blame it on rio
that’s all, folks. this weekend, i’m leaving for the sunny sandy shores of my motherland. i’m going to walk up and down the beach every morning for exercise. i’m going to drink countless beers and caipirinhas with my brothers and visit my aunt in her mountaintop village. i’m going to sing silly songs with my niece and catch up with my saintly sister-in-law.
i’m going to drink coffee every morning with an amazing woman, sixty years my senior and every bit as sharp, funny and outgoing. i’m going to buy beers for her grandson and make his girlfriend jealous by dragging him along with me to clubs. i’m going to smoke cigarettes on the beach, after manicures, in the hallways of the shopping malls. i’m going to wear flip flops every day and let my hair be curly. i’m going to eschew makeup in favor of a suntan. i’m going to have afternoon espressos at our friend’s jewelry store and watch the tourists stroll by with their fanny packs and their bermuda shorts.
i’m going to rio. and don’t worry – i’m coming back. but i may not really want to.
how do you know if you need it when you’ve never done without it?
this morning, i woke up late, at 8:33. usually, i wake up at 7:55 and manage to shower, have a cup of coffee and a cigarette while watching katie couric be irrepressibly perky, then get dressed, put on some makeup, change purses, check that i have everything, and run out the door. this morning, i managed to shower, suck down a cigarette while throwing on clothes, and get out of the house by 8:55.
notice the crucial step missing? not katie couric, people. the coffee. the sweet, black, life-affirming and eyelid-opening coffee. the elixir that allows me to dress exactly right, every day, for every occasion. the sweet nectar that reminds me to take bills in to work and pay them, take my umbrella if there’s rain in the forecast, turn off the damn lights when i leave. the ambrosia that prevents me from falling asleep in the shower. from stepping on stilettos. from trying to use a bobby pin as an eyeliner pencil.
i forgot the coffee.
i’ve heard people say they don’t drink coffee because they don’t want to be dependent. well, i never had to realize how dependent on coffee i was. BECAUSE IT’S ALWAYS THERE. it always works. it always makes sure i don’t step on stuff, or poke my eye out, or fall down in the shower, or take a completely un-matching purse to work with me. i never feel addicted to coffee AS LONG AS I REMEMBER TO DRINK IT.
but not this morning. this morning my brain feels like its about to sit down on a bench, pull a newspaper over its head, and start crying unconsolably. sentences being sent from my brain to my mouth don’t make the journey intact. i just got out of my chair and forgot to balance myself, and thus pitched forward on the desk.
so now, i’m going to gather the scattered weeping forces of my brain, drag myself downstairs and across the street for a cup of sweet, live-giving coffee. and a bagel. hopefully, the whole crossing-the-street thing won’t be my own personal coffee-less waterloo. really, there should be an emergency caffeine task force for this kind of thing.
welcome to le who bakery. allow me to present the man with the striped hat and the michievous grin. no, it’s not the cat. it’s chef le biscuit. as i flit around the room in my best doofblatten polka dot dress and mussfringnet shoes serving out seussious delicacies, our chef will serenade us with musicial seussical couplets…
We’ll start with a treat for one Miss Shivvy-Roo,
A quite close relation to Cindy Lou Who.
A hopplestalacious flantastic with cream –
A snack plucked straight out of a Gingerquat’s dream.
Begin with a cake of vanilla and pearls
And ribbons of pink from five cute little girls.
Then dip it in custard and caramel goo
and top with a posey, for Miss Shivvy-Roo.
A small treat for Jason will do him quite well
Bubblemint hopplebums inside a green shell
And served with a spoon made of silver and gold
This hopplishly mintbum’s a sight to behold.
Some freshly picked joob leaves are chopped up and diced
And added to tea that is quite nicely spiced.
It’s poured ’round a crumpet and tied to balloons
And eaten by light of great Neptune’s eight moons.
We called in the grublunk with his hundred hands
To make food for Dani’s grand four-course demands.
The way we grow up leaves the grublunk aghast –
He’s young in the future, but old in the past.
Zingzang tarts for dessert will start things off right
A ragout made with glerps picked late late at night
And backwards to lunch is a hot smirfle stew
Zeepple pancakes for breakfast, that’s it, we’re through.
Wee Sonya has ordered a razzle or floop
Instead we might whip up a Flooprazzle Soup.
It’s pink in the middle but blue at the edge
But tasty all over, and to this we pledge!
Dished up in a bowl from the Great Grand Mazoo
You dip in with your forks, just like a fondue.
Cheesy in some bits and fruity in others
This Flooprazzle Soup tastes just like your mother’s.
A wholelotofnothing is what Matthieu craves!
It’s what he shall get, long as Matthieu behaves.
To make one, you start with a plate that’s not there
And top it with bits of not-quite-there air.
You pour on some nada, some zilch, and some zip
Take care not to spill it or drop it or drip!
Then garnish with zero and sprinkle with naught
And sit back and see how much nothing you’ve got!
A tart made with berries, the snooglish kind
With extra grent icing’s what Mark’s got in mind.
“Be sure that the tart is tebfrantious,” he calls
And back in a stout cushy chair our Mark sprawls.
