hitting our terrible twos.

happy birthday to us!

loveandcyanide turns 2 today, and to mark this momentous occasion i decided to FINALLY get our act together and revamp the site - that was my intent for our first birthday, and well, we took the easy way out and instead just babbled about salty pea snacks. and then a whole year passed. funny how that happens, huh?

we hope you guys like the new look (we do, so if you don't, oh well). it reflects our personalities much more than those stupid generic dots ever did, and most importantly, since we are getting old, it's easier on the eyes. MUCH easier on the eyes. i had no idea that keeping up with this little endeavor of ours was probably making me blind...

i like my lunch to come from inconspicuous places.

overheard on the street, earlier this afternoon.


scene: chrissy stands on corner, waiting for light to change. a man dressed in business attire appears at her left, drinking out of a johnny rockets cup. another male, younger and not dressed in anything resembling business attire, appears to his left.

thirsty man: makes slurping noise with soda.
younger man: hey, did they sing to you?!
thirsty man: (after a beat) hmm?
younger man: (points at cup) johnny rockets! did they sing to you?
thirsty man: noooooo.


he said no in 'that' voice. that voice that totally told the other guy and all the rest of us standing there that not only did they dance and sing for him, but that he absolutely adored every minute of it.

new and exciting ways to destroy clothing.

a button on my pants just broke, and unlike the usual way buttons come off - thread loosens, button falls off, mother or grandmother then sews it back on - this one just cracked itself in half. smack down the middle - so now half the button is still attached to my pants, the other half is sitting on my desk. i've never seen anything quite like it. are buttons known to crack when its cold outside?

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also to be filed under "pretty insignificant" are the stupid little radio interviews in the stupid little markets that i set up for my clients. which is why i find it hilarious when they are treated like life-or-death situations. i received a voicemail earlier this afternoon about an interview that didn't wind up happening, and towards the end of the message i was informed by the contact person that it was unfortunate it needs to be rescheduled now, "but everybody seems to be ok".

isn't that a phrase better suited for use when informing others about the aftermath of an accident or natural disaster? oh good, mr. spokesperson for some crappy-ass website, i am SO relieved to find out you're all okay after a radio station in nowheresville, CA didn't put you on the air today.

air freshener industry, take heed.

our office bathroom smells like popcorn.

this happens sometimes, and i'm not complaining because, not to be gross or anything, bathrooms can smell a heck of a lot worse, but today i really stopped to think about why and how it would. i understand that when someone makes popcorn here the whole kitchen smells, and the whole side of the hall near the kitchen smells - but the ladies room is out in the hallway, about a good 15ft and a solid concrete wall away from the kitchen. there's no way the smell can waft that far, especially when the hall leading to the bathroom does not smell.

suspicious.

this leads me to believe that someone is sneaking a popcorn fix in the bathroom stalls. i am putting on my detective hat to figure out who.

frustrated incorporated.

i don't know if soul asylum's "misery" made as big of an impression on the rest of you back in the late 90's, but it did on me, as whenever i'm generally fed-up with something/someone/life i get the chorus to the song stuck in my head. today is one of those days. i actually took to playing the song rather loudly, repeatedly, all afternoon, hoping my boss would hear it through the wall, or at the very least would get subliminal messages of his employee's unhappiness. i'm not quite sure that either has happened yet.

bah.

oh come on. we know you write them too.

we love almost everything about our new building, except for whichever neighbor (neighbors) treat it with little-to-no disregard and occasionally deposit garbage where it does not belong (i.e., a half-eaten sandwich strewn on the floor near our elevator). we tend to blame the recent college-grad girls on the 3rd floor, as they probably come home wasted and treat the place like a dorm. i will fully admit that i stumble in wasted - i just bring my garbage up to my apartment with me like a GOOD TENANT/ADULT/HUMAN BEING SHOULD.

