Happy Easter to all my peeps

And Happy Passover, Happy Spring, Happy Vernal Equinox, or whatever suits your fancy. Also: it is time once again for the Washington Post’s annual Peeps Show. I love how creative some people can get with a shoebox, some pipecleaners and plenty of colored, sugared marshmallows. I don’t remember any of my grammar school dioramas looking that good. Or edible.

Personally I like my Peeps stale and slightly chewy. Yum.

Photo via Flickr.

March: in like a lion, out like a cheetah

Hey puppy, objects in mirror are closer than they appear…

So, not posting for a whole month was not my plan. I could pretend it was an intentional hiatus but the truth is, it was just March 1st a minute ago, I swear. Busy-busy-busy for work and planning the auction for a local charity that I am on the board of. And then, whammo! just like that it’s the end of March. Hoping to feel more inspired this month. I miss you people and your lovely comments.

photo via Telegraph.co.uk

Damn you, Procter & Gamble

All of the P&G Thank You Mom commercials shown during the Olympics have been very touching, but this one really got me (I should note that I tear up at the slightest provocation. Hallmark commercials. Maxwell House Christmas commercials. Parades. I’m a sap). I sang this song in college glee club but our rendition lacked the touching visuals. I especially love the scene of the mom changing her own tire in front of her daughters. I couldn’t change a tire if my life depended on it.

The song is from Rodger and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical Carousel. It is also used as an anthem by the Liverpool Football Club, among others. If you go to the YouTube site for the above commercial there are some hilarious comments by soccer hooligans who are up in arms about P&G appropriating “their” song. Apparently they were not aware that its origins have nothing to do with football, although it is well documented, and actually gives more credence to P&G’s selection of it as a theme for this commercial.

One of these things is not like the other

At the beginning of the wave of good magazines going under, a little gem called Cottage Living was the first to go. I was among the many who mourned its demise, and also to receive what publishers Time Inc. thought was a suitable replacement: Southern Living. FAIL.

No offense to the legions of SL subscribers, but a mag that “celebrates the best of life in the South” and where every cover features food instead of charming decor does not fill the void. I would think a better fit would be another sister publication, Coastal Living. Or even Real Simple, both of which have more in common with Cottage Living. And PS, last time I checked, Connecticut was not considered to be in the South. Except maybe if you are in Canada.

Among the most recent publications to hit the skids was Metropolitan Home, one of the last bastions of contemporary design in the shelter mag world. I had hopes that Hachette Filipacchi Media would replace it with its lovely sister pub, Elle Decor:

Silly me. I received a postcard yesterday welcoming me to my replacement subscription:

Woman’s Day?

FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.

Some New Year’s resolutions require new shoes

One of my Christmas gifts this year was this fabulous Shoe-A-Day Calendar, based on Linda O'Keefe's international bestseller Shoes. Every day is a new piece of eye candy. Some are from recent collections (such as the above (“Pippa” vegan faux patent leather mary jane by Natalie Portman for Te Casan, 2008) and some are vintage. My favorite so far (and it’s only January 12!) was a red satin number with rhinestone heel and beaded daisy toe clip from the late 1950s. Very Mad Men.  Do my people know me, or what?

I’m off to Minneapolis this week for work. And my trip involves spending considerable time at The Mall of America.  For. Work. It’s like the mother ship is calling me home.

Merry Merry and Happy New Year!

‘Tis the Seventh Day of Christmas, and my true love gave to me 12.1 megapixels and 4x optical zoom, which is not as melodic as seven swans a’swimming, but will mean much better pictures on this ol’ blog o’ mine. So everybody wins!

Wishing a healthy, happy 2010 to all my dear bloggy friends, and you lurkers, and you Google Readers, and people who find me by googling “Sara Richardson’s baby Robin” and “Rockin’ Robin” and “handsex game” (and no I don’t know nor do I want to know what that is. Or how it relates to my blog). Also, given my web stats, a LOT (and I mean a LOT, like in the hundreds) of people got White Trash Ghetto Toffee for Christmas this year, so Happy New Year to them, as well. Thank you all for stopping by my little corner of the interwebz and being a part of my life.

