monday morning cuteness.

after a particularly rough end of last week, we thought we'd kick this one off as heartwarming-ly as we can. (the very least Bear and i can do while lounging about in bed whilst everyone else goes to work is provide a little good cheer, right? right.)

puppets AND hippos? swoon.

elder-love* gets us every time.




*and speaking of elder-love, a charming anecdote from a family dinner this past weekend:

mother was re-telling a conversation between herself and our father from earlier in the week. she had mentioned a friend of hers who was dating a widower, and my father interjected to say that if my mother passed away he couldn't go through the whole dating thing again.

how sweet, we all thought.

he then continued to say how he wouldn't date because it's just too much work to go through that all again in your 50's, and he'd try to find a new wife in an easier manner - for instance, asking a female postal worker to marry him when she brings him his mail.

when telling the story, however, mother used the phrase "mail lady" which our aunt took as "male lady" and a minute after the story was told sat there with a look of confusion upon her face as she asked our father why he'd replace our mother with a transsexual. hilarity ensued.

looking at the bright side.

it's only day two of Unemployment Fest '08, but i'm already discovering how many things are more enjoyable when you're not rushing off to work in the morning. going to the dry cleaners. mailing letters. crossing the street. making breakfast.

especially making breakfast. in my old life, where i had a job and responsibility and stuff like that, fun breakfasts were relegated to the weekend. but not any more! now i have more than enough time to fill every day with bacon and eggs (but for the sake of my arteries, i won't).

to broaden my breakfast horizons i visited our old friend, mr. breakfast, where i discovered that next wednesday, november 28th, is national french toast day! (i know we're on team waffle over here, but we're also a huge supporter of french toast). i wanted to spread the word now, so everyone has a week to prepare. and purchase gifts for loved ones, since there are tees, mugs, and totes to commemorate this important day.

lest you don't believe me.

moving along.

we usually don't write about serious stuff here, but

i got laid off today.

and i'm not writing this for sympathy, more so that i need to express how it just feels so strange. that i was roaming midtown at 4pm on a friday and didn't have a desk to be sitting at; that the work email that i've known for the past two years is now currently nonexistent; that i can sleep until noon on monday and no one will give a crap.

it's surreal. i've gone through the motions of a usual friday night out with friends - extra wonderful supportive thoughtful friends - but haven't been feeling at all like myself. which is to be expected but sort of disconcerting, as i always said that i wouldn't let my job define me, but then yet when it's taken away from me i feel completely lost. 'free', i suppose, is probably the better word to use here, as i've been told about 60 times this evening, but we're not at that stage yet.

although on the plus side, it means we will be updating loveandcyanide more frequently in the weeks to come.

"vegetable sale" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

i was asked recently if i wanted to have children someday, and as i don't think the question has ever been posed so directly to me before - at least not by an older, wiser, adult - it sort of took me by surprise. of course i wasn't anywhere near as surprised as when, also recently, a woman in a store asked me if i was having a child. missy is convinced i misheard her, and that she asked me if i HAD a child - i was intently watching her son adorably wreck havoc on a shoe display - but i'm doubtful. there were two syllables there, and "had" only has one. so i am NEVER again wearing the outfit i was in that day.

but i digress. so while i didn't really have a quick answer to the above question because i'm not one for 5 or 10 year plans, and i tend to consider everything situational, if i didn't, at some point down the road, want to have children, this would be why:

c'mon, let the kids have brownies

i would hate to bring a child into a world where they couldn't experience the joy of a proper bake sale.

warning: rampant cuteness ahead.

hello readers! we're back.

while the title up there makes it seem like we'll be posting photos of us and Bear in our mouse ears, we managed to find something even cuter.

puppies!


while everyone else goes nutso for the election, we're going to just sit here and watch some adorable baby animals all day long.

M I C....

the only benefit to working a bit later than usual on Wednesday night was that i finally got to see a mouse in our lobby. he dove back under the radiator as i came out of the elevator, and so i did the same out the door and on to the street. while kind of freaked out, i was happy to finally have my proof about the "dead mouse smell" that permeates the entrance to the building. that little guy will be in a trap and stinking up the place in no time, i'm sure.

