Forty Days and Forty Nights

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday—the beginning of Lent. Three days before, my friend introduced me to Pinterest—this new online craze in case you haven’t heard of it. How these two could possibly be related… well. This is a funny story.

Every Lent, for the past maybe ten years, I have given up the same thing—candy. You heard me right. Candy. I’m a serious addict. Gummy bears, licorice, Sour Patch Kids, those candy raspberries and blackberries, sour fruity ‘pasta’, Swedish fish, Sweet Tarts…the list goes on and on. I was telling this to my mother the other day and she replied with a tinge of shock in her voice: “Candy? And you eat it?” No I collect it. Yes I eat it. I’m 35 and I am addicted to candy. Call it my vice. Anyway, back to Lent. I always give up candy, because it really and truly is a sacrifice. I crave it so badly, it is a daily struggle to say no.

This year, I decided to kick it up a few notches: No candy. No weeknight wine. And while I’m on the no sugar track, I’m on a diet (a fast of sorts I suppose) that is more or less no-frills eating… no indulgences. I can do this for 40 days….and forty nights.

So I started the eating plan. And as any of you who have ever really committed to a diet know, those first few days are the hardest. Your body is feeling a little weak, certainly hungry; the cravings are enough to make you dizzy. It kind of stinks. And yes, you selfishly forget that some people in this world– in our own neighborhoods– go hungry for days on end. Anyway, I’m at desk the other day, eating my dry, veggie-only salad feeling sorry for myself and I get a text from my friend reminding me to go on Pinterest. Perfect timing, I thought. I’ll do it now. Get my mind off this fast.

Pinterest, for those of you who don’t know, is a website that essentially allows a user to create digital bulletin boards, or inspiration boards, or pinboards. You visit the site, see images of things you like and you ‘pin’ them. There are all different kinds of categories like art, architecture, fashion, gardening, health and fitness, cooking and food, home crafts. You pin whatever you want and create ‘boards’ in whatever category you want. It’s like an art project, and spending time on it sort of feels like a game. And to be honest, it’s a little overwhelming…but, in a good way.

So there I was at lunch eating my greens and the first thing I tag is Olive Oil Chocolate Mousse.

And then it’s Fried Mac N Cheese Balls.

And I just kept clicking and clicking like a mad-woman on a binge.

Parmesean Fries…Waffled Cinnamon Buns…Flourless Chocolate Cookies.

And then the phone rang—my boss, needing something asap. So I make a last pin, and I’m getting ready to log off and just before I do, I get redirected back to my home page.

And this is what I see:

Olive Oil Chocolate Mousse

Fried Mac N Cheese Balls

Parmesan Cheese Fries

Waffled Cinnamon Buns

Chewy Gooey Flourless Chocolate Cookies

Oh dear.

Clearly candy is not my only problem. We’re only seven days into Lent and meanwhile my mother is telling me about her priest’s homily about really fasting, like no food for a day, or two or three. And I think I should try… to really sacrifice.

I think I can do it.

 

God give me strength.

The Coffee Cart

Last week the Times ran a story about the eye-popping cost of single serve coffee– you know, those little K-cups we’ve all become so accustomed to…at work and at home, thanks to the now infamous Keurig machine and its rivals that are following close behind. The story was particularly “timely”, as one of my co-workers put it, because coincidentally, the very day before, I was responsible for switching out our current near-death Keurig for a new machine of a different brand that we would be giving a trial run.

You wouldn’t believe the drama that came with this changeover if I had a video clip of my co-workers’ reactions to show you. The complaints I heard—“It’s slow.” “It’s loud.” “It looks like a cyborg.” 

Meanwhile, I couldn’t care less. I don’t use the machine (save for the once-in-a-blue-moon mid-afternoon breakdown where I’m dying for a caffeine jolt and I just can’t muster up the strength to walk down the block to a coffee shop). I typically only drink coffee in the morning, and that coffee, I get from the best place in town–the coffee cart. My coffee cart.

I know, because I’ve read it a million times: a simple money-saver is to bring your own coffee to work. Buying a cup everyday adds up sure, and if I brought my own in a thermos, think of all the money I would save in a year. I could take a weekend vacation, buy that bag I’ve been drooling over, make an extra credit card payment. I get it. But… I’m not indulging in daily five-dollar concoctions from Starbucks or the slightly less but still pricey pour-over cup from the indie place a few streets down that brews Stumptown. Yes, Stumptown, my fave– indeed a delight for the senses, but for me, something I save for a treat. For the everyday, it’s a medium coffee, half and half, a dollar-twenty five. Deal.

And the best part? I don’t even have to speak my order. My coffee guy knows me. Ray, standing high up in his platform cart, with his round face and button nose, smiling through his Russian accent. Every morning, once I’m up from the subway and across the avenue, I go to his cart which he has parked there from 3am til noon every day of the work week. Some days there’s no line, others it might be ten people long. (I notice often that the cart on the other side of the block is never busy. It makes me wonder.)

“Sorry for wait,” Ray says in semi-broken English. I laugh, assuring him it’s no problem, and still quicker than the deli or Dunkin Donuts. Everyone in lines agrees. Ray asks me how I am. “It’s Monday,” I say back in a less than enthusiastic tone. “Back to work,” he replies with a sympathetic nod. And then we wish eachother a good day, I go on my merry way and Ray tends to the next guy. A daily routine.

