Mugged!

You leave Manhattan and you get mugged. Seriously? Seriously. Tim and I went to Martha's Vineyard this weekend to stay with a friend who has a really sweet spot up there. Okay, it's his uncle's spot but it's really sweet anyway. That's only like 2 degrees away from utter WASPness. Whatever.  Onto the mugging... (if this is a bit rambling it is because Tim is standing behind me in his underwear- we decided to play undies only around the house for the night. ((We're back in our apartment in the city for those of you who were worried for the second degree Wasps.)) )

Friday we had an amazing classical Martha's Vineyard day: we took the ferry into town, we went to the beach, we bought fresh fish and cooked it on the grill while drinking rose and watching the sun set. I was even allowed to wear my pearls (Tim hates them). The next morning, Tim and I ventured off alone on a 20+ mile bike ride that started out as quite simply, amazing. We rode through the hills and valleys to some point called Aquinnah or Squibnocket or Squagglehobbits or something like that then took our bikes down onto a desolate beach under some cliffs. It was gorgeous but as I was on the rag and fighting with a nasty demonic ovary, I was admittedly a little cranky and we parted ways for a bit. Tim lounged out on some giant rock for a while like a Merman/ lone wolf while I took a little nap by the bikes. When I woke up later, Tim was gone and I was like, whatever, I'll just go back to sleep until he comes back- I'm sure he's just off on some moody walk to air his demons. I fell back asleep and was woken up by some rustling directly behind me. I sat up and saw this huge seagull rustling through the brown bag I got from the Chilmark General Store on our way there. I wasn't worried at first because all it had in it was a box of tampons and some cash but then that mother fucker lifted up the bag and flew off with it. I was like. Wait. OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU STUPID FUCKING SEAGULL GET BACK HERE!!! and started running at what I must say was an impressively quick pace for someone who just woke up and was running in sand because I remembered that not only was there some cash in that bag, there was actually $54 AND my Visa. Sprinting my friends, sprinting. And that stupid fucking seagull just kept flying and stopping and flying and stopping and every time I'd get close to it, it would fly again. It even dropped the bag in the ocean once, but then picked it back up and flew back onto the beach, thank God. But I still couldn't catch that motherfucker. It was laughing at me. The closer I got, the more it laughed. I was about to give up when all of a sudden my White Knight (Tim) ran up and threw a rock at the seagull and don't you know it? That actually worked. Although it managed to snag 40 bucks out of the bag and flew off with it. One of the twenties flew out of its stupid fucking mouth but it got away with a 20. I guess that's better than the whole lot. Getting a new credit card is such a pain in the ass.
So yeah, I got mugged by a seagull in Martha's Vineyard. Oh well, it could have been worse I guess. 20 bucks is twenty bucks. And that the White Knight was born from it is priceless. You can bet your sweet ass you'll be hearing about him again. I know I have. Over and over and over and over and over....
and over
and over
and over
............

Love is a Battlefield

I am a little bit behind in my blogging so what I'm going to recount right now actually happened last weekend. Much like the bedwetting incident, I also had to take a few days to come to grips with it before I could write about it. 


Tim and I had a very tricky reconciliation after my trip to Cannes. As you probably sensed from "Festival de Fight", things were a little tense while I was gone. They became tenser when I got home and without going into too much detail, we found ourselves in a dark place and decided that we needed to take a little break from civilization and go find one another again. Alone. In the wilderness. And much like Christopher McCandless, we too learned that sometimes going into the wilderness evokes more devastation than joy and that it provides more questions than answers. And questions that are too big for the little human mind to take on.


So how did it all transpire? Well. We decided to drive down to the farm Friday after work. Our car ride was a tiny step up from what I would consider Utter Hell so when we finally arrived at the Loehmann's in some random Mallville, New Jersey town, we were both dazed and confused. We wandered around the store picking out towels and blankets and pillows and flashlights in silence. Next, we hit the grocery store where I followed Tim around aimlessly like a little puppy as he found some food that I didn't even register but nodded my head agreeably as though I liked it. 