-------

oddly enough, we have another mouse-in-the-radiator story - one that totally tops this week's. a few years back a little mouse found his way into our parents' house via a christmas tree. after we figured out what had happened and spent most of an evening looking for the little stowaway, missy of course came face-to-face with him while she was in the bathroom. he popped his head out of the heating vent in the wall and she went berserk.

her shrieks brought the troops - my father, a flashlight, and our cat, tigger - running to the rescue. about two minutes later we look into the bathroom and see a most ridiculous scene: while father and tigger are on their bellies on the floor peering into the openings at the bottom of the radiator, the mouse was sticking out of the top part of it, about a foot above them, staring down at their heads.

-------

and so tomorrow we're off to florida, where after a few days of beach bumming we will head over to the happiest place on earth and get to see the biggest mouse of them all! don't worry, we will be careful to avoid the disney freaks - epcot is currently having a wine festival, so we imagine booze will be a pretty effective repellent*.



*Bear is carrying nunchucks in his fanny pack, just in case.

tp tuesday.

i wear glasses for distance - for the most part i need them whenever i want/need to clearly see more than 6 ft. in front of me, so people tend to ask me why i just don't get contacts and make my life easier by always seeing clearly. but i'm excessively squeamish about my eyes, and never felt comfortable with the idea of sticking little plastic cups into them and so i'd rather throw my glasses on and off as i need them. i actually really enjoy being bespectacled.

anyways, i typically don't wear them during the work day as i don't need them for reading or when i'm on the computer. today i discovered what is quite possibly the main benefit to never wearing them in the office: i can't see the magnitude of filth in the ladies room. good. lord. i am never making the mistake of seeing clearly in that room ever again.

while this is certainly a memory i'd like to erase (the rest of you too, i'm sure), i was reminded of it when i happened upon the virtual toilet paper museum this evening.

the VTPM is infinitely more interesting and sanitary, i promise.

our hero.

one giant burger.


don't you just want to rest your head on it?

best nap ever.

midweek madness.

we heard a christmas song on the radio over the weekend. already?! it turned out to be for some sort of 'santa bucks' contest promotion the station is holding...but still. i am an absolute holiday season freak and even i don't want to hear santa claus is coming to town on an 80 degree mid-october day. they couldn't do a monster mash moolah prize instead?

-------

the NY court system is officially stalking me. i received my 4th 'juror questionnaire' in the past two years. to the house i no longer live in, in the borough where i got exempt from serving 2 years ago because i didn't live there then either. i'm starting to think they really have no one else to call. my last name must mean 'fair' in latin because the only person i know who gets harassed to be a juror more than i do is my father.

-------

workers at a local restaurant - a favorite of ours for greek take-out - yelled at me this evening for taking too long to pick up my order. it was 22(ish) minutes! the moment i walked in the door i was greeted with a chorus of "you are LATE!" thankfully i don't speak the language so i missed everything else being muttered about me as i paid and slunk out the door. missy is on pick-up duty from now on.

-------

they cancelled one of our favorite tv series, the riches. sob! typically our treasured shows get the ax after the third season, so they surprised us by stealing this one away from us even earlier. i really need to just stop watching television altogether, since the (quality!) shows we fall for are ones no one else is watching and therefore get cancelled, meanwhile freaking two and a half men marches on in prime time and on syndication on every station imaginable, its obnoxious theme song drilling holes in my brain. ugh.

-------

on the train to work this morning, wearing my glasses and therefore being slightly more observant than usual, i was staring down at the platform as our train was being held at a station and noticed a roach meandering around. in broad daylight, outdoors, on a relatively clean platform. watching in horror as he attempted to get from the platform onto the train - he didn't, thank goodness for those gaps and the inadequate jumping skills of the cockroach - it sunk in that had he made it on to the train his next stop could have very easily been on to my pants leg, which was dragging all over the subway car floor. or worse, *shudder*, up my pants leg.

i am so incredibly loathe to admit this, but i might finally start wearing shorter pants.

another thursday fix.

it is 'customer appreciation week' at WaMu and they are giving out FREE TOOTSIE ROLL POPS. i find this heartwarming considering their current state of affairs.

run, don't walk to the nearest one! they are all out of cookies, but surprisingly no one wanted the candy. so being my usual thoughtful self i helped myself to four, one for each family member who holds an account with them...

