Notes from Seattle

My friend Brian sent me this:


with a note reading, "So plant 'em yourself!" A friend in need is a friend indeed.

However, check out the view from our balcony today, March 28:


Yes, yes, I know the cherry tree is lovely. But look, look to right, where I have drawn a very very dim circle (I still haven't mastered Photoshop). I know it's hard to see, I know the tree is pretty and distracting. But let me tell you: it is snowing. Hard. Big, fat, wet flakes that aren't sticking, but it's snowing. Last night I slept with three comforters on me.

I would plant the seeds anyway, since they say to plant them 6-8 weeks before last frost, but we'll be leaving on our honeymoon soon, and there will be no one to water them.

Oh, and one last shot:


I've begun knitting again. No, my shoulder isn't any better. But the latest Vogue Knitting arrived, with a pattern I had to try. And I had the perfect yarn for it. And I have nothing to do but sit around the house, unpack, job hunt, and twitch about being unemployed. And do my taxes, but doing my taxes would involve finding my files. And, you know, doing them. My hands needed occupying. This picture represents about a week's worth of knitting. I tell myself that knitting is better for my shoulder than sitting on the computer all day.

Yeah.

Miracle pill

My eyes have been itching a lot lately. I have allergies, hay fever, mostly, and the way it most affects me is in terribly itchy eyes. If it's really bad, the inside of my mouth and my tongue also itch. Sinus problems are either less severe or less annoying, I don't know. I notice the eyes the most.

For years my allergies were at their worst in May and June. But the last two years or so, I've noticed I have symptoms all year round. Since I've moved to Seattle, they've been pretty bad, especially the eyes. I'd blame it on Seattle and its plethora of flowering trees (there are two outside our building, but I am not complaining: I love flowering trees), but I have to admit I first noticed it getting unseasonably bad in New York before I left. I thought it was all the dust kicked up by my moving, but who knows? Anyway, it was so bad that on my very last day in New York, I came up with the following song celebrating my #2 Drug of Choice (#1 being Excedrin), Benadryl.

(Sung to the tune of "Spiderman")

Benadryl, Benadryl
It's my favorite miracle pill.
Clears my nose,
Clears my head,
Nothing else will do instead.
Oh yeah! Bring on the Benadryl.

Is it strong?
Listen, bud
It courses through your allergic blood.*
Takes on cats,
Takes on dust,
It's an absolute musty must.
Oh yeah! Bring on the Benadryl.

When your eyes, in Spring,
Drive you wild, 'round the bend,
You don't need a thing
But your pink little friend!

Benadryl, Benadryl
It's my favorite miracle pill.
Clears your nose,
Clears your head,
Nothing else will do instead.
Oh yeah! Bring on the Benadryl!

* This line provided by my friend Laura.

Hey, nothing else is going on right now: unpacking, unpacking, unpacking. Ugh!

Toto, we're not in NYC anymore

Photo from gourmetsleuth.com

This is broccoli rabe, also known as rapini or broccoli di rape. It's an Italian vegetable, bitter, leafy, with flowers that kind of look like broccoli. According to Wikipedia, it's related to turnips. It's an acquired taste, as it is quite bitter; for many years I didn't like it, until I learned the secret: blanch it first.

My sweetie loves broccoli rabe, and it was a staple in our New York diet: easy to cook, readily available year-round, not expensive, healthy. Saute it with garlic and olive oil and you've got a side dish; toss it with some pasta and you've got a quick and easy meal. It goes well with Italian sausage, peppers, chickpeas. When I don't have a lot of creative energy but want a tasty meal with vegetables, I choose broccoli rabe. It is a vegetable I can cook without a recipe.

For my first cooked meal in Seattle, it seemed natural to use some broccoli rabe. Imagine my astonishment, then, when I went to two grocery stores and was unable to find it. In the second grocery store, I even asked the produce guy for it, and he asked a second guy, who asked a third guy, and they all agreed that, not only did they not carry it, they'd never even heard of it. Flabbergasted would not begin to describe it. Broccoli rabe is something you can find in the crappiest grocery store (and there are many crappy grocery stores) in New York. Not having it is almost equivalent to not having spinach.

Have I mentioned there are a lot of Italians in NYC as well as Jews?

One of the fun things about moving to a new place is seeing what is different in the grocery store--in my wanderings looking for broccoli rabe, for example, I saw bok choy, something you can't get in the average store in NYC--but, wow. No broccoli rabe. I learned to love broccoli rabe in NYC, so I honestly cannot say if it was readily available in California. And I'm not saying NYC is so much better because it has broccoli rabe; I'm just...stunned. I had not realized the extent to which broccoli rabe had become my go-to vegetable until I could not go to it.

I bought mustard greens instead. They're bitter, too, but not as yummy, or as substantial, as broccoli rabe. Sigh.

The end of an era

I have moved out of my apartment.




















I feel sad.























With all my stuff moved out, the place echoes in a very lonely way.








































When I moved into this apartment, I was 29.

I lived in this apartment 8.5 years. Other than the house I grew up in, where I lived until I was 13, this is the place I have lived the longest. In many ways, I became an adult in this apartment.

It was the first place I lived alone, without roommates. Now that I am married, it may remain the only place I ever lived alone. I hope so.

It was the first place I owned.
It was the first place where I had doormen--a staff that, in a sense, worked for me.
I bought real furniture for it.
I painted the walls bright colors, because white walls scream "rented apartment" to me.
I bought shades for it, and new faucets, and a new toilet, and other things homeowners do. I caulked the bathroom sink.

