. luckily no one was at home at the time. my mother was doing some gardening a few days later and discovered that our screen facing that house, had been cut as well. my parents filed a police report and they surmised that abby had scared the robbers off (although if anyone had broken into the house, she would have greeted them with tail wagging and insisted they pet her a while before getting down to business).


she would come running anytime the pantry door was open, hoping for a treat. she was always there with her tail wagging when you walked in the door, and gave the best kisses. she had the deepest, most beautiful brown eyes, the softest ears and i miss her so.


Friday, October 13, 2006

two things

the show i'm in was reviewed and they liked us! they really, really liked us! they especially liked me, and the two other girls i'm in a scene with (we're mention FIRST!!) go us!

also- i went to dumbo today to do some location scouting and took some pictures. i like them, maybe you will too.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

my brother has a blog. it is conceptual. you should go there.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

bonnie and champ love

i know you are dying for our latest pictures of the boo boo and champ. this is one of my favorites of bonnie, snapped in the backseat of the car on our way to the beach a few weekends ago. usually when we photograph her, her eyes glow blue and she looks all blurry and stuff.


this one of champ is also one of my favorites.


this is champ ensuring the safety of all those drinking on the deck.


this is bonnie using her satellite ears to monitor the repairs being done on the international space station. she works part time for nasa.


this is a crab, we named him 'dinner'.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

random bits

i temp and end up working in all kinds of offices all around the city. temping and auditioning has allowed me to explore almost every corner of manhattan and parts of brooklyn and queens. i have what i consider an excellent working knowledge of the subway system, although when pressed, i might not always have the right answer right away, but give me a moment to think about it and i know which way to go.

i have about 3 temping outfits. because i end up going to different places every couple of days, i'm able to utilize the same outfit in the same week, with no one being the wiser. when i'm at a job for longer than a week, i have to get creative and mix and match. i have a pair of black wide-leg pinstripe pants that i wear all the time- i do a check every morning and if they don't need to be cleaned, i throw them on with a rotating group of solid colored tops. i have been wearing more brown, i have this pair of brown pinstriped pants, but don't have brown shoes, so i take a risk wear them with stiletto black heels. one of these heels was nibbled on by bonnie, but ken found out in time before any major damage was done. its funny, she's never chewed on anything of ours, except for this one heel. i think she sensed it was my favorite pair.

i wore these heels out last week to a work event for kpr. after socializing with industry folks, we ended up tipsy at a new french place a few blocks from our house. i had fish, i think, and a big crock of french onion soup. at the end of the night, we went to walk home and there was no way i could make in my shoes. so what does my darling husband do? he takes off his own boots, puts them on my feet and we walk home, he in his black dress socks and me in my clumpy new kicks. how sweet is that?!

i refuse to buy a business suit. i had a conversation with my pal m the other day and we both commented that we imagined our bodies would feel foreign in a business suit. some of the jobs i go to require that i dress business conservative, which means a suit- but i throw caution to the wind and dare to go in in slacks and a sweater. that's as about as dressy as i'm going to get.

bonnie has had two 'episodes' since the end of july. one was while we were away on our honeymoon and our dear friend who was dogsitting at our house had to rush her to the er at 4 in the morning. we got a call at our b&b in provence and were really worried. she stabilized and was back to her old self quickly, but she was so nervous while we were gone that she lost two pounds. she only weighed 11 pounds to begin with so when we returned we could see all of her little bones sticking out and it was quite scary. she has gained about a half pound and i've been trying to feed her a little more, but not too much because i don't want her digestive tract to go crazy. i know she'll gain it all back eventually.

she had her second episode the day after we returned from our honeymoon. we were so jetlagged and grumpy and it was really hard to take her to the er again and then sit there in the harsh lights wondering what they were doing to her back there. luckily our next door neighbor works at this hospital, he's a resident and practically lives at the hospital, so he evaluated and treated her and we were able to walk out of there without dealing with accounting. i don't feel bad about that because we've spent so.much.money at this hospital and all he ended up giving her was a dose of benadryl to calm her and then recommended that we take her home where she would be more comfortable. she and i spent the night in the darkened guest room where i bundled her up under the covers and she nestled her head right at my neck and licked my face to make sure that i was still there.

she is really the sweetest little dog, but has obvious separation anxiety which only exacerbates her neurological condition, sending her into a spiral of what we now refer to as 'atypical seizures' where she shakes uncontrollably, which progresses to nervous serious panting, which leads to combative behavior and eventually she cannot see, but is insistent that she be able to walk around and not be held. sometime she looses control of her bladder, sometimes she runs into the wall and it is always scary because we don't know how she is going to get out of it and of course don't want her to be in any pain. the benadryl calms her to a point where she can start to relax and let go of this anxiety that has caused her to have neurological symptoms. she needs to be in a place with as little stimulus as possible (a dark room, under the covers) and she needs reassurance.

it only takes about a day and a half for her to go back to her old self. we visited a new neurologist who put her on a new anti convulsant medication (phenobarbitol!) and i'm a bit afraid for her little liver, since she is still on the prednisone (which makes her hair fall out in patches). we're on a 6 month trial, so we'll see how everything goes. her last neurologist suggested surgery, and this neurologist wants to explore medical options first... her last neurologist is the north american expert in the field, but has moved back to ithaca to teach at cornell. i'm thinking of getting in touch with him and going up there and having him re-evaluate her.

i've been cast in a production of the pl@yboy of the west3rn w0rld by jm syng3. its an irish play from 1907 and i'll be playing a young gossipy townsgirl and not the lead like i wanted- but it is the third largest female role, if that matters at all. i know there are no small parts only small actors, but i thought i was really well suited for the lead female, and kindof had my heart set on it, but i can see why the directors decided to go another way, as well. it is a good opportunity to work on my irish dialect and i like the theatre company i'm working with. the show goes up at the beginning of october, so the rehearsal commitment is minimal.

in november kpr and i are going to new zealand and australia! i'll be there for almost 4 weeks! hooray!

Monday, September 11, 2006

it's funny, i am the kind of person who forget the details of most events, i remember the highlights, but not the sequence, and without much clarity.
but i do remember this day five years ago.

i was three weeks shy of celebrating my first anniversary of living in new york city. two weeks shy of my 23rd birthday. i had just returned from a month long trip to mali, west africa and had been working the past few days at an off-broadway theatre company on 46th street, building sets and working backstage. i had been recently cast in a production of "the two gentlemen of verona." kpr and i were at the beginning of our on-again relationship, he decided it would be a good idea to break up with me when i went away to africa (so i could be free to do whatever i wanted, or something like that- so stupid.) but he called me a few days after i returned and was like "why didn't you call me the minute you got back?" i was living in a 3 bedroom apartment on 207th street in manhattan, in a neighborhood called inwood, way up at the top of the island. i had 3 roommates at the time, but many people came and went from that flat.

that morning i woke up around 8:30 and took a shower. it was my routine to turn on the morning show of one of the pop radio stations when i returned to my room and started to get ready to go to work. i flipped the radio dial just as they were saying, "we are getting reports of..." in a very serious tone. this was not a serious station, so i knew something was up.
i immediately went into the living room and turned on the large television my roommate had gotten her boyfriend for christmas that year. i think i turned it to cnn, and i remember seeing that picture, fuzzy at first, of the tower on fire. my phone rang as they were reporting that they believed a small commuter plane had accidentally crashed into the tower. my mother was on the phone, concerned, wanting to know where i was. i told her i was at home, at my apartment uptown and she was relieved that i wasn't downtown at kpr's apartment. she then launched into a conversation about my little sister, but i was distracted, watching the television, wondering what the hell was going on just a few miles down the road. she was still talking about my sister when the second plane hit and i just remember screaming, "why did they do that?!" i know now that my mom was trying to distract me, and keep me calm, because she knew what was happening, but i had no idea. i told her that i would call her back later, i had to sit down and focus on what was going on.