The crust is quite crisp, the berries quite cherry,
Icing made out of a fairy’s grent dairy.
And since these small tarts make you sleep like a pup,
Sextuple espresso to wake Mark back up.
From Stuart, a shout for pavlova rings out
The hullaballoonberry kind, I’ve no doubt.
They’re light as a feather and airy as clouds
Bake up some of these and you’ll surely draw crowds!
They taste like a mix of an orange and a pear
But unlike those fruits, this pavlova is square!
For fun we’ll add whipped shumshum cream, just a drop
And shavings of choc’lit ’til Stuart says stop.
Can’t find it in London? We have it right here!
For Steph, a mersnopple kerbopple, my dear.
Take fizzied up vodka plus fizzied up juice
And let it get shaken by Bruce, our blue goose.
All of these shakes make a great giant bubble
Do it again so you have bubble double.
Then fill up each bubble with sponge cake and rum,
These taste so fantastic, you won’t leave a crumb.
A ballopalloulopoo, Matt, just for you
A sweet treat to snack on and munch on and chew.
It’s layers on layers of pastry and dough
The highest dessert made today, don’tcha know.
It goes from the floor straight on up to the roof
Ten thousand feet high, and of this we have proof!
The two-miles tall Mega-Hippity-Pop
Was flown in today, to reach up to the top.
A Snirflebat Dinglysloop Pie for Miss K
And then we can finish and call it a day.
A pie stuffed with fillings both fruity and tart,
Like blooms made of stardust, a true work of art.
With each bite you take it tastes more and more good
Improving with age like a dinglysloop should.
It’s pretty and pink and it’s lovely, like her
The best of the best, as I’m sure you’ll concur.
*clap clap clap clap*
ED NOTE: biscuit wrote this, people. in full. give me no credit for its sheer stupendipulous brilliance.
seusstastic!
in honor of the great dr. seuss, and today’s 100th birthday that he would have celebrated, tomorrow’s dessert carte will be… rather a la carte. give us the most seussolicious name you can think of [wuzzy-bee pie or murkleposh fingleblatt tartes, for instance] and the great biscuit and i will come up with appropriately seussilian deliciousness to match your seussical dessert name.
because of the sheer quantities of whizzing bollijags and thumping swishvalloos in the back room for this operation, we can only make 10 desserts. everyone else is free to order drinks and their favourite seuss book to cuddle up with.
welcome to le who bakery!
saved in the daniella of time
to go, or not to go
a week ago, on what seemed to be a boring saturday night in astoria, my roommate and i decided to hit the friendly neighborhood pub for a few rounds of pool and a pitcher of cheap beer. we chatted with a gaggle of guys there, and played a few rounds of pool with them [we trounced them]. i finished the evening by doing something highly uncharacteristic – i went over to their apartment down the street to round off the evening with some poker.
one, in particular, was more appealing to me than the rest. we’ll call him Straight Guy, for reasons that will soon be revealed. SG and i hit it off, were flirting like mad, and played the poker game as a team, whispering bets and opinions into each others’ ears all evening. SG told me he had been Queer Eye’d, and the episode was airing a in a week or so. of course, i didn’t believe him and teased him about it mercilessly. [i really didn't believe him until he showed me that his jacket was from Theory, a brand i cannot imagine any straight male would consider worth the pile of money it costs. trust me, it is.]
SG repeatedly invited me to the viewing party he was throwing, for the premiere of his episode. i agreed to drop it into my schedule. at the end of the evening, stymied from a more kissy goodbye due to presence of his friend who insisted on walking out with us, we exchanged numbers and i told him to call me to remind me about the party. hello, like i’d forget. i remember everything. i’m a walking calendar.
did he call? nope. my friends said, go to the party anyway, this way, if he acts like a jerk, you’ll know for sure. but this past weekend, i saw the preview air for his episode and decided to nudge the envelope by calling and telling him, “hey, i finally saw the preview, now i really believe you. give me a call and let me know about the party!” leaving my phone number and assuming he hadn’t called before due to a crippling case of Stupid Boy Syndrome, i figured this was his chance.
well, he didn’t return the call. and now i’m left wondering if i should go or not. my same-night pre-party plans will no doubt prove as much fun, if not more, as my drinking partner of choice that evening is always good for a round of laughs. if i go, i might feel my pride slighted and he might turn out to be a jerk beyond just the exhibited negligence thus far. but if i don’t, i might always wonder. we had a fun connection, he was showing all the usual signs of interest… even if just on a passing flirtational level.
since i hate deciding such delicate matters myself, i’ve decided to leave it to you, bloggers. throw your vote in there. go? or no go? all wisdom is appreciated. even the kind i ultimately veto.
p.s. voting closes tomorrow at 3 pm, assuming SG doesn’t call. and calling a handful of hours before an event is the height of tackiness.
well, thanks to our gal pal daniella who actually bothered to check the queer eye site, it seems mister Flirty Flirty has a “long term girlfriend”. which, hey, more power to him, it’s a lonely city, n’est ce pas? but since not only was he openly flirting with me, his friends were jokingly encouraging it and giving me not so subtle go-thither hints… i think i’ll daintily pluck my stiletto out of that wasp nest and traipse merrily along.
