baggage.

i am on reprieve, lacking my joie de vivre.

those are my favorite lyrics from one of my favorite songs - the legionnaire's lament - by the decemberists. considering my love of the sea and their penchant for seafaring stories in their tunes, its saying a lot that these lyrics are above the rest. in any event, they are also the only explanation we have for abandoning our dear little loveandcyanide the past two weeks. i don't know where my joie de vivre went, but it was most certainly not sitting atop my shoulder as it usually is.

but we're bringing ourselves back to form. there's been a lot going on in our absence - trips to wild islands, close encounters with deer, tomfoolery, job hunting, dinner partying, embarking on the journey of watching every episode of 90210 that ever existed - but we're just going to focus on two little stories involving our train platform.

every so often, but quite frequently during the past two weeks, there appears a homeless man (i think. he looks and smells homeless, but i probably shouldn't judge the book by its cover.) on our subway platform. which isn't so much of an oddity, i know - what is is the fact that about 5 feet away from where he sits on the bench he has lined up about 25 small plastic grocery bags. this gaggle of bags always appears whenever he is around, so i assume they contain his belongings, and i have to wonder - how exactly does he get all these bags up on the platform, and even more importantly, how will he get them all on the train before the doors close? do people help him? and how long does it take him to drag them all up the steps? why doesn't he consolidate the small bags into larger bags so he has less to carry? really, i have become so fixated with this man and his mysterious pile of bags that i won't be surprised to find myself next to him on the bench, waiting patiently for a train to arrive so i can watch him in action.

oh, and help. of course!

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and while i wasn't toting 20-something bags with me when i went away two weekends ago for labor day, i was in fact carrying about 100 lbs between my ginormous duffle bag and three smaller bags (note to dear readers: when traveling to a destination where cars are not allowed, use a bag with wheels!! we learned the hard way.). as i swung the duffle around and attempted to propel myself up the subway steps by the sheer force of my over packing, i spotted a con edison maintenance worker sauntering my way. ever the optimist, i assumed that this nice man was coming to help a damsel in distress (even though as we all know the cynicist in me would've never allowed him to touch my bags, lest he went running down 31st street with my hair dryer and bathing suits and i'd later find them for sale at the salvation army). and so he approached, and as i struggled towards the stairs i waited to hear a kindly "can i help you?" instead the interaction went like this:

con ed worker: hey! you have really beautiful feet.
chrissy: what?!
con ed worker: your toes - that color...
chrissy: seriously?! you're coming over here to comment on my feet!
con ed worker: no, really! that color is really sexy. *whistles*

as i huffed and puffed my way up the remainder of the steps, i had to laugh at how ridiculous the whole scene was -- although now in retrospect i wonder if he was actually coming to help me and just got distracted by my shiny purple toenail polish. hmmph.

waffcycles!

since we consider it our most solemn duty to report on all things waffle-related, we suggest you watch this.

if there was anything to ever get us cycling again, this would probably be it.

we tried.

friends and acquaintances, as well as most of the pop culture-y literature that we read, have been raving to us about the office for awhile now. and i'll admit it - in the beginning we were just boycotting on account of the fact that we felt nothing could ever, ever, top the original series, so we wouldn't bother watching the shiny new american version. and we didn't. but then we were told we were being stubborn, so to prove how not stubborn we are, we gave it a shot, and it didn't hold our interest, and we went back to not giving a hoot about the show.

so today a few coworkers were going on and on about it, and realizing that i did in fact respect their taste in television, thought i'd give it another try. and we did. and yes, well, this evening we realized that loveandcyanide is just not a fan of the office, no matter how hard you try to make us think that we will be a fan of it, michael scott and co. really just don't do it for us.

----------------------

speaking of things we're disliking - what is the deal with toy companies reissuing and then RUINING classic toys from our childhood. first it was the bastardization of the carebears and my little ponies....now they've managed to sluttify strawberry shortcake?! what the hell.

missed my calling.

the pisces effect.

and all these years i sat around thinking the only thing i could ever win the gold in was daydreaming! i knew my sign had to be good for something, and that missy didn't nickname me 'fishtina' for naught. where are my goggles?

the good, the bad, and the ugly: disastrous late-august edition.

the good: be kind, rewind.

we've been wanting to see this movie since we saw previews for it months and months and months ago. we slacked on seeing it in the theater, and then slacked on putting it on our netflix, and so here we are finally seeing a movie we were super-excited about almost a year ago. well, it was totally worth the wait - it was the most heartwarming movie we've seen in awhile. we've already added it to our '08 xmas list as we're complete suckers for films where the whole town bands together and accomplishes something magical.


the bad: tongue burns.

i'm sure its happened to us all - we eat something a bit too hot and wind up scorching our poor tongue. i scalded the poor little muscle SO viciously earlier this week that i still, three days later, am feeling the burn and not tasting anything properly due to fried taste buds. the irony of it all is that i burned it on soup that i was having to soothe a sore throat. oops. my mouth totally hates me right now.


the ugly: scent of a microwave.

have you sniffed yours recently? after a salmon feast in our apartment last night, i went on a rampage trying to eradicate the odor from the kitchen. having worked myself into a bit of a cleaning frenzy, i took a whiff of the microwave to make sure it too didn't smell like the inside of Bear's tummy. and oh, it was much, much, worse: salmon mingled with popcorn!

holy cow. we have a new worst nightmare, and its being suffocated to death by salmon-popcorn perfume.

super secret recipes

okay, has there been a julia child as a spy rumor going around for a while that we just did not know about?

i swear this news just came out of nowhere for me. i'm not sure if everyone else in the world was surprised as well, or perhaps i've been living under some sort of rock.

also, the CIA is releasing the identity of 24,000 spies today (23,999 not counting julia). really? 24,000?? how is it possible i, or at the very least, bear was not invited? also, second point- isn't that dangerous? or do they not care if the elderly ex-spies are assassinated?

anyway, i'm hoping this can clear up the chuck barris myth for me as i have been obsessing over his CIA claims ever since watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

someday we'll find it.

i haven't seen a rainbow in ages, but after a sun shower yesterday evening there was a pretty awesome one waiting for me when i got home from work. this was the view from our balcony.

i had 'the rainbow connection' stuck in my head for the remainder of the night (not like it takes very much to get muppet songs in our heads).

slight progress.

i can't really explain why we've been such slackers recently. although that new format (well, now partial new format - we realize, surprisingly, you kind of like us better when we ramble) energized us for a brief 48-hour span (no surprises there though), we quickly lost our steam. we do apologize - i'm blaming a lot of things on late-summer laziness lately, so add this to the list. i wonder how many years one has to be out of school before they stop feeling the summer vacation/fall motivation cycle?

anyways, for you, our five wonderful loyal readers who stick by even when we slack, we are going to try to be more consistent again. we promise.

