Tomorrow

View Larger Map

The Move Part 1

I feel like I should be live blogging my move. Here is what has happened so far:
I woke up. My friend the headache woke up with me. I don't have any Advil. I cried because I couldn't find my old Vassar t-shirt that is soft and comforting and I wanted to wear. I found the t-shirt. I went to CVS and spent $110.10 on contact solution so as to empty my FSA account, which had $110 in it. I forgot Advil. The movers arrived. My building yelled at me because I'd reserved the elevator from 1 to 4 and it was 9 am. I gently explained they would be packing first and we would not try to use the elevator when we were not allowed to. I found out the guy that did the estimate wrote me down for having two king sized beds. I made the movers cinnamon rolls. I convinced them that they could in fact put the hip hop channel on for their listening pleasure because yes I did like hip hop. I provided Chamillionaire's anthem Ridin' Dirty as proof. I decided to blog. Everyone's all caught up.

Tria-thalon

A few months ago, my friends and I were sipping wine and/or beer and eating cheese at Biba (which is now Tria Wine Room). It was relatively soon after I'd gotten my job and I was pondering over what I wanted to do as my last weekend in Philly celebration. I thought it would be cool to go to each Tria for one (or two) drinks and make my way across the city. An idea was born... and a name was bestowed: The Tria-thalon. Joel (husband of Erica, who discovered Tria in the first place) came up with the name and deserves all the credit, but I'm doing a lot of the advertising, so maybe we can share the glory. The Tria-thalon occurred last night, and I tweeted about it. I have tweeted about five times in two years, and last night was 50% of that. Tria retweeted, and Foobooz replied. Foobooz. My favoritest Philly food blog. (Look to the right). Nothing could have made my last weekend in Philly better after spending a great evening with friends at my favorite places. And getting some Twitter action. The rest of the weekend plans are a total wash due to Hurricane Irene, but I'm okay with that. Let it be known, if you ever go to Tria, and they're having any sort of event or special with the name Tria-thalon that you heard about it here first.

Heartbreak City

Today was the first day of moving-related tears, unrelated to a reaction to dust rising from the unbelievable amount of crap I have accumulated over three years in Philly. Just regular old heartbreak tears, as I stood in the middle of a boutique home goods store in Midtown Village staring at coasters of Philly scenes. As excited as I am for my move, I am so so so sad to leave this city. So there we go. No funny posts today, or baking posts (Pantry Baking #3 was oatmeal chocolate chip coconut cookies in case you're curious), or photo posts (those went directly to Craigslist), or ridiculous things that happened to me posts. Just a sad and bittersweet post. I got some wine at Tria with my friend who found Tria in the first place, and some gelato at Capogiro to make myself feel better.

Pantry Baking #1 & 2

#!: Cheesecake, which used up a package of Biscoff cookies and what I thought was the last of my vanilla extract. I found some more in the back of the one shelf I hadn't cleaned yesterday. The cheesecake mightly cracked on the top. No matter what I do, I cannot avoid cracks in my cheesecakes. Ever. Even though I do exactly what my expert cheesecake baker brother tells me to do.

#2: Brownies with Rolos, which used up 8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and 1 bag of Rolos.

Next up:
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with coconut
Double chocolate mint chip cookies
Two more batches of brownies
Another cheesecake
And a giant hole in my bank account from purchasing like 12 more pounds of butter.

The deep dark shelves of my pantry

I cleaned out my pantry in an attempt to gain some control over this whole moving thing because I'm starting to fray around the edges a bit. I realized last weekend's visit to the beach was the LAST. Anyway, I am donating the canned goods and other sealed items. I threw away most of the half open bottles of vinegar (I have many varieties), and poured five jars of expired Indian or Thai flavored simmer sauces down the drain. I clearly need to be better about keeping simmerable proteins around. I have issued myself a challenge to bake with all of the rest of the stuff I found in the pantry. I'm not allowed to buy any more of any of the ingredients, except semisweet chocolate chips because I don't have any and they are important. It's sort of like reverse Iron Chef; instead of one ingredient, I have many.

Read 'em and weep:
2 packages Biscoff cookies
20.75 oz bittersweet chocolate
10 chewy werthers
1 bag marshmallows
1.5 cups mini marshmallows
12 oreos
1 bag heath bars
1.5 bags rolos
8 oz unsweetened chocolate pieces
1 bag milk chocolate chips
1 bag mint chocolate chips
1 bag mint m &ms
1/4 cup unsweeted cocoa powder
1 lb pecans
1 c coconut
1 can condensed milk
1 can dulce de leche
1 box somoas
1 box thin mints
a lot of oatmeal
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup mini chips

Please feel free to submit suggestions. I'll put them in my excel spreadsheet and take them under consideration.

Hoops and Yoyo do not have a card for everything, but I wish they did

It is my belief that Hallmark has a card for everything, from the most obscure “holidays” (Sweetest Day, for example) to a card for your biracial atheist foster nephew on his Bar Mitzvah. I went in looking for just a nice blank card to send to a family to let them know I am thinking of them. I didn’t want a get well card, or a sympathy card, because neither really was the correct sentiment. Sadly, all the get well cards had Snoopy or a gorilla on them. So since I wasn’t finding anything suitable, and in fact was finding cards that were blatantly inappropriate for my purposes, I decided I would instead pick up an engagement card for my friends who just got engaged. I assumed that Hallmark had not gone totally 2011 and started making engagement cards for boys who get engaged to boys, so I was scanning the cards for the least clearly male and female iconography I could find. Lo and behold, there is a congratulations on your commitment ceremony card. Close enough, and I’ve never had a problem with card modification. But then I looked closer at the card. The front message said something along the lines of, “the love between you has always been good and right and true.” Totally 100% agreed. Amen. But rather creepishly validating. Something the conservative aunt and uncle might send, not the hip gal pal. I feel like Hallmark kind of failed me today. I may need to upgrade to Papyrus.

Incidentally I’m typing this in MS Word due to my internet and cable not working. This is what I get for being organized and calling Comcast today to cancel service at the end of the month. I feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder (whose books I hated as a child). In a world with awkwardly-sentimented greeting cards.