how can i not be myself?

use photo manhattan credit

2009-01-05T20:23:00.002-05:00

sign up for that music class

2009-01-05T20:23:00.001-05:00

organize jewelry drawer

2009-01-05T20:22:00.001-05:00

YES WE DID!!

2008-11-05T20:44:00.001-05:00

Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin

2008-09-13T21:14:00.002-04:00

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008*************************

orion is 11 months old today!

2008-07-25T10:58:00.004-04:00

these photos are from our week at the beach with my sister and best friend mo.

ba ba ba

2008-06-19T17:13:00.001-04:00

2008-05-27T15:49:00.001-04:00

2008-05-05T19:00:00.001-04:00

hey my friend wrote this

2008-04-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

OMG WTF AMERICA?!!

2008-04-23T21:46:00.002-04:00

carly and syesha in the bottom two?!! and brooke and jason are safe? brooke and jason are nothing compared to carly and syesha! ahhhh!! america, what the hell? now i'm worried that john mccain is going to win in november, because if this is the way america votes, we are DOOMED!!!

what the hell america?

2008-04-10T20:59:00.002-04:00

how could michael johns be voted off american idol this week? not only is he rock star talented, he has the cutest accent and hottest butt onstage!

ohhhh michael johns, how will i live without you?!!

ugghh

2008-03-26T21:55:00.000-04:00

working on the template. it is so ugly right now!

Happy st patricks day!

2008-03-17T17:45:00.000-04:00

Guinness for all!

orion will be 7 months on march 25th

2008-03-13T09:49:00.003-04:00

this photo was taken between christmas and new year's at the hoover dam. the pacifer is a thing of the past...
this was taken a few weeks ago when my mom visited us.

this is from three weeks ago when we introduced solid foods. avocado is a big favorite.

2008-01-15T17:22:00.000-05:00

Someone is getting really big!

a tough year to be born an eagles fan

2007-11-05T11:55:00.000-05:00

Belated Halloween Video

2007-11-04T22:28:00.000-05:00

trying out the video feature

2007-11-04T21:45:00.000-05:00

holy crap this kid is cute!

2007-09-14T13:37:00.000-04:00

hello, i am here to steal your heart.

i love to sleep! sleep sleep sleep- that's all i do. and eat, and poop, but mostly sleep!

i am totally his number one fan!

thank god for the remote control bouncy chair- a number one shower gift from the brother and sister in law. this chair rocks! errr- not rocks literally, but bounces, vibrates, plays music, heartbeat and white noise.

Hi there

2007-08-31T11:53:00.001-04:00

Meet ORION FRANCIS. Born on Saturday 8-25. Perfect in every way.

5 days past due and still waiting

2007-08-20T17:23:00.000-04:00

spicy food? check
acupuncture? check check
bumpy rides in speeding cabs? check check check
champagne bubbles? check check
thinking baby 24/7? check
yoga? check check
guided imagery? check
pressing that acupressure point on my ankle? check (now a nice greenish bruise)
nst scheduled? tomorrow check
induction date settled upon? if all goes well and this kid still hasn't popped out, check

despair and frustration? check and check

gah!

2007-08-13T14:35:00.000-04:00

still pregnant!

here's a picture of me as a newborn, meant to inspire my own child to come into this world...

twiddling thumbs

2007-08-07T16:02:00.000-04:00

so, we've got 8 days left, but i could have been done with all of this last week, or the week before really. people ask me how far along i am and i say, "i'm done." my midwife gave me permission to go early, the baby is a good size and has dropped.

this is such a weird feeling, this waiting. i'm ready to meet this little one whose been hiccuping inside of me for the last nine months. i'm curious as to who this is- we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl and i haven't really wondered this whole time as to if we're having a boy or a girl, but now i really want to know.

i've been nesting so much, i keep imagining little twigs and sticks all over the house. i spent all day yesterday cleaning the house, doing laundry, scrubbing toilets, cleaning floors on my hands and knees, hoping my water would magically break. i've had no contractions, not even the braxton hicks kind.

did i mention it was HOT out? i've bunkered down inside the house and every time i venture outside i feel like i'm walking through water or spinning my wheels. i shudder thinking about all of the energy we've been using with the air conditioner, but damn it, I'M HOT!

i'm SOOOOO ready for this to happen like yesterday. everday i wake up and ask the kid, "are you going to be born today?" everyday the answer has been "no."

who knows, maybe tomorrow? (i frigging hope so!)

someone is going to have a tough adjustment in the next few weeks!

2007-07-06T13:40:00.000-04:00

bonnie, sleeping like a baby on the baby

apparently has yet to notice that the lap is getting smaller...

2007-06-27T14:13:00.000-04:00

i find it ironic that i almost choked on my own spit during our breastfeeding class last night...

ouch. why does it hurt so much?

2007-06-11T15:13:00.000-04:00

a few weeks ago we had a barbecue to celebrate kpr's birthday. he turned 111 years old and we decided to have so friends over to visit. preparing the house, food and buying shit like two liters of soda and then schlepping them back to your apartment on foot is not a good thing to do whilst in your third trimester. i was running around like a madwoman the whole night and when people finally left around 1am i was beyond exhausted and every cell in my body hurt. the next day i didn't move from the couch at all, i couldn't really because i had no strength at all, couldn't even put a toe on the floor, it just hurt too much. luckily, it was mother's day, so technically, i didn't have to squat, even though my child is yet to be born. i figure if i can feel the little sucker kick me in the bladder on an hourly basis, that qualifies me for mother's day dammit and i deserve a rest. kpr was very prepared for mother's day- he brought me a yogurt for breakfast (on the couch) and a bouquet of flowers. oh no, wait, the flowers were from our lovely next door neighbor, so kpr actually just brought me a yogurt for mother's day, a yogurt that i schlepped home on foot to our apartment with the 110 lbs of groceries from whole foods. i hope no one else has the misfortune of marrying someone who was born on mother's day and considers the whole weekend to be 'his birthday weekend' and not warranting any other celebration for any other person- frantic kicks to the bladder and all.

anywho, a few days later, champ got into the trash from the bbq and ate about 8 corn cobs! i was so happy because corn cobs are so great for a terrier's digestive tract- cleansing in fact- they just get stuck in there and don't let anything else in and it is just wonderful! i also loved cleaning up puke for the next 5 days- we just kept telling ourselves it was good preparation for the baby! yes the baby will puke a lot! but if the baby pukes vile, rotten corncobs for five days straight, i am sending him or her back!

i fasted champ for 24 hours and then cooked him some rice and chicken fed him a little of that, gradually working our way back to his regular diet (can you tell we have dealt with this sort of thing a million times before?). he was doing really well for two days back on regular food and then bam! he just started puking like non stop one night and continued to the next day and kpr and i accepted the fact that we had to take him to the vet.

i hate the local vet in our neighborhood and so we have been taking champ and bonnie the the animal medical center uptown because our next door neighbor works there (his mom gave me the flowers) and will come over in the middle of the night if we need him to so that pretty much makes him the best vet ever and so we only want him to treat our dogs. the good and bad of the amc is that it is the premiere animal hospital in the city (which pretty much means it is the best in the country, and well, the world...), located in the chic east 60's and super duper expensive. champ and i walked out of that place feeling better, but about 400 smackers poorer. x rays boo! no intestinal blockage and therefore no emergency surgery, yay! thank goodness we have insurance on champ so we can file a claim and get about $50 back from the insurance company!

this weekend kpr and i were in class all weekend learning how to birth our baby. it was fun and we saw movies with boobies and vaginas and my husband snickered loudly each time and i wondered how i had managed to marry a sixth grader. our cousin walked the dogs yesterday afternoon and left a concerned voicemail telling us that champ's eye was all red and he was acting under the weather. we didn't think much of it because champ has been having trouble with his eyes for the past few months- they have been all bloodshot and stuff and we took him to amc in april to have a opthamologist look at them and now he needs a super steroid drop every day to keep them bright and not all red and stuff.

so we got home last night, exhausted from all the learning about vaginas and babies and stuff and champ was not well. the first thing kpr said was, "i think we have to take him to the vet right now." he was in so much pain and i just wanted to cry along with him because champ really is the champ- never whines or complains, is just totally there with you, even when he was puking one minute he was up and playing the next minute.

he couldn't open his eye and couldn't walk because it hurt so much. we didn't know what was wrong but knew we had to get to the vet pronto. kpr drove and i sat in the passenger seat, just me, the baby in my uterus, champ and bonnie all piled on the one seat together (bonnie gets jealous if champ gets to sit up front). we went to the vet and he has a scratch on his cornea, and edema, not an ulcer, thank goodness, although i don't know the difference between the two. we got some eyedrops to keep his pupil from spasming which causes the pain and some heavy duty antibiotic ointment, he also got some doggie vicodin which knocked him out last night and most of this morning.

i look at his eye now and it hurts me so much to look at it, i can only imagine how it feels. it is so hard to see our tough little guy down and out and i found myself thinking all day today, "if it hurts this much to have my dog in pain, what if my kid falls and skins her/his knee? will i just loose it on the spot?"

we're not done with the amc for now, we have to go for a recheck with the opthamologist next week and also figure out why his eyes are all bloodshot in the first place. so that makes 4 trips to the amc in the past three months.

i think the doggie insurance company is definitely going to drop us....

it's a good think he's so darn cute.

oh so true

2007-06-06T20:29:00.000-04:00

from my weekly email from Babycenter.com

2007-06-06T12:15:00.001-04:00

have to catch up on pregnancy book or will be a bad mother before child is even born.... only have 10 weeks to do everything! aaahhh!