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so our across-the-hall neighbors, the only folks we share a floor with, had a baby last week. missy and i are shocked and appalled. why didn't they inform us of this life-changing event?! we had to learn of this new development via a bunch of pink balloons on their door. there should be some sort of law that a couple needs to inform their neighbors when they are about to completely ruin the Melrose Place-ish young-professional vibe of their building.

and how are we going to continue to throw our world-class parties with this easily disturbed little being lurking around? we're going to have to send our guests home at 7pm. and now forget about my photo booth/confessional-in-the-hall dreams! (although this does explain why a couple with a 2-bedroom needed to take over the hall closet.) sigh.

(i am well aware, as i rant about my neighbors who are probably my age procreating, that i completely immaturing. i am starting to think i peaked around 15, and its all just going downhill from there. i suppose that's what i get for trying so hard as a child to act like a grownup).

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i don't know why, but i hate brushing my teeth. i think its because i bore easily and teeth-brushing can become the most tedious task on earth once it passes the 40 second mark. i used to date a guy who would spend ages in the bathroom on his teeth - and although give the way things turned out, he was probably just in there avoiding me - i really do wish i had his commitment to dental hygiene. i'm certain my dentist does too, as he yells at me about flossing more often every time i'm there. i know, i tell him, i know i'm risking ruining my gums, but that extra two minutes in the bathroom fidgeting around with that dental twine is torture.

well, little did i know that i've been doing it ALL WRONG this entire time! i've been purchasing Reach floss all these years, meanwhile Colgate Glide floss was slipping by me. i tried it last night and seriously, it was like flossing with silk. or clouds. or the strands of hair from a goddess. something magical like that.

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and speaking of magical moments, this morning as i waited at the corner to cross the street to my office i noticed that our usual traffic cop wasn't there. instead he was replaced by three other traffic cops, standing together in a row, waving the cars along. i couldn't help but be totally entertained by their synchronicity, neon safety vests bobbing together in pedestrian-friendly unison.

tough times.

dear sissy,

not like this hasn't already been apparent from our recent astronomical grocery bills, but when you start receiving emails like the below, it really hits home that the economy is in shambles.

7% off?? really?!

love,

sissy

the cuddlier side of genocide.

dear sissies,

can i pleaseeeee get a knitler doll for christmas?

xo,
bear

new projects.

dear sissy,

how come we didn't know about this?!

toy voyagers!

we need to get involved. maybe we can send that weird little blue bear of yours around the world.


love,
sissy

clueless, chocolateless.

dear sissy,

i was unaware about the mutant animal trend that's occurring, as i was too busy tending to the mutant flies buzzing about my office. which had me in such a tizzy that i went off to the vending machine with a ten pence, believing it was a quarter.

what i'm doing with a ten pence, i don't know, but i'm disturbed that it kept me from a package of m&m's.

love,
sissy

mutants.

dear sissy,

did you have any idea of the mutants that have been discovered this week?

first, the monkey pig and now this!

i'm feeling very ghostbusters over here.

love,
zuul

knifed.

dear sissy,

you are just lucky i didn't stab you.

airstab!

love,
sissy

boundaries.

dear sissy,

don't ever punch me in the nose after 1am ever, ever, again.


love,
sissy

sugar high.

dear sissy,

please don't allow me to have any cotton candy tonight.

so far today i have eaten:
-cap'n crunchberries
-bbq sushi badness
-dove chocolate bliss bar (2)
-pack of twizzlers

love,
sissy

ps. if you subtract sushi from the list this may be the exact menu of a 9 year old boy at sleep away camp.

poison!

dear sissies,

which one of you thought it was smart to make lemonade in the watering can?

i know we only have one pitcher in the apt, but i've just fed the precious squash plant with countrytime.

please be more diligent or we will never get any squash flowers this year.

love,
bear

bat-free basil ice cream

dear sissy,

when you are finished playing with the bat that has moved into our garden, can you please pick some basil for this recipe? i would like to make it soon.

basil ice cream!

will you be my sous chef?

love,
sissy

fishtina

dear sissy,

the spicy tuna roll i got for lunch tastes like bbq sauce.

this seems suspicious.

if i do not make it to the charity carnival tonight blame my lunch.

love,
sissy

ch-ch-ch-changes.

Dear Sissy,

I have an idea for blogging that might get us more into it and updating more often..

You know how we email each other a gazillion times day?? Let's just blog them instead.

No more emails, just reading our own blog to see links to saved by the bell memoirs and updates on cervixes.

Love,
Sissy

going batty.

last monday, after a particularly disturbing/distressful/crazy afternoon i commented to missy that it was the apocalypse. and although the world didn't end, nor was our entire week entirely doom-filled, something pretty apocalyptic did occur: we went to a movie theater. twice.

as you may recall me commenting in the past, we NEVER go to the movies. why, i don't know. we like watching them. we just don't like having to get our acts together to go watch them on someone else's timetable, i suppose. in any event, during our jam-packed week of world-ending insanity, we somehow managed to get to the movie theater more times than we had up until this point in 2008. (an amazing feat, although sadly only 50% of the movies we saw* deserved to be viewed during such a monumental week.)