i felt desperately alone- my roommate, liz, who had jumped into the shower after i had gotten out, was still in the bathroom, and i wanted to run in there and drag her to the living room and force her to sit there with me. instead, i waited until i heard the bathroom door open and i walked down the hall and told her, "there's something you should see in the living room." she told me later that she thought i was talking about a mouse, or a large cockroach on the hardwood floor.

we sat there and watched events unfold, dumbfounded, and a more than a little terrified. kpr called and i remember him telling me that this was no accident (i was hoping, hoping, hoping that it was some terrible accident.), that this was terrorism. it's funny, that word seemed so strange at the time- so unknown- but now it is commonplace and sounds phony to my ears.
kpr had no tv access from work and was getting his updates from online. we stayed tuned to cnn because the major channels were having difficulty, due to the fact that their large antennas were on top of tower 1. i described to him what i saw, disbelief cutting through every word. i was having trouble comprehending what was going on.

my roommate liz, asked if i knew where our other roommate, m (who happened to be my ex boyfriend) was. i didn't, and suddenly i became terribly concerned with knowing exactly where everyone i knew who lived in the city was located. what if they were downtown? i started calling m, leaving voicemail after voicemail, but never talking to him. after a while, our phones went dead- the lines were jammed up and cell signals were faulty, again due to all the antenna on tower 1. i couldn't get through, and immediately thought the worst, stupid and crazy i know. when he finally burst through the door later that morning i was furious, "where were you?! don't you know what is going on?!" he was oblivious, having spent the night at a friend's house in riverdale, not turning on the tv or radio, and taking the bus home. i quickly filled him in and we all sat in the living room, nervous.

at one point, liz said, "they have got to put those fires out or those buildings are going to melt." i told her there was no way for them to reach the fires with water, but i didn't believe they would collapse. about two minutes later, the picture on the screen went brown, like a sudden sandstorm had overtaken lower manhattan. when the dust cleared we were staring in disbelief where tower two had once been standing. the voices on tv, reporting what was happening, seemed like robots. i buried my head in the cushions of the couch and sobbed. when the second tower went down, i just remember wondering, "why?"

the rest of the day was spent on pins and needles. we didn't know what would happen in the city. we were essentially stuck on the island, as they were letting no one on or off (or so we were told, there were so many rumors going around). i briefly contemplated walking across the bridge to the bronx, but then what? i didn't like feeling trapped like that. we debated going to the store and buying tons of food, we did eventually go, but i don't think we bought anything, or if we did, it was a few lousy cans of green beans and ravioli. i remember there was no bottled water left on the shelves.

back in the apartment, we were glued to the television. our phones were not working at all, even the land line and that was creepy. occasionally a random call would come through and we would ask that person to please, please call our parents or our best friends, here's their number, let them know we're ok. liz would go out for frequent smoke breaks and i would join her on the stoop, wanting a cigarette desperately, even though i don't smoke. while she was puffing away, i would search the faces of the people walking down our street, wondering how they were dealing with things. wondering if they knew what had happened. wondering if they were jumping out of their skin like i was.

m and i eventually decided to go and give blood, since that was the only action it seemed like we could take, the only way we could help. they had started the subway again and we took the train down to presbyterian hospital and got in line. the corridor was filled with people with shocked faces, signs were posted giving information about donating. we were told to fill out a form and they would call us in a few days, they were simply overwhelmed by the outpouring of people wanting to help. we left, passing by the emergency room entrance where there were doctors and nurses ready willing and able to save with the people pulled out of the carnage, the people who never showed up.

that night i went to bed, my eyes strained from watching television all day. my nerves dissolved with the tension of knowing the city that i loved, my home, had been attacked brutally. my mind rolling through the pictures that will forever stay in my head and in our nations conscious. i don't know how i fell asleep that night, sheer exhaustion and grief, i guess. i remember feeling glad to be alive.

i woke up the next day terrified. for the first time in my life, i felt like everything might not be ok, and never would be again. we were so blessed in this country to wake up with the cushion of security every morning, and now that security was gone. m and i went for a walk with our dear friends sandra and andy, who lived down the block. we went hiking through the forest in inwood park and they took m and i out to a ridge where you can see past the george washington bridge, all the way downtown. we could see the plumes of smoke rising high into the air and where the towers were supposed to be. it was strange to finally be given physical evidence of what had happened. those buildings were no longer there. we walked back through the park, stopping when a fleet of black hawk helicopters zoomed past us, flying low in the air. it gave the atmosphere the feeling of a war zone.

kpr and i were eventually reunited, he had trouble getting to his apartment, which was below houston street and completely shut down. he had to show id to numerous police and national guard. he said when he got home, everything smelled like burning tires. he and our friend r drove up to my apartment and we decided to get out of the city. the bridges and tunnels were open now, and we drove down to kpr's parent's house outside of philadelphia, dropping r off at his folks along the way. we spent some time with kpr's parents, having drinks out on the back deck and watching the military planes from the local airforce base fly overhead. we decided to go to kpr's family beach house and try to relax there and get away from everything. i remember feeling so guilty, but relieved to be there.

we watched way too much tv and i cried during the interview with the president of cantor fitzgerald.

we drove back into the city that sunday and it was horrifying to see the hole in the skyline as we approached on the new jersey turnpike. kpr ended up spending a lot of time at my uptown apartment because things were still to dicey downtown. i went back to work and would silently cry everyday on the subway as i looked at all the signs of the people who were missing- i imagined their families agony and cursed my inability to do anything. those signs were everywhere you turned and each time i saw one my heart broke a little bit more.

eventually we ended up back at kpr's place and the next week my mom wanted to come visit- to see that i was really ok. i took her and her friend pam to union square, which had been set up as kindof a makeshift memorial, with candles burning in huge masses, people singing, chalked messages all over the sidewalk and on the statues. peace signs and american flags and flowers were everywhere. pictures of loved ones lost and murals dedicated to the people on the planes. the news media was milling around and people were standing silently in little groups. they had just reopened below 14th street, and now anyone could access parts of downtown.

my birthday passed almost unnoticed, it seemed to tragic to celebrate.

kpr's parents visited a few days later and we took them to a restaurant in tribeca, one of deniro's venues. we walked the few short blocks to where the crews were working 24 hours a day and stood at the barricade, gaping at the piece of the facade that was still standing (the piece that you see in all the pictures)- it was so large, so unreal.

the next week, i went to work at a firm on the 48th floor of a downtown trump building. they had a bird's eye view of ground zero and i was told stories of people evacuating down the stairs and women losing their high heeled shoes in the dash to get away. that first morning, when i stepped out of the subway station and onto the street, i was facing what i think must be the remains of building 7, which resembled the oklahoma city federal building after it had been bombed. my breath caught in my throat.

i think a lot about that day. i think a lot about how much we lost and how hard it was to live in the city afterwards. i think about the fear i felt and how that will never really go away completely. i think about how my eyes have been opened, and how i felt asleep before all of this. kpr and i have marched several times on the capitol since, marched before the war for peace and marched in new york after the war started for resolution. i think about how much i love where i live, cherish every street corner, can't imagine living anywhere else, but still feel a bit nervous on certain days, for no apparent reason. i think about the people who had no thoughts that morning other than saving as many lives as they could, and i think about those who never got to go to sleep that night in this strange new world.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

kissy kissy. (eww gross)



i am happy to be married, but perplexed by how huge my bouquet turned out to be (that's not even like, half of it).

photos by Chad Nicholson Photography (its so nice to have talented friends)

where the hell is matt?

have you seen this? you probably already have, but if not, it is AWESOME!

so very very inspired and, well, jealous...