2007-06-06T12:14:00.001-04:00

so tired.

sitting outside, thankful for the wireless

2007-04-30T18:07:00.000-04:00

it is breezy, but warm enough to forgo the jacket. i've been stuck in the house for a few days, told by the midwife to "take it easy", which is hard because i have so much to do. but it feels good right now, just sitting in our glorious backyard, watching the dogs lick the patio*. the grass is coming back nicely (should you want to visit and take a nap, brother dear). the hydrangea bush that we planted with such hope last summer, and took for dead earlier this spring, is showing signs of life, tiny, green-speckled signs of life. the pond is nice and clean, and running smoothly, as kpr has been on an outdoor spring cleaning binge and everything is in tip-top shape. bonnie takes a righteous poo to my left, and i am undisturbed, making a mental note to pick it up before i go inside.

there is a blue jay that has discovered our backyard and I AM IN LOVE WITH IT! it seems so strange to say, because usually blue jays are noisy little pests, but this one fascinates me. we get mainly mourning doves and chick-a-dees in our backyard here (the pigeons, thankfully, have yet to discover our little oasis), so a jay is a welcome stranger. i look for him everyday through the window and am drawn to his flights from branch to branch and it thrills me when he drinks from the pond. he isn't very noisy and has yet to dive bomb the dogs, so i hope he'll be sticking around for a while. kpr knows he is getting some sort of bird feeder for his birthday in the next few weeks, so i hope we attract even more birds to the yard. when all of the flowers start blooming, i hope it will encourage them to stick around a while. how cool is it to live in manhattan and have your own flock of birds? we wake up each morning to them chirping around.

##########
tmi:
i had to collect my pee for the last 24 hours and now that i'm done, it feels strange to be able to just sit on the toilet and not worry about having to pissing into a container and pouring it into the other container stored in the fridge. here's hoping my kidneys are doing just fine.

*the dogs are licking the patio because our brilliant neighbors from the third floor- the ones i refer to as eurotrash (hey, i live in new york, we're allowed to refer to people as eurotrash), decided to have a barbecue on their balcony last weekend (they finally removed the plywood floor a few weeks ago). that is all fine and good, except, they decided to use a grill with no catch underneath to catch the drippings. which meant we come home from a weekend in jersey to find grease spattered all over the patio, the wall of the building, our air conditioner (can't wait to smell that when we turn it on), and our adirondack chair (thank god no one was sitting underneath at the time- although, had it been me, i would have called the cops because hot grease + a pregnant lady = assault, sucker). thank you, eurotrash from the third floor, for reminding me what assholes you truly are (oh, and we know it's you blocking our driveway, dumbass).

being green

2007-04-18T16:46:00.000-04:00

let's say, hypothetically, you were considering renovating your kitchen and you wanted to be as environmentally friendly as possible- this is an email that i would, hypothetically, write to you.

******
I've been thinking about your kitchen remodel and thought I'd pass along some info that was helpful to us when we remodeled. A good place to start is with The Green Guide, they are an excellent resource for all things environmentally friendly.

Ikea Kitchens are great, although, if you are looking to do the whole "green" thing, its not the best option as the cabinets and counters are made from compressed particle board, which is a big green no no because of off gassing VOCs. But if you do go Ikea, I've heard good things about them and Ken's cousin has had one for the last ten years and has no complaints. They tend to use wood that is from managed forests, which is a plus. For example:

For an extra food-prep surface and storage, try Ikea's kitchen carts made of solid birch from well-managed forests. The Bekvam ($49.99) is unfinished; the Forhoja ($79.99) is finished with a clear nitrocellulose lacquer and larger, with drawers that pull out from two directions and two shelves, each with space for nine bottles.
(From The Green Guide)

This is a great article from the Washington Post about a Green Kitchen Renovation

A Recent Article from NYTimes about being and building green: Great news from Home Depot- makes building a green kitchen even easier!

I love Treehugger!
We checked out Valcucine (mentioned at TreeHugger), but they were SUPER EXPENSIVE, but exactly what we were looking for- but we kept looking.

Cabinetry:
will probably be the hardest thing to be green about. Our cabinets were manufactured at a local cabinet maker, all hardwood bamboo, with interior shelves made out of Dow's Fiberboard- made completely of compressed wheat and sunflower stalks (stuff that would be burned in a landfill), with no harmful chemical binders or adhesives. I found our dealer by calling Prime Board in North Dakota (another manufacturer of the compressed wheat board) and asking them who used their products in the Northeast- they gave me Frank, our cabinet guy's number. If I hadn't done that, I don't know what we would have done.

The leader in environmentally friendly cabinetry is Neil Kelly- the only problem is they are on the West Coast....

I know that you guys have to replace your base cabinets in order to install your dishwasher, but you might want to consider keeping your wall cabinets if they are in decent condition and refacing them (new doors), sanding and painting them to match the new base cabinets. You would save a ton of money and save trees too.

A tip- if you have cabinetry above your refrigerator, I would have it be flush to the front of your fridge- it creates a huge storage space- we keep all of our small appliances there and the space would be wasted otherwise. And you can pretend you have a built in!

I highly suggest having a pullout cabinet for trash and recyclables. We would die without ours... I wish we had the space for all of those neat cabinet/drawer organizers that are available today. Big, pull-out drawers (the really deep ones) are great for storing pans, cookies sheets, etc....

Countertops:
We went with Ice Stone which I LOVE. However, they require a little maintenece- they have to be resealed every year (common in stone/concrete counters) and we have to be careful about lemons/acidics (slight bleaching spots that only I notice) and red wine (possible staining). They are beautiful and compared to granite, affordable. Granite, while adding to the value of your kitchen, is a big no no when it comes to green/sustainability.

Another granite alternative is:
CeasarStone or SileStone which are basically the same thing (silestone is available at Home Depot) and made up of quartz scraps and compressed into a beautiful slab countertop. Our friends used Sile Stone in their new kitchen and it is sparkly and fabulous.

Paint:
Afm safecoat is a low voc/no voc paint that can be used indoor and out. Baby's room will be coated with this stuff.
If you go to Home Depot/Lowes and find a color that you like you can go online and find the matching color thru AMF Safecoat.

Benjamin Moore also has a low/no VOC option They have primer too.

Flooring:
While bamboo flooring is more prevailent than bamboo cabinetry, it is not a choice I would go with because bamboo can be very soft (even though they claim it is as hard as a hardwood) and from what I've read, doesn't stand up very well in high traffic areas (especially if you wear heels, drop heavy things on the floor etc...)

I like Marmoleum. This stuff is beautiful and used in schools, hospitals, offices and homes.

I know a lot of people use cork, and there is always poured concrete, which can be stained and I think looks great (it's cheap to do too, and you can install a radiant floor underneath).

Misc.:
I like the Aquasana water filter and use it everyday. I highly recommend installing a water filter- it filters better than a Brita and less waste than buying bottled. Filters need to be replace every 6-8 months. They always have great sales. You will need to buy a sink with an extra faucet hole.

We accesorized with Bamboo cutlery holders from Bed Bath and Beyond. I wash and reuse our ziploc bags to death and I'm going to get a bag dryer one of these days. I also reuse aluminum foil too.

We use a lot of Seventh Generation Products, we also like Citrisolve, Ecover (Ken LOVES their floor cleaner), and any other cleaners you can get at Whole Foods. We've eliminated all chemical cleaners all over the house.

We installed lighting from Ikea and Home Depot (under cabinet lighting), both are energy efficient.

Of course, any demo-ing/finishing you can do yourselves will save you big bucks and time, but I suggest having the contractor install your hardware to your cabinetry, it is really time consuming and if you mess it up, you can't go back....

