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?

Natural foods, you are mein enemy!

We found this great cereal at Trader Joe’s. Soy and flax flakes with soy nut and flax seed clusters. Sweet, whole-grainy and delicious. Only problem: have you ever seen a flax seed?

They actually are shaped in the sleek but evil-looking manner of any number of African river parasites that are able to swim up one’s urine stream, puncture their way through the kidney walls into the blood stream and then infest whichever organ they prefer. It should go without saying that flax seeds are NOT currently pooling in my retinas, laying eggs, but I wouldn't put it past them. What they have done, is worked their insidious deviltry on the gums on the left side of my mouth. Two seeds, one up top, one on the bottom; both were wedged in for two days--poking their evil spines into my tender sub-gum tissues. Thankfully, yesterday, after much probing and salt-water gargling I got the damn things out, leaving my mouth very sore but on the mend.

This morning, I decided to be smart and got oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal topped with almonds and hazelnuts. Yup. They may not be pointy, but it’s still not terribly bright to chew hard things when one has giant oral hematomas.

Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, but the REAL sign...

You know it's spring when the mentally ill homeless guy crushing Entemann's donuts in his fist before tossing the crumbs to the wind says "Morning, Bitch." in the sweetest, friendliest tone.

Marriage and Honeymoons...

Well folks, as of last Friday, we're officially married. Yup, that's when NYC registered our license--just short of five months after the wedding. Woo hoo! And since we're thinking of such things, I've started to plan our theoretical honeymoon. Tell me what you (especially those of you with more Euro-travel experience) think.

Fly in to Paris, spend 3-4 days acclimating to walking more slowly. I've learned from past experience that NYC boy doesn't make the transition easily.

Take the train to Marseilles, spend a day checking out the old port with perhaps a trip to Chateau d'If before taking the ferry to Corsica.

Wander Corsica for a few days before taking the ferry to Italy.

Rent a car, spend 5-6 days touring about...possibly Sienna, Florence, the Amalfi Coast...

October/November would be the time frame...not only our anniversary, but hoping for a little medieval All Saint's Day action.

He's agreed in theory, now, if only I can get Greg to go along with it in reality!

Mmmmm....chocolate....

Saturday night after a sensible vegetarian stir-fry dinner, we had the desire for cake. Greg was going to go to the store for an Entemanns, but I thought of the new chocolate bar at ABC Carpet and Home.

We went there instead, it was candlelit, filled with beautiful Parisian chocolates, an underlit bar, mellow music, laughter filtering in from the two restaurants on either side...fantastic ambience. We sat at the bar and ordered a 6-piece sample plate to share and two glasses of port.

Our waitress went to get the chocolates and the manager went to get our port--he couldn't find what we ordered, so he upgraded us to the more expensive variety at the same price. Very nice. We sipped, nibbled and chatted for about an hour.

As we were finishing our drinks, a conversation from behind the bar broke out among the staff about an extra chocolate tray that had been put out for the hour long sampling (someone hadn't shown for the reservation and they couldn't put the chocolate back). The manager shrugged and presented the 10-piece tray to us with his compliments. We actually couldn't handle consuming that much more chocolate, so we had a couple, gave some to the girls sitting next to us, stashed some squares for home and left a couple more.

As we were working on that, the bar manager placed tumblers in front of us--"we're testing this cocktail for the menu, could you give us your feedback?" Hazelnut and walnut liquors with brandy and chocolate to cut the sweetness, frothed and shaken with ice so it wasn't thick--fantastic.

We stumbled out after 11, buzzing from the chocolate and mellow from the booze. It would have been good with what we'd actually intended to order. With all the extras, it was most excellent! When you take "your trip to New York", I'd highly recommend it.

Party Maven

After a four-year hiatus from the party throwing scene, we're back.

Now, you may be thinking, "How is it that you throw no parties when you have a roof deck with grill in Manhattan?" The answer to that is the May 2002 housewarming party we had that ended up with crossed wires and a guest who invited everyone she knew--end of the night, we had 40 drunken people in our apartment and knew three of them. It was not good. Since then, we've had the occasional couple for dinner, but nothing beyond that.

