There Are, Occasionally, Things To Eat Here

I have been remiss in oh, so many things, but it occurs to me that as I have gotten more used to Connecticut, I have stopped talking about it. And things do change here from time to time. I now know which of the 3 Super Stops and Shops within short distance from my house is the one to shop at - Glenville, if you were wondering, always has my Kashi Go Lean bars in stock - I know that no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to rationalize getting Chinese food from the expensive places when the hole in the wall on Main Street in Port Chester, China House, is a) better and b) 1/3 the price, and I finally know that it really is faster to take the highway.

But it is food I wish to talk about, especially as people will be visiting from out of town soon. Lower Fairfield County (and Westchester County) is not a food mecca by any stretch of the imagination. Devoted partner (soon to be rechristened, hmmm, I don't know "devoted life partner," "legally devoted partner," "partner of legally mandated devotion") and I simply do not eat out often. Part of this is cheapness on our parts, but the better part of it is unwillingness to shell out money for substandard food. The "nice" places around here are, sadly, so much country club cuisine. The number of times I have typed "Stamford CT ramen" into google hoping to find something is embarrassing.

It helps that food has not been a priority of late, notfood having won out for nearly 2 years, but occasionally we want someone else to bring us food. Especially last Sunday when we were hungover. So, I thought it would only be fair to highlight some of the food we have enjoyed.

My friend Julie recommended Casa Villa. One night when, again, I could not find the taco truck open (the taco truck is awesome, but not even remotely healthy), we took a look at its location on the Stamford border. We did not stay. It was not the shiniest of locations and food was in steam trays, and it just sort of said "don't eat me if you want to enjoy tomorrow morning." Perhaps this judgment was premature. Last week Julie and I went to the nicer, shinier location, where comely waitresses with perfect command of English brought us yummy tacos and plantains. I was hooked. The tacos were really really fresh with lots of onion and cilantro. I was so smitten that when Sunday came, I schlepped devoted partner there as well where I discovered that an additional bonus is the presence of Mexican coke. My only complaint about the food is that the cooks are a little liberal with their use of salt, but the Mexican coke helps.

And let's keep going with the taco theme because Port Chester got a hot new place over the summer and I mostly believe the hype. Bar Taco is happening. We waited over an hour for a table the first time we went. The menu is limited and the process of ordering (golf pencils and a fill-in order card) is hokey, but what is served is pretty damn good. And the ambience, while also hokey were it plunked down in Manhattan, is nice for people who miss non-starchy eating environments. The majority of seating is outside on a deck which has a bit of Kennebunkport to it. It gets busy and noisy and some of the patrons would do well on reality tv but, again, beggars and choosiness comes to mind. In a taco-off between Bar Taco and Casa Villa, I'll give the nod to Casa Villa, but for a night with a group and the desire for liquor based potables, Bar Taco gets my vote.

And apparently, we like food made by Spanish speaking peoples because for my birthday this year we tried out up-scale Lolita in Byram. It's Mexicanish, very dimly lit, and, I guess, good for dates or for drinks once hedge fund hours are over. The food was good. Not great. Good. But I have to reiterate that when in a food desert, sometimes good is great. Would the restaurant last five minutes in Tribeca or DUMBO? No. But there were no strollers which, believe me, is a godsend.

We also finally tried Layla's in Stamford late one night with Abby. Layla's is storefronty-looking, but serves very competent middle eastern food. I tried the falafel and the lamb schwarma and both pass with high marks. We passed on the hookah course, but it's there if you want it.

I'd like to give some props to the big bowl noodle soup we ended our Sunday hangovers with from Penang in Greenwich. It wasn't Ippudo, but it was warming, not overly salted, and under $10.

But the place in our neighborhood that is most craved, is clearly, and without peer, Burgers Shakes and Fries. Maybe it's simply that my body wants fried potatoes more than it wants any single other thing, but this is a good, grease-filled meal of excellence. I may have been originally swayed by the orange interior, but these people make excellent, as you like them, burgers. True, I've never managed to finish one, but I rarely eat an entire burger. The fries are my current local favorite and they are on the precipice of too salty - also known as perfect. They're also really really nice. Even when busy. And full of strollers. When it seemed like we would have to have a rehearsal dinner, I kept threatening to do it here.

So while I would love to find a place that does Dim Sum (good luck), perhaps some Turkish or Moroccan, and another Italian place (dear Tarry Lodge, you're my go-to for dinner with adults, but would it kill you to change your menu?), I will not dismiss, out of hand, all food options in our area. Most of them? Yes. But there's at least enough here to satisfy our 1-2x/month escape from the confines of our own home and the neverending grilled chicken served there.

Practicing Self-Restraint

Last year at this time we had just moved and were eagerly enjoying all the exciting things that the suburbs and Greenwich had to offer. Turns out there's not as much in the offering as one may have hoped, but the quality of life is a big plus. There is one little event, though, that merits mention: Puttin' on the Dog.



As you can see, we've been before. And while it's still a big N-O on the can we please have a dog front, that doesn't mean I can't handle myself in a mature fashion around dogs. I has grownupness!

Furthermore, one of the women from my knitting group will be there volunteering and I will be most pleased to introduce devoted partner to her - after all, he needs someone to blame for my strange fiber habits.

And of course there will be dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. Some in silly hats, I think. And the point of this post is to allow me to get all of my dogcrazy out ahead of time so that I may comport myself as an adult tomorrow. You know the kind of crazy that took these videos.



I know devoted partner and I shall own dogs one day and that tomorrow is not that day. So I will do my best not to whine, whinge, or any other wh-words. Cause I'm a big girl.

Just Because You're Paranoid...

I think my mailman may be dodgy.

Perhaps it's that we watched the first two episodes of Rubicon the other day, but I'm starting to agree with the tagline: not every conspiracy is a theory.

For a moment let me digress to express initial disappointment with the Rubicon. Leaving aside the fact that the principal character is neither interesting nor handsome enough to draw me in, the whole of the first two episodes smacked way more of the lazy stylings of Da Vinci Code and nearly none at all of the hyperbright (and sexily accented) Foucault's Pendulum. For suspense writers, and would-be suspense writers, let me just give you a small piece of advice: if I know what your character will do or say next, you haven't really achieved suspense. And it doesn't have to be highbrow. Read Agatha Christie. Please. I really want to find new television to watch.

But back to my mailman. I'll admit from the start that I do not hold the United States Postal Service in high regard. Wherever possible I pay extra for the nice professionals at UPS or FedEx to bring me things. Sadly, they do not yet bring me things like magazines and bills. For these, and certain other things that are not offered to be shipped via organized companies, I must still rely on the pedestrian mail. While in Harlem, I was frequently heard yelling expletives at the lazy SOB mailman who would NEVER ring my bell or buzzer to ascertain whether or not I was home and able to receive my package and instead would just slip a notice into my mailbox. I didn't pay the postage for my packages to be delivered to your office, sir, I paid for the package to be delivered to my home. On the rare occasions when said package was actually brought onto the property (I maintain that the mailman didn't even bother with the packages, he simply left them at the post office and did his rounds with a stack of info notices), he would leave them with my criminal neighbors. Not cool.