Hope this helps! Happy planning!

Days of our Lives- now with more GREEN!

2007-04-05T16:27:00.000-04:00

so i haven't watched days in ages- ok, like a few months, but yesterday i was home and decided i should tune in to catch up with all the folks in salem (i was suffering from a severe case of i-don't-feel-like-getting-up-off-the-couch-itis).
sammy and lucas are finally getting married (again?, i'm not sure, it feels like sammy has been married about 13 times now) and had carley from theknot.com meet them to help discuss their green wedding. how convenient that she too lives in salem! which is located somewhere, ummmm, i'm not exactly sure where, but chicago seems to be the nearest major city....

anywho- they were planning a 'green' wedding, which was so exciting to me. when planning our wedding, i wanted to go as 'green' as we could. all of our paper goods (invites, seating chart, menus, etc) were made from recycled paper, including our programs and the paper we had our vows written on. no trees were killed so we could get married (well, except for toilet paper at the venue, but that i couldn't control). we used postcard rsvps, to eliminate envelopes and cut down on paper needed.

when choosing flowers, it was important to me to use locally grown, in season blooms. i knew organic would cost an arm and a leg, so we didn't go that far, but i took comfort in knowing that my flowers weren't shipped or flown in using a lot of fossil fuels and in season blooms usually require less effort and chemicals to grow.

we cut down on waste by eliminating favors- who wants those candy covered almonds anyway? instead we made a donation to the new york restoration project (go divine miss m!) which creates community gardens all over new york city. we also had a small wedding party- just immediate family- which cut down on the need for special dresses, flowers, gifts and all the waste associated with these things. my sister's dress was made in nyc by a friend, no shipping there. my dress was shipped in from overseas- so you can't win them all.

we had all of our family from the philadelphia area bused in- keeping around 50 cars off the road and keeping our families from stressing out trying to find brooklyn. most of our new york friends took public transportation to the garden or shared cars. our one friend walked from his apartment!

we stressed to the caterer that it was very important to us that no food go to waste, any leftovers should be donated to city harvest or a similar program. being the professionals that they are, they were able to prepare exactly enough food and nothing was leftover.

my ring is made with certified non conflict diamonds.

we had leftover flower containers which i advertised on craig's list and gave to a mom to use for her daughter's sweet sixteen party.

i wish:
we had used soy candles
we had more organic food offerings
my dress was made from local, sustainable materials

but other than that, i was pretty happy with the way things turned out and all of the above took minimal extra effort.

i'm glad that 'green' weddings are becoming more and more popular and happy that the knot and nbc are promoting this idea to the public at large. every little bit helps, right?

cracking up and sonogram

2007-04-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

i saw blades of glory last night with m and a few of her friends and i didn't stop laughing the whole movie! we were all giggling at the opening music and if you've seen it, you know why. it was fantastic- so hilarious- one of will ferrel's best! i will definitely own this dvd in hopes that they will have out takes. i can't imagine shooting some of the scenes without crack ups. i can't wait to see it again with kpr!

yesterday we had our second sonogram and all is well. 13oz ten fingers, ten toes, all the anatomy is on track. it was so neat to see the baby on the screen and we have some great pictures to share with the family now.

there is a taco bell in the lobby of my hospital, i am both disturbed and elated by this fact. i know i will need a seven layer burrito stat after giving birth.

don't get fat or your kid will be fat and resent you for it for the rest of their life

2007-04-02T09:25:00.000-04:00

so this is the dumbest study ever. as if a pregnant woman wasn't confused enough about what is healthy and what isn't healthy.

let me summarize for you:

hmmmmm, if you gain the recommended weight during pregnancy, you probably will have an overweight toddler. if you gain more than the recommended weight you will most likely have an overweight toddler. BUT don't not gain the recommended weight because being underweight is bad for the baby. either way, the choices you make now will affect your baby's future no matter what so you might as well worry about it and feel guilty about it for the rest of your life. why don't you go sit in a corner and cry about it? but don't comfort yourself with food, because that is a bad habit you will pass along to your baby and they will resent you for it for the rest of their life. BUT don't not eat because your baby is hungry and needs nourishment- here, here is a nice head of lettuce, knaw on that for a while, okay? but eat some of this genetically modified tomato while you're at it because the baby needs folate, and if the baby is born with any kindof defect or disorder, it's because you didn't consume enough folate and they will resent you for it for the rest of their life.
so pretty much, this study was an important study to perform but we have no conclusive results other than you should worry and feel guilty and that we need to study this some more in order to give you more information that you should worry and feel guilty about.
the end.

i have developed a new vice, one that i have been fighting for years, but have recently succumbed to.

decaf iced coffee with milk and two sugars.

oh god how i crave it on my way to work in the morning! during the first four months of pregnancy when i was barfing all the time, the smell of coffee would sooth my reeling head and stomach. but i didn't dare drink any coffee because the child! think about the child! and the growth defects and the chance of developing two heads!

i have never been a coffee drinker, because frankly, caffeine can kill me. well maybe not kill me, but make me feel like i want to jump off a bridge just to get rid of the shakes, racing mind and heart palpitations. i worked at several different coffee shops through high school and college and i loved the smell of coffee, but never drank it.

when i moved to new york, i discovered the joy that is iced coffee. i would have a decaf iced about once a week as a treat, always making it nice and creamy and sweet. my favorite part is crunching on the sugar at the bottom of the cup. i would only allow myself to partake during the summer, when it was really hot outside, thinking i deserved this coffee, for surviving the summer in manhattan.

for the record, yes, i do know that decaf coffee does have caffeine in it. and yes it does affect me slightly.

now that i'm pregnant, i'm craving sweet things all the time. last weekend we went to my nephew's seventh birthday party and my sister in law sent us home with about a third of the birthday cake (homemade by her sister who is a professional baker, so it was some pretty damn good cake). the cake lasted about 1.5 days in our fridge before i demolished it on monday night and had the sugar shakes for most of the evening. ooooohhhhh but it was good! and sweet! and awesomely delicious! and studies have shown that babies react positively to sweet amniotic fluid, so really, i was thinking of the child! i want my baby to like me and if that means i'm going to have to consume a lot of sugary nonsense, well then, i accept that challenge.

i had two iced coffees last week and this morning i broke down while walking by amy's bread in the village. i've been working in the west village for the last week and have been going to amy's almost everyday for lunch because they have awesome (healthy) sandwiches. they also have amazing cheese biscuits (more carbs that turn into sugar!) that somehow end up in my purse, i'm not sure how that happens. but cheese! has calcium and protein- so i'm doing it for the child!

i'm planning out my next iced coffee and i think i can make it till thursday. wednesday is our next ultrasound, so i want to remain 'clean' for the next few days, just in case the technician can see the ice coffee on the sonogram and feels like she needs to tsk tsk me for it. so, thursday it is- my reward for staying clean for two days. friday is a reward in itself, so i won't have one friday- unless it's really hot out.

things that are a big part of my life now

2007-03-16T09:33:00.000-04:00

preggie pops
ginger ale
vitamin water a-zinc (with folic acid)
children's chewable vitamins
yougurt
bread
croissants
muffins
toast
pizza
roast turkey sandwiches with canned cranberry sauce
RICE CRISPY TREATS
HONEY NUT CHEERIOS
giving into cravings
some red meat
less fish (although i know i should eat some, but it is not appetizing to me at this moment in time)
dha
fruit- granny smith apples all the way (they keep the doctor away)
SUGAR

the bella band
babydoll shirts
lots o' moisturizer
prenatal yoga
feeling guilty(er) for no reason
little baby hats
pregnancy underware (they grow with you!)
big boobs
spanx bras
maternity shopping with m
considerably less barfing

chemical avoidance
no more mani/pedis
no more wine :(
or margaritas :(
or vodka :(
worrying about falling (down the steps, on the street, in the office)
reading about birthing things
babycenter.com weekly updates
looking forward to hearing the galloping horses next week

FEELING THE BABY MOVE!

awwwwww!