While I lived here, I changed. I lost a significant amount of weight. I started to care about fashion and shoes. I read less. I exercise more. I learned to knit. I go out to eat a lot. I became a New Yorker.

While I lived here, I achieved a certain success in my career. I was no longer the assistant, I became a boss. I was an expert. I was asked for my opinion. I was considered very valuable to my employer.

While I lived here, I met a lot of men; I dated a lot. I met the man who broke my heart, and I met the man who is the love of my life.

While I lived here, I enjoyed NYC, I grew to consider it home. And I grew quite tired of its unique pressures.

On September 11, 2001, I brought my boss home with me, because she couldn't go home: the trains weren't running to the suburbs. My boss was a nasty woman, but I couldn't leave her alone in the office, so I took her home. We sat on the couch and watched the TV all day, until about 4:30 when they announced the trains were running, and she could leave. For years afterwards, people would say to me, "I heard you took so-and-so home on September 11! I couldn't imagine having her in my personal space!" But honestly, she was never nasty to me again after that.

When I bought the apartment, I had never had a serious boyfriend. I hadn't even dated much, really. Throughout my twenties, I thought I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life. When I bought the apartment, I thought there was a decent chance I would live in it until I died.

I am on such a different path than I envisioned coming to when bought this apartment.

It feels different moving out of this apartment, different from moving out of every other place I've lived. Every other place before this was temporary. I knew I would not be there long. This place was mine, it was home.

I am a little sad to leave it, even though I am excited to start the next phase of my life. I was happy here. I was, by some measures, successful here. The life I lived here was a life I knew I could do, was a person I knew I could be. It was safe. It was comfortable. I am a person who likes safe and comfortable.

It makes me wonder what I will think 8.5 years from now. What life will I have then, that I never saw coming from this end?

Times have changed

These are Ess-a Bagels. Ess-a makes my favorite bagel in NYC, and I will miss them. Today I ate what I believe will be my last Ess-a Bagel, a sesame, my favorite.

When I first moved to New York, I lived right around the corner from the Ess-a on 3rd Ave. I went there a lot, and usually got two at a time. Nowadays I go by only when I am nearby, and I only get one. They are huge, some bagel purists might say too huge, but for me they are the quintessential bagel. No other bagel in NYC is as satisfying and--I am sorry to sound like an obnoxious New Yorker, but it's true--no bagel I've had outside of NYC is even a bagel.

When I went in today, I noticed that Ess-a Bagels now cost $1. I think they were $0.95 last time I went in, but I could be wrong. Back when I lived around the corner from them, the bagels cost $0.60. I guess I have been in NYC a long time that I can track such significant inflation!

Other things that have gone up: movies. Movies were $7.50, I think, when I came to NYC in 1996. Now they are $10.50, $11 in some theatres. I remember when they went up to $8.50 (about six months after they'd gone up to $8) I was so annoyed I boycotted movies for a year. I go occasionally now, but nowhere near as often as I used to.

The subway was $1.50 when I first came here; now it's $2, and they're talking about raising it to $2.25. I actually think the subway provides a heck of a lot of service for a relatively small fee (heck, compared to Ess-a, the inflation rate on the subway is only 33% versus 67%), so I don't mind this. While I appreciate the NYC mindset that vocal complaining keeps city agencies on their toes, I do think the people who squawk loudest about how much the subway sucks and how outrageous it is should take a trip outside of NYC once in a while.

The suggested entrance fee for the Metropolitan Museum of Art was $8 in 1996. Today it is $20. Seriously. I blame MOMA: they renovated the MOMA a few years ago and reopened with a ticket price of $20, to much outrage from all sides. But people are paying it, so how could the Met not follow suit? The Guggenheim is $18. I've never been there, and will not go before I leave.

Do I sound like a crotchety New Yorker yet? Boy am I old, complaining about how much things used to cost! I mean, while I'm at it, I might as well complain about postage ($0.32 compared to $0.41), although like the subway, the post office provides a service that is easy to complain about, but is pretty darned impressive if you really think about what is provided for the price. But they might have done better to increase the rate all at once instead of bringing out another increase so soon after the last one. It's a PR problem as much as anything.

Finally, to get back on the subject of round bread, even more than bagels, I will miss bialys. Bialys are kind of a cross between English muffins and bagels, and they are pretty unique to New York. I once read that bialys are not made anywhere else in the world but New York; no one really knows where they came from, but the theory is they were brought here by Jewish immigrants, possibly from Bialystok, Poland. But if you go to Bialystok today, you will not find bialys, because, well, the bialys were lost along with the Jews. But if you go into any deli in NYC, even ones run by Koreans, you will find bialys.

In some ways that are not always obvious, New York City is very, very cool.

Reviews

It is customary on bridal websites for brides to review their vendors for others' information. Here are my reviews of my major vendors:

