Avoid The Hero Boy

Well, David came home a few weeks ago, and within a few days we were up and traveling again - this time back down to NYC for work & auditions. We had a lovely week planned, ready to fill our time to capacity hanging out with friends and family. Instead, we spend the 2nd half of the week laid up on my parents couch, recovering from The Food Poisoning Extravaganza Of The Decade!

DO NOT GO TO MANGANARO'S HERO BOY (or Manganaro's Grosseria, for that matter)

Manganaro's Grosseria and Manganaro's Hero Boy are right next to each other on 9th Ave - around 36th street. They were owned by the same family who later split in a feud and decided to operate separately. Now the Deli (Grosseria) is run by the infamous Bitches of 9th Avenue (vicious women who immediately bark at every customer who enters, thereby preventing anyone from becoming a repeat customer... seriously - it's a Soup-Nazi situation) and the once-wonderful Hero Boy cafeteria next door, which used to be one of my food staples, will now unfortunately be remembered as the Gateway To Our Personal Hell. What a huge disappointment. I used to eat these heros ALL THE TIME when I was in a revival of Yentl that ran for a few months back in 2002. The theatre was right around the corner, and we had multiple double-show days. Between the matinee and the evening shows, my friend Charlie and I would always meet for some super-delicious sandwich fuel.

I don't know what happened to this place, but it's safe to say that those "Sandwich Days" are over. Never, NEVER again. We did the social "math" and there is absolutely no way this horrendous food poisoning came from any other source but Manganaro's Hero Boy. David was sick for two days, I was sick for three-plus.

Manganaro's, I hate to say it... You used to be family - but now you are dead to me.

P.S.

David left today to go back to work.

Christmas will be celebrated upon his return!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! We had a great time! It was full of many "Firsts for" us...

• Our first Thanksgiving in the New House!
• My first time preparing a Thanksgiving dinner.... ever!
• My first time cooking a whole bird... ever... :(
• Our first Thanksgiving since we've been together, in which David and I could spend the holiday together! (David is usually at work)

With some help from The Internets, and a lot of hard work, it was a great success! We had three friends over: Mike, Julia, and Alexis...

I am a dork and I typed up a list of everything I was making (it was originally intended as more of an organizing "gameplan" than a "menu," but then as I went along, it was fun to make everything sound fancy...) Anyway, here was our Menu for the Day:

• BISCUITS with Butter & Honey
• CRUDITE - Fresh Veggies & Dip
• CHEESE & CRACKERS
• ALEXIS & JULIA’S HOMEMADE COOKIES
• -----
• ROAST TURKEY & HOMEMADE GRAVY w/ Thyme, Butter, Garlic, & Lemon
• HOMEMADE CRANBERRY SAUCE with Orange
• ROASTED RED POTATOES and Garlic
• STEAMED YELLOW AND GREEN BEANS
• ROASTED SWEET POTATOES w/ Butter & Cinnamon
• ROASTED RADISHES
• ROASTED GARLIC BRUSSELS SPROUTS
• WHOLE WHEAT HOMESTYLE STUFFING
• SPICED LAMB STUFFING w/ Apple & Cranberry
• -----
• WEGMAN’S BAKERY PIES - Mixed Berry Pie, and Pumpkin Pie w/ Whipped Cream
• VANILLA ICED CREAM
• ALEXIS & JULIA’S HOMEMADE COOKIES

So, all in all, it was a wonderful day. It ended with me, slightly drunk and exhausted, relating the day's antics over the phone to my parents in Queens, whilst curled up on our new green couch, crumpled apron and all. After all my fears about cooking a whole bird, and weeks of gathering advice from everyone who would talk to me (Momma Herzog, Momma Campione, Queen Susannah who I ran into at Wegmans and cornered for turkey tips, and don't forget The Internets...) I actually succeeded in making a moist, crispy-skinned, delicious roast bird! Go figure! Next year I have nothing to fear! :)

More pics of the couch (without me on it) to follow...

