Yay Pots and Pans

Today's Dining section featured a lovely picture of southern-style black-eyed peas in a hoity-toity enameled cast-iron Dutch oven from France:

Why, that's the same hoity-toity enameled cast-iron Dutch oven from France that I have!  Even in the same color.  I love it when my good taste is confirmed by national newspapers.

The only bad part about already owning a full set of fancy cookware and nearly every conceivable kitchen gadget is that it makes registering for wedding gifts a bit of a challenge.  For a while, it was just six gratin dishes, a Dyson vacuum, and a kegerator.

Oh, and a Wii.

We're very modern.

Also, it's the last few days of 2009, AKA the last few days of December, AKA the last few days of the nonstop foodfest* that's been going on since November.  So maybe I should take advantage of this last chance at total fattitude and make a luxurious mac-n-cheese tonight.  In my fancy French Dutch oven!

Things go back to healthyness on 1/4, when we return from Vegas.  It's the first day of the broadcast year, so I think that counts.

*I was so good for a while, after my whole let's-be-macrobiotic-while-Dan's-out-of-town kick.  I made it through the Provost "Let's Put Out a Ridiculous Spread and also mix Fancy Cocktails!" Holiday Party and John and Dana's Ugly Sweater Party (which should really be called "Party featuring Dana's Dips" because holy cats, people, Dana realllllly knows how to put out an incredible array of superfatty and of course incredible dips) relatively unscathed.  Then I just started eating everything in sight, provided that said thing was not a fruit, vegetable, or whole grain, and stretched out my stomach to the point of nonstop ravenousness.

Pretty Pretty Paper

Who doesn't love a good paper product, right?  I love a good paper product.  I also love a good paper product that is not a zillion dollars, so I've been devoting way, way, way too many brain cells to finding hawt paper products/printing methods for The Event at the cheapest possible prices, because these things suddenly... matter?  Sigh.  Recently, I kind of took a hiatus from such searching (see: meltdown) and blissfully forgot about an inquiry I made about getting samples of Crane Lettra paper, aka The Paper of The Gods, to which I never got a response.

Or so I thought, until this came:

I have to say, good on Neenah Paper.  What they might've lacked in email responding skillz they more than made up for in the sending of a free gargantuan package containing many large sheets of very expensive all-cotton paper.  I'm pretty stoked to cut these bad boys up and send them on a test run through the printer!

See, bride brain isn't all bad.

Kind of.

It's Here! It's Here!

Eh, actually, I'm not that excited about it.  I'll SEE it, OF COURSE, like, WHO DO YOU THINK I AM OF COURSE I'M GOING TO SEE IT, but I'm preparing for the letdown afterwards where I try to convince myself that it was awesome and then later, when I watch it again, realize that it was pretty bad.  If I were Carrie's real life friend, I probably wouldn't talk to her anymore, because dude, you and Big have been at this stupid dance for TWELVE YEARS.  I AM SICK OF IT.  FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT.

So who's with me for opening night???

Avatar

The first teaser for Avatar looked super cheesy, no? Like the rest of America, I made a lot of Jar-Jar Binks jokes.

Dan and I decided to see it anyway. It was incredible.

Most of it is CGI, but on a level of realism I've never seen. You really forget that these are just actors in silly-looking motion capture suits in front of a greenscreen; their facial expressions and stuff are just so detailed and dead on. The world that Cameron created is incredibly beautiful, and the 3-D enhances everything and makes it, well, real.

The story is nothing to write home about. But hey, it worked for me. Sigourney Weaver was an unexpected treat as hard-boiled superscientist Dr. Grace Augustine! And there's only about ten minutes of ubercheesy schmoopie dialogue, total (plus a valuable mineral called - I am not making this up - UNOBTAINIUM). So if you're looking for meaty dialogue or relatable stories of personal growth, you should probably go see Up in the Air. OTHERWISE, see this.  It was different.  I hadn't seen different in a while.  And there's an ass-kicking lady alien in it!  I always like to see that.

Our Landlord's Deck

One of the fun things about moving is giving tours of your new apartment to all your friends. We start with the private entryway, stand and chat in the hall for a few minutes, and then show off our giant bedroom. Then we breeze through the living room (less giant), stand around and marvel at all the wasted space in the kitchen, and solicit ideas for pieces of furniture to put in the bathroom (Dennis suggested a chaise).

One popular stop on the tour is when we instruct the visitor to look outside the bathroom window and down onto our landlord's amazing deck. It's huge, gorgeous, and boasts several space heaters. We've never seen anyone out there. One day, though, while marveling at this unused treasure, something strange was noticed.

