Cheesecakes

In retrospect, the first mistake was not checking for nuts.

Ironically, this applies both to the cookies I planned to bake with, and to the friends who came to eat them, but first things first.

Upon realizing that the cookies I had dragged Nick to four grocery stores for would kill Andrea (I had planned to use them for the cheesecake I would offer to her as safely nutless), the ugliness started. It didn't help that I never got that early start I had wanted; instead I found myself baking two cheesecakes on the same day that I planned to serve them. Both of them instructed me to chill them overnight. Whatever.

I sent poor, sweet Nick out to my local Key Foods, deciding to blend the two crust recipes a bit to produce an Andrea-proof result that would still be in the spirit of the original. And it was even going kind of okay, although this was about the point when Nick, who had returned and was watching me curse and yell with great curiosity, informed me that I was not in fact making my crust in a completely stupid and nonfunctioning food processor. It turns out I don't have a food processor. I have a blender.

Apparently, it matters.

Anyway. So I'm taking a bit from recipe 1, a bit from recipe 2, and making up a bit in the middle to make them fit, and feeling very clever, even if it is taking a million times longer than I had hoped. But what do you do when recipe 1 advises you to "Freeze crust for 15 minutes," and recipe 2 suggests that you "Bake crust at 325 until set, about 8 minutes"?

This was also when Nick asked where I planned to put the crust, since my borrowed springform pan was currently in the refrigerator full of pumpkin-Frangelico® cheesecake, which had gone off without a hitch. It did not go so well that I could pull it out of the pan 20 minutes after it had come out of the oven.

I thought about just scrapping the second cheesecake, I did. But...what would I do with four packages of cream cheese, or a tub of cranberries? And what would I feed Andrea?

Nick quickly washed my single-serving ramekins, and I set about the appalling task of covering the bottom of each with crust that was just entirely the wrong texture, because improvising is not my strength. They looked pretty good after "setting" in the oven (we opted to bake), but I could not focus on that right then.

"I don't think I have enough sugar."

I always read the ingredients list thoroughly before I use a recipe, and this was no exception. I had sugar, but I never noticed how much the second recipe asked for (2 cups, all together, but it's broken up deceptively). I had about 1 cup left. I turned to Nick, who was trying to hide under his laptop.

Since it was much closer than the grocery store, and we needed some other things from there anyway, I sent him to RiteAid. He was noticeably less sympathetic this time. He returned as I was getting out of the shower into which I had opportunistically snuck, and announced that the RiteAid hadn't had sugar. They had baking Splenda®.

Good enough.

Baking Splenda®, by the way, is incredible stuff. It measures cup-for-cup like sugar, but weighs essentially nothing at all. I kept spilling it because I couldn't feel it moving in the box, but it was seriously cool.

So, as I had for the first, easy cheesecake, I dumped all the ingredients into the bowl, and glanced back at my cookbook. And discovered that I should have mixed the ingredients together in about eight distinct stages. Oh, and this one would allegedly have to cool for four hours before chilling overnight. Like hell.

I turned on my nifty new hand mixer and powered through, muttering the whole time about fats carrying taste, eggs for texture, and other random dire predictions about my reckless all-at-once mixing. Nick was visibly concerned, although you would have to know him really well to know he wasn't just worried about his game of Civilization®.

Oh, and six of the eight mini-cheesecakes that resulted from the weird mousse I produced cracked massively in the oven.

But.

I think the first one--the hitch-free one?--was a little undercooked. And the mini-cheesecakes turned out wonderfully. So go figure.

Anyway, worn out from all these battles, I was not as cautious about monitoring small talk as I should have been, and so there came a point in the evening when my guests spent nearly an hour discussing placentae. I know that this is the plural of "placenta" because I just looked it up, but last night we were really struggling to figure it out.

"Wait a minute, guys," Andrea said thoughtfully. "Just think: what's the plural of 'polenta'?"

The next time I bake, I'm keeping her on hand. Just in case.

Ode to Screens

This should have been about how Nick's glasses fell out of the window Wednesday night. My drapes swished, we heard a woosh! and then a clattering, and all we could do was stare. Except for when Nick punched my wall, in a show of manly problem-solving.

The next morning I awoke to an empty bed and, leaning out my window, saw the top of my boyfriend's head. And all of this is made even more charming by the fact that the glasses never fell out of the window at all, but were discovered later between the bed and the wall.

This is not about that.

Nick and I have two key differences in our outlooks on life, you see, and it's driving us just a tiny bit crazy.

Cleaning

I hate cleaning, in ways that I cannot even describe. I do as little of it as humanly possible. Contrary to popular rumor spread by Nick, however, I do not enjoy living in squalor, so I try to avoid messing up the place to begin with. Particularly since I have a bit of an aversion to touching things once they are visibly dirty, I feel that this is an extremely clever plan.

Nick, aka Mr.-I-Scrub-My-Apartment-Thoroughly-Once-A-Week, does not cooperate.

We cleaned yesterday. Last night, I watched fish-poaching liquid spread evilly across the stove I had just spent over an hour returning to a high gloss (since Nick tends to use it, it had become too dirty for my casual spot-cleaning ages ago). "Just think how easy it will be to clean that up now!" Nick trilled, as I heroically refrained from strangling him.