Venue/Battery Gardens: A+
I can’t say enough about Battery Gardens. First of all, the space is gorgeous, with spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and New York Harbor. It was also very affordable, by NYC standards, because we chose a date in February. Finally, the food is terrific, Asian-influenced and very well presented. And, they have the option of having Peking Duck, which I adore. With just these things I would have been happy, but in addition, their staff is excellent, and extremely professional. Alex, the Catering Manager, made sure he knew all of the details I wanted, and took care to arrange everything the way I requested. Eddie, our Maitre d’ for the evening, kept everything running smoothly and on schedule. The wait staff was unobtrusive and kept my water glass filled (my major criteria for table service, since I drain water glasses at a rate of about one every ten minutes). Most of all, I really felt that they wanted the wedding to be exactly as I wanted it—that it was a point of pride for them that everything ran seamlessly without causing me any grief or worry. They succeeded in this, and I appreciated it so much. I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Officiant/Julie Laudicina: A+
Julie is a secular celebrant, and she proved that a wedding needn’t be religious to be meaningful. Everyone was raving about our ceremony throughout the night, something I don’t think I’ve heard at other weddings I’ve been to. She created something very personal and moving, and that captured our personalities perfectly. Many, many guests told us it made them tear up, because she really made it clear what it was that we felt for each other and how special the day was to us. Julie began writing the ceremony back in November, when she sent us a detailed questionnaire for us to fill out separately. Then we reviewed drafts of the ceremony, refining it via email and a phone conversation until it was pretty good. Then, she delivered it in such a way that it became perfect: I was struck by how much more special the ceremony sounded when she spoke it over how it had read on the page. It really was exactly what we wanted, and it set the tone for the entire evening of celebration with the people we love. I actually think, now that I’ve gone through it and heard the feedback from our guests, that nothing personalizes your wedding more than a personalized ceremony done right. No one commented on any of the details I slaved over—the Blurb guestbook, the postcard table names, the travel mug favors, etc.—the thing they all talked about was the ceremony.

Flowers/Antheia Floral Design: A
When I started calling florists for the wedding, I quickly realized that my demands were going to be challenging: I wanted red flowers three days after Valentine’s Day, and I did not want to spend more than $2,000. Only three florists did not laugh at me, and only two had proposals that did not look like they were cheap. I chose Angie at Antheia because she seemed calm and her aesthetic suited my style better. I wasn’t disappointed. Not only did she do very pretty centerpieces and a bridal bouquet I loved, she came in more than $200 under budget. Angie was hugely busy in the week before my wedding because of Valentine’s Day, but I never felt that she had forgotten about me or that I was an afterthought. Because I ended up with fewer guests than I had originally expected, we made some last minute changes to the plan and she was accommodating and helpful. Furthermore, when I was really not sure what I wanted the bridesmaids’ bouquets to look like, she offered some great suggestions and created something pretty with very little guidance from me.

Hair/Stacy Pitt: A
Stacy gets lots of raves and they are deserved. I had two trials with her, one almost a year ago when I first hired her and one just a few weeks before the wedding. She is so calm and cares so much about making her brides beautiful, not just for her own professional reputation but I think because she wants brides to be beautiful. My hair was not behaving on the day of the wedding: Stacy had to take it down and start again three times, and we got very behind schedule. I think she was more upset about stressing me out than I was stressed. In the end, because the style we had decided on in the trial just wasn’t working, Stacy created a fallback style on the spot, and it looked great and stayed perfect throughout the night. You would never have known it wasn’t what we had planned. In addition, Stacy made my mom and my bridesmaid Laura, who both have short hair and figured there was nothing to do with their hair, look elegant and flirty and terrific.

Makeup/Laura Nadeau: A+
Laura also gets lots of thoroughly deserved raves. Like Stacy, I get the impression that Laura loves brides and loves being able to make them beautiful. She’s also a lot of fun to have around when you are getting ready. She was faced with four women (me, my mom, and my two bridesmaids) who rarely if ever wear makeup (she was astonished that my mother, at 72, had never used any eye makeup. Ever), and she handled the task perfectly and made all of us look beautiful but natural. She hung around well after the makeup was done to help however she could in the last moments before the ceremony. When my MIL’s corsage broke, she sat down and tried to fix it with a safety pin. It was like having another girlfriend around to gossip and laugh and help. She was great.

DJ/Expressway Music, David Swirsky: B+/A-
This is tough review to write as I think there were a few things with the space that made the music challenging. Battery Gardens is a huge room, and we had only 100 guests, so the dance floor felt very far away. Dave had to work pretty hard to keep anything going on the floor, and mixed it up quite a bit. It was a great mix of Motown, 80s music, hip-hop, a little big band, and everyone felt included. Several of our guests commented that the music was great. Dave absolutely respected our “do not play” criteria (no line dances, no breakup songs, no “Celebration”). However, there were a couple songs we specifically requested he play that he didn’t, and we were a bit disappointed, though he explained that these were decisions he made in an attempt to keep the dancing going, and we had emphasized that dancing was our biggest priority. As far as the guests were concerned, the music was great and helped create a good party atmosphere. Alas, I think because of the space the music was more of a background, and I'm not sure how we could have fixed this, honestly. I do want to say that Dave himself was great, my husband and he really connected, and he obviously loves music and what he does.

Photographer/Agaton Strom: A
This is a provisional grade, since I haven’t yet seen any of the photos :-). But we were really, really happy with Agaton, who was there from early in the day until the end of the wedding, traveling from Battery Gardens where the groom and groomsmen were decorating, to the hotel where I was getting ready, and back to Battery Gardens for the wedding. He was very professional and unobtrusive, but whenever I turned around he seemed to be there, capturing the action. The bunch of us piled into two cabs to go from the hotel to the venue, and Agaton was in a different cab from me, yet when I got there, he was waiting to catch me emerging. He even offered, at the end of the night, to pop in to our brunch the next day for half an hour, since it was just a few blocks from his studio, to sort of capture the end of the wedding, and when we arrived he was there, shooting us coming down the street. He was generous and good humored, and we were really happy to have him. I can’t wait to see the pictures!

Video

Darn, do I hate myself in video. But if you are curious, my fabulous makeup artist, Laura Nadeau, has a short video of me on her blog. We are discussing my necklace(s), which were eBay purchases and hung on my neck backwards :-). You may recall my necklace obsession. This is what came of it.

