Sunshine is Sickening

You know what? I’m positively sick to death of all this sunshine.

I’m plain old tired of going out for margaritas after work.

If I have to say “On the rocks with salt, please,” one more time, I think I’ll die.

No, I do not want to sit outside and enjoy a “beautiful” sunset at Boat Basin. And sunrises, psshhh, they ugly!

I do not want to sit on the sunny lawn at Gramercy Park and suffer sucking down a Shake from the Shack.

I would not like a burger and fries alongside an ice cold Corona at The Frying Pan.

No thank you Stuy Town Park and your fountain-spritzing-breezearrificness.

No, no, no sun! I’m sick of you making me go outside and face your death-grip-like rays!

I hate you!

I hate you for turning my skin a golden bronze.

I hate you for making my face freckley like I was ten years old.

I hate you for giving my hair blonde highlights.

I hate you for forcing me to walk around in dresses all the time. I miss sweaters and jackets and boots!

I hate you for strong-arming me into donning my Wayfarers. And Aviators. Incessantly.

I hate you for making me swim in pools and lakes and oceans, gross! It’s not OK, you hear?

I hate you stupid sun and all your stupid shining! Just go away! Goddamn you, why you gotta be ruining my summer?!?!

Ugh!

(Here’s hoping reverse psychology works on that gaseous glowing planet know as the sun. And of course, its grey cloud cronies. Assholes.)

Summertime and the Livin's Stressful Easy

Well I think everyone concurs – it hasn’t been a great summa weather-wise so far. (I count summer as Memorial-Labor Day…duh.)

However, if there’s one thing that bugs me MORE THAN THIS STUPID, EFFING RAIN – it’s that summer weekends fill up before Memorial Day even hits. It’s ridiculous! Outrageous! Annoying! Anxiety-inducing!

And yet…and yet…there’s no avoiding it.

It’s practically laughable.
A few of us were sitting around a couple weeks ago, trying to pick a Sunday for some extracurricular activities (the nature of which shan’t be mentioned, I leave it up to your creative little minds…but you should totes be jeals).

There we were, going through the calendars on our iPhones (so gross), and it was positively preposterous how each of us has something to do, somewhere to be, every single weekend.

I do not tell a lie.

It’s so frustrating how you look forward to summatime all year round – especially after this miserable winter/spring – but with every weekend mapped out and no time for spontaneity and leisure, it’s gone in a POOF! Ugh!

Now. I want ya’ll to know that I’m NOT complaining by ANY means. I’m deeply grateful and suuuuper pumped that I’ll be spending a few long weekends in Cape Cod, Charleston, SC, and “down” that most lovely Jersey Shore.

And, of course, let’s not forget about the ole country home in CT where there will be some camping – or should I say “glamping” – trips and boating excursions and shopping jaunts (please, Papa P!!!)

Oh, and I LOOOOOOVE summer hours at work. There really is nothing better than getting out at 12:30 on Friday afternoon.
So no, I’m not bemoaning the busy factor. But rather the fact that there is something to do every single weekend, then summer is over. O-V-E-R. Before it’s even “officially” even begun! 

Wamp wamp. 

Why can’t it be summer all year round? Why do we have to pack a year’s worth of merriment and revelry and debauchery into three short months?
It’s so unfair!!!!!

[Insert snot-dripping sad face.]

If it Ain't Rainin, Don't Jinx it.

Now I know I complain a lot about the weather. But really, how could I not? It’s just so unfair! It seems to rain five days out of every week.

And now the stupid weatherman is saying it’s gonna – you guessed it – rain for the next three days.

Perhaps I should be a weatherman. Or, rather, a weatherwoman (I’m so PC!!) I think it’d be a fairly simple vocation – “Mostly cloudy with a couple of showers and a thunderstorm possible.”
What a tough job, to come up with simple variations of the same exact weather predictions.
Totes ridic.

