Redecorating at the Ranch

The clutter at Chateau Husband-Reisman is more scattered than ever. On Monday, Husband sent me an email suggesting that we host a Deep Dish for Democracy party for Obama's historic speech at the Democratic Convention. First launched as a fundraiser for Kerry in the 2004 election, Deep Dish for Democracy is so named because Husband will whip up his delectable deep dish pizzas.

This, of course, led to the mess in the living room because Husband insisted a new flat panel TV is imperative to the event's success. (Our current TV was purchased in 2000 so that Husband could assemble a group of people to watch the Mets defeat the Yankees in the World Series. This did not end well.) The new TV thus requires a non-obtrusive TV stand. I figured that we would look around this weekend and pick something up. Instead, Husband came home from work last night with a new TV, which is currently taking up an enormous amount of space in the dining room.

Still, being naive, I left the apartment yesterday evening for a meeting and assumed that it would be in one piece when I returned. When I arrived home to find him removing objects d'arte (at least that's what I consider them), I was again confused. Husband cheerfully informed me that a new TV stand would be arriving tomorrow, and I should consider what new "literature storage system" (i.e. - bookcase) I would like. As of this writing, I think we'll be bookcase shopping this weekend, but clearly I have proved to be an idiot when it comes to these matters, so my guess is that some sort of furniture will make it here on Friday.

The clutter, however, will probably be here until next year.

Welcome to the Insect Graveyard

Since we live on the ground floor of our building and our windows look directly out onto the sidewalk, Husband and I never open our curtains. While I would prefer to allow the sun to shine in every once in a while, I also am not cool with people inspecting our fine home as they bop down the street. Two halogen lamps keep our living room brightly illuminated to make up for the lack of natural light and chase away some of the cave shadows that seem to form.

The halogen lamps work very well for us in more than one way. In addition to giving us light, they also appear to annihilate large numbers of winged insects. Recently, as I looked at the lamp while turning it on, I noticed that dozens of insect carcasses filled up the clear plastic piece at the bottom of the light.

While I am glad that my lamp kills flies, the unfortunate part is that the graveyard is below a large metal plate, and hence not possible for me to empty into the trash. Now every time I turn on the lamp, I am forced to look at this grotesque scene and contemplate about mortality. Oh, the conundrum!

File Under "Accomplished" - A Photo Story

(Incidentally, this little photo story will give a fair tour of the mess that is my living room. I only mocked my parents' house in the past because I could completely relate to it.)

My writing desk was my dining table for years. Then we got a new one, but instead of throwing this table out, I moved it into the living room to use as my writing table. Initially, this was very good. Then my writing table became my dumping table. (FYI - My friend Dianne painted that portrait of the CUSS logo for me. Isn't she awesome?) Not much writing is done at my writing desk as a result. After months of writing at the fancy new dining room table, thinking if I could just put my files somewhere, I could use the writing table as a table instead of storage unit, it occurred to me that I could buy a filing cabinet. Two weeks later, I ordered one from Staples.

It arrived yesterday in a tidy box. I committed to building the filing cabinet on Friday morning. Here I am hard at work in the middle of my living room. Husband was working from home, and he was so amused he decided to take a picture. (Note the hideous purple leather chairs that he insisted on buying from Craig's List. The blue sofa came from a thrift store. Our temporary second rabbit, Jacques, chewed a whole on the corner of the puffy top which is covered by Husband's green blanket that he got for college in 1994. At the front of the room, behind the gate, is Tycho the Giant Rabbit's apartment.)

About an hour and one minorly major fuck up (I forgot to put in the bottom on one of the drawers before I attached all the sides - oops), the file cabinet stands complete. What a jolly laugh I shall have if it is not large enough.

Buona Sera (Damn, I'm Tired)

For a variety of reasons, I didn't really sleep on the plane last night. Unfortunately, staring blankly into space for hours at a time does not seem to be as restful as an actual night of sleep. Still, Husband and I arrived in Italy safely and ready to do some sightseeing.

First, we checked into our mad plush hotel. There are many reasons why I love accompanying Husband on his business trips. Here are four:Our main room.
Husband hanging his fancy schmancy suits up in the enormous closet in the floyer/changing area off the main room.The over-the-top hallway staircase. The whole hotel is super old world fancy. It sort of cracks me up. And yet I am slightly annoyed that we were not given a room with a view of the Arno River. Whatever.

After we unpacked, we headed over to the stunning Florentine synogogue. It is an elaborate Moorish style structure, but no pictures were allowed. Next up was gelato, of course. I led Husband to the gelateria I liked best when I was here last year with Dr. P and Dr. H. It's called Vivoli and it is not far from the synagogue. I had orange peel & chocolate; Husband had hazelnut and chocolate.

By then, we were both fading fast. We wandered around a bit more and by luck (meaning: I got lost looking for it), I found the delightful wood toy shop that I loved last year. We bought our godson a birthday present. He'll be 1 on the 21st. Yea!

