i guess this is why most people opt for souvenir tshirts.

hi y'all!

we're back from the lone star state. it was a terrific time, despite the crazy storms (figures i head south for memorial day weekend, and then its nicer in nyc...). on the plus side for the weather, while i didn't get to act out PW'sBA in the alamo, i did get to pretend i was in another fave film, Twister, whilst driving through a corn field in the pounding rain with a scarily dark sky above. oh if only philip seymour hoffman had been in the car with us...

but i digress. so i was going to celebrate loveandcyanide's big return with a listing of all the reasons why i want to move to texas - shocking! i know. but its a rather short list and 90% of the content has to do with cured meats, so really, not so shocking - but that one will have to wait, due to a ridiculously appropriate trip-related situation that ties in to the last comment we received from one of our dear readers.

so, i bet when chuckles wrote that he imagined me elbow-deep in bbq sauce he didn't envision it the result of an incompetent fool working for continental airlines.

but it's true -- my sauciest experience didn't occur in texas, but in my parents' living room, about an hour after landing in newark airport. i knew it was bad news when i pulled my suitcase off the conveyor belt and saw that it had been stamped "inspected". it actually should have been stamped "rearranged", since the two bottles of bbq sauce that i had brought home for my grill-happy father, that had been snugly packed in bags wrapped in clothing in opposite parts of the suitcase, were now next to each other. and of course, one of the bottles was broken, and had spilled all over a good 1/4 of my belongings.

and so there i was last night, elbow deep in my bbq sauce-covered suitcase. had it not been for the worry of ingesting glass shards, i most definitely would have had it all over my face as well.

happier bbq stories to come, kids. yeehaw!

nothing is certain but death and texas...

season 3 seems to be the kiss of death for all my favorite tv shows.

last night we said a sad farewell to Veronica Mars, which ended with such little closure that missy and i found ourselves in such a state of despair that we wound up persuaded into watching the end of Dancing with the Stars. while Bear cheered for joey fatone ("fat one, fat one", he chanted), we sat around in a mild state of shock that our favorite tv series had ended. just. like. that. thank goodness for dvds.

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

loveandcyanide will be off the air - for a short while, don't worry - as well, as i'm taking a little vacation to...Texas! (houston and austin, to be exact. unfortunately not san antonio, news that shattered my dreams of acting out Pee Wee's Big Adventure.) although i need to use both hands and feet to count the number of countries i've visited, i have yet to travel beyond the east coast and see the rest of the US - weird, i know - so i'm sort of excited to see what the wild west has to offer me. i'm hoping for stagecoaches and a shootout at dawn...but will settle for a rodeo and some good bbq.

143 DOT.

i don't know what level of rock-bottom i'm hitting that the Department of Transportation is responsible for the excitement of my week.

it was announced last year that the city would be getting some snazzy new bus stop shelters. i recently spied one near my office, and was quite impressed - totally modern and sleek, made of metal and glass. and it could even fit more than 3 people under it. but i haven't noticed too many others throughout the city.

so imagine my surprise the other morning when i got to my bus stop, and the usual crappy old shelter was missing. in its place were some construction cones and a hole in the sidewalk. could it be??? i marveled. but i live in an outer borough!! i was probably the only person standing at the stop that day having a complete glee attack about the removal of our old covering/possibility of a new one.

so my hunch turned out to be correct - as missy and i sat on the bus home from the gym yesterday, we came to a stop further down the main avenue and there sat a shiny new shelter. a veritable work of modern art compared to the rest of the junk that sits on steinway street. missy managed to contain her elation, but i was beyond excited.

hopefully by monday my stop will be finished, and i'll be able to hang out in the new shelter. i might even take pictures for you guys! oh the anticipation..

really people, i'm still just a child myself.

there's been a disturbing new trend lately where i'm being mistaken as a parent. i suppose this is just a by-product of aging, but its still a little disconcerting.

about a month ago, i needed to make a drop off at the dry cleaners one morning. as i was running late, i opted not to put the clothes in a bag, and just clasped the pile to my chest. when i arrived in the cleaners and put the pile down on the counter, the woman started chuckling and saying something. i suppose i looked confused, so she pointed at my chest and said "baby! baby! haha, toys!" i looked down, wondering what the hell she was talking about, and there stuck to my sweater was a giraffe finger puppet**. i did a little embarrassed chuckle and plucked the giraffe off my shirt, shoving him in my pocket, while the woman continued to exclaim about a baby. so instead of trying to correct her - we have a pretty large language barrier between us when just counting the number of shirts i bring in, let alone trying to explain such a story - i just gave her a weary nod, like, yes, can you believe my kid stuck his toy to my shirt? kids. sigh.

