Wednesday, July 29, 2009

these are a few of our favorite things.


awesome.

my vote is totally for the gooey decimal system.






Sunday, July 26, 2009

dispatches from the beach - belated edition.

we had mentioned awhile back - before the great disappearance of '09 - that we were going on our annual summer shore trip to long beach island. well we did, and as always we had a great time. this year was filled with standard lbi fun - boozing on the beach all day, grilling up a storm at night - and some nice surprises - like discovering a ridiculously good sushi place on an island full of fried fish shacks and ice cream stands - but oddly enough our most interesting tale from the trip is one of horror.

*****
our very first day in the house that we rented started off rather frantically - as first days often go - as 14 of us showed up at the house around noon, eager to get our vacation on. mass unpacking ensued, and as it was our most crowded night, and we were having a big first night 4th of july bbq, you can imagine how much we were all tripping over each other getting the kitchen set up/bedrooms assigned/luggage stowed away etc.

what you might not imagine is that during this the kids from the neighboring house were all over our property. brief back story: the home we were renting for the week and the house next door to it were owned by joint families - the family in the house next door had apparently been staying in our house the week before (that didn't make much sense at the time, and still doesn't now), and so for the first hour or two that we were there unpacking, some of the neighbors were still removing their belongings from our yard. they were friendly enough, and were trading beers with us, so at first we didn't care about their kids all too much.

however, by the time we were starting up our bbq festivities that evening, we started noticing the two kids still randomly around - in our backyard bushes looking for their toys, attacking one of our trees with a butterfly net, even standing on our front porch telling us the key code to unlock the front door. finding them slightly annoying, and the latter incident more than slightly disturbing, we decided that if they kept hanging around we'd go complain. but thankfully they disappeared, and the next few hours were spent playing lawn games, watching fireworks, and toasting to our nation's independence.

fast forward to bedtime, much later that night - five of us are having a slumber party in the living room, sprawled out amongst an air mattress and three couches. after chatting for a bit, we all quiet down and start passing out. suddenly, from across the room one of my friends hisses, "there's someone at our front door!" being on the couch perpendicular to and closest to the door, i open my eyes to see a shadow looming on the wall. a rather short shadow, but a human shape nonetheless.

as my friend continued to more loudly and urgently whisper to the rest of us that there is indeed a child at the front door, images of the children of the corn run through my mind. we then hear the screen door open and the front door starts rattling, and the three of us females in the room are now yelping in fright. just as the front door is about to be pushed in, the two guys in the room bound over to it and yank it open, revealing one of the little monsters from earlier in the day.

after asking what the hell he was doing trying to enter our house in the middle of the night, we were informed that he had left his stuffed animals in the attic room, and could he go get them?
the rascal received a resounding NO and a brief lecture about how adults go to sleep at night and you can't just barge into their house to sneak into their rooms and retrieve your toys. the little imp continued to whine about his toys, but the guys firmly told him to come back in the morning, ring the bell like a normal, mannered person would, and he could look for them then.

the next day stuffed animals were found in the attic, and so we returned them and tattled on the little brat. suffice to say we didn't see him on our property for the rest of the trip.



Thursday, July 23, 2009

dispatches from the park - belated edition.

during the month of june i did quite a bit of shakespeare production-watching in parks. by 'quite a bit' i mean two separate performances, but really, how much shakespeare does one watch nowadays anyway? especially within a 10-day period.

first up was a local effort - a community college production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo + Juliet (double whammy) at our neighborhood beer garden. enjoying some beer and sausages while watching people in homemade fairy costumes flit about the trees around t
he garden was perhaps one of the most surrealistically entertaining things i've done in awhile.

we upgraded a bit for the next show, which was the city's 'official' shakespearean show of the season, Central Park's production, which this year was Twelfth Night. which was awesome, especially when night
had just fallen, and a giant raccoon lumbered across the stage in the shadows. we love raccoons! (at safe distances)

for those of you not familiar with the pr
ocedure, there's a bit of an ado (teehee) about the whole SITP production every year since there are usually a few big names in the cast, the show only runs for a few weeks, and tickets are free. so basically it's like seeing a fancy limited-run broadway show for nothing. although, as i was reminded that day, nothing is ever truly free. instead of spending cash, one spends their time on a line in the park, waiting patiently and hopefully that they are close enough to the front of the line to snag a ticket. about 800 tickets are given out, but usually, especially for weekend productions, thousands of folks queue up. they will get there when the park opens at 5am and wait all day long. craziness.

i was one of those folks this year. being i ha
d a bit of extra time on my hands this year, i told missy that part of her bday present would be seeing twelfth night, since we've always wanted to go see a SITP production, and our one other attempt a few summers back had us about 200 people beyond where they stopped handing out tickets. this time, we took it much more seriously, and so off i went, that wednesday morning, in the rain, at 8am, to hang out in line for 5 hours until they started giving out tickets at 1pm.

it wasn't as bad as it could have been - i
parked myself on a blanket under a nice leafy tree, had some snacks, and completed a depressingly interesting book about heroin addiction. it was rather peaceful. at first.

