snoozing is for losers

One of my oldest friends, meaning I've known her a long time-she's not old, gave us a sofa. There are several pictures on this blog of this sofa. Well, not of the sofa really. It's always background noise.

It's vinyl. It's turquoise. It's awesome.

There was a lot of drama around the giving of this couch, as there is with anything involving this friend. She offered it to me many years ago when she broke up with her fiance. I never had the time or resources (renting a truck required) to get a damn couch-no matter how cool and free it was.

She then revoked the gift by moving into an apartment with the couch. She needed it. I didn't complain. You snooze, you loose.

After she was evicted from that place, she moved all of her things to her father's garage in Connecticut. The gift was offered again. However, I still lacked the time/resources to now go all the way to Connecticut to pick up a 'free' couch. So, there it stayed. For a couple more years.

When my previous boss lady was closing up shop, she needed to rent a truck and bring the contents of the store to...Connecticut! So, I jumped at the chance to get in on that truck.

My friend had since moved to San Francisco so the arrangements to pick up this gift were all done via text message. She told me her father was in Florida but that would not be a problem because the garage opened by a security code.

What she did not tell me was that her father had changed the code. That they were having an argument. That he didn't want anybody in his house. So, there we were just waiting outside a garage in Connecticut with a rental truck hoping for some resolution other than leaving empty handed. Which is almost what happened if Ely James had not gotten involved. He called my friend and pestered her until she thought of a number her father could have changed the code to and viola! We opened the garage doors to see a vinyl turquoise couch. That was soaking wet. Wah wah.

We brought it home anyway. Aired it out. Left the cushions on the fire escape to bake in the sun. Had a home that smelled of dusty mold for a few weeks. Fun times. Worth it. Totally worth it.

The point of this long story is that #2 came along.

We placed her crate next to the couch. There really is not much room up in this studio. One day while I was at work, Ely James did not latch the bottom of the crate before leaving for a rehearsal. #2 tried real hard to escape that crate but could only get a hold of the couch. Damage was done.

Now what? In our hood there is an upholstery place. We thought about finding out how much it would cost to get it repaired. In the end, we decided we didn't really care. No one comes over. There's no room for company! Then I found out that this exists...

I think it exists mainly so people can make weird things like this:

Also works for this:

Good enough for us! Probably before the life of this couch ends, more of it will be covered in duck tape. Just sayin.'

how things happen

We still have #2.

I think I have mentioned that she does not get along with Sweet Baby. No? Like, for reals. They were fine for a few weeks. They would play fight but they really were trying to find out who the alpha was. Sweet Baby put up with it for awhile but then he said, "f' you, little one."

Blood everywhere. Teeth. Growls. Nightmare in real time. So, we keep them seperate as much as possible. She spends a lot of time in the hallway or in her crate:( I wish it could be another way but never again do I want to witness what we witnessed from these pups.

It was really surprising from Sweet Baby, especially. We have had him for over 3 years and never saw anger at all. I guess we spoiled him though. He was our everything. Our baby. Then this little golden fuzz ball comes along and he has to share the pets? Hell no!

Devil pups. Indeed. It has been over 2 months since the incident. Sweet Baby still looks at us funny when we pay attention to #2 but he just needs to get used to it. Ely James and I have to be super aware when they are in the room together. No big deal.

She is up for adoption, btw. How am I doing at selling her? I don't want her to be perceived as a bad dog. She surely is not. At all. She is just a little pushy and wants to be #1. No one knows what she has been through. She gave birth to puppies and then never saw them again. Can you imagine that? The police found her roaming the streets of NYC and dumped her with the ACC, where she spent a month in the depths of what must be puppy hell.

I would hate to see her go but that's what fostering is all about, right? She needs to find the home where she can shine-on her own. No other furries to contend with. Or kids for that matter.  Why do people with little kids adopt rescue dogs anyway? Regardless of what kind of dog it is, seems risky, if you ask me. Oh, you didn't ask me? You wanna ask how cute she is? Ok.

F' you little one, as Sweet Baby would say, you are too cute.

silent emissions

A post or two back, I promised another story about my crazy mother. I started to write it. I did. It just wasn't very entertaining.

 

 

It went along the lines of this:

Above is my awesome rotary phone from the 70s that my mother gave me. You know, in case I loose power-it will still work. If I had a landline, this would be a great thing to have. This is from the woman who gave me a Y2K survival kit. It had a hand crank radio/flashlight, a camouflage bandanna and a safety orange bandanna. She said, you'll never know if you'll need to blend in and hide or stand out and be found! Amazing.

Her new fear, besides her 4 year old grandson not being able to have children due to unknown emissions to modern technology, is brain cancer. Sort of along the same lines. Cell phones and their silent emissions. My 4 yr old uses a cell phone. Which is actually a little bit her fault. She's the one who doesn't have a computer. So, she can't skype the way my nephew does with everyone else. They talk on the phone. My sister doesn't have a landline either. You betcha she has an old rotary phone and a Y2K survival kit as well.

