arghh, dating

Or not. For some reason, I've gotten a lot of hits on my OK Cupid profile without doing much about it. I keep telling myself I should just take it down, it's been nearly two years, and hasn't done much but provide me with some entertaining blog posts. Some of the latest:

Christopher: Yep. 'Dangerboy' was back, probably with more tattoos than ever. A year after his last disappearance, he sent me a message over the OKC website. I should have known it was suspect; he has (or had) my email and number, and could have contacted me by other means. It took us two weeks to get together, mostly due to my reluctance to let this guy back in although I was dying of curiosity as to why he was contacting me AGAIN. After disappearing twice with only lame excuses of 'I was swamped with work' or the classic 'I was really sick.' I was half expecting, 'The dog ate my phone.' We got together for a drink, he talked about his latest schemes to create the next greatest social networking site, but in the meantime he was working in advertising on Madison Avenue for a firm that has had a mention on Mad Men. It was fun, I was still suspicious. I had to go to Syracuse for work the following week, but he said we should get together when I got back. When I returned, I was busy with other things, got back to the OKC site a couple of days later to send him a message. Shock of all shocks - his profile had been removed! I'm now convinced he's had a girlfriend all this time that he'd occasionally get bored with, and play around on OKC. She found out, and made him take down his page. Finally. I'm sure she puts up with a lot of grief from him.

Old desperate guy in his 50's: With a nickname of 'Has2CU', what can one really expect? This maybe:

"I asked the computer to find me the most amazing girl in the world and added all the things I’m looking for.

The computer came up with way to many people… so I added that the person should be able to be my best friend and that we should be able to talk about anything in trust and respect. The computer took about a week and came up with still to many people…

So I added that when I’m not near her my heart will be sad and when I look into her eyes I will know I have found my soul mate and the person to spend the rest of my life with.

The computer took two weeks and came up with you"

Made my skin crawl, in a way. Definitely made me wonder how stupid he thinks women on this site are since it was obviously some sort of sappy generic message he wrote for the masses in hopes someone would think he was actually talking to them.

Just today: Two guys in their early 30's IM'd me on the site. Didn't find out right away; brand new Android smart phone has the OKC app, and it's on all the time. One told me I was 'hot' and really wanted to get my IM address outside the site, and the other called me 'sweetie.' Really? Is this all younger men have? It's pathetic.

We'll see how much more patience I have.

Salem the cat

So after 11 years, Salem is moving up to a new home upstate. No, that's not a euphemism, she actually is moving up to my parents' house since I unexpectedly cannot have a cat anymore.

The above photo is her shortly after I rescued her from the pound. I got her after I graduated grad school, and had moved to Brooklyn and wanted a pet. A dog was out of the question - I just wasn't home enough. I had originally had the name 'Gris Gris' in mind. There was a French movie, "Chacun cherche son chat" (When the Cat's Away) that I had enjoyed a couple of years before and thought it was a great name for a cat. When I went up to the pound in Harlem, there was a beautiful gray cat that fit the bill, but it had a mean streak. I nearly walked away petless, but there was this adorable black kitty with no eyebrows on the lowest row of cat cages, and I brought her home. I almost stuck with the name, but when I woke up the next morning, 'Salem' popped into my head, and I thought it would be funny to name her after a talking cat from a TV show.

Within days of bringing her home, she was sick. I came home from work to take her for her free visit to a vet that was included in the adoption, and she looked like that sad sick reindeer in "A Year Without a Santa Claus." The vet I took her to coldly told me that I should just return her. Optimistically thinking that the pound had a vet on staff, I followed his instructions. However, when I got her up there, the staff at the front desk were willing for me to return her. There was no vet to care for her, and when I asked what would happen to her, they flatly said that she would probably be put down. I had only had her for a week, but it broke my heart that these people saw this poor little kitten as disposable. I finally brought her to the ASPCA in tears, met with a vet who diagnosed her with an infection from her spaying operation. The vet gave me some antibiotics for her, and we were on our way.