David leaves next week for work/training... More travel coming this "holiday" season...

HAPPY NOVEMBER, EVERYONE!

Well, we're having a lovely November here in Ithaca, and that means two things:

#1 The gorgeous fall colors are turning to bare branches...

#2 I haven't posted on this blog in practically a whole season!

Whew!

It's been a VERY busy Autumn for us. Most of my time was spent working at the Kitchen Theatre, and other than seeing the show six times (what a champ!), David of course spent his time at home this fall working on the house. That means finishing the floors in our great room, constructing our bed in the master bedroom (that's right, our mattress is no longer on the floor! Woohoo!), buying and installing new lighting and hardware throughout the house, and getting some new furniture...

Here's a preliminary pic of how the floors turned out in the great room. There will be many more pics to follow including (spoiler alert...) our new gorgeous green couch from Sam Peter!

Views From The Front Deck

David gets home later this week (hooray!) but until then, these pictures will have to suffice...

Here's the beautiful sunset from our front deck:

Here's the start of my lovely Topsy Turvy tomato crop! Yummm:

And here are three of our favorite cactuses... the little guy on the right was imported from Florida when we moved! He rode on the floor of Shelby, in his teeny pot, and he was only an inch high back then! Look how he's adapted to the Ithaca weather!

After David gets home, we'll be down in NYC for a week - I have rehearsals for the play I'm doing at the Kitchen Theatre this fall. Then we return home, and David goes back to working on the floors while I get back to rehearsal. The floors should be done very soon - we only have half the great room, and the guest bedroom left!

Keeping you posted, as always...

Why Am I So Excited By A Dishwasher?

OUR NEW DISHWASHER IS HERE!!! Just installed today! We got the new Energy Star Model of the Whirlpool Quiet Partner III.

I was going to try to think of a joke about how, between me & David, he would probably be considered the "Quiet Partner" because I'm the one who never shuts up... But I can't think of anything funny about the fact that I just compared my soulmate to a dishwasher.

Here's an update about my Quiet Partner...

The ship he's working on right now is heading to a fjord-bordering town in Norway called Voss, then they're actually going back to Aberdeen, Scotland. And then they're somehow making their way over to a port town in Germany, where he'll fly out of when he comes home the 2nd week of September.

This is the vessel he's stationed on, in case you were curious...

It's Too Dang Hot!

After a nice, cool summer up until this point, NY is suddenly having quite an annoying little heat wave right now. So, I thought I'd post a picture of David & me on a nice, cool, windy day at Stewart Park a few short months ago... Oh, how I'm looking forward to the fall...!

Time To Make The Donuts...

The floors in our new master bedroom are beautiful and happy-making. But nothing is happy about David packing to go back to work.

Ficus N' Floors

The floor in the Master Bedroom is complete - take a look!

David pruned Bert The Ginormous Ficus, and we brought him inside.

The Bed Search Continues

Today we went to Sam Peter - a great local furniture store near the college.

We found a really nice platform bed set - awesome quality - all solid wood - check it out...

This decision is getting more and more difficult!

Flooring and Hardware are transforming our home...

As we check-in mid day, here is the state of the master bedroom:


Here's David doing some lovely modern dance moves as he puts down the tar paper...

The flooring in the main room, and the comparison between our old brassy ugly hardware, and our new gorgeous hardware in the kitchen...

And as you can see, despite the fact that David insisted on working in the dark, we pretty much finished up in the bedroom by the end of today! Looking good!

Back To Our Duties...

We're getting back to work with the renovations right now.

David has been working on the master bedroom - here's the state of the floors in there, and in the hallway:

And we've been on a hardware-replacing kick lately. It's amazing how a little classy hardware can make such a huge difference on the look of the room. Here's David replacing the ugly brass junk in the guest bathroom with beautiful Oil Rubbed Bronze, our hardware of choice for most of the house.

