Amber & Blizzard

So, I am sick.  I was so sick on Christmas Eve, my mom and dad had to drive me back because I couldn't have taken the train.  While I am here, stuck in bed, under my cozy new comforter (another thanks to mom and dad) eating coconut balls (thanks to Auntie Carol) and surrounded by cats (thanks to Woody, Tiggy, Ginger and Pickles), this is what is happening outside.

 

Danger! Decorations!

Some days, you are glad to be in bed.

Amber & Be Careful Crossing The Street

As Jimmy himself warns, "Stay off the roads, they're no longer safe."

Amber & Kitty Update

The cats all seem to be enjoying the River House just as much as their human companions.  Although we are still facing some adjustment issues (mostly manifest in Woody's paw in my face right before dawn and then pretty much straight through until I get out of bed, or in Pickles catching--but not killing--three mice, including one he brought and released in the bed last night), they have settled in and are enjoying the indoor features of our vacation retreat.  Key among these boons is the double-sized couch.

Although just yesterday, Beth, Nick and I were discussing how we would modify the couch to take up less of the living room, the cats seem pleased that the sofa is large enough that all four can comfortably lay on it with lots of space between them.  Or, with no space between them.

Togetherness is a key component of River Time for both people and cats.  See, for example, Beth and Nick's inner tube time yesterday.

Amber & The Storm Before The Calm

1.  Go to Schaubhut to pick up more meds for Pickles.  Check.

2.  Go to Whiskers to get calm drops for travel and gut-pills for barfy Woody.  Check.

3.  Get, but do not eat, a chocolate croissant for Nick's Birthday Breakfast treat.  Check on the getting...

...and we'll see about the eating.

4.  Work.  (In Progress)

5.  Pack up work laptop, stuff at office, including books to read and bike helmet.

6.  Whole Foods for last minute purchases: sunblock, citronella spray, face scrub and shampoo.

7.  Stop by Spoiled Brats to place order to pick up tomorrow on way out of town.  (Rather than lug two cases of food, 35 lbs of litter, and other supplies up the stairs and then back down tomorrow.)

8.  Buy $5 gypsy skirt on the street.

9.  Laundry.

10.  Pack and clean apartment.

11.  Go to River House.

 Breathe.

Amber & Emergency Evacuation

My commute was two hours long this morning.  WTF, MTA?  I switched to the F at 49-50th Street only to have it stop in the tunnel.  For 30 minutes.  The automated robot voice kept saying we were stopped "while the train crew is investigating track debris."  But then the real live conductor came on and told us that there was a problem with the emergency brake.  I didn't pull it.  I swear.

Anyway, about 20 minutes into the stall, they announced we could leave the train through the front car and walk along a little ledge onto the platform at 42nd Street.  This was a scenario I had not planned for. I mean, I am ready if the Cloverfield monster comes, but I am not ready to go meet those little bug guys on their turf.

Luckily, after this traumatic experience, which also involved me discovering one of my significantly-located shirt-button-holes was too large and was venting my chest on its own, I had my new Eileen Fisher catalog to comfort me.  It's 72 pages on lovely over-sized paper with close ups of fabric.

Thank you, catalog porn.

Amber & Six Things At 6 am

1.  What can possibly happen when you are on bed rest and leave your chewy beast alone with two rolls of paper towels?

Shreddy mayhem.  What are those blurs under the drying rack?  Why that is Ginger and Woody rolling around with crazy head in piles of shreds.

2.  Not being as active as I usualy am, I was thrilled to discover this use of my skills while prone.

I am going to excel at this.  I wonder how to interpret Mrs. Tiggy Winkle while asleep.  I bet Miss Tiggy Winkle can help me.

3.  Why am I craving a chili dog at 6 am?

(Photo of my hertiage food, a Capitol Lunch dog, by Candice)

4.  Who knew some kitties had boggled eyes?

5.  What did we do when we had insomnia before LOLcats?

6.  Remember when we went to the River House last year and Pickles was the bravest and came outside to explore before any of the other cats?  Think he'll be that brave again this year?

Amber & The Great Fork Massacre of 2010

On my way to the office this morning, I passed the tragic site of The Great Fork Massacre. Lo!

On the corner of Madison and 29th Street, there were, for no reason I can offer, thousands of shredded and mutilated little plastic fork corpses.

I tried Googling ("weird forks in street madison ave new york," "broken forks road madison ave new york") but came up with no explanation for this senseless waste of fork lives.

Our thoughts go with you, brave little plastic fork soldiers, slain in battle, I can only imagine, with a giant  order of To Go Lo Mein.  Our brave heroes!  Remember our fallen fork brethren.

Amber & Kitty News

So, Pickles is sickie.

Well, okay, not quite that sickie.  My curliest, babiest cat has a urinary tract infection.  He was up all last night mewing at each of our many litter boxes, which, thanks to my mothering brain chemicals, made me start awake repeated.  But, today we saw our amazing and always wonderful Dr. Schaubhut who was, as always, amazing and wonderful.  He gave the baby an antibiotic and a homeopathic drop to take.  Since it's his first infection like this, those should help, but the doc suggested the boy would do better without his beloved dry food.  I'm not sure how Pickles will adapt, but I bet without his bowl of dry to visit every ten minutes he might lose some of his "density," if you've ever held him and know what I mean.  His density is at a rest right now.