When we finally arrived at the farm in silence, it was already dark and I must admit, quite creepy. (reminder: NO ELECTRICITY). We got out a big flashlight and built a fire and put up a tent. As I was jetlagged and still on France time, I was a zombie going through the motions. It felt like 3am. Then we sat down by the fire where I propped up my throbbing sprained ankle (Zelda knocked me down in the park that morning) and we stared into the fire listlessly. Every time I started to doze off involuntarily, Tim would wake me up with nonsensical chitchat. At one point, I started crying and said, why can't I just go to sleep? Why won't you let me sleep? To which he took great offense and said "I thought this would be a wonderful romantic night". I was like, I can see where you're coming from- SORT OF- except that my foot hurts, I'm tired as shit, it's freezing cold, and we are on a concrete slab. I finally got up enough strength to escape the sleep deprivation torture and went into the tent to lie down on my concrete slab. It was very uncomfortable and the dog kept jumping on me from outside but I didn't care. I finally convinced Tim to lie down with me and we huddled together, shivering all night long.


After dozing in and out of consciousness for hours, the torturous night started to break and the first rays of dawn brought us hope anew. Tim got out of the tent first and left me there for a few more minutes of rest. When I emerged shortly thereafter, he was sitting on a lawn chair by the fire pit made of cinder blocks, cooking his beef shish kebob from the night before. I sat down in the lawn chair next to his and put my kebob on the fire next to his. We silently ate our steak and veggies and watched the sun rise as dawn spread across the field and with it, the ghosts from the night before took form in the shape of mist. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking. It was like napalm in the morning. I seriously felt like we were in Saving Private Ryan the morning after the opening battle scene, surrounded by mayhem and choking on silence. As we chewed on our morning beef, we eventually held hands, kissed, and let go of our demons. The sun finally lifted and brought about a new day. We took down the tent, put out the fire and put on our work gloves, armed for construction.

American Women Don't Get Fat in France

I honestly can't believe I am referencing the book that gave me nightmares for years, but there is definitely something magic about France. You can eat anything and not get fat. I don't think I can admit this to my mother who is the purveyor of said nightmares (she quoted that book more religiously than she quoted THE DA VINCI CODE and ruined basically every meal we had together for 4 years), but there is something true to the theory.

I just weighed in after my long trip to Cannes and shockingly, shed a few pounds. This is virtually impossible, but I weighed myself three times in three different places and it's true. And believe me, if you  had dined with me, you would have thought I was trying to gain weight. I mean, I wasn't, duh, but you'd think differently if you had seen my meals. I piled unpasteurized butter onto baguettes, indulged in steak au poivre religiously (I think the direct translation of au poivre = really buttery creamy peppery sauce that tastes like heaven), pounded down lardons like they were baby carrots, drank bottles and bottles of wine, had soft boiled eggs with croissants and bread tips and pounds of butter every morning- except of course for the mornings when I had pain chocolat, and I even ate dessert. And not just a bite of someone else's on one shameful night. Oh no, I had my own order at every dinner and I ate almost the whole thing. Chocolate mousse, tarts, gelato, and on and on. And then every night at my hotel, there was a little chocolate square waiting for me on my pillow which really would have been a shame to throw away so yes, I topped off every night with more calories. And then I lost weight! I am seriously quitting dieting forever and just eating whatever I want instead. I just don't think that works here. But I'm determined to find out. Stay tuned...

P.S. also goes beyond the ability to eat anything and not get fat: you can buy codeine over the counter for 5 euros! You can buy skin products for 1/3 of what they cost in the US, and look, even the hand dryers are magic. You stick your hands in that glowing space and voila! this whirring thing starts up and they're dry.

Welcome Home Bitch

I was SO excited to get back to the city. The weather is gorgeous and people were out and about, in good spirits. Mostly.
I left my apartment on the Upper East Side singing zippity doo da as I skipped and flitted about when this car almost hit me and completely snapped me out of my reverie. I admit, I gave them a little glare, but come on, they almost hit me. They deserved a little glare. But I definitely did not deserve to have them scream "Fucking Bitch!!!" at me. I honestly just stopped and stared at them and said "really?" They sort of seemed embarrassed because that was definitely an extreme reply and we were about 3 feet away from one another, but they covered their embarrassment with another "fuck you" and screeched away.