I sign off for the year with this serendipitous photo smackdown:

My 2009 Christmas card* vs Yours Truly, circa 1968:

No wonder I was so attracted to the card in the store!

*That is NOT me, that is a photo from 1935. My parents weren’t even born yet!

Orson Welles to the principal’s office please

Rival high schools in Shoreline, WA are duking it out on YouTube with two clever “lip dub” videos, each filmed in one continuous shot, one take, and a cast of hundreds.

Shorecrest threw down the gauntlet with Outkast’s “Hey Ya”:

And Shorewood came back with Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True”:

The first one is very fun and clever, but the second one is quite amazing. The lip sync is a bit off but consider that they were doing it backwards! We never did anything this cool when I was in high school…

More here.

The Orson Welles remark in the title references the opening shot in his film Touch of Evil, filmed in one continuous take (my college film professor would be amazed that I remembered this bit of cinematic lore). Scorsese also used the long tracking shot extensively in Goodfellas, and Hitchcock filmed the entire movie The Rope in ten total shots. Geez, I’m a geek.

They kick ass. They take names.

Merry Christmas to me.

I picked these up while Christmas shopping this evening. I have been looking for new tall black boots and asked to see these in black. The enabler saleswoman brought these instead. “We were out of the black but I thought you might like these cognac ones.” she said. Um, she was right.

More info here. I paid nowhere near that much, thank you. Now I have to figure out what to wear them with tomorrow….

I’m thinking Freddie Mercury would’ve approved…

I love me some Muppet rock-n-roll.

Captain Morgan And His Wench

Aargh! Here’s a pic of The BF and I before Meg & Mo’s Halloween Party/Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.  It was quite the affair, and people really pulled out all the stops in the costume department. I think ours were the most fabulous, but I am biased.

I will forever be grateful to my parents for teaching me to be resourceful, and to my grandmother for teaching me to sew. With the exception of the skull-n-crossbones eyepatch, ring, choker and bag (Party City $20), and of course my sword (on sale at Joann Fabric for $6!), my whole outfit is repurposed or clearance items. I took a “Victorian Vampire” costume from 3 years ago, cut off all the pointy black chiffon vampire-y bits and replaced them with ivory lace (also on clearance at Joann for 50 cents a yard!). I added “cuffs” to my favorite boots with brown felt sewn into tubes and tucked into the boot tops (25 cents per sheet of felt!). My kerchief is actually a discontinued upholstery velvet sample ($1.99!). I had the tights and the belt came from some long-gone dress.

And how handsome is The Captain (again, biased). He managed to keep the wig on almost all night without melting. The hat he bought on Amazon had been smooshed in the mail, so he disassembled it, ironed out the creases, and put it in a safe place until I sewed it back into a tricorn. Zoe kept an eye on it for him:

“yo, when it’s not a pirate hat, it’s my pimp hat”

“What I really need are a pistol and a sword” and other random Halloween statements

One night last week while I was in Chicago on biz, The BF called me and we had a very serious conversation about our costumes for Meg & Mo’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah/Halloween Party this weekend (we are going as Captain Morgan And His Wench). Right about the time that I realized that anyone overhearing this earnest discussion about eye patches and boot covers and the sewing of jabots and hats matching coats would think we were crazy, The BF says “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” Now I had been having a very trying time at work, the kind of week where you think maybe if I blow something up or throw something out a window, I’ll feel better. So my new mantra has been “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” It seems to be working for me.

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Someone in my apartment building keeps leaving bowls of Halloween candy by the elevator, and it's the highlight of my day.

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The other night I went shopping for the aforementioned eye patch and assorted Wench-like accessories, and overheard two young men who were quite dismayed over the inaccuracy of the insignia on the Star Trek costumes. Dude, you are buying a $35 polyester costume at Party City. Did you really think it would be authentic?

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My favorite Halloween costume as a child was 1977, 5th grade, Princess Leia. White turtleneck, white long-sleeved dress that my grandma had sewn out of a sheet, and a gold chain belt of my mother’s. I wore my hair in two buns that were more like munchkins than the coffee rolls Carrie Fisher sported, but there was no doubting who I was. We went trick-or-treating with some family friends in a nice development of endless cul-de-sacs in the next town. One of their neighbors was dressed as a tomato and she kept losing her newspaper stuffing, so by the end of the night she looked like a sun-dried tomato, only it was 1977 and no one knew what those were yet.  When we were done, our dads “inspected” our candy. Funny how the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups were always “suspiciously damaged.”