Laura Nadeau

We're married!

Well, we are married. Funny, I don't feel much different :-). My sweetie leaves for Seattle again tomorrow, so I think it might not really hit me until I get to Seattle myself.

I think the wedding went really well, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. *I* certainly had fun!

Here are a few pictures taken by the husband of our officiant.

All pics by Joe Laudicina






The last pic is with our officiant, Julie Laudicina, who was wonderful. She created a ceremony that was very personal, funny, touching, and really captured us. All of our guests were raving about it all evening. She was great.

New friends?

My sweetie has finally arrived for the wedding. One week to go: I can't wait!

(For the curious, the 10-day forecast predicts morning clouds and afternoon sun for the day. Whee!)

Tonight we worked on the seating chart. What a bear! We will have tables of ten, and we kept producing logical groupings of seven or nine. Then there's the question of whether we should seat people entirely with people they know, or if we should mix it up? And what about the people who know nobody? What about the handful of people we don't even know? And, of course, you never want people to feel like they're at the boondocks table, so far from the head table that they are obviously second class. Since our wedding is small and we are truly happy to see pretty much everyone, we don't want anyone to feel slighted. We mitigated this problem (somewhat), by seating ourselves smack in the middle of the room :-).

We arrived at a "final" arrangement three different times, but I think we are done now, if only because we're both sick to death of the task. Some tables are logical groupings of my people, some of his people, and we're pretty pleased that we've come up with several tables which are a nice mix of both sides.

The funny thing is, we are having a buffet dinner, so I honestly think people will be sitting at these tables for, at most, an hour. Seriously, can't anyone make stupid small talk in a group of ten for an hour? So I don't know why this was such a struggle. I guess we just want everyone to be happy. But, as with most things with this wedding, I could only sweat so much over the task before I called it done. Bridezilla, I still am not.

But I am soooo excited! It finally hit me three days ago that I am getting married. This isn't just some big party I've been planning, it's, well, a wedding.

I've started checking the weather

Happy Groundhog Day! Apparently Staten Island Chuck and Punxsutawney Phil disagree on whether we will have six more weeks of winter. In less than six weeks I will be Seattle, so: I really don't care :-).

I do care, though, about the weather on my wedding day. Here is what I would consider ideal: clear days for the two or three days leading up to my wedding (so that people who are traveling have no trouble), and then a freak snow once the wedding starts, with big, fat, photogenic flakes. I even bought myself a red Asian paper umbrella just in case: if it snows, I am going outside for pictures!

Alas, I think it is far more likely that, if we have precipitation, it will be rain. It doesn't snow terribly often in NYC--I really think the city produces so much heat it changes the weather. New York in the rain is a pain in the butt, so I definitely don't want rain. Happily, February is the driest month in NYC, so our chances are decent. How do I know this last fact?

Weather.com, of course:

Average monthly temperatures and precipitation
Averages highs and lows for every day in February
The forecast for the next ten days

When we first booked a February wedding, my dad expressed concern about the weather. But he has lived in California for twenty years, and his formative experiences of a city winter occurred in Chicago. I can understand why it scares him. I was not overly concerned. I considered getting wedding insurance just in case a large number of our guests missed the wedding because of weather, but decided it wasn't worth it.

This doesn't stop me, though, from checking the weather. I just want to know, you know? What will the day look like? Will I have to bring my galoshes? Which coat will I have to wear? Will we have a glorious sunset or just clouds?

I wish it were the 7th so I could get a (highly inaccurate) ten-day forecast that covers my day. Seriously. I wanna know.

The three-veil bride

If you spend any time on wedding blogland and on wedding message boards, you eventually run into the concept of the "two-dress bride." This is bride who buys one dress, then, in the course of her planning, realizes she hates it/doesn't look good in it/wants a ivory dress, not a white one. So she buys another dress. If you've ever wondered why there are so many unworn, unaltered designer wedding dresses on eBay, offered by normal people instead of sample sale liquidators, that's one of the reasons.

I have to say, I'm appalled by the idea of the two-dress bride. Wedding dresses are not cheap. This is a world where a $1,000 dress is considered "budget." Sure, you can get dresses for less, but these two-dress brides are not usually shopping at David's Bridal. If I spend that much money, I am a) going to be damned sure I love the dress before I put down any money, and b) going to keep loving the dress, I don't care how many other dresses drape their temptations before me.

However, I now must admit that I am a three-veil bride. You might remember the lovely cathedral-length veil I scored back in June. But I was never fully committed to it: I wasn't sure I wanted a veil, and I really feel a cathedral-length veil is really appropriate for, well, a cathedral.

So I started thinking about what I really wanted in a veil. My primary requirement was that it not cost a lot. As I've mentioned previously, I just can't justify spending a lot of money on a bit of tulle and lace that I am going to wear for an hour at most.

I bought some tulle and started fooling around. With some lace I bought off of eBay, I produced this:


This was actually a pain in the butt to sew. It took several days, a broken machine, and a lot of cursing. Fitting a straight lace to the edge of a circle involved a lot of careful cutting and pinning and fussing. But it turned out kind of nice.


The funny thing is, trying on a veil over street clothes just isn't helpful. I put on this lacy thing, and it was too much. It looked stupid and oddly like a communion veil.

So last night, after all the work I'd put into veil #2, I made myself a third veil, a simple square of tulle. Muttering to myself, "Geez. I'm a three-veil bride."