Saturday, August 26, 2006

so, i am married now!

oh my gosh, i am like totally a different person. except, not.

the wedding was fantastic. i can't really describe everything in words, but i had an amazing time. it was so fantastic to have the friends that i love and the family that i cherish all there in the same room together. kpr and i spent exactly 30 seconds with everyone at the wedding and actually had the time to dance together once.

my brother performed the wedding ceremony, and we are still not officially married, if that means anything. he was ordained through the rose ministries which you can look up online because i am too lazy to provide a link. but basically he was ordained and then he and his wife (who is awesome) came to new york and he registerd with the city by signing this big old ledger book. so then he could legally perform marriage ceremonies in all 5 boroughs. sweet!

except we are still not married. it has been five weeks today, and although i lost my keys and kpr lost his keys to the mailbox, i am sure that our brand spanking new wedding certificate is not is our magic mailbox. something went wrong and my brother had to write this letter and so we are still not legally married.

but this is good because i have not gotten around to changing my name or filling out a new w4 or anything. so i'm like totally illegal and stufff. or not i don't know. i've decided to add kpr's name to my whole name. except i don't want a hyphen. it's not that i have anything against the hyphen, it is just that i would like my name to be kate jones smith instead of kate jones-smith. is that so wrong.

i have real problems with losing my last name and my first name once i get married.

for instance

mr. and mrs. kpr smith

where is my name in that? oh it is pretty much nowhere.... i don't like that....

but anyway

the wedding was fantastic. i had an amazing time and it was pretty much the greatest night of my life.
my friend m told me it was in the top 4 of the greatest nights of her life and everyone else has told us that it was the best wedding they have ever been to and that every wedding attend after this will have to live up.

i'm just saying...

the ceremony was great (we wrote it and had key people participate in it, including our friend who set us up, two of my favorite girls, and kpr's lovely cousins.)
we had and untraditional ceremony that somehow seemed very traditional (thanks elizabeth barret browning, ee cummings and all the apaches)
there was champagne available from the moment our guests arrived. (also, i had vodka before walking down the aisle)
the food was AMAZING
the music was fantastic and people were dancing from the first song played
my friends were so fun and outgoing it made everyone feel like they could just be silly and be themselves (yay theatre people!)

my dear friend chad took some pretty amazing pictures and you can see them here. i didn't really ask him if i could post the link, but he made the pics public on flickr so i think its ok. if its not and you don't want the two people who read this blog to see (my bro and mo) than just let me know. in case you were unsure, i am the one in the big dress with the big hair.

we'll have some pro pics up sometime soon, i think, but i really love these photos- they capture what i'll remember from the night.

our honeymoon was fantastic. we were in the south of france and everyone, all the french people, were so nice to us. and i was like, "what the heck? french people are supposed to be so snooty and hate americans. and they all pretended to not know that we were american- and it was great.
we took this helicopter tour from monaco (it' s own little country- how sweet!) to san tropez (pamela anderson got married there like the week after we did, we totally almost have the same anniversery. go kid rock!) and that was pretty neat. maybe one of these days i will post to youtube our helicopter videos...
we also went to provence, where we drank lots of wine ate lots of food and experienced the apocolypse! there was a lot of hail and we have video!!!
then it was on to barcelona, which was great, but hot, so all i wanted to do was eat ice cream.

then we went to mallorca. which was fabulous because i spent all of our time with my friend alex and her family. it was great. i missed her so much and i loved hanging out with her little one j, and the new little baby a and her husband drew. yay for friends! in exotic places that they will share with you!

honeymoons are great and totally necessary! i reccomend one to all my friends.

since i have been home i have been temping and submitting for auditions, but have yet to have been called in for one. but that is ok because i just make myself feel better by drinking all of this wine that we have in our house from the wedding!

yay wine! it rules!

edited to add that i was totally drunk whilst composing this, ummmmm, thing, so i totally don't have to have correct grammar, punctuation or spelling, because, YAY WINE!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

FW: Here comes the sun

Champ in his element

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Tuesday, August 01, 2006

nueva entrada

greetings from barcelona.
i am now an old married woman. as soon as i got married, i got old- as in back pain, random numbness in the footal area, insomnia, and constipation. yay old! haha, kpr is really stuck now!

the wedding was amazingly fantabulous. will post pictures etc... next week hopefully.ç

honeymooning is awesome and as we´re winding down to the end, i am sad, because its so romantic and stuff and i´m not looking forward to all the laundry in my future, but i´m glad to go home because i miss bonnie and champ like crazy. i just want to kiss their little dog faces. bonnie was in the hospital again while we have been away and i just want to go home and cuddle.

but we still have mallorca! glorious mallorca! with the beaches and the europeans and my dear dear friends and new babies and toddlers and hooray!

i had coffee! yay coffee!

more next week.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

married.

not yet!

but soon!

like, this friday soon!

hahahahahahahaaaaahaaaaa!

i'm not anxious at all.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

BIO diesel

*Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp. In fact, when the diesel engine was first introduced at the World's Fair in 1900, it ran on peanut oil.

*Two decades later, Henry Ford was designing his Model Ts to run on ethanol made from hemp. He envisioned the entire mass-produced Model T automobile line would run on ethanol derived from crops grown in the U.S.

*Even in the 1920s, the oil industry had massive lobbying power in Washington. Lobbyists convinced policymakers to create laws favoring petroleum based fuels while disgarding the ethanol option.

*Nearly a century later, amidst oil wars in the Middle East, Global Warming, and a nearly depleted oil supply, the U.S. government is finally shifting attention to fuels that are more along the lines of Diesel and Ford's original ideas.

*In an interview with the New York Times in 1925, Henry Ford said: "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."


from organic consumers.org

Monday, June 05, 2006

Central park today

Mother nature in gotham.

happy monday

i'm temping at a shoe showroom this week and i'm in dire need of a pedicure. it's embarrassing. i'm with all of these feet professionals and my toes are in sorry shape. i'm wondering if i can get one during lunch, but then i will miss out on that whole eating thing.

i also need a facial. i need to test one out before the wedding and i'm running out of time. you are supposed to give like six weeks i think between facials, but i don't have that many weeks and of course i don't want get the facial right before the wedding because that could be a big mistake and then i would break out on my wedding day and then the world would end.

i had some sort of dream about the wedding last night- it was positive- i just don't remember the details. then, right before i woke up i had this dream that i was at my dad's office (only it wasn't his office is was some other space with lots of stairwells that just represented his office), and we were on a scavenger hunt looking for something with a pie and the number 81. and everyone was searching, searching the office. i had somehow infiltrated the other team and was searching with two other people, when i happened upon a binder that was labeled "cobra" and then it had a pie chart with 81% marked out of it. we were so excited to have found the item- when the other team walked by us in the stairwell, i stuffed the binder under my shirt. as they walked through the doorway i yelled "ITS A BINDER!! LOOK FOR THE COBRA BINDER!!!" and ran as fast as i could. then my alarm went off.

fascinating.

there are shoe models sitting out here in the lobby. can you imagine the life of a shoe model? they are attractive, short (size 5 feet i think). they wear pretty little clothes and have shiny legs. i wonder how they keep their legs looking so nice, because i try, but it doesn't always work out. last week a mosquito used both my knees as an all you can eat buffet while i was sleeping and i had no control over it. what do you do if you are a body parts model and it's mosquito season? wear lots of bug spray all the time, even a night? what if you cut yourself shaving?

i bet they have nice pedicures.

and don't have old lady bunions like me. (ewww old lady bunions- but mine are soooo attractive, no really, they are)

the shoe models (who seem like perfectly nice people) are talking about other models and purse dogs. god! why can't i be like a hair model or something?

oh god someone just totally read over my shoulder all about my old lady bunions. signing off now.

