Fresh Veggies in 37 days!

One of my biggest complaints about life in NYC is the lack of easily accessible high quality vegetables. I know I was very very spoiled in California between the amazing farmers market near my old apartment and my mother's ridiculously huge garden (1/4 acre of veggies for 2 people, -- this is clearly an out of control addiction to nurturing that has manifested itself in rows of spoiled greens and huge boxes of cucumbers forced on her coworkers).

I have been thinking about growing some tomatoes on my fire escape this summer but I fear watching them burn against the west facing wall especially given the upcoming office move to Brooklyn (oo.) and my inability to remember to water them when I stumble home after 9pm. Luckily a solution stumbled into my head via the blogospher -- my neighborhood has a community supported agriculture program! It turns out that for less than $11/week (!!!) these lovely people will drop of veggies (and flowers!) for me at the cafe next door. Look at what I'll be getting:







I cannot tell you how excited I am. I'm slightly worried that I may not be able to eat all my veggies since I'm unclear on how much food I'll actually be getting but they'll give any extras to charity and I certainly spend more than $11 on veggies now (and only end up guiltily throwing things away on rare occasions). It goes without saying that I'll need to discover new recipes for veggies I rarely buy but this only adds to the excitement (go ahead and start sending me recipes for chard/kale/other greens because I am woefully inadequate at cooking these).

I need to read up on the benefits of CSA's outside of my selfish desires for high quality produce... I expect I'll be even more excited once I do.

Chillin' at the 21

Back in March G and I hit up Forever 21 for an afternoon of picking out the trashiest outfits we could find and horrifying the young ladies in the dressing room area with my risqué fashion show. This game reminded me of my youth when as bored high school kids in a town of 4000 people my friends and I would head over to Kmart at 9pm and challenge each other to create the most hideous outfit possible – we had 20mins to ransack the store and meet back at the women’s dressing room to strut down the aisle in the gunnysacks. Why I am not a famous clothing designer/model is one of the great mysteries of the world – perhaps my petite forehead has been holding me back.

But I digress…

The 21 mecca in Union Square is awesome. It’s two full stories of very tiny pieces of polyester held together with metallic thread and the sticky residue of left over Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. An entire two story wall is covered in commonly mis-spelled/pronounced words. This is perhaps the greatest artistic social commentary piece of our time.



Carpool tunnel syndrome, a fate worse than death! Thank God that I saved myself by ditching my car and moving to New York. Praise Jesus!

The first time I was in this store I spent a long while talking to this wonderful earth mother outside of the dressing room -- she had on some very sensible sandals and long flowing naturally gray hair – I almost wept for her when her cute 16 year old daughter emerged from behind the curtain in a see-through yellow sports bra like contraption with the word “CHERRY” printed across her breasts.

Yesterday before boarding subway to go home to trashy TV G and I made a stop off at Forever 21 and the following conversation ensued:

B: hmm this is cute.
G: skirt?
B: tube top.
.
.
.
B: ha this is ridiculous
G: top?
B: seriously?!? It’s a skit
G: but it’s 2 inches long! And see through!
B: I’m surprised you don’t love it.

This was followed by a jaunt through the store playing the new game “Top vs. Skirt? It’s a sensation that’s sweeping the nation – catch the wave.

Kentucky Governor Voids Gay Measure

FRANKFORT, Ky., April 11 — Gov. Ernie Fletcher signed an executive order on Tuesday removing language from the state's affirmative action plan specifically protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.

Administration officials said the move was a way to increase the number of blacks and women in state government. Mr. Fletcher, a Republican, said in a statement that the order "equalizes the playing field" for people seeking state jobs.

Because blacks and women are constantly having their jobs stolen from them by all of the gays and lesbians just clamoring for positions in the Kentucky state government? Sure. Totally believable. Thank you Ernie for protecting my rights.

Astoria Queens

Represent: Alpha Astoria

P-R-I-D-E

G and I are happily wasting our youth by staying home on Saturday nights to partake in a little scrabble. Mostly we do this so that the parents who read my blog don't have to feel jealous of our awesome exciting lives. (You can thanks me with presents)

At the beginning of the game I felt I was going to kick some white boy ass and avenge the horribly scrabble walloping I took early on in our relationship. I spelled "groovy" and "grumpy" sequentially -- after 4 turns it was Brianna 91, G 78 -- not an amazing lead but I'd been ahead for the entire game and I thought the tiles had turned in my favor. Then..disaster. He used all of his letters to spell the word "orbiting" for 76 points. There was really no coming back from that, I lost 221 to 296.

I don't really know what happened at this point but suddenly I was *SO* embarrassed. Unable to forget the game and move on with the evening I started pouting and eventually blurted out, "I'm stupid." G is smart enough to deny this and begin pointing out all the ways I'm very unstupid, but it didn't matter -- I couldn't get out of my funk.

I think this is the bane of having been the not too popular smart girl. I feel like I have to always be smart because otherwise, how will I be valuable? I do smart things most days at work (When I'm not busy doing stupid things like putting water in the coffee maker before I put the urn back under the funnel...) but nothing comes back graded with a sticker on it. If you're a left brained girl like me the clear scoring of scrabble feels like a grade -- the only one I've gotten in years -- and it seemed like I failed.

Scrabble score is not the only stick by which self worth is measured. I spent Sunday trying to focus on things I truly could excel at:Brunch and Video Games. I'm mostly back to feeling intellectually superior.

Brianna Answers the Questions Posed in Modern Pop Songs

A friend of mine just released his second single, "What Would Grandpa Do?"

I've given this question a lot of thought and have come up with the following answers:

Ask the nurse to clean his bed pan.
Yell at the neighborhood kids to get off of his lawn.
Gross you out by removing his teeth at the dinner table.
Goose Grandma and giggle.
Claim that chewing tar was superior to bubble gum.
Get your nose.
Forget to wear pants. (thanks Mike)

I'm going to let Jason read this -- I'll let you know if he's still my friend come tomorrow.

Blogger's Block

I've started 3 posts in the last 2 days on the following topics:

1. "Jealousy" by Liz Phair and "As Cool As I Am" by Dar Williams -- Varitations on a theme?
2. Trying to predict the schedule of the N/W subway trains
3. Stereotypes about women perpetrated by a recent email forward

none of them stuck...