But, see, I decided to make it last night because I had my final fitting of the dress today. I took both the lacy circle veil and my plain square with me. And while I was standing there on Kiki's dais resplendent in gorgeous silk, I tried them both on.

And what do you know? The plain square was too plain. My dress has no embellishments--no beads, no lace, no pintucks or pleating. It's just a smooth fall of silk. The plain square just disappeared next to it. But the lacy circle looked beautiful. Even Kiki said so, even though I'm sure she could see it had been sewn by an amateur :-).

So, we have a winner. Maybe I can stop my obsessive veil-making. Though I do still have enough tulle for maybe two more.....

Next up: I take the veil to my second (yes, second--I may be committed to my dress, but other components are still up for grabs) hair trial.

Let's get physical

I've never been someone who loved exercise. Never.

You remember those Presidential Physical Fitness tests we had to take in gym at school? I always regarded those as a vehicle for gym teachers to express their contempt for out-of-shape kids. It literally never occurred to me as a child that these tests were meant to actually measure something and perhaps be used as a teaching tool. Certainly they were never used that way: when I couldn't hold that flex-arm hang for the minimum-to-avoid-being-labeled-dead 4 seconds, the gym teacher's lip curled, he looked at me with contempt, and turned his back, never to speak to me again. I used to be vaguely puzzled and hurt that President Ford thought it was a good thing to single out weak kids for sneers and ridicule.

When I was in sixth grade we had an Assistant Teacher in gym. She was crazy, one of those fitness freaks who thinks screaming abuse at you will motivate you to work. She would shriek at me and my weak friends, "No pain, no gain!" I remind you: we were 10. One day we had to run a mile. At the end, I was tired. No, I was exhausted. I was also walking. She ran up to me, leaned into my face, and began screaming abuse at me, about how I should run, how I shouldn't be lazy fat cow. Pushed to my limits after days or weeks of this, I muttered, "Shut up." She flipped out. She ordered me to go straight to locker room. As I left the gym, she apparently thought I had stuck my tongue out at her (I hadn't) because she screamed, "If I see that tongue one more time, I will rip it out of your head!"

I got detention for telling her to shut up. She, no doubt, continues to verbally abuse children to this day. Unless the cutting of school funding has resulted in her being unemployed and homeless.

One can only hope.

Anyway, I've flirted occasionally with exercise since then. In 2002 I lost a large amount of weight, and tried to incorporate exercise into my efforts. But I never enjoyed it, and when it didn't seem to have any weight-loss effect (I didn't lose weight any faster when I exercised than when I didn't), I stopped.

But, with the wedding looming, like many brides I began to think maybe some toning might be in order.

In September, I took up Reformer Pilates. I'd tried mat Pilates before, and hated it, but I had long been curious about the reformer machine. To my amazement, I love it. It is the only exercise I have ever tried where I come out of it energized. I had always thought this was a myth, because exercise had previously only made me exhausted and miserable. Pilates energizes me; it soothes me. When I am stressing out about my life, it's the only thing that calms me down.

Still, though I definitely started developing abs (abs!), my body shape wasn't changing. Pilates is not cardio. It's about flexibility and strength training, not about weight loss. Then in December I visited my seamstress Kiki for the second fitting on my dress, and she is making it fit like a second skin. Don't get me wrong: it looks gorgeous, but I cannot gain a pound between now and the wedding, and if I can do something about that lower belly pooch, now would be the time to do it.

So when I read this article about Physique 57, which promised to reshape my body in no time flat, I decided to try it out.

I can't say I love it, I'll be honest. I find it exhausting. I leave class with shaky legs, and my muscles are sore for days after. It doesn't soothe me so much as distract me. But, despite the fact that it doesn't energize me, I have apparently become addicted. I go three or four times a week (so far--it's only been two weeks :-), and I get anxious if I have to skip too many days in a row. I am clearly obsessed with looking good in that dress! I haven't lost any inches yet, but that pooch is looking a bit flatter. Even my sweetie noticed when he was visiting last weekend. Yes, I find it hard to believe it did that much for me in a week, but combined with months of Pilates, I guess my stomach really is getting tightened up.

I've got 25 days between now and the wedding to turn myself into a sleek, elegant bride. I know it's not possible. I know elegant is not my look: the best I can do is cute. Still, I aspire to elegance, and I am going to come the closest I've ever come on my wedding day. I am determined.

I still can't do that flex-arm hang, though.

Dreams

Last night I had my first stress dream about the wedding itself.

It was the morning of the wedding. My bridemaids and I were getting ready in the hotel; the makeup artist was there, applying makeup. I was excited and happy.

Then, I realized with horror that I had forgotten to tell our photographer where to come to take getting-ready shots. In fact, I had completely forgotten to make any day-of arrangements with him at all.

And, of course, I had forgotten to bring his phone number with me.

So, I decided to find a computer in the hotel where I could look him up. It wasn't too difficult to find one, except that I had to go into the lobby of the hotel in my robe and with my makeup half done. I didn't think there would be any problem, since he has a very unique name, to find him via Google (in actual fact, I know his website's URL by heart, since it's his name, but hey, this was a stress dream). But for some reason, his own website would not appear in my Google searches. The best I could find was blogs of brides who had used him, and every one of them thought he was terrible. One of them in particular complained that "[The photographer] himself admitted he was not engaged by us and found our wedding boring and therefore it was difficult to take good pictures!"

Finally, I was able to find a phone number for him by misspelling his name.

