On my way home from the gym yesterday morning (fitness never rests!), I almost tripped over this lethargic lump loungin' on the curb:

A police car passed and then backed up. The officer asked him what he was doing. What do you think he said? (Yes, this is an invitation for you to comment. Consider it my holiday gift to you. No purchase necessary. Offer good until I decide to take it away.)

P.S. Yes, I've already noticed how, from this angle, the hydrant looks quite genitalic emerging from between his legs. Oh yes.

It is my hope that this Memorial Day weekend will be the most memorable ever. If you happen to be fortunate enough to be in Manhattan — either as a tourist or as a resident with the good sense not to participate in the nonsense of the Hamptons — please feel free to contribute to my memories by flagging me down if you see me.

But how will I know you, Jodi? you ask, crinkling your face in that way that shows the cutest little wrinkle between your eyes. Should I just look for a stunning girl with a winsome smile and perfect posture, who looks like she just indulged in tofu or Pilates?

Well, yes. And make her a 5'6" brunette with a beefy laugh, and you'll have no trouble picking me out.

You may also want to look for the hibachi I've had affixed to my back for the duration of the weekend. (Don't worry. Screws don't hurt.) That's right. This girl's got her grill on! So if you've ever fantasized about flipping sizzlin' burgers on the back of a babe in May in Manhattan, now's your chance. I'll even indulge your burning desire to make jokes about my supplying the "buns".

This might just be the weekend you finally get to make use of the spatula you've been keeping in your pants for so long. If so, give yourself a patty on the back!

Remember what I said the other day about going light on lunch if I know I'll be having a big dinner? Well, check out what I had this evening at Spice:

 
Fresh Summer Rolls and Pad Thai (with tofu)

Look at the elegant presentation ... and take notice of the lyrical beauty of Kyria's graceful hands:

Although the brainy-looking (especially in the lower right corner of the upper photo! look!) clump of Pad Thai does not look like a lot of food, it most certainly was. It more than made up for my paltry lunch of a lone rice cake topped with a tablespoon of Crunch Time peanut butter (by Peanut Butter & Co.).

For further balance, I supplemented my pre-dinner cup of iced coffee with another from Big Cup. Kyria (who prettily sipped a tall cup of decaffeinated tea) and I added a decidedly feminine touch to the otherwise all-male clientele.

Then we went back to the apartment where she's been cat-sitting for a friend, and I played the wedding march on the out-of-tune piano.

New Yorkers are so kooky!

It's raining, it's pouring, and I'm wondering if the snoring old man who bumped his head when he went to bed couldn't get up in the morning because he's dead. The singsong rhyme never revealed what became of him, did it?

So it's raining. And my thoughts are turning to gym days at school. Gym days, which I dreaded with the same ferocity I had when I smelled eggs cooking on Sunday mornings and knew I'd be forced to regard them on a plate set in front of me and witness my dad drowning them in Heinz catsup/ketchup (your pick, but make sure it's Heinz, all right? I can be only so liberal) and wolfing them down like there was no tomorrow. Which I was sure there would be if I actually choked the eggs down rather than just lifted them by forksful to my mouth, deposited them there briefly, and then brought my napkin up to my lips and spat them into it so eventually my lap became an eggy eggy mess.

So. Gym class. I hated it. I know that comes as a shock given how much time I spend gymming and pilating now. But it's true. I loathed, abhorred, detested, and otherwise hated gym. When I actually made it to class and didn't hide out somewhere instead (a story for another day, kidz), I was the last one picked, which of course is traumatic and life-shattering. It's pretty bad when even the prissiest missiest of girls is chosen before you. But hey. 'Twas quite all right, because when I chose to hang way out in the outoutoutfield for softball games, no one really cared if I sank down into the grass and examined buttercups. (P.S. Those things lie. I do not like butter.)

When it rained on days I had gym class, I was oh so happy indeed. While everyone else was all upset and whining that it sucked because now we couldn't play softball, I was secretly thrilled to my very core because I knew this meant we were probably going to square dance.