The boy seems to be doing a little better, but since he is so super shy and doesn't come out from under the bed for strangers, he gets to come with me to the beach this weekend.  I think he'll enjoy it once we get there.  And probably alot more if I remember that he has to go in his carrier butt first.  I had to relearn that lesson this morning.

I've got matching ones of those on my décolletage, belly and--most incredibly ouchily--on the palm of my left hand.  Amazingly those were all done through the shirt I was wearing, which is now just a shreddy mess of rags.  Lesson learned.  Tomorrow will be better for both of us.

Amber & Really, Technology?

So, some of you will remember the first time I used my oven and CRD and I nearly died from laughter when we learned that, in addition to beeping super super loudly, my smoke detector said in a incredibly calm woman's voice,  "Fire.  Fire.  Carbon Monoxide."  And, if the laughter didn't kill us, the panic of trying to stop the beeping (did I mention it was super loud?) might have.  The event gave me great concern both about what was burning off inside my oven to cause that smoke and about the extra stress of the beeping--while I was trying to gather all four cats into carriers--in case of a real fire fire.  (Carbon monoxide.)

Well, guess what I just learned, at 5:00 am on a Sunday morning, happens when the smoke detector's battery gets low?

"Beep.  Beep.  Low battery."


I'll let you puzzle out how I managed to a) get the damn thing of the ceiling (I have really high ceilings, being on the top floor), and b) figure out where the battery was.  And if that's too easy, you can puzzle out how I disconnected it since it was wired directly into the electrical system. That's right, the battery is only it's backup source of power.

This seems like a really bad over-use of technology.  Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Amber & They Grow Them Big

Earlier today, a professional colleague sent this photographic evidence that the diet of sour dough bread really spurs growth in the pigeons in San Francisco.

That pigeon is practically man-sized. Maybe I need to worry less about the ape revolution and more about a winged rebellion?  It has happened before, after all...  and near San Francisco, no less.

Think feathered friends are just too small to be menacing?  Just ask 'Tippi' Hedren what it's like to be smooched in an unfriendly way by a seagull.  (Especially if that seagull is a smoker.)

Still not convinced beaked buddies are your worst nightmare?  Watch the darn movie.  Or just watch this quick summary in less than two minutes.

Amber & Crazy Hair Trick #2

Crazy, out of control hair?

Wear a barrette randomly at the front of your head.

"What?  Crazy hair?  Me?  No way.  Look how under control this little segment is right here."

"Duh."


Of course, if you are working from home, no one is really going to ask.  And really, my coworker would never really ask anyway.

Amber & Awesomeness

Sigourney Weaver, cats, lasers, and intertextuality run amok.

Amber & Mrs. Peel, We're Needed

With the holidays leaving my Hulu queue as dry as a dessert, I've been watching the 1967 season of The Avengers over on Netflix Watch Instantly.

These are the episodes I remember most vividly (in color, one might say, or colour) from my youth.  Obviously, I wasn't quite alive for the original run, but I think they aired late nights on PBS, after my other favorite and fellow British Isler, Doctor Who.

As an adult, the highlight is the charm of Mrs. Peel and John Steed.  Their banter and chemistry is superb, as are Mrs. Peele's outfits.  She karate chops and flips her hair and makes puns, all while looking lovely with fake eyelashes.

Steed remains dapper and with-chapeau while mayhem swirls around him.  I still find him irresistible.  I'd take Steed over Johnny Depp any day.

Another highlight is the surprise special guest stars that I doubt I noticed on first watching.  A super special treat was a bespectacled Jon Pertwee (the third Doctor on Doctor Who) in full brigadier gear.

And, later in the season, there was a bearded young Donald Sutherland rocking pin-up girl bangs and a weird Eastern (cold war) accent.

But, even with my new adult skills and a BFA in program watching, I still find the villains just as creepy as I did as a wee lass.  Only now, I just make the window smaller on my laptop rather than hiding behind the couch.

But then, as now, I knew things would end well with mystery solved, Steed and Peele quipping and flirting and being suggestive in a distinctively British way with that peppy, and happy music in the background.

And that lavender outfit!  I still want to be Emma Peel when I grow up.

Amber & Gifts for the Little Guys

We here at Amber & aren't really doing much holiday shopping this year. Thankfully, my friends and I have exchanged the greatest gift of all: not exchanging gifts so that we can avoid that big ugly boot of capitalism stomping all over our mid-winter spirits. But, there are some small gifts that need to be given for those too small to understand that Santa can still love them without forking over presents.  I mean, of course, cats.

Here at Amber &, we recommend Dr. Earl S. Pussum's Fancy Feline Elixir Organic Catnip.  Now, not all cats love catnip, but if they are genetically disposed to love it, they will really, really love Dr. Pussum's.

