tea berry-blue

So I was in the art store at lunch buying some pens and paper and such, when this young man walks up to me and compliments my dress.

I say thank you and go back to browsing.

He keeps talking to me, and introduces himself. His name is Augustus.

Now, usually I tend to get really edgy when strange men come up to me and talk to me without context, because they generally, eventually creep me out, or act as if they are entitled to get my number or SOMETHING.

Augustus starts asking, “Do you have a…”

And I’m like, great, here comes the “do you have a boyfriend?” question. NO, FOR GOD’S SAKE, NO. (And of course I am straight and of course my interest in talking to strange men has everything to do with my relationship status and argh).

But he asks, “do you have a son?”

I’m totally taken by surprise. I say, “Err, you mean like a child?”

“Yes, a son,” he says.

“No,” I say.

“Well, do you have a brother or a dad or someone like that? Any men in your life?” asks Augustus.

At this point, I’m a little gobsmacked, because I’m wondering if this is Augustus’ way of circumventing the boyfriend question.

“Well, yes, I do,” I say.

He points to his collar. He’s wearing a…well, a bowtie. But a bowtie made of Scrabble tiles.

“Do you think they would like this?” he asks.

“Um. Well, I know some men who might,” I reply.

His eyes light up. He reaches into his bag, and holds out something wrapped in a paper napkin. “Well, then I have one for you!” he says. He unwraps it, and it’s another Scrabble-tile bow tie. “Yours says ‘fireproofed,’” he says. “I think that suits you.”

And he gives me the bowtie.

Thanks, Augustus. I, er. Might be keeping it for myself?

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Scott Harris of Catoctin Creek Distillery came up to New York City this week to celebrate the New York launch of Catoctin Creek’s spirits line, and I tagged along with him to a bunch of his events!

One of my oldest friends, Emily, has been working for them, and introduced me to their liquor about a year ago– she poured a little bit of gin into a metal thermos for me to take home with me after a lovely brunch. I started experimenting with it right away– their gin is very friendly to folks who aren’t crazy about strong juniper flavors, with a really nice mix of different herbs that gives it a unique profile. In November, Scott and Emily invited me to go out for a drink with them, and then Scott did an impromptu tasting of the rest of their line– and sent me home with a bottle of each of their flagship spirits– Mosby’s Spirit, a white whiskey, Roundstone Rye, and the Watershed Gin I mentioned above.

Then I went down to the distillery in January and met Scott’s wife, Becky, and got to sit in on a special session where they taught us about the distillation process. I already knew a little bit about distilling, but this really improved my knowledge. I also got to play with their bottling line, which was INCREDIBLY AWESOME, and reminded me a lot of playing whack-a-mole, but with gin!

So I was delighted when Scott told me he was going to be in town and asked if I could come to come of his tastings. I met up with him first at the Rum House on Tuesday– but there was a bit of a miscommunication, so no tasting, but we got a drink and some deviled eggs and then went over to Noorman’s Kil, where we got delicious grilled cheeses and beer, and I got to meet Scott’s New York brand ambassador, Kirsten, who was super nice. They had a huge crowd show up to taste the rye. I don’t have photos from that, because it was super dark, but there were loads of very enthusiastic whiskey aficionados. It was getting close to my bedtime, though, so I headed home, and met up again the next day at the Brandy Library.

At the Brandy Library, we had all three of the spirits, and that was really fun– I actually tasted along with the crowd, sort of, except that I got caught up chatting with folks from Scott’s distributor a bit in the process so it took me a while between the rye and the gin, but I eventually got through all three of them. I had a couple really nice cocktails, and then Mayur, who teaches the classes I sometimes take at Amor Y Amargo and who is spearheading the spirits division at Scott’s distributor, showed up, and it was cool to chat with him when he wasn’t behind the bar. I took a whole bunch of photos of that tasting, and one of them ran in Scott’s local paper!

After the Brandy Library, Scott and Kirsten and I went over to Ward III to grab a drink, and then I went home because it was my bedtime!

Then, on Friday, Scott had a tasting at The Whiskey Shop. I’d never been there before– largely because it’s in Brooklyn and a touch out of the way for me to go to buy spirits, but this place is awesome and if you live nearby, I highly recommend going in. I spent most of the time chatting with Jon, the shopkeeper, who is incredibly knowledgeable and incredibly fun, and let me taste a couple of samples of different things.

The people who came into The Whiskey Shop were all really interesting people who wanted to converse about spirits, which was fun. I talked to a whole bunch of different people there about different things. Once that was over, Jon suggested we go to Kinfolk’s Yuji Ramen around the corner, which was a perfect, delicious little meal. It was a great end to the week. I had so much fun getting to see all these different tastings, how different people taste spirits, and the kinds of questions people asked.