Square dancing was hilarious and one of the only things I could do well in gym class. I know that that comes as a shock too — almost as much as the shock I provided above — given my distaste for most things even remotely rural and my disapproval of country-and-western clothing. But because we were in our gymsuits (stunning one-piece knit numbers for us girls, navy blue from the waist down and horizontal mini-stripes of navy and white from the waist up ... matching tube socks below) I didn't have to fret the fashion.

We had to line up in two rows, boys on one side and girls on the other, according to height. Each girl would be paired with the boy who occupied the same place in line as she did. You can imagine the mad scramble to quickly count from one end of the line to see who would be your partner. Every girl tried her hardest to look tall so she would be paired with a cool tall guy. I didn't, though. I was more than happy to be somewhere in the middle so I could dance with my crush, Jeff (his real name! don't tell him! oh god!). He was cool, that's for sure, but he didn't have the height. I figured I would definitely get him.

Somehow, though, I always miscounted or miscalculated, or someone would push her way into the line next to me (probably hoping to steal Jeff!), and I would wind up with the one boy that everyone else had jockeyed around trying to avoid. (I'll just call him "B" to spare him international ridicule.)

"B" was definitely not cool. He was rather rotund, with dark hair that appeared darker than it really was thanks to its greasiness, white skin so pale you could see the blue veins, and hands so cold and wet you'd have to wonder where they'd just been but were only slightly comforted by the fact that if they were so cold it meant they couldn't have just been down his pants, which was where everyone suspected they'd gotten wet. (In fact, most people claimed at some time to have actually seen "B" with his hands down his pants, usually at the back of Social Studies class.)

The first time I was confronted with "B", I felt like screaming. I couldn't believe my misfortune. I couldn't believe some bitch thwarted my attempt to dance with Jeff. (Ptui on her, anyway, because who wound up making out with Jeff in a hammock by her parents's pool the summer of 1977?!) I couldn't believe I would have to do-si-do with "B" and his cold, wet hands that may or may not have been down his pants during Social Studies class.

He looked down at the gym floor. He couldn't even look at me. He just sort of blinked behind his glasses (yes, of course he had glasses, which when you're 12 years old don't do anything to raise your cool quotient) and knew if he lifted his eyes to meet those of the person standing in front of him, the only acknowledgment afforded him would be a moan of disgust, a roll of her eyes, and an actual backing away.

"Hi, B," I said. "Looks like you're stuck with me."

That square could dance!

This afternoon, one of the boys at the Pilates studio was talking to his client about summer shoes. Flip flops were mentioned, and I gasped audibly. (You remember how I feel about flip flops, don't you? If you don't, please take a few moments to educate yourself. Then come right back. I'll wait.) Of course, I couldn't let the conversation continue without editorializing, albeit briefly.

When the chitchat extended to Birkenstocks, I nearly suffered a stroke. Just from the mention of the word. When the boy said I should try them, I almost lost a lunch I had back in '86. In fact, I distinctly tasted a bit of matzoh ball amidst the bile, and had to shut my mouth so I wouldn't ruin the carpet.

Honestly. I mean, come on. Do I really look like the kind of girl who would do the Birkenstock thing? Well, Jodi, you say, 99.4% of us have no idea what you look like, so how can we answer that? OK, so given what you "know" about me, you would know that much, right? And the boy at the studio who actually does know me and has seen my personal footgear should know better. "Please," I said with a laugh masking my derision, "I shirkenstock the Birkenstock."

What the hell? Does he want me to be a laughingstock?

I'm traumatized.

I abandoned you. I know. You don't have to tell me. You don't have to weep and sob and wipe your teary eyes and snotty* nose and pull out all the histrionic stops to get your point across. Or tell me you have abandonment issues and accuse me of taking advantage of your frailty.

So I left you for the weekend. I left you and I left New York, and I spent a weekend in Philadelphia, which I'd abandoned once the new millennium was upon us. I spent very high quality time with an old friend, who in turn introduced me to some new ones.

