A Rose By Any Other Name....

It just subliminally says....

GET ME A VAGINA AND QUICK!

Unicorns Suck

$30 in gas
$16 for the Bridge
$4 various "change" tolls
$13 lunch
$3.00 gummy peaches
adds up to
$66 in expenses for me to go to Atlantic City for the day

I actually only lost $10 gambling........ but ended up $76 down for the day......

HOWEVER, spending time with my friend - priceless..


Tip - don't play the Unicorn video slot - it has no rhyme or reason and cannot be figured out by anyone except the best brains at NASA.

*I have to edit this to add $10 for parking :-) - so the grand total loss was $86 - I may need to re-think the logistics of these trips......

Damn My Boobs Are Great

It took me three days to make, but it was worth it. The friend I made it for, and the peeps at the party seemed to get a kick out of it :-)

Being a Peeping Tom - Or How I Met Auntie Mame

So on Thursday, after a gut busting dinner of really good Mexican food it was decided that we needed to walk it off by getting... hot chocolate. Logical right? I thought I was going to explode, but passing up peppermint hot chocolate at Chocolate Bar... not going to happen! After leaving the store, we were passing all the lovely dwellings on Hudson Street and came upon one in particular where the inhabitants were having a small cocktail party that we watched for a moment. Thoughts of a life in one of those houses were discussed amongst us. As we were about to pass the livingroom window one friend stopped dead in front and starting waving at them. Thinking he was a little nuts and high on the hot chocolate we laughed, but he still kept waving. Well it turns out that one of the party-goers was a friend of his. Said friend came out to greet us and invited us in to join them.

What a wonderful and eclectic group we were! They were so incredibly warm and inviting. One woman in particular (the aunt of the party goer's partner) stood out and completely enthralled me. She was a fantastically tipsy jewelry designer and former singer. She kept hugging me. After telling her that one of my friends was not my boyfriend as she thought, and that actually *they* were the ones that were together, she made me promise that I would do my best to make sure that my two friends got married and had a nice life together. She also kept singing to me. I wanted her to adopt me.

What a fun and unexpected evening. The best kind.

Savage Chicken Pirates

Meet the MET

On Friday and friend and I wanted to do something different, on yet another day off - so we took the backstage tour of the Metropolitan Opera House. What a magnificent place - not just the performance space, but the intricate operation it takes to make it happen.

Loved the tour - the access you have is remarkable. It made me sad that I couldn't go to Lucia, but........ we heard Natalie Dessay doing some warmups in a room we couldn't go in - and an added bonus... Renata Scotto was singing her heart out from a different room on a different floor - she was teaching someone (said the guide).

Seeing the costumes for Lucia, Romeo and Juliet, Butterfly (EXTRAORDINARY!) MacBeth, Faust, Aida, Boheme etc... priceless. They are all so gorgeous - and you are allowed to touch them. My friend and I wanted to hang back and try on the kimonos!

She and I had a blast with the stagehands and propmasters. They were adorable.
It is incredibly fascinating how everything is put together and the time frames involved. My favorite fact... they pick the 27 operas and the singers 5 years in advance!

It was a fantastic experience. I highly recommend it

Saturday Spotlight - Birthdays!

Fun Birthday Celebrations !!

Last night was such a fantastically fun evening. It was spent celebrating the birthday of a friend with a great group of people; a few I met for the first time. What a pleasure it was to have spent time with this gaggle of goofy, intelligent, free spirited, accepting and somewhat uncensored souls. It certainly was a gay ole time. I am looking forward to having more adventures with this bunch, should they include me in their reindeer games :-)

Despite a rough patch, ok......... a REALLY rough patch in the friendship of said birthday boy, I think we have come out it fairly well. When relationships (friends, family, etc...) go though tough times, when it gets resolved in its own way and time - obviously the dynamics change and shift. Even though it has been almost a year since we rebuilt our friendship, at times I still have that "walking on eggshells" feeling. I guess it's only natural given the decidedly unsettling circumstances that led up to our falling out. Still, I am very happy (and proud) for the huge first step that was taken last year to re-connect. It took a leap of growth, awareness and setting aside of pride to do and I am thankful he did.

