wait, here's another shot of my bedroom now that it is cozy and looks like a bedroom should....or so i think i've told people....

the couch....

and another view

now i feel like this is home

the living room as of right now.... flowers make a house a home....and now i have canisters so i have flour really making my kitchen totally my own!

bob, bob junior number 2 and apparantly bob junior junior number 3 having some fun today in the yard....

Get Funny Pictures at pYzam.com

i just decided where i'm going to take my next vacation

i'm really excited, i'm going to go to Oz. since i really want to make this happen, i've even gotten myself a map so i can work out directions. not that it much matters, after all, i here the city's a wiz to find....

at the end of a long yellow bricked road or something like that....

i'm off....

just a little.

my bedroom is shaping up....

new drapes from diligent discount clearance shopping at bed bath & beyonce (her name is on everything else these days, why not here?)


notice the chair, one of a pair....the match of which is living in my closet in a box, in many pieces. mom offered to come and put together furniture for me, and when i immediately accepted her offer and told her to come in immediately, she laughed and laughed and laughed. sometimes i think i must be touched. little did she know, after the adventure and misadventure of butching up and building the first chair all night, i've decided i can quite easily live without the second one until she manages to catch a bus or a train or another ride of sorts into the city to see me. too bad she didn't come in today - it's the most gorgeous summer day i can remember seeing in the city in a long, long time - it's about 70 degrees outside, bright sunshine, blue sky with great clouds and an amazing breeze off the east river outside the kitchen window (which is scented with the deliciously wafting smell of fresh bread as the bakery downstairs makes bagels for all the consumers on the island of nyc.)

that reminds me of a joke....

do you know the difference between judo and karate?

think about it for a minute.

nope, i don't think you've really thought about it....

got it?

karate is an ancient asian form of self defense. jew dough is what they make bagels out of.

sharing the wealth....

given my burst of good fortune with the bed bath & boredom windfall of recent days, i felt like i should help someone else out.

therefore, last night, i spent hours on the phone with my mom while simultaneously logged into the blogspot as i tried to guide her through the basic point and clicks of getting her self up and ranting...i mean running...of blogging.

i see she had a late night of typing after talking, and, it is now apparant that she has conquered the demons of photo posting too boot! way to go mom-o!

check her for yourself at: http://andersonranch.blogspot.com

:+D
wadeo

oh sacred power ranger on the fire escape, watch over my life.....

my new drapes

ah, the good old days, the albury hotel, sydney

today i'm the windshield....

as the song so eloquently states: some days you're the windshield. some days you're the bug. some days you're the louisville slugger. some days you're just a fool in love.

why am i feeling so windshield-esque you ask? is it because i'm so emotionally transparent? is it because the high heat coupled with unbearable humidity outside in nyc today leaves me thinking i might melt? (nah, that would make me the lipstick in the cupholder, not the windshield). nope, it's because today, i proved once again (to myself), that good things happen to good people. what happened you say? well, baby steps...one man's good thing is another's frivolously spent afternoon in an otherwise leisurely life.....

so, i went back to the much dreaded but equally anticipated bed bath and beyond today....why you wonder? what is left to exchange? why, almost anything in my apartment that i don't use, i'll reply! in fact, last night, i spent a good amount of time digging thru my non-treasures and found a lotion dispenser that has never dispensed, a trash can that i many times almost put in the trash and a pencil holder that has never met a pencil in the time i've owned it (i'm an ink kind of guy - if you're afraid to commit to using permanent ink, you're probably not someone i'm tight with - after all, ink is the only way to right down a date on the calendar, pencil is far too easy to get out of. yep, you got it, i'm anal retentive about writing stuff on the calendar, ink only, and sticking to my commitments. sometimes i mess up or miss something, but not for lack of trying to be a responsible grown up.) so while my apartment fumigated yet again....i deserve, no, i NEED, a discount on bug bombs, i hit bb&b.... how much did i get you wonder? let's see....trash can was $40 bucks. damn. i got full price. i've owned that freaking thing since 1992 when i got it as a take home from work after the photo shoot on an advertisement i wrote for at&t. i think at&t paid for it originally...it matched the lotion non-dispenser. that thing has lived in 5 apartments with me. some very pricey realestate and life experience has been going on right in front of it's drip-proof spout. $17.99 for the spout! you must be kidding me. i don't know where i got that from, but it was a concerted effort to scrub it all down and air dry it in the sun on the fire escape. this brings my 2 day total for reverse shopping at bb&b to well over $200 in credit to buy things i really need!

