A Star-Studded Night in Central Park

Romeo and Juliet was awesome…LY HOT! It was like 90 degrees and humid as hell. I was dying of thirst in that heat, oh why oh why didn’t I bring a water with me?? I was seriously ready to steal someone’s water or offer them 5 bucks for it, anything…and then the set had a huge pool of water, the big teasers...how I would have liked to jump in it..or lap it up the way Salty Dog used to at our pool in the Old House…but that would have been in poor taste, wouldn't it? The play was well done for the most part -it's not my favorite Shakespeare play, it's too silly, those little 14 year old star-crossed lovers...plus I hated the movie version with Claire Icky Danes and Leo GirlFace DiCaprio so I think that turned me off of it forever – the girl from Six Feet Under was Juliet and she did a good job of it and because she looks more like an adult than a child, she made me like and believe the love story more – and the Nurse and Mercutio were wonderful and funny too. The rest of them were fair to middling. And it was the night of celebrity sightings. I saw: Ross the Intern (ha!), Ross from Friends (David Schwimmer) who was with Rashida Jones (Karen) from The Office, so then Megan and I wondered if we were getting some insider gossip – are they dating? Who cares? Jim won't care anymore, he's with Pam..there were other minor celebrities in attendance, like Martha Plimpton - she'll be in the next play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, I'm thinking she'll be Puck, she looks very Puckish to me – but those were the major ones – um, Nikki, does Ross the Intern does count as a major one???

‘Tis the week to celebrate..the end of Mercury Retrograde!!! Already I see a shift, certain THINGS have returned to normal and fortified my hopes a bit instead of swaying me this way and that way with bad info and unreliable messages from the Unknown…don’t ask me to explain this, I won’t, but suffice it to say, I feel better, more normal and like my feet are on solid ground once more. So praise be to the planet Mercury for going back into its normal rotation.

I don’t have much else to report other than I’m smiley again and I know you were all wondering when and if that would happen again, the way my mood has been.

Wonderful little recipe for you to try out, courtesy of The Moosewood Restaurant – this was my supper last night:

Take some really good vine tomatoes, chopped, add a can of artichoke hearts, slice them (make sure they aren’t marinated), toss with olive oil, some red wine vinegar (go lite with the vinegar!), 1 clove of pressed garlic, sprinkle in some dried tarragon or fresh if you've got it and lots of fresh basil – as much as makes you happy. I like a lot, so I added a LOT. Salt and pepper to taste and chill/marinate for an hour – but the longer you let it sit, the better it tastes – so if you let it go overnight, you like this more. Its nice and light and refreshing and I love the flavor of the fresh (must be fresh!) basil and artichoke hearts together. I served it over lettuce, but I think it would taste good tossed with pasta or in a pita as well.

Happy Friday to All

I just wanted you all to know... that my MOTHER drunk dialed me last night...ha ha ha ... silly lady all hopped up on margaritas!!

(Merv - just know that!)

And now for the news making me so much happier than I've been lately - in August, I'm going here:

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.
html?propertyID=1391

For relaxation, horseback riding, and fun fun fun with Floating Head and PossiblyJ - yippee!! Isn't it lovely?

Now tomorrow, I've possibly got Shakespeare in the Park tix - Romeo and Juliet - I seem to get unlucky with these every year, so hopefully all will be in my favor - I'm still upset about missing Liev Schrieber in Macbeth last year.

Happy Fourth of July blah blah blah whatever…

Well I had plans and they were fun plans – Brooklyn, BBQ in the park and then up to someone’s roof in Park Slope to watch the fireworks. But then I woke up yesterday and couldn’t move. I was tired and just wanted to nap and was stressed out because mail and bills and dirty dishes were piling up and there is no maid or personal assistant to do these things for me. I had no more underwear so laundry had to be done in a hurry if I was going out. It was cloudy and the skies threatened rain so maybe no fireworks. So before I flipped out and lost it, I caved and cancelled my plans. I just have been in such a funk lately, I probably wouldn’t have been good company anyhow, so most likely it was for the best, and getting all that menial, stupid stuff done made me feel better, so I think it was the smart thing.

