Invertebrates, ew

It's simple, I don't eat animals without a spine (read: most seafood.) This is one of the main reasons I don't fancy Chinese wedding banquets, which are about 10 courses of invertebrate goodness. I had the pleasure of attending one of these recently.

Here are some of the dishes served:














First course: lobster-slaw. Yeah, you heard me right. Lobster-slaw. Chunks of lobster mixed in with honeydew melon, cantaloupe and globs and globs of mayonnaise. Globs. And if you notice the two maraschino cherries protruding on either side of the lobster's head, they are not the same color because they were also FLASHING LIGHTS. Yep, flashing lights.

Could it be those flashing lights that made me nauseous, or the lobster slaw?















Second Course: Miscellaneous Seafood Platter. Those red things in the forefront are little be-tentacled creatures, possibly calamari. Honestly, those little guys almost pushed me over the edge. The noodle-y looking stuff in the middle is jellyfish. Not exactly sure what the cubed stuff to the left is. And on top is fried pork skin & fat.

We only stayed for two more courses: the gelatinous brown seafood soup with mysterious white bits (crab, perhaps?) and the slices of abalone covered in brown sauce.

Since I knew to expect an all seafood-all evening extravaganza, I made sure to eat some pizza beforehand. Which means that during the banquet, all I did was drink wine. Did I mention we were seated at the head table, up on a stage in front of the 100 or so other guests? I tried to look like I ate a little bit hoping no one got the (wrong) impression that I was the anorexic drunk relative. But that didn't matter once the Chinatown mafia MC and DJ crew got the party started and I saw middle-aged Chinese men put on pink felt cowboy hats and dance with imaginary lassos.

The important thing was that the bride and groom looked very happy and the groom did not remove her garter with his teeth.

Worst Case Scenario: Junk in the Trunk

I've watched my fair share of action movies (Live Free or Die Hard, anyone?), and I've read several How-to's on surviving a kidnapping and other dangerous situations (windmill your arms and run in a zig-zag formation!). They always tell you that if you're stuck in the trunk of a car to either kick out the tail light and wave your hand to alert other cars you're in there or in newer models, to use the escape latch to open the trunk. Sure, that sounds easy enough, but does it really work?

We had the opportunity to test the latter method: we were in a parking garage in Philly and as we dropped off our bags in the trunk of the rental car we told Jamie to get in and test out the latch. As always, he was game:






















You'll all be happy to know that the safety latch does indeed work, and Jamie made it out alive and well. Whew.

Searching for Kicks

Last night I decided it was high time to get a new pair of black slip-on Vans since my current pair have seen better days. I couldn't find them online, so I figured I'd score in any of the stores along Broadway in SoHo since about every third store sells shoes. Instant gratification and no shipping costs!

Just a little blood, sweat and tears instead.

I swear, I went into EVERY SINGLE shoe store on Broadway and could not find them. Either they didn't have my size or they only had patterned ones, which did me no good.

Frustrated, I stopped by to see the niece and nephew and have some dinner. As I am leaving their building, what do I see? An empty Vans box someone had discarded on the sidewalk.

Salt on the wound, my friends. Salt on the wound.

However, something compelled me to check in this tiny store right next to the subway entrance. LO AND BEHOLD, they actually had my size! And for cheap! The guy said they just got a shipment in that day. I told him he had just made my day. I considered buying two pairs, but I thought that might be excessive.

The moral of the story is that good triumphs over evil. Okay, maybe not, but at least I have a new pair of kicks!

Fact of the day

It takes 3 kernels of corn to make the corn syrup used in one kernel of candy corn.

Also, totally unrelated to candy corn (as far as I know), but something I just read: men are 12 times more likely to be bitten by another human than women.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

1. Maddog sees a kiwi fruit on the kitchen counter and says to my sister, "Mommy, that's a really hairy potato!"

That made me laugh.

2. I went to the IT Expo at work and got a lot of free goodies, including this one:

I think it kind of looks like me. In scrubs and with shorter hair. And no lipstick. And fatter. FINE. At least they are trying to represent Asians, okay? Christina said it looked like a man. I wasn't exactly clear on whether she was implying I looked like a man also or that I did not look like the squishee toy. I'd like to think that I'm prettier than the squishee toy and that I do not look like a man, but it's the closest thing I have to a toy looking remotely like me.