astounding, really. i'm now scouring for more things to return....i have time and with my attention span being what it is, the shiny things on offer at bb&b really do appeal to me in this disgusting heat. oh, right, and i get to suck in all the free air conditioning i can handle until they close. only thing better than that would be if i were on payroll but didn't have to work there.

i got another one of the simplest but most life changing purchases while i was there today....i'm not even remotely sure how i missed it yesterday...but i was very busy for the 6 hours it took to find new ice cube trays there....it shouldn't be so challenging to locate them, yet alone, to decide on which ones to buy...they run the gambit from $2.99 per 2 pack (my personal final selection and so far they've made great cubes and i haven't had a tray shatter, unlike the ones they're replacing). today, i found: a butter dish.

butter is my favorite. like paula deen, i find butter makes me happy. like jello, there's always room for butter. in fact, i got an anchor hocking glass butter dish with lid, a mere $2.99, that's such a bargain i almost feel like i should buy a backup...just in case....but i'm trying to outfit the homestead, not go all philanthropic at bb&b!

the proof of my good things quorum occurred during my second trip to bb&b today. yes, that's right, i went back after 3 hours of free a.c. - i really was consumed while i was there but i had to leave for the post office to mail ron's package before they closed and then i wanted to get my other stuff from storage....needless to say, ron's getting his box. my stuff is still locked in the basement of 524 west 23rd street since i couldn't get a car service willing to pick me up since i wasn't leaving the city. jackass! i know! the moving company that moved my furniture told me they could do it around 8pm (this was before 5), and it would be $108. yeah, let me explain how that works....it doesn't.

so the man at the storage place told me to hail a cab. i told him to bite me.

that's when i decided to leave. i decided i needed to see HARRY POTTER tonight instead. you know, dark theater, padded comfy, lot's of air conditioning, some people watching and junk food from the drug store across the street. turns out harry wasn't playing near me. damn the fickle finger of fate.

fuggedaboutit. i went back to bb&b since it's on the way to the subway....all the way across town from where my things are in limbo.

now for the 3 hours i'd shopped earlier and spent 3.27, i'd been looking at the clearance rack...a 4 sided rolling treasure trove of nothing but color and very expensive drapes and curtains....i found the most gorgeous red velvet drapery buried in the mass of crap. they were $89 per panel originally and i found them marked down to $29. i would have bought 2 and just used one on each window, but alas, they only had one. next.

i found gorgeous red silk drapes, fully lined with blackout lining, which has been my issue lately since the bedroom is way to freakin' light in the morning. they were originally $99 per panel. i found two. one was $29 and one was $19. i bought them both, i asked the cashier to give me them both for $19 since it's obviously mis-marked at the higher price. she didn't. they weren't. one is 84" long which is the exact size of my window. the other was 105" which just reaches the floor. i thought i might keep them and put the shorter one over the a.c. unit since it needs to be unblocked anyway, but turns out, i don't like the one that goes to the floor - it doesn't puddle and it doesn't look nice. maybe if i'd found four...but i hate to be greedy....after all.....

i also found a very nice red print fabric drape from nautica. it's the ludlow pattern, which is kind of viney. there were 2 packs of them, they're heavy, they're lined, and they have a good pattern with kind of a gold color. they were $49 per panel originally, and they were marked down to $14.99. i bought both, thinking i'll try another bb&b and maybe find 2 more....now I MUST. when i checked out, these panels were super duper reduced and i got them for $6.99 each!!!! granted, i only put one on each window, but i tied them back, so the a.c. isn't impeded and i'll put the other down to block out light before bed tonight.

when i moved in here, i said i would have a red kitchen. i'm working on that. turns out, i've been collecting red for other parts of home, way before i ever had one here....even my throw pillows, for couch and bed are in shades of red! who knew?

so as you can tell, having a lot of time to burrow into the depths of certain clearance racks can really pay off...i mean, sure, it cost me 5 hours of my life, but what else was i going to do with it?

oh, and too prove that good things really do occur....harry potter was playing at the theater a few blocks away from the subway after i finished shopping tonight. and, for once, when i got there, there was only 1 person ahead of me in line, the movie start time was within 10 minutes of buying my ticket (meaning i didn't miss the first 15 minutes and the previews), i didn't pee on myself while i juggled my bags and my business which almost never works for me, and the movie was really good - in fact, it was long and i was shocked to find i'd just sat for 2.5 hours when i hit the sidewalk again.

now, that's what i call good things happening to good people.