A warm welcome indeed.

P.S. who new the Upper East Side was so prone to angry drivers? This is the second incident in like a month. Is it me?

Festival de Fight

Today's blog should really be called Film Festivals are Seriously Ruining my Marriage.

Every time I go to a film festival (approx 4-5 times per year), Tim and I go through exactly the same awful process. Like clockwork. The first few days we have a hard time calling each other because of different time zones and because I'm in and out of screenings but we'll chat here and there and it's always sweet and my day is filled with "miss you, I love you" sporadic little bursts of cuteness. Then Day 3 hits, and I'm starting to get a little bit tired and he tells me not to get tired but those are fool's words since we are working pretty much 24 hours a day. One is expected to be available at any moment and it's unacceptable not to reply to an email within 15 minutes of receiving it. I check my email all night for reviews and other Variety updates and now I'm also forced to follow tweeters at the festivals and blah blah blah. THE POINT is that it's insane and sleep becomes secondary. Which of course leads to moodiness which in turn leads to relationship strain. So at this point (end of Day 3 into 4), I'm tired and a little cranky but we're still fine. Then Day 5 rolls around

Day 5 is the official point of disaster. This is where it all falls apart. It is always caused by my decision to go to a big party and the real mistake in calling Tim when I am on my way home. The rationale from my end, of course, is that part of my job description is to be social and if it means staying at the Wild Bunch party until 5am, then damnit, I am gonna stay at the Wild Bunch party til 5 am. I am just doing my job.

(disturbing images from Wild Bunch party 2010)

Okay, so I'll admit that I have an unusual job and it's probably not what he wants to hear and that I probably shouldn't send him the scary photos from the parties, but what can I say? I want him to understand! That never happens however, and Tim always gets mad when he gets that 5am call and it usually ends in "call me tomorrow, I can't talk to you right now."

Day 6 is when the darkness really sets in. We fight all day while I'm hungover and yet still trying to deal with reviews and company dinners and scheduling second screenings and fielding calls from sales agents about why we aren't buying their films. I think you can probably understand my frazzled state of mind here. It's what they call the Festival K-Hole* and the only remedy for the Festival K-Hole is going out again the next night. And so the whole cycle continues on again for a few more days until the end is finally in sight (Day 8 or 9, depending on the festival) and my marriage turns into a wobbly mess and our  conversations consist solely of counting down the minutes until I fly home, lest we talk about our mutual anger towards one another and inability to be rational.

So here I am, reporting live from deep in the trenches of Day 8 in Cannes 2010. Tim hates me, I hate myself, and there is another yacht party tonight. Hopefully there will be strippers again like their were at this yacht party:

I can't even keep it all straight any more. Kill me now. Au revoir

*K-Hole

219 up, 20 down

buy k-hole mugs, tshirts and magnets the state of mind caused by taking large amounts of ketamine. the user becomes trapped in state of detatchment from their physical presence; the user can think about moving their arm, and will then see an arm moving in front of them, but the link between the thought and the moving arm does not register. the senses also become distorted, objects appear to move closer or further away resulting in the user's sight becoming fixed to one point, fearing looking away from that point as the distortions are disorientating and in the worst cases can cause nausea. the combination of these effects leave the user feeling trapped in a frozen state, as if stuck in a hole peering out; hence the expression 'k-hole' the party animal ingested enough ketamine to tranquilize a family of large bagders, it was all going fine until he found himself in the k-hole, staring at a tile on the floor for 2 hours, unable to move.