Saturday night, we returned to the scene with a small (dozen or so) group of people from Greg's show and their significant others. I must say it was a success. The time was set for 6. We were ready by 4 so there was even time to get a little lie-down in. People started arriving at 6:30 and with the exception of a couple of people who had to work until 8, everyone was there by 7. My bi-polar American BBQ/Mediteranean Grill menu was a huge success. Everyone found at least something in the appetizers they liked and there was dead silence in the room when the chicken and lamb came off the grill as they wolfed it down. The Englishman in the house dubiously eyed the mango salsa, but once it was in his mouth, he looked as if he'd found religion. The entire tray of brownies was wiped out as was the lemon sorbet which went equally well with vodka AND prosecco.

It was so cold that we were forced to stay inside instead of having the appetizers outside as I'd schemed before sundown, but 12 people fit comfortably in the living room. It was suitably relaxed for us and it also helped that most of our guests were ridiculously grateful for a home-cooked meal. All in all, it made me believe we can do a larger party without outright destruction. Wooo hoo!

Home Invasion

Friday night, 'bout 11:30, I'm sitting home alone playing solitaire on the computer. (Greg's still at work.) All of a sudden, I hear a shuffling noise upstairs. The terrace door is open 'cause it's a beautiful night and now someone is in the bedroom. I reached over and unlocked and opened the front door. Then got up and slowly stuck my head around the bottom of the staircase. I can see a dark shape at the top of the stairs, as I lean farther around it becomes clearer and I realize that its tail is wagging.

There's a 50 lb black lab I've never seen before, tongue lolling, tail wagging, ears flopping, standing in my bedroom. Huge sigh of relief.

I closed the front door and then went up to remove him. Just as I got him outside, a streak of reddish brown goes for the bedroom--this dog I know. It's Kada from down the hall. Just as I grab both of them, my neighbor comes around from the other side of the roof. Cowboy boots on and glass of scotch in hand. "Sorry, that's my dad's dog. I'm havin' a drink with my dad." Given the redness of his cheeks, I do believe they were havin' more than one. I laugh, no problem, and go back in.

That's when the adrenaline rush near hyperventilation commences.

I have a new boyfriend...

and his name is Genghis Khan. I'm reading Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. It's FANTASTIC!

Sure he was ruthless, but he was fair. No nepotism, religious freedom, monarchs subject to the rule of law just as their subjects were, total meritocracy, free trade, diplomatic immunity, people who performed civic/public services (doctors, teachers, scholars, lawyers, religious leaders) didn't have to pay taxes.

Of course, in the course of his conquests, if you didn't accept him, he had no qualms about boiling you alive. But everyone has their quirks.

Just 'cause I'm 35, straight and a number-cruncher doesn't make me dull...

In the course of last night's dinner conversation, because of one of the plays we'd just seen, the topic of canabalism came up. I started laughing 'cause of course, I have ingested human flesh.

Greg looked at me in shock, as did the artsy theater kids at the table. I had to qualify and admit that it was more like "remains" than "flesh". Seeing that Greg was confused, I reminded him of the unfortunate powdery mushroom cloud of his mother's ashes, which both his brother-in-law and I inhaled when transfering the ashes into the little momento jars for him and his siblings. Hilarity ensued as I gave the blow-by-blow of the incident.

We then progressed to my dad's funeral, at which my throat became very dry from all of the condoling. Thus, having asked my mom if it were okay, I approached the casket and removed a hard candy from the pocket of my dad's jacket and the ensuing shock on the face of the honor guard fireman who saw me reach into the coffin, pull something out and pop it in my mouth.

Greg then pointed out that I'd done two of the most taboo things in our society--ingesting human remains and robbing the dead.

I retorted that 1) the former was unintentional and more of her ended up in my sinuses than my stomach, and 2) the man carried the candy just in case someone had a dry throat. No crimes there.

Klassy with a "K"

So Greg was in a One-Act Festival in the last few weeks. They didn't make it past the semi-finals, but last Friday we discovered that he'd been nominated for best actor out of the 50 plays shown. Thus, last night we had to attend the black tie awards ceremony...