Turn the Lights Out on Fat

The other night the light in my kitchen went out. My ceilings are a little high and changing the bulb requires dragging the kitchen table into the center of the room and climbing up on it to reach the light socket (Yes, I could just buy myself a ladder. But why bother when you can stack up the furniture you already have???). It was dark out so I figured I'd wait until it was daytime to do it. My dishes could easily wait another day.

Well, my kitchen was so dark I couldn't properly scavenge for any evening snacks. This made me realize I was onto something: the darkness diet. You can't find the food so you won't eat it! My friend D suggested I write a diet book entitled something like "Turn the Lights Out on Fat."

BRILLIANT! Along with my mini-donk farm, I will soon become a billionaire. Well, except for people who snack during daylight hours and sleep-snackers...

Airplane Safety

This past weekend I went back to the Land o'Lakes for a visit with some of my partners in crime. They loved MN. Plus, nothing untoward happened like last year (see previous entries regarding the immigration police bust).

The flight home was delayed so we entertained ourselves by reading the airplane safety card. Here are a few things that we found particularly hilarious:


What to do when a magician/Abe Lincoln wannabe is chasing you on the plane.


















How ballerinas brace themselves for emergency landings (see figure to the far right.)

The unexpected

I've had a few entries in the past about Vincent, a/k/a BFF bartender. We had spent almost a whole year's worth of Wednesday night happy hours with him. Then he got fired and we stopped going to that bar. In fact, we stopped having Wednesday night happy hour. It became more sporadic and we never found a good replacement bar where we wanted to become regulars.

Well, last night Christina and I thought we'd stop by the old bar and see if we could find some information about BFF's whereabouts. Some might call this stalking. But is it really stalking if it's about 4 months later?

Anyways, there were numerous scenarios we were prepared for:

1. BFF was actually back and peeved we've been away for so long
2. One of the other bartenders we knew would be there knowing BFF's whereabouts
3. No one we knew would be working there

None of the above occurred: the place is now closed down for good and is being converted into some sort of restaurant/deli. This was totally unexpected. We were in shock.

And so, it is officially the end of an era. Sniff, sniff.

Found: Scary Items in the Foyer

People leave stuff downstairs in my building's foyer all the time. I've found some really good items there, like brand new David Sedaris books with the receipts still in them and a small wood table. But usually it's crap like old clothes, textbooks from 1983, and such.

And tonite I saw this piece of absolute horror:














Which leads me to ask: who the hell would actually put this creepy clown art in their apartment? I think it would give me nightmares. In fact, I think it will give me nightmares...

minidonk!

I would like one of these, please. Plus an acre of land.

Thank you.

















http://www.minidonk.com/

FWD:

Like most normal people, I'm not a big fan of forwarded email. No one wants the million dollar Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe and there's not way that I'm going to get money from Microsoft if I forward an email onto 85 people. And I am certainly not going to help some person in Africa get his millions of dollars from a frozen bank account (or whatever that particular scam is).

Anyways, I get one today from a friend of mine, and of course I open it because every once in a while there's something funny or useful. This one was for Saint Theresa's prayer. You make a wish, read the prayer and then forward the email onto 12 people and your wish will come true in 4 days. Also, why in four days? (Four is a particularly inauspicious number in Taiwan.) I'd think there would be a lot more people winning the lottery if it actually worked, no? So here's a line from the email that I don't understand:

Did you make a wish yet? If you don't make a wish, it won't come true.

If I'm not mistaken, I never made a wish in the first place, so why the hell would I expect it to come true since it doesn't even exist? Hmmm...

Mama said knock you out!

My brother-in-law bought a Wii this weekend. They soon discovered that MadDog is a lean, mean, almost-five-year-old fighting machine. Apparently, she totally kicks ass in the boxing game and knocked out her opponent in the first round. We won't be entering her into the Thunderdome or anything like that anytime soon, but perhaps for her upcoming birthday I'll get her one of those satin robes that boxers wear, maybe embroider something like BEWARE OF THE MADDOG! on the back.

























note: the pictures are blurry because MadDog was just moving too fast!