anyway, as this 'random trash on the lobby floor' issue had come up a few times in the few months we've lived there, the night i came home and saw the sandwich on the floor i threw a little hissy fit. i hightailed it up to my apartment, grabbed a post-it, and jotted down a little message about building cleanliness, conscientiousness, and the fact that garbage on the floor = roaches. a friendly reminder for our filthy neighbors, missy and i concluded. by the next afternoon the mess had been cleaned up by whatever mysterious cleaning crew takes care of our building. my friendly reminder had been cleaned up too.

although i guess it wasn't so much a friendly reminder, and was more of a passive-aggressive note.

apparently a lot of people write them.

so many, that there is a website devoted to them.

a website that i am seriously enjoying this afternoon. hopefully you will too. (thank you, hillary!)

so uniformed.

as much as i love food, i know very little about the canned meat variety. so imagine my surprise and delight when i had my first encounter with TREET this evening in the supermarket.

treeeeeettt! why the hell is spam so popular when there is another canned meat product out there with an even funner name?! who doesn't love treats?! boy, when kids trick-or-treat at my house someday they are going to have no idea what's in store for them.

so after missy and i finished throwing our little happy fit in front of the treet shelf, and i came home and did extensive research, i discovered the absolute best thing about the stuff: people make "treet loaf".

i'm reeling.

virginia baked ham "taste"...mmmm!

let the games begin.

ok, wow. i had no idea you guys were so interested in the c-list celebs! although i guess that explains how VH1 (clue #1) stays in business.

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one of my self-admitted flaws is that i leave horrible voicemails. i ramble aimlessly (clue #2; hint: different spelling), pause, say ummm a lot, throw in unnecessary information, etc. i have been aware of this for years, but don't know how to stop the habit. i hear the beep of an answering machine, and my little succinct rehearsed speech goes out the window and i'm off to the races, prattling on and on. i was just officially made aware of how long i can ramble - whilst leaving a voicemail on my friend's work line, i actually got cut-off by an automated voice telling me i only had 15 seconds left. i didn't know such time limits on work phone systems existed.

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and so the year of the planner continues. i just received a mini-pocket one along with my thai food delivery. will it ever end? when i reach eight i will have to say "this is enough!!" (clue #3) how in charge (clue #4) of my schedule can i possibly be?

but a quick update to the general planner situation - i have actually continued to use the little one that remains in my bag. i diligently added in two dentist appointments the other day, even telling the receptionist to save her little save-the-date cards, as i had noted the dates down already (we are all aware that i am going to majorly regret doing this when july rolls around, and my planner is long forgotten and my six-month checkup comes around). the others remain in my desk. a coworker suggested that i use one of them as she is - for a food diary - and i am considering it as i'd like to get back on the diet-and-exercise wagon. however, the idea of seeing how frequently foods such as bacon and gingerbread cookies will turn up gives me the willies!! (clue #5)

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ok, kiddies. i meant to spread the hints through the next few posts, but i got a little carried away. (just like leaving a voicemail. hah.) if you don't know it by now, either you need to bone up on your pop culture, or i should stop daydreaming about working for the Guess Who? board game department of Milton Bradley.

i love it when days you think are going to suck wind up morphing into ones that are awesome.

i had to wake up at 5:30 today - a time i haven't seen for work purposes in ages - to accompany an author to a morning media appearance. whenever i have to awaken at some ungodly hour it always, always, transports me back to the 6th grade...i'm not quite sure why, but i suppose it has to do with the fact that grade six was the first time in my life i had to get up reeeallllyyyy early on a regular basis - 7am school start time + perm + first stirrings of adolescent self-esteem issues = decent amount of time needed for primping before school in the wee am hours - and so waking up in the pitch darkness knowing most of the world, and most certainly everyone in your home, is still fast asleep automatically makes me feel 11 again.

to this day, i despise the Prince song "diamonds and pearls" as i have the most vivid memories of it waking me up almost every morning that year. it must have been on the z100 'early 6am hour' playlist. thankfully this morning all i heard was the tinny beep beep of my super-awesome new alarm clock (yes, i will call the alarm clock that forever, even though it isn't so new anymore).

