Every November, Nascar holds its Championship Week in New York to attract media and business attention, as well as distance itself from its southern roots. The good part is that part of Championship Week is the “Victory Lap”—when the top ten drivers drive a loop down the streets. They start in Times Square and go west on 42nd Street to Madison, which means they pass directly in front of my office building. It’s great—Nascar comes to me.
Unfortunately, this year wasn’t as good as last year and the year before. They used to spin their tires and rev their engines. Last year a couple of the drivers even waved at me. This year—nothing. They just drove by. Still fun, but I missed the smell of the tire smoke and roar of the engines.
Also, this year my driver wasn’t in the Chase, so I didn’t have anyone in particular to cheer for. However, if Ryan Newman doesn’t get it together and not continue to stink next year, he may not be my driver much longer.
For lunch, we went on another holiday lunch to Tao. We had a huge group, so we had booked their upstairs skybox. Lots of fun, we felt very vip up there. The food at Tao is good, but not spectacular, but it’s a fun, clubby looking place and going there always feels like a party. They have a 20-foot buddha statue with a goldfish pond beneath it, glamorous lighting, and sexy fortunes in their fortune cookies.
It’s the start of the holiday season, when all of my vendors from work take us out to lunch. It’s great fun, because I get to go to restaurants I wouldn’t get to go to otherwise. Today, we went to one of my favorites, Artisanal, a French bistro and fromagerie. Fromagerie, meaning focused on cheese. When you walk in, the first thing you notice is the dominant smell of cheese . . . stinky cheese. We had two different fondues, and gougeres, these delicious little cheese puffs that I must learn to make.
Today I also tried a new class at the gym, the ballet workout. When I was younger, I was various serious about ballet—I did it for ten years and finally quit because it was all I did and it was making me miserable. Also, I ended up with short legs. But I do miss the dancing part of it, not the snotty people or the long hours, but just the dancing. So I tried the class at the gym. It was fun and I was (a) shocked that I remembered all of the terminology, arm positions, etc. without even thinking about it, and (b) frustrated at how much better shape I was in when I was younger and doing ballet daily.
I took the day off of work today to start some Christmas shopping. It felt very strange, Christmas shopping in 65° weather. But it was nice walking around in the sunshine. I saw these two doggies and had to take their picture—such a cute pair.
We’re having a BIG family Christmas this year—more of us than have been gathered in one place in a long time. Luckily, we decided to just do stocking stuffers this year instead of buying presents. Stocking stuffers are my favorite part anyway—much more fun to buy goofy little presents instead of trying to find the perfect big present.
I made the expedition down to Target and bought some stocking stuffers and some stuff for our holiday cocktail party. I love Target, but it was exhausting.
We went to see Casino Royale the day after Thanksgiving, just like all the other families and groups of teenagers looking for obvious Hollywood fare. Ahh, the suburbs!
I enjoyed the movie, though it seems that they made a Bond movie for people who aren’t impressed with Bond movies. This Bond gets his hands dirty when he kills. He doesn’t fuss over the specifics of martini shaking or stirring. And for a little while, the audience is even left wondering if his sexual prowess survived a run-in with torture. Definitely a new kind of Bond, and likely over-due, as the series has become more of an object of mocking than an exciting action franchise.
Unfortunately, it’s way too long. I think that all B-movies (anything that’s not an epic drama, really) should come in under 2 hours. Casino Royale is 2 1/2 hours, with a boring poker scene in the middle that seems to go one forever, obviously intending to appeal to all the people (whoever they are) who watch poker on tv.
This little guy slept with us for three nights over Thanksgiving. For such a little dude, he sure is a bed-hog. We couldn’t kick him out though—he’s just too cute.
It’s nice to spend time with cats when we visit E’s parents. I always had cats, but our landlord won’t allow them in our apartment. It makes me sad—I miss cats.
Today, I went by Coliseum Books by my office to pick up a few books. A few years ago, they moved to a new location right around the corner from my office and I’ve been a devoted customer ever since. It’s a great bookstore—the charm of an indie with the inventory of a big chain store. And so convenient.
Unfortunately, they didn’t do as well in their new location as they had hoped and they declared bankruptcy in October. Probably didn’t help that B&N opened a new store a few blocks up Fifth Avenue to compete with them.
They’re scheduled to close at the end of December, so I’ll have to go buy lots of books in the next month before they’re gone.
My mom came to visit this weekend. Unfortunately, she flew in during a major storm and her flight got delayed and then delayed some more and then diverted to Philly. She was supposed to arrive at 6 p.m. and ended up not getting in until 2:00 a.m. on Friday.
Not surprisingly, we were all exhausted the next day. I played hooky from work and we slept in and then ate lunch in a little French cafe in Williamsburg. We did some walking around the city—we saw Vincent D’Onofrio filming Law & Order Criminal Intent by Madison Square Garden and had custard at Shake Shack (though they didn’t have the pumpkin pie custard—a big disappointment. It was a beautiful sunny fall day. It had been gray and rainy for a week, and you could feel walking around that the city was in a good mood. We came home, at some leftover tamales, and taught Mom how to play Hot Dice, our new favorite game. I can’t wait to teach everyone how to play at Christmas.
On Saturday, we decided to go see “Volver,” since Mom doesn’t get to see foreign films in the theater in Lubbock. I would highly recommend it—it might even top “Talk to Her” as my favorite Almodovar movie. I loved the colors and the styling. Penelope Cruz was styled like Sophia Loren from the 60s—she looked great and gave a great performance. She should never be in another American movie again—she is so much better in Spanish.
On Sunday, we watched the last Nascar race of the season. I am a huge Nascar fan. The exciting part was that I won our fantasy Nascar league. I started the season back in February doing badly, but I improved over the season. I passed my uncle a few weeks ago for the lead and barely held on for the win in the last race. Now I have a little trophy on my Yahoo page!
Today, my new shoes make me happy.
I probably wouldn’t be so entertained by saddle shoes now if I’d had them as a kid. I’d wanted a pair for a while, so I was excited to find these for $15 at Payless.
I decided to reread the two most recent Harry Potter books because it’s fall, which always makes me feel in a back-to-school mood. I always wanted to go to an old-fashioned British boarding school, and wear a uniform and study in a wood-panelled classrooms. So I was a weird kid. When it gets to be fall, I still want to dress like a British schoolboy. The Harry Potter books have a great English boarding school setting—I want to go to Hogwarts and wear a Gryffindor scarf and hang out in the common room.
When the first books came out, I wasn’t that impressed. Pretty generic kids’ fantasy books, without the complexity of Lloyd Alexander or Philip Pullman. Playing heavily into every kid’s idea that they are misunderstood and special. But in the later books, I’ve been impressed with her plan to make the books more sophisticated as the characters and readers get older.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a political book, in the same way that Wicked is a political book. I don’t mean that they refer to contemporary politics, though both do. They endow their fantasy world with political organization and machinations. They show that even fantasy worlds don’t exist without structure and leadership, good or bad.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince feels mostly like a fairly typical YA novel—teenage characters exploring their relationships with each other and their places in the world. Harry realizes the fallibility of adults, even the ones he admires. As a fan of YA novels, I am pleased.
