Five Good Things: Comfy Cozy Edition

1. November nights spent sitting on the couch eating chicken salad sandwiches on toast and watching Benjamin Button (sort of lovely for the first hour and a half, and sort of yucky after that. Also, am I wrong or is there absolutely nothing compelling about Brad Pitt the moment he ceases to be foxy?). Bonus points for knitting scarves and tucking your cold little feet in someone else’s lap.

2. Culinary endeavors big and small: black bean and sweet potato quesadillas (pretty tasty, and the leftover filling was completely smashing the next day when I cooked it up with some spicy sausage and put it over bowties) and pumpkin-pear crumble (hmm, there was texture weirdness, but it was hands-down the best crumble topping I’ve ever made, Ina’s included).

3. The OnPoint Friday News Round Table on BUR. I look forward to it every single week. A civilized, shout-free discussion about current events? On talk radio? Imagine that.

4. Spending today–a gray, rainy, frosty Saturday–cleaning the apartment, reading all the December issues stacked on the hutch, and making some Thanksgiving shopping lists. Tell me: what is everybody’s favorite kind of stuffing? I’ve done cornbread and sausage the last couple of years, but I’m thinking it’s time for a change.

5. Coffee. Lots of coffee.

could use a list of good things.

More than five, even.

how the flannel sheets we got from Tom’s mom have bears on them

new Old Navy dress with boots and a spiffy scarf

“Sweet Caroline”

when scheduling works out all neatly at work

postcards from Marissa

when Sawyer calls Kate “Freckles” on Lost

pile of pumpkins and gourds on the mantel, and some bright orange corn on the door

being on the fifth day of the Shred (it hasn’t gotten any easier, but I live in hope) and a plan to take Frank for a long walk tonight

catalogues from Harry and David and Dancing Deer

Blick

the smell of wet leaves

drinking coffee out of a Halloween mug

being a big girl

Five Good Things: Apple Pie Edition

1. Writing prompts! I love when you have no idea you want to write about something and then somebody suggests it and all of a sudden you really, really do. 

2. Brunch at Sofra with the always-hilarious Summer Picnic, former college employer and longtime writing buddy. Mmm coffee. 

3. Fiber One bars in Oats and Chocolate flavor. These are way yummier and less fake-tasting than Special K or All Bran bars, and BOY HOWDY THEY ARE FIBROUS. A big thanks to my little sister J for introducing me to both these AND Skinny Cows. 

4. Mid-day ponytails and the Five O’Clock Pants Rule (whereby you put elastic pants on the minute the workday is over, courtesy of Jennie circa 2005).

5. This video. Have I talked about this here yet? It’s my favorite, favorite thing. I dare you not to snort your coffee.

Five Good Things: Barn Jacket Edition

1. Fall TV starting to come back. I wish I could be one of those  respectable literary-type people who is like, “I prefer reading Proust by candlelight to watching brain-rotting cable programming,” but you know what? My boyfriend works nights, candlelight hurts my eyes, and I freaking love television so much I would marry it if I could. So there. On the docket this fall: Glee, Bones, and The Office, for starters. Not to mention my fevered, glassy-eyed plow through Seasons 4 and 5 of Lost. I’m onto you, Juliet Burke. Don’t think I’m not. 

2. I got home from work on Wednesday night, and Tom had already made dinner. And a salad. And garlic bread. And he bought a bottle of pinot noir. I am not kidding you when I say it was better than Christmas and my birthday combined. Thanks Tom. You are a catch. 

3.  Ingrid Michaelson at the Paradise tonight! I know very, very little of her music, but I have never seen a bad show at this venue, so word. Plus I think there might be burritos involved.

4. Signing up for a winter CSA share, thus stretching the veg haul out through December (though I feel like we’ll probably be eating a terrifying amount of squash). Anybody out there know how to cook a whole pumpkin?

5. “Now is the season for action.” Heck yeah it is. Let’s move.

Five Good Things: Hymn to Life Edition

1. Tom’s parents are in town, and they are leaving his sister K in Boston to LIVE. I’m going to adopt her. Even though she is 22. At the very least I’m going to cook her dinner all the time. 