He spills on my couch, apparently reasoning that I run the cushion covers through the laundry after each visit, as if I have time for such nonsense. He drops food on my floor and then looks at me like I'm crazy when I send him off for a damp paper towel--surely I was planning on mopping the whole place again soon anyway, right?

Actually, most of his worst trespasses involve food, which leads inevitably to the next conflict.

Vermin

I believe that mice have virtually supernatural powers. And Nick refuses to accept this obvious truth.

Wednesday, I nearly tripped over a bag of potatoes in the middle of my dining nook floor. When my head spun around, Exorcist-esque, to shoot a gently enquiring look at my boyfriend, he was exasperated. "Potatoes don't need to be refrigerated!" he insisted.

This was not the point. "Mice," I hissed.

"So put it in the cupboard. Put it on the top shelf!"

My God, he is so naive.

So. Last night, I heard what was definitely not a mouse. In fact, it was so soft and so infrequent that at first I was not sure I was hearing anything at all, but, predictably, my nerves refused to just drop it and let me sleep. At a slightly louder noise that was definitely in the apartment, I grabbed my glasses and sat up just in time to see a light gray shape bound from the dining-nook table to the sill of the open window.

Too big for a mouse or even a squirrel, too not-flying for a pigeon, too nimble for the rat I have nightmares about finding in here someday. What the...?

I shoved Nick. "Something's in here."

"Hello?" he called out sleepily.

"Something," I clarified. "On the table--" and I switched on the light, only to be momentarily struck dumb. How could he? Sitting on the table were the remains of the sweet Italian sausage pizza I had heated up for him after we had discovered that we suck at poaching fish, "--eating your pizza," I snarled.

"So go get rid of the pizza," he suggested cavalierly.

I chose to believe that he was still foggy from sleep, and stared at him until he got out of bed himself. He peered out the window, and announced, "A cat."

I live on the fifth floor, by the way.

When he returned from throwing out the pizza and closing the window, I snuggled my way across the bed and looked him in the eye.

"This is exactly what I've been talking about."

The Christmas Mouse

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring but Caroline's mouse.

In other words, my parent's "cat" decided to get in on the gift-giving action this year.

See, my parents have two pets: a sweet and enthusiastic English cocker spaniel, and a psychotic cat who is approximately the same size as the dog. Most of the time, Toby (the cat) comes across as sweet: he cuddles, he purrs, he has retained his kittenish habit of suckling his own shoulder when he is especially happy, and he loves to stretch out on his back and beg for a belly-rub.

The trick is this: if you actually touch his belly, he will maim you.

And then there's what he does if you're not six times his size. See, when he was about three months old, he began going outside. We watched him at first, but when he seemed to have the hang of the cat door, we let him roam free, and we have regretted it for years, because one of the first things he did was bring in the leg of a rabbit.

"Roadkill," my mother declared authoritatively. "Something else killed it, and it decomposed for a while; there's no other way. He's just too tiny." And over the next few days, as he brought in rabbit pieces one by one, we prayed that she was right.

The years of headless (or bodiless) mice and birds that followed, along with the occasional live chipmunk and unidentifiable bit of who-knows-what have strained our optimism just a bit, but the fact remains that the cat is just adorable (even if it is clearly not all domestic medium-hair).

Until, that is, Christmas Eve, when I started hearing rumors of a field mouse loose on the second floor. And, sure enough, the moment I turned out my light, I heard "Click click click click click click click. Click click click. Click click click click click click." Switching the light back on, I peered over the edge of my bed just in time to see a tiny brown thing dart under my bed. It appeared again on the other side for a split second as I hopped off to go see my mother.

"Set Toby on it," was her first suggestion. Then: "Just sleep in the other room." Then: "Get out of my bed now."

I tried to share a room with it. And failing that, I tried to scare it back out into the hallway. I kept the light on, I waved and yelled every time it stuck its head out from under various furnishings. The problem was that the mouse was a masochist. It refused to even stay on the other side of the room, and although it frequently ducked out into the quiet, dark, safe hall, it always poked its stupid little nose back in within a couple of minutes. The last straw came nearly an hour later, when the noise got louder, and I sat up just in time to see the thing running over the top of the overstuffed armchair in the corner.

In other words, it was at eye level.

My artful screams and carefully calibrated flailing frightened it off the chair and out the door, only to return 30 seconds later. Which was when I left.

The evening was not without Christmas cheer, though: early in the morning, my mother went downstairs to check on the dog. And she sort of saw Toby in the hall as she went by (noting as she did that my light was still on--I hadn't wanted to flee across a dark room), and suspected something when he ignored her.

From one floor down, she heard bones crunching. And, when she came back up, there was no trace of the mouse.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Deck the Halls

In case it isn't already abundantly clear, the holidays make me a smidge crazy. Standing in line at my friendly neighborhood Rite Aid this evening, I was struck by the sudden sinking conviction that I do not give nearly enough Chia® products as gifts (to date, I have done so approximately never). Even the sad line of harried-looking women hovering around the three or four sadder Barbie® dolls caused me a moment of panic, as I reconsidered my entire gift-giving strategy.