Now in Greenwich where my neighbors are only white collar criminals and not really interested in pilfering my amazon boxes, things have slightly improved. Unless the mail is registered it comes to the house. Sort of. Usually it comes to the driveway. Specifically right in front of my garage door in a way that would prevent me from getting my car in the garage without running over my package. Now, you might think this is a minor concern, but it's not as though the mailman drives down my driveway. He parks his car on the street and walks. The distance to the garage door and to the front door are nearly equidistant, and yet the mailman never puts my packages in front of my door, always in front of my garage (except for when he shoves and mangles items to wedge them into my mailbox - nb books don't like to be folded like that).

And yet, miraculously, both the gentlemen from houses UPS and FedEx are able to reliably find my front door (where there is a porch of sorts where boxes can be neatly stacked). Somehow it hasn't eluded those nice men that there is a place where mail goes and it isn't in the firing line of my tires. How can this be?

Furthermore, I'm convinced my mailman doesn't actually come by every day. It is just too coincidental that at least two days a week the mailbox is empty (and neither of those days is Sunday) and at least two days a week it is jampacked so full that the door can't close. I just don't buy that coincidence.

So, federal government, if you're reading, I know you don't give the post office my tax dollars, but I do know that you lend it money. Lots of money. Likewise, I know the post office employs lots of people and you're not really interested in getting people out of jobs these days, but perhaps a compromise can be reached. Why don't you SELL the post office to UPS or FedEx? I know there will be some details that need to be worked out, not to mention that UPS and FedEx know just how unprofitable it is to deliver pieces of paper at 40 cents a pop, but maybe you could sweeten the deal with incentives (off the top of my head, I'm thinking a gas tax abatement). Then UPS and FedEx could train your postal employees (who make your TSA employees look like out-of-work nuclear physicists) and I could get reliable delivery of all of the things that come to my house.

It's just a suggestion.

A Brief Look at the Men of Greenwich

Devoted partner has been known to say that stereotypes exist for a reason: sometimes they're accurate. As a disliker of stereotypes, I won't regale you with all those that exist for the type of affluent protestants that have traditionally inhabited Fairfield County - especially since I live with and love a traditional inhabitant of Fairfield County for whom only a small number of those jokes apply - but I will say that I have noticed a distinct, shall we say, reservation surrounding the men of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Flirting is a skill which, like bike riding, is easy enough to have its basics remembered after a period of disuse, but which requires practice to attain former levels of proficiency. As a member of a devoted partnership, I flirt less than I used to. See also: I don't work in a big office where men and women freely speak with one another. Therefore, I will freely admit that my flirting skills are experiencing a state of atrophy and, as such, sometimes remembered devices of flirtation will escape at less than opportune moments. Still, I consider such lapses my psyche's way of letting me know that it thinks I should flirt more lest the skill escape me completely.

I ride the train with a dizzying number of well-kempt (if oft poor-mannered) gentlemen daily. These men would, in another environment, be considered my wheelhouse. Since an early age, I did exceptionally well flirting with the over-40 crowd. But there's something about these suburban men that I don't quite grok. The very few conversations I have had on the train (itself a bit of an anomaly) have been of the "I'm looking at the floor" variety, smile-less, and conducted with all the finesse of a demolition. I once joked with a female acquaintance when we had entered a popular bar that, no matter what, the oldest guy in the room would be the one who eventually tried to chat me up. Thirty minutes later, the joke was a prophecy. So what is it about these older gents that prevents chattiness? I need the practice.

Then take this past Saturday. Devoted partner and I were at Whole Foods being very domestic and shopping for the week. Since every man in Greenwich on a Saturday morning is wearing a Polo shirt and there are a finite number of colors of Polo shirt, it wasn't long before I turned to a complete stranger at the meat counter to inquire which meat looked best to him. Before I could manage the question, however, I noticed that it was not devoted partner, but another be-Polo-ed gent. I smiled and said (perhaps with less grace than I would have in peak form), "I was about to ask you which kebab you preferred and then I realized I'm not going home with you." Ok, not my best, but certainly cute enough for 9:30am on a Saturday. The look on this poor man's face made me think that I had said something far closer to: "I'd like for us to worship satan and then carnally know one another." I didn't even get a smile.

And I'll admit, it does a little damage to a girl's self-esteem. I've been paying more attention to grooming and hygiene - a slightly embarrassed smile isn't too much to want in return; or a chuckle. I don't want to assert definitively that the men of Manhattan are one way and the men of Greenwich are another, so I'm asking you, gentlemen, to cut a girl a break. Who knows, you might enjoy flirting with me at the checkout line from time to time.

Oh, You're One Of Those People

Those people that have jobs.

When we moved I was very enthusiastic about joining: the knitting circle, the French conversation club, the bridge group, the scuba dorks, whatever. I was ready to be a joiner. To meet my new neighbors and learn their mysterious suburban ways, buy girl scout cookies from their children, and trade casserole recipes. Except no one told me that the first rule of Greenwich:

Working is for other people.

Now, while husbands may be included in the subset of humanity known as the workers, women certainly are not. Why? You may ask. Oh, ok. Because if you wanted to do ANYTHING in the town of Greenwich you would not also be able to have a job. Knitting circle: 1:30-3:00pm. French club: 11:30-1:00pm. Devoted partner and I wanted to take Spanish class at the high school in the evenings. Yes, well, I don't know how many people you know who are able to be out of work and sitting in class by 5:30pm, but the only ones I know are unemployed.

But the final straw came yesterday when, at 4:00pm I went to Town Hall to get our beach passes. Leaving aside, for a moment, that the amount of documentation needed to get a beach pass dwarfs both the documentation needed to buy a house or, say, gain legal entry to Libya, and come with me to the sign that typifies why I don't think we'll be living here for the rest of our lives. Greenwich Parks and Recreation. Open Monday - Friday 8:15am-3:45pm.

Imagine, for a moment, that you and your living partner are both gainfully employed. Chances are 9ish is the time of day you start being employed. If, like EVERYONE in Greenwich, you work in finance, chances are 9ish is when you are finishing your 4th cup of coffee. Greenwich is approximately 22 miles from Manhattan, or 45-60 minutes to Grand Central by train. People work in Manhattan. When, pray tell, is one supposed to get one's beach pass? Should one take a day off work to do so?

Ahhhhhhhh. Wait. Now I understand. If I am one of those deeply disturbed women who chooses to work despite my husband's massive, throbbing paycheck, thereby preventing me from doing those household chores that Greenwich deems to be daytime chores, I must encourage my domestic to do those chores for me. I send Consuela to Town Hall armed with a dizzying array of personal information and 60 bucks and she gets us our beach passes.

Right?

This is how the rest of you did it?

