I Did It! I Did It!

I admit it, guys: the Sweaty Dresser was getting me down.

"Can I even be called a wife?" I asked myself. "Even Betty Draper could repaint a dresser, I bet."

So, I went through my list of "someday" projects, picked one, and gathered my tools.

Using our landlord's ladder, I taped out a herringbone pattern as best I could on the wall. Our walls are quite high - even with the ladder I couldn't reach the top, so I cut the pattern off rather than risk death. For good measure, I decided not to do it all the way down to the floor, either (that one was just laziness).

Then I started painting. I used leftover paint from our living room - the semi-gloss from the furniture, and the flat paint from the walls. They're similar colors (one is just a shade lighter, from the same paint chip), but I figured the different finishes would make a nice contrast.

Coat one...

Break time...

It's so important to take breaks.

Coat two...

Then I ripped off all the tape...

And voila!

I am fucking delighted with how it turned out. It looks so chic with that coat rack I picked off the trash. I'm tempted to bring the pattern over to the wall with the coat hooks, but for now, this is more than fine. Thanks, Design*Sponge, for this great idea! It didn't even take that long - under two hours from start to finish, and as I used 100% items that I already had, it was f-r-e-e. If you're looking to punch up a wall, this is something I would highly recommend.

The Semmes-and-Katie Lovefest, Now With Pro Pics

For their wedding, Katie and Semmes hired a crazy photographer named Emin Kuliyev to document the day.  He communicated mainly via gestures and rarely looked at his camera while shooting.  And who knew, this special Martian method produced some cuh-razy awesome pictures - I love the sense of motion and urgency (not bad urgency.  Good urgency), and of course I love re-living such a wonderful day.  I think my favorite moment was when the couple entered the ballroom for their reception and spent like two solid minutes jumping up and down because they were just too happy to do anything else just yet.  It made me think, Katie has always had so much love to give, and she's found a guy who can not only take it all, but give it right back.  Ugh, I should've used that line in my toast!

Enjoy.  All photos by Emin Kuliyev - more are on his blog here.

(They didn't actually see each other pre-ceremony, but Photoshop laughs in the face of chronology.  I LOVE this picture).

(I love this one too, but I do wish that if you looked carefully out the window, you could see the Short Hills Mall).

Gorgeous!

Super gorgeous!

Says Tash of this photo: I look like a giant that fell from the sky into this scene...and Gavin seems to be the only one who notices.

H.A.G.S.

I may have eaten a sub-par lobster roll, but my main Red Hook destination was IKEA, home to cheap but not entirely crappy-looking frames. Yaaaaay frames!

Carla is so happy that she'll be immortalized on our walls.

In addition to enabling our cat obsession, I also got a frame for our wedding "guestbook." We put out a mat for people to sign at the reception and then stuck a big group picture in there - my older sister did that for her wedding eleven (!) years ago and I always liked the idea. And now it is framed and on our wall!

Looks pretty good, right? Framing it allowed us to relive all of the touching messages of love from our friends and family.

Thanks Matt! We did have a great summer.

A Proclamation

It was a big weekend. Dan and I went out to Long Island for some wine tasting fun, we visited our friend's gigantic apartment in Spanish Harlem, and I went to IKEA out in Red Hook. Red Hook, you say? Obviously, Meghan, if you happened to be in Red Hook, you went to try the fabled lobster roll at the Red Hook Lobster Pound, right? Well, you're right! I did.

My friends, for some time now, I have wanted to say, declaratively, that I can name the best lobster roll in New York. But until now, I couldn't do it. I hadn't had the one from RHLP. It's consistently written up as a good one - if you're unfamiliar, they have a stand at the Brooklyn Flea and people will happily wait in line at said stand for two hours - so how could I say I knew the One True Roll without a sample?

I need wait no longer.

I went to the store.

I watched the lady butter-grill the bun and add an ice cream scoop's worth of lobster salad, a dusting of paprika, and a sprinkle of scallions.

I admired it.

And I took a bite, expecting big things...

... but it was just ok. The bun was all wrong, and the scallions took away from the delicious lobstery sweetness. I guess they're there for flavor balance, but this is a lobster roll. Balance is beside the point. It might taste better after two hours in line ?