my tree.


the puddle babbling brook next to my camp.

but the tranquility was short lived. moreso than the ants and the gnats that had taken a liking to me and my blanket, the human interruptions throughout my wait were the most interesting/annoying. it started off with the man on the bike peddling his diverse wares up and down the line: starbucks coffee, sandwiches, magazines, hats, menus from local delis and renting lawn chairs. ingenious! if i actually rode a bike i'd probably do that for a living as i'm sure that man makes more a day than i ever have. he was the most popular person in that section of the park, with line-goers around me calling him over every time he appeared near our section of the queue. i even contemplated renting a chair from him so i could switch off from blanket to chair, but then my bedbug worries got the best of me. i'd take my chances with the ants.

next to roll down the path was our 'guide' for the day, dan, a theater worker who strolled around making announcements, answering questions, and constantly reciting the SITP 'rules' of ticket-getting. to not sound too much like a drill sergeant barking orders at us, he also make lame jokes. emphasis on the 'lame' part. after dan appeared the "can i ask you a question" folks swooped in, wielding clipboards and pens and desperately wanting our signatures for whatever stupid issue they were attempting to get on a ballot. i usually run in the opposite direction from those guys, but here i was a sitting duck. blessfully, the stupid tourists on the blanket next to me chatted him up for 20 minutes so i had time to put my headphones on, roll over and pretend to take a nap.

finally, towards the last hour of my wait i started hearing some distant melodic sounds wafting through the park. how nice, i thought, the theater blasts shakespeare-appropriate instrumental tunes to get us in the spirit for the show this evening. as the music progressively became louder, and i realized i was listening to something from Cats, i looked up the path and spotted this guy:


i wasn't surprised to see the flute, but i was to see an entire music stand, although at this point i still assumed he was part of the theater's 'waiting in line entertainment'. but no, as he moved closer to my patch of parkland, mr. flutist did his spiel about it being a recession and he appreciated any donations. while my heart does go out to others affected by the economic downturn and i did marvel then at the fact that he lugged that stupid music stand through the park, he launched into the 'battle hymn of the republic' and i decided he was a pest. first show tunes and now historical american songs? i'm waiting in line to see shakespeare and you, sir, have a flute....play some lilting Elizabethan stuff!


Wednesday, July 22, 2009

gummy breakfasts, and other revolting stories.

i'm not sure if toddlers usually submit recipes to recipe sites - if so, i'd like to believe that one is responsible for this one:

ick.

quite possibly the grossest thing i've read on the internets in awhile.

*******

so it HAS been awhile. even longer than my typical whiles. beyond my inexplicable inability to post these past few months, we've also been psychotically preoccupied of late after coming home from our vacation. why? well, i'm finally ready for the big reveal....

....

missy and i are moving. apart! so loveandcyanide will be living separately for the first time in its little existence. please, dear readers, don't fret that things will get even slower around here, since well, they can't, and also we all know that missy has only been here in spirit for some time now so this isn't changing too much. of course she's taking my furry little webmaster with her, so perhaps i'll have to cut back on the photo postings.

but i'm happy to report the 'big split' is going fine thus far, although we haven't gotten very deep into the difficult part yet -- divvying up the books and shoes. we share most things, but those two realms are where there is the most overlap. and although we have enough of both books and shoes to enrich/clothe an entire small nation, you know us well enough by now to know that we will still be fighting tooth and nail for some of the same ones. we used to so love playing 'library' when we were children, that i'm hoping we can institute a lending system for all our shared belongings now. i will go so far as to stamp items with a due date.

*******

so where am i going, you ask? well, due to all the unfortunate circumstances of the past year i am taking a temporary sojourn from paying rent and taking refuge at my parents' for a short while as i continue to try to get my act together. while you gasp in horror i'll admit that while i'm not 1000% thrilled with this, i am kinda proud of myself for attempting to be prudent (for once). also on the plus side is that i'm gaining a car, a pool, two drivers, a cleaning lady, a cook, in-house laundry facilities and a constantly stocked refrigerator. when i put it that way - and ignore absolutely everything else - it sounds downright peachy.






Thursday, July 02, 2009

summerizing.

as i am certain i've mentioned around here before, i tend to find myself on year(s) long hunts for particular items - nude lipsticks, alarm clocks. in the past two weeks i've managed to successfully put an end to not one but TWO seemingly endless searches of mine - i found the perfect gray bag, something i have been on the lookout for for about three years, and my dream ring tone - the 'breakfast theme' from pee-wee's big adventure. (it makes for an awesome, if not slightly jarring, alarm ring as well. but feeling like pee-wee every morning compensates for that)

it may have rained just about every day last month, but this will go on record as a phenomenal june for those two reasons alone.

******

but, erm, june has passed. goodness, time flies! and so it's july, early july, which means we're heading away for our annual week down the shore for some much needed R&R. i haven't been on more than an overnight trip since october - despicable! - and am therefore beyond thrilled to escape life town for a bit. a week of nothing more than the sun, bbq, and giant crab legs should do me some good.