here you see the view from room 1905 of the muse hotel in manhattan's theatre district. we took a weekend trip to celebrate truman capote's birthday and the completion of the knitting tarot decks (but not books!). we spent a lot of time in koreatown. to see more photos of that -- it's worthwhile -- check out our koreatown slideshow on flickr. also, the portions of the trip that might raise interest to those fiberminded readers of ours.... you know what to do.
we enjoyed our visit to the museum of natural history. how nice it was that, when we picked up ripley at her grand-pere's house, ben had someone to talk to excitedly about the "powers of ten" exhibit in all it's nerdy glory. (once i realized that, quite by coincidence, ben and my dad were reading the same book at the same time. it was a book about the golden ratio.)
we spent some time in the asian peoples gallery and were interested to find that the chinese -- like the koreans -- hold a special ceremony for their infants in which the baby chooses an item from a prescribed assortment on a tray, indicating in what field his profession will be when he is an adult. we had only heard about the korean tol ceremony, never the chinese one.
i myself enjoyed the vosges chocolate bars that we bought in the museum shop... do check the link. we had the naga and the black pearl flavors but god i am dying to try their sicilian sea salt chocolate, and the balsamic vinegar chocolate, and the absinthe...
of course, we also enjoyed some sushi at monster sushi. dragon roll, park avenue roll...
...did i mention that we actually used one of those "pedicabs" -- the little cart attached to a bicycling driver -- to get down fifth avenue? our pedicabbie was a sweetie. some of fifth ave. is distinctly downhill. 
this picture is for amy, the real corpse bride!!!!
this trip cheered up and chilled out a couple of really worn-out, weary, uptight people. you almost never hear me say this, but i was sorry to come home -- i wish we were still there!
we went to new york last week. did all the standard holiday things. you've got to do the things.
we didn't stay overnight at the plaza, although we have in the past. (we've stayed at the algonquin too. but our favorite manhattan hotel, i think, has been the muse.) we also didn't see any topless shows. gee. did we have any fun at all, now that i think of it?
of course we did.
we had lunch at saks' fifth avenue (there's nothing better)...
...and we had supper at rue 57.
we checked out tender buttons on the upper east side, and bought gifts and impulse items at the new MoMA bookstore and design stores.
a lovely day!
UPDATE: in a rather forced e-mail "apology" to ben and i, a nice representative of kate's lazy meadow has wished us 'good luck' with 'trashing' their reputation. their service really goes the extra mile!
hey guys and gals! let's talk about ben and amber's stellar trip to kate's lazy meadow!
first, all requisites aside: it's very pretty looking. very cool. very hip. and even lots of bats flying around -- my favorite!!
but.
since ben and i have been a pair, we've stayed at the muse hotel, the algonquin, and the plaza (all for LESS than a night at kate's lazy meadow). we've also stayed at rustic bed and breakfasts, and make-do hotels off of interstates.
nothing has ever made us turn tail and drive four hours home... except this place.
but would YOU be unhappy for $275 a NIGHT? there was no way we were going to.
the place had been difficult to contact. it took a few e-mails and follow-up calls to get answers to any questions. then, when we got there, many of the things we had asked about were just not there. the kitchen with adequate pots and pans for cooking? cooking ramen out of a bag, maybe. cocktails made in your own kitchen? well, we didn't expect booze -- but not even a bottle of rose's lime juice? a cherry? something?
oh, and the phone didn't work. we were out of cell phone range. and the phone in the room did not work at all. (nor did the phone of the one other couple staying there. six cabins were empty.) the phone didn't work, and although we used a beeper number "provided" by the "staff" -- it yielded absolutely nothing. we HAD to beep them, you see, to ask them anything -- because they were not there.
it gets better.
after getting home at one in the morning. after calling am ex and telling them to flag it for dispute should any charge from these charlatans show up. after calling kate's lazy-ass to illuminate their minds. ben has the foresight to look at their website.
which has been updated to include what is now accurate information (more or less, minus the fact that they don't answer pages) about lack of long distance, ethernet cable, et cetera.
hmm. and why didn't we notice this text before?
because it had not been there for even two hours. this change had in fact been made within the hour. VERY much after kate's lazy meadow had received our complaint.