If you live in New York, or any of the other states where it is available make sure to try Catoctin Creek’s spirits!

Mirrored from Nommable!.

So! Hunger Games!!!

Hansi, who is making the fanfiction documentary I have mentioned taking part in a couple times before, actually came to my apartment to film me and Jess getting ready. She wanted to do it cinema verite style, which basically means filming us doing what we normally do.

I’m used to being on camera for interviews, and I’m used to acting on camera, but trying to just do what you normally do when you’re aware you’re on camera is a really weird experience, because it makes you very conscious of things like the fact that conversational speech is nothing like anything sensical, especially when it’s people like me and Jess, who know each other so well that we talk in a lot of common assumptions. But it was still fun and I hope it’s useful for the film. We went out to the theater together, and Hansi filmed us in Times Square for a bit. She wanted to film inside the theater, but was worried she’d get kicked out with the camera, so I offered to go inside and ask someone.

I walk in, and I immediately get completely gushed over by three of the AMC theater team, who were like “OMG EFFIE.” One of them was like “HI I AM A CAREER TRIBUTE FROM DISTRICT THREE!!!” And they asked me for a photo, so I asked if we could come in and film. One of them was a manager and he was only too happy to let us in to film, as long as we didn’t get AMC logos on anything. Plus, I told them Katniss was there, too, and grabbed Jess for their photo as well. So that was great. While we were in there, a girl making a documentary for her NYU student project also asked to interview us, so we did that.

We also got asked for a bunch of photos from other people, which was super fun!

We had been told they were going to let people start lining up around ten, so that had been the plan to meet up, and since we had to do the stuff with Hansi, we had figured we’d go get some food, and then get on line, but just as we finished the interviews with the NYU project, we heard they had decided to let people line up early, so we got on the line. Jess was starving so she went back out to get some food, and then I needed to stretch my legs from sitting on the floor, so I went out just to walk around a little. I went outside and immediately more people wanted photos! So I did a bunch of photos, and then went back into the theater– when Jess texted that they had decided to let people hang out in the theater.

So we got in, got settled with pretty excellent seats, and then I went out and got us large refillable soda. I don’t normally do that because $5 for a soda, but I shared mine with Kate and we refilled it and stuff, because, two hours waiting in the theater? TOTALLY. Kate got there pretty soon after, and then Darryl did, and Darryl was kind enough to go out with us to take some photos of our costumes.

Which meant more people asked us for photos. I seriously don’t think I’ve done so many photos in my life. Plus, pretty much everyone kept squealing at me and saying “Happy Hunger Games!” and stuff, so it was kind of adorable. There were a lot of people dressed as Katniss, and a couple people in Capitol wear, and a couple people dressed as Peeta, but no one else dressed as Effie, so that worked out nicely. One of the Peetas actually had a loaf of bread he was running around with which was kind of adorable since he seemed to be a very energetic young man and was kind of all over the theater with the bread before the movie started.

Then was the movie!!! I was mostly pleased with it. There was one pretty major character moment that I wasn’t crazy about how they interpreted it, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best movie ever, but it was pretty solid as far as I’m concerned. Without doing anything that is really a spoiler (although I suspect there will be spoilers in the comments), I have to say that the single most impressive major change to me was how they portrayed Seneca Crane, who is an extraordinarily minor character in the books, and Wes Bentley just did a phenomenal job expanding him.

After the movie, we immediately got stopped by a guy from some website who wanted to interview me. It was three in the morning, dude. I was like, “sorry, but I need to get up in the morning, so I need to go home.” I guess people who do interviews like this are so used to people being excited about being on camera that it didn’t register that I was saying no, because he kept trying to explain what he wanted me to do. Finally I was like, “look, lots of people talked to me before the movie, and I would have been happy to talk to you then but now I need to go home and sleep.” He still seemed kinda incredulous.

The movie theater, who had done an AMAZING job with crowd control and managing lines for the wait to get in, utterly FAILED on getting people out. They clearly didn’t think about the fact that they had people for nine screenings all arriving over a three hour period, and then all leaving at THE EXACT SAME MOMENT. The escalator landing got so crowded people were running back up the down escalator. We decided not to risk it and instead waited ten minutes for an elevator. I felt a little bad for that interview guy, cause I could have done his interview, but I also would rather not appear in anything that involves people gawking at people who dress up in costumes, and you never know someone’s angle.

Anyway, we got outside, and more people wanted pictures, while we hailed a cab, and then took a cab just a few blocks across town to Kate’s car, as she was kind and lovely enough to drive us home, which also gave us time to discuss the movie.

