Author: admin

admin

holy cow, packing for virginia!

That’s right, boys and girls – Kip is moving to Virginia! Woah, that came out of left field!!! (from Fenway to Camden Yard apparently)

So here in the last week of Boston there is lots to be done:

  • last time at Full Moon as a down-the-street resident
  • watching as many Red Sox games as possible
  • let’s not forget Harvard Square

Al0ng with all the work left to be done:

  • pack books at Gloucester condo
  • clean Gloucester condo
  • finish Gloucester condo!
  • pack camping cubes of baby goodies for the trip down
  • pack immediate books, music, and clothes
  • other baby stuff: baby beds, booster seats, and toy box
  • don’t forget your bike!

what a cool date night!

Of course, the best part of date-night is your date, so can’t help you there. But if you’re looking to impress a date with a cool Asian-inspired night around Boston, try what we did last week. Have a lot of fun!

  • Community Yoga, Yoga on the Square, Davis Square, Somerville – only $6 for 75 minutes of envigorating yoga (http://www.yogasquare.com/schedule.html)
  • Inman Oasis, Inman Squre, Somerville – $38 for a half hour for two in a real-life wooden Japanese hot tub – nice! (http://www.inmanoasis.com/)
  • Fugakyu, Coolidge Corner, Brookline – best sushi around, and open until 2 AM, a rarity in Boston (http://www.fugakyu.net/)

revision progress

Watch kip keep track of her revision here …

3/7/2009 – revised chapters 8 and 9 (on track for this weekend’s goal so far!)

3/8/2009 – revised chapter 10 (OK, blew my goal, but it seems it wasn’t realistic anyway – this was a long chapter!)

3/9/2009 – nothing (as usual, takes a lot of effort to sit down at the computer after a full day’s work)

3/10/2009 – revised 1 page of chapter 11 (but it was a very difficult page)

3/11/2009 – nada

3/12/2009 – nichts

3/13/2009 – finished revising chapter 11 – halleilula! A whole chapter, and a long one at that!

3/14/2009 – revised chapter 12

3/15/2009 – revised chapter 13 and 14, woo-hoo!

3/21/2009 – revised chapter 15

3/24/2009 – revised chapter 16

3/30/2009 – revised chapter 17

3/31/2009 – revised chapter 18

4/6/2009 – revised chapters 19 and 20 – DONE! DONE! DONE!

kip’s yoga challenge!

Seeing as I have no time to do anything these days, I’ve given myself what I’m calling “the yoga challenge” to combat two of my biggest problems:

  • insomnia
  • no time to exercise

The idea is that right after I pop the tater tots into bed, and before I start up the computer to do the myriad of stuff I don’t have time to do during the day, I pop in a Rodney Yee DVD for 12 minutes  – yes, 12 completely doable minutes – of yoga. My goals are to somehow relax, prepare my mind to shift into high gear, and stretch out my body. It’s hard to let a dancer’s body stiffen up and stagnate for too long, and it’s been too long!

It’s been 2 nights in a row now – I want to see if I can do it for a full week straight. If I can, I might actually try to double it to 24 whole yoga minutes, totally out of control …

revision goals – get cracking, kip!!

OK, time to get serious now. Of my 20-chapter manuscript from nanowrimo (nanoficwrimo for me!), I’ve got 7 polished chapters under my belt, which means I’ve got 13 left. So here’s my plan:

this weekend:

chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

this week:

chapters 13, 14, 15, 16

next weekend:

chapters 17, 18, 19, 20 (and epilogue)

Which reminds me, I guess I get to get a nice juicy reward when I finish – I know just what I want, too! What a dangling carrot!

book review: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

I have had this book on my to-read list for quite some time, ever since I heard an interview with the two authors on NPR. The book is written in dual POV, with one author tackling each POV in alternating chapters – very well done!