Floors – cleaned
Bathroom and Kitchen - scrubbed
Bills – paid
Naps taken – 2, 35 minutes each
Harry Potter book – almost completed
Papers and Misc Stuff – put away and filed properly
Laundry – 2 loads, plus my quilt
Number of grilled cheese sandwiches consumed – 2 (I know that’s a lot of cheese, but I bought this really good English cheddar)
Stress factor greatly reduced – PRICELESS

Now I just have to keep plugging away and get this funky mood off of me. I need to snap out of it. Floating Head did come up with a good idea about a possible getaway in the near future and darn it if that wouldn’t do the trick. I was sitting outside today at lunch, drinking my OJ and thinking “I don’t want to be here anymore – I can’t stand any of these people”. And then her head floated an idea my way…so hopefully, a remedy will come to me soon.

"Na na na na na...slow down you're gonna crash"

Okay, who out there knows all about Mercury going Retrograde? Whatever you may think about astrology, I do believe in this because without fail, it never fails to do what its supposed to do. It is a time of projects slowing down, plans get broken, things around your house won’t work properly or will break, signals and communications get crossed or misunderstood, things in general go AWRY and you may feel irritable and out of sorts because of it. So its how I’ve been feeling for the past two weeks. It is not supposed to be necessarily negative, but it’s a time to not plan things, but to just take it easy and not force events, to exercise caution, to not try new things. And if you are going to get into a car crash, you could say Mercury in Retrograde would be the time of year this would happen. Which is EXACTLY what happened to me on Saturday night. The day started out alright, I got my hair cut and highlighted (of course I had to wait an extra hour for the salon people to take me, despite my appointment – another Mercury in Retrograde effect) and then hurried home to dress and get pretty for my night out with Vu and Floating Head. Fine. It was a night of celebration because FH got a promotion at work and we wanted to say “cheers!” to her so cocktails were in order and we went to a trendy hotel lounge for the toasting. Fine. Four mojitos later and the bartender had taken a liking to us so we got two rounds of shots on the house – Patron, followed by a Lemon Drop. Fine. Needless to say, I was a bit tipsy at this point, but still feeling fine – not drunk (the first two mojitos were suspiciously underalcoholed and meant nothing to me) and it was after midnight and we were done. So a cab was hailed and we were off to FH’s apt first to drop the two of them off. A nighty-night to the girls and I’m on my way home. One block away, SMASH – a cabbie coming from the left ran the light and ran right into my cab. My head snapped forward and hit the window in front of me and it was all so fast, I don’t know what just happened. The other guy is getting out and yelling at me – “you saw you saw, it wasn’t my fault, he was going through the light, not me!” (but I think it was – my head was down, but I know my cab did stop at the sign and then went and I know those gypsy cabs speed like crazy so I blame him) and they call the cops and I make sure I’m ok before getting out and ask my driver “can I just pay you and go back to my friend’s apartment?” … so a bit out of it, I call FH, walk the block back to her place, and call another cab from there. ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS GET HOME AND GET TO MY OWN SWEET BED AND SLEEP and JUST MY LUCK – I get into an accident! FH wanted me to stay the night and make sure I was ok – which I was, I just have a small bruise on my eyebrow and chin where I must have smacked my head – but I just wanted to get home. Plus, now I was no longer tipsy, the adrenaline was buzzing and I was wide-awake and certain I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for quite awhile – I’ve never been in a car accident before (although strangely enough, I swear I was in Daddy’s green Oldsmobile when I was a very little girl and we got hit on the right side on Valley View when I was a little girl, but I’ve been told I wasn’t in that accident) and so I was a little freaked out. And then of course I did the game in my head the next day of “what if the cabbie had been a little more through the intersection? The other cab would have smashed the middle of the car, where I was and that could have been worse for me”?

So that was my crazy Saturday night. Say what you want, but it has just reinforced my Mercury in Retrograde belief and when this period is over officially on July 11th, I will be breathing a sigh of relief! Until then – keep your hands and fingers inside and make sure that seatbelt is securely fastened!