Even though my crazy has obviously reached a fever pitch, I have seen some ads recently that have convinced me that I am not entirely hopeless. Their implications for the rest of the world, unfortunately, are simply terrifying.

The Offenders

Honorable Mention

The good people at Glade® have gone in an interesting direction lately. One of their commercials opens on a woman sitting at a table and staring glumly at a few pillar candles. "Some candles just look too much alike," the sympathetic voice-over tells us, before cutting to the now-happy woman with a few tealight-esque candles in glass holders.

I mean...really? I can see picking up a candle because it's unusual/interesting/etc. However. "Some candles just look too much alike"? If this is your buying rationale, set down the candles, walk out your front door, and go find a place to volunteer your time, because a reality check is absolutely crucial for you.

Do it now.

Runner-Up

You know what I think my super would absolutely love this year instead of a Christmas tip? A McDonald's® gift card. Are they serious with this?

From what I saw of this ad, the premise was that they make great gifts for people you don't know well enough to buy real presents for. Take it from me: these people want cash. Gift certificates work in many situations, but if McDonald's® is the best you can come up with, then I repeat: the person wants cash.

If, on the other hand, you are trying to say: "You come off as trashy, your arteries are your own problem, and I don't want to give you money because you're the type to throw it away on alcohol or the dog track," then you've found the perfect gift. And at that point, don't you think that it would be more in the spirit of Christmas to just bite your tongue?

And the Grand Prize

Generally speaking, since I got my TiVo® I have not had to watch a single commercial, ever. Which I adore. In this instance, though, I began recording whatever show was on at the time after this ad aired, so that I could walk away, then watch it again after the shuddering stopped (not yet).

Apparently, there is a new collector's item out there: two-piece 9/11 memorial coins. They are made primarily of 24kt gold, but contain a piece shaped like the Twin Towers, made of .999 sterling silver. This silver, we are told, was recovered from the vaults under Ground Zero. (I found a website that casts some doubt on this claim--apparently there are investigations into other coins claiming to be cast from this silver, suggesting that they are, in fact, just regular silver. I'm not sure whether it's worse if it's true, or if it's false.)

But stop gaping. There's more.

This silver piece, shaped like the Towers? It is on a hinge of some kind, so that it can rise up out of the coin to form a "breathtaking standing sculpture."

This, we are told, will be "the most meaningful collectible [we] own." Which is one of those appalling truths that tempt you to slap the person who told it.

I am providing a link to the website I found for these coins, here. You are welcome to take a look.

If you consider purchasing one, though, don't bother coming back here, because you and I have nothing to say to each other.

Lucky Me

Around 11:00 this morning, I was rushing around my apartment in a frenzy. I was already a tiny bit late, and still had an extra (read: unaccounted for in my lateness estimate) errand to run in my building's basement before heading out to a meeting for my real job, for which meeting I am habitually late as it is.

As I tore my coat from its hanger, the oversized hanger popped off the door where it had been oh-so-unsteadily hanging, and hit me squarely in the center of the forehead. Hard.

Clearly, the day had nowhere to go but up.

In the aforementioned basement, I ran into my super, who, I think, has been ducking me lately. "You said something about your closet?" he asked foggily. He was referencing my frantic phone call from over a month ago, when one of my huge hanging kitchen cabinet doors finally came off one of its sadly overpainted hinges. Given the size and position of the door, there is a better-than-even chance that when the top hinge inevitably follows suit, I will be killed--probably in the act of doing dishes, which is a sad way for anyone to go.

Mentally preparing to be even a bit later, I described the door, and offered the man my old television as a bribe for coming to see it tomorrow. "Oh! Should I go now?" He looked ten years younger. Now I'm thinking I need to work the TV for more leverage--my bathroom ceiling is still scary-looking where the water damage came through.

Anyway, after my meeting (after all that, I wasn't even especially late), I managed to finish my Christmas shopping. Since I have a toddler nephew to think of now, this, naturally, involved a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz.

I have been living in fear of that place for years, but am now starting to think that it was largely unwarranted. In fact, the most alarming part of the experience was the woman dressed as a toy dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard who nearly gave me a heart attack by popping out of the doorway to greet me as I arrived. Not okay.

Sure, it was a popular place, and there was the one family who insisted on taking pictures of and with everything, nearly causing an accident on the escalator ("Mommy! A polar bear!!" "Hang on; stay right there!!" Escalators move, people). And I did have to hide in another part of the store when a perky young woman announced that they were "about to recreate the famous scene from the movie..." and all the six-year-olds who have never seen it shriek "Big!!" But for the most part, it was actually a pleasant experience: not too crowded, no line at the checkout, and none of the claustrophobia or assault via soundwaves that I had braced myself to withstand.

I was so surprised that I called my mother, who, I now suspect, was the root of my phobia to start with. "Ah. The last time I went, it was traumatic. I brought you." Say no more.

This is a place to shop for children, masquerading as a place to bring them. Of course I was a miserable toddler when I couldn't play with everything, or get in the toy car, or whatever. The marketing people want children around to demand everything in sight, so they sell the store as an experience children must have, when that is frankly the worst idea I have ever heard. Go alone, buy a cute little plush toy, and then take your child to a petting zoo. Do not bring them to a "play place" unless you plan on spending at least a couple of hours there, unless you want your very own obscure cloud of guilt like the one that has haunted my mother for decades.