but i'm rather happy i did have a reason to get up and out so damn early today, because nowadays i don't really don't get to see a lot of beauty in the morning, what with my super-short immediately-on-immediately-off-the subway and rather late-in-the-AM commute. so as i walked up 6th avenue at about 7:10 today and saw the sun rising over the nearly-empty midtown streets, i was most pleasantly reminded of how lovely the city can be sometimes. it was a refreshing start to the day, and one i kinda wish i got to experience more often.

and while i initially thought the day would turn out somewhat crazy and ridiculous (in a bad way) - all i knew about this project, one that was dropped in my lap, randomly, about 24 hours prior, was that it involved a c-list former child star - it wound up being the most refreshing day i've had in a long time. the client was absolutely awesome, a wonderful down-to-earth human being, and i had a blast hanging out with them. (no, dear readers, i won't leave you hanging about my brush with celebrity, but i won't write their name here, lest they are googling themselves and think i am trying to exploit our new found friendship. instead i will insert little clues throughout my next few posts and you all can guess. new game! whoo!).

last love of the day.

i like the "weekend at bernie's" movies way more than any intelligent person should, and so i'm absolutely loving this news story.

why?

all love, no cyanide: late wednesday edition.

sometimes i just sit back and think to myself "wow. i am such a lucky girl because i have such amazing friends". this is one of those weeks.

a random sampling of reasons why:

- because when i might have to miss a gathering due to a medical thing, they offer to rent movies and stay with me whilst i recuperate, instead of attending the party themselves.
- because they invent entertaining parlor games like "there's a chip on your shoulder".
- because they buy me christmas presents i so want but i'd never buy myself.
- because they trek out to queens for my parties.

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other loves this week:

clementines - i don't often get to keep fruit around the apt, let alone an entire wooden crate full of citrus fruit, but i lucked out and missy allowed a bushel of the little mandarins into the apartment. i'm not one for peeling fruit in the office, but they are simplistic enough for me to handle during the day, and so they've become my new obsession this week. i love making my office stink like oranges.

joyeux noel - the most heartwarming war movie we've ever laid eyes on.

super warm january - i like the cold, but there's something kind of exciting about being able to wear your fall coat in the middle of the winter.

under my thumb, by the stones - i don't know why i've played this song about 300x within the past two weeks, but i just can't seem to get enough of it lately.

vigilance.

hmm.

when i saw a snippet about this article, i thought it sounded pretty interesting. 24 hour access to ikea cinnamon buns, gadgets, and stuffed animals? what fun! then, when actually reading through it, my eyes zeroed in on the phrase "apartment needs fumigating". when is fumigation called for - when someone's place is infested with little pests, right?

i would hope the ikea people investigated this matter before letting this guy loll all over their bedding displays! blechh. in the meantime, i will be avoiding this location for awhile in case he carried in bedbugs*,fleas, or roaches on his belongings.


**i'm sure i've mentioned this before, but bedbugs are one of my worst nightmares. while my obsession over them/attentiveness to prevention has been mocked to no end, i think my acting as a one-woman bedbug task force is totally necessary/thoughtful. i doubt missy and bear would be so happy and carefree if they were getting feasted on by the little monsters every night.

friday justifications.

whenever i start feeling like a bad person for being a workplace slacker, i guess i should just go and take a stroll around the office, and see what my peers are up to.

i just did so, and found a coworker sitting on the radiator in our kitchen, on her cell phone, completely engrossed in a conversation about her recent vacation. and not just a quick bit about the weather or that it was nice - she was at the point of the conversation where she was giving a detailed minute-by-minute description of how she did during a surfing lesson.

i feel so much better now.

new year, same old me.

in early december, a coworker offered me an extra 2008 day-planner, and although i've never been the planner-carrying type* i accepted it. it sat on my desk for a few hours before i decided that maybe i would give this planner thing a shot. if anything, it could help me be even MORE organized than before. so i filled in a couple of notable dates in january. and then tossed it in my desk drawer. where it is currently still sitting.

in mid-december, i got my hair cut and upon paying received a gift of two hairbrushes** and a pocket-sized planner from my stylist. that planner is sitting in one of my bags. blank.

this morning, in my inbox, i found a snazzy company-sanctioned daily planner, and i am now officially off the planner bandwagon (again) due to the overkill. so what the heck am i supposed to do with all of them now??


