very simple

the beating heart of the upper west side.

another refrigerator magnet. bought during a visit to UPenn law school when I was deciding whether to go there, at the restaurant across the street, creatively named…the black cat.

I never actually buy anything at these mazes of shops that they put up at union square and columbus circle for the holidays, but I always enjoy wandering around looking at the crafts and other pretty things.

I have this weird compulsion whenever I go into museum stores that I need to buy the quirkiest thing I can find. Which is why I ended up buying this (among other things) at the Tate Modern gift shop back in 2001. Of course, after watching a few episodes of Hoarders, I have visions of myself buried under really quirky bric-a-brac.

It’s that wonderful time of year when we lose half of our sidewalk space on the upper west side to vendors attempting to sell giant christmas trees to jews living in tiny apartments. (and yes, I’m jewish).

Today was the first snow of the season.  A little unexpected given the unseasonably warm weather up until now, but for us new yorkers, we’re just excited that we have new stuff to complain about!

one of my essentials for sleeping with the ridiculous cold that I’ve acquired.

She seemed pretty peppy when we went to visit her today, but sophie has been living at the animal hospital for a few days now and she’s wearing the cone because she’s being hydrated intravenously. getting old sucks.

I’ve run out of random things on my desk, so I’ve moved on to my overwhelming collection of refrigerator magnets.  This one was picked up during one of my many work-related trips to London – after a week and a half of all-nighters, we finished our deal, got about 12 hours of sleep, and then had almost an entire day to waste in London before our late-in-the-day flight back to NY.  We hit all of the big spots – we actually ended up watching a huge procession at Buckingham Palace in honor of a state visit by the Chinese government, but no one had a camera.  So I bought this magnet at Harrod’s to commemorate the trip.

my kitchen is so tiny that any time I find a kitchen tool that is magnetic, I snap it up so I can stick it on my fridge instead of on the counter.