The aftermath of travel

And so I am back from a-travelin'! It was a fabulous trip, both fun and relaxing, but now I am suffering from the effects of jet lag (yes, it is 2:30AM and I just woke up.) It seems such a waste when, after 2-weeks of vacation, you have to take a 15 hour flight to come back to a 12-hour time difference. There's never been much of a problem with jet lag going to the motherland, the problem has always been coming back. Supposedly it takes one day recovery for every hour of time difference. I wouldn't have believed that until last year when my jet lag seemed to be worsening day after day, until finally correcting itself after two weeks of benadryl-induced (okay, let's admit it, there was a little alcohol involved on some evenings too) sleep.

I will also admit that when jet-lagged, I become slightly obsessed with the amount of sleep I get and the hours I keep. I can't help it. It becomes the overwhelming topic of my life. So apologies in advance to all of you who will hear me complain about it for the next 2 weeks...

Out of Office Reply

Hello,
I will be out of this blog from Thursday, March 23 through April 9th. If this is an urgent matter, please go to http://fortunetravels.blogspot.com

Thank you,
Fortune Cookie

Seafood -- for a better life

I have seen this ad all over the subways and it disturbs me to no end (and not just because I don't eat invertebrates and the thought of eating anything found in NYC waters seems unhealthy):

www.nyseafood.com

Healthy Beginnings

So this mother fish is carrying a cell phone and she is carting her baby fish around in a fish bowl. They all look happy. But aren't all of these fish going to die and be eaten by us?

Strong Bodies

I'm sorry, is it me, but is that lobster running along the Brooklyn Esplanade? In running shorts?

Smart Minds

That crab is typing away on a laptop. Enough said.

Long Lives

WTF?! They are trying to get us to eat more seafood. These fish are not going to live long.

What a gross misrepresentation of sea creature's lives.

Dear Tenant,

I am a good tenant. My rent is never late, I don't complain much, and I've never set fire to my apartment or the building. But for some reason, every time I get a letter from my landlord, I am overcome with dread. There's no reason I should be concerned about being evicted, and there's no legal way they can suddenly increase my rent by 500%. But the anticipation is worse than opening a college acceptance letter.

I have issues. I know.

And of course, the letter is always something benign like a notice about the new intercom system or garbage cans.

Sigh.

____________________________________________

Totally unrelated story:

I was meeting a friend for a drink before the opera (so cultured, no?) and got to the bar first. The only open seat at the bar was next to this 40-something dude drinking a beer. I go up to the seat and take my coat off. The man says to me "I know who is going to be voted off American Idol tonite." I feign polite interest. I may have thrown out a mildly patronizing "Good for you."

I order my whiskey. He attempts again. "I know all FOUR (holds up four fingers) of the contestants who will be voted off." I look at him blankly. And consider sending my friend a quick "GET HERE ASAP. PLZ!" text. He says, "...but you don't really care, do you? You don't watch American Idol?" No.

I open my book and after one final attempt ("Let me ask you one last question and I promise to leave you alone...") he finally left me alone, finished his beer and left.

The moral of the story : do not randomly use lame ass references to popular TV to talk to strangers.

Missing! (Again!)

Dammit.

My, what large optic nerves you have!

I went to the optometrist last night. I got some nice Alain Mikli frames at a sample sale a few months back and really needed to get some lenses into those babies. The optometrist was pretty nice, and the good news is that my already terrible vision has not gotten worse. Whew. HOWEVER, she told me that I have "large optic nerves." WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?! For godssake, I've worn glasses since the fifth grade. That's a whole lot of eye exams I've had in my lifetime and not one person has mentioned these monstrously sized optic nerves of mine!? And you'd think that since they are so large, I'd see BETTER not worse, right? SIGH.

And so Miss Optometrist in the crocheted fishnet sweater and ivory wide-wale cords suggested I get my pupils dilated. For the low price of $40 which my insurance doesn't cover. AND, I should go to some other place to get my field of vision tested to make sure my peripheral vision is okay. I'm pretty sure my peripheral vision is just fine since I live in NYC and have senses sharp as razor blades. I pretended I was going to get all of those things done. At a later time.