That’s why it kills me, sticks a dagger in my heart and twists, when I see people holding their open umbrellas when it’s not raining.
Yes, the sky may look threatening. There may have just been a few droplets falling from the clouds. But no, it’s currently sans drizzle – so WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HOLDING AN OPEN UMBRELLA?

It’s like they’re taunting the rain gods or something. It’s outrageous.

Haven’t you people, you faux-rain-umbrella-holders, ever heard that saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

Well, if it ain’t raining, don’t jinx it! Trying to navigate a New York City sidewalk is difficult enough. It gets even more challenging (and über frustrating) when umbrellas are thrown into the mix.

So really people, you’re really going to whip out your stupid black umbrella when it’s not even drizzling????
Please, STOP inviting a downpour with your obnoxious, overeager preparedness. We don’t want it to rain. We hate the rain. So why oh why oh WHY are you tempting Zeus? He’s a selfish a-hole who likes to make us poor commoners woebegone on a seemingly daily basis.

Stop it right now. Stop opening your umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh every g-d time a black cloud appears.

It’s not raining! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yet.

Stairs are Simply Satanic

Stairs, stairs.
They’re good for your heart.
But the more I climb,
The more I fall apart!

I was never one to run up and down staircases as a means of “working out”. In fact, stairs are pretty much the bane of my existence.

It’s fairly ironic, then, that I am forced to climb up to my fourth floor apartment multiple times a day.
Don't get me wrong, I love my old-school walk up. My building complex has an adorable Melrose Place feel to it. There’s even a small little fountain with turtles and fish chillin (chillin except when Ri feels the need to pick them up)! I would never exchange it for a cookie-cutter doorman/elevator building. Not in a million.

But the stairs...the STAIRS! Perhaps I haterate so much because I insist on running up those steep son of bitches as fast as possible – seriously, why prolong the misery? (No matter how much I amore mi apartamento, I'm still entitled to a good dose of complaining.)

Unfortunately, stairs are everywhere. And have been for millennia. Yes, they’re a good invention (you Machu Pichu peeps so smart! You Great Wall builders so brilliant!)

However, no matter how convenient, they’re still a pain in the ass.

Literally, a pain in the gluteus maximus.

It is a truth universally acknowledged...(a little Austen, anyone?) that if you do not pay attention to your butt, no one else will. Therefore I do, much to my chagrin, force myself to take the stairs when traversing floors in the office, or clambering out from underground Subway stations (which in my mind resemble the gates to Hell).

I know space is limited in New York City, but wouldn’t it be grand if, instead of those upwardly slanting steps of doom and gloom, there were nice sloping inclines – ramps, if you will.

There would be no panting, no sweating, no sore muscles, no swearing. And you’d still be working that derrière!

Stairs are evil incarnate. You fall down them, you get hurt. You climb up them, you get winded. You trip on the way up or down them, you break your wrist. They’re slippery, dirty, dusty, creaky, creepsters.

Can someone get an NYC civil engineer on the phone?

Soggy Ensalada Saga

I’ve loved salads all my life. And salad fixings. Carrots and yellow peppers and cucumbers and grape tomatoes and red onion and feta cheese and artichoke hearts and hearts of palm and salt and pepper croutons and OLIVES. Especially olives!

When I was a wee lass, I used to put black olives on my fingers and gobble them off one by one. My mom was paranoid and dismayed and called my pediatrician when, soon after an olive-eating-extravaganza, she went to change my diaper and...alright well that’s just TMI.
Needless to say, I likey de lettuce deliciousness. Perhaps not as much as Kelly, who used to order salads for dessert. I wouldn’t take salads over sweets. But I do consume their “healthy” scrumptiousness on a daily basis.

So I’ve found it quite troubling as of late that all greens (for the most part), no matter what brand you buy, but especially Earthbound Farms, are gross and soggy and wet and wilty.

I’m quite nostalgic for the good old days when bags and containers came sans condensation. It’s not fair! It’s a given that, these days, bags of romaine and arugula and field greens and spinach and baby romaine are going to contain waterlogged, slimy lettuces because their casings are covered in water droplets.