More meandering for a while, then back to the hotel to clean up. There's a reception tonight hosted by the Ferragamo family that Husband and I will be attending tonight as part of his conference. Yes, this utterly cracks me up. I was not pleased that I had to pack a nice dress (actually, two nice dresses because there is another reception on Friday at the Uffizi Gallery, which I am mad excited about because we will get to go into the Coorido Vassari, which is this private passage that links Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi so that the Medici family could go back and forth without having to mingle with the riff raff on the street, and it is not usually open to the public) and classy shoes , but whatever. I just hope I don't fall asleep tonight and/or embarrass myself. I think the reception is actually at the Museo Ferragamo, so that will be fun. There's lots of shoes on display there. Hopefully, I'll get some good pics.

Losin' It

Losin' It was on of Tom Cruises' first hit movies, or something like that, wedged right between The Outsiders and Risky Business. To me, though, "losin' it" is a near daily occurrence, although the "it" that gets lost varies tremendously.

Often times "it" is my temper or tenuous grip on sanity. Other days it is an object, like a water bottle I'm carrying with me, which I put down for a second to look at something, then wander away and 15 minutes later, realize that I lost it somewhere. Today, "it" was the last week's edition of New York Magazine, which had a very interesting feature on books, writing, and MFA programs. I read it on the train back to New York from New Haven, and after I read the main feature, I realized that I enjoyed the rest of the magazine immensely, too. Unfortunately, I lost it after I debarked in Harlem, sweated buckets on the walk to the subway, and noticed a Dunkin' Donuts. At DD, I bought a mango pineapple smoothie. Sometime between slurping down the icy beverage and entering the subway station and refilling my MetroCard, I dropped the magazine. I didn't notice until I was getting on the subway and it occurred to me that I wanted to finish reading some article.

What was I doing on the train from New Haven in the first place? Well, that is the main thing that I lost today. I helped Dr. P pack up her UHaul for Stage 1 of her moving process, which involves dropping her shit off at her parents' house in Connecticut. (Long story.) Despite being ridden with cold germs, I asked her if she wanted company on her drive north before we embark on a much longer drive south in two weeks. She dropped me off at the train station to go back to NYC, which is where I then lost my magazine. But of course, I had already lost something much more important today when one of my closest friends - someone I think of as a sister - moved away.

Getting Lucky

Friday night was packed with excitement. I went to a burlesque show/fundraiser for Planned Parenthood New York and Haven Coalition. I am an increasingly shitty leader of Haven these days, both literally and figuratively, as my digestive tract is continuing its revolt against me and I keep forgetting to do important things for Haven, such as bring printed information about our work to fundraising events. That's another story, though.

Anyway, at the event, which was oodles of fun, I bought four tickets to the raffle. I am very pleased to say that Lady Luck gave me a big, wet, sloppy kiss, and I won a ginormous squishy dildo! How cool is that?Although given its girth, does it not kinda of scare you? I admit that it intimidates me. I'm wussy that way, though.

Husband was unable to attend the event because he went to a casino with a few co-workers. I eagerly awaited his return home so I could show him my loot.

"Hi!" I said as he walked in the door. "How was the casino? Did you win anything?"

He looked sad. "No."

"Oh well," I pretended to sympathize for a second, then shifted gears. "Look what I won in a raffle!" I blurted out as I shoved the dildo in his face.

"Great," he replied without much enthusiasm.

"I'm going to show it to your parents when they come over for dinner tomorrow," I teased.

"Yeah, can you please not do that?" he said, blushing. (As a redhead, he is a great blusher.)

"I'll think about it." I put it down on the bookcase next to the computer.

On Saturday, I helped Dr. H pick up a desk and dresser that she had in storage in Long Island. Dr. P also came along, and we had a lovely day together. When I returned to my apartment, I nearly collapsed with laughter."I felt like it was staring at me while I did our taxes," Husband explained. "Then I realized that it couldn't stare at me because it had no eyes, so I rectified the situation."

"Where'd you get the googlie eyes?" I asked, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes.

"From your box marked 'googlie eyes,'" he said, as if everyone has a box of googlie eyes just lying around. (I love googlie eyes, and you never know when they will come in handy, as Husband proved.) "Now it's really a trouser snake!"
See how lucky I am? Not only does Husband take me on exciting trips around the globe, but he also tapes googlie eyes onto dildos and makes funny jokes. I am the luckiest girl ever.

Happy Presidents Day

Last night Husband and I journeyed out to Queens to have dinner with some friends who just bought a new house. The 7 train was not running, so we took trusty old Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser that we bought in August when Husband took a job in Connecticut. It turned out to be very fortuitous that we had Fred with us because our friends were getting rid of some furniture they didn't want to bring to the new place. You know how much I love free furniture, and I have wanted a buffet with a hutch for our dining room for a long time, so it was perfect!

Husband put the back seat down and the buffet slid in perfectly. The hutch, however, was a bit too big for the trunk to close. Given that it was freezing out, I was a bit hesitant to drive into Manhattan with the trunk open, but it actually worked out fine. (My digestive system cranked out some extra gas to heat up the car, which was thoughtful of it but also extremely smelly.) It was tying the trunk down that almost caused Husband and I to lose our hands to frostbite.

Long story short, it arrived safely as did our appendages. The hutch is white and looks fantastic in the dining room. For once we are also actually throwing away the old furniture that the new furniture is meant to replace, so we have a net gain of space. All very cool.