*those of you who know me pretty well are most certainly saying "YES! yes chrissy, you are the planner-carrying type." and yes, i like planning, and i am always on top of my schedule, and upcoming birthdays and i even like calendars, however, i just hate feeling like some little book that i'm carrying around everywhere is dictating my life; riding around in my bag, bossing me around. and so i prefer wall calendars. i can glance at them for reference, but they can't follow me around.

**she was giving a brush + planner to all her clients, but i received two because she knows that missy and i don't own any brushes*** and thought we could each use one.

***some people think that's weird. but i never thought i needed anything more than a comb. and missy and Bear just don't brush. we're so low-maintenance.

'tis the season.

to get in the last of my holiday kicks, i opted to take a 30-block walk down 5th avenue this afternoon on my way to running an errand. why i decided to do this, i don't know, as i don't really like people and i'm a fast walker and i typically avoid that area of midtown at all cost during this high-traffic high-tourist season. in any event, i managed to keep my cool even as it took me 3 songs (about 10 minutes) to walk the one single block past Saks and i had to overhear such inane conversation as two women lamenting "where are the celebrities?!" (um, most certainly not trotting around the busiest stretch of midtown)

while moseying through the crowd in the most zen-like manner** i could muster, i couldn't help but ponder the fact that with the immense amount of disaster movies they make about NYC - giant monkeys, asteroids, the stay-puff marshmallow man, floods, etc - you name it, its attacked us on the big screen - i think it would be most effective and scary if they did one of the population perishing due to trampling each other because there are so many fucking people in this city.

**it has since wore off.

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so as we're going to be away for the next few days, this will be our last post of the year. retrospective time!

as most years tend to, '07 had its high highs and its low lows. we experienced the devastating loss of our beloved first pet, but discovered the joy of exfoliation. we fell in love with veronica mars - unfortunately then it was taken off the air - and the meat pies from a nearby bakery. we moved to bigger + better digs, pissing away more of our money on rent, but learning how to use a dishwasher. we met some awesome new friends, but were also reminded how awesome so many of our old friends are.

and now we look ahead. as "eight is great", we have good feelings about the upcoming year, although as earlier today i ripped the last page off my daily sudoku calendar that sits upon my desk, i wondered what the hell i'm going to have to look forward to every day in the office from now on with no more puzzles to do. 2008 just might have to be the year of finding a new hobby.


happy new year, dear readers!

three. two. one.

three.

no french hens here - thank goodness - as there are already three of us sharing one bed. missy, bear, and i are currently bedmates, sharing her old bed at our parents' house. its quite a scene. i woke up this morning to stolen blankets and a grubby little paw in my face.

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two.

the number of days we just spent baking. we are basically living in a cookie factory, and i think i have flour in my ears.

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one.

last but not least (we're jumping a day ahead here, but forgive us since the next 48 hours will be spent in a present-wrapping food-feasting family-filled frenzy), our xmas greeting to you:

and a peacock in a fake treeeeeeee.





merry christmas everyone!

four calling....mice.

as i sit here pondering the lyrics of the song of the week, i realize that they are really heavy on the birds - partridges, turtle doves, geese, swans, french hens, and of course the 'calling' birds of this 4th day of christmas. i wonder if there is some sort of religious symbolism there, or if the songwriter was just a closet ornithologist.

anyhoo, never ones to stick to tradition, i'm not going to write about calling birds today. oh no. loveandcyanide has a calling mouse story.