Then I went ZZZZZZ and today was another day with less makeup!!!!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

I have my nails done and am wearing some of my jewelries at work!!!

zia_narratora: (1:54:06 PM) HAPPY HUNGER GAMES
alephz: (1:54:11 PM) YYYYYYYYYY
alephz: (1:54:30 PM) TOO OLD TO GET SELECTED!
alephz: (1:54:35 PM) SUCK IT, THE YOUTH.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

It’s getting to be the time of year when, for people who like to create food from the ground up, we need to be preparing for making food.

A lot of people ask me why, when I live in New York City, arguably one of the most always-on places in the world, I spend so many of my weekends in Connecticut at my parents’ house– especially in the winter, when the garden is not producing, and the bees are hibernating their little hearts out.

Here are one of the things we do in the winter. This year, I did it singlehandedly, because both of my parents were busy with other work.

This is what a grape arbor looks like in the winter.

It’s basically a whole lot of bare vines, in a great big tangle.  Grape vines are a lot like roses.  Every year, you want to cut back most of the new growth from the year before, leaving only the “main vines to sprout new growth for the coming season.  This needs to be done in the winter, before the vines begin growing again.

We also put up an arbor mid-season last year, because this was the first year our grapes had enough growth to really need something apart from the fence.  So, as you can see, the vines were sort of selective about whether they wanted to grow on the arbor or not.  Some grew on the arbor.  Some grew on the fence. Some grew on the arbor and then turned around and grew on the fence.  Some just decided to be stubborn little brats and grow on the rhubarb.

So, today, I went in with my clippers and pruned the heck out of the arbor.  Basically, you want to prune off pretty much everything but the main vine, and you want to do it as close to the wine as possible:

It took about an hour to trim everything back to where we wanted it.  I had a little difficulty because the snow had frozen shut the gate to the garden, so I had to do most of the work from outside the garden, reaching my hands through the wire fence.  The chickens were very, very curious about what the heck I was doing.  After everything was trimmed, I trained all of the remaining vines onto the arbor, with one exception– there was one vine that was very thick and heavy and mostly growing on the garden side of the fence, so it was difficult to move.  I also got all the grapevines untangled from the hops vines, which was very exciting.    This is what it looked like when I was finished:

By early autumn, believe it or not, this will be back to looking like the “before” picture– only with lots of leaves and fruit on it!!

Mirrored from Nommable!.

So, I’ve been meaning to write about this for about two weeks, but Tea has been a busy lady!! Busy, busy!!!

Let’s start at the very beginning. You all know by now that I have a very long and tribulation-filled history with haircutters.

When I was very young, I loved going to the haircutter. I was about eight years old, and I went to a salon that was just s short walk or bike ride from my house, so my mother even let me go alone sometimes. I went to a hairstylist named Michael, and in the 1980s, he was the height of stylish, with long, beautiful curly locks that weren’t that different from mine.

But then he got sick. It wasn’t until later that I understood that he had AIDS, which he eventually died from. At the time, I assumed “sick” meant “pneumonia” or “chickenpox” or something, because at eight, in the 1980s, AIDS wasn’t really a concept I’d been introduced to. There was a middle-aged lady who worked at the salon who cut my hair instead, and she made such a botch of it– I left with my hair in a giant poufball.

I don’t think I got another haircut until I was thirteen.

I went to a great hairstylist as a teenager and college student, but she was on Long Island and isn’t at all convenient to where I live now.

So, my adult life has been a long, long slog through a parade of hairstylists who don’t know what to do with very fine, multitextured hair that is the product of a very exciting genealogical background.

Sometime in my adult life, I decided that the only thing to do was actually ante up and try out the salons that were noted for being “curly hair specialists.” I did this for the first time in 2009. The results were disastrous. I went to a salon called Ouidad, where I had people prodding me to buy their line of products the entire time, until I explained to them that I was not going to buy their products, at which point the stylist clamped her mouth shut and didn’t speak to me for the rest of my appointment. Furthermore, she explained that their “trademarked” haircutting technique involved thinning shears, something I had already had a very bad experience with. I told her I wasn’t comfortable with those being used on my hair, and she insisted they would be different.

They were different, in that my hair looked gorgeous when I left the salon, but two moths later, all the bits where my hair had been cut to different lengths began to show, and it made my entire head look ragged and frizzy. This was the most expensive haircut I’d ever had in my life.

Last year, I found out that my company, owning several fashion magazines, got a very generous discount at Bumble and Bumble. So I booked. I made it very clear on the phone that I had my hair and had them book me with a stylist whom they said was an expert at dealing with my hair type.