google's cache from the last time the page was updated, plus ben's handy pecking, proved that, rather than calling or e-mailing us to apologize, the folks at kate's lazy meadow instead endeavored to make their website look as though the things that they had fallen short on were in fact in plain print on their website, and as though they had been so all along.
check it out -- these are high-res and large, but notice the difference between july 28th's page, and the one that was updated -- oops! -- this morning after they got our note and voice mail.
i e-mailed immediately, thanking them profusely for taking the high road in this matter and neglecting to apologize to us directly, but instead trying to make their own site appear as though they were still within rights to collect money from us. apparently, they didn't know about ben's little trick of being able to see when a page was updated, and take a screenshot of it.
this seemed to change their tune, but only slightly. a very grudging e-mail was sent to ben, saying that of course they would not charge the card, and therefore no big confrontation would be necessary. as far as THEY could tell, "they" stated, the phones worked fine. and they didn't get any of our pages last night. oh. so which is it exactly? the phone worked fine and therefore they DID get our pages (because the phone works so very fine) or they DIDN'T get our pages... because, of course, their PHONE DOESN'T WORK? can't be both, can it?
and anyway, who's confrontational? hmmm? i'm tying a fly over here. i'm the one with the delicate peacock hurl in my hands. don't look over here.
fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em.
now we're off to enjoy the movies, the food, the games, and the lingerie that had all been intended for this getaway weekend.
we spent ben's birthday weekend at "our" farm, and really weren't as surprised as we could have been when we saw the FOR SALE sign as we pulled in. steve is going on to new adventures, and that's always good. even though we knew it would be our last visit, we weren't sad. the other folks staying at the b&b were a couple from brooklyn -- a criminal defense lawyer and his irish wife -- and their three year-old and three month-old. these were great folks to share breakfast with.
of course, we ate at our favorite places (ota-ya and the café at rosemont) and even took desserts from lilly's on the canal back to our suite, and ate them in a king-sized bed! although we really don't see the point of such beds. who wants to be so far away? you drift in the night. it's such work to paddle back.
on saturday, we had lunch at sneddon's luncheonette (see above), which is decorated in clown paintings.
we watched zombie movies, got up with the roosters, and lolled around uselessly. sitting out in the fields on friday afternoon, a little snake slithered right past us! and wouldn't you know it, the easter bunny found us there on sunday morning anyway. how lucky.
yes we did. and why not? it was lovely. after lunch at saks fifth avenue (there's nothing i love more than eating in a department store) we took a carriage ride through the park, with mustafa, who said, if we couldn't pronounce mustafa, we could also call him maximilian. it was like having andy kaufman for a carriage driver. and mustafa really liked my hat. actually, that hat got a lot of attention, considering we were in midtown manhattan, where the whole idea is that everybody has seen-it-all to the extent that nothing is noticable.
i even patted the nose of the horse. and i am afraid of horses mostly.
a few months ago, ben and i had dinner with my dad and my dad's friend ted, and ted's wife louise. ted and louise have known me and my family forever and ever, and during the obligatory reminiscing part of the meal, louise said to me, remember how you used to love boy george?
she was "remembering" me from twenty years ago when she said that, but the fact was, ben and i -- along with friends rai and carole -- already had the tickets to see taboo (written by and starring boy george) on december 20th -- a day i have been counting down now for months. and it was worth every freaking minute.
there are some famous people that you just feel proud of when you see their name in lights...
because, as goofy as it sounds, you've been through so much together. i can't even describe what a thrill it was to see george -- so close up -- and see how lovely and fat and older he is. and he was stupendous. so was the guy who played "marilyn"... i was disappointed to find that the broadway cast recording is not available yet, only the london. i will wait for the broadway.
i had to walk past the theatre again last night, hours after our performance had let out, and then again this afternoon, just to really get my fill of the whole experience.