Do you see it?

Let's zoom.

You guys! The deck is just a place where their dogs shit! WTF?!

And that concludes our tour.

Good Spender

Remember how in an orgy of consumerism I purchased two pairs of shoes from J. Crew, intending to return the pair I liked less?

Well, they came.

And I love them.

How could I choose?

Both of them.

So I'm keeping them both.

As penance, I will get rid of three pairs that I already own and never wear.

Eventually.

This Is Real

This month's Golf Digest cover (for real.  This wasn't made up by a Gawker commenter or anything):

Something tells me Michelle would not appreciate 8 of the 10 tips Obama can take from Tiger.

Shoeage

What's that, wedding industry?  You wanted me to buy stuff?  FINE.  I'LL BUY STUFF.

In order to get my dress hemmed, I need to decide what shoes I'll be wearing.  I was thinking of wearing ones I already owned, but whatever.  I need new shoes anyway.

So I ordered these two:

The bluey one is my favorite, obvs, but they only had a 6 1/2 and I'm a 7.  But I ordered it anyway.  These shoes run big, maybe?  And then I will choose the one I like in the privacy of my own home/in front of everyone at the office.  Or maybe I'll just keep them both!  Why not?  IT'S MY DAY.

Meltdown

Yesterday I had a bridal meltdown.  I've had a couple, but this was the first where someone bore witness.  It wasn't pretty.  It began during the workday, resulting in a nasty, ranting blog post that I thankfully never published, took a break during our office holiday party (the party and its tub of queso deserve a post unto themselves... um, it was not a macrobiotic day), flared back up during said party when someone asked me about wedding planning (to my nowhere-near-getting-engaged friend: "Oh my God.  DON'T DO IT."), and then ended with me weeping on the couch as Dan tried to make sense of the blubbering, flailing mess he had agreed to take on as a life partner.

So, some things need to change.

One is that I try not to blog about the wedding at all, because this isn't a wedding blog and people consumed by their weddings are lame and annoying, but the wedding is currently a big part of my life and I feel stifled.  So I'll be doing some wedding blogging.  It's MY BLOG, guys!  I can blog about searching New York thrift stores for glass candlesticks to use in lieu of floral centerpieces if I want to!  I think that having a written outlet will help me get my wedding craziness out into the ether and more importantly, out of my head.

Two, I need to take breaks from party planning and talking about party planning.  My mom and I have had some tension lately, and I think part of it is that really, all we talk about is the wedding.  We have other stuff to talk about.  So I should probably limit talking about the wedding to every other day.  Maybe every three days?  I'm not sure that's realistic.

Three, I just have to go with it.  Part of me thinks that we rushed into deciding on a big (well, not that big... hence all of our guest list drama... but big to me), fairly traditional wedding, but that's what we're doing, so from here on out, I will stop it with the ambivalence and embrace it.  It's going to cost money.  Lots of it.  But we've decided to part with it, so... I should spend it on stuff and not be my usual penny-pinching cheap-o self and also stop driving myself crazy looking for the absolute lowest price for everything.

So I will buy stuff.  It's ok.

Starting with these?

Only $1,926 (sale!) at NeimanMarcus.com.

Macrobiotics, Bitches!

Yaaaaay.  I'm still on my Crazy Diet, if by "still on" you mean "on when I happen to be eating a healthy meal right at that exact moment."  But actually it's ok.  Last week I had several light-headed moments but I didn't cave!  Yes!  Starvation!  As I told Blondie, I became insanely sensitive to salt, felt uncomfortably close to British Emily from The Devil Wears Prada when she doesn't eat anything but the occasional cube of cheese, and would take a shot of maple syrup when I was feeling um, dizzy.  Surprisingly effective!

I had some detours.  Yaf was in town and we went to Dirt Candy, which was fantastic, and last night Dan got back and we went to dell'anima for his birthday.  It was um, not light.  Worth it though.

And now I'm eating last week's macrobiotic leftovers for lunch!

?

I try not to be a) mean about or b) envious of other people's weddings.  I'm sure that people will find plenty to complain about and/or covet from mine, right?  And one of the things I wanted was a dress that isn't particularly timeless or classic.  Like, I want to tell my kids, "Don't worry, it was very stylish back then."  (That's what I got. You can see it later).

But do you think that's what Caroline Kennedy was going for, back in the day?

Hm.  If that's the case... I might have to rethink this.