----------

so being the cineplex neophyte that i am, i was pretty clueless when it came to how things go these days at the concession stand. we pump our own butter?? i can order snack combinations? there are pretzel bites?! missy's boyfriend had the pleasure of explaining it all to me while on line - i imagine we resembled a gender-reversed mork & mindy episode - although i tuned him out once i discovered that the calorie count was listed next to each snack item. now, i understand that there are some sort of laws being passed about this and i've seen it already in some fast food chains, but come on! going to the movies is supposed to be some form of escapism - why the hell would i want to know that there are 3 billion** calories in my large soda? isn't it already pretty obvious that you're eating something fattening when the bucket of popcorn you're holding is bigger than a toddler? who didn't realize that the amount of calories you can consume in a movie theater is your weekly allotment of them?

sheesh. way to take the fun out of everything, health dept.



*since we know how much you all love guessing games, we'll leave it up you to guess which two we saw.

hints: the first was the WORST MOVIE WE'VE EVER SEEN. EVER! AND WE THINK ALL THE GIRLS WHO TOLD US HOW GREAT IT WAS ARE TOTALLY NUTS. AND WE'RE SO GLAD WE ALREADY BOYCOTT THE REPEATS OF THE SERIES AS WE WILL NOW NEVER AGAIN WATCH ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH IT. the second, falling on the opposite end of our approval scale from the aforementioned big screen travesty, was that little film that just opened this weekend about a man in a bat costume. maybe you've heard of it?


**figures may not be accurate.

laziness.

so we're back from vacation, but have been completely non-functioning the entire week thus far. complete wastes of space. it took us 3 days to wash a tupperware. one of us can't even handle painting her toenails. (i imagine a week of doing nothing more than walking 50 ft. from a house to the beach and lifting nothing heavier than a big red cup filled with booze can do that to a person).

but despite the lethargy, we've actually been having a great run with new + exciting things. and so, a list of our latest obsessions:

• the bubble calendar
• heloise & the savior faire
• beef jerky
• america's best dance crew
• dark chocolate reese's (special batman edition)

hmmph.

has anyone else experienced these facebook gender issues, or are they only discriminating against bears?

no poetry, just public service.

actually, its not friday anymore so technically we missed ipod poetry day anyways. shocker.

so we just wanted to make a quick announcement that we'll be taking a little vacation for the next week. missy, chrissy, and bear, along with some of their nearest + dearest, are off for some fun-in-the-sun beachtastic adventures down the shore. the last time the 3 of us were together on this island, one of us got lobster guts all over our dress at a local fishery, and the dress stunk so fishiously still after repeated washings that we had to wind up throwing the outfit away.

we intend to be more cautious when eating seafood this time around.

a puppetacular wednesday evening.

As you might have gathered by now, loveandcyanide loves anything that has to do with the sea. and puppets. and meat products (although that doesn’t really fit in here – just wanted to remind).

So when we heard about Jollyship the Whiz Bang, a “pirate puppet rock odyssey”, we were beyond excited. missy and i and two of our puppet-lovin’ friends finally got to see the show last night, and it totally lived up to the hype. They extended their run through mid-July, so if you like any or all of the following we highly suggest you run out and see it (and for our more exotically located readers, when it hopefully hits a city near you!) – rock music, grog, rain slickers, crabs, sea shanties, and/or ukuleles.

occupational hazards.

new career areas i'm looking into, to get me out of impending jury duty*:

- the medical field
- the dental field
- the volunteer rescue squad field
- the legal field
- the caregiver field
- becoming a stay-at-home mom
- becoming a member of the clergy

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for the past 2 days our receptionist has been wearing a blue surgical mask. as i've mentioned before, she is big on health tips, so yesterday i assumed she was ill and thoughtfully did not want to infect the rest of us. or, that the dead mouse smell permeating from my side of the office was too much for her to bear.

but then this morning when i walked in and saw the mask again, i began to panic. what did she know that i didn't about the air in the office? nothing, apparently...

turns out she is replacing batteries in calculators.

--------------------

i've been trying to write this last part for more than a week now. so at my reunion two weekends ago i was yet again reminded that people do not quite 'get' what i do - BUT, that there is a great pop culture way for them to figure it out. thank goodness!!!

i personally don't think it should be that hard in the first place - teachers teach. farmers farm. publicists publicize. - but maybe i'm biased because i've been studying the communications industry since college, and am supposed to know what a publicist is and does, while the rest of the world is kept in the dark about this mysterious occupation.** in any event, being friends with teachers and lawyers and people in other such 'no need to explain' professions, i find sometimes when meeting people that when its my turn to say what i do their eyes just sort of glaze over.

this happened in chicago. at a memorial day family bbq of the friend we were staying with, it was our (chrissy + fellow nyc friend) turn in the spotlight to tell the friends and neighbors what we did back home (as well as the requisite question from people who've never been here before: is it really that dirty?!). friend says she's a lawyer, gets into entire discussion with neighbor about the sort of law, etc etc. the man shows a super amount of enthusiasm for the legal field.

then its my turn, and i give my little spiel about book publicity. neighbor seems confused, and for the first time during the entire bbq he has absolutely nothing to say. conversation turns to something else, and we all carry on. about 20 minutes later, neighbor gets the ol' lightbulb! face on, points at me and says "i know! you're samantha!"

he then proceeds to explain to the table that i'm samantha from sex and the city. everyone knowingly chuckles. i proceed to tell him yes, he's correct, but in profession only. more chuckles.

fast forward to the high school reunion - talking with a married couple, they ask what a friend and i now do - she says "teacher" - they smile, nod, ask questions - i say "publicist". crickets chirp. about 2 minutes later, the husband announces "oh, you're samantha!!"

really, people. really? please do not make me resort to SATC stereotyping of myself. and stop making your husbands watch the movie!!



*and why do all these people get out of it in the first place?? no wonder the stupid juror selection bureau stalks me every year - there's no one else left to serve.

**i basically know that this isn't the case, because i found out about publicists long before college when watching Another World back in my early teens soap-opera-watching phase and seeing Lorna Devon run around as a public relations director***, but i'll give everyone else the benefit of the doubt.