Feedback and Follow Ups

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

I am trying to embrace small-town living (and by small-town, you should understand me to mean fewer than 3 million people or so). When I saw that there was something called Art on the Avenue in Greenwich, I knew I wanted to go. Local artists' work being featured in local stores and an opening night schedule of festivities featuring live music? Love it. And certainly that was what was on offer last night. But it was lacking for me. There was no feeling of community. The streets, while populated, were not packed, and people were guarded, insular, and unsmiling towards strangers. As devoted partner (sadly at work during my perambulations) said later, Greenwich is a bedroom community and, as such, not a TV-ready suburb of neighborhood pool parties and town hall dances. This evening of purported festivities merely highlighted the differences between my perception of all non-urban environments, and their reality.

I mention this here because I had waxed rhapsodic about the feel of Scarsdale. But Scarsdale is also a bedroom community and while the lady at the knitting store in Scarsdale was nicer than the lady at the knitting store in Greenwich (I later discovered the reason: the Scarsdale knitting lady reverse commutes from Manhattan), the vibe of the street wasn't that much different. So I told devoted partner that for our next move, I'm thinking the south where it is possible that the small-town community shtick that I think justifies not living in the center of the world exists.

Nut-allergic Ed and I ate dinner together on Wednesday - our annual fete-ing of me by him to celebrate how long I have been alive - and he commented that in my anti-special-needs-food post I made no mention of litigation; that is, I didn't mention that the reason people pussy-foot around the nut-allergic, especially when those nut-allergic are children, is that should the child have a severe allergic reaction to the smell of peanuts somewhere in its vicinity, the parents would surely sue. He's right. I didn't mention it. Mostly because I hope those people are consumed by righteous fire, but also because I was being idealistic.

What the parents who crusade for peanut butter-free schools don't seem to realize is that the trading floor on the NYSE won't be peanut butter-free. Eventually, when there's no one left to threaten with lawsuits, their precious little angels will emerge into a dangerous world where peanuts exist. Their workplaces will have peanuts, their public transportation, the streets they walk down. So one of two things will happen: they'll adapt or they'll drop dead. I don't see how preventing the inevitable helps anyone. I know if you have that severe an allergy your life probably sucks, but might I suggest going to a special school, like other people with severe physical disabilities do?

Finally, Aidan wrote about women and lingerie this week. I knew she was going to because we had briefly discussed it, but I was not prepared for the response. No one, but no one, was on Team Yelena. Of the 29 comments left on the post, mine was the only one that advocated fancy things. All the other women were of the, "I'll wear baby-vomit stained yoga pants cause they're comfy and I dare my husband to not want to make it with me," opinion. That's partial hyperbole, but none of the other commenters thought nice undies were a necessary component of a well-lived life. This made me really sad.

And only partly because I dream of opening a lingerie store (I thought I could get together with Kate, my most fashionable friend, and open a fancy bra/fancy shoe store and call it Tits and Toes). I maybe a holder of many minority opinions and sometimes this might make me feel supremely badass (i.e. Tom Jones rocks!), but when stared in the face with it, especially about something I feel passionate about, it kinda stings. I am forced to ask why am I so alone in my thoughts. These thoughts, however, did not make me abandon my quotidian habit of wearing supremely badass underthings. After all, today might be the day I meet Tom Jones!

This Suburban Thing Is Getting Out Of Hand

I think you know the evil elves have taken control of your brain when you visit other tony suburbs and think, "this seems a delightful place to live." I know because it happened to me this weekend. Devoted partner, who sadly must spend a lot of time these days being devoted to his job, was at the office, I was bored, the car had gas. There was a knitting store in a nearishby town I was interested in checking out so I figured what the hell.

I arrived in town and was immediately struck by how much prettier it was than Greenwich. Greenwich Avenue, the main shopping drag is a sorry amalgam of completely socio-economically mismatched stores (Victoria's Secret should not share real estate with Tiffany's), and most, if not all, of the buildings are new. It has, in all honesty, no charm. Which saddens devoted partner who remembers a time when it did. This time must have been very very very long ago since in the 15 or so years I've known Greenwich Avenue, it looked like this. This other town's shops were located in a lovely set of at least 50 year old Tudor-style brick buildings. There were independent shops and there was greenspace. I was briefly in love.

The knitting store was not nearly as snooty as some I have visited and I walked out with a project and time still left on my parking meter. The wine store was having a sale and had a favorite of mine. I joked later that while devoted partner is at work, I merely knit and drink. The best part about the town, especially for those who enjoy buying things, is that the train station is right there. You get off the train and you're in the town - which is true for Greenwich as well (and Port Chester) but there's just simply less charm.

Well now for the reveal which struck both devoted partner and my mother as hilarious: Scarsdale. As I know really nothing about anything, I was unaware that Scarsdale was a punchline for where rich Jews go to have lawns, but damn it, even if it's true, then bravo to the stereotypes for making a lovely town. For all of the stereotypes about wasps and how proper they are, they certainly managed to hose up their shining beacon of a town (unless I totally misjudged Greenwich and it openly invites the velour clad to its DAR dinners).

So now I think I'm going to have to spend some time reminding myself of the joys of Manhattan before I become a totally different person. Thank god the suburbs are nearly devoid of decent food because they do, sadly, have a number of other things going for them. Ok. Now I'm going to go drown in my shame.

Home Invaders

One of the most difficult adjustments I've had to make since moving from Manhattan is to reprogram myself in the area of imminent physical harm. The other evening as I sat upstairs I heard the garage door open and awaited the sound of devoted partner's feet coming up the stairs. About 3 minutes passed and I heard nothing. I first wondered if I had in fact heard the garage door open, and assuring myself that I had, decided, almost conclusively, that bad men had gained entrance to the house and were, at that moment, plotting my dismemberment. In truth, devoted partner had opened the door and then walked two houses down to talk to our landlady (making me wonder why he opened the door at all since he hadn't even pulled the car in).

Our landscaper is a nice guy; he overcharges us, but I think that's mostly the fault of our zipcode. Still, when I'm home alone and the truck pulls up and I see unfamiliar men puttering about my lawn, I do still imagine the possibility of being dismembered.

Recently, devoted partner has worked some late nights. And it's dark out in the suburbs. And things make noises. And I have seriously heard very possibly bad, breaking and entering sounds on these late nights.

But I know that while a lot of my paranoia will stand me in the good stead of self-preservation, the remaining bits are unattractively lunatic. So this morning, when the guys showed up to repair the leak in our water pipe, I opened the door, let them in the basement, and returned upstairs to take a shower. In the room with the fewest potential weapons (eyeliner and curling iron?). I finished my shower and got ready for work, knowing they would still be in my house. It is true, my landlady would be coming by, but she wasn't there yet. I simply trusted that a) they weren't planning to steal from us and b) even if they were, they were going to be sadly disappointed with what we had on offer. And I left.

This is how it's done in the suburbs. Which is pretty bizarre coming from a background where neither I nor my parents ever let our superintendents have copies of our keys.

