~ so….the pie isn’t bad. it’s a little tart where i’d like a little more sweet, it’s super-mushy where i’d like medium-mushy, but the crust is pretty decent and half the pie’s been eaten already. tomorrow i’m making my famous pumpkin pie for the debate party, and chocolate chip cookies. i’ve got a pre-made crust in the fridge; still trying to decided whether or not i’ll “cheat” and use that one.

~ oh, did i mention we’re having a debate party? well, a small one….but if you’re in the ‘hood and you don’t mind my rabidly unapologetic republican-bashing, you should stop by.

~ as you can imagine, if you were planning a little get-together for the debate this week, you might be a little disappointed if you woke up this morning to find the television had gone dead overnight. dead dead dead…oh, you served us well little tv (i had ordered that telly back in mid-2001, and it was delivered during my first hospitalization; it lived through some mighty traumas and way too many episodes of The People’s Court, Dr. Phil, and Jack’s Big Music Show…). so anyway, trying to ignore the in-house budget crisis, emma and i ended up at The SuperWalmart today, where we got a new “middle-of-the-line, not-too-fancy, just perfect for me & joe sixpack” television.

~ and because i’m sure your curiosity is giving you fits, here’s that magic (very very random, hey! don’t judge!) pie-crust-bakin’ playlist:

“weekend in new england” - barry manilow
“everybody’s got their something” - nikka costa
“the alley song” - lyle lovett
“running to stand still” - u2
“fidelity” - regina spektor
“9 to 5″ - dolly parton
“foggy mountain breakdown” - flatt & scruggs
“mercy” - duffy
“my way” - frank sinatra
“on broadway” - george benson
“take me out” - franz ferdinand
“put your records on” - corrine bailey rae
“like a bridge over troubled water” - simon & garfunkel
“you are the everything” - rem
“soft serve” - soul coughing
“laid” - james
“gimme more” - britney
“more where that came from” - dolly
“little bit of feel good” - jamie lidell
“stay (faraway, so close)” - u2
“rodeo clowns” - g. love
“blue eyes crying in the rain” willie nelson
“autumn in new york” - madeleine peyroux
“the only living boy in ny” - simon & garfunkel
“like a feather” - nikka costa
“bleeding love” - leona lewis
“under the bridge” - red hot chili peppers

how’d it turn out? i don’t know….it’s been cooling on the stove for an hour, but i’m too scared to try it. the playlist is good, though.

oh, and if you can’t quite remember how insanely much she’s grown in the past year, here’s a picture from last year’s outing:

random friday things:

~ getting the kid to take a nap is a total chore now that she’s in a “big girl bed” and can just get up at will… trying to introduce the concept of “quiet time” wherein a two-year-old understands that they can stay AWAKE but silent in their room, reading or daydreaming (or sleeping!  yes!) for this precious afternoon hour.

~ singing a cool French opera (Le Roi d’Ys) tonight at Lincoln Center.  it’s fun to pretend i can speak French; maybe this will be the year I actually learn it for real.

~ I’ve been in “the middle” of cleaning the bathroom for hours.  Everything’s soaking in scrubbing bubbles and clorox, waiting for me to come back and do the actual scrub-work.  blah…this is my self-imposed every-friday chore, but I’ve found a million excuses to avoid it today.

~ it’s crisp and autumnal and sunny outside. we need to run away for an apple picking photo-adventure!

~ is there some magic recipe to make the big cat stop eating the houseplants and the little cat stop licking the photographs?  it’s just not right.

~ i’m on a knitting-kick again.  sweaters and scarves and even little blankets…. i went through my yarn stash a few weeks ago and was literally embarassed at the number of unfinished/unstarted projects and mountains of materials i have.  luckily the weather change makes it easy to re-addict myself to the craft.

~ happy weekend, y’all.

on our way to the playground, we ran into an old friend (”old” in this case = “3 years old”.  this is Mia, who Em’s known most of her life).  we quickly detoured from our playground plans and followed Miss Mia to the laundry room and then to her apartment.
 

…where we found Pwincess dresses, a magic wand, and slippery puwple slippers…
 

…and even a magic mirror to inspect our own princess-ness (and Mia’s perfect green fairy-ness). 

we stayed all day, playing on Mia’s cool inside-slide… 

over-accessorizing and pretending to talk on the phone, riding elephants… 

watching Noggin instead of taking a nap, and playing some rocking tunes on the accordion.  we ate dinner there and Em had her first-ever chocolate milk, and by the time we got home… 

…em was too exhausted from a full day to even make it to bath time.

what did the mommies do during this 6-hour playdate?  we had a little wine, and she taught me how to make lambchops and really-good-pasta…i took lots of pictures, and we mooned over Mia’s 3-month-old brother…but mostly we just talked.  and talked.  and talked.  and i cried a little, and she set me straight, and gave me advice, and made me feel stronger and more brave, and i remembered once again how lucky i am to have her; dear “Tia Sonia” who treats us like family (in all the good AND tough ways) and is such a true friend. she makes me so happy to be right where i am.

five random things [tuesday]:

~ i’m itching to paint and (re)decorate the apartment; wondering how to do this on a budget of $0. i’m also itching to get rid of (very nearly) all our “stuff”, start over without the clutter, and just live with less. every time i think about it, though, i get overwhelmed at the prospect of “making a giant mess” before it’s through… maybe this weekend i can carve out some time to just purge it. even better, maybe just maybe i’ll find something with resale value hidden in the clutter and make some money off the junk.