2007-02-28T15:22:00.000-05:00

how cute is this?!

i want a little baby oranutang and a little baby tiger to cuddle with!

mmmmm pickles and ice cream

2007-02-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

well, i've been away for a while. i've been away and i've been puking my guts out and not eating and i've been exhausted. i've been away, but i've been ecstatic- i've also kindof buried my head in the ground as well.

i have been told to bank up my sleep now, because come the end of summer, i'll be dying for some sleep. i've been reading magazines with the words "child" or "parent" in the title. i've been watching my once flat stomach thicken and fall over the waistline of my jeans. i've been in denial about how next week i probably won't fit into those jeans...

we went to new zealand to go to a friend's wedding- we stopped by sydney, australia for a while on the way home- we came back knocked up.

hooray!

ps- pickles really do taste amazing when one is with child!

does anyone else see the irony in this photo?- our baby was a little zygote floating around my womb at the time that this photo was taken.

this is a koala, not a koala bear, they are marsupials and i feel like it is my job to inform the world of this fact. they are very cute and snuggly and i wanted to take one home with me.

beautiful!

a dingo joke would be really inappropriate right now.

happy new year

2007-01-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

we live at the back of our building and are lucky enough to have a beautiful backyard in which we have invested huge chunks of money, time and effort.
when kpr and i returned home from the holidays we found awaiting us on our back patio:

- 575,600 soggy cigarette butts
- a shattered wine glass
- a lone sweat sock, also soggy

nice happy new year presents from our upstairs neighbors.

(how many times can they be told not to throw their disgusting cigarettes off the balcony? its called littering people)

(if you are so drunk you can't hold onto your wine glass, perhaps you don't belong on a metal balcony three flights up, climbing in and out of a tiny window. if you fall next time and shatter your head instead, i'm sweeping you up and putting you in the dog shit trashcan just like i did all the glass. no calling 911 for you sucker.)

(a soggy sweatsock. ew.)

(i'm looking at you eurotrash from the third floor)

we've bugged our management company about 575,600 times about people throwing things off their balconies, and they've posted signs, but people just get back into the habit of flicking their butts out into the air, not their problem anymore. i think they aim for our pond too, and our goldfish walt loves the nicotine rush. i just don't get that about smoking and smokers, it is just so stupid the poisoning of bodies and blatant littering. don't you realize when you throw down your cigarette, someone else has to clean it up for you, or in ends up in the gutter, and washes into our water system, ending up in our beaches and in that nice piece of tuna you had for dinner last night? so fucking selfish.
i had a friend who, when she was a smoker, would stop on the street, put out her cigarette and throw the butt into the nearest trashcan- i thought that was so classy, and grown up.

the eurotrash on the third floor also covered their balcony floor with plywood, which is so fucking annoying. the balconies themselves are old, metal and the floors are slatted, to allow the easy pass through of water. this doesn't make it very easy to have a chair out there, but most people manage. however, the eurotrash on the third floor decided that they just needed to set up another living room on their balcony, so they covered the floor with plywood and set up a few chairs and tables (they even have a lamp). this is great for them and all, but not so great for us as whenever it rains, all the rain gets caught up on their balcony and is forced between the very small opening between their plywood floor and the wall of our building, and sends it shooting down the wall at a very high rate of speed and onto our patio and down our stairs to our basement. we've had trouble in the past with a gutter that was too small, caused this same problem and ended up breaking the air tight seal on one of our windows. we had the management company come in and replace the window this summer and about two days after the window was replaced was when the eurotrash moved in and installed their home made floor.

we've asked the management co to do something about this, like physically go in there and remove the floor and then slap them around a little for being such assholes- but they haven't followed through yet. i think it will be interesting to see if we have a blizzard this year (there is always at least one each winter), how well the balcony will hold up with three feet of snow piled up with nowhere to go. piled up against their window. when it melts dripping constantly down the wall of the building and onto us everytime we go in and out of the backyard.

we've got to put our foot down.

New Zealand

2006-11-18T17:42:00.000-05:00

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

off to new zealand

2006-11-06T21:49:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-06T13:20:00.000-05:00

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.

two things

2006-10-13T17:46:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-09-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

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

bonnie and champ love

2006-09-17T10:02:00.000-04:00

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'.

random bits

2006-09-12T08:25:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-11T08:42:00.000-04:00

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.

kissy kissy. (eww gross)

2006-08-30T14:28:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-08-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

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

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

2006-08-26T00:39:00.000-04:00

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!

FW: Here comes the sun

2006-08-15T12:58:00.000-04:00

Champ in his element

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nueva entrada

2006-08-01T07:18:00.000-04:00

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.

married.

2006-07-15T18:15:00.000-04:00

not yet!

but soon!

like, this friday soon!

hahahahahahahaaaaahaaaaa!

i'm not anxious at all.

BIO diesel

2006-06-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

*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

Central park today

2006-06-05T13:44:00.000-04:00

Mother nature in gotham.

happy monday

2006-06-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

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.

48 days to go

2006-06-02T10:01:00.000-04:00

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...

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

2006-06-01T10:55:00.000-04:00

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."

who's that girl?

2006-05-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-30T08:48:00.000-04:00

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!

I was bored

2006-05-29T19:49:00.000-04:00

So i took some pictures.

kleinfeld's you better not be the suck today

2006-05-16T12:50:00.000-04:00

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.

wedding crazy

2006-05-10T11:40:00.000-04:00

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!

dog crazy

2006-05-02T16:30:00.000-04:00

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....

My name is Champ

2006-05-01T10:02:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-04-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

Im sick, mom is sad.

2006-04-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

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

Dear Klienfelds you suck

2006-04-26T18:06:00.000-04:00

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

I like this moblog stuff- too bad i only have pics of the pups in my phone.

2006-04-25T19:33:00.000-04:00

Treat me now!

Champ Champtopherson

2006-04-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

Dont look at me.

Bonnie

2006-04-25T09:24:00.000-04:00

Hello cutieface

sick as a dog

2006-04-20T13:10:00.000-04:00

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.

good friday

2006-04-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

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!

spiritual cleansing

2006-04-12T15:42:00.000-04:00

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.'

i am not kabbalah

2006-04-06T10:20:00.000-04:00

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!

to everything turn, turn, turn

2006-03-31T14:51:00.000-05:00

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.

bonniekitchenwedding

2006-03-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

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

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

2006-03-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

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

flyer in the bathroom stall

2006-03-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

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!

hifuckinglarious

2006-03-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

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!

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

2006-03-08T14:41:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-02-20T15:57:00.000-05:00

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!

aló from brazil!

2006-02-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

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.

off to the southern hemisphere!

2006-02-08T10:40:00.000-05:00

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!

assignment

2006-01-26T15:48:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-01-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

thank you thank you for all of your wonderful comments. bonnie is back to her old self now. she's still on steroids and has bouts of 'roid rage' where she runs around and around and has all this energy and doesn't know what to do with it. she is also hungry all the time and is drinking a lot of water. which leads to accidents in the house- we take her out all the time, but sometimes she just well, has to go. this isn't behavoir that she exhibited before her episodes, so hopefully when we start weaning her off the meds, this will improve. till then, we keep plenty of paper towels on hand and let her out every hour- oh and lots of baths too... we take her back to the neurologist at the begining of february and then we'll decide if she needs the surgery or not.

champ is still a champ and they are both snuggled up with me right now.

i am busily planning the wedding, getting ready to go to brazil, preparing for the kitchen installation, taking acting classes, temping, auditioning and going a little bit crazy.

we're trying to get the save the date cards out and it is just taking forever. we're meeting with vendors this week and next, but feel like we're behind in the planning. i told kpr i didn't want to do any of this big wedding planning- i am all for eloping or the destination wedding where someone does all the work for you- but we're having a big event anyway. i know it will all be worth it- but i haven't gotten to the point where all this planning is fun- i still just see it as work. oh and we're going to be horribly, horribly over budget. ridiculously over budget. but it will be worth it, right? yes, of course. i'll feel better once we nail down the vendors- we're meeting with florists and photographers this weekend. i have no idea about the reception music- that's something i haven't looked into yet. we have a date and a place, and i have my dress- i have some ideas on the flowers, and the ceremony- but there is still a lot up in the air.

i want to hear your opinion on a woman taking a man's name. i'm torn- it's not that i don't want to take kpr's name, it's just that i don't want to lose my name- i'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences. thanks!

bonnie- redefining the definition of supercute

2006-01-04T22:54:00.000-05:00

profile
Originally uploaded by divinemissk.

hi, my name is bonnie and i need brain surgery.

my mom and dad wish this were a joke, but it's not. you see, not only was i born with a heart murmur, two luxating patellas (bad knees), no natural instinct to drink water, and the cutest face on the... well, face of the earth, i was also born with what neurologists call "a malformation at the back of the skull."

everything was fine with my new mom and dad, they rescued me at thanksgiving and promptly fell in love with me, i was teaching champ who was really the boss of the house, i charmed both sets of grandparents when they came for a visit, i knocked the socks off my aunt alicia and aunt laura over christmas, and i just loved giving my granpa kisses all over his beardy face and sniffing lovingly at his ears.