Oh, and back out in the waiting room, there was this guy sitting there as he waited for his pupils to dilate. He looked pretty unhappy. I may have smirked at him, but he couldn't see me anyway.

P.S. I got those new lenses. Ultra-thin. Ultra-expensive. But I bet I'll sure see really well!

Missing!

Things have been mysteriously disappearing:

Exhibit A: I babysat the kiddies last Friday night, and since I knew I'd be running around chasing them on wood floors, I took my socks off and placed them neatly beside my bag. Dirty Cookie & Sonya came by also. At the end of the evening, I went to put my socks back on and they were missing! I couldn't find them anywhere. My brother-in-law even helped me look for them.

They were not to be found.

Maddog made the following suggestion, " Why don't you look inside your shoes? Sometimes I take my socks off and put them in my shoes." Good advice, but my socks definitely were not in my shoes. I texted Dirty and Sonya in case they "accidentally" stole my socks, but they claimed to have no part in it.

Exhibit B: This morning I meandered over to the office pantry with my green plastic cereal bowl, ready for some snap! crackle! and pop!. I open the fridge (as one of my weird coworkers is asking me about our dental insurance--she obviously doesn't realize that the worst time to talk to me is when I'm scavenging for food) and my carton of milk is missing. WTF?! I recall putting it back in the morning before, and it was still half full.

Two of my coworkers even double checked the fridge for me.

I have no logical explanation for these missing items. But now I have one less pair of socks and I won't be eating any cereal today. Boo.

OMG, MEATBALLS!!!

This past weekend was the Meatball Championship Series, hosted by our very own Aaron (ala Easter Bunny fame).

There were a total of nine contestants, entering various forms of meatballs (standard Italian, Swedish, weird vegetarian, nouveau cuisine, etc). The meatballs were judged in pairs, by a panel of 3 randomly selected judges (I won't go into detail, but we'll just say that some of the judging panels were, er, interesting...).

Winners from each of the four heats went onto the second round. Aaron actually went head to heat, mano a mano, against his very own father. It was a little intense.

And then it came down to the FINAL ROUND: Aaron (traditional) vs. Galapagos (nouveau). And the winner........

Not totally unexpected, but worthy of the meatball trophy.

But wait! There was still the AUDIENCE FAVORITE....

Whew. I hope that prevented any family drama.

Folks, there sure were a lot of meatballs eaten that day. I was actually in Costco the next day and it seemed as if everyone in the store was buying enormous bags of Italian meatballs. It almost made me vomit a little.

The unhappiest of happy hours

Well, our worst fears have been realized:

Last night was Wednesday night happy hour, as usual. But not only was the bar unusually empty on such a cold evening, but BFF was nowhere to be seen and some guy we've never set eyes on before was behind the bar. Suspicions were raised.

So I ordered my drink and asked him where BFF was. He replied along the lines of, "BFF doesn't work here anymore."

Um, excuse me, but WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY!?!

We were in shock. So many questions came to mind: When? Why? Was it from all of that free chocolate and booze he was giving us? Did he move on to bigger and better things and didn't think to mention it to us last week? Did all of the other bartenders get fired? What are we going to do on Wednesday nights now? And we were just two weeks shy of our one-year anniversary with BFF. Sniff, sniff.

Well, according to America's Next Top Model, our least favorite bartender from the good ol' days, BFF had an altercation with one of the owners (perhaps because of his business plan for opening his own bar downtown) and got fired this weekend.

Now, I will give ANTM credit because our tab at the end of the night was BFF-worthy. Not sure if she did it out of pity from seeing our devastated faces all evening or in an effort to keep business going.

So, if anyone has a good suggestion for where to go next Wednesday night, they are gladly appreciated!

Return of the colon!

I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath for my 'scope results. All is well and no more fasting for this cookie for another 5 years!

Afterwards, my sister picked me up and took me to her house, where I proceeded to eat as much as possible to make up for the day of fasting. I have to confess, I ate leftover superbowl snacks for breakfast: buffalo wings, celery and carrot sticks with blue cheese dressing. This was at 9:30am. I continued to eat massive amounts of food, and now I feel a little gross.

