Sunday, December 25, 2011

merry happy and all that


Yeah, that's a weeple on his shoulder. Just chillin'.


My boss lady invited us to a rejects party. We hung out with losers, like us, that stayed in NYC and didn't have any family obligations. We had cinnamon infused whiskey (imagine Big, Red in liquid form-weird), IPA, meatballs and tons of dancing. Wishing the world could all get together and dance to:


Happy Holiday!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

holiday funk

No, this is not about me being in a funk because it is the holidays. It's not about me being in a funk at all. It's just about holiday traditions, I guess.

We have a collection of holiday movies over here. After Ely James' favorite holiday ended, he put away all the beloved horror movies and brought out Thanksgiving/Christmas movies. Each year he seems to pick one that he plays over and over. Last year it was Bad Santa-which is a movie that I have a hard time watching.


There's a lot of fluids in that movie. Gross.

This year the movie is Trading Places. Not a holiday movie really, but there is a dirty Santa in it:


After watching it, he was haunted. By this:


Find out why, here.

Who has been putting out their coals on my floor?!

Only here, do you go from Christmas to disco.

Friday, December 16, 2011

the walks

Ely James is back! Now we can return to our routine. Well, sort of. It's a little different with #2 around.


Our walks are part of our routine. On my days off, we take long ones-all around the hood. In any hood, you notice your neighbor's cars. Because of alternate side parking, here in NY, the cars move around a lot and I like to play a little game in my head. Where will the probe be? I look for the Ford Probe that has a bra. It just makes me giggle. I also look for my favorite graffiti truck.



We went out specifically to take pictures of it after I had seen this:


What is it? Why, it's a scarf:


$180 for a hand printed huge scarf/shawl/dress thing. Kinda love it. Pissed I didn't think of it first. I mean this:


looks cooler to me. But whatever. I must be biased to my own neighborhood graffiti truck. Weird part is, I used to work with the pouting model from this Salvor Projects pictured up above. Small world NYC is. I wonder if the Probe is hers.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

sitting in anticipation

I am waiting...for this little one:


We will call her #2. We are just fostering. Something came over me around Thanksgiving. I think it was because I had these brownie mixes that Ely James would not let me make (because of the hydrogenated oil) and I couldn't find a shelter that would take baked goods. I mean seriously, I'm not out to poison the homeless community. It seems cold and un-holiday like to donate a boxed brownie mix. I needed to do good.

So, I decided I wanted to foster #2. Those eyes. So sad.

The drama it took to get this girl? Ridiculous. Just as they were about to pull her from the shelter for me, the day after Thanksgiving, she gets into a fight with another dog. Not really a good omen but no one knows the circumstances. I'm told that the scum that work at these shelters taunt the dogs all day and tease them about how they are going to die. Awful. Just cruel.

Sweet Baby only needed love. Look at how he turned out!


I'm sure that is all #2 needs. Room? She won't have. This place is tiny enough with three of us in it. What was I thinking? Me and my goodwill!

missing you


The man on the right...you will be missed, Pappaw Charlie.

Ely James went home to Indiana. I wish I could be there with him. Nothing is the same without him. For reals. I almost feel incompetent. I have to make my own coffee. I take Sweet Baby on lonely walks. I sit on the couch and blindly watch crap tv and I don't have him chattering to me from the kitchen.

I've never really understood loss. The closer I get to Ely James the more I can't imagine life without him. Weird.

I cannot even imagine what Mammaw is feeling. My thoughts and heart are in Indiana...


Thursday, December 8, 2011

it's in the bag


I work a 5 day week. It is Tuesday-Saturday and I love it. Having Sunday and Monday off is the best! You get the one day off with the rest of the planet and then you get the other day to do things while everyone else is at work. That makes Monday market day. Or markets, since we have the Flatbush Food Co-Op (which is open to the public-none of that elitist crap that the Park Slope Co-Op deals with) and the Met. I'm into organic and all that but really, I just go for what's cheapest. Ely James, Sweet Baby and I get by on $120 of food a week. 

I consider us to be eco-conscious. We recycle. Even our toilet paper rolls, which most people forget, apparently (the new tubefree rolls are not as great as you think, according to this guy's buddy, but I love how he got his class to see if Scott's did their research correctly). So anyway, when we go to the market we bring the bag of bags. I have a baggu. But I don't love it because the pouch you stuff it into is separate and I'm surprised I have not lost it yet. I also have a couple bags that I got at Gap. They are part of the Red line. When I bought them they were originally about $10 and I got them on sale for 97 cents. I recall at the time thinking, well what good does this do for those inflicted with AIDS? It's a loss. What did that bag cost to make? What % of 97 cents go to this Red program? Distracted! These bags stuff into their own side pocket. Totally awesome but they are boring to look at.



Then I found these:


Just like my GAP bags but pretty! Continue on:



Cute! So Japan.

Then I found an eco solution for those million of little clear produce bags. Usually, we don't even use them. We just chuck everything in the dirty basket, then on the dirty conveyor belt thing to the dirty hands of the grocer, etc. To be honest-I think we always tell ourselves we are going to rinse these things but then we never do! How disgusting, you say?! Well, we're not dead yet. I'm sure if there was some horrible plague we would be the first to go-or not? Have we strengthened our immune system? I wonder. Damnit! Distracted again. Produce bags. Reusable. That are mesh, so you can just throw them in the sink and actually rinse!