Two Dedicated Posts

For Mervyn - "where were they going without ever knowing the way?"



For Vox: I told you one time about an oasis in the desert - here's a pic of an actual Nevada desert oasis - they do exist outside of Bugs Bunny cartoons! We used to go swimming and bbq'ing here when I was a young lass...

Creepy Cool Ghost Town Pics - Moapa, Nevada

I've heard the mermaids singing...

And they did sing to me, unlike J. Alfred Prufrock http://www.uvm.edu/%7Esgutman/Eliot.htm - and they were beautiful… let me tell you how AWESOME the Mermaid Parade was! This is destined to become an annual event for me, it was so colorful and everyone was so full of energy and creativity, with lots of the cutest little girls dressed up as mermaids (as well as adults actually, male and female) and Chia Pet and I got some great ideas for things to do next year – I don’t know if we would do full out costumes, but face painting and some funky hair might be in order. I’ll be posting pictures later so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about, but this is really something special, something that you would only see in New York – sort of like a summer Mardi Gras on a smaller scale. Afterwards, we waded out onto the beach for awhile and got our legs and feet in the water and then headed back to have some Vietnamese food and a tea in the park. Ah the park – Union Square needs rescuing from the Rats of Unusual Size. The place is overrun with them, its really disgusting – as we sat on the bench, we kept jumping, thinking one had made it on to the bench to join our conversation or bite our heels. When I got home that night, I had to shower, I felt so creepycrawly. And a giant weirdo attacked as well. Ha. Well a tall strange man, anyhow. So we are happily sitting there peoplewatching and sipping our teas when this man walks by and he looked really sad and I just happened to catch his eye and so because he was so forlorn, I gave him a slight smile. Well, wouldn’t you know it, he comes and sits next to me and leans in and says, “I just really need a woman to help me take my mind off of another woman I met last night on a bench over there” and points to the other side of the park and goes off on this mumbled tangent that I can’t understand. I started laughing and slapped Ms. Chia on the leg and said “OK LETS GO!” and we had to find another place to sit. Such is my luck.

So tomorrow, hopefully, I will get some of the Mermaid Parade pics up, as well as some cool shots of when I was in Las Vegas – I got some great desert/mountain shots as well as spooky shots of a ghost town. Cool.

The Week of Bad Moods

Well I haven’t written here this week because…yes, it’s that time again…Bad Mood Week for June 2007. This week was TERRIBLE. Correction, I was TERRIBLE. And for no good reason. Nothing really created the Terribleness, so I’m completely responsible for it. I’m fighting it off left and right now and so far so good. Keep those fingers crossed for me. And after a good last weekend too. I went to the Sunburnt Cow on Saturday morning for a yummy brunch with La Cousine Megan – scrambled eggs, bacon and unlimited mimosas. Needless to say, this might be the first time I’ve been quite a bit tipsy before 1pm. Then off to a walk around – street fairs and other shopping and then to see the movie Waitress which was so cute and made me smile because it was “charming” – I think that’s the words the critics are using to describe it. The woman who wrote and directed and acted in it was murdered earlier this year – very strange, sad story – and I really wanted to see this because she was in one of my favorite all time movies, Trust (with the oh so cute Martin Donovan). Anyway, good film, I highly recommend it and it will make you want to make and then eat dessert, because the main character bakes all these awesome pies. Then Sunday, I was again up early early and this time to meet Floating Head at 9:45 am for yoga class at 10! Yay for Me! I made it…I was sitting on the bench outside Integral, eating my banana, and feeling very happy about myself – I don’t know how to explain to you how difficult it is to get me out of bed early enough so that’s why I was pleased with myself. But to come to yoga – at the same time we went to meditation class here – is so peaceful at this early weekend hour – its just you and the birds and the morning sun. It sure kicks the day off to a good start, you can’t help but be smiley. The teacher we had was real funky too, but I liked him and and wished he was there every week – alas, he was just visiting but he kind of had that zen-surfer-cool-dude vibe, you knew nothing could rattle him or shake him. Then Floating Head and I stuck with tradition and went out for our regular after Integral-feelgood macrobiotic lunch on Greenwich and walked around a bit afterwards before heading home and I felt fine.