Confirming the reversal of my luck after the hanger incident, I lost one of my stepbrothers' presents on the subway. And it was returned to me, by a very nice woman whom I could not hear at all, so I hope that our conversation made sense. ("Returned to me" might be misleading. She picked the bag up off the floor and began peering into it, which was when I realized that I was no longer holding my bag from that store. But she was still very nice, and I like to think that, had I been able to hear her, she would have been saying something like, "I was hoping there would be a name on the inside, so I could ask around.")

And I found the cherry champagne, which is the key element in my New Year's Eve Eve party. And it was not even marked up from last year--still $4 per bottle. Nick will just be beside himself with glee. Or scorn. The glee might just be me.

The Holiday Spirit

My life lately has become organized into quests. This is why I hate holidays.

But I am going to focus on the positives today:

• I broke my decade-long abstinence regarding latkes. The last few times I ate them, I had gotten terrifically ill, but today I decided that I was ready to try again. And they are yummy.

• I am only six gifts away from done with Christmas shopping. Assuming I can get the one that...damnit. Scratch this bullet. I am not even close, with a week to go.

• I am now the proud owner of The Improvisational Chef, a book I think I remember lusting after in B&N one day. Apparently, word of my insatiable appetite for cookbooks has spread ("Oh, God. You read them, don't you?" my stepfather remarked when I opened it). Now I can impress Nick with my culinary "instincts."

• Speaking of, I am committed to making my first-ever cheesecake for New Year's Eve, possibly followed closely by my second. This is very exciting; it's the first challenge I've taken on since I learned to make those molten chocolate non-souffles a few years ago. The fact that there might be about six pounds of cheesecake per person is something that I am not thinking about right now.

• Hmm...and there's good news that is not yet internet-ready. No, Andrea, it's not what you're thinking. It's not about me at all, in fact: not mine to share, in other words.

• I have a plan for every stressor, even if I have no idea when I will be able to execute any of them.

• I will probably stop wanting to crawl out of my skin tomorrow, when I know more about what my week will be like.

• These bullet points are getting weak.

• I get to see Nick, soonish.

That last one helps, actually.

The Devil Wears La Perla

Yesterday was surreal, and the comparisons to the similarly titled book began well before Andrea called me this afternoon, asking me to come by and watch the movie (which, by the way, fixed some of the things that bugged me about the book, but lost some ground in the adaptation, as well, and especially in the ending that made me want to claw my eyes out until Meryl Streep made it almost all better at the very last second, because she's awesome).

You're right: that whole paragraph was all one sentence.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I was dispatched to a lingerie store that is in the same price range as La Perla, but without the cloying sultriness. I was alarmed to discover, on arrival, that there would only be the two of us in the tiny store, because, when you think about it, having worked in my college bookstore for a year and owning an all-black work outfit does not remotely qualify me to be half of the sales force for a store I had never set foot in before.

Consider: I had no information about the product, didn't know where anything was, had no idea what their order process was or how to ring up a sale--I arrived entirely useless. And my very remote coworker showed no inclination to help much.

"What can I know to be more helpful?" I asked at the first opportunity.

"Well...fold these," she said. "Three times, into the bag, and make sure this side of the tag shows. Then...well, I'll just put them away." Which meant that any time someone tried on something she didn't buy, I would have about 30 seconds of work. Which was something, but I still couldn't answer questions--I knew nothing about size or color availability, and nothing about what might be better for long torsos or have less lace. Hell, I didn't even know which of the ten drawers behind us the things I was folding would go into.

So it was a tense few hours to start, but things began to look up. The highlight came when a woman cursed at me after I told her the price of a bikini top. She stormed out before I could check the tag on the bottom half, but I felt Coworker's appraisal when I didn't flinch, and her opinion went up further when I ran four blocks to catch the FedEx guy.

By the time the manager called, I was starting to think this place wasn't so horrible after all, which was just as well, since she was calling to ask me to stay longer. "I'm coming in to close; I need you two to go up to the Madison store. And can you tell Coworker to put some Fall catalog pieces into a shopping bag for me?"

Understand that there was never any indication of what we might be doing up there that would take us past both stores' closing time. And it's not like I didn't ask. So imagine my surprise when the store was packed with reasonably fabulous people sipping champagne (rosé or brut), and Coworker had to show her catalogs to the security guard to get us in.

Although I have never been more painfully conscious of my ridiculously dated black pants, I was obscenely flattered when a man practically demanded that I take some champagne, and a girl swooped in to ask for my coat. Suspecting that neither service would have been entirely appropriate, I stammered a bit and blindly followed Coworker, who got further ahead each time. But...it was nice to be asked.

It was only a matter of time, of course, before the PR woman for the French stores with the absurd red dye job crowned me the new coatcheck girl. It didn't work like that, precisely: she walked up and asked me if I was doing coatcheck. Not realizing that she was running the show (and apparently I was not alone in that), I perkily rattled off, "I'm actually not, but I'm sure I can find the person who is for you!"