The epitome of self-promotion presented with the seriousness of the Oscars and the class of a high school drama club. All the "i"s have been replaced with asterisks so this doesn't come back to haunt anyone.

Van D*rk F*sher's R*ant Theater presents a Van D*rk F*sher Production of Van D*rk F*sher's Strawberrry Fest*val Awards Show written, directed and hosted by Van D*rk F*sher with musical interludes written and performed by Van D*rk F*sher. No, that is not an exaggeration.

He also had a completely out-of-place musical interlude performed by a gospel singer with the worst voice of all time as well as another by a woman with a beautiful voice (performing one of his works, of course) but perhaps the worst spoken word actress of all time.

The extravaganza included performances of the 4 top vote-getting plays. Three of which were pretty good. One was absolutely brilliant. Neither Greg nor Monica, their director won their categories.

Oh, the best part. We were all given goodie bags. These contained 2 strawberry hard candies, 1 small heart shaped box of drugstore chocolates (yes, on sale after valentine's day) and last, but certainly not least, 1 bottle of strawberry margarita flavored wine cooler. Now that's class!

Medicine

First thing this morning, my boss asked if I were getting enough sleep 'cause I looked awful. Well I was feeling a bit run down as well, right up until I discovered the cure at one of the expensive food places around my office:

Rice Krispy treats with Froot Loops.

I feel fantastic! And so much energy!

Additional Stuff and Nonsense Pertaining

Yesterday after work I went for a reflexology massage 'cause I've been just not right and I've discovered it's a good non-invasive, drug-free way to "balance my humors".

Now, you may not believe that it could ever possibly work, but I've always been foot-centric, and not in a fetish sort of way. (Ask Art, I've always cricketed my feet together to relax.) So the first time I went, I thought, "worst case, I get a one hour foot rub". Little did I know what it would be like. In some areas, it is just a foot rub, in others, namely those that correspond to other parts of ones body that are having problems--it's really freakin' painful. I've had varying results depending on what kind of a "state" I've been in--physical or emotional.

Last night, I came out with 20 times the energy I had when I went in. I walked the 2 miles home in roughly 25 minutes. Got upstairs and promptly voided my entire system. Felt like crap all night. Still have huge amounts of energy though and my lower back no longer feels like it's on the verge of being injured.

To go along with the intense urge to purge, our first grocery delivery in 2 months arrived. As far as I'm concerned, you just can't ask someone to carry boxes of canned goods up 7 flights of stairs--it's just not right. Thus, I went a little overboard when I restocked the pantry. For the next week, we'll be designing menus based on bulk. Most of the stocking was canned goods. But I also got the 10 lb. industrial pack of chicken thighs (normally, we prefer breasts, but these are great for grillin' and incredibly cheap) . Imagine if you will, repackaging raw poultry into smaller bags when you're completely sick to your stomach.

It was an interesting night.

JUBILATION!!!!

I got home at 10:45 on Wednesday night to discover a wonder, a miracle, a JOY!


THE ELEVATOR WAS IN SERVICE!!!!

By the time I got into the apartment, I found myself singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning". Listening to others as they alighted, my response was not at all unusual. There were several other songs and much giddy glee.

Goodbye forced 7th floor walk up! Hello, grocery deliveries!!!!

Relationships

So, it was quite the couples weekend...We're all quite happy for Art here at Weenies and Idiots. Yay! For once Happiness for the Artful Scheme! Plus, oh my God! think of all the free massages!

However, we advise him to be cautious when entering any relationship. Why you ask? 'Cause it's been one fucked up relationship weekend:

We begin with Greg's brother--his girlfriend dumped him, but that's okay 'cause she's taken to throwing stuff at him (books, glass paperweights, etc.,) and given her particularly fine aim, it was becoming difficult to not defend himself --given his very strong anti-girl hitting feelings, the situation was untenable.

But really, the winner of the psycho-award goes to a former roommate and her husband who are in the process of splitting.