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On one of our early morning walks, Meg and I were discussing how all the commercially available costumes for women are always “sexy”. Sexy Vampire. Sexy Nurse. Sexy Angel. You can even be a Sexy Detective. It’s all so very wrong. Mariska Hargitay is a sexy detective. A grown woman in a miniskirt, crop top, white knee socks and a Sherlock Holmes hat is just pathetic.

We thought it would be a great feminist statement to buy 6 “sexy” costumes, cut them up and sew them back together as one patchwork outfit of misappropriated identities (you can take the women out of the women’s college, etc.). It never happened, but this text exchange did, a few days later:

Meg: I think I am going to be a Flight Attendant for Halloween

Me: Regular or Sexy?

Meg: Stop that!

Me: I don’t think you can buy a non-sexy flight attendant costume

Meg: I found one on Etsy!

So now I am going as a Pirate Wench and she is going as Joan Halloway from Mad Men (insert slight jealousy here). We’re going to be sexy without baring our midriffs, exposing our boobs or hiking up our skirts.

And we will inspect our own candy, thank you.

And by candy, I mean cocktails. Happy Sexy Halloween.

Fall Swap Booty!

Wednesday was a tough day (actually the last 4 weeks have been tough, tons of work prepping for three big conferences coming in the next 5 weeks, lots of travel, ignoring everything and everyone except working and sleeping, blah blah blah (sorry BF, family, dear friends, cats, your blog, for being so neglectful)). A long 12-hour day at work, lots of big and little fires getting put out, no time for lunch, and then at the end of the day we find out Kelly the Fab Assistant (who recently got promoted so she is Assistant no more, yay!) had her car broken into in our parking lot, for the second time in two months. It was just a poopie day all around.

But then I got home and there was a big box waiting for me…

And inside were all kinds of amazing goodies from the lovely and talented Raina… my swap-ee in The Claw’s Fall Swap Party…

Many of them with a birdy theme – magnets, soap, napkins, makeup case… Hmmm, however did she know I like birdies?…  ;-)

And BTW Raina did you know two things I am mildly obsessed with are fancy soaps and cocktail napkins? Seriously, I have an entire drawer in the buffet solely for cocktail napkins. Thankfully I actually have people over for cocktails or it would seem like one of those weird hoarding things.

{Zoe approves of the pillow. Don’t let that “Village of The Damned” look fool you, she’s a real pussycat.}

Thank you, thank you, my lovely bloggy friend, for all the beautiful goodies!

My Swap recipient was Le Claw Sherri herself, and I sent her a box o’ Connecticut goodies, possibly committing a felony in the process.

Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy

This is not new, but it’s new to me. So funny and, sadly, so true.

Thanks to this fabulously talented friend for posting it on Facebook.

I found the bit about flying especially relevant: today I flew to/from Washington DC for biz. There & back -- with meetings in between -– in less time than it would have taken to drive round trip. Yes, Louis CK, that is amazing. The airport I flew out of, however? Not amazing. The Fisher Price airport is more sophisticated than the crazy place I flew in and out of...

By the light of the golden arches

No matter where you go in America, you are never more than 5 minutes from an artery-clogging Big Mac. Unless you are in the Dakotas. Then it might be a couple of hours.

Found here. More info at the source.

Have an incredible, amazing, awesome, easy, superlative weekend

Music Appreciation (or, how I am amusing myself at your expense)

So today I am working Day 2 of my friends' wine festival, and it is a drop-dead gorgeous day, sunny, blue skies, in the low 70s and the leaves have just started changing. So that means 700-800 festival guests per day, many from NYC, wealthy, snobby and each one amazed and annoyed that 799 other people had the same idea as them to come here. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working the festival, I love the winery owners, I always manage to have a good time here and as usual in any customer service/retail/hospitality job, 10% of the people are beyond wonderful, 80% are normal and 10% should just... go away.