Friday, June 02, 2006

48 days to go

and i just get dizzy thinking about it. a new month brings a whole new load of things to do on my list at theknot.com. thank god for this list, or else i would have no idea what the heck i am doing. i know there are things that i should be doing, that i have just been putting off. ugghh. sometimes i love all this planning stuff and sometimes i just want someone else to do it.

i had two showers the weekend before memorial day weekend. and they both were lovely. have i sent the thank you notes out yet? nope. i'll be working on those today. i have to send flowers to the shower hostesses as well.

i have to figure out where we are staying in mallorca.

i have to figure out how many rows of chairs we are having at the ceremony and buy pew flower holders.

I MUST MEET WITH THE FLORIST!!

we have to write the ceremony and our vows (just a little thing).

i have to finalize the hair appointments for that day and find another makeup artist.

when am i getting my next haircut?

transportation for that day?

hotel room for wedding night?

who is staying with bonnie and champ while we are gone?

do i want to buy earrings or just go with my pearls?

invitations were sent out yesterday! thank the lord our friend who designed them took care of mailing them from the post office himself. so it's official now, there's no backing out. ha ha!
we're only giving people two weeks before the rsvp, so they can't put off making a decision. but everyone received a save the date, so they should all have, well, saved the date...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

"it's just what the world don't need, another stinking tragedy"

the carnage that greeted me last night when i returned home from a friend's birthday party was pretty gruesome.
at first, i couldn't bring myself to look, let alone examine the remains.
the poor little squirrel didn't stand a chance- his body parts were spread all over the room and it was pretty clear that he hadn't put up much of a fight. when i searched for witnesses, all i could find was a terrified fish, trembling under the couch.


the two resident dogs have no idea what happened.

they claim to have gone out for an ice cream cone and returned to find the squirrel had up and committed suicide."we just didn't know he was so depressed. if i had known, i would have done my best to get him help. but now i guess it's too late." said bonnie as she coughed up a fur ball."i had nothing to do with this, and my attorney has advised me to make no other comment."

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

who's that girl?


with new template courtesy of miss zoot (isn't it purty?!), comes a photo. this could be me, or this could be someone from a kohl's catalog...

stalkers beware! i know juijitsu! and i'm well connected in the mob...

photo courtesy of Chad Nicholson Photography

cherry blossom explosion


a few weekends ago, kpr and i had our tasting at the brooklyn botanic gardens. we happened to be there the weekend of the cherry blossom festival- which was awesome because our caterer was also catering the festival which meant FREE BEER! and i don't even drink beer! but it was free, so i did. also FREE SUSHI! hooray for cherry blossoms everywhere!



the flowers were really lovely, so was sitting out in the sun and getting the season't first sunburn!

no money was harmed in the drinking of this beer.

these flowers were in our backyard a few weeks ago. that was before our backyard turned into a big pile of dead flowers covered in dog shit that i keep meaning to pick up. oh but wait it was raining, so i can't pick anything up! now with more soggy!yeah tulips! doesn't this picture make our backyard look so zen-like and peaceful? well it's not, but it will be soon! as soon as the bulldozers come in and change our lives!

Monday, May 29, 2006

I was bored

So i took some pictures.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

kleinfeld's you better not be the suck today

i am about to attempt my third and hopefully my last visit to kleinfeld (i hope i spelled it right this time). i made a special trip on sunday after confirming that yes, indeed, they are open on sundays.

I TOOK THE SUBWAY ON THE WEEKEND.

which i never do.

at. all.

because the wait for the train is agonizing and there are always stupid changes, like you must go to brooklyn get off the train run like hell up the stairs and hope you don't miss the train that will actually get you from lower manhattan to midtown (brooklyn is in the opposite direction).

the weekends are for sleeping in and lounging on the couch and not for taking the subway.

so i went all the way to kleinfeld's and i guess they were closed this sunday because what mother in her right mind goes shopping on mother's day?!

hello? i just want some underthings and a pretty pair of bridal shoes! is that too much to ask?!

they better be open today or else i will be forced to fire bomb their bridal bouffantry in the front window.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

wedding crazy

we're getting to that point in time in which we can no longer discuss details and then push off making a decision until later. there is not that much later left, and that is, well, a little scary.

i was finalizing the guest list today, to send off to the invitation printer, and was shocked to discover that i had under estimated our total by about 14 people. me + math= the suck.

our wedding is going to be a big event, bigger than i ever thought it would be and i'm ok with that. i had imagined something small and on a beach somewhere, but this is going to be fun, i have no doubt. we're fortunate enough to be able to invite all the people we want, plus all the people our parents want, so why not go ahead and do it?

i'm trying to keep all of the details simple. the food will be amazing, i have no doubt. the catering/cake/chairs/tables/linens/place settings/ceremony location is all rolled up into one, so that is a huge relief. and they really know what they are doing because they do like, 5 weddings every week and have major events every night, so i have confidence in the palm house.

the music is a dj during the reception and our friend's 3 piece jazz trio during the ceremony/cocktail hour.

the flowers will be simple, but beautiful, and i'm having them delivered to my house and brought to the brooklyn botanic garden by a friend and a man in a van, which saves quite a significant amount.

the photographer shoots pretty much every wedding at the bbg, and knows all the best shots and is very creative and wonderful, so i have faith in that too.

the rehearsal dinner is being planned right now.

the invites have been designed, wording has been sent off, waiting for proofs and will finalize list hopefully tonight.

ceremony details have been discussed, hemmed and hawed over and need to be finalized asap. most readers have been asked and apparently we have an officiant (i hope? :)

i need to buy shoes and undergarments, hair pins and figure out jewellry. my sister's dress is ready, fitted and she already has shoes.

hair appointments for the big day have been made. i have my makeup person in place and need to figure things out for everyone else.

kpr bought his tux (finally!) and his brother already has a tux. my brother will rent a tux or wear a suit, i don't care. dad's have tuxs, mom's dresses are ordered and ready to be fitted.

my dress is in and my fitting is next week.

i have two showers next weekend, one for his side, one for mine. i have bought dresses for both events (yay dresses! oh and they are both white, i figured that as the bride, i can get away with it!) now all i need are shoes.

there are still a lot of things to be done, but it is getting there- faster than i thought!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

dog crazy

i know i know. i've been posting too much about the dogs recently. but i don't care!
here is a fun little quiz to show how silly it is to buy the new "designer dogs." i have two friends who have schnoodles and have had them for years and they are the sweetest, cutest little dogs, and i love them so much and am glad that my friends have them- but i feel that this whole dog hybrid thing is out of control.

take this fun quiz to see if you can tell the difference between a designer dog and a shelter dog- who needs a home too, by the way!

http://www.grumpybumpers.com/dogs/index.cgi

ps- champ and bonnie are both rescues and after watching several documentaries and animal planet about shelter dogs, i don't think i could ever go to a breeder for a dog (even a good breeder), knowing there is a perfectly good dog out there who needs my help. however, i do really, really, really want a french bulldog and it is near impossible to be selected as one of their potential rescuers....