Of course, just because I left this city doesn't mean I left any part of myself behind. Food photos are not just confined to New York. Food can also be found in Philadelphia. Take a look, for instance, at these entrées:

Rare is the day that I indulge in double entrées. Ordinarily if I have a major lunch, I'll have a minor dinner, or, if I know in advance that I'll be having a real dinner, I go light on the lunch. (This is known, I believe, as "vice-versa".) But because I was on different turf, I felt free to abandon all conservative behavior and just let myself run wild.

The dish on the left is vegetable moo shu, which I enjoyed at Reading Terminal Market. I don't remember the name of the vendor**, but it's one that I frequented on a regular basis when I used to work at the market in 1984, and the moo shu is the dish I ate almost every time. (Here it's shown with rice, because I didn't want to get all involved with the wrappin' and rollin' of the pancakes.)

The dish on the right is vegetable kung pao from Serrano. It shocked me by packing quite a wallop. Although I suspected it would satisfy me, I was not prepared for the pao to wow me as much as it did.

When I excused myself to ladify myself in the room provided for that express purpose, some wiseguy decorated my paper placemat like this:

My weekend included many other funtastic adventures, but because I like to remain remarkably mysterious and keep you a-guessin', I won't share the details here. All I'm going to say is that Thomas Wolfe was wrong: you can go home again.

* Forgive me the use of this word. It disgusts me as much as the actual substance it describes. Still, if the snot fits ... bear it.

** Update, 7:56 p.m.:  The vendor is Golden Bowl.

Guess what, prettified people! You may have spent too much for your cosmetics!

So what's a girl (or boy) to do?

Let the offending department stores make up for this hideousness!

P.S. No, I'm not making this up!

Could my afternoon have been any more delightful?

Look:

Creamed spinach* at Coffee Shop, and Ginger (GinGin) across the street from Bloomingdale's.**

SpinSpin and GinGin! A win-win situation!

* Lunch also included beans, rice, and kale. (No offense, beans and rice, but you were not photogenic enough to include here. Next time hire a better makeup artist ... and lay off the carbs, OK?)

** Yes, Bloomingdale's. Didn't I say I'd go back?

This photo of GinGin enjoys a permanent home in the Dogabout gallery.

Does anyone else out there feel an inordinate amount of pride when they accomplish the simplest of tasks, e.g. emptying a wastepaper basket or ridding a wallet of old CVS receipts for items such as Tic Tacs? Am I the only one?

And I am alone in saving receipts for items such as Tic Tacs in the event (however unlikely it may be) that, if I go into a Duane Reade after the purchase and a zealous security guard sees me popping one of these zingy little mints into my mouth and asks me if I wouldn't like to pay for the mints, I can flap the glossy-paper receipt in his accusing face and thus avoid jail time?

Am I alone in lamenting that a Tic Tac is now 30% larger than it used to be and thus contains 1.9 calories rather than the 1.5 that was so proudly flaunted in the ad campaign lo so many years ago?

Am I alone in thinking the orange Tic Tacs are absolutely delicious and can make for a very satisfying alternative to an actual lunch? (Don't worry. I will not be posting photos of a pretty plateful of Tic Tacs. It's tempting, but I won't.)

Am I?

Everthing's been a blur of sameness lately. Hither and yon, to and fro, here and there are all sort of melding into one another like one big mishmashy stew that, quite frankly, I'm getting tired of tasting.

Take a look, for instance, at what I ate for lunch yesterday:

Compare it, if you will (and oh, you will), to what I ate for lunch today:

However, I did supplement today's Village Natural macro platter with the tasty protein powerhouse known as tempeh (broiled, here):

After experiencing déjà food, I scurried uptown and experienced déjà Bloom.

Today I vowed that I was done with replaying Village Natural macro platter and Bloomingdale's excursions. But already I can feel the cosmic, magnetic forces working and worming their way into my subconscious, and know I'll find myself at one or both of these places sometime before next weekend, and as I fiddle with my food and fondle shoes, I'll stop mid-taste or mid-stride and wonder, Haven't I already done this?

Something's gotta give.