Yeah, that didn’t go so well. I walked in and told her I had been wanting a shorter haircut. She told me she wouldn’t cut my hair short because it was too beautiful. I told her I at least wanted it evened out and the split ends gone.

I walked out of that place with split ends still on my head, after waiting forty minutes from my appointment time before the stylist even saw me. I booked a “fix” appointment immediately. The stylist was snotty about it and barely did anything, in spite of the tons of split ends.

That was now the most expensive haircut I’ve ever had, even with the discount.

Meanwhile, I’ve been having multiple friends telling me to go to devachan for years. The women I know who go there have curly hair, but it’s much more typical of the kinds of long, tendrilly, wavy curls that don’t even seen that curly to me. Plus, I’m familiar with their products that have the kind of prices that will break ordinary people’s bank accounts (I generally don’t believe in buying hair care products that cost more than my monthly food budget). So I had always been skeptical about going there.

On top of that, it’s one of those “celebrity” type salons, not unlike Ouidad and Bumble & Bumble, and my experience there made me leery of trying another one. Plus, I’ve read lots of reviews online, and for every positive review, I’ve seen one that says that they find devachan to be a bit creepy and cultish, with customers who seem like devotees more than patrons.

Finally, this year, I decided that I might as well try it at least once. After all, it couldn’t be worse than Ouidad or Bumble & Bumble, could it? So I books an appointment with a stylist named Jackie and showed up on their doorstep a couple of weeks ago.

Jackie had the same kind of long, not-really-curly hair that I’ve come to dread from stylists, where I’m used to being told “Oh, yes, she has curly hair, she understands all about curly hair” when in reality, said stylist tends to freak out on contact with my hair. But she started by looking at my hair and asking me about my current regimen.

And that’s when everything changed. Now, I do some pretty wacky stuff with my hair– I haven’t shampooed it since 2009 (obviously I’ve been washing it with other things), and usually when I tell stylists that I wash my hair with a combination of honey and soap made from goat’s milk and shea butter, and honey, they just look at me funny. When I tell them that I use castor oil, jojoba oil, and vegetable glycerin in it, a lot of them make “ew” faces. Jackie did neither. She said she didn’t know about honey but she could see how goat’s milk was probably a good idea, and then said that oil is typically good, but given my hair type, she thought I’d get better absorption from using olive oil and coconut oil. She talked to me a little about their products, but the first time I said that their product line was out of my price range, she said that was understandable and she’d be happy to recommend some cheaper alternatives.

At devachan, they cut hair dry, which seems to make a lot of sense for curly hair– since the curl patterns are hard to make out when your hair is wet. They wash and style it after it’s cut. Jackie took a good three inches off my head, trying to even out the raggedy bits that are still left from my hideous Ouidad cut from two years ago (one of the things about having very tightly curled hair– it takes years for a hairstyle to grow out).

I had my hair washed by Brian, who was similarly very friendly and talked to me about my hair care, and read the labels on several products to see what the chief ingredients were so I could try to get the beneficial effects without shelling out a ton of money, especially since most of the ingredients were all natural. One of the spritzers he used, he even told me that it was basically a few drops of lavender oil in water, and I could just make it myself.

Then they dried my hair, and styled it. Drying was a very complex process that involved a long time under a traditional salon hair dryer, followed by more drying with less direct heat.

After that, Jackie came over and did a few corrective snips. She told me that I shouldn’t vcut my hair more than every six months, and that she didn’t think I needed a haircut more than once a year– and if I needed a little trim in between, it was fine to go somewhere else, since she knew their services were expensive. The people there were so lovely and knowledgeable that I decided to suck it up and try one of their products– especially since they had been so good about not pressuring me to buy something. So I asked Jackie, if I was going to buy one thing, which should I try, and she suggested a specific conditioner. When I checked out, I bought a bottle of it to try.

I started walking out of the salon, when I noticed white flakes falling from the sky. Snow!

I have this bad string of luck in that every time I get a new haircut, it seems to be a bad weather day. So by the time I get home, the hairstyle is wrecked and not fit for photographs. So I walked back into the salon and asked very politely if it would be possible for me to take a couple pictures of my haircut in their waiting room. The receptionist kindly waved me in, even though by now it was close to closing time, and I went to take some photos with my new camera.