I did however, just in case, wear my grandmother's ring to work today.

That Word: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Rare is the moment when devoted partner is critical of my physique/style/beauty and equally rare are the moments I solicit his opinion, so when an unprompted critique comes along, I pay attention. It must really bother him if he's going to talk about it. So it is with, of all things, my choice of summer shoes. As has been related in the past, I have a healthy assortment of spiky shoes and little else. When summer comes along I need shoes that will go to the beach and occasionally to the supermarket and to work. Since I have a mental block against paying money for flats, especially of the flip and flop kind, I have, for the past several years, purchased my summer casual shoes at CVS. For $8. That seems about right. The flip flops are of the more fashionable style - where the thong part is besequined, but these are clearly cheap shoes. And devoted partner, apparently, thinks I can do better.

Not one to shy away from a challenge, and ready to embrace my new suburban surroundings and cultural touchstones, I visited a place I felt certain would provide me with inexpensive, yet stylish, casual summer footwear. It is a little enterprise known as Designer Shoe Warehouse (or DSW). Now, I know what you're thinking: "certainly a warehouse of designer shoes will satisfy both your fashion sense and your parsimony!"

But you'd be wrong.

The term 'designer' has been used here to mean 'someone who has made a shoe.' For example, I would not have been at all surprised to see a piece of tire with some rope on the shelf. And 'warehouse,' a word that calls to mind places like Costco, where things that are normally expensive are not, more aptly described the decor and less aptly described the prices, which were clearly marked as being $5-$15 cheaper than had you gone to the 'designer's' store. For the record, I won't buy a pair of $55 Steve Madden flip flops for any more than, say, the $8 I would spend at CVS for the simple reason that both enterprises have used the selfsame materials. These shoes - ALL OF THEM - contained no leather. They were all made of plastic. Which is fine. Petroleum products have long served us well, but they should be priced accordingly. If I can fill my tank with sweet sweet petroleum product for around 40 bucks, certainly I should be able to find shoes made of petroleum product (made from far fewer than 14 gallons of the stuff) for less than 40 bucks. And $39.95 doesn't count.

I sort of giggled every time I picked up a shoe. Not only were they, nearly all of them, seriously ugly, but picking them up I got the same feeling as when I throw Wonder Bread to ducks: "um, I think if those ducks don't get to the bread soon, it will simply disintegrate!" And again, disintegrating shoes are not necessarily a deal breaker (though I have been immensely impressed with the longevity and durability of my CVS flip flops), it's just that it's hard to swallow after the $15 mark.

So I will be returning to a CVS to select this summer's sequined flip flops while keeping my eyes peeled for sales of actual designer shoes that would fit the summer casual bill. And I will remember that there is a very good reason I don't like shopping at strip malls.

On Bugs

Country living (for that is what I will call it even as people mock me for considering Greenwich, CT the country) has developed sympathies I never knew I had, and hierarchies I never thought existed.

As the weather has gotten lovely, I have noticed something troubling. Members of the outside world have been creeping inside. Specifically ants. Now, it's not actually very many, perhaps 5 in two weeks, and they're not congregating anywhere specific, and they don't seem to travel in packs. 5 single ants. Just hanging out. All five have met a sole-y end. I do not suffer ants in my house, however bucolic they might be.

In the past two days, however, I have seen two spiders. They have been permitted to remain even as they put up structural edifices that would make Frank Lloyd Wright jealous. Because here, in the country, spiders are good. Nay, spiders are awesome. Spiders are that which destroy ants and any other thing that I might not want in or near my home. The bigger the spider the better. I want to see spiders in webs trapping and digesting the hornets I have spied from time to time. May they live long prosperous lives feasting on the mosquitoes that would feast on me (and our lawn which can politely now be called a swamp is, I would assume, teeming with the bloodsuckers). Spiders are friends. They are my front line. They're out there, every day laying mines in the battlefield for mine enemies to fall upon. We're copacetic, man.

I'm not quite certain how any of our visitors gains entrance, but I do know that the spiders were there from Day 1. As someone who is if not bug averse than bug prefer-them-to-be-elsewhere, learning to live with my spider friends took surprisingly less long than I would have imagined. Certainly we had some boundary issues: I'm looking at you daddy long legs who descended in front of my face as I opened the door to the garage - not cool, but now we live in harmony.

Now I need to develop ways of targeting their activities in the areas that need it most (like that space beneath the front door that I saw the hornet fly into (though perhaps it was a spider lair which would be way cool)).

Reporting Live From Ice Station Zebra

With the supply of tea light candles and non-spoiled Jello Sugar-Free Pudding running low, we thought we'd take to the dark quiet streets to assess how local residents are coping with LightsOut2010.

Q: Many are saying that this is the worst storm damage to hit the greater Metropolitan area in 30 years. How are you weathering (chuckle) this storm?

A: Brains....brains....brains....

Q: I see. What are your thoughts on the response time from Connecticut Power and Light?

A: Must have brains....or internet updates....but mostly brains....short supply of brains....CP&L trucks no come to street....difficult to get brains....

Q: What about the new experience of having your home powered by exposed electrical cables as opposed to the underground ones you used to have back in your old apartment?

A: Con Ed brains, er trucks, everywhere....CP&L brains nowhere....Con Ed good....underground wires good....brains good....

Q: How have you spent these past few powerless days and do you find that you don't really miss the trappings of modern life?

A: Mother-in-law....so much mother-in-law....not allowed to eat brains of mother-in-law....need....warm....embrace....TV....

Q: And your neighbors, how are they handling the current power outages?

A: Locked in house....baseball bats....protect brains....neighbors on NY side of border....flaunt lights....TV....refrigeration....retribution swift must be....

Q: Now you're talking like zombie Yoda, tell us a little bit more about the day-to-day changes you're making?

A: House cold....Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches melted....toilet seat very cold....high likelihood of burning house down with candles....must set out in search of brains....

Well, there you have it. I think we can conclude that there is no earthly reason why in a country as sophisticated as ours there could ever be a good excuse, save the utter demolition of power stations, why 60+ hours would pass between lights out and lights on. As you can see, the total uselessness of the local utility company has turned some previously normal people into cable-deprived zombies. This reporter can smell the revolution in the air, though that could be the rotting brainless corpses strewn along the avenues, and urges those residents for whom power has been restored to remain in their houses, sensitive to the deprivation of others, and perhaps avoid using your outdoor floodlights throughout the night until this crisis is over.

Reporting live from Greenwich, let's send it back to the studio.

Assorted Technical Difficulties

There is, I don't know quite how to say this, a tree in my yard. Yes, I know what you're thinking, I live in the wilds, there should be, conceivably, many trees in my yard. But this tree is different. This tree is decidedly...

horizontal.