so i left the cleaners thinking it was sort of amusing that this woman thinks i have a child, meanwhile the puppet belongs to two adults.

well, apparently she's been speaking to the National American Miss association, since yesterday i received in the mail a packet addressed to the daughter of chrissy. it was stunning to see. missy put it on the top of the mail stack and we both just sort of stared at it in horror. so i opened it, figuring it must be some sort of mistake on the envelope. but no - the letter inside started off with the line "we are so excited to notify you that your daughter has been chosen..."

why on earth would i receive such paraphernalia? don't these junk-mailing organizations take your info from some sort of national database? and in one, shouldn't i be listed as single? i didn't claim any dependants on my taxes. (i technically should, taking care of missy and bear as i do. although neither one of them are really pageant material.) i've never signed on the line above the word mother on a birth certificate. where did this new reputation come from?


**you may ask how a giraffe finger puppet found its way into my clothing pile. well, it was on the kitchen table, and when i put the pile down on the table, he somehow got tangled in it. why do we have finger puppets on our kitchen table? if you must ask such questions, you mustn't know us very well.

P.S.

having gotten so carried away with describing the questions i was asked during 'career day', i didn't reveal the important things that I took away from this experience:

1. an insight into what my mother goes through every day
2. that nice glowing feeling that you get after performing a good deed
3. strep throat

i'll find the irony in all this much more amusing once the pain in my throat subsides.

career day.

i got weaseled into participating in 'career day' at my mother's school today. while honored that my mother thinks that i actually have a career, i was rather nervous (read: had nightmares all wednesday night) about how i'd be able to pull off a speech about publicity that would appeal to a bunch of unruly inner-city 5th graders.

well i worried for absolutely nothing, since i forgot how much cachet being a teacher's child carries. from the moment i was introduced as mrs. x's daughter, i became a minor celebrity. kids shouted out what year she taught them, debated whether or not i resembled her, and begged me to reveal her age.

when i actually did get to speak about my career, i managed to engage at least two of three classes i spoke to (in the first one the kids seemed completely stoned, and oblivious to the fact i was even there. i pity their teacher.), and the kids had a ton of questions for me. some of the best:

• are you married?
• do you ever think about quitting your job?
• on your day off, do you just sit around your house? that's what my mom does on her day off.
• would you ever want to promote video games?
• can you order breakfast and eat it at your desk?
• can you leave your office for lunch?
• if you bring your lunch, how does it get warm? do you have an oven there?
• if there is another girl in the office with the same job as you, are you jealous of her?
• how much money do you make?

and my personal favorites:

are there signs in your office that say no running in the halls, no yelling, and no smoking?

and

is there anyone in your office who is really weird and no one likes them?

as you can tell, they were mostly preoccupied with my workplace eating habits. it was all sort of adorable, but i was quite happy to be able to come back to my peaceful office. maybe being an aunt is really all that i'm cut out for.

wednesday questions

why... does going to the dry cleaners make me feel more productive and fill me with a greater sense of accomplishment than almost anything else?

-----

when...did i become so health consciously inclined? i just had a phone fight with missy about how we had to go to the gym after work today instead of enjoying this beautiful balmy evening dining outdoors at our new favorite neighborhood joint. this is the first time ever that i've chosen exercise over wine + bbq'ed octopus. and i don't even regret it. scary.

----

doesn't it...violate some sort of workplace code to shut off the water - thereby closing the restrooms - in an office for four hours during a workday, with the closest alternative being in another building across the street?

i should really have OSHA on speed dial.

entomology for beginners.

in case you didn't know, its spiderman week here in nyc. a whole week devoted to all things peter parker...the movies were alright, but i don't think any movie really needs an entire week's celebration devoted to it. we only get one day to celebrate our independence as a nation, don't we? one day to honor our births?

nevertheless, i checked out the week's website and there are seriously a billion events going on. i'm pleasantly surprised i've managed to avoid most of the them already, although i'm sort of curious about supercuts' "mary jane madness" deal -- would anyone really want their hair to look like hers?