Am I losing my memory? Well, yes, but for reals, yo! I don’t recall greens ever coming that way. There never used to be precipitation in the packages…and now it’s perpetual. Interminable. Eternal.
You’d think that, in these modern times, soggy lettuce would be an impossibility. I know, I know – the produce is transported in A/C then when it gets out into the hot weather and goes back into the cold, the dew forms. Or, more likely, the lettuce was simply bagged when it was still wet.

But seriously. Come on!
There’s nothing worse than those little red romaine greens that turn brown and slimy and poison the other lettuces with their muddy, mucky ooziness.

Gross!

I’ve tried all the tricks. Wiping the sides of the bags and containers with paper towels. Leaving the paper towels in the packaging to absorb the droplets. Putting them in plastic bags. Storing them in the produce drawer only.
But no matter what, the bags and the plastic containers always, always find a way to perspire. To sweat. And, of course, to drive me crazy.
Sure, I get sick of picking through every single leaf that ends up on my plate, checking for wetness and wiltedness. But there is, unfortunately, no better way.

I suppose I’ll just have to don my Green Goddess cap and come up with an invention that will put an end to the ick factor.
STOP THE SOGGINESS.

Smelly Smoke (à la Campfires)

There are few pleasures in life greater than sitting with friends around a campfire. Making s’mores. Drinking beers. Listening to music.

All is well with the world when you’re tipsy, singing at the top of your lungs, and stuffing you mouth with chocolatey-melted-marshmallow-graham-cracker deliciousness.

That is, of course, until you wake up in the morning REEKING of fire (with a side of headache from the booze and tummy ache from eating fifteen s’mores).
Why does enjoying a nice campfire go hand in hand with stinking like smoke for a week? I’ve had the exceedingly grand opportunity to be present at not one, but TWO campfires in the past few weeks.

One on the rooftop of an apartment on the Lower East Side (ridiculously amazing), and one at my country home.

I don’t know what was up with the flames from the first fire but boy oh boy. Tried washing the stench out of my hair day after day and it JUST WOULDN’T GO AWAY!

Luckily the fire aromas in the country didn’t stick to me like Velcro. Perhaps the wood was different. Or all that open air made the smoke disperse more evenly.

Whatever the case, it is a FACT that bonfires leave ya stinking. It’s so unfortunate! Your hair smells offensive for a least a week – no matter how many bottles of coconut shampoo you go through. Your clothes need to be washed immediately or face ruination. Even your sheets absorb the unbearable, foul, fetid smoke! And that’s just from sleeping on them!


Ugh.

Why can’t there be a better way to enjoy a fire? Why do the vaporous fumes have to be inherent?
Smoke burns your eyes, makes them tear up. It makes you choke and cough (which isn’t good for the ole vocal cords when you’re belting out Kumbaya!) But most importantly, it makes you smell. And it’s not a nice smell!

Can someone please invent smokeless campfires? They would be oh-so-convenient. Life changing, I daresay!

Alas, I suppose that's highly improbable.

At least, at least there is a teense bit of redemption. For friends that frolic around fires together, stink of smoke together.

Water Bugs. Period.

I almost died yesterday.

No, it wasn’t a errant cab running a light or anything having to do with NYC crime. No, no. It was an entirely different entity pertaining to this fabulous city of ours. It was a water bug.
Yes, a water bug nearly gave me a heart attack yesterday. It very nearly killed me.

If there is one thing above all else in this world that freezes me with fear, sends me into fits of shrieking, draws forth sweat from my pores – it’s water bugs.

The weatherman was wrong, per usual, and it was shaping up to be a lovely afternoon, I thought, as I walked home for lunch. The sun was shining and my 4th floor apartment was very warm, per usual. I had forgotten in the blissful cold climate of this past winter and spring that, when it warms up, the water bugs run rampant.