Monday, May 01, 2006

My name is Champ

I will conquer the world with my tongue.

it turns out champ isn't sick and we all had a fabulous weekend walking the streets and wandering the parks of new york.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Im sick, mom is sad.

the past few weeks have been extremely busy for me and right now i feel incredibly exhausted. i've been temping everyday 8:30-5:30 and four nights a week i have been going to either an acting class, and audition or an audition coaching. i've been reading plays, memorizing lines, doing character work and rehearsing in between all of that. the weekends have been a welcome respite, but not as relaxing as i have hoped, with wedding planning, tux shopping, easter travel, dress fittings with my sister, dog training, and cleaning the house (which only stays clean for about an hour). i've only been able to cook in our new kitchen a few times because by the time i get home at night i'm so tired and oh yeah, i haven't had a chance to grocery shop.

it feels good to go to work everyday, make some money, get things done. the people in this office are nice and it seems like a pleasant enough place to work. the office is decorated in a way that is soothing with different shades of blue on the wall and nice woodwork. the executive's offices have personality and flair and are tastefully arranged. fresh flowers are brought in on mondays and there is always munchies in the kitchen and free coke in the fridge (which i don't drink, although it is tempting). friday lunches are on the house and is ordered from a local restaurant. not a bad place to work. i would love it even more if it were 9-5 though- those extra half hours make all the difference.

i've been coaching with a casting director. she selected a scene for me that i have been working on and she has been setting up auditions twice a week with different agents, managers and casting directors. it has been my goal for the last three years to get an agent, to sign with an agent, not freelance, because the ones i have freelanced with in the past rarely call, rarely send me out on things and rarely

***stopped midpost because of crying and feeling sorry for self, i'm feeling a bit emotionally fragile right now***

its now almost 5 in the afternoon and i just received a text from our dogwalker saying that champ is now sick with what bonnie had last week (and still has this week, despite tomorrow being the last day of her antibiotics)
wtf? i know i have been anticipating this, but c'mon can't we get a break for these two guys?

i wish i had vodka here at work.

in other news, we have our tasting tonight and our menu planning tomorrow. we haven't exactly been pouring over our options so i'm thinking we'll just close our eyes and point at random things on the menu.

i've scheduled my first dress fitting. now all i have to do is lose the weight i have gained since mymeasurements were taken.

yay.

uggh

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Dear Klienfelds you suck

I was all set 2 buy the bridal shoes of my dreams & u r closed on a WEDNESDAY!!?

Thursday, April 20, 2006

sick as a dog

the beginning of this week involved rushing champ to the vet after he had, well....., he....., ummm....., i can't even bear to say what champ did, so just imagine the worst thing a dog could do and then imagine being the one to run to the bathroom dripping with the worst thing a dog could do and trying not to vomit yourself. ok, imagine the two worst things a dog could do and then being covered in it and maybe having to trash the lovely carpet. ok? i'm not going to say it because it was completely disgusting and gross and totally the worst thing to come home to after a frustrating day at work. and it's all kpr's family's fault for feeding him and bonnie table scraps when they thought we weren't looking on easter sunday. they can't eat people food- they get stopped up, if you know what i mean. and then, their butts explode, ok? that's why we don't feed them people food, for fear of the exploding butt.

champ also had a huge stye (sp?) above his right eye, so a trip to the vet was definitely in order. right after i cleaned myself up from the dripping and the grossness. i left the carpet for kpr to deal with when he came home, to share in the fun.

while at the vet, i spent most of the time waiting in the lobby and crying because there was a big chow who was in the exam room who was crying so hard and loud and was so scared and it was an awful thing to hear and champ kept looking at me like, "you want me to go in there? hell no lady!"

so champ was injected with water under the skin to help with hydration, which was really weird, because he looked like a hunchback for a while and when you touched the bladder (yes, i called it a bladder), it would move around and was squishy and gross.

he is better now, and has seemed to recover from the worst thing a dog can do, and the carpet has been cleaned and steamed and vaccumed a million times over- i however, will be scarred for life.

fastforward to wednesday, where the stuffy nose that bonnie has had all week, that we thought was just cute little allergies, is all of the sudden a respiratory infection that may or may not turn into pneumonia. fanfuckingtastic. we had the lovely vet who lives next door check her out and he called antibiotics into our local rite aid straight away (who thought you could get doggie drugs at the rite aid? i'm wondering if bonnie can hook us up with valium, or better yet horse tranquilizers!). i was up till about 2am and then again at 4:30am with her, listening to her struggle to breathe and cheering each breath she took. her eyes are all gummy and the snot has been unbelievable. she weighs ten pounds and has produced at least 60 pounds in mucus in the last four days.

the antibiotics are working and i can hear her breathing getting easier. she spent some time outside with champ and i today and seems to be doing better (i called in to work today, i had to stay home with my babies!). still snotty though. i'm hoping there is no need to take her in and have a chest xray- i'd hate to put her through all the medical mumbo jumbo again. her whole life has been illness, followed by joy and happiness and health, only to get sick again a few months later. i think being on the steroids has really fucked with her immune system and she's paying for it now.

Friday, April 14, 2006

good friday

the commute to work today was delightful. it seems as if everyone in new york is off on religious holiday, which means the rest of us get to enjoy the benefits of a quieter city. the subway came right on time, i was able to sit down without a hassle. there was none of that holding door crap that slows up the trip. it was whisper quiet on the train. everything ran smoothly and i cut off about 5 minutes from my commute, which was good because i was running about 10 minutes late. the phones have been super quiet so far (knock on wood), so it is indeed a good friday.

this is the worst time of year to be without a camera! everything is blooming everywhere and i'm constantly walking down the street wanting to snap some photos, but our camera is broken. i've registered us for a new one, but i might break down and buy one before that (like i have an extra 300 bucks laying around...). i feel like i'm missing out on a capturing things and i haven't taken a proper photo of the dogs in weeks!

our kitchen is finally (almost) finished. the plumbing was hooked up on tuesday and i was able to actually cook dinner last night! the dishwasher was put to test this morning, we'll see how everything turns out when i get home. we still have to put in a backsplash of some sort and i need a step ladder to reach all our super high cabinets. i would take pictures of everything we had done but, see above.

my sister is coming down from boston tonight and then all of us are traveling to my future in-laws house for easter dinner. tomorrow we pick out our invitations! (only four weeks till we need to send them out, can we say procrastinate?)

have a terrific weekend!

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

spiritual cleansing

have you ever felt like you have certain emotions that just get "stuck" inside of you? the feeling has passed, but maybe you never truly dealt with the emotion and there is a residue that lingers. have you ever felt like there is a prevailing, yet subconscious, way you feel about yourself and your actions that drives every decision you make? do your feelings from childhood, who you thought you were, how you were treated, how you felt emotionally, motivate your actions, consciously or subconsciously?

if you are like me, you probably don't want to admit any of this to yourself. but, yes, there are certain ideas that i have about myself, that may keep me from fulfilling my true potential. i don't really want to think about any of these things, but yesterday, i did.

a friend of mine recommended a friend of her's as an intuitive healer. i'm into alternative medicine, acupuncture, yoga, meditation, spirituality, y'know all that kindof stuff. so this really wasn't a stretch for me. i was open to it.

i wasn't sure what to expect. i have some super annoying chronic illnesses, that tend to get in my way more often than i would like, so i went in search of aid for these complaints (and in search of a killer complexion). we started out with a nutritional consultation, where she recommended different supplements and foods that should help alleviate my symptoms (digestive, lung and skin issues). most of which i was familiar with, but not quite sure how to use.

we also talked about doing a spring cleanse, which i'm really keen to do as this is the best time to clean out your insides and start fresh. she recommended taking one day in the
  • first week and using the master cleanse, and eating lightly the day after.
  • the next week, i should do the master cleanse for three days, being careful to break the fast on the fourth day.
  • the third week, i should do a liver cleanse for two weeks.
  • the fifth week, i should repeat the master cleanse for three days
  • the week after that i should do a kidney/bladder cleanse.

i plan on getting started next week, after easter, but carefully planning around my shower weekend and also memorial day weekend! we have a little over three months till wedding day and i want to be in top shape (internally and externally, that is).

the second part of my session was a spiritual cleansing. i laid down on a soft massage table in the darkened treatment room. it was very comfortable and the essential oils on the table made it smell nice and i was super relaxed. there was new-agey music playing. i did a lot of deep cleansing breathes and then jennifer performed her magic on me. she reached into my energy field and literally started mixing things up and sweeping things away. my whole body began to vibrate and even though my eyes were closed, i was very aware of everything she was doing. she was bunching together negative thoughts and emotions, which were centered around my gut and just under my heart. she would gather everything together and then pick it up and throw it away. i could feel certain things clearing in my body and i was beginning to let go. she worked like this for over an hour and it was exhausting! she would do little kinestetic tests where she would press against my upraised arm and make a statement, and if that statement was true, i would resist her arm, if it was false, i had no strength against her. there is a connection electrically when things are true in your body.

one of my biggest issues was self trust, also self hatred (which manifests itself in my second guessing every decision i make), i do have safe control over my emotions, but definite anger issues (external things having the power to define my strength in anger, instead of me using and defining that strength). it all makes sense to me as these are things i have been feeling (at least in the back of my head) my whole life. sometimes you just have to deal with that little voice that invades your thoughts.

i am by no means 'cured.' but self awareness is the first step to improvement. i feel really balanced today and more relaxed than i have in a while. if anything, i had a chance to meditate on what's going on inside of me, instead of focusing so much on the external.

i'm looking forward to the cleanses and doing more energy work. i'm not sure what i would like the final outcome to be. or even if i think there is a final outcome, after all i'm a firm believer in the idea of 'works in progress.'