***yes, i hope as much as you do that i did not subconsciously pick my career based on a soap.

ipod poetry. v. 7

today was one of those days where i was reminded that all i really do in my profession is sit around all day having to make people happy. and frankly, i don't want to anymore. i'm tired of keeping my clients happy. i want to do something that makes people unhappy. what kind of job can i take that would make other people absolutely miserable?? an IRS agent? a burglar? a clown?


and so, ipod poetry, pissy edition:

a girl like you,
a good idea at the time;
a hard day's night.

things we do instead of sleeping.

a real live text conversation between chrissy and missy,after they retired to their beds this evening, purportedly for sleep.

m: B* said he's going to slap you around.
c: him and what other nerds!***
m:GaIaga!
c: either Bear is strangling you or you are misspelling laughter. either way its time for me to go to bed. good night!
m: Bear can't find his training bra. are you still borrowing it? its a 34 bearly B.
c: grover**** thinks you guys are jerks.

[phone rings] Bear ends the conversation by pranking chrissy, breathing and giggling into phone.



*B is missy's boyfriend**. a few minutes earlier he had texted chrissy to find out missy's whereabouts. chrissy had responded with a cheerful "who died and made me her secretary?"

**who would never actually slap chrissy around. no need for alarm.

***quote from rizzo the rat, circa muppets take manhattan.

****grover lives in chrissy's room, and is bear's part-time lover/part-time nemesis/all-the-time victim

i'll be the worshipful pagan at the breakfast table.

i had been mentally preparing another post, but then was alerted to this, which basically trumps anything else i had to say this afternoon.

pigeons and sisters and bears, oh my.

tomorrow is a super-special friday the 13th over here at loveandcyanide - NO, jason voorhees is not coming to visit us!

it's missy's/Bear's birthday!

because i am the nicest* sister/caretaker in the entire universe, i'm spending my evening baking my little brains out, as missy requested some (wheat-free) goodies for her big day. the rest of the weekend will then entail lots of celebrating and eating aforementioned goodies, since i just learned i am not allowed to bring them to the establishment we're throwing her party at, meaning that i'm baking for about 50 and only the 3-5 people sleeping over our place afterwards will actually get any baked goods. fantastic.

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also on tap for the weekend is another big occasion - my 10 year high school "reunion". i say "reunion" as its being held in some dinky bar and i don't think there's going to be a huge showing (although our class was about 170 people, so i guess if 30 show up its still a decent percentage), so its not your typical fancy Reunion.

but considering our h.s. mascot was a freaking seagull, i never really expected very much from the school for my milestone alumni events.

i'm oddly looking forward to this little soiree, even though with the emergence of the social networking sites, all mystery as to what my ex-classmates look like/have been doing the past 10 years is pretty much gone, and i sort of feel like my reunion has been happening slowly over the past few years with every new friend request/subsequent message of pleasantries about what we've been up to. but its an open bar, so i imagine that after an hour i'll have completely forgotten that so-and-so is now married and that so-and-so's facebook status told me they just finished traveling the world, so i can act all surprised and interested anyways.

-------

finally, as though there can be anymore excitement packed into the next 48 hours, we also discovered that tomorrow is national pigeon day.

we kid you not. there's a site devoted to it. and an event. and a song!

so treat the little birds with respect tomorrow! i think i just figured out where all my excess baked goods can go...(if you read about a pigeon swarm in queens tomorrow, you'll know who's responsible).



*alright, in the interest of full disclosure, i'm just the most reciprocal. missy played chef on my birthday for a dinner party of 6. so the least i can do is turn out a batch of cupcakes.

wednesday coupling report.

another sweet elder-love story (once you get past the gratuitous first two paragraphs), although a slightly sadder ending on this one.

why keep them apart? aren't we all kind of demented when it comes to love?

its a small, sweaty, solitary, scary world.

it sounds like i'm talking about prison. but its just my weekend.


------

so saturday night i met up with one of my guy friends, who on the way to the bar had happened to spot a lost cell phone in the cab he was in - the owner called it, and they decided she would come to the bar to retrieve it. girl shows up, he chats with her for awhile, us girls let him be figuring he's trying to get digits (which he does, but then decides she 'seems crazy' and 'has a bad laugh'...and people call me picky), and then he brings her over to introduce her to us. when i tell her where i work, she says "oh, so you know *insert name of loathsome manager here*!!!" and then proceeds to spend the next 20 minutes chatting with me about our mutual 'friend'. its baffling how tiny new york can be sometimes.

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so i'm not going to complain TOO much about the weather we've been having, since i know we're all suffering. i'll just mention that typically when its above 95 degrees loveandcyanide camps out by the family pool and doesn't deal with the steamy, stinky mess that is the rest of nyc. this past weekend, however, that proved impossible as two different factions of friends decided to do daytime outings and while i adore them all, and had a great time both days, i most definitely could have done with rescheduling our summer fun to a time when our urban adventuring could have been a tad less sweat-filled.

so, a short list of things i wouldn't suggest doing in 100-degree weather:

• waiting ages on a (wrong) line thereby missing the boat you were waiting for (the last boat of the evening) and not getting to the (fake) beach you were heading to, all because teenage water taxi employees are complete morons who can't point/speak properly
• going to a flea market
• walking clear across town to a bar because a friend is going through a "forrest gump phase"
• drinking heavily, eating light, sleeping little
• operating a vehicle after drinking heavily, eating light, sleeping little
• taking the subway to an important business meeting*

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for the first time in about 2 years, mine and missy's vacation schedules don't match up, so for about a week i'm here and she's off sunning herself in the tropics. i realized today as i went shopping after work and finally meandered home hours later how weird it was to not have anyone wondering where i was and what i was up to. and how i had nothing urgent to get home to. so this is what living alone is like. i guess it is kind of liberating, although on the other hand it totally sucks because when Bear demands a fancy dinner, i'm the one stuck handling it all myself.

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and finally, after months of having it on my netflix queue, i at last got to watch the documentary maxed out. its traumatizing. i am SO happy i just bought about 8 pairs of summer sandals as i am totally never purchasing anything ever again.