Now I'm no treeophile, but I'm pretty sure these things are supposed to go up/down not side/side. As god was continuing to vent his weather anger on account of our war/gays/health care reform/MTV he inadvertently deposited one of his up/down trees in our yard in a side/side manner. I found this quite funny (after doing the math necessary to realize that my car was protected by our bedroom and that our television was protected by our attic). Because nature is generally amusing, and side/side trees are particularly so. Also, devoted partner and I were about to leave the manse for our anniversary evening in Manhattan (please start your teasing now).

And I would have thought nothing of it, save for wondering if this is our landlady's problem or ours, had we not returned yesterday to discover that trees, apparently, are subject to group mentality. For another tree decided to align itself in a side/side manner; this time blocking our driveway.

As devoted partner went to alert our neighbor, whose tree it was, I went to park the car. Sort of. You see, devoted partner's garage door opener wouldn't work. So I got out of the car to open the door using the keypad. Which also didn't work. Funny that. I let myself into the house by the front door to discover a certain lack of light, not super surprising considering we had been absent a day, but even the ambient light from things like hard drives, oven clocks, and cable boxes was mysteriously absent.

Oh, yes, because we had no electricity. Because the trees were now unionized and many of them were now choosing to be side/side trees as opposed to up/down trees. Now I have experienced a lack of electricity before, dare I say I'm an old pro. People like air conditioning in the summer and sometimes they like to have more air conditioning than the folks at Con Edison can provide and then there is no power. Generally for about 2 hours. Sometimes 4. We light candles and play gin. But something about this lack of electricity was odd. Our neighbor told us at 2:00pm on Sunday that he had been (and by extension our neighborhood) without electricity since 8:00pm the previous day. My math skills kicked into high gear and I can now tell you with a strong measure of assurance, that is a full 18 hours without electricity.

That just seems barbaric.

We took refuge in the house of the mother-in-law (or rather, I took refuge while devoted partner "bravely" fled the scene to go to his office). When we returned at 11:00pm, there was still an obvious lack of electricity (hour 27). We set iPod alarms and such (though we needn't have bothered come to think of it as I was awakened by both the iPod alarm and the regular one, prompting me to think the crisis was over when really it's just that we have one of those alarm clocks that has emergency battery power). I dreamed that electricity had been restored. But, that was merely a dream. As I left the house (hour 37) I wondered how long we would be without sweet sweet power. Our neighbor had said he thought power would be restored sometime today (Monday), but 1010WINS ominously warned that some areas affected by downed lines might not have power until Thursday.

Well I cannot live at my mother-in-law's until Thursday, despite her willing hospitality. I couldn't live at my parents' house until Thursday.

So the reason there is no picture of the awesome tree in our yard is that, while my digital camera has it's own power source, the computer does not, preventing me from the download upload. Believe me when I tell you the downed tree is pretty spectacular, though it will become less spectacular in summer when I want to traipse around the yard naked and the neighbors, from whom we were once shielded by a tree, decide they do not want to see my naked traipsing. And devoted partner assures me the law is on their side.

I shall therefore predict that this summer many of these updates will be made from the Greenwich pokey.

Shopping Like the Wealthy Do

Greenwich Avenue. We have been acquainted for many a year. I used to greatly fear you on account of your Spence/Chapin exclusionary demographic. For years when devoted partner and I would walk down you, it wasn't so much that I was your only vaguely ethnic rambler, it was that I was your only brunette, and certainly your only size 12. But we have both changed, Greenwich Avenue.

A slightly more diverse crop of the top 2% earners have made its way to your shores, as well as a slightly less exclusive array of shops: I'm surprised you don't sport a Diesel store yet, but come on, Victoria's Secret is very downmarket...

But now I have an approved zip code. You are my Main Street. I have even purchased a $9 headband at your yoga store (funny aside: as we're getting ready for bed Saturday night, sharing a bathroom for among the first times since childhood, The Boy looks at my Lulu Lemon headband and remarks that he has the same one, albeit not in purple, for his runs - teehee, my brother and I have the same headbands). When you see me coming, you do not consult your JDL-approved handbook entitled, "Dealing With Others: A Manual." Instead, you kind of treat me like I belong. Like my ill-gotten gains are just as good as anyone else's. And I must admit...

I like shopping on you.

Your stores, they are not crowded (though perhaps on Sunday, I wouldn't know, devoted partner and I spend all our Sundays lounging in bed, eating freshly baked Viennoiserie and having super-passionate lovemaking sessions that last hours) with either people or merchandise (ok, so perhaps your definition of lounging/Viennoiserie/lovemaking doesn't include Home Depot, Nintendo, and organic baked empanadas - your loss). Your salespeople are available without inspiring claustrophobia. Over the past few months, and more relevantly, over the past two weeks, I have entered your stores on a number of occasions and found myself almost enjoying the shopping experience. And I'm a person who thinks the internet is the best thing ever because it permits me to passively shop. In my underwear. At 4:00am.

Now I'm sure as I make my way down your Walk of Conspicuous Consumption, I will not always be thusly enamoured, but of all the surprises this move has held, your accessibility, nay, your inviting-ness, has surely been among the greatest.

Greenwich, Good and Bad

I thought twice about penning this post since it could inadvertently be seen as a critique of the wrong party. For the record: devoted partner did a bang-up job of our first non-Chinese/bathrobe Valentine's Day. I mean, come on, people, breakfast in bed and got me this! Which I love and am buying appropriate citrus for this afternoon. So devoted partner gets a non-asterisked win.

But let's talk about dinner.

Last year, Ed and I dined at Scarpetta, the trendy Italian joint in the oh-so-trendy Meatpacking district (where I'm pretty sure no meat is still packed) and ordered a $24 plate of spaghetti and tomato sauce. Yes, you read that correctly. $24. Pasta and sauce. And simple sauce at that. If you have read any of the reviews of Scarpetta, you'll know that the spaghetti and red sauce was universally praised as the best plate of pasta and sauce you're likely to find. But still. $24 for the grown-up yuppie version of Ronzoni and Ragu. I won't lie. I liked it but didn't find it as transcendent as some, but it was a damn good dish I would consider ordering again.

So I'm not opposed to opulence from simplicity.

The menu at Polpo, located at 554 Old Post Road No 3, was entirely average and what you might expect from any number of average Italian restaurants. The prices were not. The prices were, in fact, more than Scarpetta, more than Babbo (and there was no goose liver ravioli to be found). The prices were veering ever so closely to 4-starish territory and the incongruity of the prices and the uninspired offerings made me immediately suspicious. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all surprised to go into a steakhouse and see mammoth prices for one-word plates, but you go to a steakhouse to eat meat, potato, green. When I see pastas that are all over twenty bucks, I'd like to know someone took a little time to do something more inspired-sounding than: Linguine alla Vongole: Choice of white or red clam sauce. Really, I get a choice? Are both equally good? Don't you have an opinion? Maybe you could tell me a little about your clams...