Thursday, April 06, 2006

i am not kabbalah

when i was in brazil, i visited a very famous church in salvador (some of the pictures are part of my flickr account which can be accessed by that stupid revolving pictures thing to the right that only shows the pictures of the night i got drunk at carnaval and not the rest of the trip!).

bon fim church is a very spiritual place and when you visit, you are given a piece of ribbon to tie around your wrist. as the knot is pulled tight, you are supposed to make a wish. when the wish comes true, you can untie the knot and remove the bracelet.

my piece of ribbon is hot pink. not a red string, but a hot pink ribbon. i refuse to take it off because i am very close to making this wish come true and i don't want to fuck it up. call me superstitious- but sometimes i need all the help i can get. oh, and technically, i tied three knots and made three wishes, so this thing is going to be on a long time. call me greedy too.

last night i was in a new scene study class. we were doing some relaxation exercises and i was lying down on the floor and the teacher comes up to me and touches my ribbon and says,

"my daughter has one of these too."

and i thought to myself, "oh my gosh! her daughter went to bon fim in brazil too?!!"

and then i realized that she probably thinks that this is a kabbalah bracelet and that i am following some sort of fad religious-y thing. that i love demi and ashton and madonna and britney and posh spice (thank GOD she didn't go to scientology!).

hmmmm, i wonder how many other people see this little ribbon and think i'm with the kabbalah?

but i'm keeping it on, it's worth the risk. hello wishes, here i come!

Friday, March 31, 2006

to everything turn, turn, turn

happy friday!

we're off to paint kpr's parent's new beach house this weekend. my future mother-in-law and i may even go furniture shopping. i forsee a lot of wicker in my future.

humpapalooza 2006 has been mercifully put on hold for the time being. i've had no reason to tell champ to "put that thing away."

spring has finally sprung it seems (keeping my fingers crossed it stays this way). the little daffodils on the way to work are very cheerful and the flowering trees on clinton street are so pretty.

i do love the change of seasons.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

bonniekitchenwedding

good morning!

a few things i have been thinking about:

1. bonnie has been doing amazingly well these last few months. we have really seen her little personality blossom. she's still on steroids, but we haven't seen her symptoms return. thank goodness. her hair, where they shaved her for the spinal tap, refuses to grow back and she's a little bald back there, but still supercute. she and champ are getting along great. so great that it seems they have fallen in love and are prone to lovemaking right in front of us on the living room carpet!

THE HORROR!!

sometimes they are polite and sneak off down the hall to the front door for a little privacy. can you imagine?!! this relationship developed while i was in brazil, so i place the blame for these events entirely on kpr. when i left, i had two little dogs who behaved as brother and sister (which is how we planned on raising them- but no, they prefer INCEST), when i returned, i was met at the door by two little dogs who were now two little lovers and as much as we try to keep them apart, they spend the better half of each evening licking each other's faces, sniffing respective genitalia, and longingly eyeing the hallway by the front door. it has gotten to the point where, if i am in the shower and kpr is not home, i have to shut one of them up in the bathroom with me to keep the copulation from happening. thank god they are both fixed!

2. our kitchen- remember, back before christmas, when i was excited about our new kitchen and how everything was coming together and i couldn't wait for it to be finished? well, everything is finished, the cabinetry is installed, the lighting and ceiling are fixed, the flooring was tiled lovingly by kpr himself, the brand new stainless steel appliances are up and running and the countertop is just beautiful- OH WAIT- the countertop has yet to be installed!!! we've had everything done since MID JANUARY and are still waiting for the countertop to be installed. the bastards at ford-ham marble, who were so eager to take our calls before we sent them the first check, are suddenly unavailable and apparently rendered helpless when required to return a phone call. kpr calls at least six times for every time they bother to call back and each time it is the same thing- "oh, we're waiting for the slab to be delivered" or "oh, the slab was delivered, but now we have to fabricate it." the slab was supposedly delivered at the beginning of march and here we are looking down the barrel to the beginning of APRIL!!!!! and i still have no countertops, and really no idea when i will have countertops "sometime next week" keeps on turning into the next week and the next week and HOLY FUCKING HELL I WANT TO STOP DOING MY DISHES IN THE BATHROOM SINK!!! because we can't install our beautiful under the counter sink and then hookup our beautiful dishwasher until we have the countertops installed! DAMMIT!

3. the wedding:

  • venue/catering/cake- booked
  • photographer- booked
  • dj- in contract
  • florist- ummm not responding to my email- must fax her today
  • dress- on order
  • bridesmaid dress- on order
  • hotels- blocks booked- must fax contract to howard johnson's
  • website- created, but must be updated
  • groom's attire- looked at but no decisions yet
  • officiant- pending (ahem)
  • rehearsal dinner- to do
  • honeymoon- flights and first hotel booked
  • ceremony- ideas thrown around
  • vows- ha!
  • wedding bands- ordered (and agonized over)
  • can the dogs come to the ceremony?- haven't asked yet
  • hair/nails/makeup appointments- to be booked
  • registry- registered (all over town)
  • invitations- wording finalized but have to be ordered THIS WEEK!
  • showers- two being planned (not by me, thankthelord)
  • my nerves- are better than before

Monday, March 27, 2006

memories, pound the corner of my mind or how my highschool boyfriend done me wrong

hahahahahahahahahaahahAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
i just got a notice about my highschool ten year reunion! hahhahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahahahahhaahaa!

*sob*

listen, i know i have done a lot with those ten years. more than most, honestly (ok, i don't know about this, but i have packed it in in the last ten years). i have nothing to be ashamed of and plenty to be proud of. i'm the same size that i have been since the sixth grade (except cup size- thank you birth control! and come on, we all know that the number one reason people go to reunions is to see how much weight she has gained, how much hair he has lost, and how many divorces they have under their belt. oh and to see if their spouse is hot or not), i have better hair and eyebrows since i was a senior. i live in an awesome apartment that we own, in the greatest city in the world, have an amazing fiance, two cute and adorable dogs, have traveled the world- blah di blah di blah.

but seriously, thinking about gathering around some hotel 'ballroom' catching up with old chums, just makes me laugh (especially when i say the word chum in my head), and then want to vomit a little.

when i graduated from high school, i vowed i would never go to one of those things, those pathetic reunions. i had had a great time in high school, but was fine with leaving it where it was supposed to be, in the past. i had friends, my own little group and we weren't connected really to any of the other groups in school. we were in theatre, and choir and some of us were in the marching band (hello? geek out much? but hey it was good times). we didn't drink at parties but had amazing amounts of fun (to this day, i can't figure out how that happened, because as an adult? i can't really have fun unless i'm totally toasted.*) i was busy from sun up to past my bedtime- i had a curfew, which meant everyone hung out at my house and made a lot of noise past 11:00pm- but hey, at least my parents knew where i was. i had a boyfriend, a best friend and a close knit group of four or five others and we were inseperable.