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

in further insect news, since the warm(er) weather has arrived, so has a giant swarm of flies in the lobby of the my office building. a serious swarm. they hang out near the radiator right by the door, and typically a handful of them will buzz around you while waiting for the elevator, and the whole lot of them surround you when you try to exit through the door. it's charming.

why do you work in such a dirty building are they there, you ask? i believe it has something to do with the dead mice that are supposedly in the ceiling, a rumor i didn't really believe until all these flies appeared. although, if the fly brigade is any indication, i'm guessing the deceased rodents are in the radiator, not the ceiling.

i'm really so curious about the people who actually live in this filth factory.

all love, no cyanide.

it is typically hard to maintain a general feeling of goodwill towards others in this town. whether its someone shoving you off the subway, a self-important corporate guy stealing the cab you've been patiently waiting for, or a slightly crazy fellow duane reade shopper holding up your transaction while complaining to the cashier that the quarter they were just given "is too thin to use in their laundromat, can they have a different one?" (really. i don't understand that either.), there is usually something occurring that makes you just kind of despise everyone around you.

but every once in awhile a magical little altruistic moment happens that restores your faith in humanity. i had one of them on saturday.

after a rather fun and eventful friday evening, i took a cab back to my apartment around 10am saturday morning. upon exiting the cab and coming in to my abode, i suddenly felt a pang of dread and wouldn't you know - for the first time ever i had lost my wallet. (well, my pouch, since i don't carry a wallet like most adults and prefer little change purses. i think i picked up this trait from my grandmother.)

i had dropped it in the cab and after a good two minutes of cursing myself and panicking, i started the motions of trying to get it back/canceling my credit cards/minimizing damages. i must say, nothing sobers you up faster than the realization that a majority of your valuable belongings are no longer in your possession. so suddenly hungover - and therefore even sadder - i pouted over my losses and attempted to be proactive.

amazingly, about 40 minutes later my phone rang...and it was a woman named lillian asking if i had lost something in a cab! she gave me her address and by a short time later i had my beloved pouch back, all items inside perfectly intact. i'm really still sort of blown away at how quickly and nicely the whole situation resolved itself, since i'm certain the odds of having one's wallet returned are generally pretty slim.

so thank you, lillian. i hope good karma comes back to you in spades.

sewer rats killed the internet star.

"aging cheddar becomes internet star"

i mean honestly, don't people have anything better to do than watch an online video of cheese ripening? although i guess my taking the time to bitch about the people watching the cheese ripen is almost as pathetic.

but, my favorite line of the article: "Watchers have tuned in from as far afield as Albania and New Zealand, although most are from the United States (ed note: of course) where a school has even sent in pictures of two crocodiles to guard the cheese."

why in the world would a crocodile be an appropriate sentry for a hunk of cheese?

i'm all about balance.

i believe it is a true testament to my piscean nature that the two highlights of my week thus far have been:

1. joining a gym
2. deep fried meatballs

those crazy little flakes.

unlike most people, i don't like milk in my cereal. i'd rather pick at dry cereal - i mean, really, aren't soggy flakes just SO gross to look at? - as though its a snack mix. this makes for a sometimes messy experience, especially when i'm breakfasting at my desk.

today was no exception - although my mess turned out to be quite exceptional.

while tearing through my mini-bowl of special K i dropped a few flakes on the floor, so i bent down and picked them up (seriously, its amazing i get any work at all done in the morning with the amount of time i spend on my hands and knees behind my desk, scouring the floor for bits of cereal). while transporting a final handful into my mouth, i felt one flake drop. so i again inspected the floor, my lap, my chair, but the little guy was no where to be found. after a few minutes of looking, i gave up, assuming i must have imagined the drop.

fast forward to 6pm. i'm leaving my office, and am waiting at the elevator. as i go to zip up the hoodie i have on under my jacket (thanks, abnormally cold april) i feel something in the fabric next to the zipper. i look down at the hem, and notice a little bump next to the zipper. upon touching the bump, i feel it crumble. there's no way....says a little incredulous voice in my head.

but oh yes, there was a way. somehow, that little special K flake managed to find an opening flap of extra fabric inside of my hoodie, fall inside it, and then tuck itself into the hem at the bottom. i was amazed.

and a crazy old flake.

there have been few disturbances in the halls of our building lately, but tonight the truce between "cuckoo" (old woman across the hall) and "junkie" (woman in the apt below us) - both names we've heard them call each other, we wouldn't come up with such nasty monikers for our neighbors - was broken.

while watching the rangers kick ass! whoo! this evening i heard a ruckus starting up in the hall almost as loud as the one going on in the Garden. i dashed to the peephole, and saw cuckoo's door open. i then heard her yelling from the stairwell. junkie was shouting back at her. cuckoo raised her voice (a boon to the girl huddled behind her fireproof door, listening intently) and let loose a stream of threats that ended with "if i ever hear you or see you again..." junkie cut her off, and suddenly junkie was cut off with the spraying sound of an aerosol can.