I'll admit I was panicked. While eating out is something I really enjoy and think is worth a splurge now and again, devoted partner sometimes needs more convincing. When the meal is going to be a splurge and it's not going to be very good, I brace myself for a bad time. Devoted partner has changed. The man who almost made a waitress cry at Prune after being served, if memory serves me correctly, what appeared to be fish floating in a broth that I assume was meant as stock, but tasted of water, made nary a grab for his butter knife cum weapon. Instead, we ordered. Safely. I wasn't about to go for the out-there items on a menu that cried out to be conservatively ordered from. I figured it would take a lot to mess up a Caesar salad and spaghetti bolognese.

I can admit the rare occasions when I am wrong.

The "salad" was a single segment of romaine lettuce with two whole marinated anchovies, one tablespoon of dressing plopped in the center, and huge hunks of parmesan cheese. The spaghetti was from a box and I could discern no ingredients in the bolognese save meat. It was delightfully appetizing. For the record, Scott Conant's $24 spaghetti and tomato sauce is made with house-made spaghetti. Someone made the spaghetti. I'm willing to shell out $24 for that. Making spaghetti is annoying and time consuming. When a restaurant charges the same for something it paid 15 cents for, I'm less forgiving if the resulting plate looks like hamburger helper. (It should be noted that the polpo website does a great job of not showing you what the food looks like.) Listen the food was edible...if we were paying 1/4 the price.

But I think what made the evening complete and something we could good-naturedly laugh at was that the staff clearly didn't give a shit whether or not we enjoyed ourselves. Now, I know a little about restaurants, hell, I staged in one, and I know restaurants actually hate nights like Valentine's Day because they are overbooked and the people who book for V-Day are frequently not the same kinds of customers who come the rest of the year, especially at fancier restaurants. Yet, somehow, other restaurants can make their infrequent customers feel a little less like chattel. We had an 8pm reservation and were hustled through our meal even though when we left there weren't people clamoring for our seats - we WERE the late seating. And, if I can let the thinly veiled snobbishness that has been peering out from corners take center stage:

You're a restaurant in Greenwich. You're not the 8:00pm coveted table at Marea, or the frankly impossible to get even ten years later table at Babbo. I walked out of a restaurant in Paris because the service sucked so badly, but at least I was in Paris where an argument could be made for bad service being part of the ambience. Not so in Fairfield county. I know that Polpo is a hub for hedgies and that won't change, because there's nothing better than being a hedgie and taking clients out to a place that does more of a 4x wine markup than a 2.5x (I also really love an Italian restaurant that gives about equal space to Italian wines and Bordeaux and California - nothing says class better than linguine with clam sauce accompanied by a 1990 Haut-Brion).

But, for the people that I know occasionally come here from one of the Greenwich blogs, take note: the Batali/Bastianich empire has an outpost. Tarry Lodge was so far superior in every way the two times I ate there to the frankly embarrassing meal we had at Polpo that I am absolutely flummoxed the latter has managed to stay in business since the former opened. And it's about 40% cheaper.

And, to reiterate: none of this could have been anticipated or prevented by devoted partner. Who rocks!

Now a little bit of good. You might remember that I am still on the hunt for an aesthetician who neither mocks me nor does a half-assed job. And I may have found her. Suzana (or Susannah?) at Hopscotch on Railroad Avenue gave me the best waxing I have had in years. The Best! I literally only had to go back over her job to get like 6 pesky hairs - everything else was as smooth as I've seen it. She listened to what I wanted and adhered to the shaping and sizing of certain areas without editorializing. Yes, it was more money than I ideally would like to spend, but if the results are this consistent, well, crap, I'll spend the extra money.

Snow Day?

I asked the conductor this morning if there was a chance the trains wouldn't run tomorrow (or Thursday for that matter) and he said, yeah, there's a chance.

This is one of those new things.

I remember the blizzard of '96 and the subways shutting down. It might be the only time, excepting the strike, that I remember subways not working (ok, and September 11th). Subways are more reliable than postal workers. Yet this train thing, I just assumed a little precipitation would totally short its circuits. After all, it's above ground (yes, I know, subways too are above ground in some places, I just don't go to those places) and runs on wires or something.

Also, will my street be plowed? How soon does this happen. We had that other snowstorm, but I think it was short, or at least short enough that by the time I woke up, our drive had already been plowed (Pablo rules!). Will there be enough traffic to make the main streets passable? Do people just flip out and huddle shivering in their houses? Do I have enough diet-friendly snack food?

Additionally, how is my house heated? I know it's gas, but does it need electricity to make the gas? See also hot water. Will we lose power? So things freeze and/or explode? Will trees fall on my house and/or the electrical wires? Will we, god forbid, not have television? See also internet and phone service.

Much like not every paying for water or steam heat, this whole navigating winter in a house as opposed to an apartment is fairly bizarre. I don't know if we're going to be out in the abandoned streets searching for stray cats to eat for dinner or forced to talk to one another by candlelight because we have no alternate entertainment (and don't scoff at me, you know that 1 hour of candlelight chatting is way different from 6 hours).

Or, much like the buttload of snow I was expecting on Saturday, this could turn out to be another false alarm designed only to fill 36 hours worth of news. Still, if you don't hear from me by Friday, please, send help.

I Only Know What I Like

Many posts ago, I spoke of perceived vs. actual wine snobbishness, how I didn't think I was a wine snob because I really don't know anything about wine, only what I like. I feel the same way about art. I never took art history in college because, if memory serves, it met in the dreaded 8 or 9am hour, so my knowledge of art is pretty limited. Sure, I was a snooty New York kid who spent a day in which she cut school wandering around the Met, and I certainly have been exposed to my fair share of art, but I've never learned much about it. Couple this with my absolute inability to produce art and you see what I mean.

Much like poetry, I don't think I could rattle off works by the greats (or give you a title if you gave me an artist), though I could probably, for the real biggies go, oh yeah, the one with the woman and the shell, I know that one (for a poetry comparison please see the one about the road that goes in different directions and both of them make me roll my eyes at Robert Frost). But I think I like looking at art, though I don't do it as much as I should.

The past two Thursday nights, however, have seen devoted partner and me looking at art. Non-famous art. In an effort to explore the local offerings, we went to an art gallery last Thursday to see the work of a home-grown artist and last night we went to the opening of a photography exhibition at the Greenwich library (to anyone who has ever spent any time in the Mid-Manhattan library, you would not believe what the Greenwich library looks like - as devoted partner remarked, "I think those are Aeron chairs at the computer terminals.").

Devoted partner will, from time to time, lament that when he looks at art he doesn't 'get it.' Meaning, I assume, that without a background in looking at art critically, one is left with either I like this or I don't like this piece of art. I don't know. I remember an especially rewarding tour of the Guggenheim with Etienne where we loudly remarked (in the fashion of the snooty art-heads that always seem to be right in front or behind you in a museum) on the various hidden monkeys/penises in the obtuse modern paintings we were viewing. Sometimes art is like that. Where the only enjoyment I can derive is by pretending I see hidden monkeys. Other times, I get the creeping suspicion that the art I am looking at is intentionally obtuse as a way to compensate for not actually being any good. In either case, I understand what devoted partner is saying, but I'm not sure I feel the same way.

