SNOWicane 2010

Check out the accumulation!  Pretty incredible stuff.  The little polar bear on my kitchen windowsill is feeling pretty at home with these views.

 

This is also the last day that I will be eating this for (at least) one meal, because I've finally run out:

 

Other wintery things:  my Olympics fervor is pretty much over, after watching Kim Yu-Na win the gold in last night's women's figure skating free skate.  It was magical and mesmerizing.  Also, they showed Tara Lipinski in the crowd, reminding me of how much I hate(d) her as a loyal Michelle Kwan fan.  And, Mirai Nagasu is super adorable.  The future of U.S. skating?  I hope so.

I leave you with this song off of Mumford & Sons' new album, Sigh No More.  I'm really enjoying the album as I'm cooped up in here.

Winter Winds - Mumford & Sons

how the Olympics sucked away all of my time and motivation

It's amazing, the more hours per day that I sit here and watch the Olympics, the less active I become, and thus fall into a pit of laziness.  Between displaying an unprecedented amount of nationalism (Vonn! White! Ohno! Bode!) while watching almost every sport that the Vancouver games have to offer, and poring over the A/W 2010 ready-to-wear collections, I essentially have no free time*. 

Now it is supposedly going to rain all week, further prompting me to hole up and never see the light gray of day.  I can only hope that somewhere amongst all of this hermit-ness (and the fact that there are only two more figure skating events...), I will also finish a project or two.  Fingers crossed.

In my moments of social behavior, these were some of my findings.  They include two red hats, and some orange objects:

 

beer & sandwiches, consumed at Bierkraft

 

  

warming the antlers of a deer (buck?) at The Bell House. Now it matches La Chouffe.

 

 

 a ball I stole wound up with from SPiN, accompanied by a giraffe from Maracas

* I have in fact debated going to meet friends in the past week & a half because there was going to be figure skating on (it was the men's free skate! Evan Lysacek!) -- don't worry, I actually went out that day...and watched the competition on the TVs at the bar...

collect the love that I've been given

Dear _[insert your name]_:

Happy Valentine's Day!

A little gift from me to you, to warm your ears and hearts.  I'm running out the door to a Valentine's day potluck, followed by some pre-President's day shenanigans.  Shenanigans!  Wish you could be here with me.

love, Miriam

<3 & Valentines 2010

do you love me, now that I can dance?

Happy pre-Valentine's day!  Here's a little mix to get yourself all worked up and have a little dance party.  Because you need to get a rosy glow going as you start the pinkest holiday of the year.

p.s. Happy 60th birthday to my dad (who thankfully will never read this).  But if he did, my family loves Dirty Dancing so I'm sure he'd enjoy the first track on the mix. :-)

"snow day"

Hey - it snowed yesterday!  While blustery, that was no blizzard...I could still walk and see the street in front of me and managed to run a few errands (like mailing a 60th birthday/valentine's day package to my parents!).  And then I came home and made this really nicely colorful mixture which managed to mostly look uniformly tan once it got cooked into a chicken pot pie.  Oh well.  It was delicious, if not extremely garlic-filled.

 

  

This morning you really couldn't tell that there was a "snowstorm"...at least not out of my windows.

  

 

...and the most exciting part of today: I figured out how to turn off Google Buzz in my Gmail inbox.  Phew, that was getting annoying FAST.

I wouldn't like death if death were good

 

R.I.P. Alexander McQueen

(1969 - 2010)

  

  

  

(all images above via Style.com)

You can read more about his career and death here.  I have no qualms in saying that he was a creative genius in the fashion world, and I'm left a little bit heartbroken this morning.  If you want to cry a little bit more over the state of this industry, you can also read the NY Times article highlighting the declining state of the Garment District and the significance of NY Fashion Week (starting now) moving away from the Bryant Park tents this fall.

happy belated birthday, blog!

Oh, my poor neglected blog.  How ashamed I am to have forgotten your birthday last week.  I hope you will forgive me, and accept this photo of today's snowfall as a token of my love for you.
xoxo, Miriam

From Drop Box

tourist in your own town

Have you ever seen one of those large coach buses driving around New York giving tours based off of a TV show/movie?  I know they've been around for ages, but I rarely actually encounter them in places that I go...until last Friday.  As Eve and I sat in the "cupcake-eating" park (on Bleecker, near Magnolia), we realized that: a) a tour bus was parked on Bleecker; b) there were people taking photos in front of Marc by Marc Jacobs & Magnolia; c) they were 95% women.  In short, we were surrounded by a Sex and the City tour group (as well as well over a dozen pigeons because of the cupcakes) -- and we got the hell out of there.

 (did I mention that this cupcake saves lives? because it does. $1 went to Haiti relief)

However, the other places we went also ride that fine line of being touristy and being delightfully New York.  Papaya King (the original!) on the UES, the Met, and Lexington Candy Shop.  I had my first papaya dog, and "best lemonade in NYC."  To sum up, on Friday I ate: a cupcake, a hot dog, lemonade, and a tuna melt.  What a healthy day. ;)

enjoying my first ever Papaya dog

this bird was pretty intense, much more so than my attempt

7 words, Sounds Like...

Ra Ra Riot and The Antlers!

 Ra Ra Riot at BAM, 02.05.2010

These two bands (only one of which is really a Brooklyn band) played the BAM Sounds Like Brooklyn festival on Friday night.  I hadn't seen Ra Ra Riot since 2007 or 2008, when they played at Castaways in Ithaca and it was pretty empty.  This was a totally different situation, and they've really grown as a performing band in the past few years.  They were peppy and enthusiastic, almost causing a few on-stage collisions actually.  Basically, they presented the opposite mood onstage as their opening band, The Antlers.

As I mentioned in my Best of 2009 wrap-up, I loved The Antlers' album Hospice, in all of its raw, emotionally painful glory.  Their live performance was powerful to say the least - you feel the weight of every sorrowful and reflective note and word as it exits Peter Silberman's mouth.  Even if you were to not focus on the lyrics themselves, his tone communicates it all.  It was a little overwhelming, and I was somewhat relieved that they performed first because otherwise I would have walked out of BAM feeling like someone stomped all over my insides.

Despite a potential for depression, I strongly recommend seeing The Antlers if they're playing anywhere near you.

Sylvia - The Antlers

rabbit x2

Rabbit

 Ken loves February already, can't you tell?

Rabbit

Fun Stuff - Frightened Rabbit

 On the one hand, January seemed impossibly long, but on the other hand it feels like February has snuck up on me.  There's some fun stuff coming up this weekend (including The Antlers and Ra Ra Riot at Brooklyn Academy of Music!), so I hope that I stop feeling so quasi-sick (which kept me up all last night - boo).