... there are other shows on broadway, they tell me. but they don't have boy george in them!
actually, this is our room at the muse hotel on 46th street in new york. we managed not to set off any alarms by lighting our menorah. for the most part, changes like that are for the better in new york -- it's a real difference, being out in a pub in the evening, now that no one can smoke in the bars or restaurants. it makes it a LOT more fun to do.
ben and i switch off nights for giving gifts during hanukkah, and my gift -- returning to the hotel after seeing boy george in taboo on broadway -- was a bottle of origins "ginger cloud" lotion, which i have been mad for ever since smelling it on my boss's hands. i am supremely picky about smelly stuff and skin stuff, but this is magnificent. and you know how, in life, certain smells remind you of certain times and places? the smell of this lotion is always going to be times square, broadway, and boy george for me. mmmmmmmm! what beautiful things.
we started out on a friday afternoon with a stop at the brandywine museum in chadds ford.
this is just the time of year to fantasize about living in a wyeth painting...and ben managed to do just that!
afterwards, we drove to the adorable town of new castle delaware to the fine press festival at oak knoll books. we got some deals (a seminal handpress book we were looking for at fifty percent off!) and some steals (when ben asked how much a beautiful broadside was, the man from the press that had produced it asked us to return at the end of the evening, and he gave it to us for free!)
then it was a late-night drive out to a doubletree hotel near dulles airport in virginia. we ate chinese room service in bed while watching "the simpsons".
on saturday, to kill time, we drove into baltimore and had breakfast at the diner where the film diner was filmed. (a few other movies were shot there, too, most of them barry levinson films, natch.)
unphotographable moments included: making a wrong turn down a road that led to a CIA "materials processing facility", and having to lift a box turtle out of the road; and peeking into a tattoo parlor in the quickie-marriage-berg of elkton, maryland, to see a man under the ink gun for what had to have been a weekly appointment.
ooohh oohhh oohhhhh!!
we got tickets last night. we're going with rai and carole, christmas week.
boy george changed my life!! and i'm such an eighties whore. this is so exciting!!
a weekend at silver maple farm. and that's not all. for your video and audio pleasure: what does a mama goat say? and itchy baby goat love.
... just a brief jaunt. what a cute place. this town has hydrangeas everywhere! jackson street was my favorite...
of course we got fudge and taffy. we had supper at the blue pig, and we walked on the beach. much more beach here than in margate.
butterflies really do like butterfly bush.
we're thinking of going back for a night when they do the town up for christmas.
a little chocolate dipped soft serve before your deep fried twinkie, honey?
check the knitting page for more details...
how auspicious that on the weekend of the chinese new year we would be staying in the shanghai suite at silver maple. what a large bed. what dangerous things posts on a bed are when coming back from the bathroom in the middle of the night.
it was a trip back to silver maple farm in sargeantsville, new jersey, for my birthday this weekend! there, we indulged in continued fantasies of someday owning two goats named ludovic (a castrated alpine with whithers) and albertine (a nubian milking goat, no whithers.) this is just a random friendly six month old kid, very interested in shopping bags and lens caps.
well, i would have liked to. what we actually did was go to margate to AVOID the mummers, only to return to town to discover that the parade had been rained out and would be happening this saturday, when we ARE in town. bollocks. anyway, we had a fine time -- ben raided a discount liquor outlet for scotch, we saw "far from heaven", and we made little stuffed quail for supper on new year's eve. also a find: "celebration cake" flavor ice cream from wawa. it has these little multicolored dots of cake in it, and globs of blue buttercream frosting swirled throughout. ben and i sat eating this, watching "antiques roadshow", and vowed we would buy up every carton of it in town as soon as we returned home.
in the cab back to the train station we stopped at a light and a very real and very gregarious santa claus was crossing the street. it was rather magical. it was more magical than the fact that in central park they were setting up for a seven am shoot of a movie called "elf" that will star james caan; look for it next christmas.
our new york shopping booty: "tout brel", a book of jacques brel's lyrics and poems; a copy of "portnoy's complaint" en francais; two packets of "earl grey" larkspur seeds, packaged for last year and therefore fifty percent off; and a notecard with a squash on it.
this is the pretty ceiling at the japanese restaurant where we ate. somewhere between maybe fifth and sixth. somewhere. no, actually, it's across from la cote basque.
this is where we ate when we could not find marcy in takashimaya's tea room.
this is a beautiful little church where i lit a candle after we visited the museum of sex on fifth avenue. that's a real place. full of real stuff. one visit was plenty.
the more or less annual christmastime trip to manhattan. although we tried two years previous, we finally got to eat lunch in the café at saks fifth avenue today. i love eating in department stores! i had cream of cauliflower soup and half a tuna sandwich, and ben had chicken pot pie. it was so old ladyish and lovely!
we went to margate for the weekend, and stayed at ben's parents' little house there. a trip best made in autumn.