So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you: the best lobster roll in all of New York City: after a year of tasting, many many dollars I'll never get back, and cholesterol levels that concern my doctor, it's the roll that originally stole my heart.

I give you... the roll from Pearl Oyster Bar.



(Or, if you don't want to spend thirty bucks... the one from Luke's).

EAT

On a whim, I recently painted this mini-mural on our kitchen wall, while Dan was at school, emphatically directing guests and residents of our apartment alike to consume their edibles.

Eh, I'm not sure whether I like it... it's a little corny. Then again, don't we need some corniness in our lives? In any case, it would be easy to paint over. I waited for Dan to notice it, and see what he thought.

And waited.

And waited.

Four days later, when Biz was over, I told her that Dan had not yet realized there was a new, large, cartoon-lettered sign on our wall. She didn't believe me.

"Maybe he just doesn't like it," she said, helpfully. "And he doesn't want to say anything bad."

Geez, awesome! I gave it one more day and then pointed it out.

"WHAT?" he said. "No. That has not been here since Monday. You just did that. You did it this morning. A week?"

I no longer feel bad about making any and all aesthetic decisions for the house.

The Tale Of The Sweaty Dresser: Continued

Last we left off, the dresser in our bathroom went from looking pretty good...

...to looking like ass.  Smash and Biz came over last weekend and were like, Meghan, what the F is up with this assy-looking storage unit.

"It looks even worse than my manicure," said Smash.

Even Carla and Bianca were like, Megz, for realz, get with it.

(Okay.  That was just an excuse to post a cat picture).

FINE, guys, FINE.  I'LL FIX THE G-D DRESSER.  

I caved and bought a sample-sized jar of green paint that had not been tinted with anything edible.

I sanded the shit out of the sweaty green paint, to remove as much as possible.  The friction even burned my fingers a little, I was sanding so hard.

I taped off the white stripes.

I filled in the background with green paint.

I let it dry (mostly - just to the point where it would no longer drip).

I pulled off the tape.

And pulled off half the white paint with it.

So... it still looks like ass.  Just in reverse.  Reverse ass.

It's not an improvement.

O Boy

Does this mean Flo-Rida watched the video?  It's awesome and all (I've watched it every few days, but have to skip the beginning so I don't cry at work), but I'm not sure I want an actual famous person see me attempt choreography.



In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Katie and Semmes's epic wedding video trailer is causing quite the internet splash:


Club Can't Handle Me - Wedding Edition ft. Katie and Semmes from Dennis Kwan on Vimeo.


It's all soaked in love and happiness; I guess people are into that these days?

My Big Fat Italian Weekend

The first clue should have been the invitation. Somehow it escaped me that a convention center reception would indicate a large wedding.

And large it was! Five hundred and fifty-nine guests for the biggest, fattest Italian wedding I've ever seen. The ceremony was in a small cathedral, and featured a 24-person bridal party.

When we entered the reception, a large table draped in crab legs, lobster tails, and oysters greeted us, not to be outdone by the table with the live-pianist centerpiece.

Once in the reception proper, a parade of waiters entered, carrying bottles of (literally) sparkling champagne .

Then they brought me a lobster dinner.

And Babcia stopped by with her chainsaw!

Life is good.

Food Coloring Paint: Not So Much (aka The Tale Of The Sweaty Dresser)

The saga continues. Remember how I painted our bathroom dresser with food coloring paint? I thought it would be cool to add more tint to the batch as I did each drawer, for a three-toned look.

At first, it totally worked.

But here's the thing: food coloring is water-based. And if it isn't fully dissolved into the latex paint - ie, if you use a lot of it - it can "sweat" out when it's damp. And where is it often damp? The bathroom. So a few showers in, the lowest drawer started looking a little schwetty.

I didn't mind the look, but it was also kind of a disaster waiting to happen in terms of staining everything that entered the room. So I rubbed off as much of the excess coloring as possible and tried to disguise the cruddy-looking, splotchy results with diagonal stripes.

It... kind of worked.

Oh wait, no it didn't. Not at all.

I'm taking a breather on this one. The Tale of The Sweaty Dresser will return after I mini-muralize the kitchen. Stay tuned.