In my real life, I have a mild phone phobia. Usually this means I don't like to call people, but it also sometimes manifests itself in a fear that I am misdialing. There have been times in my real life when I've aborted dialling an unfamiliar number a couple of times because I thought I had made a mistake in dialling. Anyway, in my dream, this was magnified a thousand fold, and I was totally unable to dial. I kept hitting the wrong numbers. The phone I was using had had all the numbers on the buttons worn off, and I could not remember which buttons were which. In fact, for a moment the phone I was using had too many buttons, all unlabeled, and I didn't know how to dial it. I was flipping out, and blaming myself for being so stupid as to have forgotten to call him before. I was crying and ruining my makeup, too, and my bridesmaid Laura, who was sometimes there and sometimes not, kept telling me to hurry up and get back to the room so that I could finish my makeup.

Finally, I managed to dial the number correctly. But instead of reaching him, I got a message, as if he had called me and left a voicemail, wondering where I was and where he was supposed to meet me. He was in New Jersey already (in my dream the wedding was taking place in New Jersey) and had been since the early morning, but didn't know where I was or where precisely the wedding was. I began to despair that I could not get in touch with him and even if I did, he would not be able to come back in time to take pictures of the getting ready, and since he didn't know exactly where the wedding was, he might miss the whole wedding, too. I was not going to have pictures of the wedding because I had been too disorganized to plan ahead. I had blown a significant amount of money on a photographer who was not going to show up. It was not really any comfort that the wedding would happen regardless; that I did not really need a photographer to get married. I had wanted good pictures, and there were to be none.

I woke up incredibly tense.

Less than two months to go, and what's left is the details. Like when the photographer should show up, and what I should remember to bring to the hotel, including all the important phone numbers. What music will the DJ play during the ceremony, and what flowers I want in the bouquets. When will I want to take portraits? Where will our parents be seated? How many lanterns do I want, and where should they be hung? Exactly how much will each vendor be owed and how many checks will I need to have ready?

If there is one thing I've learned about myself in all my years of working, it's this: I am not detail-oriented. This will be the hardest part of the planning, so I guess it only makes sense that I should be stressing out about what I am going to forget.

I think I'll shoot my photographer a quick email today....

People are coming!!

Last week I sent out invitations, and this week, what do I get?

Responses!

So far, we have 22 people, including my sweetie and me.

I haven't posted a picture of my invitations because I can't get a decent photo of them. I have a cheap digital camera, and even the above picture is Photoshopped (scary, hunh?). Maybe when I get better at Photoshop I will try again with the invites themselves. I am inordinately proud of them, and people have made many gratifyingly complimentary comments on them. They were every penny, and every drop of sweat and all the aggravation. I love them.

I'm not a big fan of Love stamps, so I used a variety of different stamps for the response envelopes. I used 40 Blossom stamps, 22 Celebrate stamps, and 20 Marvel Superhero stamps.

So far, the Marvel Superhero folks are disproportionately prompt responders....

The Chinese Style

My dressmaker ordered me to buy a push-up bra.

On Saturday, my friend Laura and I traveled to Chinatown to have the first fitting on my qipao. Thankfully, given the huge measurements the dressmaker took when I visited in July (over my clothes!), the roughed-up dress was enormous. I put it on, and the dressmaker started pinning.

She asked me what I thought of the collar, and I said it seemed a smidge tight. This is because I hate having things around my neck. She said that it was not very tight, and that this was "the Chinese style." That is, "Looser would look bad, stupid American."

We discussed how tight the dress should be, striking a balance between "the Chinese style" of skin-tight sexy, and my gauche American desire to be able to sit down.

We discussed the length of the sleeve and settled on something satisfactory. We discussed the height of the slit, and thankfully she agreed that with my parents present, I should perhaps not have the thing cut up to my crotch.

Then we got to the front of the dress, which is heavily darted to achieve that skin-tight look. The darts were not positioned exactly right, and so she began pinning and adjusting. Then she said, "You need to get a different bra."

"OK?"

"Yes. You need to be..." She made a gesture that indicated higher. Much higher.

"This is the Chinese style. UP"--here she made a boob-squishing gesture in front of her own chest-- "and then a nice body below."

Well, I'm not sure I can do anything about the nice body below, but if she wants my chest up, she'll get my chest up.

So today I ventured into Macy's, self-billed as having the largest bra selection in the country. I'll be honest: I've never shopped for a push-up bra before. I'm fairly well endowed, and have never felt the need for one. Some manufacturers don't even make push-ups in my size, because, really, do I need my boobs around my neck? But there was a bit of a thrill in having to buy one: I had been ordered to do it by the expert, and I wasn't going to let embarrassment at the ridiculousness of the task stop me.

Of course, once I settled on one (I chose it because it not only pushed the boobs up, it pushed them together, which I gathered from her illustrative gesture was what she wanted), I went for the matching panties, because why shouldn't my sweetie enjoy the full benefit of my wholly utilitarian purchase? And oh--how lucky that it comes in wedding red!


OK, I have to admit: I still felt a bit ridiculous buying it. I mean, don't get me wrong: it looks great on, and I think my seamstress will approve my new positioning. But I mean, come on. How could I not feel silly knowing the inside of the bra looks like this?

Yes. The pads are shaped...like lips.

Cleaning house

Last week I hired a real estate broker to sell my apartment, since I will be moving to Seattle. She was coming to meet me in the apartment on Tuesday morning, so Monday night I straightened up. I am messy, and I am always astonished by the ability of paper, in particular, to collect.

So, even though I was expecting it, I was a little embarrassed when she looked around the place, said some nice things, and then, very gently, told me I needed to clean up and get rid of the clutter. The apartment just wouldn't "show well" in its current state.