Then a solution for the market list. I have heard that there are the people who make their list according to the store's layout and there are those that just throw caution to the wind. Which are we? Well, if I'm showing an eco friendly way to make the darn list, you probably can guess...


...by the store layout. Duh.

**Did I make it without an F word?!**
Kisses!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

apartment karma



I've been living in this apartment for 5 years. The same place. None of this moving every year bullshit that some NYers do. I should have moved out after that first year. This apartment has bad juju.

Six months after moving in, I got robbed. Serious. Through the fire escape. My box of jewelry, with pieces dear to my heart, gone. My camera, gone. My computer, gone. Another six months later, bed bugs. The exterminator dude said they came from the heating vent so, upstairs or downstairs were to blame. I say upstairs cause that dude is the weirdest. He yells out loud sometimes. Randomly. Like just a loud yell that I can hear. Then there are the video games. He plays them all night long and then falls asleep with the opening sequence of the game playing over and over. He paces. Back and forth, for an hour straight sometimes. His apartment is the same size as mine so I don't know how he has that much room to walk around. Then he flooded his bathroom. Twice. Which flooded my bathroom. Then Ely James moved in. That part-not so bad but, there are always drums and cymbals everywhere.

Now we are dealing with some renovations on the 2nd floor. You wouldn't think that would affect the 5th floor but, when there is some kind of chemical combustion in the closet that starts a fire, it does. Ely James saved the whole building after he called 911 and told the responders that this construction was going on. Totally weird walking up to my building after work, finding 4 fire trucks outside and a row of police officers waiting to talk to the super. Illegal workers, perhaps?

Let's move! If only it were that simple. Deposit. Realtor's fee. First month's rent. We're looking at least $5000 to get out of this hell hole we are living in. It's really not that horrible. It's just annoying and I dream of living else where all the time.

This is what it's like around here:

1BR Ditmas Park (actually 1 stop further out then where we are now) $1450
1 BR Kensington (my favorite!!): $1285
1 BR Park Slope (wouldn't even call this Park Slop proper-it's on 14th Street for fuck's sake) $2185
1 BR Clinton Hill (close to Pratt, near nothing else but there is a "privet" backyard) $1749
2 BR Crown Heights (this hood can be kinda sketchy but man, that's a beautiful place) $1999
1 BR Williamsburg (just blocks from my work...) $2750
1 BR Greenpoint (another totally inconvenient but awesome neighborhood if I had moved in 5 years ago) $2500

Or stay where we are, in one room, for $1250 plus headaches from unknown chemicals?

Thursday, December 1, 2011

once again

The sleepy fuck (or fucks actually):





Bwahahahaha!!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

stitching john

One of our favorite possessions:


That's right. A framed photo of Clint Eastwood from The Outlaw Josey Wales!

We also have a poster of Sitting Bull that I got at the Little Bighorn battlefield.


So, there is a little theme going on. That's why when I saw this:


I put it away in my file of things I want to track down. This is what I found:



But I don't like it as much. It is too computer generated. Amazing technical skill, yes. Less heart involved in the making, I think.

How about John made of beads? Ok:


Not bad. A decal for my computer perhaps? Hmm.


Eh. I will continue to keep my eyes open for the perfect John stitched but I would totally settle for this:


Really, all this cross stitch searching found this amazingness:



And the best:


Thursday, November 24, 2011

cool hand bottle

It hardly ever happens that I see something and immediately want to share it. But look at this shit:


It's a bottle opener key that you can get cut to be a real fucking key...that works. Like the key that unlocks the door to your home can now open your fucking beer. No brainer. I'm getting one for Ely James. I think this key thing has surpassed what was my ultimate cool in the bottle opening world:


Happy TurKEY Day!!!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

oh foxy, you're so...

I first saw a train dancer wearing one. He didn't dance with it. He passed it to his friend while he danced and then put it back on when he was done. Then I saw a kid on my block wearing one. Why are these kids wearing these stupid things? It's Kanye's fault. It's always his fault with stupid trends:


What a dope but, his true influence on this story starts here...in 2008:


He looks mid-complaint, right? Like he's bitchin' about something. Really, I'm talking about his tail. Fox tail, that is. Was he such a trend setter that Louis Vuitton followed suit in their SS2010 line?



 

When did the Japanese figure it out? Before right? Like Kanye has some peeps over in Japan that tell him what's up, I'm sure.


Or was his true influence a movie from the 80s?



I don't think he could be that cool. I bet some Japanese kids were going through their library of ridiculously dressed American classic movies and pulled this one out. Saw this scene and started cutting the tails off of foxes and viola! A trend.

I've read a little about the true history of these things. It is said that in the 14th century (think Medieval fair), women's clothing was so tight that they wore fox tails to hide their ass. Or that they were used to attract fleas. Or that they were tagged on people in the same sense as a "kick me" sign. As one woman writes here:

The French humanist Rabelais, in his work La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, writes a character named Panurgi who mocks academics by sneaking upon them and hanging fox tails from their backs.  This insult is effective because the fox tail is clearly associated in the 16th century mind with the fool.

Speaking of fools... here's how some of the kids are wearing these ridiculous ornaments:





But really. What does it say about me, that this trend has been around since the 14th century, and I am just noticing it now. Such a fool! I'm gonna go out and pin a fox tail to my back now. Kisses!