The joy over my new arrival didn't last long. Just like with my second-born, the thrill was fleeting.

The vacuum cleaner was returned to Bed Bath & Beyond, almost as quickly as I'd returned the baby to its maker. (And by maker, I mean the divine one ... not its father, who was divine for the one night it took to make 'n' bake the bun in my oven, but that's about it, the louse!) After all, I don't waste my time with anything that doesn't live up to my expectations. And true true true, my expectations are quite high, but what can I do, I'm a perfectionist and I expect and accept nothing but perfection.

The thing was, the cordless vacuum cleaner sucked at sucking. I tried to convince myself the trade-off was acceptable, and that what the vacuum lacked in suction, it more than made up for with its cordlessness. That's like dating a guy who sucks in the sack but is independently wealthy. Sort of. Everything's a trade-off, I know. Everything's a compromise, I know. But come on, we're talking about me here, and I refuse to settle.

What does this all mean, then? Other than that my young son is now being raised in heaven instead of a trailer park in Alabama or Mississippi or Arkansas? It means I was forced to order this. (Hello, Yellow!) Supposedly it never loses suction, and as I have learned by now, this is a feature that definitely makes someone or something a keeper!

After I ate my lunch today at Candle Cafe, which consisted of this —

THAI RICE ROLL with rice noodles, pickled
vegetables, red bell pepper strips and bean
sprouts, rolled in romaine and rice paper.
Served with sake dipping sauce.

and this —

CHIPOTLE GRILLED TOFU
Chipotle marinated tofu served with a quinoa and
black bean stuffed avocado. Served on a bed of steamed
greens with toasted cumin vinaigrette and mango salsa.

and this —

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE PIE (wheat-free!)

— I came to the conclusion that I cannot stand when adults cut up all of their food before eating it. This, after witnessing a woman rapidly reduce her entire plate of food to bite-sized chunks immediately upon receiving it. I granted that it was acceptable only when the food was on a plate set before a child who could not be trusted to use a knife. I railed against this much to the delight of the DOG until we got into a taxi and zoomed down to Bloomingdale's.

What a charming slice of life!

I disappear for a day, and you figure, She's got a life, after all. She lives in Manhattan and eats food I've never heard of and wanders down streets I've only heard about in song.

I disappear for two days, and you decide, Trouble's befallen her. She lives in Manhattan and that food I've never heard of is poison and she's lying in a ditch alongside one of those wandered song-sung streets.

If I don't show my lunch, it's not that I haven't eaten. If I don't tell you where I go, it's not because I haven't gone anywhere. If I don't divulge how I voted on American Idol, it's not because I'm not watching.

A girl needs a little mystery after all, doesn't she?

P.S. Thanks to whomever posted my bail! :-*

Look what I ate at Gobo on Mother's Day ... sans Mom!

Spiced Bean Curd and Pepper Stir-Fry,
Mashed Potato, Brown Rice (and *bonus* deux cucumber slices!)

"Oh, Jodi, don't you have anything else for us today? After all, it's a holiday 'n' stuff!"

Well, no, I don't. And you shouldn't be here anyway. You should be with your Mom offline (all day, until midnight!) and not with me. I am not your mom. If you don't have a Mom, then you should be with someone else's mom, like the fancy lady down the street named "Aunt Jeanette". You know, the one whose "lawn" your dad "mows" every once in a while. Her. That one.

"Mum" may be the word about Aunt Jeanette any other day, but today Mom's the word!

P.S. My mom loved the CDs!

OK, so I'm going to my mom's today for an early Mother's Day celebration. This means she gets to listen to her new CDs early and all day tomorrow before her dozens of foster children bombard her with large bottles of Jean Nate body splash and silk flowers and insist on switching the music to something with words everyone can sing along to. (Mom, I sure hope you're not reading this before I get there! I wanted the CDs to be a surprise ... even though you told me that's what you wanted! LOL!) This means tomorrow I can shop at Bloomingdale's when all the other, more traditional moms and their families are out doing Mother's Day stuff in pantsuits.