~ another long rehearsal week is underway….last week was Beethoven’s Ninth, this week is a French opera by Lalo.

~ every morning emma brings me a little plastic teacup and says “mom, here’s you pawfee! [coffee]” i’m glad she already understands the important things in life (you know….morning caffeine and making mama happy)

~ seems like sooo many people we know are leaving or planning to move away from NYC. i wonder if this is just part of an inevitable cycle (we’ve been here 10 years…), or if it’s because we’re getting older and realize this isn’t really an affordable city to grow old in? hmmmm.

~ our neighbors are looking for a new nanny for their son; i’m wondering if i should take the job for a while, make some extra cash, stop complaining (or fretting as much) about money. there will inevitably be conflicts with my singing schedule, but even that’s looking a little lean over the next couple months…. on one hand, i’d miss the freedom of my days with emma, but on the other hand, photography and singing aren’t rolling along quite as solidly as i’d like at the moment. but, umm….did i mention that they need their nanny to start at 5:45am? yeah, i need to get the photo-biz really rolling instead, huh? (this economy terrifies me….)

(i’ve got more lists and random thoughts, and even a carnegie hall review to post soon. but honestly? i’m totally, off-the-wall, insanely sleepy and it’s naptime at Chez Jose. be back later….)

happy weekend everyone. i’m sorting through summer pictures, but welcoming the beginning of fall. my mood changes with the season, and this one is always bumpy…i can hang on, knowing that once we’re into it, the crispness in the air makes me so calm and content. today i’m even more energized since i have a new light jacket, four sizes smaller than i was at this time last year, purchased for $4 at a Brooklyn stoop-sale.

  

  [on the Monon Trail.  Indianapolis, Indiana.  late August, 2008.] 

i wrote a long post here about follow-through, and the fact that i continually promise people the moon and stars and fail to deliver.  i went on and on about how i desperately want to make people happy, but how overwhelmed and insecure i get, and how i’m actively trying to cultivate a little more self-preservation.  i have files and folders and bags of projects unfinished, letters written but not sent, things i wanted to share or wanted to give or wanted to do for people…..but my list gets so long and i’m trying to do so many things at once, and none of it ever really gets done to my standards, and then i feel guilty and overwhelmed and…………….. yeah, i stopped writing when i realized i was repeating myself and getting more personal than i’m comfortable with right now. (then, just for kicks, i stopped and looked up a few personality disorders on wikipedia, and became engrossed in the process of self-diagnosis. but i digress…)

all i was really trying to say was this: i have lots (lots! thousands!) of pictures on my computer that i’ve never shared with anyone.  trips and days and memories that i just didn’t find time to edit, or i felt bad about posting since they’re so old, or just kind of put aside and never got back to.  and that’s a ridiculous waste of digital space (not to mention the fact that many of them are such lovely, joyous images)…  i think i just want to be quiet for a while and not apologize or try too hard or worry about what anyone else thinks.  i’m going to let the pictures calm my mind.  

 [see the whole gallery here.  seriously....you should look.] 

there are so many things i want to say about this trip, about the girls-only getaway to The Cape and how much fun we had… how we stopped at Walmart on the way to buy tea, camera supplies and red-sparkly toddler shoes, and got donuts from a bootleg-dunkin donuts where everything tasted like meat… how we got lost looking for the pizza we’d ordered and ended up detouring to the cheapest pizza place i’ve ever been (less than $4 for an entire pie?)… how we heard our favorite songs everywhere we went, even waiting in line to check in the hotel… how we had the hotel practically to ourselves, and stayed up well into the night knitting and listening to the ocean before falling into a perfect night’s sleep…  how the beach was filled with breathtakingly perfect white shells, which gave us Martha Stewart-style crafty inspiration…  how i got up and watched the sunrise from start to finish for the first time… how we went on a bus tour from the JFK museum and decided that Cape Cod beachfront is possibly even more amazing than our favorite magical-beach in CA… how we stopped at every Christmas Tree Shop on the way (which, interestingly, is not a shop that sells Chistmas trees), and bought as much as we could carry every time (things like herbs and spices for 97-cents a bottle!  and spooky wooden halloween wreaths for $1.99!!)… how we both ended up with silver starfish necklaces and real starfish and sand dollars and shell-garland we’ll treasure dearly… how we spent the ride home planning and choreographing a cruiseship show (and subsequent US tour) built around the song “Islands in the Stream”…  how i laughed so hard my belly ached, repeatedly…  

there are so many things i really want to say, but i really just can’t put it into the words; it’s too laced with inside-jokes and raw emotion.  i just really want to say this: i am grateful for my friend C, and i am grateful for our weekend in new england.  i hope it’s just the first of many more to come.