the problem is, i don't talk to any of those people any more.

two weeks into college, i was so miserable and lonely, i called my highschool boyfriend ( i had pulled the extension cord of the phone out into the hallway of my dorm so i could sit there and have a "private" conversation out of the earshot of my three other roommates (three other roomates in one room, no a suite, one friggin room that had barely enough room for dressers, let alone desks). i tearfully told, let us call him by his real name, eric, that i thought it was a mistake that we had broken up just because i had gone away to college (he was a senior and still in high school at that point), i was only two hours away and we could make this long distance thing work.

so we did, make this long distance thing work. we talked on the phone everyday. i had discovered the joy of email (hello mid to late 90's), we saw each other at least one weekend a month. when i would go home and hang out with the old gang (i was the only one who had gone away to school) it was just like old times and i felt really happy. at one point i remember joking with my best friend mindy that wouldn't it be great if i transfered to a school around here and we were roomates? she was like, yeah! that would be awesome! but there was something in her eyes, that at the time, i took no notice of, but looking back now, i know it was there.

a few months after this conversation, i was returning home from rehearsal of "West Side Story" (i played one of the shark's girlfriends and i'm so irish and pale they made me wear body bronzer so i could look a little "latina") and i'm pulling into the parking lot, and there is eric, sitting on his car which is parked next to my spot. i'm shocked to see him there on a weeknight and i immediately know that something is terribly wrong. i thought he was about to tell me that one of my friends had died, or was in a horrible accident or something terrible. when i asked him what was wrong, he told me to get in his car and he would tell me. then he said he wanted to take a drive and then he would tell me. i was frantic and after a driving a few miles and he not answering my questions, i demanded he pull over this instant and tell me what was wrong. he pulled into the parking lot of hollywood video and we got out of the car, he sat down on the gravel and i sat down across from him, terrified of what he was about to tell me.
"i cheated on you with mindy."
what? hello? mindy, my best friend who i'm going to move in with mindy?
"yeah"
he starts to cry and it gets very dramatic, i'm angry and hurt and all of that and like, "drive me back to campus i never want to see you again." he swears it only happened once** and he had to tell me if she and i were going to move in with each other. i tell him to go to hell. i get back to my dorm room and by then it is so late, too late for him to drive home without falling asleep at the wheel and so he sleeps on the bunk below me, the whole night i'm crying silently into my pillow and cursing the person below me.
he leaves the next morning and i don't talk to him for months and months and months. i don't talk to mindy for months and months and months either. the thing is, i didn't really miss him at all. sure, i was hurt, it stung and i felt betrayed, i cried and lamented and was depressed about it, but the greatest hurt was missing my best friend. how could she be so cold, careless, so brazen? how could she not care about my feelings at all? i felt closer to her than my own sister, had confided so much to her, about my relationship with eric of all things, and none of that mattered.

it was like all the fun i had in high school was wiped away.***

before the beginning of my sophmore year, i drove over to her house, sat in my car parked outside for a while, took a deep breathe, walked up to her door and knocked, asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. i said i missed her as a friend, i didn't really understand why all of what happened, happened. but that i wanted to put it behind us and move on with our friendship. i told her that she meant a lot to me. we rekindled our friendship and i thought we were closer than ever. she used to write me these really amazing letters, which were like a gift in the mail. we talked on the phone often and visited when i would drive home. things were actually better between us, without stupid boys to get in the way.

i had landed the lead roll in "our town", and she was coming up to see my opening night. the day of our last dress rehearsal, i get an email that says, "i'm not asking for your permission, but i just wanted to let you know before anyone else told you, that eric and i have started dating...."

OH. HELL. NO.

i wrote her back that i never wanted to speak to her again, and to this day, i haven't.

i'm an adult now, or at least i play one in real life. i know that if i end up going to this whole reunion thing, that i will ultimately have a good time and maybe reconnect with old friends. i think that even if i ran into mindy, i would be cool about it (like i wouldn't want to slap her in the face or anything), because i have grown up, i am a grown up- right?

but i am going to be true to my seventeen year old self, and i know that this is a party in a 'ballroom' of some hotel that i will not be making. i can leave the past in the past, and now when i think of it, the edges have dulled and i can smile a bit wider about it all.


*this is not true. well, maybe a little true, but not that much.

**actually, i found out a few months later that their relationship had lasted about six months to that point. so basically, the moment i left for college, they were all about each other and he wasn't man enough to tell me about it when i called him and said we should get back together.

***pardon the mellodrama

Thursday, March 16, 2006

flyer in the bathroom stall

please check out the delightful miss mo's new website and be sure to listen to the audio portion. she is a constant commenter here at divinemissk and a friend who holds and place near and dear to my heart.

oh, she's also supremely talented!

Friday, March 10, 2006

hifuckinglarious

i'm very proud to say that one of my very best friends, m, wrote the natalie portman rap from snl this past week. you can view it here. she showed me the video last night and I almost peed my pants , it was soooooo funny (i've given up trying to stay awake late enought to watch it live, and m has come to understand that i am simply too old to try and stay up to watch for her sketches). and i'm not just saying that because she is my friend, i'm saying it because it is fucking hilarious. natalie portman did an awesome job as host and is fantastic in this sketch. watch the vidoe, but you may want to use the restroom before you do!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

i've returned from brazil, more on that later, but for now...

an excerpt from an email to the governor of jennsylvania (buy Jen's book!)

Seriously, working at the Time Warner Center is going to be my downfall- not only is there a Borders Books and Music, but a Whole Foods in the basement (my all time fav store), a Sephora, an Aveda, a Williams Sonoma, and several other exciting stores I have yet to discover. My temp agency should just direct deposit my check into the Time Warner Center so I can just operate on mall credits. Oh and the subway line is directly underneath- so no nasty exercise for me!

Anyway- Ken is LA this week, so I am looking forward to reading your book tonight after I watch Lost, oh and on the train after work. If I'm really sneaky, I may start reading it right now at work (you know how stimulating temp work can be...).

Borders also sucked me into buying a book by TheKnot.com about wedding vows and ceremony traditions and I almost started crying right there in the store as I was reading it. I shouldn't have bought the book, as I know it is something I can just get at the library, but somehow I can't walk out of bookstore with just one book. I'm debating whether I should tell Ken that I bought the book or just wow him with my amazing ability to express my emotions and my divine eloquence.... We have 134 days till we get married and ask me if we have booked a florist or dj yet? Nope! We like to fly by the seat of our pants and keep our fingers crossed. The honeymoon, you ask? No, I have no idea where we are going and tickets have yet to be purchased! Invitations? I'm sure they will look lovely, once we've decided on the wording, paper, font and colors. I have, however, purchased my dress, my sister's dress and am on the lookout for a pretty tutu for bonnie to wear.

