Wednesday, as seen from my office window

In the middle of a rain-soaked week, sometimes life can give you a little glimmer of hope.

Inspired

I was unsure about Barack Obama until last night's speech as the Democratic Convention. It moved me to tears.

bliss

Good friends Liz and Martin were married last weekend and the wedding was so gorgeous, words won't do it justice.







Got to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while, like Annie, goddess of the blogosphere.

thank you for being a friend

Picture it- Plymouth, 1990, one of many Saturday nights I spent babysitting and making sure the kids got put to bed before the Golden Girls came on. I still find it amazing how a show about four old ladies captured the interest of a generation of 13-year old girls.

To mourn the passing of Estelle Getty, my friend Nicole and I honored her memory over some cheesecake. She was a great actress who inspired the most excellent Halloween costume ever. That's me on the left. And to all of you reading my little blog, thank you for being a friend!

I'm pretty hot stuff

I try to go as long as I can without turning on the air conditioning in our apartment when I get home from work... makes me feel like I'm really experiencing the steamy, sultry, city summer, kind of like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire or that Matthew McConaughey movie set in the South where all the characters are in a constant state of perspiration. However, when the back of my knees and the crook of my elbows start to leak droplets of sweat, I cannot resist the cool whispers of the A/C. Another refreshing summer treat is a nice bowl of gazpacho.



Here's my favorite recipe, adapted from Spanish chef Jose Andres. Buen provecho!

Ingredients:
- About 2 pounds of ripe tomatoes (I like to use the really red cherry tomatoes that come on a vine)
- 1 cucumber, peeled
- 1/2 bell pepper, any color
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- 3/4 cup Spanish extra virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt

Just chop the tomatoes (don't have to do this if they are cherry), cucumber and pepper and blend in a food processor or blender. Add the garlic, vinegar and 1/2 cup of water and mix until it becomes a lovely pink color. Add olive oil and salt and blend one more time. If you like your gazpacho very smooth, strain the mixture before pouring it into a pitcher or bowl. Let the soup cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving. As a garnish, I like to toast french bread, tear it up and add it to my bowl. Enjoy!

i jinxed myself...

As soon I published the post below, a clap of thunder brought me back from my reverie. In the past month, there has been a freak thunderstorm almost every other day. Walking home from work one evening, I witnessed black clouds rolling in overhead, covering the blue sky in a somber blanket in less than a minute. Suddenly, everything became eerily quiet, and then the wind came ripping through the city... I really thought I was about to witness the Apocalypse. Here's a photo of tonight's storm making its entrance, as seen through my apartment window.

My toes have found the sun again!

Happy feet...

girlfriends are good

Along with about every other woman between the ages of 25-50 in Boston, I saw the Sex and the City movie last night. The movie opens with the familiar theme song and everyone immediately started clapping. At that moment, I felt so connected to all of those women sitting in the dark around me. I realized that each of us were longing to fill the void that had opened since the show had ended. Sounds silly, but for me, it was not so much the show that I missed, but it was chance to spend 30 minutes every Sunday night with my girlfriends, living vicariously through Carrie and her Manolo Blahniks. At that time in my life, I was living with four of my best friends, all of us single. Men were people that we'd date with from time to time, when we weren't busy hanging out with each other.

Living with my husband has been great, but I do miss having my girlfriends an arm's length away. We still see each other, but not as often, and as we all settle down into serious relationships, the embarrassing dating stories that we used to share with each other over our Sunday night Chinese take-out dinners are few and far between. Last night was a chance for us to relive our past and, for me, to realize how important it is to have such wonderful women in my life.

One of favorite scenes from an episode of Sex and the City explains my feelings perfectly:

Charlotte:
"Don't laugh at me, but maybe we can be each other's soul-mates? And then, we could let men be just these great, nice guys to have fun with."

Samantha:
"Well...that sounds like a plan."

Sounds like a plan indeed.