A woman with magnificent strawberry blonde curls followed me in and offered to take my picture. I couldn’t tell if she worked there, or if she was a customer. I said it was all right, I just wanted to snap a couple of pictures to show my mother, and I’d do it myself. She insisted, saying that it was always better to have someone else take the pictures. She tried to figure out my camera– her phone was an older phone than mine– and after a couple tries, got a few good shots. I thanked her, and she started asking me questions about my experience there, which is when it became obvious that not only did she work there, but worked there in such a position where such things were important to her. I told her Jackie was great and I would be coming back.

Then she asked me my name, and I introduced myself. She said it was nice to meet me, but didn’t introduce herself. So I asked her her name.

And she said, “Lorraine.”

Lorraine Massey is the owner of the salon. She’s also the author of Curly Girl, which is one of the premier books about curly hair care. I said, “oh, Lorraine who wrote the book?” She said yes, and seemed delighted that I knew about her book.

So here, after having gone to two high-end salons where the stylists barely seemed to give a shit that I was there, at devachan, the owner of the salon, who is purported to have a year-long wait for appointments, and appears on TV and at major hair care events all the time, offered to take my photos for me when she didn’t have to. I thanked her very much and assured her that I’d had a great experience at her salon.

She saw my bag and seemed delighted that I’d purchased one of their products. She asked what I’d bought, and I told her. She asked if I had any of a sulfate-and-detergent-free shampoo they make. I told her no, and she said, “oh, you really should try it.” And I told her that I use honey in my hair.

Again, I didn’t get a “What?!” from her. Lorraine said to me, “well, honey is good, but it’s not quite the right ph level.” And she went on to explain something about ph levels and how she thought the optimal ph level for washing my hair was something I don’t remember now. And she actually [i]knew[/i] the ph level of honey. And then she goes up to the front counter, takes down a bottle of the shampoo she had recommended to me and gave it to me for free. We chatted for a little longer, I thanked her and went home.

I was just very charmed by the fact that Lorraine took the time to talk to me, and gave me free products rather than pressuring me to buy anything. I feel like you have to really believe that your product is better than what someone is using to do that.

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the products, though I don’t know if I’ll continue to purchase them regularly given the high expense. But the people were all so kind and seemed to know so much about hair and actually really cared about hair and about me as a customer that it was actually worth the expense of the cut. So, if that’s what they mean by culty, I guess I’ve been converted?

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

I don’t know if I have an excuse. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was cold. Maybe I was running late. Maybe it was dark. Maybe I was carrying a really big bag.

But here’s what I noticed, while walking across my office floor, after I had been at work for about an hour and fifteen minutes:

SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

In my defense, they are technically the same shoe with a different “style” so the soles and heels are identical and they FEEL identical?

…But that’s a pretty weak defense.

Fortunately, I had actually packed a different pair of shoes to wear for New Year’s, so I put those on:

WIN.

The only trouble here, as I sit at my desk ruminating about the end of the day, is trying to decide whether to wear the mismatched but comfortable shoes to commute, or the matching but not really conducive to carrying heavy luggage full of booze.

MY LIFE IT IS A COMEDY OF ERRORS.

<3

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Around Thanksgiving time, my father started talking about how he couldn’t wait to go to the Dollar Tree to buy all the Christmas presents for me and my mother.

Somehow, this prompted the statement, I don’t know if it was mine or my mother’s, that only Bad Santas shop at the Dollar Tree.

This has only escalated over the last few weeks into threats that Bad Santa is coming to visit, followed by plaintive cries of “NO BAD SANTA!!” Or alternatively “ONLY GOOD SANTA.”

As Bad Santa shaped into a figure of myth and legend at the Fougner Family Barn, he developed an origin story which involved him being Good Santa’s younger brother who was always overshadowed by his more successful older brother, Good Santa, and I think he was raised by his evil aunt and uncle in a cupboard under the stairs, because that’s not anyone else’s history. Anyway, Bad Santa’s job is to bring horrible presents to all the naughty boys and girls.

GUESS WHO CAME TO OUR HOUSE THIS YEAR? WE MUST HAVE BEEN VERY BAD.

Bad Santa comes on Christmas Eve before everyone goes to bed. He brings a dead tree and decorates it with old rags to make it look like snow. He brings gifts like gopher traps, fly paper, and paper towels:

I know lots of people are posting their exciting hauls of Christmas gifts, but I CHALLENGE ANY OF YOU TO TOP THIS:

1) Off-brand disposable dental floss pics.
2) A night light without a light bulb.
3) A pack of four fly catchers.
4) A 16 oz bottle of Ajax soap
5) Two disposable aluminum foil cake pans.

YEAH. BEAT THAT BAD SANTA LIST.

When we woke this morning, there was another Christmas Miracle! In the night, the Magical Bad Santa Hat had appeared atop Bad Santa’s tree!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

That is all.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.