As an aside, my mother complains similarly when she reads a book. She worries that she doesn't get the allusions and deeper meanings. As a former lit crit nerd, I have done my time in the literary penis scavenger hunt and here's the thing: if the book sucked, no amount of hidden penises can make up for it. When a book is really good, you get the message.

So I am art-savvy enough to know that the paintings at the gallery were influenced by certain Picasso and a heavy serving of pop-art, and I can also understand that conflating those styles is interesting. But I'm not sure I got it. Meaning, I didn't have a visceral reaction. The art didn't touch me. I just looked at it and went, "hey some of this is evocative of other stuff I've seen." I can't make an educated determination on its relative merits, I just know it isn't the kind of art I'd hang on my own walls.

When we went to the photography exhibit, I felt a similar thing. The exhibit featured works by three different photographers covering three very different subjects. One artist worked with cityscapes, one with tobacco farms, and the third with traveling circus performers. Since I'm trying to understand more about photography and take better pictures myself, this was especially interesting. Except when it wasn't. For me. Again, I wasn't emotionally swayed. There were some pictures I liked and some I didn't, but none of them left a lasting impression.

So, I found myself thinking that art appreciation and wine appreciation are plagued by similar problems. Having drunk California Zinfandels that people rave about only to discover they taste like cough syrup and having been completely nonplussed by Important Art, I know that sometimes hype trumps aesthetics. A groundswell occurs where if you don't like said cult wine or artist, you must not know enough about the subject, and I think this makes people wary of exploring either because it either seems too exclusive or too damn full of itself. And I think that's an effin shame because both mediums produce pleasure and something to talk about. The only pitfall to avoid is not liking something on principle in the same way people seem to rave about things just because it's the fashion to do so.

Sounds

There is an old and well-worn joke about New Yorkers and their need for noise as a prerequisite for sleep. It's not entirely false. I, myself, am creeped out by silence, ask any of the people who have ever lived with me and they will note that I do not watch television so much as listen to it; the only place my iPod ever really gets used is in the kitchen; and once upon a time I needed the soothing sound of television to lull me to sleep. The house in Greenwich is obviously less noisy than the apartment in Manhattan.

Noises that city dwellers are accustomed to include sirens, brakes, hooligans, gun shots, loud music, and the gentle hum of traffic. Add to that the sound of dripping faucets, the upstairs neighbor flushing, the hiss and clank of steam heat, and you start to understand the background cacophony that is city life. There is a limit, of course. I remember being shown an apartment that was directly across from the elevated subway line at Broadway and 125th and looking at the real estate agent with what I hoped was a look that conveyed that someone could pay ME to live there, but that I would not be paying SOMEONE ELSE for the privilege.

But now I live in a calm suburb, cloistered from the noise of people doing things. On the bright side, I do not have to find ways to block out my superintendent's infinite loop of the same six really crappy Spanish-language pop songs; on the less bright side, I'll admit, it's creepy. Fortunately (and anyone who has ever looked for suburban real estate will proceed to shudder in horror), our house is in the approach path for Westchester County Airport. Yes, I know, I'm a freak. Strangely, given the complaints I have heard about such locations, I don't hear the planes most of the time. I guess our house is far enough away that if any other noise is present, one doesn't notice (or this ONE doesn't notice), yet at night, especially in the winter when, thank god, the crickets are on hiatus (I hate the sound of crickets. HATE), that gentle hum of jet engines is calming.

Consider the alternatives: our house, as I guess all houses do, creaks - for no good reason; even when the heat is off, the sounds of the heat remain, and they're not the familiar hisses of apartment steam heat; the toilet will burble periodically - not because someone has used it, just because.

A couple of weeks ago, I had this conversation: "Babe, when I pulled into the garage this evening there was an armadillo with a rat's tail in our driveway. Is that normal?" "That's an opossum." Great, so now a giant rat is my neighbor. Now all outdoor noises are the rat. I go to bring trash out and I am in constant fear that the rat of unusual size will be waiting for me. Not that I long for our old neighbors, the mice who shat everywhere and chewed things, but really, a rat the size of an armadillo?

Don't even get me started on the honking of the non-migrational Canada geese which are, apparently, endangered meaning that taking potshots at them with the pellet gun is verboten (see also, running them over).

So I will take the sound of a jet gracefully descending in the night. It conjures thoughts of travel - always a good thing - and reminds me that even though I am surrounded by geese and massive rats (to say nothing of the presumed animals that live in the attic: bats, ferrets, hornets), there is something normal out there. Something built by man in his noisy period that burns kerosene and, one hopes, occasionally sucks a Canada goose into its turbine.

Ma'am, That's Between Devoted Partner and Me

"Heh-heh, that's a big triangle."

People of the service industry, a moment if you will. I want to like you. I want to tip you. So please remember that your job, your sole occupational mission is to SERVE me. Now, for me personally, this doesn't mean you have to kiss my ass (though for some people it will be), but it does me you need to treat me like your source of income and not your friend (at best) or your object of mockery (at worst).

So, Tracey, if you wonder why we won't be working together again, and by working together, I mean I will not again pay for the privilege of you grooming my legs and nether regions, it's that you uttered the above sentence. This after our first encounter where I made it VERY CLEAR what I wanted my lady parts to look like and you made them look a different way, which you tried to assure me was "better," and I assured you was a) not what I asked for and b) in no way better for me. I gave you a second chance. When you tried to upsell me, again, on lady parts grooming enhancements, I did what any borderline insane person would do and took out a green pen and proceeded to draw on my lady parts where I wanted you to groom. I did this not to shame you, but to ensure that my hard earned dollars resulted in a service I wanted. You were not amused.

So you thought you'd be cute and comment on my stated preference with mockery in your voice. As if I was unaware of my stated preference and needed to you remind me. As if I hadn't literally crayoned my stated preference onto my skin. You'd think that after 17 or so years of personal grooming I might have become competent to make this decision and, wait for it, be absolutely uninterested in what you, Tracey, think about it. Unless you're offering to take care of it in some other capacity, it's really none of your business.

I wouldn't make a big deal out of this except it isn't remotely the first time I have been mocked while, let's be honest, doing some maintenance work that isn't pretty. When I couldn't afford to be choosy, it was the girls at the nail salons chortling in high-pitched voices about my relative hirsutitide as compared with the average Korean. When I had disposable income where I could pick and choose, it took me quite a while to weed out the Eastern European babushkas who clacked their tongues at me admonishing me over ingrown hairs and encouraging me to pare down my look. In fact, when I think about it, I have had two aestheticians in my life who DIDN'T suck - one just became way too expensive (I'm talking close to $200 when you figure in tip), and the other moved salons (to where I do not know). Everyone else has been rather shite.

