domesticity

I am unemployed again! That's enough, let's not talk about it any more. Other things we can talk about:

The apartment! Holy cats, people, I love it so much. I love the walls and the french doors and the kitchen with its granite counters and black appliances. I love the gorgeous Roman shades my mom made for all our windows, I love the shiny white pedestal sink, I even love the four flights of stairs because hey! When I make it to the top, that's an accomplishment! And I'm unemployed here, I need all accomplishments I can lay my hands on.

Our housewarming party is this weekend and while there's still a lot to do to prepare (hey, table of tools! Why didn't the pixies put you away yet?), I'm looking forward to seeing how this place holds up under our delightful barrage of friends. The Astoria apartment was always such a perfect party place with its spread out rooms but too many people ended up in the kitchen, always, and this kitchen is a little bigger. Does that mean the amount of friends-per-square-inch in the kitchen will stay the same? Probably.

We learned a lot about our stuff, back in Astoria, and packing it all up. One thing I've been inordinately proud of is the organization solutions. I know! You hear that and fall asleep. Trust me, so does Stuart, although he begrudgingly admits I'm right to obsess. Back in Astoria, we'd only implement a solution when the area had been dubbed the "_______ from Hell". But here, oh yes, we've gotten smart! A couple of problem areas have been neatly and realistically organized from the get-go, like the bathroom closet and the too-deep pantry.

[Just so you know, in the interest of full disclosure, there are labels on my pantry drawers and bathroom cubbies. I will tell you why there are labels. Because two weeks ago, I lost my crap over a paper-towel rod i was trying to install underneath our kitchen cabinets. People, have you ever tried to install a paper-towel rod under your cabinets? It will turn your brain to mush and your brain will roll jauntily out your ears like SO MANY MARBLES. So in my incoherent rage, when I nearly threw the drill at the wall, I decided to take a break and accomplish something soothing. Soothing and effective. I made labels. AND PLACED THEM. And do you know what? It worked. Making labels and putting them on things is like my very own Paxil.]

Also enjoying: the park! Holy crap, having a little patch of cool, green grass just a two minute walk away has been a balm on the soul. Sunset Park isn't very big and the western half - the half with the view - is pretty crowded with soccer players and volleyball and other types of ball as well. But the eastern end, near our place, is all leafy old oaks and London planes, and wide expanses of grass for me to do my lying-out-with-blanket-and-book routine. Also in park? Inexpensive weight room and cardio equipment access! So far, I've gone every day this week. Why? To take my mind of being unemployed, that's why!

I think I've bored you people enough with the minutae of my week. It DID occur to me that if I blogged more often, I wouldn't have to tell you all of this in one epic long post. On that note, I leave you with FALAFEL! Which I made for dinner last night. petit Hiboux: all domesticity, all the time.

geeky pet discussions, vol. I, OR, conversations we race to blog

Stuart: We should get a hamster and call it Atreyu.
Krissa: and name its wheel Artax?
Stuart: Maybe.
Stuart: Then get a wire-haired terrier and call it Falkor.
Stuart: We could tape Atreyu to its back
Stuart: to give him rides.
Krissa: you are SUCH a strange person.
Krissa: and i am so blessed to be married to you.
Stuart: You know...the easy-off tape.
Stuart: Otherwise it'd be wrong.

Yeah. The tape is what's wrong with this picture.

parklife

I was sitting in the park, reading, when the hawk caught my eye and then caught his prey, about 20 feet from me. It was easily the coolest damn thing I've seen all week, and people, it has been a cool week.

As Stuart wryly pointed out when I expressed my excitement, "Citygirl Wowed By Cruel Pretty* Animal".

What can I say, it's not everyday I see a red-tailed hawk swoop out of a tree and nonchalantly pin a pigeon by the throat to the ground. Maybe YOU do. If that's the case, you lead a strange and varied life.

Anyway, I have many other stories to tell you about moving, and closets, and cheese, but I wanted to perk up your Friday with some life and death awesomeness. Ain't city life grand?

* mad points for the Westerfeld reference.

little red boats of awesome

Sometimes I forget why I blog. I have friends who have just gracefully but completely stopped blogging and sometimes I think I should just do that, let this little green corner of the internet go rather fallow and neglected like rice cakes at the back of the pantry that you bought that one time you thought, "I'll snack on rice cakes when I'm craving sweets and it'll help me lose weight!" and you just knew it wouldn't work.

Which is why I don't stop blogging - because it wouldn't work. I'd eat the sweets. Something funny would happen or Stuart would say something immensely clever or I'd have an existential crisis 2.0 or I'd become unemployed again (hey! June 15! wotcha!) and I'd crawl back like a puppy who's just been naughty in the living room corner and BLOG.

That's sort of a negative reason to stay here. And what its essence boils down to is that I blog because I like to write out my thoughts and hear them echo back from you. And, let's be honest, I also get to meet you fabulous creatures out there. Like Anna and partner in crime and wit, Bobbie.

I think it was somewhere when we were careening towards the Samovar after a brief but terrifying stay in Tequilaville (actually a BAR, not a joke) because the Campbell Apartment in GCT didn't agree with us that Bobbie's sneakers went so PERFECTLY with his outfit, and Anna and I from no visible tangent whatsoever started talking about our fears of motherhood and losing our identities and then, in between lolcat jokes at the Vodka Room (because the Samovar was closed, MISCHA, WHY?), I helped her steal a shot glass (hello Brighton Beach readers! Please ignore that) because the kitschy heart-shaped carafe was too obvious, and I realized: how is it that the odds of liking people I met from BOGGLING are always so consisently awesome? If those odds were racehorses, I'd be rich!

I mean, I ride the subway with about three hundred faces every day. Are you telling me the odds are the same there? No. So this weird little habit that I actually present apolegetically to family and coworkers like a growth on the side of my face has actually made my life infinitely richer by sheer dint of how awesome my copatriots are. And yes, an argument could be made that blogging comprises of an otherwise already compatible group of people, of the same socio-economic background with similar value systems and educations and I'm SORRY, I'm ASLEEP now from the vodka buzz.

Ultimately, I don't care whether we had so much fun with near-total strangers who never felt like strangers at all because we all went to posh schools which we didn't or like the same emo music which we don't (Anna mercilessly mocks my one true JT all the time). It's good to be reminded now and then over endless drinks with perfect near-strangers that connections exist however weirdly we've come about them.

Awesome like a hundred million hotdogs.