yesterday afternoon, missy was sitting at her desk chatting on the phone. as she went to replace the receiver, she noticed something move out of the corner of her eye. so she glanced back at the phone, and saw a little gray-brown mouse pop out behind it and then scurry away across her desk into one of her piles of papers.

if you would like to reenact what she did next, she did it for me last night and it sounds like a lot of fun:

sit in a chair with wheels (preferably at a desk). push yourself backwards from the desk and as you roll away from it, throw your hands straight up in the air over your head (like you're on a roller coaster) and state loudly and firmly "there is a mouse on my desk!"

while i give her kudos for remaining so calm and not screeching like a banshee (as i'm sure i would have), i'm still rather perplexed about the arm motioning. are there rodent intimidation techniques out there that i don't know about?

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and so, this upcoming week, while we're in hardcore holiday music mode at my parent's house, i imagine the song "chrissy, the christmas mouse"** will be played at least 20 times while we snicker at her.


**i've always hated this song, even though my pseudonym is featured so prominently.

fiiiiiiivvveeeeee golden rings.

as we all know, we've reached the day that is the most important part of the song (eddie izzard does an awesome bit about how people run in from other rooms to burst into this line of the chorus...not like any of eddie's bits are anything but awesome. i could probably watch him eat a carrot onstage and be totally entertained.), and so, i will slightly break my recent pattern, to talk about a most important occurrence. just one. if five important things happened to me in one day...well, frankly, i don't know if i could handle it.

so we remember how last year at the dept xmas party i won an illness award?

well, this year i was bestowed with the "party queen award".

how quickly i am moving up in the world. from pathetic sick girl to party queen in a span of just 12 months! i should be a life coach, not a publicist.

overkill.

due to our love and adoration of pee-wee's christmas special, a video we have viewed countless times and have completely memorized, during the holidays we dub our apartment "the playhouse", and aspire to make it as shiny, twinkly, and tacky as the actual playhouse. as pee-wee had the assistance of Jambi, his genie, we fall a little short. (if you DO NOT know what i am talking about, please see this. and we insist that you watch this amazing piece of holiday goodness. if anything, it will help you understand us better.)

this year, with a larger apartment and a growing cache of christmas-y baubles, we've wound up with our most festive playhouse yet. so festive, we have SIX** xmas trees. we know you want to hear about each one!

1. our main tree: a silver 4-ft tinsel tree, festooned with little white lights, green silk christmas balls, and topped with a purple peacock. it seriously looks much classier than it sounds.
2. a 2-ft tree made of blue feathers, wrapped with gold beads.
3. a conical tree covered in gold glitter.
4. a slightly smaller conical tree covered in gold glitter.
5. our year-round creepy tree, decked out with one pointy silver ornament and a small red knitted mitten.
6. a 1-ft ceramic tree covered in little lights and bears. as you might imagine, this one is the personal favorite of our fuzzy little webmaster.

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if anyone has ever spilled oatmeal on a black shirt before, they will know that the stain it leaves resembles vomit. i did this earlier today.

as our big office christmas party is this evening, a party where one could quite possibly drink enough alcohol to make themselves sick, i don't know if doing this makes me incredibly brilliant or incredibly stupid.



**keeping with the daily theme, kiddies. only six days left - we hope you have your shopping done.

two squabs a-swimming. (hey, its close enough to the seven swans...)

i don't hang out with many people who have children, but when i do talk to coworkers and acquaintances who have them, everyone just gushes about how wonderful and amazing their kids are. i'm sure its true - to an extent. so i find it interesting when sometimes i get to overhear my boss on the phone with his wife, just bitching about his five kids. sometimes i feel like he actually despises them, and i find that vaguely refreshing.

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speaking of refreshing, if you're looking for refreshment in the SI Ferry terminal, we highly suggest that you do not drink from the water fountains. missy had me on the phone earlier, giving the play-by-play of two pigeons splashing about in the fountains, pecking at the drinking spout.

gross.