~~ What are you doing? Are you delivering mail or are you delivering dick and nuts? ~~

Saturday Spotlight - Under The Boardwalk

Atlantic City!

Which is where I will be today!
My slot machine addiction will be fed
as will my tummy at the Borgata buffet!

What A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

In two of them as a matter of fact. Yesterday was the type of day that you just stop and say... life is good.

The weather was spectacular. A perfect spring day in NYC. I met a friend for a late(ish) lunch and then went to the 3rd Avenue street fair (in the 20's) for a bit. I found a very cool necklace that I liked, but when I asked about how the matching earrings would look, the answer I got..... like a drag queen. I just got the necklace.

We got into the car and my parking mojo was in full force - a HUGE spot on 55th and 8th. No easy feat. It was just... there. Stopped into the Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center for coffee and found the most gorgeous apricots. I don't know what variety they are - they are not your normal pale yellow golf ball size ones. They are tiny, not really fuzzy, and have the most beautiful blush to them. They look more like teeny tiny plums and taste like a cross between a nectarine and an apricot.

A stroll around Lincoln Center on a sunny spring day is always fantastic for people watching. We saw the NY Philharmonic getting ready to go on a bus. That was fun to see... so many world class musicans... what was a little disconcerting was seeing the police with the canine unit and vans there to protect them and their instruments. The dog was an almost all black/chocolate brown German Shepard. It was beautiful.

Realizing I had never been in the Gracious Home store, it warranted a trip across the street. Loved it. So much stuff. The cooking section had me insane. We wanted everything. Including the miniscule melon baller. Seriously, the bowl was half the size of a pea. I don't know what I would do with it, but it would be great to have in my utensil collection.

After leaving the store - looking up we saw ... another street fair! Fantastic! More stuff I wanted, but couldn't buy this week. No problem - these vendors are always at other fairs... so I will see them again... and again.... and again.

Days like these are perfect - especially when they end with a brand new episode of the Sopranos.

Redneck Guilty Pleasure

I can't help it... they consistently make me giggle. Who? The boys of Blue Collar TV. I was enamoured of Bill Engvall for a few years before the guys got together. There is something about him that I find ... well.... hot. But then again, I've been told that historically, I have had an unproductive attraction to Southern Boys. Don't you just love it when people tell you (and it seems, the world at large) how you feel without actually consulting you, and if/when they manage to ask.... tell you that you're wrong? Remember the old addage - Don't assume because........

Oh dear - sorry, ... back to the topic at hand - I get home from work in time to watch the show and it is a great way to laugh at the end of the workday. Their episode from New Orleans where they went to cooking school and a Voodoo bookstore made me giggle to the extent that I think I scared my cats.

Fruity Friends

If this is true... I know some people that will live forever. I knew there was a benefit to the Blackberry Cobblers at Shag!

Link: Fruity Goodness

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fruity cocktail may not only be fun to drink but may count as health food, U.S. and Thai researchers said on Thursday.

Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found.

Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

New York, New York... WAS a Helluva Town

Enough already... STOP chipping away at my beloved City and what little is left that makes it so special. I'm not going to go into why this Festival means so much.... anyone who lives in the City can tell you. No smoking in bars... Shut up... I smoke - and now this.

I hope you choke on your fucking zeppole

To sum it up:

Little Italy residents upset by the raucous annual street fair voted this month to pull the plug on the historic feast, recommending that Community Board 2 move to nix the 11-day gala.

"No one likes San Gennaro who lives here," said Sean Sweeney, a member of the community board's street events committee, which voted against issuing permits for the feast.


So.... after 80 years of the Festival.. all of a sudden it's a nuisance....

and huuumm - I wonder what part of Italy Mr. SWEENEY's family is from.... maybe a visit from Tony Soprano is in order :-)