Amber & How We Met

I sure have had a hellish week.  All of the crazy work that kept me from blogging, getting home in time to vacuum, and remembering my hat until I got outside in the cold culminated yesterday with me wearing this shirt with a ridiculous bow on it to distract from the data on my Keynote slides.

Clever, right?  And check out Kevin in his dress shirt.  Fancy times.  ("Is that chart showing the price of a New York pizza slice over time..? Wait, look how fancy the New York staff is dressed.  What's going on with that bow on Amber's shirt?"  Etc.)

But, tonight, I am seeing some Lang at Film Forum with Kevin, then I am having Twin Times with Amy Bee (to be blogged and explained later, blexplained?) and then meeting Nick for a pub crawl and fancy dinner.  To celebrate our seven years of friendship, I wore the shoes that spurred our first non-work conversation.

That went something like this:

A: Here is that budget variance report I mentioned earlier.
N: Thank you.  Those are great shoes.
A: Thank you.  They are this kind called Fluevogs.
N: Oh, I know.  [shows shoes he is wearing, also Fluevogs]
A: Oh!  You are now my best friend ever.  Let's go to River House together!

Something like that.

Amber & Tomorrow Will Be Pretty Much Like Today, Only Maybe A Little Snowier

When, on Monday morning you check the weather as you are leaving the house to make sure you are wearing enough socks and you see this...

...you are not then surprised when you step outside and see this.

It is pretty and grounding and good for your soul and Robert-Frosty, and you enjoy it.  (You come, too!) And then by the end of the day it is over.

But then, the next day when you wake up and bundle up (two pairs of socks, Expedition Weight long johns, a thermal shirt under cashmere and fingerless gloves) and step outside into this...

...you are a little surprised.  It's less of a "wintery mix" and more of a full-on snow storm.

And then you check the weather again, and find this.

I love that the NWS releases are in all caps.  It conveys a sense of URGENCY and also vaguely suggests an old teletype machine.  Highlights:

* HAZARDS... HEAVY SNOW.

* ACCUMULATIONS... 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW.

Huh.  Even an unreliable weather app is right, although perhaps understated, twice a week.

I wish the weather app had little icons showing you which level of Capilene to wear.

Amber & Happy Monkeys

I am still pretty sick, but I managed to venture out today and experienced the Snowpocalypse Aftermath first hand.  Mostly, it meant climbing some street corner snow banks, and trudging through slush.

To prepare for this dangerous adventure, I armed myself with three items of prime safety: my ridiculous big snow boots, my super soft hoody (no, really, have you felt how soft it is?) and a novelty-t.

This novelty t is from the Short-Haired Lady Coffee Place near Nick.  Nick goes there almost every day to work, but I like to go there because they have coffee.  And because I fit in good with my increasingly short hairstyle.  And now that I own this shirt, I like to go there even more because they support monkey happiness.

Close up:

Not all monkeys going into space were happy.  But this one sure is.  He must like coffee, too.  Or short-haired ladies.

Thank you for the nice shirt, Nick.

Amber & Action Shot

Ginger, grooming my hair.

 

Also pictured: my Hello Kitty pjs, sickie me, and bed head.

Amber & Back In The Day

A often forgotten fact about me is that, for a brief time, before I left the island (only to come back in season 6 because, well, life was better for all of us on the island, even with the smoke monsters and ridiculously crowded 1 trains) I lived uptown.

My LaSalle Street apartment was lovely and significantly less expensive than Avenue B.

There was a large, lovely kitchen.

There were lovely French doors to the bedroom which was a totally different room than the living room, unlike Avenue B.

And there was a lovely claw-foot tub in which I took many, many bubble baths...
 

...and sometimes, kitties took naps under.

 

And then there was the "second bedroom."  Now, by most standards this was a closet.

True, a closet big enough to fit a computer desk, but it was a closet.  The rods for hanging outfits and the shelves gave it away, as did the fact that it was too small for either a couch (living room) or a bed (bedroom).  But the real estate lady insisted it was a bedroom.  When I pointed out it was too small for a bed, she explained, "You can put your baby in it."  And that, I certainly could have.

One not-forgotten-about thing about living on LaSalle Street (other than the fact that real estate agents lie like sound-absorbing rugs in rent-controlled closets that you can put your baby in) was that it was super close to Dinosaur BBQ.  They've recently moved across the street (to a new site which seats 30 more hungry clients and will have outdoor seating in better weather) and are now in that weird area under the bridge on 125 near Fairway (don't even get me started on how awesome having Fairway as my main grocery store was--except for the walk back up the Tiemann Place hill carrying way too many impulse purchases).