So I'm taking the train down. Yes, the train. The train and I don't mix very well. I fear Amtrak may be jam-packed. And New Jersey Transit, which I lovingly call "the train for the ugly and cheap", well, do not even get me started on its slippery brown vinyl seats that are so shallow that even the shortest of unattractive tightwads can barely sit without fear of immediately sliding down onto the sputum-splattered floor.

All I can say is that my mom better have some really good food waiting for me when I get there.

Stay tuned!

Look what Angus made just for me:

Original measures a mouth-watering 8½ x 11!

After spending several days in near solitary confinement due to the fact that people get on my nerves, I decided to venture out today in search of something to take my mind off the inevitability of tonight's final episode of Friends.

A big portion of my day revolved around food. Because, after all, food is my friend. It's everybody's friend. Unlike Chandler Bing and Joey and Rachel and everyone else at Central Perk, who never were your friends and never will be, not even in syndication.

While you were busy sobbing over the glossy photos you tore from those special newspaper supplements devoted to those other friends with their signature haircuts, I was out with my best friends. And if I must be truthful (and I must), I daresay everything pictured below is better looking than Lisa Kudrow.

Feast your eyes on this lunch from Spoons, which I enjoyed in a posh midtown high-rise office building conference room:

Veggie Rice Bowl with Tofu (Bi Bim Bop)

And what follows bi bim bop? A skip 'n' hop to Bloomingdale's! Bi Bim Bop Bloom! Pow! Shoes were bought. (Not pictured. Please. That's getting a little personal.)

Several hours later, I headed off to dinner avec the grooviest girl in all the land, Kyria, who's almost as cool as Courteney Cox. We shared a friendly meal at Dojo East:

 
Hijiki-Tofu Dinner and Soy Patty bathed in carrot-ginger sauce/dressing/stuff

At the end of our evening together, I kissed Kyria on the cheek, and she turned to me and kissed me on mine. It was a real Ross 'n' Rachel moment!

P.S. Although I have not followed this shitcom since perhaps the second season (The One Where I Decided It Blew), I felt compelled to record it last week and watched it at my leisure. I couldn't handle the pressure of watching it in "real time". So of course I recorded it tonight, and will watch it tomorrow when no one's around in my building to witness me weeping.

They say that first impressions are the ones that last. I was all set to prove them (whoever they are) wrong by not going with my first impression of Lisa, but by perhaps my third or fourth. It had happened before, where someone I loathed on first sight eventually wound up being a very dear friend. And for a while that seemed to be the case here, with Lisa. But in the end my last impression was the same as my first. I should have known better than to question my own judgment.

Tiny, upturned nose. Rather close-set soft brown eyes. A mess of curly mouse-brown hair bobbypinned haphazardly. Bony shoulders. Backbones that protruded so far from her spindly spine that tiny angel wings could have sprouted there, if only Lisa weren’t the spawn of Satan. Which she seemed to be, once she opened her mouth to speak.

*   *   *

So, tell me. Would you be interested in reading more of this devilish tale, which I present here in extreeemely rough, typed-out-very-fast-in-probably-less-than-two minutes form? Not here, on my world-famous website, but elsewhere?

I really want to know.

Look, I'm enabling comments. Take advantage of it, friends! (And no, my saying "friends" has nothing to do with the asinine sitcom of the same name, damn it all to fucking hell.)

How I love hating things in the present. There's so much from which I can pick and choose. And I look forward to the future, where I can already see hate on the horizon. It's so comforting. I know that no matter what else happens, one thing I can be sure of is that I'll find plenty to deride.

However, nothing is quite like hating something that has already passed and should already be forgotten. I do so enjoy holding a hate grudge. And I hold a very special place in my bilious heart (yes, I know the liver is responsible for bile, but my physiology is different from yours) (just one of the many ways I am my own special snowflake) for anyone who still makes references to any of the Austin Powers movies.