I promise. Santa came a little early over the weekend to our house, mainly because Pickles was mewing for play and I was stuck in bed with a cold-ridden head that felt like it weighed a ton.  The jolly fellow of the North brought four sacks of Dr. Pussum's one for each monster in my house.

Woody chose to use his as a pillow, because, well, he's an old guy who likes to nap.  Notice the one eye watching me to make sure my photography doesn't disturb his rest?

Tiggy is under the bed with hers.  And Ginger is up on top of the dresser with his.  I guess neither of them wants their moments of pleasure documented.

Pickles, however, took a far more traditional, and yet predictably Pickles, approach to his Dr. Pussum's sack: trying to bite off one of the corners and spill the contents all over my bed.

He's demonstrating his special skill of biting and licking at the same time.  And here, he is showing classic Crazy Head.

When I write my encyclopedia of cat care, that photo will be used to illustrate the Crazy Head entry.

Note the back foot action as I play tug of war.  That's my boy.

Dr. Pussum's, I tell you.

Amber & Drama

So, my week has had its bumps and challenges.

It seems I have injured a muscle in my left flank.

To celebrate, I invited Nick to spend 12 hours in the ER with me.  Let me tell you, it is nothing like on House or Grey's Anatomy.  First of all, it's much messier.  My stretcher (because it was too crowded for every patient to get an actual bed) was parked in the hallway in front of the supply shelves.  And let me tell you there were some intubation tubes misfiled with the standard masks and a copy of Real Simple stuck in next to the one liter displacement jars.  And, most people there seemed to be complaining of the flu--except the one woman who was there because her eyes were itchy.  Interesting time to be there during the health care debate, I tell you.

I told Carlos, our really sweet nurse, that it seemed like there were just too many sick people.  He replied the problem was that there were just too many people who weren't really sick.  He swore he didn't mean me.

Another thing you don't see on the medical shows on the television is that, in the real ER, there are more sandwiches.  Mysteriously, a pleasant employee went around offering near-about everyone but me sandwiches.  Nick ate his and his Snackwells in front of me.  Oh, and no one told me anything about their personal life.

Anyway, I am home and nearly fine--except for the pain in my left side.  My final diagnosis was "flank pain" according to my discharge slip.  Which was basically what I told them when I was admitted.  Anti-inflammatories, rest, and saying "ouch" alot seem to be the only course of action.

I'm good at the saying "ouch" part.

Amber & Due to An Earlier Incident

Just when I thought the MTA had gifted you with all the celebrity, confusing service and squishedness you could handle for a weekend, I rode the train on a Saturday.  Silly rabbit.

The purpose of my journey was to pick up my first CSA winter share of the season and then celebrate the season in fellowship with Diana and Kevin.  To begin my trek, I walked down to 168th Street since it was posted in my stop that the train wasn't going north of there this weekend (which turned out to be false-- at least on my way home).

At 168th Street, there was a bulldozer driving up and down the train platform and then crossing over a make-shift bridge and unloading boulders onto a weird flat train.  This was an ominous start to what turned out to be a two hour ride (including no D service below 34th Street and a stalled A on the F line at Second Avenue).  That is the little bulldozer thing whizzing by on that train unloading thing at seemingly unsafe speeds while I waited for the downtown A.

Then, on the way home from a delightful day (which included beef stew and persimmon pudding), I went to Brooklyn.  There was no D service running from Grand Street, so I walked to the F at Delancey.  But then, there was no uptown F.  So, I had to take the F to Jay Street in Brooklyn to transfer to the uptown A which was running on the F track into Manhattan.  (Maybe you should get out a subway map just to follow along to see what an incredibly indirect route this really was.)

At Jay Street, though, I was rewarded by celebrity in the form of the Kristen Schaal who plays "Mel" on Flight of the Conchords and is a very funny Daily Show commentator.

(I chose the photo with the bird, Diana, since you liked that birdy page in Elle.)

This is Woody and me doing our impression of Kristen and her boyfriend making smoochie on the platform.

Anywhow, then the train came, and Kristen, her boyfriend, and I all got on.  Things were going swell, although mostly local, until 103rd Street when, as the conductor described it, "Something just hit our train."  Note the train did not do the hitting.  Anyhow, we sat on the train with the doors closed until a train crew arrived to check to make sure we hadn't run anyone over or a terrorist hadn't thrown a sticky bomb (I'm picturing a Wacky WallWalker with a dirty bomb in its backpack?) at us.


Once they opened the doors, there was a mass exodus.  But, as the lady next to me said, "How else would I get home?  The bus?  Puhleeze."  We even had one very angry fellow patron yell at us, "What are you bitches doing?  The train is broked.  Get your asses off."  Our decision to wait it out upset him.  But, another train wouldn't come since we were in its way.  And I just am not aggressive to fight an entire train's worth of folks for a spot on an uptown bus.  And who wants to go 70 blocks on a bus?  Puh-leeze.

Anyway, we started moving again after they determined that it was a soda can tossed off the platform at the incoming train.  And then we went express!  Whoooo!

So, two hours and 14 minutes later, I am home.  Still?  The persimmon pudding and the company of friends were worth the over four hours total time spent on trains underground.