The title itself intrigued me as well, because of the playlist, and because of the pairing of the names – can it be coincidence that the authors used the same names of the ultra-chic and romantic couple of the 1930’s Thin Man movies? (played by Myrna Loy and William Powell)

As far as the plot and characters go, it couldn’t be more of an in-the-moment glimpse of two young adults on the verge of stepping off into their futures. Norah, who turns down an admission to Brown to elect to head to South Africa to chase down a stupid ex-boyfriend who instead shows up outside of her favorite club in NYC, where she has become the five-minute-girlfriend of Nick, who is pining away after a classmate of Norah’s who doesn’t care a lick about him or his wicked cool song lyrics that have been making Norah swoon (without knowing who he is) all year. Nifty sexual encounters include a run-in between the two girls in the bathroom at Velseka (borscht!) and a very close call next to the ice dispenser in a Marriott between Nick and Norah.

What will happen next? Without a sappy-happy ending, you know that these two have started something big, something which will continue to grow as they set out on their own lives. Very cool book.

movies to see after the 2008 awards shows

Now that I don’t get out much, I like the awards shows to tell me what movies I should see once they make it to DVD. Although I really wanted to see “No Country for Old Men” after last year, and ow-ow-ow, was that ever NOT my kind of movie! I had nightmares of Javier Bardem jumping out of my closet to kill me for days! Thank God I saw it after I saw the one movie I saw in the cinema last year, Vicky Christina Barcelona, because otherwise I wouldn’t have seen that, and I would’ve missed out on Penelope Cruz’ magnificent performance.

Anyway, from 2008, in my own particular order:

  • The Reader (OK, didn’t even know this had been made into a movie! Like I said, I don’t get out much. I read the book years ago and loved it though, and I already knew Kate Winslet makes any movie fabulous)
  • Slumdog Millionaire (OK, who doesn’t want to see that now?)
  • Revolutionary Road (Kate Winslet again)

things the tater tots have grown out of …

To sell at the MOT spring sale this March – try not to forget anything!!

  • infant car seats and bases
  • bouncy seats
  • jumperoo
  • baby play kitchen
  • push-car and popcorn vacuum
  • spring/summer outfits (can’t sell winter stuff at this sale)
  • go through toy box for infant-like toys they don’t use anymore

Start boxing up the stuff for the MOT fall sale too (all those winter goodies!) …

28 minutes in 28 degrees

My mouth was watering since I was thinking about my favorite bakery in Brookline, so I figured I’d stop by for some croissants this morning. Chilly morning, did I mention? 28 degrees, ouch.

ClearFlour is tiny. I know this. Only about 6 customers can squeeze into the front of the shop at a time. It’s not a problem in the summer, when you can bask in the sun in the line that snakes around the corner.

And I knew it was chilly. But I’m a Bostonian. I had on my super-warm fluffy boots, my knee-length NorthFace down coat, and my fleece gloves and cap. All set.

The only problem was flipping pages of the novel I’m reading (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) with the gloves on, but I still made it through two chapters without removing a glove.

And then I got in! One epi-bread, one Vollkornbrot, four croissants, and two chocolate brioche (and $28) later, I was back on the street, humming a happy tune on the way back to my little Scion. Oh, happy day!

Yeah, it’s totally worth it.

kip’s favorite things about Boston

Some of the things kips love about the Boston area is that there are so many places to pick up yummy things. Here is a sampling:

  • ClearFlour bakery (Brookline) – Best croissants this side of the Atlantic! The line around the block starts forming on weekends before they open at 9:00, but it is well worth the wait.
  • Kotobukiya grocery and shops (Porter Square) – Where, in the words of Ming Tsai, you can “get a bowl of ramen the size of your head.” This is where we stock up on all our Asian staples: miso paste and tofu, shrimp chips (yum!), sushi rice, eel, seaweed salad, triangle rice lunchies, an pan and other yummies from the bakery, rice crackers for the babies, etc. etc.
  • Formaggio Kitchen (Huron Village) – As the name implies, where you can get tasty, tasty imported cheese, as well as salami, olives, and other essentials.
  • Arax market (Watertown) – One of the 3 or 4 Armenian shops along Mt. Auburn, where you can pick up the best hoummus, olives, labne, pita, all kinds of spices, as well as baklava and other sweets.
  • Karl’s sausage kitchen (Saugus) – This one is a little farther away from the action, but worth the drive if you are having a craving for anything German: homemade sausages, potato salad (real, like in Germany), all of your typical selections of Sauerkraut, Rotkraut, Senf, Schokolade, Keks, usw.