Things I Love Wednesday
Posted by Moose on January 16th, 2008. Filed under: Random Lists.PMS this month seems to include a keen desire to have people dote on me and bring me warm chocolate chip cookies. Naturally, the one day you want people to wax philosophical about your brilliant talent and your charming demeanor – you might be feeling a little needy, after all – is the day you wake up to no email, except for FlyLady, who wrote to say your house really isn’t clean enough. (She’s right.) Tempted though I am to wallow in the hormones, I won’t. Please feel free to pretend that the above wallowing paragraph doesn’t exist. That maybe you made it up. Perhaps you’re not feeling quite the thing. Would you like a chocolate chip cookie?
Instead, I’m going to borrow Gala Darling’s weekly series Things I Love Thursday, because it’s a lovely idea. One I would like to blatantly rip off. Only mine is going to be Things I Love Wednesday, because it’s still Wednesday here in California. Though, if I could make it Thursday, I TOTALLY WOULD. Then I would put “Time Travel” at the top of my list.
My new shoes: Hello, my lovelies.
I’ve wanted red ballet flats for two whole years. (It may denote a certain shallowness, that red shoes appear to be my heart’s one constant desire. BUT SO BE IT.) Yesterday, I bought some. And heavenly light shone down upon me.
(If anyone in San Francisco wants a new pair of ballet flats, London Sole has tons of pairs (LIKE MINE!) on sale for $50.)
Remembering how to breathe: It’s been noted that, when I get nervous or upset, I STOP BREATHING. I just physically stop. Which deprives my scrambling brain of oxygen – a great help in every situation. Schnozz told me the other day to put BREATHE on my to-do list, kindly giving me the hugely entertaining chance to respond “IT’S ALREADY THERE.” Oh yes. Deep breaths help gather the threads of my wandering serenity, and make me feel like an actual human again, one who breathes. It’s like a free therapy session, courtesy of the world’s oxygen supply.
Bliss: I’d love to be talking about the bliss I’ve reached through meditation, charitable works, and my highly enlightened mind. But, no. I’m talking about this:
…the Bliss you buy in a bottle. Though, really, how wonderful is that? Bliss in a bottle. Yours for a mere $18.
Dog, presenting her belly for rubbing: When the dog wants a tummy rub, she’ll roll onto her back, extend one front leg straight up in the air and curve the other front leg coyly next to her furry paunch. She’ll stretch out her back legs and wag her tail frantically against the floor. I simply could not love her more when she does this. A state of affairs she never hesitates to exploit.
Dinner parties: I made dinner for my mom last night, vegetarian, because that’s what she is. A vegetarian. I’ve almost accepted it. I kept staring at the pound of bacon in the refrigerator as I made dinner, my hand inching toward it, thinking “The soup. It would be so much tastier with some bacon crumbled in it. She won’t notice. I can say it’s tofu.” My moral compass spins away from LIE FOR BACON and I step away from the tasty, tasty red meat. Since it was just my mother and I, it can’t be called a dinner party so much as it should be called dinner, but we did drink a bottle of wine and I did make a dirty pile in the kitchen sink of every single pan we own. I also noted blood dripping from my finger in a very mysterious manner, one that suggested I had somehow cut myself without noticing. Wine + bandaged finger + every single pan covered in garlic = DINNER PARTY.
Miette: Walking home from Hayes Valley a few weeks ago, I stopped in Miette for a treat. I told myself sternly that I could have only what the three dollars in my wallet would buy. Who here smells the faint stench of a stoic vow collapsing? I defy you to walk into a store that looks like Marie Antoinette’s personal sweet closet and not walk out at least $12 poorer. Mostly because of your newfound obsession with licorice lentils.
Climbing into warm, clean sheets: Nothing better, especially with a fresh paperback.