Fleury Michon's Batonnets Moelleux

I'm not sure what I ate for dinner last night but that is what they were called. I think it was artificial crab but something about the individually wrapped crabby tubes really freaked me out. And yet I ate them anyway. No, my friends, tonight was not a glamourous night of steak au poivre and haricots verts. It was a night of Batonnets Moelleux. Yummers

Yes, honey, Cannes is glamourous and I should stop complaining. You are so right

Bonjour Madame

Wow, it was just sort of hard to log into the blog! I'm in France for work for 10 days and I guess the server automatically translates everything according to the country you are in. "Connexion" proved to be the same as "sign in". Not that tricky I suppose but it did take a sec.

I just quickly wanted to bitch about the fact that I am so old that the French don't even pause to consider calling me "mademoiselle". Nope, it's just straight up "madame", no questions asked. I mean, not a single person on the hotel staff even thought about calling me "mademoiselle" and aren't they supposed to be kissing your ass a little bit? That secures it. I am old. They look at me, they say she is obviously way too old to be a young miss. Way way too old.

The worst is that I was feeling sort of good about myself about in my new Cannes-specific dress (that my  friend made me buy one afternoon when we were drunk on margaritas) then I stopped in at the hotel to take a short break and heard "Bonjour, Madame" about 47 times before getting to my room. It started turning into a horror movie where the staff in their uniforms got all elongated and haunted mirror funhouse warped and their voices got all deep and slow and I started running and they turned into clowns and chased me with knives in French maid outfits with red noses. Not really! I'm just jet lagged. Bonjour Madame was indeed a real nightmare though. Far too real.
Oh well, at least I am staying in a nice hotel and have a cute dress.
Here is a pic of my dress for Sarah. Please note the sailor rope. Like I said, Cannes specific. Ooh la la.

A Good Old Fashioned Christening

Okay folks, warning you now. I'm gonna get a little sappy on you here for a minute. A little romantic. But don't worry, I fully intend to gross you out and divulge some family secrets first....

Saturday was a day like any other: I moved some more giant rocks, shoveled extremely heavy mud (mud! who knew it could be so heavy?!), moved some more giant rocks, pulled out my back, yadda yadda yadda. The real excitement came in the form of in-law drama later that night when we went back to Tim's parents' house for dinner. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to go into too much detail because they may one day actually click that link on my Facebook page that goes to this blog, but let's just say my sister-in-law was spinning stories about my brother-in-law that were not so flattering. In his absence, no less. That's all I'm gonna say. Ok, no, it's not. I don't think that anyone who blames another person in a relationship for EVERYTHING has any sort of touch with reality. Sure, in some instances one person is more to blame than the other, but it's just not possible to blame the other person entirely. So she ruined her credibility from the get-go. Plus, we are all familiar enough with her melodramatic ways to take everything she says with a grain of salt. Thus, her diagnosis of my brother-in-law's alleged psychiatric disorder not only made our eyes roll but it also sounded like it came directly from Wikipedia rather than the mouth of a doctor and if it did indeed come from the mouth of a doctor, he read it verbatim from Wikipedia. Which = bad doctor. Okay! I'm stopping. Enough. Now I'm really gonna zip it and conclude Saturday night by saying there was a lot of gossip, a lot of wine, a lot of finger pointing, and a lot of skepticism.

Sunday morning I woke up in a haze because at some point I thought it would be a good idea to take a Benadryl for my allergies which were absolutely awful this weekend, presumably from the ridiculous wind storms. We took Tim's mother out for breakfast as her Mother's Day present (my mom is out of town- but I called her!) and had an enormous meal which only added to my fuzziness. Tim and I then went to the farm and sat in the van. Yes, we sat in the van. I don't know if it was the Western omelet that seemed like it was made with 15 eggs or the Benadryl/ wine combo the night before or the extra pollen in the air, but we both felt like we had been drugged and just could not get up the motivation to do any work. So instead we sat in the car, inclined our seats fully, then took a two hour nap. Two hours! It was a full on sleep for both of us, with dreams and all. I had some circus dreams (wtf?) and Tim had dreams that he was yelling at one of his employees to fill out his time card (awesome dream). I'm not sure what Zelda dreamt, but she too was out like a light, right between our bucket seats on the floor. The weirdest part is that Tim's van is probably the grossest place on the planet. It has a layer of dirt (dirt, not even dust) so thick that you can peel it off the dashboard like you would the skin of an orange. And the dog food. There are bags and old cans of dog food littered all over the back. It smells teriff. I love it in there. Which is why I'm as shocked as you are that we fell asleep so easily and so comfortably. What might be even more shocking is that when we woke up, we were both feeling it. We put the dog outside and finally christened the farm. It was actually sort of romantic. I know that seems completely impossible given the situation, but I swear it was. I think part of it was that we both knew that I am leaving for Cannes for 10 days today (agggh) and knew it might be our last shot for a while. It was so sweet, even when my bare feet graced the dog food bowl and I later found my panties under the gas pedal (no, I did not put them back on). This is far too much information so I forgive you if you have stopped reading but I just wanted to share what I had sort of forgotten these last few weeks amidst the chaos of our lives; getting old dog food on your pedicure may be disgusting but it's easy to overlook when you're in love and lost in the moment...awww...

