catskills wedding

We went to a wedding this past weekend next to the Hudson River. It was amazing...

1. The bride wore a gold dress and a feathered headdress.
2. The weather was perfect.
3. The best nyc r&b/funk band played.
4. At dusk, while playing old shoegazer, they set off fireworks. Yes.....huge, fourth-of-July-style fireworks. It was so cool.

blob

So last night I was running out to go to the grocery store for some dinner stuff....I was thinking - how about taco buffet? Refried beans, cut up tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream...I even considered hard shell tacos, but they looked supergross in the yellow box. As I was leaving, I noticed that the door didn't really close on it's own. Hmm. Doorknob is not working. Interesting.

I was able to leave eventually by slamming the door while unlocked and locking it from the outside. OK - Dave, it was way too easy for me to break into our apartment last week AND the doorknob is not totally working anymore, so let's use the deadbolt from now on. And call the fucking landlord.

Today I am wandering home from the train after school. It's 6:30. Once again, I climb the stairwell to the second floor, attempt to enter my apartment and I am LOCKED OUT for the second time in one week because I don't have a key to the deadbolt! See attached photo of me eating a salad alone in the local coffee shop while I write my blog. (I think I even have a little blog of goat cheese on my lip....charming).

underwear bag

In New York, if you don't own a washer and drier....you have your laundry 'done'. I was initially opposed to this, because, honestly, I like doing my laundry and laundromats are kinda interesting. Plus, it's a little weird to have someone else washing and folding my clothes. My plan was to do it myself every other time...drop it off, then do it myself, drop it off, do it myself. Well, on a do-it-myself-day, four or five hours and 857 quarters later, I was totally annoyed. Our laundromat is not a "sit down and watch novellas while kids run around and shriek" laundromat. It's more like a "everyone has their laundry 'done' so all of the machines but one are being used by the laundromaters and you need to go home and come back each time you need to switch the load".

So the upside of this is that when we pick up our laundry, the super nice laundromaters have separated our clothes by gender - which is very convenient. But the best part is that they fold all of my underwear into perfect little squares and stick it in a tiny plastic bag.

sweats

Do you ever have one of those days when you wake up at 5:30 and pick out - what you think is - a normal, cute outfit. You get through part of the morning and realize that you are wearing something that is so annoying, totally uncomfortable and now, not cute at all. Now imagine, if you will, that you decide to make it an easy night and leave school at 5 pm instead of 7 pm....all you can think about is changing into sweatpants and drinking a beer. Let's just pretend that you notice - minutes before walking out the door of your classroom - that you inadvertently SENT HOME YOUR HOUSE KEYS WITH ONE OF YOUR FIRST GRADERS.

You know what? Not a big deal. Call the dad....oh, he's in Manhattan? Ok....get the keys tomorrow. Now - call the only other person who has a set of keys. Maybe his phone is dead? Maybe it's turned off because he's in class until 8 pm....won't be home until 9. No problem. This is New York! You have plenty to do. Work, clean up some more, work....take the subway home, wander to a corner store and buy a cheesey magazine, walk slowly to a pizza joint and get a beer, page through....chat with mom on the phone.

9:00....go home. The security door doesn't catch everytime, so let's pretend it's open and you can sit in the hallway on the indoor outdoor carpeting. What if? What if you tried to break into the apartment with a credit card for a half hour and nobody heard or cared? Except maybe piggie who pressed his fat face to the crack at the bottom of the door and cried. It's quite easy to break into an apartment with a credit card, I would think, especially if you had 40 uninterrupted minutes and a need to pee. And all you could think about was sweatpants.

I'm 34

We went out to eat at a shmancy vegetarian restaurant for my b-day and I ordered a "stone fruit sangria" - see attached photo....looks like a fetus, right?

This is piggie and his new friend, carry internet....dave's fat cat. They are in love.

our lovely bathroom

It was late one night and I was awake rearranging furniture for the 85th time. Hot, sticky and covered in cat hair and dust, I needed to take a shower. But wait, let's reminisce...

I am a homeowner. I renovated the bathroom in my house in Chicago. It's cute, clean, white and baby blue. It was not cheap. Now, I am also a renter. Our bathroom in New York is not cute, not clean, not white, and the only thing that's baby blue is the 3x3 bathmat from Ikea.

So there are problems with the bathroom. During our first week back in New York, the downstairs neighbor knocked on the door while Dave was taking a shower and told me that there was water leaking into her bathroom. She called the landlord and about 20 minutes later, the landlord and her husband showed up wearing terry cloth visors and carrying giant cups of bubble tea asking about the leak. With a brief "we'll take care of it ASAP" they were out the door. "Oh - and don't forget to cover that part of the tile wall with a garbage bag," they said.

The following week, nothing fixed, we noticed a large blob forming in the ceiling. Slowly it began to drip into our shower, the dampness spreading across the bathroom ceiling like sweat. Bubbles appeared in the plaster around the shower head, rust stains formed above us. We call the landlords again. They call the plumbers again. Two Danny's and one Tommy later, nothing has been fixed. They walk in, look at the water seeping into the wall, tell us it isn't a plumbing problem and don't come back.

Cut to one month later, I'm in the shower, garbage bag taped to one side of the wall, heavy bubble above my head, a light dusting of mold on the wall. I look up to see a small blob coming out of the ceiling. Not rust, not plaster, not a water bubble. It's a bit like gnochhi, actually, plump and beige with little ridges. I start to think....god, what if this is a larvae? What if this is a weird bug sack - and if I pop it, millions of bugs rain down on me? I get out of the shower, dry off and push on it with the end of a hanger while standing on the toilet. It feels stiff. I'm exhausted and wearing a towel. It's probably nothing. So I go to sleep.

The next morning, I'm moving around more furniture and I hear Dave...Eeeww! What is that? Kim! You gotta see this. I come into the bathroom and it is BIGGER. It is coming out of the ceiling....out of the ceiling and it's bigger. Gross, gross, gross...what is it? Bug sack! Bug sack! Dave stands on the toilet, pushes on it gently - awaiting the deluge of baby spiders.

It snaps cleanly in half. Growing out of our bathroom ceiling is a mushroom.