I made myself a lovely salad (no thank you bathing suit season!) and while I was doing the dishes I noticed something rather large on the floor in front of my chopping block. Thinking it was a piece of lettuce, I stooped to pick it up.

Holy.

Shit.

Immediately I started squealing, screaming, panting, panicking. IT WAS A HUGE (three inches), DISGUSTING, WATER BUG. Wretched, repulsive, revolting creatures. NYC water bugs are mutant, they’re terrifying, horrific, and abominably hideous. I have waterbugaphobia for sure.

Why do they have to be so big? Why do their antennae have to be so long? And so squirmy? Gross little feelers! Why are they so fast? Why are they SO UGLY? Especially the New York ones. Oh, maybe because they live in the sewers, eating garbage and sludge and filth, which turns them mutant, like those Italian renaissance turts.

Ugh, and they're indestructible, like rats! If a bomb were to detonate in this city, those are the only two creatures that would undoubtedly survive.

Thankfully (as if I could be grateful for anything in this situation…though I suppose it could have been worse), it was flopped over on its back, ¾ dead (yes that is indeed the actual bug itself below...apologies that the pic didn't come out that great, I couldn't exactly look at it as I was trying to take it!)

I paced around for approximately four-and-a-half minutes, staring at the floor, perspiration dampening my every pore. I took a hanger and a magazine, ten deep breaths, and tried to scoop up the god forsaken bug.

Of course, it writhed. It just haaaad to writhe. As if its presence wasn’t scary enough, it had to MOVE. Its antennae flopped around like Cooper’s tail. Obviously this made me even more terrified. I contemplated calling my super. Asking my neighbor. Calling my parents. Crying.

“You’re a grown woman, you can do this,” I chanted to myself over and over. I took ten more deep breaths and again went in for the scoop. For the second time, my efforts were rebutted. Those antennae. Those legs! Countless, crunchy, creepy-crawler legs wriggling in rhythm. Ugh.

I packed my bag and got ready to leave. I took the garbage can from under the sink and placed it right near the scene of the crime. I wanted to be ready to bolt. 1…2…3. No dice. 4…5…6. Come on Katie! 7…8…annnd I went for it. Screaming like a maniac, I went for it. I shoveled it onto the magazine, into the garbage, ran down the stairs, and dumped the bag in the trash.
Needless to say, the second I got home last night I swept and scrubbed and set traps in every corner of my apartment. I'd gas it myself if I wasn't so afraid of being poisoned.
Disgusting.

I Can't Stand You, Cantaloupe

I am a great many things, but one thing I am absolutely not is a picky eater. I've finished Thai salads that I've found glass in (Spice, University Place), polished off a Chicken Tikka Masala dish that had hair in it (Ghandi Cafe, Bleecker St.), and tried everything from cactus to crocodile.

In fact, I'm so unpicky that I've only used the H word with two foods: tomatoes and cantaloupe. The former I positively hated for twenty-four years - until two summers ago when my mom made me a tomato sandwich with Beefsteaks from our garden. Now I'm absolutely hooked!

And then there was one. No matter how many times I've tasted it (and believe me, I've put forth a valiant effort), cantaloupe is the only provision I despise. Yes, you pitiful little cantaloupe, I simply can't stand you. For so many reasons I don't even know where to begin! Oh, why not with your ugly ass skin:

There is nothing beautiful about you - you don't have the shape of a starfruit or the colors of a mango. Your exterior is so boring it doesn't even deserve a description. You are the color of nothing, nada, nichts, nill. Your bumpy, contusion-clad surface is creepy and contrived (you probably thought to yourself, "Oh I'm such a boring, awful, bland looking fruit, I need some sort of sensory appeal! Why not make myself have a bumpy, scratchy surface?" BLEH!!) You resemble nothing other than a reticulated rock.