*this happened today, not over the weekend, but its probably the one that most belongs on this list. its probably also the dumbest thing i've been forced to do all month. isn't the first rule of good business not to show up looking like you just finished a marathon? right. someone inform management of that one.

ipod poetry. v.6

you thought this was gone for good, right?

but how could we abandon our most popular feature...

boy, i've been told -
boys don't cry;
boys wanna fight!

three cheers for unusual couplings.

its one of those soul-sucking, heart-smashing, joy-exiling weeks in the office. you know, the sort when you leave at the end of the day and want to just shove everyone on the train who is shorter than you. and you can feel your heart shrink to the size of the grinch's (circa the first half of the book/15 minutes of the cartoon).

one of those.

so this brought some life back into my cold, stony heart when missy sent it to me earlier today.

as did a viewing of this the other night. the most unexpectedly touching film we've seen in awhile. even Bear was in tears.

open letter to the bar security industry.

dear bouncers,

i understand that some of you need to keep track of who enters/exits your place of work by inking our hands as we walk in to your bar/lounge/club/etc. we are all aware that the morning-after-stamp-on-the-hand is a by-product of socially drinking. however, if you are unable to use a regular stamper, is it possible for you to at least use some sort of non-permanent ink instead? your patrons don't mind being marked for an evening, but its a little much to be branded for life.

i knew it meant trouble when one of your own came at my hand with a Sharpie on friday night. it is currently 3 days, 2 showers, and 1 hand-dip-in-the-pool later and i still have the weird little green design drawn on me.

had i know i was getting another tattoo that night, i would have at least asked for it to be centered.

sincerely,
chrissy

breakfast anytime.

hey kiddies.

so we're back from chicago with a slight tan, an ear infection, a new appreciation for lakes, and photographical evidence proving that yet again, all of the best snacks are to be found in other parts of the nation:

wtf. i'm pretty sure nyc is sorely missing out on this, although i can't say for certain as i already had a bag of fritos in each hand and had a specific request for the pepperoni pizza variety, and it was 3am, and i couldnt handle carrying a fourth bag up to the counter without dropping everything all over the floor. the cashier was already suspicious of me snapping photos in the chip aisle.

hello. goodbye.

loveandcyanide has been ridiculously busy lately between work, planning a surprise 30th anniversary party for the parents, getting ready for vacation, planning another vacation, and attempting to plan a far-off vacation. (is it apparent that we need a break??)

here are some of the things we've been meaning to discuss, but will have to instead settle for just mentioning in list form:

• the wild experience planning - and subsequent success of - the aforementioned surprise party
• the general surprise factor that our parents can be together 30 years and yet one of us hasn't been able to maintain an 'official' relationship for longer than 9 months
• CRAZY RASBERRY* ANT MANIA!
• that sweeney todd is the most horrendous movie ever
• a new found love for Tide**
• the fact that we're so wrapped up in the tudors, that when chrissy saw a jelly stained napkin (rectangular napkin, jelly stain in middle) in the kitchen the other day she actually mistook it for a letter sealed with wax (disappointment ensued upon closer inspection)
• that we actually didn't abandon everyone's favorite feature - ipod poetry - see 'was planning a surprise party'***
• and last but not least, our impending trip to the windy city****

*they spelled it that way, not me. you know our feelings on poor spelling.

**we know - its a popular detergent, but one we've managed to go all these years without. NEVER AGAIN! my clothes smell molestable.

***the friday feature will resume in 2 weeks. get excited!

****and yes, finally, a heads up that loveandcyanide will be taking a bit of a break while chrissy continues her annual tradition of hitting up a new corner of the good ol' U.S. of A. every memorial day weekend. last year she first crossed the mississippi (thank goodness those crazy ants weren't around then) - this year its a maiden voyage to the midwest. we've been promised "the best" sausages, deep dish pizza, and a boat ride -- is chicago heaven?

nothing compares 2 hue.

once upon a time i had the world's most perfect nude lipstick - L'Oreal Taupestone*.

about two years ago, i started noticing that it was harder to find - where it had once been on the shelves of every drugstore, i could only find it in a select few. then a few months later it was even more scarce. after scouring every drugstore i could, i found 2 left in an eckerd in a distant part of my neighborhood and snatched them both up. after that - nothing. i even tried looking for it in other cities, but to no avail. i have about 1/3 of a tube left, and today only wear it for special occasions - i think the last time i wore it was in december, although i look at the tube longingly whenever i'm rummaging around in my makeup bag. i'm honestly not a huge makeup whore -- this is clearly an extremely major loss for me.

in the meantime, i've been on a hunt for a suitable replacement. last night, after keeping missy hostage in a dept. store for almost an hour as i was led around to just about every counter by the rather-tolerable-for-someone-working-for-commission makeup counter girl, testing out all the nude shades and finally purchasing one (one that i can claim is the most expensive lipstick i ever have - and ever will - own), i stood this lipstick next to all the other ones i've purchased in this chase and realized that i have spent about $75 trying to replace a $6 tube of mass market brand makeup. considering my next resort is sending the remainder of my beloved lipstick away to this company that will specially recreate it for me, i only imagine that total will double at some point.

sigh.



*product name is listed here in the vain hopes that a L'Oreal color specialist will find it, take pity on me, and send me a case. or at the very least, the formula. i was ok in chemistry and would build a lab in my bathroom simply to recreate this thing.

well, we have #10 going for us.

entertaining.


missy and i would have clearly been spinsters had we been alive in the 1930's.

ipod poetry. v.5

the volume that almost never was.


by the side of the road, dressed to kill
do you wanna touch me,
golddigger?

pork snacks, please.

we read this little factoid in a recent issue of gourmet magazine and felt it was necessary to post it here:

in ancient rome, the upper classes disdained meat but distributed pork to the street poor in an attempt to maintain order.

and people wonder why i'm so organized!