Friday, he started emailing me with a psychiatric diagnosis of his wife (my friend) 's behavior. (Evidently he came up with it himself, as well as the probably far-fetched causes for it.) I told him that his theory was far from an actual diagnosis by a professional and he should really stop sharing his ideas with all and sundry. Fine. He apologized. In the meantime, the wife called to see if I wanted to get together over the weekend. Great, tentative plans made.

Saturday at noon, about an hour before we were going to hook up, she called to say she was in Dallas visiting her family, 'cause he was too bizarre to be in the same apartment. No problem.

Two hours later, she called again, could we pick up the dogs in Hoboken and take them to a doggie spa in Chelsea? Evidently her husband's committed himself to an AA facility and "the two men who brought him home to pick up some stuff left the keys with a neighbor". A neighbor that she doesn't have contact information for--she's left a message with a second party, asking them to leave a note with the first neighbor to call her. Once that's taken care of, she can make the boarding arrangements.

In the end, at 5:15, she calls to say that everything was set: only problem, the neighbor with the keys is available only after 6. The doggie spa only accepts drop offs until 8. We need to travel, in a huge thunderstorm, to and from a different state, with animals, in less than 3 hours.

We got to their building at 6:30, luckily the storm has subsided. The neighbor let us in. Played with the dogs for a while, gathered their stuff, called the car service she normally uses. They have a new policy, they don't take dogs anymore. The clock's ticking. It's now almost 7--we have an hour to get to Manhattan. We find another car service--the very large driver is VERY concerned about the dogs scratching his leather seats and has Serpico playing on the backseat DVD: this is more than a little disturbing.

Ride into the City, the dogs are fine, no damage to the car. We get the dogs checked in, and go outside. The storm has kicked up again; it's a nor'easter. Greg's umbrella is bent in half and there's horizontal hail. Through sheer force of will, we make our way walking bent over double most of the time, to a Mexican restaurant on the Lower East Side. As we sit, finally warm again, with a pitcher of sangria between us, discussing the insanity of his brother's situation and the one we've just played such a role in I lift my glass toasting him with the inevitable conclusion:

"If you didn't look good before, you're looking absolutely FANTASTIC by comparison!"
"Here, here, Baby! Here, here!"

There's lots of loons out there...be careful.

It's true.

I had a migraine last week that morphed into a sinus infection--generally just an issue of being run down and susceptible to everything. But then, a realization struck. I have the Black Death. That's right, the Bubonic Plague.

How exactly did I come to that conclusion you ask? It might have something to do with the giant bubo on the left side of my neck. It's really quite vile. Greg thinks its just a Vesuvian zit, but I think we all know better. I've also had signs of acral necrosis of the toes, but "Mr. Naysayer" claims that's just because I wore new black leather shoes in the rain.

Fairwell my friends, farewell. I guess I'm going the way of 25 million medieval peasants and innumerable southwestern ground squirrels.

Wow

Never before has our freakishly high rent ever seemed so worthwhile...

Most of the people we work with are spending 2-3 hours walking into work, over BRIDGES, when the temp is below freezing. Greg and I are keeping our heads down when anyone talks about the commute.

I'm totally conditioned...

I see black and white footage of battleships burning and I immediately think:

"There should be cake!"

Sigh...

He's broken.

That's right. Married for less than 2 weeks and my husband's already broken. He reached sideways for a t-shirt on Monday morning and herniated a disk. It's a mild herniation according to the doctor, but a herniation nonetheless.

No surgery in the offing, just physical therapy, but at the moment, he has more freakin' prescriptions than an addict. It's unbelievable. Two types of steroids, two muscle relaxants (one for day, one for night) and oxycotin (a.k.a., hillbilly heroin, of course, it's really only called that when you chop it into powder and snort it--NOT on his agenda).

Luckily, his work is being fairly cool. They sent him home early yesterday with orders to not come back until he'd seen a doctor. When he called to say he'd probably be back in on Monday, his direct boss told him just to let her know--'cause you can't mess with the back.

So, my second weekend as a married woman will be spent with a man hopped up on muscle relaxants and thus, most likely snoring and drooling a lot.

On a happier note...

We got married a week ago today at 3:05 PM. That's the pronouncin' time. Just like when you die, they pronounce a time of marriage...