yes, yes, everything was fine until the thursday before new year's eve, when all of the sudden, i didn't feel like myself any more. i couldn't stop shaking, and i was making these weird little panting faces. mom and dad were set to go out to a party (mom looked good) they had been looking forward to all month, but mom realized she should probably stay home to make sure i was ok. she thought that i was shaking because, i'm a naturally anxious little dog, but then my legs weren't working too well, so mom made dad go get dr. jp next door. we're lucky to live next door to an awesome vet who works at a vet er. he came over promptly and said to keep an eye on me and make an appointment to see an internist soon, like tomorrow.

so mom stayed home with me and was only a little bit resentful that dad got to go and get wasted with all of their friends, but she made up for it by ordering fried chicken, goat cheese salad and a brownie sundae- hey, it wasn't new years yet.

dad came home very, very intoxicated, which was funny until it got to be annoying because, hello? couldn't he see that i was still shaking and not my pretty, little self any more? mom let me sleep in the bed that night, things were pretty bad and she won't admit this to me, but i think she was afraid to wake up and find me dead in my crate the next morning. i kept shaking all night, unless she held me really tight, only then would i relax, but then after about five minutes i would thrash about and try to get up, only i didn't know where i was going and my legs, they didn't work so good.

the next morning we all woke up and mom and dad's friends had stayed the night and they all ordered breakfast. i seemed a little bit better, but then as dad went out to pick up the food, i started tremoring really bad, and my eyes drifted up, my mouth opened and i was panting weirdly and then i started foaming at the mouth. mom freaked out! i mean, freaked the heck out! thank goodness mom's friend sue was there and was like, lets go to the animal hospital and mom was like yeah- but i still have my pajamas on and i'm not wearing any underwear (her hair? atrocious!). mom scrambled around the house, getting ready and mom and sue were going to take a cab, but dad came home and drove us to the hospital, leaving all the food for sue and her boyfriend.

we went to the animal medical center in new york city. this is a fancy schmancy animal hospital where people can take their pets in an emergency. mom and dad are very thankful it exists. they are also very thankful that mom made an appointment for later in the afternoon that they just bumped up when we got there, because an emergency visit is damned expensive ($500 to walk in the door). dr jp was there, and visited with mom while they were taking care of me in the back. mom was a little embarrassed because she hadn't brushed her teeth, or her hair, or applied makeup and oh, she was crying.

the doctor's took very good care of me and told mom and dad that i needed an mri (yup, they have those things for dogs too). they also wanted to do an ekg on me because of my heart murmur, to make sure i could take the anesthesia ok. the ekg was normal and the doctor was so nice that he didn't charge us for it. i think he felt guilty because he had to send us all the way out to long island to get the mri, because their mri machine was busted. mom and dad drove me to long island vet specialists where i met a lot of very nice doctors and nurses. my neurologist was dr. dewey, who (mom likes to say), literally wrote the book on canine neurology (dr. jp gave it to mom to go through the other day, it's his text book from cornell). dr. dewey was very nice and answered all of mom's questions and was very honest with mom and dad.

they did an ultrasound to rule out a liver shunt, when that came out normal, they did the mri. while i was out, they shaved my back and did and spinal tap as well, to test for inflammation of the brain and spine.

let's count that, ekg, ultrasound, mri and a spinal tap all in one day. did i mention that i weigh about 10 pounds and am only 15 months old? they found the malformation at the back of the skull in the mri and gave me some steroids, to help with the pressure on my brain. dr. dewey told mom and dad that some dogs respond well to drug treatment and some dogs need to have surgery to remove the malformation to ease the pressure on the brain. we go back in a month to see if i will need the surgery, and for now, i'm almost back to my old self. mom is worried about the steroids though, she doesn't want me to start growing more facial hair and have my voice deepen like champ's.

mom and dad think its a good thing i'm so darn cute.

i heart new york

2005-12-21T10:34:00.000-05:00

so, in case you haven't heard- the transit union workers are on strike. i'm torn- part of me hates this because hello? inconvenience and possible chaos is not that fun- the other part of me is supportive, because it must be kindof a sucky job where you don't get much respect and spend most of your day underground, seeing more rats than sunlight. but then again- most everyone is paying for part of their health insurance in some way or another and no one is getting 6% raises a year. i'm just hoping that this is not long and drawn out because people can't sit at a table and properly negotiate. i hate the mta, as i've posted before , i don't want to hate the transit workers as well- and if this thing goes on much longer its gonna be hard to keep on being sympathetic. and i don't even have it that bad. it takes about an hour to walk to work, which sucks in the freezing cold, but is doable. although yesterday i was exhausted when i got in- walking in the cold, with all the layers and breathing in that cold air, really makes me tired. but i certainly don't have it as bad as most people who live in the boroughs or surrounding area.

kpr drove me to work today, because i am a very lucky girl and we picked up a hitchhiker! sooo exciting. ok- so the guy wasn't a hitchhiker, he was just someone standing on the corner looking for a cab and he looked pretty normal, and non serial killer like (i know, i know, serial killers look just like you and me), so i told kpr we should pick him up. i rolled down my window and asked him where he was going and he said 'grand central' i said 'get in!' it was so weird and random, but seemed perfectly natural. we chatted about the strike, and traffic and such, and then when we got close to grand central he and i hopped out and he insisted on giving kpr a twenty- although it was no skin off our nose- so wine money!! hooray!

so many people are riding bikes, roller blading/skating, walking, carpooling- it's like an environmentalist's dream come true. i know its a huge hassle with all of this going on, but i think it would be interesting if the city passed legislature that limited the number of cars on the road, encouraged people to carpool, especially in midtown. we'll see what comes out of this.

***************************
i was interviewed recently by a writer from the charlotte observer. he read my post regarding us air (they suck monkey balls) last year at christmas time.

names have been changed to protect my identity- teehee! you can go to the actual article here

Never again-- well, at least not for a while

TONY MECIA

tmecia@charlotteobserver.com

Last year, Tanya Churchill, Drew Bendler and divinemissk publicly stated they'd never fly US Airways again.

This year, all three say they're still steamed at the airline for last year's travel fiasco, and that they avoid it when they can. But in 2005, they've all flown US Airways again, or plan to.

Airline experts say they're not surprised, because leisure travelers tend to buy tickets based on price, not service.

"If it's a duck with a chair on its back and it's cheap, they'll take the duck," said aviation consultant Mike Boyd.

Here are the three travelers' stories:

• Steve and Tanya Churchill of Holly Springs, outside Raleigh, told the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle they'd never fly US Airways again after the airline lost their luggage for three days -- including a car seat for their 9-month-old daughter.

Tanya Churchill says she threw away the couple's Dividend Miles cards.

This year, though, she booked on US Airways because its tickets to Rochester were $100 cheaper than on rival carriers. She's planning to check as few bags as possible.

"It was either I go US Air, or I don't go," she said.

• Mailman Drew Bendler of Pennsauken, N.J., told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year: "I'm done. I won't fly US Air again." He had waited at the Philadelphia airport from Christmas Eve until 7:30 a.m. Christmas Day to try in vain to find his teenage daughter's luggage.

This year, his daughter is flying in from Missouri on Delta Air Lines, and Bendler says he didn't even look at US Airways' fare.

Earlier this year, he did fly US Airways to Miami on a "quick weekend trip" -- with only a carry-on bag -- but only because his brother made the travel arrangements.

• Last year, New York actor divinemissk wrote a blog entry, which recounted her frustrations when the airline canceled three flights to Columbus, Ohio, where her parents live. She says mean employees made her cry at the airport, and she never made it to Ohio, though her bags did.

"i hate them i hate them i hate them," she wrote. Other entries are unprintable in a family newspaper. (this is possibly the greatest quote i could ask for!)

divinemissk, 20something, says she wound up on a US Airways flight to Las Vegas this fall, though, after a previously booked flight on America West was discontinued, and it moved her to one operated by US Airways. She hadn't heard that the airlines had merged, but she says she has no plans to fly the airline again if she can avoid it.

"You lose trust like that, it's hard to gain that back," she said.