----------

while we're on the subject of snacking to curb chaos, last night as we were walking home from work over the 59th street bridge, missy spied this odd little sign that said something to the effect of "cyclists, there are snacks at the end of the bridge for you". it was an official looking sign that, upon closer inspection, name dropped some transportation-alternative advocacy group and also thanked the bikers for traveling in an environmentally-friendly manner. but we still thought it a little bizarre/scary/hans christian andersen-y beware the troll bearing snacks at the end of the bridge, little children!

and so we arrived at the end of the bridge and there was a little crowd of people/bikes around a table covered with signage and water bottles (we did NOT see any of the promised "snacks"). and as the guy in charge called out to a passing biker, we wondered why he did not, in fact, try to call us over to the table as we clearly looked like we had just marched over a bridge. weren't we too going home in an environmentally-conscious manner?! why can't the walkers share in the snack party?!

we actually got so riled up at the exclusive and selfish way of the bicycle people (who we already have grievances with, as you already know), that one of us stepped out into the street without looking for cars, and the other had to drag her back before she got run over.

grrrr cyclists! we don't want your stupid cyclist snacks anyway.

hoop-de-do'ing at the top of the empire state building.

yesterday evening was my first trip ever to the observation deck of the empire state building, something i figured i would never do since i hadn't managed to get up there by now, and i can currently see the skyline from my bedroom, so really, why waste the money and the tourist-fighting energy? but there we were last night staging a group photo op for a friends' wedding, and causing all sorts of ruckus as one member of our group works in the building so we had "VIP passes", and we sort of took this as our right to completely take over the entire landmark as security was putty in our hands with those passes. it was fun.

in any event, i can now say that there is something i love about the empire state building. no, not the view! the fact that in their souvenir shop they sell ESB branded peachy rings*, which they call "peach hoop de do's". i consider myself a bit of a peachy ring connoisseur**, so seeing this unique and wildly entertaining name for them just made my day.

----------

speaking of sugary candy, i found myself with a package of sprees just before and they completely made my afternoon. as did eating them whilst reading this discussion. i am thrilled that there are other 'catcher in the rye' haters out there...up until now i've been led to believe it was just me. hmmph.


*these are peachy rings, in case you had no idea what i was talking about.

**my college roommate and i developed a minor addiction to them at one point, and they have been a staple in the sugary candy portion of my diet ever since.

ipod poetry v. 4

an inspirational one, for all the new grads:


you can do it
you can do it
you can have it all.

we know what we know.

on sunday missy and i went to see the final performance of Paul Simon's month-long residency at BAM (the brooklyn academy of music. i am aware that is was obnoxious of me to use an acronym that everyone may not know, but really its just so much fun to say BAM). BAM!

it was a good show, but during it we were reminded of something that has been bothering us for awhile now - the regularity of the standing ovation. have you all noticed this as well? basically any theater performance i've been to in recent years culminates with a standing ovation (with the exception of "Die Hard The Puppet Musical", which is possibly the only show i've seen lately that i really wanted to give one to) and i don't ever remember this being the case when i was younger. i always thought they should be reserved for special occasions - and the all-knowing wikipedia agrees with me - but now people just leap to their feat during every performance and it annoys the hell out of loveandcyanide. sure its a little easier to clap while upright and we have to get up to exit the theater anyways, but aren't we losing the significance of the standing ovation in the process?

----------------

now i don't mean to stereotype all of them out there, and no offense to any of our readers if you happen to be one* but josh groban fans are psychotic. no really. they are rabid, overly emotional crazy women. i daresay they are solely responsible for the bad rap the rest of us women sometimes get.

so we had the misfortune of being seated in the midst of a whole pack of them, something we didn't initially realize - josh groban fans look like the rest of us; perhaps one might consider them a bit dowdier - but became slightly suspect of once i heard the woman in front of me say to her friend "i'm SO happy we're on this side of the stage opposite the piano so i have a better view of joshy." right.

then halfway through the show it was his turn to perform, and the minute joshy appeared at the side of the stage there were screams. and shrieks. and sobs. and moans of ecstasy. really?? over a skinny guy with curly hair and an operatic voice? but i digress. so the grobanites** went absolutely bonkers, especially during his final song of the three he performed, which was 'bridge over troubled water' which is generally a depressing song, but when you have this deep baritone booming it throughout a room becomes even more melancholy. or maybe i was just depressed watching the middle-aged crazy ladies around me and seeing one possible path of my future.

in any event, joshy's part of the performance ended (to a minor standing ovation, of course) and then came loveandcyanide's favorite part of the show as the woman sitting behind us -- after her friend had to advise her a few times to "breathe" - regained her composure, sighed and exclaimed "that is the future father of my children".

in the future we will be avoiding the grobanites.


*but really, don't tell us if you are.

**this sounds like something i made up, but after finishing the post i checked it out, and indeed, they are grobanites. and they have many websites.

special report from your waffle correspondents.

we had about 45 other topics* we were planning to write about, but as we know how much our dear readers love their battered breakfast cakes, i had to report the latest on nyc's waffle scene.

swoon.

two waffle trucks and a waffle store and talk of waffle wars! we're hoping they aim a giant batter-filled cannon right at our apartment.

-----------

while on the topic of food, i just came from a lunch seminar where they specified that you can bring a "brown bag lunch". they wrote this in the email that invited us all, and then when i responded to say i would be attending, one of the coordinators then responded to thank me and tell me to feel free to bring my "brown bag lunch" and eat it during the presentation. ok. why can't i just bring lunch? did it matter if we toted it in a recycled bag? what if i had carried in a tupperware? why the unnecessary use of all those adjectives?



*more like two, but we will get to them at some point this week.

ipod poetry. v.3

an ode to spring:

summer wind, sunday girl
sunny morning.

from the fast food files.

we are all over the news today of wendy's and arby's merging.

its slightly worrying, as we don't want wendy's to change its magical hangover-remover properties one bit.

but

roast beef AND a frosty?! yes, please.

our 15 minutes.

we don't know how many of you watch the smut that we do, but, Bear was on america's next top model this evening.

it was pretty wild.

musical vegetables, and the case of the disappearing salad dressing.

it always amazes me when i'm googling something and one of those little sidebar ads comes up from cafepress saying 'find _____ gifts here'. no matter how obscure an item i'm looking up, there somehow manages to be a tshirt for it. (that sometimes comes in handy*)

so today i was researching artichokes, and the ad came up about finding 100's of artichoke gifts. making my little disbelief noise, i decided to check out just how many artichoke t-shirts there could possibly be.

and the answer is, an awful lot.

and i kind of like some of them. although i'm slightly bitter about the name mozartichoke already being snatched up because how cute of a cartoon character would he have made?