Forward 11 years to present day. Tomorrow, I'm bringing Salem up to her new home. It's my parents' house which she's somewhat familiar with, having spent some holidays up there. I'm looking around my apartment now, running a checklist of the things I need to bring: food? check. remaining litter? check. toys? check (not that she really plays, she's pretty happy just sitting around). She doesn't have that many belongings.

What happened? You may ask. It started with a laundry incident and ended with Salem getting evicted.

A couple of weeks ago, I had gotten an email from my landlord asking if I had been exchanging the laundry for cat sitting services. I had been letting a friend in the building occasionally to use the laundry, although it wasn't in exchange for anything. She lives in the neighborhood, and there's not really anywhere nearby to do your own laundry (that I know of. Since I have laundry in the building, I don't really know where the closest one is, and haven't passed by one), so I thought I'd do her a favor and let her use the pay laundry in the basement from time to time. The last time she was in the building, someone asked her who she was, and she fabricated the story about laundry for cat sitting. Unfortunately, the person she spoke with was a board member, and did not take kindly to the idea that a tenant was bartering away condo property for her own gain.

It didn't matter that it wasn't true. This indiscretion led to questions of my apartment situation, and why I had a cat when the building had a no-pets clause for tenants (that was news to me since there are a lot of dogs in the building). I hadn't been on a lease since the year before when my first lease expired, so the solution was easy enough - sign another lease.

The next issue was harder to deal with. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a real estate lawyer as far as whether I had any recourse. Unfortunately, since I am a renter in a condo building, it is legal for them to have different rules for renters and owners (the happy dog people). I also found that there is a Pet Law in New York State that protects renters with pets, but unfortunately doesn't apply to condos in Manhattan. So it was the end of the line for Salem.

In a way, I think this will be a better life for Salem. My parents' house is large, and she'll have more room to run around in. I'm also going to be traveling a lot for work in the next year or two, and that's a lot of cat sitting to ask of someone. The only downside is she'll have to get used to living with my parents' cat, Finn.

Hopefully, they'll be fine.

The evils of delicious food

No wheat. No dairy. To add to that: no sugar, no caffeine, no red meat, no processed foods. oh yeah, and no alcohol. Of course the one I asked the nutritionist on a break on was the no alcohol. She relented, saying I should take it easy. So I have, for the most part.

Yes, my body has decided once again that it doesn't want anything delicious, and is going to rebel and show me who's boss. Or at least, things I once thought were delicious. After things you once enjoyed turn on you, you no longer crave them. Pizza? The combination of wheat and dairy is right now the worst thing ever. Cupcakes? No thanks. Crunchy right out of the oven french bread? Well, that still sounds good, but no. No thanks. One would think it's a sacrifice giving these things up, but feeling healthy is so much better.

My doctor has run some tests, which I'm guessing will be inconclusive. There's not much you can do when your system just develops an intolerance for certain foods. Part of me wonders if by overindulging in these things, I've caused the problem. One of my fellow sailors was talking about how sometimes for dinner, he just eats a whole loaf of bread. Not sliced white bread in a bag, mind you. Good bread. In my current frame of mind, I'm thinking, "Dude, you're just asking for trouble when you get older."

The plus side - I've lost about 12 lbs. I guess there's something good that comes out of everything.

the IKEA saga

A couple of weeks ago, I had had enough. My creaky old bed frame had caused me to wake up in the middle of the night for the last time. It had served me well for the last seven or eight years or so, but it had to go. Time to buy a new bed frame.

This new frame would be the first I've ever bought - I had survived with a futon through college, living in San Francisco, and my first couple of years in New York. I upgraded to a mattress on the futon frame until Heidi moved out of our apartment on Union Street to move in with her boyfriend. She offered me her bed frame since she wouldn't be needing it anymore. With a box spring and the super cushy pillow top mattress, my bed looked like it was right out of the Princess in the Pea story; the top of the bed was at least three feet off the floor, and I felt like I needed a step stool to get into it. I traded the box spring for sheets of plywood, and the bed was down to a normal height. Having dumped my college era sleeping furniture, it was one of those many moments of feeling like an adult that I had in my early 30's. Silly, I know.