**************************
so, apparently, i'm a crybaby (what can i say, airports make me cry), i use language unsuitable for a family paper (yes!), and i'm not very eloquent (see last quote, uggh, please, couldn't i think of anything better to say? gah.). but i'm happy to join the club of people who have been interviewed because of their blog- imagine how blogging has made journalists jobs that much easier. no longer do they have to search for people who have had certain experiences or hold certain opinions- they just have to google the idea and bam! the interview subjects just line up for ya!

ass crack girl

2005-12-05T14:10:00.000-05:00

this person lives in our building and has the yappiest little dog on the face of the planet. Now, I love dogs, but this dog is so annoying it makes me want to, well, i don't know, strangle the owner?! the poor dog yaps all day long and cries all night long because ass crack girl (as kpr and i have come to call her, because dude- the two times i have run into her in the hall, i have seen about three inches of her ass crack- ick- also, she's not very attractive- i don't get the whole americas blahblah model thing- maybe whenever i see her she's just really stoned or hung over, i don't know- but even her portfolio isn't that impressive. kpr says that i am just jealous, but really i'm not, i think i'm much cuter than her (also more bitchy!) ). i feel bad for the dog because, hello? it's hard work yapping your trap off all day- but seriously, it is a priveledge to have a dog in our building and don't fuck it up for the rest of us. i have been temped to post a note to her door- but we have two dogs and i'm afraid that one day they will make a lot of noise- even though so far they haven't. thank god we don't live right next door to her or i would seriously consider- well, i don't know what i would do because really its not the dog's fault, it's ass crack girl's fault. don't get a little purse dog if you can't spend all day with it- its not fair to the dog if you are too busy or too stoned to care. grrr!

in other news- today is the five year anniversary of kpr & my first date! we are going to the little italian place where we ate our first meal together and i will order eggplant rigatoni with mozzarella- just like i do everytime we are there- serioulsy, i have never tasted any other entree in the place because the rigatoni is that friggin good! then we will have tiramisu and i will die of happiness. totally off my anti-inflammatory diet- but i don't care! i'll itch away tomorrow, and be all inflamed and stuff.

back to work. ughh.

in the name of justice and everything

2005-11-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

i found myself in an interesting situation this morning. i arrived to work late, after a phone call from my mother held me up a bit, and sitting on my desk was a black shoulder bag with a note attached saying " divinemissk find out whose bag this is and return it." at first i was a little miffed, like, how the hell am i supposed to find out who this belongs too? but that's kindof how i feel when someone asks me to do something "why do i have to do it?" i'm a little whiny, what can i say?

when i got around to going through the bag, i realized that i got to do one of my favorite things, play detective. when i was a kid and i was told to ' go clean your room ' i would do so in a way that i would go through everything as if i were a stranger, say, a police detective looking for clues as to who the person who lived in this room was. ' hmmmm, assorted colored pencils and gold glitter, this girl obviously has a penchant for the arts and loves a little color in her life. ' its funny, i would have used a word in my head like penchant , but really had no idea what the definition was, and don't think i really know what it means nowadays...

anywho- i'd clean up my room and go through each item that i owned one by one and make up little stories about myself and what other people would think about me, judging by what i owned and how i kept my stuff. i liked to consider myself an anthropologist of sorts, although when i was ten years old, i probably didn't know what anthropology was. maybe i was just a romantic?

so, this morning i set about the task of playing detective. i imagined myself a character on 'law and order' looking for clues as to how to find this person and rightfully return their property (ensuring liberty and justice for us all). the first thing i pulled out of the bag was a date book. 'oh, this is going to be too easy.' i thought. but oh-ho-hooo, i turned to the personal information page and found it to be blank. a little more digging was necessary. there were several magazines in the bag and i pulled the first one out. allure , hmmmmm, probably a woman's bag (it was a non descript tote-like thing, a free giveaway from someone's company, so it could have belonged to either sex). the magazine gave off a strong smell of perfume, but there was no address stamp on the front. the next two magazines were the week and did have an address on the front, but they were to a man's office, an attorney who operated on 6th avenue. curious, i didn't think this bag belonged to this man, because although i would think it to be normal to find a few 'men's' magazine's in a woman's bag, i didn't think i would find a perfumey woman's magazine in a man's bag. and i knew that a gay man would carry a better bag! so, i began imagining scenarios like, this woman is getting a divorce and swiped a few magazines from her attorney's waiting room. or she's having an affair with this attorney, and is best friends with his wife and took a few magazines from his office, which she will casually leave around her apartment the next time her friend comes over because she's really a vindictive bitch at heart. you know, things along that line....

so, still thinking that this bag belonged to a woman, i turned back to the address book. i realized now that i would have to go through it a little further, in order to find a name or something. i was a little uncomfortable going through it because, really, i didn't want to find out anything that i didn't want to know about, and the thought of a stranger going through things gives me the shivers (its fine to imagine people going through my things, but in real life, i wouldn't want it to happen). so i turned the pages of the calendar- noticing entries for each day, all in black pen, in a barely legible handwriting. notes to self like ' call dee to confirm ', and ' check with florist .' appointments for the dentist, and reminders of the bergdorf's trunk sale. there were business cards stuffed in pockets haphazardly, magazine clippings; one was on a new knitting kit sold on lafayette street that apparently julia roberts just loves. another was for a sale at ann taylor loft, and another was a recipe for key lime pie. mmmmmmmm, pie! i was hoping to find a receipt or something with a name on it and eventually i did, and the last name was the same as the last name on the magazines, so i figured it was the wife of the lawyer. i then found a print out of an email, with an email address. so i figured i could just email the woman and tell her i had her bag. but that would be too easy! what if she didn't check her email everyday? no, i would have to keep looking. in the name of justice and everything.

i flipped to the front of the address book, and went through the pockets there. a few business cards for kitchen remodeling places (oooooh we had something in common!), some paint chips (pale pink and coral pink- the coral was a little too orange-y for my taste), an old candy wrapper, and then bingo! a blank check . with the name of the lawyer, the name of his wife and their address on east 84th street. i was a little disappointed i didn't have to do any more detective work, but satisfied that the bag would find it's owner again.

i went to yellowpages.com and typed in their name and address and found both his work number and their home number. i called and left a message at their home, " ummm hi, my name is divinemissk, and i work at so and so and i found your bag on my desk this morning, i think my boss left it there, so, yeah, anyway, i have it here and this is my phone number and the address where you can come pick it up. i'll have it locked up by my desk, so you can stop by anytime ."

i hung up with the satisfaction of a job well done. but i knew my job wasn't over, what if she works all day and doesn't get the message until later this evening? would justice truly prevail? or would i just have to call the husband at work and let him know that his wife's bag was safe in my hands?

yes , i would have to call him at work. i didn't want to bother him exactly, so i decided to leave a message with his assistant or whoever answered the phone. i went through the same schpiel, and as i was hanging up, i realized that by the man's reaction on the other line, it was probably the husband himself and not some young, hot, paralegal, who was working his way through law school at night, while toiling away at the mister's office during the day.

i received a phone call a few minutes ago and it was the wife, asking for divinemissk and then calling me her hero. "well, it wasn't really me , it was my boss really, i just did the detective work."

the engagment story- and then i promise not to be one of those girls who is obsessed with being engaged...

2005-11-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

kpr's parents had a 50th wedding anniversary party at a country club last saturday. 11/5/05 is their actual anniversary and they invited everyone they know to celebrate with them. they even invited my parents from ohio and my great aunt from new jersey. it was a lovely event, i wore a purple and black dress that i picked up at angelo lanbrou in the east village, crocheted black tights and black stilettos. it was an afternoon affair, so i wasn't sure if i was overdressed, but kpr's mom was wearing a black cocktail 'number' so i thought that i wouldn't stand out too much. i decided on a faux diamond pendant on a silver chain (something that kpr's mom had given me a while back) and matching earrings that my grandmother gave me that same year. i'm describing what i'm wearing because kpr helped me pick it all out the night before. whenever i get dressed up for something- i always show him what i am considering and like to hear his opinion (for the most part). and its not some fucked up gloria/emilio estefan thing- he doesn't decide what i wear and lay it out on the bed for me- we just don't have a full length mirror, so i need an outside eye. anyway- little did i know the night before that kpr was helping me choose the outfit that i would become engaged in.

and let me explain- i don't want to be one of those girls who becomes obsessed with all things wedding and being engaged. it is important for me to well.... just not obsess- and have that be the only thing i can talk about. i never really thought that kpr and i would ever get married- we've been together five years and i thought we'd end up being one of those couples who just lived together, raised some kids and some dogs, kept a household, but never made it legal. and i was ok with that. i don't need to be married to express my love for him. not that i don't respect marriage- my parents and kpr's parents have been excellent examples of how marriage does work out and it can be a beautiful thing and everything. i just never needed to be married.

but now that we are engaged, i am excited, i have so much to look forward to and i'm happy to be spending the rest of my life with kpr. i think he is the bee's knees.

so we went to this party and his whole family was there. brother, sister-in-law, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins- you get it right? everyone.