---------

while we're on the topic of green healthy food items, missy and i have gone salad crazy in the hopes of lessening our chances of being accidentally harpooned on the beach this summer.

to make our healthy lunches all the more tasteful, we invested in the 'salad mist' variety of salad dressing. this morning, as missy misted her salad we joyfully discussed how there is only 1 calorie per spray, and how we could have 10 whole sprays for one serving. and how her salad glistened!

fast-forward a few hours, and her salad was bare. and i misted my own salad about 20 minutes ago and wound up with a scant taste of dressing. sigh. we should've known it was just too good to be true.



*how else would missy have gotten an "i heart seahorses" shirt for her birthday last year?

ipod poetry. v.2

for the detrimentally smitten:


i'm a slave for you.
i'm going down..
in my life.

xom

no more monkeying around...

we were dismayed to read this article today. besides our general feelings towards putting animals to sleep, we have a personal connection to these fuzzy little guys as we went and visited the monkey colony in gibraltar a few years ago, during a vacation in spain.

while they were certainly on the aggressive side, we wouldn't go so far as to call them 'molesters'. although, i guess we don't actually know what the apes were attempting when they started sticking their little paws in peoples' pockets...

for photographical evidence of loveandcyanide and the barbary apes:

see here.
(that is neither missy nor chrissy with the monkey.)

and here.
(but that arm belongs to us.)

and because hillary so nicely demanded it (and we since we want to show off our new found photo album-to-blog linking skillz!), here is a photo of bear from the same trip. this shot was taken pre-monkey adventure. and yes, he was listening to "in the navy".

holy teddy bears, batman!

even Bear*, whose cottony roots come from this establishment, does not understand this.



*i just realized that for the second time in a row, i copied a topic from the previous posting (SF, now Bear). things won't continue to be this mundane around here. we swear.

ipod poetry. v.1

and now for your end of the week treat, we introduce a new weekly feature: ipod poetry by missy.

i dedicate this first ipod poem to vous, bear.


in the flesh.

in the navy.

instant pleasure.


xom

a little love for the other coast.

San Francisco is officially our new favorite city (that none of us have ever been to). why, you ask?

because of THIS!

we had the honor of seeing that absolutely amazing theatrical spectacle back when it was in nyc...we're kinda thinking that gives us the right to have a day off on friday.

overheard in the office, huey lewis edition.

the manager in the office next door to mine was just on the phone, rattling off a list of cities for one of our authors to travel to. he ended off the list with:

seattle, san francisco too.

it took me about 2.2 seconds to realize this is part of a lyric from "the heart of rock & roll". i SO hope he did that intentionally...

although i do realize that not everyone has huey's repertoire memorized as well as missy and i do.

weekly roundup.

since we've been too lazy lately to actually write real posts about any of this, and its a rainy friday afternoon and we're certain you're feeling too lazy to read real posts about any of this...a short list of what happened to us this week.


- middle of the night charley horses. numerous ones. whilst whining this morning about my third night of interrupted sleep, missy reminded me that they can be caused by dehydration. and reminded me how much alcohol i drank this week. and i commented how our office water cooler is broken. right, problem solved! giant bottle of water is sitting next to me so i can actually sleep tonight.

- the song 'rubber duckie' was sporadically stuck in my head for two days straight.

- digital clocks are showing up everywhere. as i walked to work the other morning, i noticed a new one atop a store near my apartment. then gazing out my work window, a not-yet-functioning one is now randomly atop a residential building across the street.

- we got a step closer to proving our theory about the evil nature of dermatologists.

and finally, not one, but two people brought this* to my attention, saying they thought of me and had to send. while of course feeling honored, i am sort of questioning the bacon reputation i've made for myself.


*possibly NSFW. never thought i'd ever write that phrase on here...and, hmm, the fact that i'm posting late on a friday afternoon probably negates the usefulness of it.

clueless chrissy.

has some faction of pop culture that i don't pay attention to - i.e. american idol, SNL, perez hilton, youtube, anything played on the radio - brought back the exclamations "yowza" and "wowza"??

i've been noticing them creeping up into conversation and correspondence with friends/acquaintances/colleagues for the past few months, but recently i've been seeing the words SO often i've decided it just has to be some new trend that i'm not privy to.

so what am i missing? or is this just happening because i'm getting older, so yowza is a necessary language adjustment i have to get used to, like calling the guy next to me "sonny boy" and exclaiming "oh my heavens".

raining laughing cats and dogs.

i was grumpius maximus* for most of today...

but then i got into a hilarious email exchange with hillary, prompted by this.

and then i saw the headline of this article.





*not actually latin.

hoppy holidays peeple.

the breakfast cereal ones are my faves.

and as we're just now coming out of our peep-induced sugar coma...if you did celebrate easter yesterday, a happy belated one.

in what could be deemed as a slightly sadistic twist to the holiday, my grandmother opted to bring back an age-old family tradition and served rabbit - amongst a ton of other things - to celebrate. this caused major debate over dinner, and divided the family into the "i won't eat peter cottontail" - a phrase actually uttered during the course of the day - and the "screw the easter bunny! rabbit braised in red wine is just damn good" camps.

loveandcyanide was of course in the latter group, and we proved victorious. hoorah.

possibly the most math i've done in a decade.

at the deli across the street from my parents house - where i was this morning - they don't have an actual metrocard vending machine, so they have pre-packaged cards in denominations such as $10, $20, $50. normal, round numbers.

as i asked for a $10 card, the cashier laughed and said "oh, you mean the new $7 one?". i said sure, since i only needed $5 to get on the bus and into the city, and said bus was coming up the street and i didn't want to ask questions and miss it. but i thought a $7 card seemed ridiculous, especially being sold at this particular store in front of an express bus stop, since a buyer wouldn't even get a Staten Island round-trip out of it.

when i got on the bus and read the little package the card came in, things got even more ridiculous. the card came with a $1.05 bonus. what?! what genius came up with this? also noted on the package was this cheerful little notice:

after use, 5 cents will remain, which you can use when you refill your card.

really, mta?? how helpful! thank you!! so i actually have to fill the card forty times to get enough of these bonus nickels to equal one stinkin $2 subway ride.

some sisters just eat their frosted flakes. without inspection.

i don't know about you guys, but i've eaten at least 1000 cereal flakes that looked like this one.

little did missy and i know that we've been missing out on oodles of money-making opportunities!