Monday, February 20, 2006

let me explain a little about my program here in Salvador. cross cultural solutions is an international volunteer program that has placements all over the world. i participated in their china program in xi'an two years ago. i stayed for two weeks and taught english classes at a primary school- grades 1-5. the children were amazing and i had a great time. their english skills were so advanced that i had to learn very little mandarin to communicate. the ccs program is set up so that you volunteer part of your time working within the community, and the other part of the time is spent in cultural exchange- visiting a museum, taking a history class, going to a wedding ceremony, taking a language class, eating typical regional foods. then yo uhave your free time, where you can travel on the weekends or go out at night and check out the night life.
here in brazil, the program is the same. my placement is with the sisters of mother teresa and i am primarily working with toddlers in daycare. the kids are all from the local neighborhood, which is very poor. their parents pay little or nothing for this care and the kids receive attention, food, and interaction with other children. the schedule is very strict and the sisters and the local women who work there do a wonderful job with the kids. i feel like these kids are very lucky because their parents send them here, and they are able to have a "normal" day. i don't want to generalize, but i feel like there can be a lot of neglect when it comes to how some children are raised day to day. this is not true in all cases, of course, and there are many wonderful parents out there who do everything they can for their kids, but there is just so little education, money and opportunity in these neighborhoods that it is the little ones who tend to suffer the most.
so, at the daycare, we take care of about 15 children, it varies from day to day. and can i tell you how CUTE they all are? it is really a fun day- a lot of work, but their little smiles and big boisterous laughter does just wonders for your spirit. there are four of us volunteers and usually georgina and tamisera who are full time employees. tamisera is a young teenager and i want to ask her why she isn't in school, but my portuguese isn't very good (and i know the answer anyway- you can't go to school if you have to go out and make a living).
when we arrive in the morning we are greeted by 15 toddlers who are just finishing their milk. then they go to the chapel to say a prayer for the virgin mary (well, they sit there while georgina tries to lead them in prayer). then it is playtime! they have little bikes, and plastic rocking horses and a big crate full of legos and plastic dolls and blocks and rattles and squeaks. we spread out a blanket outside and the kids run all over the garden playing without a care in the world. today i worked with rafael, who is staying with the sisters for three months with his baby sister. they are both severely malnourished. rafael is the oldest of all the kids, at three years old, but he cannot walk and looks to be about one year old. he is so malnourished that his little body stopped growing, and his father held him all the time, so he never learned to walk. today the sister mary clare gave me the job of making sure he never sat down. he was to walk everywhere. i gave him a little pushcart and off we went. he did really well- i could tell that he really wanted to walk and interact with the other kids. at one point we abandoned the pushcart and i held a ball out in front of him, like a carrot, and had him follow me all over the courtyard. it was so rewarding to see him toddling around by himself! the sisters do such good work for these kids- rafael's mother was smart to bring him there (she's expecting another baby any second now).
after play time, we bring the kids inside and have them wash their hands and get ready for lunch. we tie their little bibs around their necks and sit them down to eat. georgina leads them in songs and prayers and then we dish out the food. every day it is rice and beans, with a different protein filler. today it was hard boiled eggs- but some days it can be ground beef, sausage or scrambled eggs. the kids eat a lot (for some of them this may be the only good meal they have all day).
after they eat- we strip off all their clothes and it's potty time! all fifteen sit on the toilet at once- and you can~t believe the crying! they hate pottytime, but all sit there like they are told. after they have each done thier 'business'- we give them a bath and put them in fresh diapers, then it is off to bed for a nap. we try to give each kid an extra bit of attention as they are going off to sleep.
this all sounds so easy and carefree- but usually, everyday, there is a wrench thrown into the plan. i have learned how to deal with fifteen little voices crying out to be held- how to hold a child while giving another some water and wiping up the table, all at the same time. i have learned what many mothers have learned before me- how to mulitask!
gotta go- more later!

Sunday, February 12, 2006

aló from brazil!

well, i made it safe and sound to salvadore.

it is amazingly beautiful here, and Im looking forward to going to the beach this afternoon. I start my work placement tomorrow and I will be volunteering at The Sisters of Mother Teresa (Madre Terese), helping the nuns take care of orphans and abandoned elderly women. i have been told that this is a great place to work. brazil is a country of such stark contrasts and i feel fortunate to be able to experience both worlds.

carnavale is coming up on 2/23, and the whole city is preparing. the celebration in Salvadore is said to be bigger (and better), and more authenically brazillian than that in rio. i will be here for just two days of the fiesta, and do not worry, i will be safe while i am having a good time.

my portuguese language skills do not exist, but i am getting along fine. im thankful that english is my native language, no matter where you travel, you are bound to run into someone that speaks english. thank goodness other countries focus more attention to foreign languages than we do here in the states!

for more information on the program that i am taking part of, visit Cross Cultural Solutions.

you can also visit my journal from my trip to China through the same organization.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

off to the southern hemisphere!

i'm off to brazil on friday and i am very excited! i'm starting to pack today and go out and pick up last minute things. i have a bunch of books on brazil that i have to pick up from barnes&noble today. i have to go to mac to pick up an adaptor for my ipod nano (which should just be included in the original purchase imo), go to macy's to return some things and look for some cute summer clothes (it's summer in brazil right now) and pick up some brazilian money too. tonight i'm going to dinner with my friend mariana- hopefully to our favorite russian food place.

our kitchen cabinets have been installed, the new appliances too. we're waiting for the countertops to come in. hopefully when i return, everything will be set, except for the backsplash, which we're not deciding on until we see the countertops. the floor that kpr installed is awesome. we still have to get the ceiling light in and kpr has to do some wall repair and painting, but it is so much better than our old kitchen! i'll do a photo entry when i get back so you can see the difference.

speaking of when i return, i've got a lot of shit to do. we have to reserve blocks of rooms for the wedding. confirm the florist, find a dj and finalize plans for the honeymoon. we have to do the invitations, get my sister into town to look for bridesmaid dresses, figure out what kpr and his brother are going to be wearing and do the tasting with the caterer (yum!). so far i'm having two different showers planned for me, and possibly an engagement party for our ny friends. so much to do.

and i'm planning on doing a mailing to different agents and managers, audition more, oh and that reminds me i have to order more headshots... taking a scene study class, and an on camera class. so much to do!

this is probably my last post till i leave and i don't know if i will have an opportunity to post while i'm away, so see ya later!

Thursday, January 26, 2006

assignment

this was something i had to write for a television production company that is considering having me host a live show once a week about new york fun things (social things- bars, restaurants, culture, theatre- yadda yadda) it has an interactive aspect where veiwers can text message in questions and comments. i haven't got the job yet, although i should because i may bring in their biggest sponsor- thanks to my wicked mad connections (i might have to sleep with someone for it though...)

Manhattan Moment:

Perhaps the greatest day in my history of Manhattan was the day of the BLACKOUT! in the summer of 2003. I was actually onstage, performing in the Fringe Festival, when the lights went out. Being the resourceful theatre makers that we were, we continued the show by battery-operated candlelight and flashlights making the best of it. After the final bows, we made our way out onto the street and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. We soon learned that the whole city was out and everyone was a little worried.

The next group to perform in the Festival was disappointed that their show would be cancelled. They were from the prestigious Le Coq School and had traveled all the way from Paris to present their play. The Today Show was there to film their presentation and interview the cast members. We convinced them to do the show in the street! Yeah! Come on! That’s so New York- just drop what you are doing and do a play in the middle of the street.

So they did it.

We were outside the lovely Cherry Lane Theatre- right where the street turns and has this very European feeling. We squatted down on the sidewalk and they put on a show in full costume. It was so hot and the actors had sweat streaming off them the whole time, but they didn’t care and neither did we. The show was captivating- a farcical comedy about a metropolitan city facing a water crisis (very appropriate to what we were going through at the time), and what the government proposes to do about it- a competition to see which building can use the least amount of water.

Before we knew it, a huge crowd had gathered- people coming home from work with nothing better to do- people spilling out of cafes and shops and people leaning out of their windows and lounging on their fire escapes. It was, dare I say, a little bit magical.

A Little about me:

My parents live in the Midwest but I am so not Midwest. I’m East Coast through and through. I have two dogs, they rule my life. I’ve traveled to four out of seven continents in the world and this year I will travel to two more. I was a Girl Scout for nine years and I’m not even a very nice person (I do like cookies, though). I act, sing in the shower and dance with two left feet. I'm an environmentalist and like green things. I like chicken enchiladas with mole, margaritas on the rocks with salt and New York City.

As a host I will be interested in what other people have to say, intolerant of rudeness, a little bit inappropriate and maybe not the one with the biggest hair (although I usually am). I will go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the subject at hand and have to be brought back into the conversation. I will make fun of you if you make me. I’ll make funny faces and not even know it. I will wear jeans, a lot. I will want to hear from you and make you listen to me.