What the fuck? No, really, what the fucking fuck?

Published at June 23, 2009 in Money, Rich fucks and New York Fugging City. 3 Comments

We’re selling naming rights to subway stations now?

If a $4 million deal is approved on Wednesday, the nexus of subway stops at Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn will add an additional name to its already lengthy title: Barclays.

This may seem odd, since Barclays is a bank based in London with offices in Manhattan, and the only Barclay Street on the city map is not even in Brooklyn. (It’s in Manhattan, in the financial district.)

Oh, but guess who’s behind this little deal?

There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project, and the developer, Forest City Ratner, has agreed to pay the transportation authority $200,000 a year for the next 20 years to rename one of the oldest and busiest stations in the borough.

I might have known. The MTA and Forest City Ratner are awfully cozy these days.  And the Times blithely rolls along with cute little gosh-that’s-a-mouthful jokes and largely uncritical coverage of the massive boondoggle that is Atlantic Yards.

Well, that explains a lot

Published at June 16, 2009 in Gardening and New York Fugging City. 0 Comments

I’ve been wondering why the plants in Windowbox #2 are thriving while the ones in Windowbox #1 are kind of sparse and yellowed.  Then, this morning, I heard a lot of water running and saw that the upstairs neighbor was tossing water or something out the window.  Luckily, it’s just water, but it does mean my plants have been getting overwatered without my knowledge.  She’ll stop that, and with luck, the plants in that box will rally.

Foodblogging: Hibiscus cooler

Published at June 14, 2009 in Food. 1 Comment

It’s summer, which means that cool, refreshing beverages are in order. And while water’s great, it can get a little monotonous. It’s good to switch it up sometimes.

I’ve had the hibiscus cooler at Angelica Kitchen, and thought I’d like to try it at home. But I wasn’t sure where to get dried hibiscus flowers other than in Red Zinger teabags. And, well, I can get those anytime. I wanted the real thing. And then this weekend, some friends and I were at Sahadi’s — and there they were, with the pre-packed bulk spices. So I bought some, and I got some candied lemon peel because why the hell not, and I put them together. To about a gallon of cold, filtered water, I added about a tablespoon of the lemon peel, a good handful of the hibiscus flowers, and a squeeze of agave nectar. Then I turned the flame on low and walked away for a while. When the water was good and deeply colored and just about to simmer, I shut off the heat and let it cool, then strained and stored in the fridge. To serve, fill a glass (with or without ice; I prefer without) about 2/3 of the way with the cooler and 1/3 with seltzer. Garnish with lime and enjoy.

Pardon the fly.

Seems that there are many ways you could enjoy this; next time, I’ll probably use lime zest and skip the sweetener, though I might add some freshly sliced or grated ginger. Speaking of ginger, fresh ginger juice is DIVINE in lemonade.

More tomatoey goodness

Published at June 14, 2009 in Gardening, Domesticity and Food. 0 Comments

It’s been a rainy week here in Brooklyn (like, EVERY DAY), so I’ve barely peeked at the garden. But today, I decided to follow some of the suggestions in the thread below and pull out the flowers from the tomato boxes, mix a few coffee grounds into the soil, and pull off any dead leaves.

So far, so good. The cilantro plant’s still being a diva, though. How this thing can sit in the rain for a week and STILL have dry soil is a mystery.

More tomatolettes on the Early Girl and Mystery Variety plants. One tomatolette on the Jersey Devil plant, which is amusing because it’s a plum-shaped tomato and therefore pointy. Not a thing on Green Zebra.

The basil in Box #2 is doing much better than the basil in Box #1, as, really, are the tomato plants. I think the petunias were sucking the life out of the other plants in that box. Hopefully, that will be remedied now that the flowers are gone.

I has tomatoes!

Published at June 7, 2009 in Gardening and Food. 8 Comments

My god, I’ve successfully grown something!

Windowbox #1:

Some tomatoes grow in Brooklyn

Windowbox #2:

More tomatoes!

Tomatoes from windowbox #1:

These are on the regular old tomato plant

Tomatoes from windowbox #2:

These are from the Early Girl Bush

So far, the winners are the Early Girl in #2, and the one whose tag I lost in #1. Or never had a tag. And the other two plants — the Jersey Devil and the Green Zebra — have flowers, which looks like the precursor to actual fruit-bearing.

The basil’s doing nicely, but the cilantro’s being a little fussy. It gets a lot of yellow leaves, but it seems to be a water issue, so I just have to keep on top of that. None of the flowers except for the one in the ceramic pot in #2 are doing that well; all have yellow leaves and dead flowers. I can’t tell if they’re getting too much or too little water, or what, but they’re annoying me enough that if they don’t shape up soon, I’m just going to pull them out and let the tomatoes take over their space.