On one of my Friday's off, I headed down to Pier 11 to catch the Water Taxi to IKEA. I had spotted a bed on their website that I liked - it was simple, basically a wooden box with drawers, no headboard - but wanted to look at it, sit on it, and basically make sure it wasn't a total piece of crap. I also just liked the idea that I could get to IKEA via water; I didn't have to deal with taking the subway to the decrepit Smith / 9th Street F station over the Gowanus, and then taking the bus through the no man's land that is Red Hook. There are good things in Red Hook, the Lobster Pound comes to mind, but taking that B61 bus is not one of them.


After a relatively short journey, I find myself quickly winding my way through the maze of IKEA in search of their bedroom furniture section. I'm not looking at anything else, I'm on a mission, I find the bed, it looks good. I buy it, then take the ferry back home to wait for delivery. After a couple of hours, the delivery guys arrive with the bed. They bring it inside my apartment, and I'm pretty excited to have my new bed.

That is, until I open the box. Three of the pieces are damaged. Unfortunately, there is no white glove service with IKEA. I briefly consider trying to jury rig the pieces to get them to work, but realize it's no use. I call IKEA in defeat to see what can be done.

After many phone calls with customer service where the low point was their representative suggesting that I could go out to Paramus, NJ to go buy a new bed, I settle on reordering the bed from their online store. I'm now waiting on a call from their delivery service for tomorrow's arrival of the new bed. Hopefully, it will all arrive in one piece.

For the past two weeks, I've been sleeping with my mattress on the floor, since I had dismantled the old creaky bed prior to seeing the crushed IKEA pieces. I feel like I'm back to the days on Union Street, back to before I had a bed and felt like an adult. It's slightly unsettling, but at least my bed is not waking me up at 3AM.

The Food of my Ancestors

I recently discovered I have a real talent for cooking potatoes. Shocking, I know, the staple of the Irish diet. Growing up, we had some form of potatoes for dinner nearly every night, usually mashed or baked. I had no appreciation for the tuber. Blech. Boring, boring white food.

For a Fourth of July afternoon cookout at the Community Boat House, I planned to make a roasted potato cold salad. I typically just cover the potatoes in olive oil, and put in some rosemary, salt, and pepper. I decided to change it a bit, and added some cayenne pepper and nutmeg. I also had some tomatoes that needed to have something done to them, so I cut them in half and through them in with the potatoes for the last couple of minutes. Then I spotted the sliced almonds in my cabinet, and they were added as well. I was making it up as I went along, and it turned out pretty delicious.

My friend Heidi had a party for the final game of the World Cup, so I was on the search for a recipe for patatas bravas to root for Spain. When I lived in San Francisco, there were a couple of tapas restaurants that had the most amazing potato dish, and my hope was to find something to replicate it.

I sent out a plea on Facebook, asking if anyone had a recipe for the amazing potato. My friend Alex emailed me a recipe he had from a book by Penelope Casas, Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain. Recipe is listed below.

Serves 4
2 Medium-Large potatoes
2 medium-large potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
Olive oil
Salt
Alioli Sauce (below), thinned to sauce consistency if necessary

AIOLI SAUCE
1 cup mayonnailse, preferably homemade
4 or more cloves garlic, mashed to a paste or put through a garlic press

To make the Alioli, combine the mayonnaise and garlic. Let sit at room temperature until ready to use

TOMATO SAUCE
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 glove garlic, minced
3 medium tomatoes (about 3/4 pound), chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1/2 dried red chili pepper, seeded and crumbled, or 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon sugar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper

Grease a roasting pan and arrange the potatoes in one layer. Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and bake at 375ºF for about 45 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until the onion is wilted. Add the tomatoes and sauté for another few minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, wine, water, parsley, chili pepper, Tabasco, bay leaf, sugar, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain. The sauce should not be too thick---thin with water if necessary.
To serve, arrange the potatoes in a bowl or on a dish. Spoon on several tablespoons of the tomato sauce, then 3 or 4 tablespoons of the Alioli. (note: You may make this dish without the Alioli, if you prefer.)

Today in sports

As most of you probably know, I'm not the biggest sports fan, but today was crazy! US wins their group in the World Cup! There was screaming in the streets, strangers hugging each other over the win, you'd think we were anywhere else in the world other than on American soil.