Now, I have some issues with clean. I won't bother to dig up my childhood and such, but suffice it to say I have always been messy. I deliberately buy bookcases as shallow as possible so that I won't pile stuff up in front of my books; then I go ahead and pile stuff up in front of my books. My apartment has deep, beautiful windowsills that I fell in love with when I first saw the place, and which I have since piled with random tchotchkes and bits of paper. My closets are stuffed full of old clothes and the detritus of old hobbies (woodworking, shoemaking) that I have left behind. My biggest weakness is paper, which piles up like crazy into huge snowdrifts on every flat surface in my home.

But, here was the broker telling me I won't sell the place unless I clean it up. So, I invited my friend Laura over. Laura is a clean freak, which is both an annoying and a useful trait. I decided to turn it to my advantage this weekend :-).

I started cleaning Thursday night. I cleared out the linen closet and the kitchen cabinets. You see, the broker tells me that the closets must not be stuffed, because otherwise it will make it seem like there is no room for everything. I refrained from pointing out that this is because there is no room for everything. So my usual method of cleaning--put everything in the closets--was not an option here. I threw stuff away. I got rid of old towels and old bowls and old Tupperware. I got rid of old wedding magazines (I'm not going to read them any more, even if I'm not yet married).

Friday, Laura came over. We cleared out crap under the bed and took a crack at the hall closet, the worst offender. We made the coat closet beautiful in its organization.

Saturday, the building handyman came and replaced my toilet. I cleared off the bookcases and the windowsills. I worked on the bathroom cabinets. I redistributed yarn in the many bins strategically positioned around my home. I hung pictures to get them off the floor. I cleared off the kitchen counter.

Sunday, Laura came over again. We cleared out my bedroom closet. We hauled stuff to Housing Works, a NYC charity. We threw stuff away. We shipped my summer clothes to my sweetie to get them out of my closet. After Laura left I finished up the dining room table, the worst place in the house.

Final total: 17 bags, 2 boxes, three pieces of framed art, and one electric fan to Housing Works. This involved two cab trips in the snow :-).
At least 15 bags thrown away.
Two large boxes shipped to my sweetie.

I still have a huge bag of stuff I want to put on eBay, and a couple things I want to stick in my sweetie's storage unit. I've also gone through my clothes again and pulled out more stuff for Housing Works.

I have to say, the place looks great. Maybe I won't leave after all.....

Sweet as pie

My sweetie has been invited to a coworker's for Thanksgiving, since he will be in Seattle, far from home. He has gotten it into his head that he wants to make an apple pie with cheddar cheese crust to bring with him. Here is the list of items he bought to make this pie:

Apples
Cheddar cheese
Lemon
Cinnamon
Allspice
Flour
Sugar
Cornstarch
Crisco
Pie plate
Box grater
Cookie sheet

He did not buy a peeler: he's peeling the apples with a knife.

He also did not buy a rolling pin: he's using a bottle he has lying around.

He did not buy a food processor: I have coached him over the phone in the fine art of making a pie crust by hand.

He did not buy butter: it's the only ingredient he already had.

I am going to his family's for Thanksgiving, and I am making the same pie. Here is the list of items I have bought:

Apples
Cheddar cheese

The contrast makes me laugh. Now, I understand that part of the problem is that he is living a sparse existence without any of his stuff: his stuff is currently in storage and will be moved to Seattle with me. But believe me, I visited his apartment before he moved, and he would still probably have had to buy all these items except for the pie plate and possibly sugar. In the entire two years we've been together, I can remember him cooking only once.

Nevertheless, all attempts to suggest that he might try something slightly less complicated and which does not require quite so much equipment--such as a nice cobbler, or a simple cake--were roundly rejected. The suggestion that he perhaps use a pre-made crust was scoffed at. This is Something He Wants to Do. He is even making a test pie as I type, to work out the kinks before Thanksgiving.

I have only two things to say: 1) he's adorable; and 2) this is what happens when a man has no TV.

Tomatoes (Reprise)

So, you might remember my perennial tomato plant. I bought this plant in the spring of 2006 and have nursed it ever since. Sometime in April 2007, I got sick of having it block my door, so I moved it outside.

Who knew? Turned out the tomato plant loved being outside. It started producing tomatoes like nobody's business. I picked several batches off the thing, and it kept producing. I made tomato bruschetta. I ate tomatoes every morning with my English muffin. I never quite got enough at one time to make tomato sauce--the tomatoes it produces are pretty small, so I'd need a couple dozen at once to make any quantity of sauce--but I think it did pretty well. I always had four or five ripe; twice this summer I had over a dozen ripe at once (hence the bruschetta).

Now it is November, though. The plant it too unwieldy to move back inside, and frankly, there's no point. I am not moving that plant to Seattle with me. It's had a productive, long life. So I have decided to leave it out there to die. But it has been an unusually warm fall; the plant refuses to die. It sits out there, determinedly alive, demanding that I continue watering it.

This weekend, it is supposed to dip below freezing at last. I decided I'd better pick off the last tomatoes. I figure I can make something that calls for green tomatoes, and I don't want them to be spoiled by freezing. I put on my jacket, and went out on the balcony. I picked.


Seriously: 40 tomatoes. 40! Five are ripe, the others green. I think I will make this.