Ithaca Artists' Market 2009

Today we went to Steamboat Landing (where the Ithaca Farmer's Market is usually held) for the Ithaca Artists' Market - all sorts of local artisans and food and wine and live music and such. It was really beautiful down by the water, and a truly gorgeous day! (We'll start back on renovations soon, but for now, a little rest and relaxation is in order...) Anyway, I've been emailing with the woman who works at the Community Arts Partnership here, and it looks like we may be able to get David's work into the next market!

Furniture, O Furniture

Today we skipped out to Syracuse for some furniture shopping. We stopped many places along the way, and were unfortunately unimpressed with some small local joints, but we did see some really nice stuff at American Signature. Here are some options we're thinking about for our bedroom set... Ignore the dorky salesman dude :)

After Twenty-Nine Days Apart...

DAVID ARRIVED HOME LAST NIGHT! WAS SUPPOSED TO LAND AT 4PM, ENDED UP CLOSER TO MIDNIGHT. BUT THAT'S OK! :)

Updated House Pics

Check out the little bright green bug I found on the front deck the other day! Isn't he a cutie?

...I can't believe this city mouse has gone country now... I'm taking close-ups of bugs.

Anyway, here is a birds (read: loft's) eye-view of the kitchen/dining area, and you can see David's beautiful work on the floors!

Here's the loft...

I will be posting more soon, after David gets home this week... !

No To Redundancy, Yes to Catching Up!

Ooooh.... I'm not gonna apologize for the lack of posts again... because that would be redundant. And I always taught my creative writing students to say "NO!" to redundancy in their writing. So... there you go. I have actually been very busy with this new freelance job - I've been doing consultant work for an online video content management company - I'm helping to put together their channel partner program. What does all of that mean? Well, I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. (But seriously, it's actually very challenging & creative work with an hourly wage that beats the pants off my last two jobs, so it works well for me!)

By the way, these provincial pics are the views from our front porch on "Moving Day" a few weeks ago. I loved the location of that rental. It was in this quaint little village on the outskirts of Ithaca called Slaterville Springs. Anyway we left the rental in mid-June and moved in to the House, and on the first night that we were going to sleep in our new home, David hung the three Mezuzahs that my parents & grandma had sent us as a housewarming gift. We put the scrolls inside, I said the prayer, and he nailed those puppies up! So now, it is officially OUR HOME!

Though it doesn't feel like it when we're not both here. David has been working off the coast of Norway for the past three weeks or so, and he'll be home in a week, when renovations will commence.

I can't leave without showing you my parents' OTHER housewarming gift, the tree that ate Ithaca:

It's a lovely ficus plant! Let me rephrase that...

It's an eight-and-a-half-foot ficus tree that arrived in a van at 9am on my birthday (no, the ficus was not driving), and I almost threw my back out trying to move it! The delivery was just comical. "Hey lady, I got a tree for ya!" And getting it up the front deck was no easy feat. But honestly, it's a beautiful and meaningful gift, whom I've already named Bert, and David and I will take care of Bert forever. Thanks, Mom & Dad! Viva Bert!

Sorry...

Hi everyone. Um... sorry for the lack of posts... 

As you know from the daft haiku below, we moved in two weeks ago, and have been incredibly busy partially setting up the house ever since. David has finished the floors in much of the great room, but things around the house are still looking pretty chaotic since we can't REALLY unpack and organize until the floors are done. Before leaving, David made sure that the loft is finished and gorgeous with both of our offices set up, so it's possible to get work done... whew!

David left on Tuesday for his new stint off the coast of Stavanger, Norway. He's on a rig called the Thialf, and here she blows. Check this puppy out - can you believe he's living on this thing?

I wish I had more House Pics to share with you, but right now I cannot find my camera anywhere. I promise I will find it and post more House Pics toot-sweet, upon the repeated request (read: DEMAND) of my mother.