Dinosaur is definitely a place I would take visitors who craved ribs.  I can't tell you if the brisket is any good because I just get sucked in by the ribs every time.  The sides are awesome, too.  I love the sauteed greens (which are vegetarian, vegetarian people!) and the mac & cheese and the Syracuse Salt Potatoes.  And they have a super beer menu.  And it is festive; there is a painting of pigs, a steer, a goat and some dinosaurs playing cards!  (That seems like the very definition of festive.)

And did I mention the ribs?

Sigh.  I miss living way down on 125th.  James took this great photo of me at Dinosaur once, and you can tell I am super happy (even though I lived in Wisconsin at the time and am probably just happy to be in NYC).

He also took this one of CRD, but CRD looks more pirate than happy.

Happiness means different things to different people.

Amber & Signs and Their Meanings

This can only mean one thing.

It's time to pull out the purple puff coat.

And maybe one of those flags to help me cross the street.

Amber & Fancy Hats

Some rainy, sleepy, sort of gray days you just need them.

You know?

Amber & Immediate Needs

Some days, you just need Nancy Sinatra.



You may not even know it.  You may not even know you need boots, fuzzy sweaters and the will to walk.  But, oh you do.  You do indeed.

Amber & Necking

If there's one piece of advice about wellness that you take from me (and I understand your hesitancy to do so), it's to keep your neck warm.

Ways of doing that include, wearing cowl necks.  With the neck uncowled.

And, wearing the awesome weird fuzzy Fraggle scarf my mom and dad gave me for Christmas last year.

Here is a close up.

Another way would be to have the heat on in the office, but I can't seem to control that.

Amber & Target Demographic

So, I was just in D.C. overnight for biznusses.  And I stayed at the lovely Quincy hotel, mostly because it was cheap and also right around the corner from where the biznusses were conducted.  (And because my old apartment at the Argonne has probably been rented.)  There were several notable things about the Quincy which I will proceed to note hereforth.

1.  The couch in my room was totally the larger L version of my home couch.  Same fabric, same feet shape, same velcro attachments for the pillows.

Same, same, same-- except less cat fur.  And no sheet covering it to protect it from cats or little decorator pillows or Ginger.

2.  There was a very strange music thing happening, both in that they chose to blast all of the songs from my "HS Memories" playlist in the lobby (see sidebar), but also because, very randomly, there was a Billy Squier album cover on the wall on my floor near the elevator.

True, they never played any Billy Squier in the lobby, but there he was, gazing at me while I waited for the elevator.  This prompted Kevin to say, "This must be a hotel for young people."  And that made me laugh uproariously since that album came out before some of my younger friends were born.

3.  There was a giant mirror against the wall.  (Even bigger than yours, CRD.)  It made me realize that I really need a full length mirror if I am going to avoid making outfit mistakes like that one time I wore the balloon top out in public.  Or, maybe just forgetfully not make outfit choices at all.

4.  In this big mirror, I also noticed that my skirt (seen here with the oddly ruffly sweater, both acquired during my total blogging black out at Outlet Mall Weekend Edition of Awesome Club) matched the orange couch pillows.

Is there such a thing as fate?  Are some matches are meant to be?  E.g.,  My skirt + the couch pillows? Me + The Quincy?  This must be a hotel for me.

 Billy Squier doesn't want me to embed his video as my conclusion, but it's here.  But, we also heard this song in the lobby, and it made me touch my heart in nostalgia and emotion.  And a voice inside my head said, "Don't look back-- you can never look back."



Except at the Quincy.

Amber & So Much Has Happened

If you noticed, I have not been blogging lately.  Soooo much has been happening that it has been hard to find time to blog.

For example, I got this new hair...

But then I didn't like that hair and so I got this other new hair that has a tendency to Alfalfa.

I am also, in that photo, wearing a new and very strange ruffle sweater that I got on a special Outlet Mall Weekend Edition of Awesome Club with these boys in a rental vehicle that we could have removed the seats and camped in.

On that trip, I also got this new jacket which matches my tights that I already owned.

Oh!  And there were all these doilies in the office, mysteriously one Monday.  Kevin thought I brought them in.

Oh!  And then there was the week where I bent to get the soap in the shower and stood up and scraped a giant raspberry into my back.  And then, I stubbed my toe in the office.

Although from hair, we can tell that was before.  Probably around the same time I got these great wall flowers in San Francisco.

Oh!  And I painted my nails!

And alot of stuff happened with the cats, but they can't send their Skype BFF photos, so we don't really have the same level of documentation of their activities.

It sure is lucky I am back to blogging so I can do something with these photos daily rather than save them scattered all over my desktop.