*brushes lollipop sticks off desk*

a thursday fix.

ten ways to eat more bacon.


as if it was really even possible for me to eat more.

some of these are old, some are new - but #7?!?!?! a travesty. tofu does NOT, just does not, deserve to be wrapped in bacon. it shouldn't even be kept in the same refrigerator.

voting hoes and penmanship woes.

last week, being the very diligent, law abiding citizens we are, chrissy and i did some internet research to be sure our voting information was accurate. we had both been living in different apartments in 2004 and figured we'd better verify where we could vote this year. one little search later, i'd discovered i was not, in fact, a registered voter. someone with an eerily similar name and my very same birthday was however. and they were also living in our parents' house.

in my usual state of terror and manic anxiety, i dialed chrissy to get her opinion. we decided that i should not, in any way, vote under my pseudonym as then my opinion might be disqualified, thus swinging the entire presidential race by my one vote.

i called the board of elections and was put through immediately to an incredibly sweet sounding older woman who i can only assume was darning socks for her great grandchild as she spoke to me. she was very helpful and apologetic and assured me the matter would be rectified immediately. i was told she just needed to pull up my registration form.

with lightening speed, she turned from jekyll to hyde, telling me that she had located the problem. assuming it was now something really terrible i inquired nervously what the issue was.

"your penmanship," she snarled, "is terrible!"

i was then subjected to a lecture on the importance of good penmanship and how easy it is to mistake an O for an A at the hands of a novice scribe. i was not allowed off the phone without swearing on all but my future first-born that i would print on my new registration, as i am clearly not fit to use script.

and there with my tail between my legs, chrissy got the confirmation she has always yearned for. her handwriting is officially prettier.

there goes bear's social life..

it's no secret the love&cyanide ladies love gmail, between us we've got 5 gmail addresses, and that's not counting bear's (you can reach him at bear4mayor@gmail.com). so, color me surprised to not be on board with their newest feature, mail goggles, an application that polices your sobriety.

really? i have to do math equations before i can send a 3am friday night email? i can see how this may help the recently broken hearted and the chronic emotional messes, but for those of us with a consistently colder nature, how will we ever show affection?

if it weren't for a little nightcap, sissy and i might never speak. and forget about bear's midnight electronic odes to his paramours..

whew.

thank goodness we are not boys.


we can maybe do about two things on this list. does growing basil count as "food"? we hope.

journey into the realm of the rabid disney vacationers.

at the end of the month missy and i are taking a vacation to our aunt's timeshare down in Florida, and after spending most of that week lounging idly on the beach we decided we will end it with a drive across the state to visit Disney World, as we've only been once before - i was 9, missy was 5 and capitalizing on the fact that she could still *almost* fit in a stroller and therefore should be pushed around the entire magic kingdom, legs flailing out of her little carriage while the rest of us took turns pushing her around in the 100 degree august heat. so it was practically 20 years ago, and clearly things are totally different (although i imagine i will still whine about the effects of the Floridian humidity on my bangs and take dorky photos with Tigger, and missy will try to cajole me into pushing her around the parks) and being we're only going to be two hours from the magical place we might as well make a stop there. two days at the parks, in-and-out, see it from an adult perspective. we thought it would be that simple.

in speaking to others who've visited there at some point in the past 1/5 of the century, we're starting to see that it isn't. it has been suggested that i should make all my dinner reservations now, a month in advance. a disney-vacation-loving coworker frantically informed me yesterday that i might already be too late to even make such reservations. REALLY? we are going to go hungry in the happiest place on earth because we didn't pick our dining destination more than 30 days in advance?

turning to the vacation message boards for further info has only been more alarming - there's the woman who was panicking about getting her restaurant of choice when it was only 180 days before her trip. there are the people who list, next to their avatar, every year they've gone to disney and every disney hotel they've stayed at each time and every disney restaurant they've eaten in each time (and there are an awful lot of those people). there are the people who know the exact minute you need to sit down to eat to ensure you'll be done in time for the evening fireworks. there are the ticket options, and the park options, and the park-hoppers, and the meal plans, and the shuttle bus options, and the resort options, and the extra magic hours schedule, and the vacation planning DVDs. who wants to watch a video to instruct oneself how to go away on vacation?!

we are experienced travellers, yet a trip to Orlando is completely boggling our minds.

morbid monday.

