My pitas page

page six
it always cracks me up when an item i send into page six about an author (at least tangentially about an author) runs. i mean, what do i know about gossip? almost exactly nothing. but i do know chris tucker when i see him.

wedding cake flavor and design: decided
i cannot wait for this (as you may have guessed, those who know me). it will be a chocolate ganache and coconut macaroon flavored cake covered in buttercream and shredded coconut. see the article about white cakes in the spring issue of "martha stewart weddings" for a picture of what we're going for--you'll know it when you see it. yay bayard's!

u.s.-iraq newspaper on the skids
is anyone surprised?

d.c. party
i never went to any party like this when i lived in d.c., and i was even in "the media." though, granted, if you have ever heard of where i worked i'd have to question whether you'd ever get invited to this party either.

bridal shower(s) thank you notes: purchased
two thumbs up to libgrrl, who told me about this great stationery site.

wedding invites: printed and assembled
this is seriously too exciting. c and i printed and assembled all the invites yesterday. only thing to do is bring them home to massachusetts later in the month, stuff 'em in the envelopes my mother is so nicely addressing for us, and mail those puppies out. no turning back now! : )

rehearsal dinner dress: purchased!

date night
last night c and i actually went out to dinner for no reason and stuffed ourselves beyond belief at this very yummy place in grand central. the tomato soup was seriously amazing. we've decided we are going to do this once a month, and i get to pick our next venue. very exciting!

mr. delegate...
last night c and i went to the united nations, sat in real honest-to-goodness seats in the general assembly hall, used the earpieces to hear the russian ambassador speak, and watched the oscar-winning short documentary "Chernobly Heart." it was an amazing film, so incredibly gutting. those of you who know me well know that underneath my calm cool exterior is someone who *loves* babies, so to see children being born with horrific and in some cases treatable/preventable birth defects was really hard. especially since for $300 a pop the biggest health problem, the "chernobyl heart," could be fixed. $300! that's it! it blows my mind that this can't be done, but apparently doctors in the ukraine and belarus and russia only make about $100 a month, so you see where the problem crops up. isn't there some rich person somewhere who could give them a couple million bucks? come on people, step up to the plate! at any rate, i'll be sending a check soon. not for a million bucks, but it's something. one has to start somewhere.

chernobyl
yesterday was the anniversary of this accident, which i remeber vividly even though i was just a kid. tonight c and i are heading to the UN for this documentary screening--should be quite sad but i think/hope ultimately inspiring.

go visit holly
because her site is very fun.

shout out to the women
and men, who made it to d.c. this weekend to march for the right to choose. i wish i could have been there, but alas, life got in the way.

plan of attack
purchased this book last night and finished the prologue. i think i am quite going to enjoy it even though i prefer to get my non-fiction reading in newspaper and magazine form. it sticks it to the man, if you will, and every little bit we can get to boot this administration out of power is a good thing.

changing your name
fun question from salon.com on whether this woman should take her husband's name once they're hitched. as some of you know, this has been something for me to obsess over big time--while it would be nice to not have to spell out my long last name for every tom, dick, and harry (all short names! gr!) there is a part of me that will miss it a lot. it's been mine for 28 years and is very much part of who i am, even though, yes, technically it's just a name and losing it does not mean i am losing my identity and whatnot. it's just going to be hard to get used to, that's all. i can't even imagine how long it will take to get the new signature worked out!

fur love
this site has seen a good deal of me lately. c and i will do the right thing and wait til after we're married to become "parents" but i still love to look at all the cute dog babies that need homes. if it were up to me we'd have to move to a farm to accommodate all the ones i've wanted to adopt thus far.

slate.com
a brilliant deconstruction of bush's press conference the other night and the many untruths (perhaps mis-truths) he espoused.

muse
bowery ballroom last night housed some serious rock. muse were very, very good, and they have the lighting equipment to prove that in europe they play stadiums. but here they were in a much smaller space, and it was a very, very good show audio-wise. i have a crush on the lead singer (shocking) who's sort of like a dark-haired-thom-from-radiohead. and note to all the tall people: thanks for blocking the majority of my view. i appreciate it.

the press conference
as you can imagine, there are many things to say about last night's press conference with good old dubya. the questions seemed less scripted than last time, which was a huge relief. there were precious few occasions for the prez to say "nucular." and i'm hoping it wasn't just us who noticed that he didn't really ever answer any of the questions posed to him--he's a master evader, but not a master at hiding the fact that he's an evader. if you know what i mean. so at least we know he's evading every topic put before him. favorite moments: dubya saying "the almighty" wants everyone in the world to be free, dubya getting snotty at the NPR reporter's question (yay NPR!), dubya smirking inappropriately a few times, dubya saying he's not worried about losing his job, and dubya calling both colin powell and donald rumsfeld the secretary of state...in the same breath. i kid you not. if you want one of the "anti-bush" t-shirts i plan on making up over the next week or two, just let me know.

wedding cake #2
i learned some valuable things this weekend with wedding cake #2. namely, never wait until the day before to make all 60 sugar flowers needed for said cake. it took about 10 hours and i am not exaggerating one bit--i might even be low-balling that. but now i know for next time. i also learned that c's brother and sis-in-law SERIOUSLY rock for driving us to this here wedding site sunday a.m. very early. and that this here wedding site was very, very creepy inside. i don't think it's nation-of-islam-run (not that there's anything wrong with that) but it was still rather cult-ish. but the bride was still sweet and i got paid, so who cares, right?

hysterical
this handy website will help you, the bride, (a) find out how entitled you feel to get gifts from your wedding guests, and (b) find out how much each guest should be forking over based on their income/lifestyle/bragging about money, etc. which is all kind of horrible, but it could be amusing if one actually took the time to do it.

my friend libgrrl
has a great random story up on her weblog about the subway, a cute boy, and graham greene.

pour some sugar on me
or all over the floor of my little kitchen, which is pretty much what the place looked like friday night when i was deep in the throes of creating my First Real Wedding Cake. it turned out very well, if i do say so myself, and the ride to this venue in queens was heart-stopping but uneventful. i hope the bride liked it--she was there chilling out pre-everything and seemed pleased as far as i could tell. onward!

my new role model
how cool is this runner chick, who also bakes and throws great parties? would that i could run like her...but i guess instead i'll just take out of this the lesson that one must live a full life to succeed, even if success is only yours to know about. hopefully i am working in that direction.

sample sale = good thing
just back from a sample sale by this designer where miss h.p. bought a dress that will likely be her dress at my wedding. she looks hot, as you would imagine those of you who know her. so yay!

statue of lib, welcome back
but if the statue does indeed re-open in 4 months...that puts it right before THE BIG DAY. which means that on a saturday in battery park there will likely be a huge number of tourists. which of course c and i had thought about, but we had kind of figured that there would only be normal tourist flow, not above-normal-tourist-flow like the kind that the re-opening of the freakin' statue of liberty could very well create. i am going to remain calm.

allez!
going to see man u again this summer when they play at giant's stadium. thankfully this year the majority of people we're going with have cars so we'll be able to bum a ride off someone. the bus from port authority was fun and all...but not really. i'm lying about that, actually. it wasn't fun--it was only fun to watch kids play street soccer in the rain while waiting for the damn bus to take us home.

first dance song: selected

bargain bride strikes again
so who knew e-bay really rocks? (ok, i did long ago. but i guess i forgot it a little.) won an auction this weekend that scores us enough pillar candles for all wedding table centerpieces for, like, half the cost of the lowest online retailer price i could find. check another thing off that list, baby.