In NYC street carts are a culture. They’re everywhere. I really can’t imagine that one is so much better than any other. These guys are all trying to make a living. But of course like cabbies, maybe the one on this corner is friendlier or faster than the one on that corner. In any case, I feel like by some stroke of luck I found the best one. He knows my face, he knows my order. Take this morning…when I arrived at Ray’s cart, before I could even utter my hello, there was my coffee waiting before my eyes. “It’s ready?” I asked, elated by the surprise. “I saw you across street, so I make for you.” (When has that ever happened at Starbucks?)

“Thank you so much,” I gushed back. “Enjoy your Friday.”

“Ah Friday,” he replied. “Thanks God. Thanks God.” 

 

Yes. Thanks God for Friday. And thanks God for my coffee cart.

Post Valentine’s Day Thoughts

Hurray. I made it through another Valentine’s Day…single…ah-gain.

It wasn’t as if I woke up yesterday convinced I would be serendipitously struck by cupid’s arrow, but after last year, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. It started with me having a summons for jury duty. Yes, jury duty on Valentine’s Day. So then, as luck would have it, I missed my alarm. I got myself out the door as quickly as I could, and in an effort not to be late, I decided to jump in a car rather than hike to the subway. But a minute into the ride I realized I had no cash. So I asked the driver if we could stop at a deli so I could use the ATM. He pulled over, I went in, and when I got back out onto the street,  I found that he had driven off without me. As if that weren’t enough, two hours later (after thankfully being excused from jury duty) I ran into an old crush with a new girl. Awesome.

I do love the holiday. I love the pink and red, the hearts, the cards, the flowers. And I love the idea of love, and all of the ridiculously demonstrative gestures people make in order to show their love for another—the bouquets, the balloons, the chocolates, the pink champagne…but yes, when you’re a lonely heart, sometimes it’s not such a delight.

Thankfully this year I didn’t have jury duty and I did have a date. Ok, so it was really just dinner with a new friend whose long-distance boyfriend and my lack of one left us both free for the evening to catch up over Mexican and margaritas, but hey, I won’t complain. We sat by candlelight and even had a heart-shaped balloon of our own at our table.

I got a good laugh on my commute home overhearing a girl with a cell phone in one hand and a clear shopping bag holding a decorated cupcake in the other say to someone on the other end of the line and seemingly in the doghouse as well say, “If you don’t come back right now, I’m throwing this away and never talking to you again.” Ah love. Inside restaurant windows couples gazed into one another’s eyes while I got a text from a friend saying “Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you’re feeling loved.” Well, sure, I feel loved getting a Valentine’s card from my parents, and another of some family friends surrounded by their 12 precious grandchildren. Examples of love to inspire me. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they were thinking…

So yes, I was feeling loved…but in that mushy-gushy Valentine’s Day sort of way, not so much. I guess things could be worse. I have my candy hearts to binge on for the next week before my Lenten fast begins. And with hope in my lonely (but loved) heart, I will wait.

Maybe next year.

Football Fan? Um, No.

Do I really care? No. I don’t. Did I even know who was playing until the day before? No. To be honest, football is not really my thing. As hard as I’ve tried in the past to grasp it, I don’t know the game. I just don’t. Sure…if I met the man of my dreams and football was his lifeblood, I’d say ‘yes babe, teach me the game and I will be your faithful cheering wingwoman’. I would host the party, wear the jersey and chant the chant. (ok maybe that’s a little extreme…) Anyway, until that day comes, sure, I’ll go to my friend’s Super Bowl party, but whatever the outcome, it really doesn’t matter to me.

Superbowl XLVI: New York Giants v New England Patriots. I’m in New York at a New York party, makes sense to think we’re rooting for New York, right? Well, here there are just as many New Englanders in the mix. Actually my friends who threw the party are Patriots fans. So I go in thinking what’s the dif? I don’t care so much about the Giants, I’ll go for the Pats.

Game starts, I’ve got a good seat, eyes on the big screen tv…and I’m lost. There’s a kick and some scrambling and then a pass and then– oh, who am I kidding? Really it’s all kind of a blur. But then again, Super Bowl for me is not really about the game. It’s the commercials, the tight bodies in those tight uniforms, the stretching, the sweating, the tackles, the dances, the half time show this year with Madge and her sidekicks Nicki and MIA and Cee Lo. Best was when the guy standing next to me said, “I’m just waiting for the muppets to come out”.  It’s about the pizza and wings and the bucket of beer, the commentary by the Patriots fans next to me about how even if they liked the Giants, Eli Manning would make it hard to. I don’t really understand why, but yes it made me chuckle.

So yeah, I have no real idea of what is going on, but by the end can feel the intensity of the situation, the score uncomfortably close, the clock winding down and everyone on their feet and anxious rather than kicked-backed and cozy on the sofa. Will it make any difference to me who wins the title? No, but in the end I remember, I have no real ties to New England save for a handful of Boston memories. So Giants it is. And Giants it was. And when my friends had their heads low and looked at me in disappointment I kinda just smiled and said, yeah well… I’m a New Yorker so…