Shat Attacks

Cute, right?

Not so god damned cute when she's shatting all over your kitchen floor. Trust me. Even less cute? When she does it four, count `em, four nights in a row. Tim and I are starting to hallucinate from lack of sleep. I am starting to understand how people with babies feel, although without the reward of having a mini version of myself to look up into my eyes and say "mommy". Yes, the dog is cute and she looks into my eyes but she hasn't learned to speak yet and she usually shows her affection in a way that I can't really reciprocate like biting. Okay, my heart just melted a little bit when I thought of her cute little face but that is also partly caused by my state of delirium from the inability to get a full night's rest all week.

NIGHT ONE

I woke up a little bit earlier than usual when the sun peaked in the window. Still slightly groggy, I checked the time. It was 5 something. Back to sleep I went. But I couldn't fall into a real sleep because I kept getting fart blasts in my face that were so strong, I could taste them. I sort of laughed to myself that Tim must have eaten something nasty last night and was sure to have a sweet bathroom blowout when he eventually woke up. (I can only laugh because, thank the Lord, I did not marry a farter and he is usually as dainty as a Victorian lady in his sleep). I tell you though, that smell started to get worse and worse and finally I had to say something. Tim was dead asleep and just pushed me away. Then I noticed that the dog was not in our room. She normally sleeps on Tim's side of the bed for half the night, then on mine until morning. But she was no where to be seen. All of a sudden, I got a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Tim, I said, I think Zelda may have shit in the kitchen. Another push away. So I braved it all on my own. My fear began to grow as I got closer and closer to the kitchen (we have a long railroad apt) as the smell got stronger and stronger. As I finally reached the kitchen, my worst fears were confirmed, and then some. I can't even begin to describe the horror but it was on par with the Gluttony murder scene in Se7en. Just think about the spaghetti, the vomit, the buzzing of flies circling the fat man for a second...now transfer that feeling to my kitchen on Monday at 5am. Oh yeah.

I ran back in to wake up Tim, yelling like the town crier "She did! She shit all over the kitchen!". This is the best: he pulled the covers down and patted me to lie down next to him and said "we'll clean it up when it's time to wake up." And dear Lord, don't you know that I actually got back into that bed and fell back asleep until 6:36 when our alarms went off. I still don't know how that was possible, but I did. When we finally confronted the atrocity, it was as awful as you can imagine, and compounded exponentially because we didn't have any paper towels and had to use toilet paper to pick up the wet piles of doody. I won't go into much more detail but I'll leave you with this: TP isn't particularly thick and it took a really really long time and a lot of hand washing. The experience was enhanced by early morning grumpiness and some cheap shot attempts at blaming one another. Zelda watched on with a smile.

Sleep deprivation: One hour

NIGHT TWO
We were extremely cautious with Zelda before we laid down to rest, doing everything properly according to our German Shepherd manual; we fed her rice and hamburger, we gave her a little canned pumpkin, we walked her hours after she ate, we gave her plenty of exercise, we took her out twice for extra poops. We did everything perfectly. And yet, we were still a little uneasy. Turns out, rightfully so.

