Thursday, March 27, 2008

A night with Maggie and Sophie

I heard that yesterday's video of Sophie and Maggie made my very sick Grandmother smile. So here's a handful more that I took with the girls tonight. They are such hams. (Sorry in advance for my loud voice over the shots. I swear I sound like a Muppet.)

This is the welcome-wagon that greets John and I at the door everyday:



Then, I ask them the most rhetorical question ever: "Do you wanna go for a walk?"



Our caravan down four flights of stairs looks something like this:



The actual evening walk... well, 30 seconds of it.



I told you that my voice sounded like a Muppet. Think of John!! He has to listen to this earnest squeaking every day for the rest of his life! Someone buy this man a consolatory beer!

And going back upstairs, where the food lives:



The last one is a little long, but it shows off Sophie's mad hunting skills...



Grandmother, our little branch of the family is getting along beautifully. Thanks for trusting us to take care of the girls. They are a joy.

Update: My grandmother passed away this morning. Carolyn A. Butler, rest in peace.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Meet the Girls


Maggie and Sophie have settled right into our little Brooklyn apartment, and they are just joyous little dogs.

Sophie, the oldest, cleans the kitchen floor every single day, hoping that The Chef dropped a morsel just for her.

Maggie is a little needier, and she starts trying to climb into my lap before I've even started to sit down.

They have been so much fun that I don't mind grabbing their still-warm poop with only a skimpy plastic bag to use as a glove. It must be love.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

The Easter bunny came!



My dear sister Mary B. was the Easter bunny this year. Look at all the fun stuff!! The chicken is a wind-up toy that poops little pieces of gum. Hee...








This is how the eggs came out...


Happy Easter, everybody. The Chef and I are heading to the late service at church tonight. I'm taking a little time to be thankful for all my blessings this Easter.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Thirty | 30 | 29 plus 1 | 75% to 40


I celebrated my birthday Ruskie-style with dinner and a show at The National, a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. You can click here for pictures.

I got dolled up in suede boots and G'mom's fur for the night, and I'm so glad I went all out. Everyone at the club was done up to the nines, with sequins and full-length mink coats everywhere.

We went with eight friends and settled in for six hours of endless food and cabaret-style entertainment. There were enough Russian dishes to feed us for a week, but over the hours, we worked our way through full plates of smoked salmon, beef tongue (John tried it and made a face), crepes with salmon roe, crab salad with string-shaved cucumber, and roasted eggplant stuffed with feta. And that's just the appetizers!

For the main course, they brought huge platters of broiled fish with oyster sauce, potatoes and mushrooms, beef stroganoff and mushroom pasta with duck. On the side, we had Ceasar salad (appropriate for the Ides of March) and duck salad with roasted peppers.

I know that sounds like TONS of food, but it was nothing compared to the vodka we swilled. Our table came with one bottle, and John and I brought a second to top everyone off. Then we splurged on one more bottle (for $65!) for a nightcap. I'm pretty sure that I would've blown the top off a breathalyzer test well into Sunday night.

Strangely, for all the distilled potato I ingested, I never felt the least bit woozy. It helped that we danced all night long.

At mid-meal, they raised the curtain on an older, mulleted fellow in a shiny lounge jacket. He played acoustic guitar for a few slow Russian songs. John melted me by asking me to dance during the first song, and I cracked up in a belly laugh when it ended 15 seconds after we took to the floor. (After nearly nine months of marriage, he's caught on... ask your wife to dance early to get off the hook for most of the night.)

After ponytail guy finished, the real entertainment started. A long stream of violently wigged performers came out to perform, singing songs that sounded like Russian Idol fodder and the occasional American pop song. They turned on the black lights early in the evening and kept them going until 2 a.m. The costumes got sillier and more outrageous as the night went on... At one point, a woman who seriously resembled glamorous transsexual Amanda Lepore, strutted out for her 20th song of the night, and I swear she was wearing an inflatable, Hawaiian-style fat-girl costume. She was sporting stuffed boobs that were each bigger than her head.

It was a riot. John and I danced the conga across the stage while holding an inflated palm tree. How much better could it get? 30 rocks!

Update: Laura blogged about the party over at VittlesVamp! She got some great shots, too. Link.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008