the smallest things make me happy....

a friend of mine that i loved tremendously died last winter in a horrific accident that may have been suicide. about a week after i found out of his death, i received a giant bag that weighed close to 75 pounds, delivered to my doorman by a messenger. there was no card attached, but inside the bag there was every single conceivable and necessary gadget to outfit a kitchen if you were someone who cooks. i called the messenger service to find out who the package was delivered from...and of course, it wrenched me to the core of my heart - it had been picked out and bought a month earlier with delivery scheduled to surprise me for my birthday since my friend knew i was trying to move.

as everyone knows, when it rains, it pours. my friend died. my apartment got ransacked and i was robbed of every penny saved for the move and then the worst thing - an amazing apartment was promised to me (they were even willing to take my Section 8 Housing Voucher!) and a few days before i was supposed to move in, i found out the residents of said apartment weren't moving as planned due to a delay in the job transfer they were taking.

so, more and more of my life was put into a bag or a box and dragged around the corner from my old apartment and locked into a little storage closet at manhattan mini storage (you can store your mini here, but you'll have to keep your maxi somewhere else!) i couldn't bear to look thru the birthday gift bag. it sat in storage with the memories of Grandma Hulit and some of my most cherished, if not (but probably!) cheesy possessions.

of course, i finally pulled it all together, thanks to mom and jim, and got myself out of that old little apartment without a kitchen. sure, it was in the best address area of new york city. chelsea, right across the street from anderson cooper's home, now that's worth walking home every day just to see him on the street. it was also right nextdoor to sandra bernhard's apartment. she's really unattractive, but of all the famous people you encounter in nyc (why is she famous, by the way?), i saw her every time i left my apartment and every single time, she said hello and chatted with me while we waited to cross tenth avenue. i give her extra credit for that. i feel like i stalked anderson cooper for the two years i lived across from him and he still doesn't call, doesn't write and doesn't love me for me.

yesterday i finally went down to get stuff out of storage. i am missing a few essentials in the new place, like kitchen towels, a non-stick saute pan, etc. i knew i had towels in storage, but the rest was a gamble. i discovered the huge gift bag and realized it was all stuff i don't need and won't miss, so i dragged it back to bed bath and beyond (which i hate, as a store and as a shopping experience). it turns out as much as i dislike bb&b, they have a very liberal return policy in place, atleast in nyc. i didn't have a receipt. some of the items didn't even have tagging or barcode on them, but the customer service desk was able to look up every single item, and there were a lot of them - from placemats (8 gel mats, 2 silver metallic lacquer, 2 red metallic lacquer) to some sort of wire organization system that i couldn't figure out a use for or how to put it together (large rack and extra hooks plus 9 seperate pieces of add on shelving). granted, they take 25% restocking fee off of whatever they give you back, and everything is always marked down so you only get clearance pricing, but i still got around $100 to use for some things i didn't have and can't justify spending on right now.

the biggest item to put a smile on my face yesterday is my new 10 inch RED teflon coated sautee pan. i finally can cook eggs! what a lovely thing! granted, i try not to eat eggs, as they always make me sick, immediately after ingesting them. but i do love a good mushroom and cheese omlet when i want one. and last night, i wanted one. i have wanted one since coming back from wyoming, but i'm loathe to ruin my good copper clad cookware with something so horrible to clean off since the only dishwasher in this apartment happens to be named wadeo.

of course, there was another item that has been driving me up a short wall since moving in here - i lost my cheese grater somehow...perhaps i still own it and haven't uncovered it yet, but i'm starting to think not. having not had an apartment and/or a kitchen for nearly 5 years has allowed many many things to slip away. that's why for $5.99 i can now easily grate my cheese. which is very important as i have a beautiful block of imported parmigano regianno cheese in my fridge and i have been grating it with my vegetable peeler which isn't really the right way to do it....and when i say imported, i mean, i had to walk to the subway, go all the way down to 77th and lexington avenue to d'agostino's to buy it. apparantly, as i live in the famous area known as "el barrio" italian cheese is not available to the locales. on the other hand, i can get excellent oaxaca cheese in 32 different renant combos. now that food network did a show on oaxaca, i plan to start buying and using it in the near future. i'll start slow, i don't want to live another tofu like experience, but live and learn, right? they say it tastes like chicken. no, wait, that's possum. oaxaca tastes like mozzerella....or so they'd have you believe. check back here to find out.

another winning sunset for Mona's alleged contest....

where loonies meet coonies

who will buy this beautiful morning?