American Idols

In a recent Boston Sunday Globe article, a mother expressed her concern over the negative influence that role models such as Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus may have on her daughters. I'd like to take a moment to remind my mother how lucky she was, by presenting you a few of my childhood idols.

big girl, you are beautiful

One of my guilty pleasures is America's Next Top Model. Well, it's not guilty actually; there is no shame in my love for the hot messes that are Tyra and the Jays. However, this season.... er, cycle....seems a bit tired to me. Sure, the location was moved from LA to NYC, but the format is the same- makeovers (which always result in at least 2 or 3 girls getting horrendous weaves that give Britney Spears' head a reason to feel good about itself), creation of "the bitch" character (this season it's Dominique- who cannot be less than 35 years old if you ask me), and of course, the gratuitous shots of life-size images of Tyra adorning the models' loft.

This week "plus size" model Whitney got called out by some designer Pamela Rodale (or something like that...I'd never heard of her). According to Pamela, she would never put a size 10 girl in her runway show, and I think she punished Whitney for being so morbidly obese by putting her in some ghastly leopard print mini dress and making her strut up and down the makeshift catwalk as her size-2 competitors watched with smirks on their faces.

Well, I hope Whitney wins it all and shows the skinny bitches that huge, fat, size-10 women do have a place in the fashion industry after all. Until then, I'll be waiting for a real plus-size girl to show up on ANTM, while trying to squeeze into my size-10 jeans.

My toes miss the sun

They are tired of being muffled by socks. They want to be free!!

Here they are at a happier, sunnier time....

(like my flip-flop tan?)

thought for the day

"You know, life is full of hard bits, I think. But, in between the hard bits are some really lovely bits."

- Lily (Eagle vs. Shark)

a good way to meet your neighbors

Living in an apartment building is a curious phenomenon. You feel so intimately connected to your neighbors because (in our building at least), you can hear them talking on the phone, vacuuming, even sneezing. However, it's a rare occasion when you actually have a conversation or even find out a neighbor's first name.

Unless, of course, you lock yourself out of your apartment, as I did today. I was home alone and still in my pjs (pink and green striped pajama pants and some sort of Patriots t-shirt that I think my husband won at a bar), when I decided to run out into the hallway to throw garbage down the chute. And then... the stomach-turning realization that the door had closed behind me and I had locked myself out. There I was, at 3:30 in the afternoon, in my pajamas, barefoot... no phone, no friends....I felt as if I were on a desert island with no ship on the horizon. Alex, my husband, would be no help, as he's in Amsterdam at the moment. Then, the horrible realization set in that I'd have to rely on the kindness of strangers; I'd have to reach out to one of my neighbors. There was no other choice. Either that, or sit outside my door until Alex comes home on Sunday.

I made my way down to the lobby of our building and within seconds, a woman arrived at the door. I opened it for her and said hello, I could tell she was already suspicious. She lent me her cell phone, from which I made the following calls 1) to mom, of course, although there was really no way she could help in this situation. But it felt good to hear her voice 2) to Alex, to get the landlord's number 3) to my dear landlord, who by the grace of god, keeps a spare set of keys to my apartment at his work, which is about 10 minutes from where I live. He came over and was able to let me in. And I'm sure he was left with an indelible memory of my pajamas.

But the true hero of the day is Audrey, the lovely woman in apartment 3-2 who lent me her cell phone and invited me up to her apartment to save me the embarrassment of pacing despondently in the lobby, pajama clad. Audrey, by the way, has a beautiful apartment and had the table set beautifully for a dinner party she is having tonight. The table was set at 3:30! I can just imagine what she thought of her barefoot neighbor who still had not changed out the clothes she had slept in the night before.

I'm planning on dropping by and bringing her a bottle of wine to thank her for helping me out. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll be invited to one of her fabulous dinner parties.

hug for my sister

My sister is sad, so here is a photo for her. My scarf wrapped around her dress... a hug.

polaroids

We have a polaroid camera and some film left over from our wedding, so I thought I'd take a few photos of things around the apartment... the red and white table was a wedding gift that my grandparents recieved in the 40's. My favorite piece of furniture.

My happy place

If you have the opportunity to study abroad or live in another country, don't even think about it, just GO. Don't worry about missing out on keg parties or your favorite TV shows or your dunkin donuts coffee. They will all be there when you get back.

I lived in Mallorca, Spain during my junior year of college. Last August, I went back with two of my friends and fellow study abroad-adventurers to celebrate the tenth anniversary of our landing on the shores of this Mediterranean paradise. If you've never been to Mallorca, or have never heard of it, let these photos be your introduction. I hope they entice you to explore the island on your own someday.