Life has been pretty good in New York these first 50 days. The reason I know exactly how many days, is because I got my electricity bill today. Just the gas alone was $219. I’ve used my stove like 5 times. I checked with Hilarie to see how many “therms” she uses a month, hers was 2. Mine – 119. Who has been coming into my apartment while I’m gone and cooking up a storm?? More importantly, why aren’t they saving me any food??

So then I called ConEd to question this ridiculousness… and I was on hold for an HOUR AND A HALF. I felt like Phoebe from Friends when she’s on hold for 36 hours. Every time I look at the clock, I think ‘I hate to hang up after waiting 30 minutes, they’ve got to answer soon! 45 minutes, seriously, its any time now.  An hour – I MUST be the next customer.’ I gave up. I guess I’ll try again tomorrow.

My morning started by picking up my dress for the wedding, which I took to get altered. It was all wrong. After arguing with the woman for a half and hour, the BEST offer I could get out of her was “two pairs of pants hemmed free of charge”. Ya, right, like I’m going to take pants back there. I was too timid to say it to her face (when does that happen?), but in my head I was saying “I have a blog and I’m going to tell everyone not to go here”. I only have 14 readers, and most don’t live in New York, but SHE doesn’t have to know that. I hate to break a promise to myself, so don’t go to Sunshine Cleaners on 1st between 78th and 79th. 

This is the front of the dress, how it is supposed to look, with the top layer longer than the liner. 

The back side, with the liner SHOWING. 

To top my night off, I went to get a glass of water, and the cat stole my seat on the couch!

Other than that, it’s been nothing but food, store openings, teaching Scout to jump on the closet, and a dog parade (aka, dog walkers). 

This Dr Brown’s Cel-Ray, tasted exactly like celery and club soda. Why do I keep thinking I’ll like celery? 

Checking out a hoodie store hangout, to see how it went, check out Hilarie’s review. 

Love the floors here! Think my landlord will mind if I paint mine like this?? 

That’s all I have for you! If anyone has a book on how to end a sentence, story or blog, send it my way. 

xo ZZ

For years we’ve heard my dad tell the story of when the cops found him and his friend riding their motorcycles in the woods of a state park, which was not allowed.  The tale is that the policeman who were on foot, finally caught up with them to make them stop. Because they were in the woods, they had to walk back up the hill to get to the police cars.  The bikes are heavy, and heavier pushing them up a hill, so they asked if they could turn them on to have a little help from the engine. The cops finally relented, and let them. The boys jumped on the bikes and took off.

 Last summer in Goteborg, Sweden, we finally got to meet the other culprit in the story, who could vouch for this tall tale. My dad tells the story well, but we learned so much more about it from Billie. He remembered so many more details, how heavy the bikes were to push, what the policeman looked like, the terror of facing their parents, the roar of the throttle, even down to two best friends looking into each other eyes, speaking without words, knowing that they had to jump on at the same time for this to work. 

It got me thinking. I want to remember certain stories, or days, that clearly. So here it is, the story of Hilarie and I jumping off a rock in Sweden.

The day started with a ferry ride to the small island where family friends have an island. We sat in the sun eating cheeses, sandwiches, homemade bread, delicious chocolate cake, yogurt, tomatoes and an endless supply of coffee and tea.

When we couldn’t eat another bite, we headed back to the water to get on a boat from 1965 that barely fit all 7 of us. 

After slowly chugging along the archipelago, we docked on a tiny rock island. We wandered around for a while on the rocks, then watched two true Swedes jump into the freezing cold water, and acting like it was fun.

The Swedes politely left us to do some thinking about whether we had the nerve to jump. In to freezing cold water. Naked. While our friends and my brother could come back at any moment since they were unaware of our plan.

We got undressed and stood on the rock edge, trying to soak in any last bit of sunshine we could. Just two best friends looking into each other eyes, trying to summon the courage, but mostly because of the nakedness.

There was lots more convincing each other, laughter and many looks over our shoulders to see if anyone was near.

Then we lept. The 10 foot jump felt like it lasted milliseconds and I was instantly overcome by the shockingly cold water.  The water felt thinner than other waters, but probably because it seemed like I had forgotten how to swim. We managed to climb back to the rocks, and are hysterically laughing at this point. It takes several minutes for Hilarie to finally be able to tell me that my nose was bleeding and was gushing blood down me. I had also managed to cut myself on the barnacles so the scratches on my legs are feet were bleeding. We’re beyond laughing, and have moved on to hyperventilating from the ridiculousness of it all. It made it that much harder to climb back up the cliff edge.  

I have never been so happy to lay in the sun in 50 degree weather. Compared to the water, it felt so much hotter, and the rocks were like a toasty oven.

The Swedes had gone to find the other boys and upon telling Derek that we were jumping in, he quietly headed back our way. Nick and Peter arrived to discover us in towels, not happy that since we had jumped, they knew they had to as well.  They used the spare bathing suits, jumped into together, and came out cursing together.

Derek was not as eager to jump into the cold water, but since he was the only one left who hadn’t, he quickly stripped down and ran towards the water, naked, while I had my video camera at the ready. 

 Then another gorgeous boat ride back to the island, where we had another amazing home cooked meal, played Swedish games, and had great conversations all night.  