-------

and while i'm on the subject of scamming, the riches starts its second season tomorrow night. its an awesome show, and we highly recommend tuning in if your Tuesday, 10pm EST time slot isn't already filled.

mollusks and me.

according to my sources, today is National Baked Scallops Day. happy happy! i hope everyone goes out and celebrates accordingly. the scallop is one of the items from the sea that i find most enjoyable (most likely because it doesn't look, taste, smell or act fishy). most especially when the little mollusk is wrapped in bacon...

and speaking of bacon, my favorite pig part was the theme of a most incredibly awesome and factual belated birthday present post from dear reader soulspeak23 - thank you again! - i was once part of a Staten-Island-Mall-bought best friend charm with her (it was one of those snazzy three-part ones, for all us BFF trios out there), and this was clearly a reason why. but enough of my nostalgia - just go over there and read it!

and speaking of birthday present postings, i did celebrate a birthday over the weekend - a kickoff to my late 20's, filled with flowers and fun and friends and a most awesome dinner. and then an awesome dinner party. and then an awesome family dinner. and then 3 more dinners to come between this week and next. whew! at the rate i'm being fed, i may not see my thirties.

its funny though, as i hadn't thought of 28 as a big deal age - then suddenly there are high school reunion talks and the realization that i'm reaching the "OMG, we've been friends for a decade. a whole decade!" point with a bunch of college friends - and i guess that 28 is some sort of milestone (even if its only really a milestone because its a milestone distance from the milestone of 18).

and then i read an article on christina ricci - an actress i never liked for the sheer fact that her name is rather similar to my own - and she brought up how she believes in 7-year cycles, and that everything in life changes in these 7-year phases, and as she just turned 28 too, she was looking forward to her new fourth cycle. i found this kind of interesting as i've been dealing with a number of big changes lately, so i'm just going to attribute them to the fact that my big shiny new fourth phase is starting as well.

i was now supposed to nicely tie this in to the life cycle of a scallop, but hell, they apparently can live until age 18, a number not easily divisible by 7. ah well.

ridiculously awesome.

after seeing this, i realize that my alarm clock is only the second coolest timepiece on earth.

a berry good evening.

because we adore food, and missy loves to cook, and i love to do everything involved with cooking besides the actual cooking itself, we tend to make dinner a lot more than most of our friends do. which keeps us pretty consistent with how we grew up, as our mom didn't work back then, and so we rarely ordered out, or ate the pre-made quick stuff - we actually did not own a microwave until i went off to college. no, seriously. - as there was some sort of home cooked meal on the table every single night.

due to these two facts, we've missed out on the pleasure that can be found in a simplistic evening meal. like having cereal for dinner.

we did it last night on a whim, and it was so super exciting. it just might have been the best bowl of cap'n crunch's crunchberries i've ever had.

---------

and speaking of crunchberries, my obsession with them stems from the fact that as a kid, one of my absolute favorite cereals was smurfberry crunch - and go figure, crunchberries taste exactly like smurfberries. do you guys remember them? anytime i bring them up, people look at me like i'm crazy. (look to the left folks - i'm not)

i mean, i guess it is possible the cereal was only in stores for a short period of time because my grandmother was the only person buying it...but there must have been at least one other kid out there enjoying this smurfalicious treat.

totally tattler tuesday.

i've been all wrapped up in this today, which i suppose is partly because i work in the industry, but i guess mainly because i am a reader.

and as a reader, i care about a story itself, not so much about the circumstances under which the story might have been written. sure, blatantly lying to get a book published is wrong, but similar to all that james frey nonsense awhile back, i feel like all the "shocker! this isn't a memoir" hoopla isn't so much about morals as it is about saving face for the media who had previously heaped praise on a book that they thought was something it wasn't.

anyways, what i find most fascinating about this particular tale of literary hoodwinking is that the author's sister ratted her out. goodness! and here missy and i thought that sometimes we tattled too much on the other.

chrissy and the chamber of secrets.

on each floor of our apartment building there are 2 apartments and a hall closet. when we moved in, our broker told us that the sizable hall closet was up for grabs, and whichever apt requested it first would get it, and then have it locked up. missy and i inspected the space, and while we could have easily filled it with all our miscellaneous crap, decided it wasn't worth the extra $25 a month rental fee, when we have our parents' house a mere 40 minutes away to serve as our (free) storage facility.

months went by and our closet wasn't claimed (we know this because every time we were out in the hall waiting for the elevator we would give each other the "let's check the closet" look, and every time we tried the door it was unlocked, closet empty), and since it technically is on our side of the building (the hall is like 8 ft. long, so i suppose this isn't saying much) we mentally staked claim on the chamber, figuring we could use it whenever we saw fit.

and then one saturday i heard all this ruckus in the hallway, and later that evening we tried the closet door, and wouldn't you know - it was locked. our neighbors had claimed it.

and while i know i'm bitter about this now only because we finally realized a perfect use for it* after it was gone, i really do wonder what they need to store in there. (they don't have bikes - i know that's the obvious one) they are one couple in a good-sized two-bedroom, the same good-sized apt that two sisters and a stuffed Bear, all with shopping fetishes, manage to share. what could they possibly need an extra closet for?

anyways, they were outside my door rustling around in their closet before, and i had to use all my willpower to keep from bursting into the hallway to see what their closet cache contains.

i will find out someday.


*perfect use: as a photo booth during our parties. (ok, so, fine. we don't have authentic photo booth equipment. but stick a polaroid, a stool, and some drunk people in there and a good time was guaranteed). we have also, for years, have been so desperately wanting to host a real world party**, and the closet would have made for a marvelous confessional. damn you, apt 5A!!

**can you believe that NONE of our friends have a video camera? this has been a massive hindrance to this party theme. we need to make better electronically equipped acquaintances.