I understand that when you were growing up you didn't hope and pray for the day when you could groom places on me I can't comfortably reach myself. I know this. I'd like to think that the fact you make, on average, $30/hour in tips is some kind of compensation (cause that's not chump change). But considering that your livelihood is tied to those tips, what possible incentive do you have to make me feel angry enough at you that I won't come back and, you know, tip you again? The motivation on this one utterly eludes me. (As an aside, something I realized yesterday while on the slab is that a lot of these women are probably sadists. Judging by the number of times Tracey asked me if this hurt, and seeming to be upset that I responded that it didn't, I would wager that she might get off on hurting women with enough disposable income to have this service performed. After the actual 4th time she asked, I told her, "I'm not shy, I'll let you know." That seemed to shut her up.)

I am sharing this kind of personally embarrassing and definitely too much informationy story because I tend to feel unashamed more of the time than some of my women friends. But if this process, one I'm actually not nearly as embarrassed by as I was in my teens, can leave me feeling so crappy, I can only imagine what it does to other people. So here's my prescription: if you are a woman who pays another woman money to have your unwanted body hair ripped from its roots by hot wax, you deserve at the very minimum to not feel mocked, intimidated, or tortured. I have had brazilian bikini waxes that felt like a little slap and tickle, and ones that felt like training day at Abu Ghraib; the latter are ones where you can stop and say, "there is no reason you should be treating sensitive parts of me with such disdain." Also your lady part regions are yours to groom how you like. If you want a heart or a star or a mohawk or a full-on 1970s retro look, guess what, you earn your own money, you can have whatever you want. If your aesthetician questions your choice, you should feel free to ask what personal stake she has in it and, if she persists, tell her you're not into chicks and that she's making you uncomfortable. If all else fails, and you have a 23 years old giggling at the mass of your unwanted hair and calling her friends in to laugh at you as well (true story - I was 17), feel free to muster as much hauteur as you can, pull your pants on, say something cutting about the fact that ass hair or no ass hair, one of you rips people's ass hair out for a living and the other doesn't, and leave the salon. There are only about a million places that would be all too happy to take your money. I suggest you discover where they are. I know I'll be looking too.

The What in What Comes Next

As I looked out the basement window this morning and saw water pooling at the edge of our yard, I turned to devoted partner and said, "you know, I'm glad we didn't buy this place. If we ever do buy, we should make sure our yard doesn't become a swamp when it rains." Devoted partner smiled knowingly at what he termed my "honomer" mentality.

I thought it would be a radical change, the kind from which my personality might not recover. There was a chance that I would have sat in the corner with a copy of my Zagat rocking slowly and crying. Instead, I re-took up knitting.

I also thought the residents of my new home would be way more mock-able. Sure, I am, by leaps and bounds, the fattest woman I see and one of the few who needs to work, but their eerie thinness and leisure has not made them into monsters. Few, if any of them have elbowed me in the face at Whole Foods. And yes, all of the gross stereotypes one can make about the lamentable manners of inner city youth while on public transportation have flown out the window in the face of the lamentable manners of the Skull and Bones set I take the train with. But overall the Greenwichians seem mostly human. If very very very homogeneous.

So where does that leave me and this site that I had hoped would be a scathing referendum on suburban life in a rarefied locale? Aidan asked me yesterday how I was feeling about the move and the blog and it made me realize I could either, stop blogging as frequently and only when something that adheres to the original spirit of the site occurs, or continue blogging just about every day but work a little less hard at trying to make it all about this momentous move that, like much in life, when taken in stride isn't such a big deal at all. As of now, I'm opting for the latter. I like writing and I like that from time to time people read.

That being said: street lights are important. They let people know when to stop and when to go. It has been explained to me that towns don't like street lights for some unconvincing reason that involves not wanting cars on the streets, but cars will be on the streets anyway and having traffic guards all up and down Greenwich Avenue telling you when you can and cannot walk is not only annoying but, for a New Yorker, somehow wrong. Also, I'm pretty positive a light is cheaper.

And The Sign Said Long Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply

I'm a reader. I like reading a lot. I like reading so much that I look for new and interesting places to read things. Like on street corners. In unfamiliar places where direction and location are important. On the backs of potentially dangerous compounds. When handling unfamiliar electrics. I find that, more often than not, reading answers many of the questions I may have. I used to resent going to meetings at my old job because I was fairly certain the two-hour long grabassathon could have been replaced by a memo with bullet points. In short, if I can't figure it out through reading, it's a complicated matter.

This morning, I took the train from the Greenwich station. Mother-in-law has long lamented the reduction of parking spaces in the downtown Greenwich area, so I was prepared to be moderately inconvenienced while finding a spot. I drove to the outdoor lot and wedged myself into a space, noted the number, and proceeded to the parking kiosk to pay for parking.

"Please enter your space number (1-360)."
"86"
"Invalid number. Please try again."
"86"
Invalid number. Please try again."

86 is a number between 1 and 360. I know this for truth. I stopped. And reread the instructions. Step 1: select the language. OK, I select English. Step 2: Choose transaction. OK, I wish to buy a parking ticket for the day. Step 3: Enter space number. OK, I enter my space number.

"Invalid number. Please try again."

Now I try other numbers between 1 and 360. All of which the kiosk says are invalid.

I then see the train I was going to take whiz out of the station. So now I am taking the later train. I might as well take it from my station where I know how to park. I go back to my car, past all the signs that direct me to the pay kiosk. When I get to the car, I see a sign three aisles away (approximately 50 feet) that looks different from all the other signs. Curious, I walk towards it. THIS sign tells me that daily parking must be done in yellow striped spots, whereas permit parking is done in white striped spots. From the entrance to the lot to this sign, a person would travel approximately half the length of a football field. On no signpost closer to the entrance was this sentiment stated. Upon entering the lot, one wouldn't even KNOW there were yellow striped spots. The only thing one would see was signs pointing towards the pay station with an admonishment to remember the number of the space parked in.

Now, devoted partner has been trying to educate me on the ways of the suburbans. When I complain that street signs are missing, he tells me this is intentional because residents don't want non-residents driving down their blocks. I find this ridiculous, and would offer the idea of gated communities to these folks where only previously approved cars could even gain entry to the premises, but ok. Where I don't understand deliberate opacity is in municipal signage. While it is true that the municipality would derive greater income from hitting me with a parking ticket as opposed to merely collecting my parking fee, this sort of action would quickly turn me into the kind of vigilante a municipality like Greenwich would not appreciate. Much like parking garages in Manhattan state in big bold brightly colored signage at the entrance how much it will cost to leave your car, I would suggest that the nice folks at Town Hall at least CONSIDER the idea of posting parking rules at entrances - this way confusion can be averted. I'll give you a helpful example:

While looking for parking I entered the covered parking garage only to be greeted by a sign warning me that ONLY permit parking was permitted there. This sign was clearly displayed at the entrance so that a driver could see whether or not his vehicle was permitted from the start.

So it's not like you people are too stupid to understand the concept.