As to the edible part, the flesh. Ugh! I will say that orange is one of my favorite colors. I thoroughly enjoy all things orange:

- Orange soda comes in third place as my most fave pop (a very difficult decision, came down to a coin toss), right behind root beer and Diet Coke with Lime

- Cheese balls you are DELICIOUS...you poor, underrated, oft-forgotten cousins of the damn Doodle

- When the whim to be healthy strikes, I enjoy carrots (especially those of the mini or matchstick variety)

- I find Goldfish vastly pleasing, both the edible version and the pet (plus 10 for being so easy to take care of; minus 50 for dying after, like, a day)

- I am huge fan of Essie's Mini Shorts nail polish AND I just scored a super cute Theory dress at a sample sale - 'tis orange, obvi!

All things orange are, in fact, pretty fantabulous. So whhhhy can't the inside of a cantaloupe be a more vile. revolting color - like sky blue or pea green? You spoil the color orange for me, stupid cantaloupe. You really do.

Alas, ruination aside, it's really the smell and taste of a cantaloupe that I find most abominable.

My mother unfortunately does not share in my loathing of this...this thing that calls itself a fruit. When I visit CT in the summatime, I often enjoy reading on the back porch in the company of my delightful pet pooch, Cooper. He's very chill and has excellent manners. Sometimes, though, if the breeze blows ever so slightly and I catch a whiff of sewage, I'll snap at my dog in disbelief: "Cooper, how could you? I can't believe you would fart in my presence!" I scold. Coop looks at me, rolls his eyes, then looks to the table where, sure enough, my mom has set out a couple of cantaloupes to ripen. Silly me - Cooper is a gentleman! My olfactory organs were not assaulted by a little doggie toot but rather by that stupid, reeking, ripening melon. (Coop then requires five or so pieces of cheese as compensation for the mislaid blame, which I gladly dispense.)

Seriously, why do cantaloupes smell so atrocious? The scent they emit is repellent, repulsive, repugnant. I really do not understand how - HOW - anyone that gets close enough to smell them can actually put it in their mouth and chew.

But honestly, the thing that most bothers me about stupid cantaloupe is its presence in fruit salads. IT IS NOTHING BUT A FILLER FRUIT. It ruins (absolutely ruins!!) the pineapple, grapes, strawberries, kiwis - even its brethren the watermelon and honeydew - everything ends up tasting like the moldy, soapy, nail polishy poison that is cantaloupe. Ugh! See what I mean:

That's how every fruit salad is made - you can see how the nice, delicious, innocent fruits are placed on TOP of the cantaloupe. It's a bowl of cantaloupe, stupid filler fruit, topped with the good stuff. Gross.

This is a quandary I fear will never be answered. The cantaloupe and I are at an impasse. I guess the only thing I can do is to avoid the fruit salad at picnics.

Bed(room) Bugs

Yes, yes. I do abhor water bugs a very great deal.

But my bug abomination does not rise and set with those long, crunchy, antennae-wielding mutants.

No – it’s a far more innate fear or all insects that began when I was very young. And that, unfortunately, has not dissipated as the years have gone on.

I went home to celebrate an early Father’s Day this past weekend and we had a lovely little Saturday on the boat. (I would post Trissi’s pic cause it’s funnier but I think she would hop the next train to NYC and kill me.)

After a lovely day of boating around the Long Island Sound and strolling through Niantic, we headed back to Sharon. Unfortunately, the buggies were heading “home” as well. To my bedroom.

Bastards!

The rain, humidity, lights (that I stupidly left on), and teeny tiny slits around my air conditioner all banded together to form The Perfect Storm. Unfortunately my version did not involve George Clooney, but rather consisted of an ideal climate for an insect-infestation-partay.

I sometimes forget that the world of creepy-crawlers is not limited to those toxic-waste-ingesting freaks of nature that run rampant in this city. Water bugs, silver fish, and ginormous cockroaches are but a teeny tiny dot on the spectrum of insects I’ve encountered. And detest.

I sometimes forget that when I go to Sharon, there is a plethora of other sordid species I have to struggle with.

Perhaps that’s why my parents bought me a bug vacuum when I was in high school – they were sick to death of my incessant shrieks and screams when an insect decided to pay a visit to my bedroom.