"No, no," she said. "I'm saying: she's leaving. You're doing it now. Show her how!" and sailed off.

Old Coatcheck Girl gave me a guilty look as we headed into the back. "Sorry about that," she said. "You just...take coats. She just means for people as they come in."

And so then I mistakenly assumed that the woman whom La Redhead (and sometimes Old Coatcheck Girl!) had been talking to for ten minutes before I was drafted must have already been asked. So, I let her stand there for five more minutes without asking her myself. "Like her," hissed La Redhead, after abruptly excusing herself from the woman. "You have to go up to people; you can't just stand there!"

From then on, every time she saw a new person come in, La Redhead glared at me and jerked her head toward them (no matter that I was already visibly on my way each time).

It was nice to chat with some of the Madison employees, though, and the model who occasionally strutted through the throng in various swimsuits turned out to have a sense of humor about the whole scene. I became especially fond the woman who kept fussing that so few of the actual clients (who had received invitations and had RSVP'ed and had gift bags all ready and waiting for them) were showing up. "There are plenty of people here, sure," she fretted, "but no--just look at that pile of gift bags. No one's really coming."

I don't know why. It was a lovely party.

I do know that, when I finally was sent home (I told the woman who released me that I had been taking coats, but didn't bother to speak with La Redhead. Let her stew), a woman stopped me on my way out.

"Are they giving anything away?" she whispered. "I got an invitation, but I don't know if I really want to go."

"Oh! You're a client?"

She nodded.

"Gift bags. Ask the guy at the door; you won't even have to step in."

And I tried for the bus, but eventually fell into a cab, where I raced home to my kitchen where, at 9pm, I finally managed to push my calorie count above 200 for the day.

Just like in the book.

Footprints

One

I was late to work today. It was 99% my fault: I forgot to write down the walking portion of my directions to the office in Lower Manhattan, which is an alternate universe that might as well be in another city for all the sense it makes to me. But I remembered the general idea, and the address was distinctive, and I could always ask someone, and I had plenty of time....

The MTA guy was wrong, was the real problem. "Wait, which part of Greenwich?" he asked. He confidently gave me directions that sounded nothing like mine--they were much longer, and none of the street names rang a bell. But...I was at the wrong subway exit, and he's the MTA guy pointing at the map....

When it was obviously wrong, I stopped to ask some UPS guys. "You're on the wrong part of Greenwich," they told me. "The one you want is that building," and pointed.

Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Emerald City appears, rising out of nothing? It dominates the screen; it's unmistakable. There's really only one place you might be going, even if it's all kinds of far away, and this was just like that.

It took a moment to realize that it was so prominent because I was viewing it across a massive construction site. Wonder what's going there, I thought as I set off to circle it.

It took me a minute, you know?

You'd think that, since the address I was hunting for was "7 WTC #2," I'd've caught on faster, right? I'd think so, too. But. I'd never been.

I think I thought it would look like something, but it doesn't. It's too big to see. It creates this sudden attraction-repulsion that shorts out my brain. I don't feel overwhelmed, even, just...a prickly kind of nothing that is just like how three colors of light become white. It's a perfect tension.

Two

Um. Anyway. So I somehow find myself in the World Financial Center, well above street level. This is not the worst thing, since it looks like it has passageways that extend to exactly where I'm going.

It's not so easy from the inside, of course. Those buildings are designed to lead people in, not to let increasingly frantic temps slide through like salmon on their way to somewhere else entirely. It's certainly an interesting place, and I'm glad I got the tour. Palm trees made of lights, marble everywhere, elevated tunnels, and a giant window overlooking the Footprints. I don't think I wanted that good of a view, though, so it's probably lucky that there were about fifty tourists shielding it with their cameras.

Can we say "morbid"?

All in all, 15 minutes late instead of 5-10 minutes early. But they were very nice about it, and the window by me turned out to have a stunning view of the Statue of Liberty, which I only noticed, conveniently, as the sun slipped into the half-inch between the clouds and toward the water. Oh, my, stunning. Although...I think it must have looked bigger, before you could look down at it from the 40th floor.

Speaking of which, security is bizarre in that neck of the woods. I had no trouble getting through the turnstiles--I am learning that "I'm temping for [name of company in building]?" could get anyone in nearly anywhere. As long as the "anyone" is female, young, white, and cheerful, that is, and probably in that order. After years of searching, I finally feel like I have a cultural identity: my "group" is defined by only getting asked for ID about half as often as everyone else (unless it's by a bartender who suspects we will be flattered).

Anyway. They have other security measures. Most notably, the elevators are the type where you enter your floor number in the lobby, and then it sends you an elevator that will take you there. They have no buttons inside. I assume that this is to prevent anyone from setting into motion my plan for world domination, which is to send dedicated volunteers into elevators to hit all the buttons, then hop out at the first stop and run, preferrably cackling, down the stairs. With enough people in a coordinated attack, we could bring the city to its knees for a full five minutes.

Think of the implications, people!!

Three

After a grueling day of fake work (temping) followed by nearly an hour of real work (if I had more than a few hours a week of it it would be), I got to go see Melissa. And although I was too tired for my absolute favorite girls' night (a drink at the Dead Poet, dinner at Land, then many more drinks at the Dead Poet), we did at least manage dinner at Land.