A few hours into the night, Zelda started walking around nervously. We told her to lay down and rest, which she did for a minute, then she disappeared as we were sleeping. Sure enough, she played the kitchen routine again, this time in smaller amounts, but enough to rouse my senses awake. Tim got up this time and took her out for a walk, bless his soul, in the middle of the night, while I cleaned up the poop. We all settled back in and fell back asleep shortly thereafter. And then the panting began. She was panting like she was going to die and I was absolutely positive that she had bloat and kept feeling her stomach and giving her water and watching her. I could not sleep because her breathing was so loud and I was sure she was going to die. I guess I am to blame for keeping Tim up all night on Night Two, but like I told him when he yelled at me, would you prefer that I don't care about the dog? What if she did have bloat? Should I just sleep through it and worry about it in the morning? She could be dead by then! (She obviously wasn't and I think was just panting because it was really hot and she has long fur.) She did eventually slow down and I fell back asleep only to wake up with her walking around the room in circles, never a good sign. I woke Tim up and he took her outside again where she blasted a few rounds, unfortunately one of which was in the hallway. I had to run down and clean it up before any of the neighbors woke up and saw me. I was terrified that I was going to get caught, but fortunately I didn't. There is a still a little stain there, so shhhhhh.... I swear I did the best I could though!
At this point, it was almost time to get up and we just sort of stared at the ceiling for a little while until the alarm went off.
Sleep deprivation: 4 hours 

NIGHT THREE
It's all starting to blend together now but I think this was the night that she was panting and walking around and I had another Bloat Panic Attack and didn't sleep all night with worry. She only peed on the floor this night with just a little Hershey squirt on the floor before we got her out the door. Most of Night Three's sleep deprivation was caused by arguing about what to do with her and being stressed out by the fact that we may never sleep again. Oh! and I almost forgot. She did poop inside again- right on my cute little ankle boot from Anthropologie. I had to kiss that one goodbye. Oh well, an excuse to buy more shoes...

Sleep deprivation: 2 1/2 hours 

NIGHT FOUR
We decided to go back to crate training. We put her in her cage and slept soundly for a while. It actually seemed to work! Until 4am when the barking began. Our dog never barks. We naturally assumed that it was because she wasn't used to the crate anymore and just tried to ignore it, but it got to a point where it was just entirely too loud and we were at risk of waking up the entire building. We had to let her out. She started circling again, uh oh. I shot up like a light and walked her into the kitchen but she decided to stop along the way and let one free on the rug. The only place worse than my shoes. I tried to stop her mid-poop but it was a slider and it slid right on out. I took her outside (around 2am) and walked her around the park, constantly in fear of being raped by the weirdos who lurk there at night. Thankfully we only encountered some rats and we came home unraped and unscathed.

We put her back in the cage and she fell asleep until the sun rose around 5am when there was some more barking and cage rattling and Tim took her out this time. We both just gave in and decided to stay up. We read the news on our respective electronic devices, dazed and confused.
Poor doggie. Poor us.

Sleep Deprivation: 3 hours

TOTAL SLEEP DEPRIVATION: 10 1/2 HOURS


Well, this has been a fun week. We are going to take her to the vet tomorrow and get some advice. Don't worry, she is okay, but naturally we want to be sure. Also, we would like to sleep again some day. Oh, the sacrifices we make for those we love.

Rockin Birthday

I know what you're thinking. Awesome outfit. Yep, I know. What's awesomer is that I've worn it two days in a row after wearing it for my annual birthday run. It smells so good. (I force myself to run 5-10 miles every year just to make sure I'm still in shape as I get older and older. Did 6 1/2 which = acceptable, but not notable).

I spent the rest of my birthday lifting and moving giant rocks as you can see here. Tim even called me Annie Goldsworthy. Not bad for my first time moving and shaping rocks. My back is killing me but anything for art. Life is pain. Even on your birthday.

We called it quits around 6, Timmy corked a bottle of wine and we sat in the gravel driveway watching the sunset like Maw and Paw Hickerton. Here is an artistic shot of my muddy boot to wrap up my work filled, down home, country-fried birthday.