Princess gonna be kicked out on her ass...

Saturday entailed more amusing chatting with the parents of the princess next door -- her father was back for the full three-day weekend (the third time) to do more installations (of what, I don't know). Her mother has been there for a week to get her settled, because she "has to! Poor Jen didn't get a single day off between graduation and her barr exam study sessions. She has those three days a week so there's no way she could possibly unpack her own boxes." Her mother also flies to Arizona every 2 months to cook and clean for her son for two weeks before returning to Boston. In the elevator, I told her father that they were absurdly nice to keep doing this. He took it to mean my parents were bad parents--I really meant that he and his wife are bad parents. (My wacky belief that a parent's job is to teach the child to be self-reliant.)

I don't think she'll be our neighbor for long though--they've installed tons of stuff (lease technically doesn't allow nails to hang pictures); put up permanent fencing on the deck completely blocking the required fire access between apartments; and have a freakin' DOGGY LITTER BOX on the deck.

Often, the first two would be overlooked, but throw in the fact that her mother has been calling the management company every day to complain about things like "flowers should really be planted around the base of the trees by the entrance" and, my favorite, "you need to do something about the garbage in front of the building three days a week". Ummm, you mean the garbage that's out to be picked up by the sanitation department? Believe us, you want it to be picked up that often instead of remaining in the building's storage. You really, really do!

Arash and Yas complained about a hell of a lot less and were evicted; as was Kate, the older woman who lived down the hall. We're not going to say anything to princess...we've already tried and been blown off, anything more and we'd just sound like the cranky neighbors.

However, once the "litter box" starts to smell, the complaining Greg and I are going to do to the management company is going to be staggering.

Four year drought...

and this Thursday I'm going to the dentist.

Why so long you ask?
1) No dental insurance.
2) I've always had good teeth.
3) My last trip was to the NYU Dental School and after spending 20 hours in the chair over the course of 3 trips I finally got a cleaning--although only 'cause I was REALLY insistent.

Why now?

I think I need a root canal. Very, very unhappy about it. Very, very.

However, the place I'm going to claims to have a "painless" procedure. Also, it's the same dentist who does the dental work on ABC's Extreme Makeover!

'cause it's really the Artful Scheme of Pestering...

What to report?

Friday my friend Stephanie had her bag snatched from the back of her bar stool while we were hanging out--didn't notice until much later. Greg and I considered sleeping on the street for Kevin Spacey hosting SNL--it was too wet and blustery. We were very happy with our decision, we turned it off after watching only 20 minutes--it blew.

Saturday I went to the farmer's market for my final plants of the spring gardening season and even the "crazy" farmer was very nice to me. He has piercing blue eyes, a beard down to his chest and when once asked (not by me) if his produce was organic, flew into a rage and ranted at length about how government standards of "organic" mean shit 'cause they allow more and more chemical treatment each year. (Evidently, you just have to complement his fava bean greens and he's all happy. He suggested mixing them with arugula to cut the richness. I responded by saying I'd done that last week on his son's recommendation, but this week I was going to use my own nasturtium to give it a kick. Growing my own nasturtium really raised me in his overall ranking of useless New Yorkers.)

That afternoon we went to the 9th Ave International food fest. Walked 5 miles, over the course of which we split a spit-roasted pig sandwich, sourdough olive twist, jambalaya, greek egg custard pastry, key lime pie, corn on the cob, cheesecake and copious amounts of sangria. Okay, we didn't split the sangria. Plus we had various bites of other people's food. (People we knew, thank you.)

The best thing about 9th Ave is it's still a neighborhood event--lots of old time Hell's Kitchen residents--it's kinda like a parish picnic. For example: the priest from Holy Cross makes meatball parm sandwiches, lots of neighborhood gossip and issues being discussed. Best overheard was at the Greek pastry place: "SO, one of the old-timers came in to warn us that a Turkish restaurant was going in next door. She asked if we'd be okay. NO! We're gonna shoot each otha! RELAX, they're young people, it'll be fine..."

This inspired a conversation about the kind of licensing required from the Restaurant Board in order to perform an armed takeover of the kitchen next door. If only the Armenian and Azerbijiani places would move down onto that block too. THAT would be a hoot!

Sunday: Thank you notes (I still have a week to finish according to Emily Post.), wholegrain rhubarb pancakes and naps.

Ongoing news: My husband is being stalked by the idiot fans of a morning talk radio show, which shall remain nameless, by order of one of the hosts. Thank God the phone is in my name. This way he just gets an unending stream of emails calling him a "douche-bag". To give you a hint as to which show, they were kicked off the air for a while for paying a couple to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral while mass was being performed. They were caught 'cause they had a sound guy there so they could cut live to the scene.

Not terribly exciting and a bit rambly, but are you happy NOW?!!! ARE YOU ART?