...and then i accidentally hit Reply All.

ding dong, the mouse is dead, set off bug bombs, fumigate my bed, ding dong, that little mouse is dead. he's gone where the rodents go (in the trash, mashed in low) below, below, below, below, below, below, below (ding dong the mouse is dead, plastic trap, his small head). ding dong my little mouse is dead.

if something ever was worth singing about, this might just about be it. that little s.o.b. scared the life out of me each, and every single time he re-emerged from his pre-doom abode. that said, i've now set off my 10th or 11th bug bombs, which is not inexpensive. i've thrown away the deep ile shag carpet that the landlord had just put in my living room to soften noise for the neighbor. somehow, the mouse always left a trail of mouse beans deeply embedded in it. worse, he left me a legacy of lice or fleas which i've battled since shortly after my first week of living here. (for full affect, one needs to see the battle scars - literal - on my ankles from the gnawing and biting of the invisible itch offenders. hopefully one more bombing in short order will stop this expensive and toxic habit for a while. i hope so, there's almost nothing worse than when the people at the local home depot know you for regular visits filled with deep and insightful questions about the rodent control products in aisle one.

bob and bob junior number 2 both seem to be doing well. i guess they're "in lurve" she follows him everywhere he goes, even when his path trajectory changes (i.e. another attempt to enter my window while i was standing there - abort! abort!) bob is pretty quick on the toes so had no trouble avoiding direct hand-to-hand combat with me, however, bob number 2 junior, seems to be a little slower on the uptake, and almost got bitch slapped, or is that squirrel slapped?, backwards off the fire escape this time. she must be young. she'll learn.

i had a really nice afternoon on the fire escape yesterday. the trumpet vine i'd removed in may, at great effort, had finally had an upswing in growth from the neighbor below me. this means, again, my wall, my bathroom window, my fire escape floor were coated in vines. so i spent the day cutting, bundling and packing them so i could easily get them to the street for removal. in the course of doing this, i also removed an old air conditionning unit that was between my escape and the next building (vacant but currently being completely gut renovated, owned by the same guys that own my building). also found in the rubbish piled in the vines, a life size transformer/robot/thingy made of shiny silver and bright red plastic. he's missing an arm, as all well loved toys seem to be, but he still has potential. so, i stood him in the empty plastic planter i've saved full of dirt, squirrel poo and an occasional nut from bob's stash. he's now on the corner of my escape, standing guard against any evil that might fling in thru a SpaHa kitchen window. my favorite find of the day, absolutely, no exaggeration, a disembodied life size arm (black - or perhaps hispanic tan?). several of the fingers were severed and relocated before my arrival. over all, like any car crash, it was fascinating to see it in the pile of debris, but, for sheer normal reasons, i had to carefully (with rubber gloves - rodents you know!) remove the arm from the debris and relocate it into my rubbish sack for the sidewalk. not to worry, the car crash idea was still on my mind as i took out the trash, so i rearranged the arm to stick out the top of my closed and very lumpy bag of trash....i put it on the sidewalk and watched out the bedroom window occasionally, just to see the neighborhood reaction. needless to say, my bag of trash was gone from out front when i got back from the laundromat late last night. if i'd paid attention, i would be able to say what happened to the body parts, but alas, i really don't care.

i am trying to function like an adult of normal circumstances here. not always with the best results, admittedly. i'm still suffering depression, but it seems to be abating. the bad thing with this ebb is that now i'm having anxiety attacks and what i can only describe as paranoia. my doctor told me they can give me something for that now that i know how to explain it. i do need to go back to the doctor and get the medications and the bloodwork and the health straightened out. if i weren't afraid to answer the phone, listen to voicemails and finally return calls, maybe my life wouldn't always be so over whelming to me. it's weird, i used to talk on the phone for hours. back when i could be succinct. closer to succinct? now, it seems, i really only speak with my mom because it's ok. my friends are gone. i'm alone. 24. 7. it's quiet. it's scary. it's lonely. it's my life. and i need figure it out so i can play the leading role here. i mean, in every movie, there are two characters, right? leading man/woman and the best friend. i've always been the best friend. every time. for everyone. but shouldn't i be the leading man, atleast in my own life? that's what i've concluded recently. drugs aren't the solution, but they sure do help.

in the meantime, i'll continue to sit in my new, empty, mouse-proofed, flea-festered apartment and watch food network and movies on dvd. when i re-read that, i have to admit, life isn't bad. it's just ok. but i deserve better than ok. anyone does.