Plum sake martinis + delicate yet complex brown sauce + Melissa = oh, God, I'm doing equations now?

See, normally, to be my friend, you have to be a deeply neurotic (but very high-functioning) human being. Nick is not especially neurotic, which I think is a nice balance, but Melissa is some kind of inversion of the entire concept. And it's great to be around someone who manages to be thoroughly unselfconscious without also being a criminal sociopath, which is a balance Melissa strikes with admirable poise.

Plus, she came up with an idea for a business we're going to open someday: Drunken Languages.

Stop snickering; this isn't some frat joke. We were reminiscing about the night we spent at the bar of Samba-Le, when we decided to sample each of their fabulous sangrias. After a few hours, one of the busboys started teaching me Portuguese, and I know this is the sort of thing one is likely to think after the ninth quart of sangria, but seriously: I picked it up right away. My French improves on a glass of wine, as well, and so does my Spanish. I think it's something about confidence and relaxation and inhibitions when you're sober enough to know intellectually that the sound you're hearing is not one you can make.

We've even got a financial plan worked out, but I'm keeping that quiet, because none of you have signed NDAs.

But just you wait. In a few years, you'll all be getting promo materials from Melissa, who will be our school's Supervising Manager of Drunken Spanish. That's right. We've got titles.

Chicken Soup for the...Oh, God, I Just Can't

Normally, my favorite part of having dinner with Elena would be listening to her order her meal. Seriously. It usually goes something like this:

Elena: [pointing to item on menu] Is this like [obscure dish from a different type of Asian cuisine from that of the restaurant we're in]?

Waitress: [Obscure dish]?

Elena: The sauce sounds the same, and it's a little spicy with these wide, flat noodles, and--

Waitress: Oooh, this has thin rice noodles, but other than that....

Elena: Oh...well...I was really looking forward to the noodles.

[Long, awkward pause]

Waitress: [Other dish] has those.

Elena: Well...can you make [other dish] with shrimp instead, and without the curry, but more of a regular spicy brown sauce, and--does this one have peanuts? And--

Waitress: You want [first dish] with wide, flat noodles?

Elena: Oooh, could you?

I might have been a tad disappointed when she ordered right off the menu, but I haven't gotten to see her in so long that I didn't even miss the ritual; it was just great to catch up. And while I teased her about posting something else funny that she did say here, I find that I am disinclined to do so, because the story should be that I've missed her, not that I'm giving her a hard time.

Nick is having a reunion of his own: Aaron and Langley have flown out for the week, and are sampling life in Paris. And while I am terribly jealous, I almost feel as though I am there. The other night they went to my favorite restaurant (this cute little place near the Pantheon with a lovely fondue prix fixe), and now Langley is feeling a little under the weather.

See, for about a decade, I've gotten horrifically ill every time I've crossed the Atlantic. From my first trip to France, when my host sister pressed this noxious throat spray on me, to when I lost my voice in Greece, to hiking around Montjuic on the first leg of my Great Europe Trip while my fever brought me ever closer to full-blown delirium, I have spent a good chunk of every trip in abject misery. It only stopped this year, when I began to accept that my immune system just hates Europe. In that vein, I would like to take a moment to adamantly plug Airborne®, which, taken more or less constantly, has finally allowed me to travel comfortably.

Anyway.

When I reached Nick today, he was in the kitchen [look away, Mary] boiling down a chicken carcass [okay, you can look back] for soup stock for Langley. Which is just exactly what he would do for me, because, although I often accuse him of being inadequately sympathetic when I am sick, he manages to convey his kindness through that sort of gesture. Especially if said gesture allows him to be in another room while I'm sniffling.

While Langley is, I mean.

Home Again

Now it feels like winter. It's not just that it's suddenly freezing, or that I got to break out my cute little white hat. It's not even that today I got to go through my yearly ritual: discovering year-old stuff in the pockets of my parka (I found a Lucky Star bus ticket, Nick, and got a teensy bit choked up).

No, no, the real reason that it feels like winter is that, yesterday, I worked a full day in Rockefeller Center without even thinking to take a look at the tree. It was just like old times.

In my defense, I no longer have a radio card, so getting in and out would have been a hassle, and I was running to meet my parents for dinner at the end of the day (by the way, El Charro, in spite of not actually being a Mexican restaurant, serves phenomenal guacamole, and the rioja was quite charming, as well, so fill up on both and don't bother with dessert). Besides that, resisting the urge to ask the security guy who used to flirt with me if I could just get in without the lame guest pass took a lot of energy--the front desk at 30 Rock sure doesn't hurry much at all, does it?

I did get to see a lovely sunset, and managed to avoid any awkward encounters with former coworkers. Plus, I think I will rather enjoy temping: it's much more like doing someone a favor than actually working. If nothing else, it suits my attention span. And, truth be told, my current commitment issues.

The day, however, was not without its fair bite of karma.

