22 Sep 06

Time:

?

Money:

$6, "New York" crepe (with apples, honey, and walnuts - awesome) and Framboise Truffle latte, Crepe Creations (I guess they make up for the slight heavy-handedness in the chow names with a goofy one for the restaurant.)
$5, chai latte and not one - not two - but three! maple cookies (ah-ha-ha!) from Starbucks, because the cool girl working there decided that $1.85 for just one was a ripoff.
$10, Dry and Spicy Pepper Chicken thing from Grand Szechuan - and it should have been called Red Pepper Death Squadron Inferno Numb Tongue Intestine Blaster Chicken from Hell. (It DID taste awesome, for as long as I was capable of tasting. It just was not, as Anne noted, the kind of thing you could suck down a whole plate of.)

More interesting things:

Got a call from the Colonel. I always appreciate hearing from him, because I think about him all the time and I really miss him, so that was a great start to the day.

Passed this lady who often has her own personal small-scale book sale on my corner. Usually nothing much there catches my eye, but today the closest book to the actual corner of the building was none other than My Family and Other Animals, which was first one of the funniest books I'd ever read and now one of the funniest and most familiar (and therefore comfortable) books I know.

Studied in a Reserve-a-Room at the library - this time, the people we had to evict were very pleasant about it - for SIX HOURS. This was good, though, because I got done with a textbook I didn't really feel like reading and was all ready to write about it. On an even more positive note (so to speak), I was spinning some classical on my iPod when Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland came on. It was weird, because of course the last time I listened to that song while doing schoolwork I was also in a computer lab (the study rooms are by the computers) and at times, even, in a library lab. And needless to say, the best thing of all is the lyrics: 'tis the gift to come down/where we ought to be.... I'd say that's about right, Shakers.

Walked with Ben to the cool Italian place pretty close to our apartment that we like so much. It's cheap, and it's good, and tonight it had the particular advantage of taking us past a honking argument between a bus and two cabs. Everyone wanted to go first, but it appeared that they were grudgingly going to permit one cab to go ahead (that required two or three honks), then the bus (that took several more honks plus a threatening sidle into traffic on the bus driver's part), and then finally the last cab (who strictly speaking had no one left to honk at but went ahead and did it for good measure anyway.)

Crossed one street or another on the way home from the Italian place and stepped over three pennies that must have been pressed into the asphalt the last time the road was redone. I've heard of the legends immigrant hopefuls used to tell about the streets of New York being paved with diamonds (and I understand the silica-related explanation for that story), but I never knew about this penny thing.

Passed a car parked between a dumpster on the front end and another car behind with a plate reading "I FIT." In the interest of accuracy, I'm sure, whoever ordered that plate had attached it to his Mini Cooper. (Obviously.)

More interesting things I haven't done yet:

Gone to my eye doctor's favorite place for meat sandwiches, Pastrami Queen on Lexington Avenue.