door slams, cuckoo comes back up to our floor. i think its safe to say the elderly woman across the hall maced a fellow purdy court resident with lysol.

goodness i'm going to miss this place when we move.

future goals.

after a particularly hellish meeting this afternoon, i've decided that if and when i ever run my own company, i'm outlawing tuna fish. i won't mind if my employees wear sweatpants to the office, call their friends every 15 minutes, and refuse participation in our office 'secret santa' - as long as they don't eat tunafish for lunch in our workspace.

especially not in the conference room, where a short time later, a fellow employee might have to sit for a meeting and keep her nose buried in her sleeve for a 1/2 hour lest she pass out from the lingering noxious fumes.

friday afternoon fruit medley.

i had a tupperware disaster this morning while transporting my breakfast to work, so my bag absolutely reeks of pineapples. as do i, since i've been trying to clean the juice off/unstick my belongings for the past few hours and i've gotten juice on my sweater, and possibly in my hair. which isn't necessarily a bad thing - i've come to realize i'm never unhappy when i eat fruit. so sitting here feeling/smelling like a giant pineapple, while messy, has been rather uplifting.

*****

which is greatly needed, considering the past week. its been rough, to say the least, and i'll focus on one of the more insignificant troubling aspects of it, since words couldn't ever do justice to the actually significant part. in loveandcyanide land, overzealous humidifiers and tumbles in trannie heels are the worst things to happen to us.

so my ipod is broken. upon receiving a heap of new music two weeks ago, thing 1 (missy and i have matching ipods engraved with "thing 1" and "thing 2", named after the mischievous cat in the hat characters. the book's characters, not the movie's. the movie does not exist to us. if dr. seuss had intended for his characters to look nightmarishly frightful he would've drawn them that way, not face-painted jim carrey and mike myers to look like weird animal-esque clowns.) decided he had had enough, and shut down in the midst of a song and has yet to turn back on. i haven't yet had a chance to get him looked at due to more pressing matters, so my commutes have been tuneless.

which is basically torture. without my headphone buffer, i've been subject to all sorts of nonsense from the outside world that my books and magazines just cannot as effectively tune out. however, on the train yesterday evening i was privy to a performance that i would've completely missed had thing 1 been working.

i've seen/heard this subway car singer before - he is quite memorable as his voice is so unique, yet somehow familiar, although i can't put my finger on who exactly he sounds like. the closest thing i can come up with is a more feminine-sounding gargamel. with a voice like that you would think one would stick to, say, ad jingles, but no, his favorite song is "amazing grace".

so he appeared in my train car yesterday, and started singing his signature tune. after a few choruses, while i was bracing myself for another yodel of "saved a wretch like me", he suddenly launched into everyone's favorite sleazy disco hit, "do ya think i'm sexy?" i chuckled aloud at such a priceless mix, and for that i am grateful my pod is currently out of order.

although not so grateful that i won't be hitting up the apple store this weekend.

when banks compete, you win.

i stole that line from some commercial, but i truly experienced it today. i don't know if chase has been losing a lot of customers lately or what, but my trip to the bank just before was the most hardcore helpful customer-service experience i've ever had. i daresay if i had asked mark, the bank manager, who personally delivered my money to me (doesn't the branch manager have more important duties to attend to?), to shine my shoes, he so would have.

and keeping on the subject of ads, i've decided that the usage of the muppet's "manamanah" song in the new saturn commercials totally distresses me.

a beary good time.

not like we don't usually speak of all things ursine here at loveandcyanide, but this week our lives were even more bear-filled than usual. as if that was even possible!

to cap off our bearalicious week, last night we had the pleasure of watching the most entertaining documentary we've seen in awhile - Project Grizzly. the story of a man on a mission to build an indestructible suit of armor that would enable him to get closer to these sometime deadly bears, this film has it all - humor, pathos, insane bearsuit-testing that involved much pummeling, and of course gratuitous grizzly shots.

we give this one two thumbs - and a (stuffed) paw - wayyy up.

smells like a comeback.

first off, i'll apologize for being a slacker...its been a rough two weeks and as you can see that there is a new (old) post below that was written awhile back, that means i wasn't even able to hit the publish button let alone write anything new. considering loveandcyanide has dwindled from a trio to a solo project, its gotten a little tougher to keep up the good work. but i'm persevering. if anyone ever wanted to know the difference between missy, chrissy and bear, its that two of the three not only abandoned this little project but don't even read the site anymore, whereas the last third is holding up the fort all by herself. yes, in these ritalin-addled times, one of us still foolishly believes in loyalty.