This oversized postcard recently found its way into my mailbox:

 
Offending Postcard, Front and Back

As if it's not bad enough that people ever thought it was acceptable to go around saying things like, "Yeah, baby" in a bad Austin Powers voice, even when the first movie came out in 1997 ... and still thought it was adorable to continue saying it when the third movie came out in 2002 ... this guy thinks it's not only still OK to imitate Austin Powers two years after the last movie but to use it to promote his professional services.

I only wish I didn't have any compunction about showing this guy's face in his ad, but alas, I do. Showing it, or revealing any of his identifying information, would not be groovy, baby, yeah.

What was I thinking, thinking I could actually go through with the autolobotomy I mentioned last night after shamefully viewing an episode of the horror that is The Swan? What am I? Loco? Cuckoo? Psycho? I don't need a lobotomy ... I need my head examined! What the fork? Take my knife ... please!

Any thoughts I had about performing a lobotomy on myself quickly ground to a noisy halt when, standing in kitchen with the tools of the trade — a steak knife, mellon-baller, corkscrew, and sewing kit — I realized the following:

I haven't cut steak in 25 years. I never ball my melons. I mangle corks. I can't even thread a needle let alone sew.

It's a good thing I realized that in my hands, these tools would be weapons. And I realized, sadly, that without that portion of my brain responsible for memory, I wouldn't have remembered that I have this world-famous website to update, and it would go the way of the dodo.

I would've been a dodo to go through with the lobotomy. You would have called me "Jodo". And I just wouldn't be able to stand it. Or understand it. 'Cause I wouldn't have remembered my own name anyway.

Phew!

I have nothing for you today. I have nothing for you today because I am punishing myself for having caved in and watched a television show so hideous that the only way I can redeem myself is not by indulging in a bilious rehashing of the experience but by performing a quick autolobotomy so I can excise that part of my brain responsible for the memory of what I saw.

All I will say are these few words:

When the commercials for The Swan first appeared on TV, my mother called and said she knew I would be watching it. "It’s the perfect show for you," she said, because it combined makeovers and a pageant. How could I resist?

Well, I could. And I did. I was committed to not committing myself to watching this drivel. I resisted. Firmly. Until tonight.

What I saw was shocking. Amazing, how the team of surgeons, stylists, dentists, and therapists transforms perfectly ordinarily unattractive women into shiny, overly made-up Stepford Wife/drag queen hybrids!

And now, if you will excuse me, I have an appointment with a steak knife, a melon-baller, a corkscrew, and a sewing kit.

Are you happy now, Mom? Are you happy now?

I asked you to guess what this fellow was dressed for, and you responded. None of you came even close, and for that I thank you.

One reader named Lisa, however, suggested this: I believe he's off to his job as a Crash Test Dummy. And even though she was not correct, and his job was this —

— the words "Crash Test Dummy" still applied to the event.

"How so, Jo?" you're wondering. "I'm stymied!"

Well, you see, Bubble Boy, who squoze his lithe form into a balloon (inflated by a rather large blow dryer contraption wielded by an assistant) and then pranced within it accompanied by a bright orange light tethered to his neck and several bursts of unabashed glitter, was just one of three acts involved in last Thursday's "episode" of Late Night in the Living Room With Brad Roberts. And Brad Roberts, as one or two of you may know, is the lead singer for Crash Test Dummies.

See? It's uncanny!

The other colorful characters rounding out the evening's entertainment were The Bitter Poet and Andres du Bouchet (left to right):

Notice the contrast in delivery and sartorial styles between these two talented poets. And notice how unruffled Andres remained during his interview with Brad Roberts:

I apologize for the less than spectacular quality of these photographs, but I was trying to be stealthy in snapping them, because I did not want to be confronted by management and thrown out on my ear. Had that happened, I would have closely resembled The Bitter Poet, except without the hideous red ruffled shirt and tight black leather pants.

This thus ends the exciting audience participation of the "Color Fool" entry (meaning the comments are closed), but as you can see, the excitement never ends here in the city that would have you believe it never sleeps but does occasionally nod off.

I made a hideous mistake today. Instead of prancing around a streamered maypole in celebration of the new month, I skipped around a large bowl of steaming Maypo!

Whoopsie!