Related posts:
January 16th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Today I fell in love with Waitrose’s Broccoli and Stilton soup. So much in love, in fact I am LOOKING UP A RECIPE so I can make it myself. Crazy, I don’t know what this world’s coming to. Tomorrow night, I’ll be making chilli con carne from a recipe as well…It’s potato-topped. Like a chilli cottage pie. It’s as if the Brits feel they have to make non-English meals somehow English so people will be brave enough to try them. Like how when you go for Chinese food or Indian food, there will still be chips and bangers on the menus. I don’t know.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Oh what a fun idea! I just might run with this myself tomorrow.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I am intrigued by the Bliss products. However, you may have all of my licorice buttons.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I love the red ballet flats. I love red but it doesn’t look good on me so the only place I wear it is on my feet, either nail polish or shoes. I also love Miette. Although Tartine is probably my favorite. I have a week spot for éclairs.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Oh my gosh how could you! I looked at the Miette website and now I want cookies too. California is a long drive from here, but – no, no that way madness lies. I do like the flats, red shoes are always pretty, especially in winter. What recipe did you make? I’m always on the hunt for new veggie recipes! And I think I might steal this idea from you for a day of love. I have to have revenge for my cookie-lessness, after all.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Nora: I made soup last night – soup that was actually a culmination of TWO soups. I had to make the stock first and then I had make the real soup WITH the stock. The real soup required things like toasted fennel seeds. Which I then had to grind in my coffee grinder. Making this morning’s coffee taste like licorice. Kind of awesome, actually. My point is: BEWARE OF SOUP RECIPES. Lest you find yourself participating in 23 more steps than you’d planned for.
LA Blogger: Do it! I filched from Gala, you filch from me – we’ll be one happy, filching internet family!
Bethany: Bliss products make me happy. I got a legion of them for Christmas and highly recommend the lemon sage shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. (You can get it at Sephora or the Bliss web site.)
Leah: Miette and Tartine are two excellent reasons to live in this area. I won’t go so far as to say they’re the ONLY reason to live here, but they’re right up with the Golden Gate in my opinion.
Sunny: I think Miette ships. (Ducks.) I made two recipes from the Everyday Greens cookbook (they have a delicious veggie restaurant in SF). The soup was more trouble than it was worth, but the butternut squash and gruyere filo pockets were very tasty. I recommend them. Maybe I’ll get around to writing up the recipe and posting it.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
You consistently and perpetually crack my ass up!
Does blood dripping from your finger count as a desperate substitute for “tasty, tasty red meat?”
And, “Perhaps you’re not feeling quite the thing?”
Feeling the thing IS one of the items on my Things I Love list (but only on weekdays ending with a ‘y’).
January 16th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I, too, have been feeling the need for doting and warm chocolate chip cookies, so I can sympathize.
Clean sheets + a fresh paperback is a FANTASTIC combination, and I love it when my puppies present their tummies for rubs. Please bear in mind that I’ve been accused of doting on them, though.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
crisp new sheets. perfection!
January 16th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I have yet to buy ballet shoes, but I WANT THOSE RED ONES!
*covets*
*goes to londonsole website*
*hopes you know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery*
January 16th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Um I almost hate to mention it but doesn’t that lemon+sage stuff smell EXACTLY like bandaids? I got some from the W in Chicago and I just can’t get over it…bandaids. I used it this weekend so it is fresh in my mind.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
You love so many things I love. Garlic! Dinner parties! Red wine! Except I want red boots instead of flats. Not trampy boots. Really dark red, oxblood colored ones. That come up to my knees. Don’t get me wrong; I covet ballerina flats like nobody’s business. But in MI in the winter they’re just pointless. Might as well make myself some free shoes out of paper grocery bags for all the help ballet flats would be against the weather…or for how cute they’ll look once I make it inside from the snowy, salty, sandy parking lot.
Bliss, I apparently must try. Thank you.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Mmmm, Blissssss. Did you ever go to the Spliss spa when living in NYC? Oh wait, there’s one in San Francisco! Girls’ Spa Day? =)
January 17th, 2008 at 8:59 am
That was Bliss spa, of course…who even knows what a Spliss is? Some days I wake up dyslexic.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:09 am
P.P.S. Love the flats. These are cute, too: http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=34759&pid=551735&scid=551735062
Courtesy of my “day job” at the fashion/shopping mag. I have to edit all the blogs for our site, and you can see where this might get a little pricey. I want everything we feature! Everything! I’ve requested a daily shopping stipend. Seems only fair, right?
January 18th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Chocolate chip cookies, clean sheets, a dinner party, and Bliss? I am all about the things you love, too. They sound fabulous.
January 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
DUDE. I may (MAY!) be coming to San Francisco next month for the first time ever. If I do, promise me you’ll take me to Miette! It looks like a tiny slice of heaven.