Amber & Oh, My Queen

Thanks to the tornado (which I witnessed outside while picking up farm share and running a fever of 102), I had no Internet yesterday.  Time Warner's lady robot who answered their phone when I called yesterday from my sick bed, desperate for amusements, described it as a "storm-related outage" and assured me that the technicians knew how important my cable was to me and were trying to restore my service.  (She also didn't understand my responses when I said "yes, please."  Robots do not appreciate courtesy.)

But, it came back in the middle of the night with a vengeance, in the form of a dedicated foe of evil, defender of the weak, champion of truth and justice.

I loved Isis.  I remember very little about the show, except that it was on at the end of Saturday cartoons and that she would invoke various Egyptian gods to give her powers.  I would get the TV listings from the paper and then highlight the shows I wanted to watch so I would know to change the channel when needed at the right time.  And, I always changed to channel 3 for Isis.  I seem to remember some episode about an archeological dig?  Or maybe that was just the backstory in the opening credits?  I remember, though, that I loved it.  And so it must be good, right?

After all, she's a snappy dresser and a part of my heritage.  And she predates this other part of my heritage by about ten years.

I wonder if she will scare Nick, Diana, and Kevin as much as that younger heritage.

Amber & Thank You, Autumn

Autumn, I appreciate you making it the perfect weather for button-down shirts and cardigans.  And ties with apes on them!

Wait-- did you see that?  It has like gorilla or chimpy buddies on it!  It's hard to tell which because they seem to have chimpy faces, but very gorilla-like developed pectoral muscles.  I love it.

No, really!  My tie is covered in purple apes!  Jimmy tells me that in the 1950s and '60s, an editor at DC had a list of things to put on comic covers to increase sales and that a purple ape was one of them.  My tie is going to sell like hotcakes!  Did you see the apes?

Thank you, fall.  And thank you Nick for the tie.  And thank you YouTube for teaching me how to tie a non-bow-tie on myself.

Amber & Fall Wardrobes

Now that Hurricane Earl (not to be confused with Erl) has ushered in cooler, more fall-like weather, I found myself staring at my armoir, completely unable to figure out what to wear.

I mean, which one of these outfits is the snuggly and warm, but also fun for a September Sunday?

Why does it take so long for me to get dressed in the morning lately?  And why is my dresser always so messy?

Amber & Blogging Can Only Get More Abundant

I promise.

Amber & Learning New Skills

Where will I be starting the eleventh of next month and every Saturday thereafter from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm?  In class.

What will I be learning?  Here is a hint.

Amber & Birthday Boys

Happy Birthday to Nick!

Nick has so many great qualities.  He is a fantastic watching programs companion, he is good with kitties (being one of the only three of Pickles's people friends) even when it means selflessly giving up his own pillow for old guys.  Nick is creative, kind, and forgiving when you eat all the sorbet he brought back from Fretta's without him.  He is also extremely brave when it comes to throwing out weird food in the fridge-- he even sometimes postpones doing it so that it is even more challenging.  He also has great taste in eye glasses and has some of the nicest hair I have ever seen.  Also, he is a great director for my interpretive dance.  He is incredibly supportive of all of my talents like that.  Even my newfound belly dance obsession.  Also, he is good at gently warning you if you are about to eat too much salami.

Nick wears a number of professional caps.  His main job is as a trainer for telephone operators.

In this photo, taken by the very talented James, Nick is showing an operator how to plug in the telephone.  You will note his work uniform matches the phones.  He is good at matching.  That is another admirable quality.  He has great socks.

Happy Birthday, Nick!  I am glad you were born.

Amber & What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I took a vacation from blogging this weekend to rest my creative word energies for all of the exciting posts to come when we arrive at the River next weekend.  (Cats!  Cocktails!  Friends!  Happy times in lawn furniture!)  Instead, I used my creative hands energies to sew a bunch of stuff.

First, I made this swell dress/top modeled on Le Sac, which you may remember if you visited me on bed rest.

A few notes about this photo.  First, notice how I match the small decorator pillows on the couch?  Next, have you any idea how hard it is to auto-time a photo of your whole body from your laptop?  A little behind the blog secret?  Sometimes, it doesn't work quite right and quite a few photos are left on the cutting room floor.

(Do you feel closer to me now that I have shared the secrets behind my art?)

And, I made this bolster pillow out of the leg of a pajama that spit at the seams.

I am demonstrating one possible usage to Nick.  Mostly, though, I intend to use it behind my knees.  But, that would have required an even more complicated photography session.  But, you get the general idea.

I also made a bunch of little sacks of cat nip.  But those had to be hidden away as soon as they were made lest they be eaten.

Sew much sewing!  (Get it?  Sew!  Homonyms!)