2. Two movies in the air conditioning on a hot, sticky night

3. The memory of crawling into bed next to my mom early in the morning when I was two or three

4. Women in white gloves and pillbox hats

5. I make the eggs, Tom gets the iced coffee. We meet in the kitchen for breakfast.

Five Good Things: Run This Town Edition

1. Being home, finally, for more than a couple of days at a stretch. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks feeling completely disconnected from my life, and I’m excited to spend some time with her. For the weekend: a trip to Crane Beach, Shakespeare on the Common, and (finally, finally, by the skin of our teeth before it closes) the Shepherd Fairey show at the ICA.

2. A boyfriend who will pick you up at the airport, listen to your familial histrionics, then sit in bed and watch TV at a low volume when you pass out at ten o’clock. Also who did the grocery shopping while you were gone. 

3. That episode of Saved by the Bell where Slater randomly has a sister who comes to visit and Zack likes her and they have a sock hop and sing “Come Go With Me”. You know which one I mean? That is like my favorite 22 minutes of television of all time, ever. 

4. Getting up early and completing a small project well. 

5. Gratuitous hip hop jam of the week!

Five Good Things: Hello, New England Edition

 

1. A really amazing mini-vacation to Rockport complete with a walk on the beach, dinner by the ocean, turtle ice cream in a cookie cone, and a floating piano. Pictures to come. 

2. Tom’s gone for two weeks riding ice floes (can you even ride an ice floe? I don’t even know what an ice floe IS) in Alaska, so I’m a single lady until the beginning of August. On the agenda: trips to Ohio and New York to see sisters both biological and not, dinner out three nights in a row (!), and some quality time with Howard Zinn. 

3. I’m teaching myself iMovie, and it turns out I’m not a total idiot. Just mostly. Anyway, it’s really time-consuming and nitpicky in a way that really appeals to my OCD. 

4. Long walks to Castle Island justifying the consumption of generous handfuls of candied walnuts. What are you talking about? IT TOTALLY JUSTIFIES IT. 

5. I saw the Jonas Brothers last night, and they were DELIGHTFUL. I’ll show you pictures of that, too, if you’re nice. 

Happy Sunday. Be good.

Five Good Things: Universal Lady Edition

1. Home for the weekend to love on my Dad for Father’s Day. We have tickets to West Side Story tonight! And if I’m lucky we might be going to Bond 45 for dinner.

2. Away We Go. Guys, I went to see this with my mom yesterday, and it was JUST the best thing I’ve seen since Nick and Norah. Completely delightful and hilarious and sad in all the right places. What up, Dave Eggers. I might even try Heartbreaking Work again.

3. Drinking Bud Light at sketchy White Plains bars with my little sister and a girlfriend we’ve had since we were tiny kidlets. Because sometimes you just want to listen to Sean Paul and judge people in bad outfits, then come home and eat a pizza. I’m sorry, but sometimes you do.

4. Home Things: Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee, the Harlem Line on Metro North, navigating the subway, my sister’s down comforter, lying in the grass, people who have the same accent as me, and a much-needed eyebrow wax by Lena, who has kept me from looking like Bert since I was twelve years old.

5. This song.

Five Good Things: Lazy Weekend Edition

1. A low-key couple of days filled with new-camera-experimenting, afternoon walks to the beach, beer and giggles with two of Tom’s hilarious aunts, and finishing up the last of the CSA veg.

2. A giant summer reading list (I’m starting with the Pulitzer winners from the last fifteen years, plus A People’s History of the United States–although I might do that one on audio, because Matt Damon is the one who reads it. Also, I hear our president wrote a book or two).

3. The first season of Lost on DVD. I might never go to bed. No seriously. 

4. Finally getting around to making covers for the godawful pillows that came with our couch–and remembering how nice it is to sew by hand.

5. This Tuesday is date night! I think we might go to Persephone (just a warning: the website plays this wicked obnoxious music.  I hate that). I want to wear a dress. 

 

How was everybody’s weekend?

Five Good Things: Sunday Morning Edition

1. Brunch with good friends two mornings in a row

2.  Opening the door and picking up the paper every Sunday, Tony Soprano-style

3. That last night on the way home from our road trip (more on this later) I had a Quarter Pounder with cheese, and while it made me feel really, truly, incredibly gross afterward, it was totally worth it

4. Sudafed Allergy Sinus (I wasn’t kidding about the non-drug remedies, you guys, but you haven’t come through!)

5. It’s summertime. It really, really is.