I was supposed to do this post on Thursday evening, and somehow a handful of days managed to escape me. so last thursday was going to be a pretty uneventful weeknight – missy and i were heading home from work to cook dinner and catch up on some television from the week, and on our way to the subway we happened upon a dexter newsstand. Which is exactly what it sounds like – a newsstand filled with all things relating to showtime’s marvelous show Dexter. Being huge fans, we made a beeline to the stand and the marketing peons running it ambushed us with fanzines, free candy, and Gatorade. (or um, maybe we were the first passersby to actually ambush them)

regardless, it was like Christmas, just slightly more macabre and without the evergreen, since everything at the stand – from the sign to the Gatorade to all the various types of candy – was red. Which worked out great for us since we walked away with a bunch of sugary favorites - red hots, red sour straws, and – probably the most amazing thing to happen to me that evening – a cherry airhead. i haven't had an airhead in ages. MMMMMMMM.

so yes, this was all a giant campaign – a successful one, we think – for the new season, which started last night and although we won’t be watching the premiere until this evening we KNOW it was amazing and hope you all might tune in if you aren’t already fans. or at least look for a dexter newsstand near you, so you can make out like crimson-candied bandits as well.

as if the serial killer candy bonanza wasn’t enough for that one evening, we then stopped into our local supermarket to pick up non-sugary food for dinner, and in the cereal aisle missy discovered “uncle sam’s laxative cereal”. Not kidding. Way to get that point across! i really wish one of us had a camera with us to capture both the cereal box and our delirious grins when she called me over and showed it to me.

lastly, to go back to today’s theme, we had spent this weekend – and morning – at a family funeral. i know, we’ve all been to funerals and they are unpleasant and awkward, so we’re not going to go on about it more than we have to. however i had spent a good few minutes this morning just staring at the carpeting in the funeral home, and as it looked insanely familiar, and as I hadn’t been in that particular funeral home in about three years, i decided that it must be because all funeral homes use similar carpeting - an evenly-spaced pattern of little floral bouquets. And the more I sat there pondering the carpet, the more i realized that it was really the most fitting covering for any mourner who happened to stare at the floor – the slight design was distracting but not dizzying, the repetition of it somewhat soothing and easy to focus on. And in that moment – and all the subsequent ones after, while i continue to think about this stupid carpet, on the subway to my office and now sitting in my office (clearly thinking of anything but the work i should be thinking of) – i feel ridiculously comforted knowing that so much thought was put into that floor covering.

for a cloudy afternoon.

a good read.

tuesday briefs.

isn't spam so much more tolerable when it comes from an interestingly named sender? earlier today i completely ignored harold's advice on enlarging my manhood, yet took a second glance at agamemnon's selection of canadian pharmaceuticals. greek mythology is definitely the way to go there, spammers.

-----------

is there something about cold-weather shoes that make people shuffle more? during the past two days coworkers have all been shuffling into my office (unfortunately it isn't the manhattan shuffle!), and i have to attribute it to the fact that they are no longer wearing sandals and have their feet covered up for the fall.

or, given the nature of this place, unless its just because the rug is filled with more mouse hair than usual. bleh.

-----------

but while we're on the topic of animals, an FYI in case anyone was thinking of visiting the NY Aquarium - most definitely go during the week day, during the school year. i had a friend in town the past few days, and took friday off for an aquarium adventure. sure we felt a little silly at the sea lion show when we realized the aquatheater was filled with basically all elderly couples, but the animals were so bored with no kids around to torture them that an otter came right up to the edge of his tank and hung out with us for a good 20 minutes. it was the cutest thing i've seen in ages, and probably the highlight of my month. he's so lucky i couldn't heft him over the glass partition or else he'd be stuck doing flips in my bathtub right now.

scaring the neighbors.