The next thing I ordered for my mother, to give her grandson, was this:

A pop phone by Native Union. My sister called me once after receiving this gift. She left a message. It was really loud and I actually couldn't understand her at all. Hmm. I was listening from my crappy cell phone though. Maybe if I had one too it would sound better? 

testing the fancy pants fancy phone.

What once was is no longer. I know I will be annoyed with formatting issues but let's see how this will all go down. Say goodbye to the sad old floppy flip fone.

i didn't make a title for this. what?

There have been some changes for me this year. I only work in a retail store about once a week. The rest of the time-I have no idea what it is I do. Technically, I am the boss lady's assistant. Not assistant to design. I don't do that. Assistant to what?

I order supplies. Like ink for our printers. I order other things when we're out. I had to take a deep breath when I put in a reorder for some shoes. It was almost $4000! I wrote up an order for next fall gloves and shit for over $30,000!! Geez. I know that's small potatoes or whatever compared to the big boys out in the retail world. Imagine the order Best Buy makes from Apple. Must be insane.

What else do I do? Deal with vendors for returns. This one lady, Mary, is remotely working down in Florida and has failed to get the order right over three times. Must be a hard life, Mary. Now she is not responding to me at all. Grr. You shall feel the wrath of Adarae, Mary, you shall.

Um, I write checks. It is just all so weird. I'm used to seeing results to my efforts. I'm used to knowing how to keep myself busy. When I'm behind a desk with nothing to do-it's fucking boring.

The one perk so far, getting a style of bag I have wanted for a long time-at cost!

The inspiration of said bag:

That's right. A leather bodega bag. But for over $200? No thank you. I'll just continue to use the plastic ones to pick up my dog's poop.

From the company that makes the most light weight amazing wedge on the planet comes this bag:

The most light weight amazing wedge on the planet is so affordable at $100. This is $500?? I guess it must be real croc.

But the bag I ended up getting at cost:

A leather Baggu bag! Did you know that their headquarters were right in Williamsburg? On Wythe Avenue? Neither did I until I put in this order. Crazy town. No seriously. Williamsburg is full of crazies. That wonder the streets without any awareness of anything around them. But that's a whole other story. Kinda like the Halloween or Williamsburg tumblr. Just crazy.

i've never lost a tooth opening a beer bottle

We had wine glasses, at some point. We had bought them at a Goodwill in fancy town Connecticut for $2. Real crystal. Those yuppies give away the coolest stuff. Of course, we broke them.

So, today I have been looking for wine glasses. Not that I am going to buy them! I can just go back to fancy town and find some cheapies. I'm just killing time really. Looking for some fun stuff. Like this:

Now we just have a hodge podge of glasses at Chez Adarae. We will drink out of anything. I remember when we broke our french press, we ended up pouring water into a ball jar and filtering out the grinds with panty hose. Worked pretty good, actually. Had to give in a buy a replacement glass for the press because we ran out of panty hose! Speaking of ball jars. Look at these:

I must be some redneck because I think these are amazing!

children reproducing?

My mother is crazy. For reals. Just a heads up for this story.

So, my nephew just had his 4th birthday. My mother called me a couple weeks before and wanted me to order his present. She has no computer. No internet. No tv. Well, she has a tv-that she watches movies on from her collection of over 500. Anyway...she wanted me to order this:

What the heck does a 4 year old need with an ipad station, mom? "Because he hasn't had children yet!" she exclaimed. WTF?! Think about it for a second and I will distract you with a couple cute pictures of said nephew:

Why don't I like any pictures of him looking happy?! I don't know. He just looks cuter this way. To me.

Back to my mom and her being concerned with my 4 year old nephew not having children yet. Of course, there is a perfectly logical explanation. He uses an ipad. For angry birds or whatever. He holds it on his lap. Where his reproductive stuff is. Right? Duh. Who knows what all these new gadgets are emitting? So now, he has a bamboo station for his ipad-so that he may procreate. Eventually. Hopefully.

We should all start thinking about these things. Just sayin'.

Up next will be a story about mom's concern for brain cancer...

a top post

It's weird to me what key words from a post someone will "google" and then stumble upon my rants. Isabel Marant. Is one. Those sneakers. Those totally amazing sneakers that I have wanted for almost a year. I wrote about them in October.

The above are on ebay as of this morning, $540 with 2 days left...hmm.

Dakota Fanning came into my store wearing them. Actually, the only reason I looked up at her face was because I was thinking to myself, "What ballin' bitch is, in my store right now, wearing my dream shoes?!" Oh. Dakota Fanning. Of course.

While perusing my Elle magazine, I saw these:

A $95 alternative? Upon further research, I then found these knockoffs:

Also $95 (update: now $89?!) but damn it...they are only made up to size 8!!! Well, here you go small feet people who have been coveting these as much as me. Lucky ducks.

yeah

I have been very uninspired recently. Poo. It will come back. I promise. In the meantime, #2:

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!

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.

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.