The Opera is exhausting. I spent half of it holding my nose closed from the man farting next to me, holding my mouth closed from watching the actors faux vomit into a communal bucket, and being dizzy from reading the words flashing in front of me and then back to the stage.  Then when I moved seats farther away from Mr. Smelly, Mr. I-like-to-conduct-the-orchestra-from-the-mezzanine was sitting next to me.  And he stared at ME when I quietly took out a piece of gum!

Macbeth. I didn’t mention that’s what we went to see.  I know a teeny bit about the story; I’ve learned a little bit more from “Sleep No More” and Hilarie summed it up in elementary language, with phrases like “then MacBeth just starts freaking out” which actually helped a lot.

The stage was amazing. The Metropolitan Opera stage is huge. Opening act, there were 70 witches on stage. I thought woah, they’re really just bringing everyone out at the get go, huh. Then I realized they were all female sopranos, so there would be even more. At one point there was 200 cast members on the stage. I don’t think I’ve seen a show with more than 30 or 40 people.

Since this is my first opera, (just know in my head I’m saying Oprah) I have no idea whether it was good or not. After 5 minutes, the people behind me said “this is dreadful” but then later they were all hoohawing about how good it was. It was definitely impressive- singing, stage, and costumes. Except the part where rings come from the ceiling filled with the fairy godmother wielding her wand.

…I wish I had binoculars. 

To sum up my experience at the opera – It would have been better with words.   

Grandma, if you’re still reading this and haven’t disowned me, we had a GREAT time, I love trying something new, and thanks so much for being sick so we could go. 

I’m about to sit down at the computer to write about a lucky incident that happened yesterday when the chair slips out from underneath me, I crash onto my back on the wood floor, hit my head, and spill my icy treat all over the room.  What I was going to say before this scene out of Three Stooges, was that last night while Hilarie and I were editing a video, and I was daydreaming about SoftServe – the buzzer goes off. Who could that be? Everyone who knows where I live in New York is in my apartment or asleep (grandma).

“Delivery”

Me: “I didn’t order anything”

“Delivery from SoftServe”

Me: “I didn’t order anything”

“Sorry must have the wrong apartment”

BUZZZZZZZZ

Me: “Stil me, I didn’t order anything”

“4A?”

Me: “That’s me”

“It’s says Zoey”

Me: “I guess come up then… ” Hilarie and I couldn’t decide if some mystery admirer had sent me ice cream or we were about to murdered, so I did the exact thing you’re not supposed to do when a stranger wants to be buzzed in. “Come on up, I’m home alone! 4A!”

She hands me a bag from Soft Serve that contains the exact order I placed last week. A quart of raspberry sorbet with a side of pomegranate seeds. But I got my order last week, about 5 minutes after I placed it.

Well isn’t that lucky! I never win anything. Ever. I’m constantly submitting my name for Ellen’s giveaways, Oprah’s show and Vogue shopping sprees. And the person who wins it, turns out to be my Dad, who hates Oprah! So I was feeling very good about my luck turning around, as I’m grabbing that tub of ice cream to chow down on.

Now I’m cleaning up melting ice cream that managed to fling itself clear across the apartment, under the closed bathroom door, and using the rest of that “lucky delivery” to ice my behind.

Yay! Hilarie and I started a YouTube Channel. I’ve been wanting to do this forever, but we just got around to making one yesterday.

Here it is!! Click here!

Maybe it’s because yesterday was St Patricks Day, maybe it’s because I read Green Eggs and Ham last week, but apparently I’m craving green food. I didn’t even realize until they were both completed and sitting in bowls next to each other. I also realized that I don’t have a food processor, and I need one. Both of these recipes would have been better with one, instead I resorted to chopping for a very long time. I’m exhausted.

The first recipe is very quick and easy and courtesy of Dad. It’s just chopped up celery and fennel. Throw in some lemon, pepper, salt and olive oil. It’s weird that I like it, because I hate celery, and licorice (which fennel tastes like). But somehow when you combine those things, their two negatives equal a positive. Just like in math. I wonder what else equates that way. It’s even better when you can chop it in a food processor a little so the pieces are smaller.

Second recipe, lemon basil pasta. The recipe claimed to be quick, easy and use only 5 ingredients. That was only partly true.

Cook some linguine up in boiling water, the last 2 minutes, throw in a can of beans. Whatever kind you like, I used cannellini beans.

While that’s doing it thing, grate the peel from half a lemon. Again, I have no equipment in my kitchen, so I used a knife, then chopped it up as finely as I could. Heat up for a few minutes on the stove with some olive oil until it becomes golden brown.

Then throw into a food processor, or as I like to call it in my kitchen, a Hamilton Beach blender.

Add a cup of basil, the juice from that lemon you peeled, salt and pepper, little more olive oil, and this is where it gets really weird.

Drain your pasta, but save half the water. I’m not kidding. You’re going to add spoonfuls of that disgusting dirty bean/pasta water to your “food processor”. Since I was using a blender, I had to add a lot more water than I wanted to reach of the blades. But really just add as much as you want until the sauce is the right consistency. Blend.

Then throw it on your pasta and stir around. At this point, it just tasted okay. So I added some more lemon. Then I heated up some garlic and threw that in there. Then some more lemon. Now it’s just a notch above okay. Not that it taste bad, it doesn’t have much flavor though. Next time I’ll add more garlic, and some parmesan cheese at the end. It could be that I’m eating it freezing cold because the air conditioner blows right onto my eating area.

This has been another episode of “Zoey Attempts To Cook”. Thanks for tuning in.