I'm stationed at the back register in the retail store, and to give the place a little ambiance there is always something classical or folk or acoustic on the CD player. I have been playing the above album on repeat (I am so busy I mostly block it out). Some of the pieces sound new age/electronic but some are decidedly classical interpretations. I am loving how many people recognize those as classical style but cannot identify that it is Pink Floyd. They hum along, they wonder what composer it is, why they recognize the piece but just can't place it. If they ask I tell them it's the London Philharmonic. If they press I tell them the composer is Wright, or Gilmour, or Waters. They smugly nod "Ah yes, that's who I thought it was..."

Recipe for a Perfect Summer Weekend in NYC

{The Flatiron Building, Askew. It was the only way I could frame the whole thing with my little camera}

Pre-heat the calendar to the last weekend before school starts. Take one hard-working marketing director (me) and one high school music teacher (The BF) with a pending birthday, and add:

 

A cheap bus from Hartford to Midtown, a camera shop that is the mecca of photographers and technophiles everywhere, a French bistro that serves late lunches of moules frites and wine with Lillet. ABC Carpet & Home on Lower Broadway, an ice cream truck that you heard about on NPR, a shady bench in Union Square Park.

{The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck parked at Union Square}

A wonderful hotel in Murray Hill, a subway map, an iPhone app for Zagat that tells you where the locals go for Italian in Greenwich Village. Pasta made in a cellar, wine made in Piedmont, panna cotta made in heaven.

 

 

{Porca Miseria Chandelier by Ingo Maurer}

Picasso, Magritte and Ingo Maurer's "Porca Miseria! Chandelier" at MoMA, a street fair on Sixth Avenue, fantastic sandwiches crafted by a Top Chef, a wedding in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Used books at The Strand, an unbelievable birthday dinner at the Union Square Cafe, sitting next to a movie star, hoping to flag down the Cash Cab, drinks at a swanky nightclub.

{The Round Table, at the Algonquin Hotel, Where Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle dined and dished}

Another street fair on the Ave where the Men are Mad, finding Dorothy Parker's seat at the Algonquin Round Table, breakfast (and another wedding!) in Bryant Park, trying to figure out where they used to put the Fashion Week tents, dashing through Midtown to catch the bus back from Penn Station. Home.

 

All photos by me. More on my Flickr page.

Today I'm also participating in Hooked on Houses "Hooked on Fridays" link party, so scoot on over there and see what everyone else is hooked on.

Summer, don’t go! Is it something I said?

{Misquamicut Seagull No. 4, originally uploaded by robinsegg0523}

Oh Summer, why must you be over? You came so late this year, and went by too quickly. I feel I had only a few weeks to enjoy your sunny skies, your pleasant breezes, your sweltering days that make me appreciate your cool nights all the more…

This Saturday The BF and I enjoyed what is likely the last* “beach day” of the summer. Under blue skies and with a soundtrack of crashing waves, we sunned ourselves, read magazines, swam in the ocean, sat under an umbrella and enjoyed lunch and cold beers with an old friend of mine. I grew up on Long Island Sound, but there is nothing like a real ocean beach, with big waves and soft sand, a thousand colorful umbrellas scattered like Easter eggs on the shore. Yes, I have a bathing suit full of sand and seaweed, I got stung by a jellyfish and there is a line at the bathhouse, but I like to walk to the water’s edge and look out at the sea and appreciate that I am standing on the edge of a continent.

For more on what I love about summer click here.

*the last for us that is, ‘cause we don’t play no hooky once school starts.

A mouse for my house

I am in love with this mouse print, by Berkley Illustration and available on Etsy:

I imagine their names are Beatrice and Bertram. The artist says they live “in a yellow cottage full of cozy nooks and secret passages. You may find it a bit peculiar, but their best friend is a grey cat from France.” I totally believe her.

Found via MA Belle. More fun prints from Berkley Illustration here. Reacquaint yourself with Beatrix Potter’s mischievous Hunca Munca and posh Johnny Town Mouse here.

Now that my computer is back up and running I will be posting more and stopping by more of your blogs. I have some great pics from a recent NYC weekend for The BFs birthday. Eating and shopping and celebrity-sighting, oh my!

Whoosh!

Every day I tell myself I’m going to finish one of the many blog posts I’ve started, and every day my day goes by thisfast. Just like these guys. But without the accurate landing.

It's like slip-n-slide, only better