there's this guy who lives in our building, i believe the floor below us, and it just so happens that almost every time we, or missy herself, bumps into him in the elevator, its under the circumstances where she's taken by surprise, and either gasps, screams, or jumps when he appears. (we startle extremely easily, in case we've never mentioned it before) so our joke is that this guy thinks she's totally nuts, since he's the quiet sort and just sort of nods and looks away when she does her little startle thing, or at times, big startle thing, and when i'm there during her startle thing we both wind up laughing hysterically afterwards, so he never speaks to us otherwise. this will come into play later on in the story.

so, yesterday evening i had just finished cleaning my apartment and was getting ready to attend a family fun night with missy and dad at the yankee game. our dad was picking us up to drive us to the stadium, and was dropping miscellaneous items off for us first (good porter chauffeur father he is!). when he called to tell me he was outside my apartment he also mentioned that he was going to 'send up' the bag of towels he brought for us in the elevator, and i could just grab them when they appeared at my floor (after lugging our laundry up three flights of stairs to our old apartment almost every other sunday night for two years, the man is thrilled we live in an elevator building and as witnessed in this story, utilizes it in any manner possible). he would then go find a parking spot and come up to my abode and wait until missy arrived home from work and we could leave for the game. simple enough.

at the time that i took this phone call i was in the middle of changing into something less suitable for vacuuming/more suitable for an athletic event outing, and as my buzzer rang, signifying that a giant garbage bag of towels was coming up to visit me, i happened to be in just a bra and a pair of old, hole-y sweatpants. as i had about 30 seconds to run out and grab the towels, i contemplated doing so in my current ensemble.

in the end, as i heard the elevator ding at my floor, i grabbed a tshirt and was throwing it on as i burst out of my apartment and dove for the elevator, so i could hold the door and grab my laundry.

we all know what happens next. as my door slams shut behind me, i realize that i just locked myself out of my apartment. in sweatpants with a giant hole in the backside area, and barefoot (but blessfully, by about 3 seconds, with a shirt on).

after a fit of laughter over my current state of disaster, i panic that if my father does not come immediately up to my apartment (he had our keys with him yesterday, thank goodness) and instead just opts to sit in the car after he parks it, i will have to sit in the hall until missy comes home. thinking there had to be a safer bet, i decide to go downstairs and outside in the hopes of flagging the man down as he's circling 31st street.

and i indeed manage to do so, after a few minutes of loitering, barefoot, on the middle of a main street outside of my apartment. so my genius plan did work (concerned father pulls up, rushes out of car and inquires why i am outside without any shoes on; later he confides he was worried i lost my mind) but not before aforementioned neighbor arrives home from work. as he passes me to enter the building, i say hello, he smiles at me, and i burst into laughter, knowing what he must be thinking about the disheveled sister of the weird elevator screamer.

at this point, we've given up all hope of him thinking we're anything close to normal. we're kind of just hoping he doesn't try to have us evicted.

disturbing new discoveries.

as we all know, i don't have any children and i don't spend very much time with any children, so forgive me if everyone else has been aware of this unsettling trend and we're just waking up to it...

but what happened to lunch boxes?!?!

i'm on a rabid hunt for a thermos - an old-school, plastic, unscrew-the-lid-and-flip-the-spout-up, laden-with-cartoon-characters, show-off-to-all-your-classmates thermos - and figured i could just pop into any old department-type store with a back-to-school section and purchase a lunch box and find my thermos inside. i honestly thought my biggest issue was that i wouldn't like the character selection and have to settle for stupid dora the explorer (top choice? spongebob). but no dice. not even close.

they don't even call them lunch boxes anymore - lunch bags, lunch kits, even lunch totes. and even somewhere that still does use the beloved old term for them - the website lunchboxes.com - barely sells any that come with a thermos inside. many do, however, come with a 'can pouch'. what the hell?! no wonder kids are so obese - they have a soda holster built right on to their school accessories.

i'm finding this all seriously distressing. if anyone comes across a spare thermos in their parents' attic, please send it our way.

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!

------

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.

-------

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).

------

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.

------

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

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

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.

--------

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.

------

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*

------

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.

------

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.