Oh bug vacuum…how I miss thee. Those were the days! It's simple design consisted of a long tube with a flat piece at the top that would lie flush against the wall or ceiling. After sucking the bug in, it would zap, killing it, then store its frail little carcass in the base container.

How I wish it hadn’t died from overuse! 

There I lay, trying to sleep, exhausted from a day of fun in the sun, when all of a sudden I spied with my half-closed, drooping eye, a light. Flashing. ‘Twas no thunder, so it couldn’t be a storm. Ah, must be the light coming from my A/C.

But no, there it was again. And again. And AGAIN.
My heart fluttered with fright – this wasn’t the first time a lightning bug’s stupid little glowing ass had found its way into my dwelling.

No amount of cool air could keep at bay the beads of sweat that formed on my forehead. I turned on the light. It had started to rain. There were pesky mosquitoes, gnats, daunting black moths, and numerous other varieties of bugs that I didn’t care to stare at long enough to name.

I took a few deep breaths, turned off the light, and weighed my options.

There was no bug vacuum to suck them up and zap them. It was past midnight and I didn’t think my parents would exactly jump at the opportunity to come up and kill them. Memories of a moth finding its way down my shirt, startling me awake, leaving me terrified and unable to sleep assaulted my mind.

What oh what was a girl to do?

I did the best I could given the situation. Popping an Ambien, I pulled my hoodie over my head, donned a sleep mask, and hid under the sheets.

Needless to say, I still hate bugs. They are, and I’m afraid will always be, my biggest fear.

Yes, I Like Piña Coladas...but HATE Ice that Won't Crush!

I dreamed a dream that I was in a pool with a piña colada.

Oh just kidding! Snap back to reality. It’s another rainy day here in NYC. And there shan’t be any pool-piñas this weekend.

Wamp wamp.

However, last weekend did consist of a couple of coladas. I thought visiting the tranquil countryside would catapult my soul into a state of perfect, peaceful pleasure…I was sadly mistaken. Hardy-har-har.

There we were, soaking up the (burning) sunshine poolside, thinking it couldn’t get any better than that. But, oh, wait: “Omgees! Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we had piña coladas??” Yes, we are geniuses.

Piñas are best when they are unpremeditated. When they are unexpected. When the fluky, fortuitous fancy strikes you, BAM. Like a hand darting into a penny candy bin, stealing.

Now, my mother does not condone drinking (we chillens pretty much disregard what she condones). This is fairly ironic because whenever she sees something in the way of an alcoholic beverage that says “NEW!” or that has pretty packaging, she buys it. Cuckoo.

I recalled, as I was lounging on the chaise, that she had purchased some god-awful, bright blue, pineapple/coconut-concoction-coolers – pretty much in the same vein as Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Well, that was a start at least.

I knew she had cream of coconut and when I opened the fridge I saw that there was some crushed pineapple – pineapple juice! I could totes doctor up those frightful bottles of cerulean, calor-iffic malties.

I took out the blender – and here’s the no dankes (wow, it takes me forevs to reach my no dankity of the day!!) - THE STUPID ICE WOULD NOT CRUSH!!!!!!

And it’s not like the blender was old or incapable. ‘Twas a perfectly able kitchen appliance. But I find that, as a rule, blenders never, ever do a proper slush-ifying job! THEY DON’T CRUSH THE ICE! Never have I ever encountered an honorable ice-crushing appliance.

WTF’s yo!!

Is it too much to ask that the cubes be conquered? That they blades chop them smaller and smaller until they’ve reached a fine, slushy consistency? It’s so annoying! How do those ICEE machines at the movies do it? I don’t understand!
 

In the end, with the addition of creamy coco and crushed pineapples and piña juice, the coladas came out pretty decent. I tried to ignore the fact that there were lame, lacerated lumps of frozen water floating around.

And let's be serious. the day was far too beautiful to be ruined by the shortcomings of a stupid blender.