Subway musings

Now, I know I have said I will miss the subway. The truth is, I don't take the subway very much. I am one of those lucky New Yorkers who can walk to work. When I need to go any distance I take buses as often as subways. Nonetheless, after eleven years here, like any New Yorker, I am proud of our subway. Yes, it sometimes runs frustratingly late. Yes, it's often packed tight like a can of sardines. But: it runs 24 hours, 365 days a year. It costs a mere $2 to go anywhere in the city, even an hour and a half from Manhattan (though that may change to $2.25 soon). You really can live a very active full life without a car in New York City, and that's mostly because there's a very good subway. These are three things you cannot always say about the public transportation in most other cities I have visited, around the world. Have you been to London lately? $8 to ride the Tube, and that's only if you stick to Central London. Boston? Don't stay out too late, or you'll be calling a cab home.

Another thing about the subway, something many writers have waxed poetic about, is that everybody takes the subway. Wall Street investment bankers and janitors are often literally cheek-by-jowl on the subway. Once I took the subway out to Flushing, Queens, and was astonished that, by the time I got off, all seventeen people in the car, including myself, were Asian. Yet the neighborhood I got off in? Purely Latino. This is cool. This is unique to New York.

It gives you chance to see all kinds of humanity in action, as it were. About two or three times a week I take the subway under my office building. If you stay there for any amount of time (read: the train is slow in coming), you start to see people doing the lean: they lean over the edge of platform and peer down the tunnel to see if the train is coming. The more people collected on the platform, the more impatient and aggressive the leaning. Oh, you can lean into empty space aggressively, let me assure you. New Yorkers will show that train they mean business, damn it!

Periodically when I am waiting on the platform, doing the lean or not, a man will come walking down the platform, talking very loudly to no one. I do not know if he is homeless or mentally ill: I hope so, frankly, and it's not just that he enjoys making people uncomfortable. He will walk the length of the platform (I've never seen him get on a train), lecturing about the evils of women. He will quote passages of the Bible (usually Isaiah) which sound bogus to me. (I'm not a Bible expert, but spend enough time in grad school in English and you become pretty familiar with the misogynist quotes from it, at least.) He will shout at the top of his lungs about how women are evil, and men would be generally much better off if women didn't exist.

Shouting homeless people are not a rare occurrance in NYC, but this last time I saw him, my attention was caught by the reactions of people on the platform.

Despite my years in grad school, I'm not someone who spends a great deal of time bemoaning how much harder life is for women than for men. Different things are hard for different people, and everyone's just trying to be happy. But it is true that I've yet to see a homeless woman pacing a platform and screaming about how men should be wiped from the earth. I'm not saying they don't feel this way, they just don't act it out in the same way.

Anyway, so I stood there, watching the poeple on the platform. Like true New Yorkers, no one spoke to him. No one engaged him. People, for the most part, ignored him. They studiously waited for the train to come.

The men: kept talking to each other. Glanced at him and chuckled. Didn't seem to notice him at all. Went on reading their newspapers. Kept doing the lean.

The women: kept talking to each other. Didn't glance at him. Didn't chuckle. Pretended not to notice him. Went on reading their newspapers. And every one of them, every one...slowly, casually....stepped away from the edge.

Calm...for now

Last night, Shirley and Laura (my two charming bridesmaids) and I went to Battery Gardens for my tasting. We tried a multitude of items in order to decide what we should serve at the wedding.

We were served everything in a plated format, though my sweetie and I ultimately decided we want a buffet. Therefore, some of the items we tried, despite being delicious, are not available to us because they would not translate well into a buffet.

However, by far our favorite thing of the night, the braised short ribs, is buffetable, and I jumped all over it. It has a lovely Asian-sweet flavor, and reminds me very strongly of something my mom makes.

We didn't taste it last night, but Battery Gardens also offers the option of a Peking duck carving station. I love Peking duck; one of the reasons I wanted to choose this venue was that option.

Here's our menu for the evening:

Starters (don't get attached: not of these are buffetable):
Classic Risotto with Wild Mushrooms and Asparagus
Pan Seared Scallops, Avocado Pear Salsa & Champagne Grape Reduction
Pekytoe Crab Cakes, Red Cabbage Slaw, Chipotle Sauce

Salads (I loved both these salads, and happily, we can serve both):
Mizuna Greens with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Pignoli Nuts and Coffee Vinaigrette
Baby Mixed Greens with Dried Cherries, Walnuts and Guava Vinaigrette

Pastas:
Penne Pasta with Wild Mushrooms, Sliced Cherry Tomatoes, Baby Arugula, Pesto Sauce
Orecchiette Pasta with Artichokes, Tomatoes, Garlic and Olives

Main Courses:
Boneless Braised Beef Short Ribs, Basmati Rice, Bok Choy and Scallions
Hazelnut Crusted Filet Mignon, Potato Gratin, Haricots Verts, Baby Carrots, Red Wine Sauce
Pan Seared Chilean Sea Bass, Miso Glaze, Jasmine Rice, Haricots Verts, Shiitake Mushrooms

Desserts (again, don't get attached: we are planning to have cannolis and cream puffs instead of wedding cake, and therefore elected not to have additional desserts)
New York Cheesecake with Blueberry Compote and Fruit Coulis
Tiramisu with Chocolate Biscotti (in a chocolate tulip)
Chocolate Ganache Cake

Petit Fours and Coffee

Needless to say, we were stuffed.

I have to say, the evening went very, very well. Our catering manager, Alex, was extremely helpful and accommodating. He answered all my questions, he took copious notes about my preferences; he has obviously done this a million times and seen everything. I have lately been freaking out a little bit, not sure how I will be able to get everything done, not sure how I will be able to focus on every detail. Meeting with Alex reassured me that there are some details I can let go. Regardless of what else I manage to do, we will have good food, a lovely space, and a well-organized event. What more is really necessary?