they had a cocktail hour where everyone mingled and i was introduced to a lot of older people whose names i am supposed to know but of course i don't, a lot of cousins far removed who talked about kpr when he was little, oh and i happened to reintroduce white wine that day (i'm on an elimination diet) so i was a little buzzed and happy to see my parents and introduce them to all these people i am supposed to know.

kpr's brother comes up to him at one point and hands him a gift-wrapped box and says that this is the gift they are giving mom and dad. kpr hands it off to me and asks me to bring it up to him while he is giving a speech about his parents, right before the toast. i think nothing of it and set the box at my chair and go back to the white wine, er, mingling.

the time comes and everyone sits down and kpr gets up to make his speech. he has been working on it since the night before and i know he is nervous- he starts out with a few jokes and gets people in the spirit. his parents are standing next to him on the dance floor and he's nervously glancing down at his paper as he speaks and addresses the room. it is all very sweet and he's saying such nice things about his folks and their being married for 50 years and how they still love each other and can stand to be in the same room with each other and how they love to travel together and how they've seen more than their share of bad times and a lifetime of good times too. it is very lovely and everyone is smiling and laughing, calling out funny comments and having a good time. he calls me up to hand the gift off to his parents, only he wants me to open it.

it's a small box wrapped in silver and white paper with a silver bow. i take off the bow, rip off the paper and find that the box is from saks 5th avenue. the whole time i am trying to figure out what he and his brother got his parents and how it could fit into such a small box. i open up the saks box and find an even smaller wooden box inside. it looks like a jewelry box, and i'm thinking "What the heck is this?!" and i try to hand the jewelry box off to ken's mom, but he tells me to open it for them (they have drinks in their hand). right before i opened the box, he says, "what can you possibly do for a couple that has been married for fifty years- what kind of gift can you give them?" and as i open the box he says "the gift of starting a marriage of your own" and BOOM! i'm blinded by the light of this dazzling ring that just leaps out at me as i flip open the lid. i froze, i was completely and totally shocked and awed. the whole room was silent for a moment and then PANDAMONIUM! everyone jumps out of their seats and gasps and i even hear someone scream a little bit (probably my mother). i put my hand to my forehead and i start to cry, and i can't look at anyone but kpr. he keeps talking and says that he asked my dad for my hand 20 minutes ago and that he said "Ok!" and that now he is going to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him, which he does. by this point he is crying a little himself and you can just hear everyone in the room sniffling and blowing their noses. my dad gets up on joins me on the dance floor and i give him a big hug and turn back to kpr who is still on one knee and he proposes (honestly i can't remember exactly what he said because of the roaring in my ears from the shock of it all, but it went something like, beautiful person i've ever met, promise to love and take care of you, will you marry me...) my dad told me i should ask him to repeat the question but at that point i'm crying so hard and trying to grab kpr's hand and trying to tell him that he doesn't have to get down on one knee and trying to say "yes" and trying to hear over the roar of the crowd- i don't even know if i ever did say yes- i just hugged him and we cried together and then kpr's mom came up to me with tears running down her face and hugged me and said she was so happy and kpr's dad hugged me and said the same thing and this began the parade of hugs where i hugged every member of his family who were all red faced from the crying and everyone was so emotional and happy and shocked and it was all so amazingly beautiful and my MOTHER i just remember her running up to me with her arms outstretched and i knew she was so happy and i was just crying and crying and it was awesome but exhausting. the dj was playing "all you need is love" in the background which i later learned that kpr had asked him to do and it is truly a moment i will never forget and a moment i wish i could go back to physically, not just in my head, because it was a point in time where i felt like i was truly in the moment, and everything that i was feeling was so immediate and necessary and it is so rare to experience something like that- it truly only comes with feelings of extreme happiness or extreme sorrow and i'm so thankful to have been able to experience something like it

changes

2005-11-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

we're getting a new dog. her name is bonnie- she's a boston terrier and is supercute. she's going to be champ's little sister and we can't wait to bring her home after thanksgiving. pictures to come.

kpr was promoted at work! hooray! i'm so proud and happy for him.

the kitchen renovation is moving ahead- waiting for the final renderings to be sent and then the cabinets will be made. what are we going to have on the floor you might ask, since that is what comes first- hmmm... don't know about that one yet...

oh and

we're engaged! to be married! oh my god!

BOOKED!

2005-11-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

one roundtrip ticket to salvador, brazil- february- C-A-R-N-I-V-A-L!

i would like to start over

2005-10-26T12:12:00.000-04:00

today is the kindof day where i wish i could just go back to bed, sleep for another 8 hours or so, wake up, and start over again.

first there is this- how many more??

i woke up a little late- it is so dark here in the morning and we turn the heat down at night- so getting out of bed is really a trial. i feed champ- jump in the shower- say goodbye to kpr- get out of the shower- notice two new zits cropping up on face, grrrreat!- do the hair- apply moisturizer, etc... take champ downstairs to let him outside, only to discover that he left a nice little gift at the back door, that thank thee lord i didn't step in. clean it up, flush the toilet- go back to doing hair- agonize over what to wear today-walk around the living room barefoot, looking for shoes- wonder why the carpet is damp- look down to see suspicious little sqirt marks all over the carpet and hardwood floor- find the dog cowering in his crate- yell and scream things like 'what is the matter with you?' as if the dog could understand what i am saying, think to self about what a great parent i will be, if i can't get the dog to piss and shit outside how the hell am i ever going to manage a kid? furiously spray febreeze on the carpet because the pet stain stuff is nowhere to be found- hope that the house doesn't smell like pee and vow to clean carpet with baking soda when return home from work- finish doing hair- run out the door with no makeup on because am running 20 minutes late- wait forever for two trains- get stuck on the local because apparently the express train doesn't exist after 8:30am- rush into work late- forward calls so can run down the bathroom and slap some makeup on face- dammit why is my skin so freaking dry?!!- work till 10:30 then dash out the door- hail a cab- and am off to the big meeting that i refuse to talk about- change from broken down black boots to sexy stilleto heels in car- spend $6 on a cab going 18 blocks(highway robbery)-arrive ridiculously early- futz around the cosi sandwich place for a while- go up to big meeting- frantically checking hair and makeup in the elevator- smile on face- wait ten minutes flipping through old issue of cosmopolitan, wonder if i should try mashing up a mango and spread it all over my body whilst in the shower- big meeting's assistant comes out and tells me that big meeting is out sick today and 'i don't know why he didn't call you to cancel, but i'm very sorry, call tomorrow to reschedule'- smile through teeth- no problem- realize i will have to agonize over yet another outfit for next meeting- walk back into the cold feeling the skin on my face shrivel up into dry little shreds (how much water must i drink?!! gah!)- walk back into cosi, spend $8.50 on a salad with three vegetables and lettuce- switch from sexy stilleto heels to broken down black boots- walk the 18 blocks back to work thinking about the need to ask for more time off and more early mornings and late nights- arrive back to work- type up blog entry only to lose half of it somehow- retype blog entry- run into housekeeper who has made lunch for everyone 'i made lentils for you because you can't have pasta' and think how amazingly sweet that is and then realize that i already spent $8.50 on a freaking salad with nothing in it- and wish i could go back to bed..........

Free this week only

2005-10-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

The Green Guide is free this week only. Check it out- it's an awesome resource for anything you ever wanted to know about being environmentaly aware.