anyhow, we're back in business. in the past few weeks a lot of good stuff has happened, a few bad things have happened, and of course a few crazy things have happened. there was a nutty religious zealot cab driver, a 5-day bacon binge (um, hello heaven), a possible OD on Sparks malt beverages, an exotic familial discovery, a mysterious raise, a viewing of the dumbest television program ever made, and a rash of new nicknames for missy and i inspired by the bachelor (if you shouted "star spangled ass muffin" into our apartment, i guarantee one of us would answer you).

but instead of talking about those things, i'm making my comeback with a tale of a rather mundane experience i had leaving my office today. you know when you catch the whiff of something and you automatically can place the scent? well, when stepping into the elevator i caught the unmistakable whiff of plumeria.

remember the body shop's plumeria? that brilliant fuchsia colored potion that at least 3/4 of your friends were sporting in high school? (it was my personal fave). well, there it was in my elevator. i actually had no idea they even still made it, but the second it hit my nose, i knew what it was. and i couldn't help but smile, since it reminded me of the most humorous perfume-related experience i've ever had:

freshman year of college, one of my close guy friends was hanging out in my room, and discovered the spray bottle of plumeria that either my roommate or i had on our shelf. after sniffing it, he went on a tirade about an ex who wore the scent and how he couldn't stand it. so enraged by the memory of this girl, he commented that i could never, ever wear it again. apparently not satisfied by my nod of appeasement, he then wound up and tossed the bottle out the window and onto the lawn behind our dorm.

i never wore plumeria again. but to this day i'll still chuckle when i smell it.

little discoveries.

from last night. obviously at the time these were wayyy more earth-shattering.

i'll start with the disturbing one first.

a lot of people i know act exactly like dane cook. this may sound like a pathetic revelation, but the thing is i've avoided dane cook for awhile now. i've honestly never watched the guy's routine, barely even heard his voice or knew what he looked like. for some reason, from the second i was made privy to his existence, just hearing his name, i knew i'd dislike him. sure, friends and acquaintances have told me otherwise, but i know better (like when people tell me i'd like certain cheeses, and i'm sorry but i just don't).

so i happened to turn on his little show when i got home last night, and to no surprise at all i thought he was a moron. what did surprise me was that i recognized in his movements and intonations about eight people i know. exact imitations - they literally must have modeled their being on this man (in the hopes of being funnier?). which means technically i've been watching dane cook's act daily for awhile now. this fact bothers me.

now the amazing one.

imagine leaving a bar and thinking you might need to hit up an atm to be able to take a cab home. (because like a mogwai, who knows what i'll turn into if i take the subway past 10pm?) as you cross the street you spy an atm -- attached to a nathan's!!

remember the scene from Ice Age II where the cute-yet-stupid squirrel temporarily dies and finds himself in heaven with a gigantic beautiful golden acorn? yep, this felt exactly like that.

molto moisture.

sometimes i think i'm above directions. i just assume i know how to handle the new product i am in possession of, with nary a thought as to whether or not i'm actually using it properly.

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so in my apparent quest to reach the pinnacle of my old-lady dorkery before i am even 30, i requested - and received - a humidifier for my birthday. i finally decided to put it into use yesterday, having fallen ill with yet another respiratory-esque illness. (instead of the weather/shoddy air quality of my office, the blame this time falls squarely on the shoulders of recently flu-ridden Missy, and her carrier-monkey, Bear, who i'm sure collects her germs on his fuzzy little person and then lets them loose all over our couches to infect me). so deciding now was as good a time as ever to see what exactly this humidifier could do for my misbehaving sinuses, last night i filled up the canister, plugged the sucker in, and cranked it up to the highest level.

i awoke this morning to conditions similar to those found in the rainforest exhibit at your local zoo. turning off the 'difier (sounds more bad-assey that way, doesn't it?), i discovered the windowsill on which i had perched it was absolutely soaking wet. as were my blinds. and the window was all fogged up. and funny, but the floor felt sort of damp. turning on my light and taking a look around my room, i spied lines of moisture running down my walls. this was slightly disturbing. do walls sweat?

upon mopping up my room and reading the directions, i learned that maybe i shouldn't have put the 'difier on high. and if i did so, i should have left my bedroom door open. oops.

so i may have warped the floorboards, but at least i'm breathing better.