Good times!

Eating like there is no tomorrow

I'm going to overshare just a little bit today. I am having a colonscopy early tomorrow morning (no worries, it's just standard screening.) This requires me to fast from 11am until tomorrow. Liquid diet only. And around Superbowl kick-off I will be drinking some disgusting stuff that will totally clean out my system. (Aside: I read somewhere that your large intestine can hold up to 9lbs of roughage at any given time. Ew.)

Anyways, I went to bed late last night, which made me sleep late this morning. But this whole fasting for almost 24 hours has been worrying me. I'm a grazer: I normally eat every 2 hours or so. And I do get hangry. So I forced myself out of bed at 10am this morning just so that I could eat as much as I possibly could in that hour: leftover pizza, a granola bar, some chips, and with 10 minutes left before the fast was to begin, I ran out to get a bagel with cream cheese.

I feel full now (considering the amount of calories I've consumed), but I feel like I should hide all of my food so I don't accidentally eat a whole bag of Sun Chips or something...

Have yourself a very fratboy Christmas

A friend from home was visiting and she told me about a date she went on with this frat-boy type dude (who, by the way, works for my favorite store Target. No, no, silly goose, not as the cashier on Register #5. He does something corporate-ish. Unfortunately, the discount is only 10%. I would have expected more...) Anyways, it was around the holiday season and she went over to his condo. He had a fully decorated Christmas tree. With presents under it. Makes sense, right? Well, Christmas was already over, but apparently he had wrapped some empty boxes all pretty and put them under the tree for the full holiday effect.

This just doesn't quite sit well with me. Could be endearing, could be totally creepy.

I asked her if he also busted out the homemade, decorated Christmas cookies, but she said no.

Inquiring minds want to know

So last week on my way home I walked by a blind woman with a seeing-eye dog. This triggered several questions:

1. When does the seeing-eye dog go to the bathroom? It's not like he can just poop or pee anywhere like other dogs--that runs the risk of the blind lady stepping in it and I think that would be a big no-no.

2. And if allowed to go on the street, is the blind person responsible for picking up after the dog? That seems like a potential disaster. Does the dog help with that?

So then I thought perhaps he was trained to go at specific times. Which generated the next question:

3. How does a blind person tell time? Are the watches for the blind in braille? Audio? Does she just listen to 1010WINS all the time since they tell you what time it is every goddamn minute?

A friend of mine found a site online that sells braille watches. Which leads me to ask, (4) how is a blind person gonna find that thing online? And if so, what kind of computers do blind people use?

So many questions, so few answers. Neither Google nor Wikipedia were much help. What's a Cookie to do?

I was posing all of these questions to another friend last night. He didn't have any answers for me but instead says, "Those questions never would have crossed my mind if I walked by a blind person & seeing-eye dog." He seemed amazed at my thought processes. At least I choose to interpret it that way.

SOOOOO, if anyone has reasonable answers to the above questions, please share.

Addendum to the Big-Balled Bunny

This is a better pic of Stewart's stuff. I'm not sure why it looks so lop-sided. You get the idea though.

Puzzle madness!

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Secondly, a happy birthday to me!!! Teehee.

Okay, back to the good stuff:

So I sometimes find myself going through phases of activity where I read a lot, do logic puzzles all the time, bake goodies every day, etc. Now I've moved onto jigsaw puzzles. They totally rock. But more so when done with friends. And perhaps while drinking. It is good fun and good quality time, while still working the brain. I highly recommend. Here's what I've been working on the past 6 weeks or so...

Puzzle #1 was done at Second Thanksgiving dinner at my house:














Puzzle #2 was done on New Year's Eve after a fantastic beef tenderloin meal, while drinking whiskey. Note: Not only was it extra challenging because it was a 3D puzzle, but we had to know our geography too!














And for my birthday trip this past weekend, not one, but TWO puzzles were done:
















I was doing a little post-birthday shopping with the family and the toy store had all puzzles on sale. I bought 3 boxes of them.

I might need a puzzle intervention.