See, my former company (Company A) shares a set of elevators with one other, considerably larger, company (Company B). Given their size, they often use those elevators to move between their own floors, and given that they are located between Company A and the ground, getting in and out of the building could take us an absurdly long time. So there was a lot of eye-rolling (and even some cutting comments) that went on as we waited through, say, two Company B people causing four extra stops just so that we could get down to pick up a lousy cup of coffee. Since they had their own cafeteria, lunchtime was especially brutal.

Naturally, yesterday I spent the day with Company B (the cafeteria is so good, by the way). So I check in at reception on, say, the 28th floor. "Great;" says the receptionist, "just go down to 26, and 'Anna' is on her way to let you in." She pointed to the elevators. Anna was on her way. See how I couldn't ask about just taking the stairs? And, of course, when the elevator that was to take me down two floors opened, there was someone in it, and she did not look pleased.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. She refrained from throttling me.

Damnit! Now I'm craving rioja.

Older and...?

Today I headed out to my sketchy grocery store to pick up some ground "veal." (Seriously: 1) it's cheaper than the ground beef, and 2) the store doesn't sell veal. What's a girl to think?) I was a bit at loose ends, because as late as 10:30 last night, I thought I would be heading to JFK at that particular moment, and grocery shopping is...dissimilar.

"Now that the weather is getting warmer," thought I, "I should start climbing the hill again." To clarify, I live across the island from Fort Tryon Park, and by descending and then ascending some rather punishing hills for about fifteen minutes, I can walk right to it. In addition to the park, there is Inwood, to which my neighborhood is the evil twin--or at least the ugly, bitter, and untalented twin. And, all in all, it's a rather charming trip on a fine spring afternoon.

It is harder to clarify how I managed to mentally skip winter.

As I do with most things, I blame Nick. It's all this planning ahead that comes--or should come--with what I euphemistically refer to as our "long-distance relationship." Unfortunately, between Nick's casual arrogance (in a good way!) and my general flakiness, I am feeling the strain of the future-mindedness without ever seeing the benefits.

A few weeks ago, we decided that I would come to Paris today, and stay for a bit over a week. Nick booked the tickets, and I was alarmed to see that the stay was longer than I had planned. I looked into changing the tickets, which cheaptickets.com (who can go screw) indicated was possible for a fee, and, imagining the fee, I dropped the idea.

Last week, Nick had this brilliant idea himself to change this trip, which was looking less and less convenient, for one over the holidays. "We'll go to Burgundy! We can stay in a chateau!!" The man knows I am helpless before chateaux.

And then the problems started. Cheaptickets.com (did I mention...?) had a seizure during which it told me that my tickets had been cancelled, and then firmly announced that the tickets, while still mine, were unchangeable. Naturally, they refused to send Nick any documentation to back up that improbable claim, which is good, because I had seen the (now missing) "Call this phone number to change your tickets" page with my own eyes, and lying is bad enough. There's no need to add a fraudulent cover-up. That sort of thing spawns conspiracy theorists.

Then we found that the over-the-holidays tickets were going to be ludicrously priced. "If you can find something tonight, send it to me. I have to book tomorrow morning," Nick said sadly.

I found something. Yay!

But, hey, did you know that travelocity has wildly different prices depending on where your server is located? The completely reasonable tickets I found in the U.S. were more than twice as expensive when Nick rolled out of bed in Europe. I looked again. He looked again. Same site, same flight number, same cursing and complaining as before, because by then he had already given up and decided to come here, instead, while I was sleeping comfortably, thinking that I had solved everything.

And, don't get me wrong, because I'm thrilled to see him anywhere--it's just that 1) I hate it when things don't work right, and 2) we don't have chateaux here.

We kept scheming (because we're like that), and, by the time Nick went to sleep last night, we had a plan. And I found that flight, too, and my hand was hovering over the "Complete Transaction" button (because now we knew it was best to buy tickets from here) when I realized that we were about to pay $1000 for two round trips so that I could spend a total of two days in Paris (and I would probably spend one of them sleeping).

See how crazy this stuff can make you? Do you think you would be able to tell your seasons apart during all this?

I promptly called him, and he thoughtfully agreed that we had, perhaps, lost perspective. Nick is the sort of man who can make that kind of determination at 4:30 in the morning--after I had already woken him up 15 minutes before to tell him I was buying tickets to leave today. I find that endlessly admirable, and only a tiny bit freakish.

Stupid maturity.

Coming Through

When I was little, the whole ambulance thing completely baffled me. See, I was under the impression that, what with the emergency and all, they were going to go really, really fast no matter what. So the siren was really more for our safety than anything else; if we regular-car people weren't super-vigilant at every intersection, the thing would have no choice but to crash into us.

If you think about it, I actually came up with the idea for Speed at age six.

I see things differently now, of course. I really wasn't living here all that long before I stepped out in front of my first ambulance. My theory was that...well, the WALK sign was lit. Okay, but it sounded a lot better in my head.

The point here is that, having grown into my role as a New York City pedestrian, it simply no longer occurs to me that a situation might exist in which I do not have the right-of-way. Which is why it is probably good for my ego--and my health--that I am hardly ever out during rush hour.

This morning, of course, I rolled out of bed at 7am. By 8:00 I was underway on the 1, and then I got to sample the 3 and the shuttle. Mom, that theory that a reverse commute out to Purchase would have been a piece of cake? I beg to differ, because by the time I set foot in Grand Central I had seriously pissed off at least six people, yelled at a man who most likely had a gun on him right then, and still felt insignificant enough to just sink into the ground.