There was spontaneous National Anthem singing:
http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2010/06/the_scene_outside_dempseys_aft.html

Although when I first saw this without headphones, and it looked like a bunch of flag waving folk protesting the UPS truck. At least they knew all the words, unlike half of the US team.

After spending the morning watching Univision.com, the only site with live streaming of the games (although the only word I can understand is "GOAL!), and then a brief celebration with co-workers who all wished we could just go out and get a beer (unfortunately, we had a continuing education seminar scheduled for lunch), things seemed to setting down. Then a friend sent me this link, a live feed from Wimbledon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8753437.stm

10 hours? 59-59 in the 5th set? both players winning aces on their 58th point? This is pure insanity. This one match will be going into it's third day tomorrow. It's also only the second round. If these two guys are fighting this hard just to advance, who knows what they could do in the later rounds. We'll probably never find out though as they both collapse from exhaustion tomorrow.

World Cup Fever

New blog templates, thank you Google. If only I could make one myself, if only I was that clever...or knew someone who was.

Anyway, every four years or so, most of the world's attention turns to the World Cup. Except for the US. With the exception of New York City. Nearly every bar with a TV is broadcasting all the games, and my only regret is that they are not timed to typical lunch time. 10AM? Too early. 2PM? Too late. I only have the upper reaches of ESPN channel 170 which repeats the games at night so I can watch The Beautiful Game as the Brazilians like to call it. I don't care that I already know the score.

On the eve before the final matches of Group C, I find myself actually hoping that the US gets into the Knockout Round. I'm not a big fan of US Soccer; it just pales in comparison to the European teams, not to mention the South Americans. In general, they're inconsistent, and just seem to lack the passion of the world powerhouses (that may be because they have relatively so few fans). But this time seems different. Keep in mind, this US team nearly won the Confederations Cup last year, losing only against Brazil. England also is just not up to their usual standards, and it looks like the second spot for advancement will be us or them. As a person of Irish decent, can I really route for the English? No, I say! That may have more to do with the fact Becks isn't playing this time around, even if he is there as silent support for them. I just hope it doesn't come down to a coin toss between them. It could happen - those are the crazy rules of the World Cup.

England isn't the only traditionally strong team that is having a poor showing - Italy lets the match with New Zealand, a team that consists of a mix of professional and amateur players, end in a draw? Spain loses to Switzerland? Don't even get me started on the train wreck of France. They've just fallen into soap opera histrionics and even seemed to be throwing their match today to South Africa in protest.

There is one good thing about the high number of upsets - what teams will end up in the round of 16 is unpredictable. NY Mag online had a list of scenarios for what would have to happen for each team to move on to the next round, and it's mind boggling. Lots of 'if/then' situations that read like math proofs and information about goal differential. No one seems safe, which makes for some interesting games.

The only countries that seem to have a slight cushion are the South Americans. All the participating countries won their first match, and then there is Argentina who won all three. Brazil and Chile may match that feat in their groups, but they are each facing Portugal and Spain respectively. I hope they pull it out, especially Brazil. Two reasons: I've chosen them to take it all in my office pool, and I cannot stand the Portuguese pretty boy, Christian Ronaldo (apologies to all my Portuguese friends).

With South Africa hosting, I think there was a lot of hope for more African teams advancing. Unfortunately, it looks like it may only be Ghana, but with the way things could go, who knows?

Back to my original point: why isn't the US consumed with soccer? Why do we call it soccer when it is called football nearly everywhere else? Some people say that it's the low scoring potential. To this I say that low scoring has nothing to do with the excitement of the match. There is constant movement, the ball is always in motion, and if you've got a lot of shots on goal in a game, there's nothing more nail biting even if the score is 0-0. The time keeping is better than any US sport: 45 minute halves with a couple of minutes added for injury time. With a cushion of 10 minutes, you know pretty precisely when the game with end. There is no overtime, a tie is an acceptable result (maybe that's why it's not popular in the US, no winner).

Obviously, most Americans have not watched soccer on Univision. If that had, there would be no resisting the excitement when the sportscaster yells, "GGGGGOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!!

Four years from now, I'm definitely headed to Brazil. What better place to see the World Cup?