Then Monday happened. I hated work, I hated the world, I was mad at everything and FOR NO GOOD REASON. The next day was no better. I just felt angry, like I wanted to kick anyone who entered my presence in the shins. I think I just needed to get it out – I haven’t had that kind of feeling for awhile and maybe I was holding in some bad emotions and see, this is what happens when you do that – they explode out of you and onto people who don’t deserve it. My boss was kind enough to notice the bad mood and kept a safe distance – he just asked me if all was okay and I said yes and I guess that’s all it took for him to see the warning signs! I’m telling you, I do not have a poker face – every thing going on inside this head of mine shows on my face. I went home that night and did some “internal kickboxing”, had a nice chat with myself, and started to feel better. So that being said, today’s status is: so far, so good. It’s helpful in times like these to repeat this Albert Einstein quote:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.The other is as though everything is a miracle."

So may today you try – like me – to see the everyday miracles. And not get caught up in the phantom fears and worries of things that haven’t happened yet or that your own dumb head has created.

Now, tomorrow: I’m going to the Coney Island Mermaid Festival - http://www.coneyisland.com/mermaid.shtml - I’ve been wanting and wanting to go to this for years and finally, I’ve remembered and I’ve roped in Chia Pet to accompany me and I intend to have a wonderful time of it – should be a funky and freaky good time.

So thats my story and I’m sticking to it.

Instant Karma is going to get you...

So I'm back from my weeklong Pre Father's Day Lovefest with Charlie Chuckles in Las Vegas. Yes, I managed to surprise my dad by showing up at the airport unannounced and had a lovely, most restful, week off from NYC and life in general. So want to hear about how what goes around comes around? On my JetBlue flight to Las Vegas, this icky man next to me kept falling asleep and attempting to rest his head on my shoulder and I had to keep shoving him and he IRRITATED me to no end. I did my best to ignore him. When he was awake, he kept struggling with his tv - he couldn't figure out how to turn it on and guess what? Out of pure spite and meanspiritedness, I didn't help him. I went on happily watching the Top Chef marathon and VH1 Classic while he had to sit there and - GASP! - talk to his wife and keep himself amused with his book.

My flight back - karma bit me in the ass! Guess who's tv didn't work? If you guessed Meany Me, you would be correct. So I missed all three episodes of Ghost Hunters, I missed the Mets game, I missed the Top Chef season premiere. Sigh. Lesson learned? From now on, don't be such a toad!

I'm over it, but that is one of the joys of flying JetBlue. Anyhoo, I'm still a bit off-kilter from getting back so late and my sleep is a bit off so I think this weekend will be mostly spent trying to clean the household, unpack, regroup, all that good stuff, as well as possibly seeing Waitress with Cousin Megan before she trips off to Ireland - lucky duck!

This is quite the boring post, I know! But I just wanted all to know - I'M BACK!!

"Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
On and on and on on and on"

The Weekend Fun is Upon Us..Let Us Rejoice!

I don't have too much planned - cuz folks, I'm worn out. I'm depleted. I can't do no more - Merv, I need to borrow the Cape Ability! I was exhausted last night when I got home and I just couldn't rouse myself to do much about it. I have nothing left to give. Sigh. Poor Pitiful Pearl.

So I'm desperate for a vacation at this point (see my "I hate the Yankees" rant yesterday for an example of how this manifests itself -what a grumpus I am)! But tomorrow, I'm heading up to La Bronx for The Vox Family Baby Shower - that's right, we are counting down the days until the Grand Birthing of The Vox Child! It will be Voxmas ... Howie, can you take the pressure of this? Baby Suri is squirming in her little diapers right now, she knows her match is on its way.

And that's about it. Maybe a little shopping on Sunday ... maybe ... provided there are no America's Next Top Model marathon traps for me to fall into...

I shall now leave you with a quote:

Here is my secret. It's quite simple: one sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from The Little Prince