Does anyone remember the last time I got to act like a psycho to strangers and yet still felt completely invisible? It doesn't happen. I make a memorable psycho.

Seriously, by the time the clock struck 3:00, I kept having to fight the impulse to leap forward every time I heard a siren.

Just to prove that I still could.

First Saturday

There are days when I feel like I might as well live out in the middle of rural Wyoming for all the advantage I take of the opportunities in this city. And there are people who, I am convinced, can sense that train of thought from miles away, and use it as leverage to convince me that I really want to go to Brooklyn.

Mary, I'm talking about you.

Now, I haven't missed a subway stop since the first week I lived here, and I'm still kicking myself for Saturday night's snafu--but hey, who doesn't like wandering through entirely foreign territory in the dark on the dubious instructions of a cop who was clearly at least somewhat baffled by the question?

So I got to see the Mueck people, which I frankly found troubling, if only because 1) they were all so real, and 2) they were all so sad. And the fact is that I am unsophisticated in many ways that I like to think are charming, and one way is that I like pretty, but more than that, I like happy endings. I feel like a tortured face or a depressing twist is a creator's easy way in to counting as an "artist"--if the last few minutes of Casablanca had gone the other way, the rest of it would still have been exactly the same caliber of film, but no one would even remember its title. You make it sad, you make it art. And it's not fair, and I refuse to contribute to the fraud, so...

...even so, when the guy behind me started whining that the models weren't pretty, and shouldn't art be beautiful? I had to mentally draw the line. It's true that the sculptures aren't pretty (or happy), but they are extremely attractive/compelling. They are art. I am glad that I got to see them in the museum, and just as pleased not to have them in my home, you know?

So maybe the guy had a point, after all.

And the Annie Liebovitz exhibit was a lot of fun--particularly the side-by-side portraits of W. and Michael Moore, both with their respective posses. I'm sure that I was happier about the placement than either of them would be, but even the lovely technique failed to make either man seem especially likable. The massive landscapes ("I feel seasick," a woman murmured) and discreet sprinkling of celebrities would have charmed me even if that hadn't been the point at which I discovered that Andrea and Eric's water bottle did not contain water.

No wonder they were so gung ho about checking out the "dance party" in the 3rd floor hall--and really, how many chances do you get to dance to hits of the 30's-70's until 11:00 in the middle of a museum?

Actually, it's not quite as much fun as you'd think. We decided we would rather debate stalking, homelessness, and eugenics over sushi instead.

That's harder to do in rural Wyoming, I think. And that was what I had to keep me warm once I realized just how far apart Brooklyn and Washington Heights are in the middle of the night.

Melons

I got "stuck" in WholeFoods last night.

This is nothing new. I frequently freeze up when confronted by too many options, and it is most common at the grocery store, where one typically buys a large number of items, all of which come in multiple versions, brands, sizes.... So if you come across a 26-year-old brunette picking up and replacing the same three cartons of milk over and over, or just standing there in front of the bagged salad like a statue for a freakishly long period of time, that would be me.

This time, though, I got stuck because I saw something I recognized.

Ever have a Charentais melon? I had some about a decade ago, during my first trip to France, and they are about the most wonderful things ever. The outside looks like a small round watermelon, the inside looks like cantaloupe, and the taste is just...it's like the Platonic ideal of cantaloupe: that taste and texture you hope for with each bite, but never quite get. Actually, it's like that but sweeter.

So, ten years ago, my host sister cut into one of these luscious little things, and started the obsession. See, all she knew to call it was a "melon." Ever tried to Google "melon" to find an obscure type? I knew they came from southern France and Spain, and I knew how they looked, and for eight years I kept my eyes open. Then I went on my Great Europe Trip, when I knew them by sight in Barcelona. My mother agreed that they were...special. I spotted them again on the Paris leg of the trip; Nick was underwhelmed, but he's abnormal. Two years later, someone hacked into one on Iron Chef America, and I finally had a name.

Of course, when it came right down to it, I didn't need one last night. Even though the colors were reversed, like the negative of a melon, I knew what I was seeing immediately. Charentais melons, in the winter, right in my own grocery store, and for only about eight times what Nick would pay if he walked about a block this morning.

They were from San Juan, they looked pretty mutilated, and it was practically December--I had doubts. So I found the most intact one, and sniffed it, and then I was stuck. I stood there for a good long time, lost in the middle of two different summers in the middle of WholeFoods, and I felt the Earth turn for a while.

Conveniently forgetting how difficult it had been for Nick to open ours (Mom, remember when we brought the coconut back from Florida? Remember Ben, with the hammer and the cursing?), I found myself unwilling to let the thing go. I made a complete fool of myself to the cashier, who asked about it, but, in retrospect, probably wasn't curious enough for the amount of description I responded with. I spent the subway ride monitoring the air for any hint of melon smell--could it be a little overripe? Or was that just the guy across the aisle?

But I'm back, and it's perfect, but it really can't wait any longer. So I'm off to raise my biggest knife over my head, and hope for the best.