It’s good to have skillz

Published at June 7, 2009 in Clotheshorsery, Domesticity, Books, Fun Stuff, I see fat people and Vanity. 2 Comments

I went to the reading of Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby’s book on Friday night at Re/Dress, a plus-sized vintage/resale boutique in Brooklyn. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of shopping, in part because at my size, it’s difficult to find *anything,* let alone anything fashionable and at the same time age-appropriate* or suitable for my body type (please let the tyrrany of the Empire waist come to an end). But I also get grumpy in stores, which makes vintage shopping kind of a trial (and when you add in the musty smell that is inevitable among vintage clothing and which also turns me off used bookstores, well), because you kinda have to look at EVERYTHING because everything is one-of-a-kind.

Not my idea of a fun way to while away the afternoon. And it’s not like I can even get into shoe shopping, because of my big feet. I do have jewelry, though! Which is important when you wear the same drab old outfit nearly every day. Continue reading ‘It’s good to have skillz’

What I did with my holiday weekend

Published at May 28, 2009 in Domesticity and Junebug. 5 Comments

I made new covers for my pillows!

Pillows

And somebody likes them:

Cushy.

Making another boat payment for the vets

Published at May 27, 2009 in Kitties and Life with pets. 7 Comments

So Miss Sugarplum is having Health Issues again. This time, it’s some kind of abdominal mass that barely shows up in an X-ray but is pushing her intestines and stomach out of the way (and is thus responsible for the vomiting and diarrhea she’s had lately; literally, she puked 15 or more times today and I suspect she’s been barfing when I’m not around, though I don’t want to ask what happens to the stuff that doesn’t just dry onto the floor). Tomorrow, she goes in for an ultrasound to see what’s what. With luck, it’s a cyst that can be drained. Without luck, it’s a tumor. Either way, it’s $500.

UPDATE:  Well, the mass appears to be neither a cyst nor a tumor but a lipoma, since when it was aspirated, fat came out.  So it’s still there, and she’s on a special diet now, both to get her to lose weight so the lipoma shrinks and because the damn thing is pressing up against her bowels and pancreas, and the vet wants to treat this as an irritable bowel/tetchy pancreas issue as well as a lipoma.   I just bought a case of food, too, but luckily the nice folks at the local pet food store will let me exchange any unopened cans, and I’ll just stock up on Junebug’s food instead.

Oh, and did I mention the mammary tumor?  When she stabilizes, she’ll need to have a mastectomy.   Perhaps the vet can get a skidoo.

Could be a coincidence

Published at May 26, 2009 in Hmmmm. 0 Comments

Or, could be the universe is trying to tell me something:  on my last post, the one about the nutjob from OKCupid, I got a bunch of spam comments.

But not just any spam comments.

Spam for tub rails and shower stools.

They do say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

Published at May 20, 2009 in I will die alone eaten by my pets and Woman-Hating. 9 Comments

So, remember the guy who went from zero to “blow me” in three emails because I failed to find his story about leaving a date via the back door because he couldn’t just say that he didn’t want to pay for her lunch (and then calling her to tell her she was a bitch) a fine example of sparkling wit and charm?

He’s baaack!

And he’s as big a charmer as ever.  First email:  “Do you not like men?”

He caught me out, that sly fox!  And here I thought I was hiding my lesbian tendencies by filing my ad under “women seeking men” and describing myself as straight.  I asked him what it was to him.  Response?

you have the curves and the brains but theres also something else there.. just wondered if it was that you didnt like men.

I see he’s a devotee of the school of seduction which counsels men to insult women in order to keep them off-balance and interested in you.   Oh, that silver-tongued devil!  I just had to reply to him.

I like men just fine. Men who can do things like negotiate who’s going to pay for lunch without running out the back door.

You have a new profile, I see.

But he was just too much for me.  See, he knew that I was really into him.  He could tell.  But he wasn’t going to let me think that I could have him just because he showed interest in me by contacting me a month and a half after he told me to blow him because no bitch was going to make him pay for lunch.  That, and setting up a new profile so he could get around my blocking his profile.  No, he was too much of a fox for me.

I do have a new profile. I left for a few eeks and came back. Thanks for noticing. I prefer women myself, Women that arent embittered by their failures and can meet a man half way in a spirit of equity and warmth without telling them to pay( psychologically/financially) for them for their own edification.

It’s like the mating call of one of those trolls whose comments never make it out of moderation.  Well, he showed me, didn’t he? I certainly showed no spirit of equity or warmth when I blocked his new profile, I suppose.  Just a cold, unfeeling bitch unwilling to meet a man halfway after he tells me to blow him.