rainy saturday

2005-10-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

most people hate when it rains on the weekend. i do too, most of the time. but this morning i woke up and was cheered to hear pitter pattering on the window. a rainy saturday means i have an excuse to sleep in, stay in my pajamas all day and not wash my hair. which is exactly what i did today. kpr got up and tried to convince me that we should go out for breakfast, but i wasn't going for it. he went off for coffee and i snuggled under the covers for a while longer, vaguely hearing him return, take a bath and then a shower, but mostly trying to soak up all that delicious sleep- mmmm there is nothing like sleeping in sleep- that feeling that you don't have to wake up for anything. kpr is an early riser and cannot understand my love of the sleeping in- he usually tries to talk me out of sleeping in by laying on top of me or pulling all the covers off, but i'll do anythign to take in another half hour or so under the covers in dreamland.
when i finally did wake up and went out into the living room i was pleasantly surprised by the fire going in the fireplace. we're lucky enough to have a working fireplace in our apartment and the first fire of the season is very exciting. its been so chilly recently that a duraflame makes all the difference.
i did some laundry and when i went back down to the basement to switch the loads, i discovered that they had finally replaced the old dryers we had, with two not-so-new, but-not-as-old dryers that work remarkably better. Whoever replaced the dryers also moved my load from the washer to the dryer and i got a free dry! score!
i cleaned all of champ's things and got his little sweatshirt, sweater and fleece ready for the cold weather. i also sat down and mended all those things that needed mending, something that i've been meaning to do for quite sometime. oh and two days ago i sent my grandparents some a pack of notecards in the mail with a little note, instead of sending them flowers- another thing i have been meaning to do for a while.
the rest of the day was spent searching for appliances online, which is hard- i think we really just need to go out and look at stuff and have out measurements and budget in mind and know what brands are best and go from there. kpr has his heart set on an aga or wolf stove, but i really don't think we need to spend that kind of money. i want something that is a good brand, will fit out space constraints, is energy star rated and won't break the bank. i talked to frank the cabinet man today and they are coming out to take measurements next saturday.
talked to dad on the phone today and we're all looking forward to going to vegas for thanksgiving. my folks got paul mccartney tix for the friday after thanksgiving for all of us to go together- my parents, my brother and his wife, the newlyweds, kpr and i, my sister and her bf. should be lots of fun and i'll be off my diet by then so hopefully i can eat whatever i want. it's thunder and lightning right now, we just watched the blockbuster 'air force one' and now i have 'close encounters of third kind' on in the background and i'm wondering how i'm going to convince champ to go outside in the rain (he's such a p*ssy about the rain). kpr is snoring away on the living room floor, which explains why he can get up at the butt crack of dawn with no problem- he falls asleep around 8pm each night.

BLOGIVERSARY

2005-10-13T11:17:00.000-04:00

today is my blogiversary! except i don't really count it as a full year, because, hello! i haven't posted in forever and a month.
but today, i felt like posting because i was inspired by my bff's new blog which i haven't read in forever and it felt so good to sit down and read her thoughts and get back to what blogging is, instead of just trying to catch a random entry from my favorite bloggers now and then.
so, i felt like posting and as i went to the old blogger homepage, i thought "didn't i start my blog around this time last year?" and, yes, indeedy! it has been a year since the turkey. i am not one to reflect, i try my hardest to live in the moment and i have shoddy memory as it is, so i don't often have the chance to reflect, but i know that this past year has been an awesome one. i count my blessings everyday and try to be grateful for all that i have. i have love, joy, peace in my mind (for the most part) and some kickass friends. all of whom i've been neglecting lately, but luckily my girls are forgiving.

i've been in new york for 5 years now! new york is such an awesome place to live. i love it i love it and i'm so happy here. i think it is possible to live your whole life here, raise your kids here, everyday has it's moments of discovery and you are constantly being challenged to think differently and problem solve- nothing is easy- but you can get practically anything delivered to your door in about an hour. for a price. it's easy to live organically here. in so many ways. new yorkers are environmentalists, as funny as it sounds, we use less energy, less oil, we don't all have gas guzzling suvs, we exercise more, eat better (local, organic, natural, minimally processed), we recycle, reuse and reduce, we interact in our neighborhoods, we grow things, we believe in different causes, we have good bars, we support our artists, we go on and on like idiots (or maybe that's just me), new york isn't superior, its just a the best place to live, ever.

i will not talk about my job in this post.

i will not talk about an interview i have in a few weeks that i am trying not to be too excited about because, hello? how many times can i get my hopes up?!

i will say that i want to learn how to make borscht.
i want to call my mother more often
i want to send my grandparents flowers
i want to write my thank you cards this week
i want to submit more headshots
i want to be done with the kitchen design and just get it all over with already, but i know we have a long way to go
i want to stop picking up socks
i want to eat chicken soup
i want to go clothes shopping with katrina
i want to get jen that candle for her birthday that m got for me for my birthday because i know she will love it as much as i do
i want to hang things on the walls
i want to mend all the things that have holes in them
i want to have a three year contract on a soap opera
i want our home to be eclectic but put together
i want to put a towel down by the front door to put our wet shoes on
i want to bake something
i want to use nontoxic paint
i want a little sister for champ
i never want to hear the phrase 'so what are you working on now?'
i want a national commercial
i want to be able to pay my dad back
i want to pay kpr more rent
i want to work from home
i want to go back to bed
i want to be happy like this for my whole life
i want everything to be recycled, reduced and reused
i want to go get the composter
i want stock in gaiam
i want to never have to clean the floor again
or the bathroom
i want to know what that brain thing is that i stare at everyday
i want to be able to remember things that i think about so i can blog about them
i want to meet some of the bloggers i've been reading for a while
i want to not think bad things
i want to not be as responsible
i want things to just work out dammit
i want m here in nyc
i want to be less selfish
i want to have a baby, sometime. soon maybe.
i want to eat sugar, wheat, dairy, corn and PIZZA
and a chicken parm panini.

2005-08-28T18:42:00.000-04:00

to be honest, i haven't much felt like posting in a while. well, i haven't really had the time and my motivation has been very low when i do have the time. my job keeps me very busy and i don't dare blog from work. i have rehearsals at night and when i get home its after 11 and the last thing i want to do is get on the computer.

the job is going, well, ok. its a job. i'm an adult, and i'm doing adulty things. i like the goals and objectives of the company, so i go to a place that i feel makes a difference in the city. i can wear jeans to work, which to me, as silly as it sounds, is a +. the people i work with are perfectly nice. that's all i'm going to say.

i'm in rehearsal and i'm kindof ambivilent about the production. i could take it or leave it and sometimes its a pain in the ass to haul myself to rehearsal every night. i think the show will be ok, but nothing to shout from the rooftops about. i like the people i'm working with, but i'm kindof 'eh.' about the whole thing.

i've got to work on my motivation. the things i'm enjoying the most right now are, spending time with kpr, hanging out with champ, going to the dog run, eating yummy food, grabbing drinks with friends. i'm putting very little effort into my career right now even though being at this job has taught me that i don't want to be at jobs like this for the rest of my life. not that its horrible, because its not, its just not what i want to do.

ugh. the good news is that i have found a new accupuncturist who takes my insurance and i can get accupuncture for $30 a session, which rocks. her practice is based in an integrative medical office, so i made an appointment to see one of the doctor's there, as i'm looking for a new pcp as my previous doctor moved upstate and no one in her office takes my insurance.

gah, what a boring post. bleh.

stream

2005-08-03T10:06:00.000-04:00

so much has happened in the last few weeks. i've been cast in a production of 12th night, so've been going to work every day and off to rehearsal at night. i've been driving around new york city like crazy. inever thought i would drive here, and all the sudden i am. i auditioned for a rock musical a few weeks ago. i haven't done a musical audition in years, so i was rather proud of myself that i decided to just go out and do it. i had fun, i did well, i didn't get called back- i don't think i look very jewish and that's what they were looking for. but i'm in another show right now so it doesn't matter.

i've been applying for 'real' jobs recently, as the temp market has seem to have dried up here in the city. i'm pretty choosy about where i want to go. an arts organization or a non-for-profit. i interviewed for a job at a cool non-for-profit company last week and they brought me back in to speak with the head of the company who is a very important lady in the industry. they are pretty hesistant about hiring an actor because it can be very risky for them- i could get a job and have to relocate somewhere the next day. but i think they think i'm the best person for the job because they called me up on monday and offered it to me. nad i am pretty scared to take on a permanant gig. i'm afraid that i will get so wrapped up in what is going on at my day job, that my dream, the reason i moved to new york in the first place, will fall to the wayside. the position is pretty time demanding, and my days will be filled, so no more 'free' time to work on 'me' things like running to auditon sor submitting my headshots and stuff. that will all have to be taken care of on my off time. which is how it should be, i know, but not what i'm used to. but i'm eager to jump into somehting new and the company is pretty awesome and i really believe in what they are doing and they are so progressive and it's a pretty perfect position for the save-the-world part of me. but still, i'm terrified of commiting to something.. what if i don't like it? what if they don't like me? what if the work is too hard and i keep on messing up? what if they hate me and make fun of me behind my back? what if i can't get out to auditions EVER AGAIN?!! so we talked about terms and i said i needed a night to 'sleep on it.' what to do what to do.

also

i'm redesigning our kitchen to be renovated into a 'green kitchen' this is fun and agonizing because i really have no idea what i'm doing and i have to talk to an architect tonight and pretend that i do. i'm so clueless.

also

my very best girlfriend is dating a celebrity and she is in la at this moment spending the month with him. how cool is that?!

also

my other very best girlfriend is going through some amazingly difficult times right now, and i'm so admiring her strength and ability to hold on and not let this send her to a 'bad place.'

i do love me some awesome girlfriends.

2005-07-28T13:54:00.000-04:00

this article breaks my heart in so many different ways and makes me realize how blessed i am to live where i am, no matter what.