Snow Covered Trees

Mattie Grows a Garden

Adam and I were thrilled to receive Valentine's Day artwork from the kids. Particularly impressive was the book Zess wrote and illustrated called Mattie Grows a Garden. Zara reports that Zess wrote the entire thing herself, pecking at the keyboard and asking her parents how to spell words. Zess even had her dad take the illustrated book to his office to make color copies for everyone. That's right, we received a color copy. The copies were so good, we were under the impression that Zess wrote a book just for us. I know, pretty narcissistic of us to think so. Anyhow, the book's pretty engaging, there are plants, seeds, kites and a girl name Mattie. What more could you want?

Cheesecake in a jar

Yum! Thanks Corinna.

Last of the Ice Cream

We're enjoying the last of our caramel apple ice cream tonight...until next October when it comes back to JPLicks.

Reform

Efforts to reform wayward ways, sweaters folded, jeans hung and dry cleaning picked up.

Punk! Moi?

I met up with some friends from b-school tonight at a very crowded pub downtown and I can now empathize a tiny bit with how the kids on Jersey Shore keep getting into trouble because it sure is easy to get into an argument a bar. To explain, I was shopping all day downtown so my rucksack was very full and I had it hanging from the back of my chair. The following is what happened:

Guy: Hey, excuse me, can you scoot in, there's not much room here.

plasticann: [scoots in] Sure, sorry about that.

Guy: Hey, can you scoot in?

plasticann: [turning around] I'm sorry, is there not enough room?

Guy: NO! Your backpack is in my lap, NO there's not enough room.

plasticann: [finally understands and removes bag from chair] I'll move it under the table, I'm sorry to inconvenience you.

Guy: Well, you don't have be a punk about it.

Wow, I got called a punk at a bar and it was only 7pm. That has got to be a plasticann first. Now I'm home and ready to enjoy my hot mint tea and some delicious peanut milk chocolate.

Chocolate with Caramelized Peanut & Sea Salt

I've been looking around town for this Green & Black's candy bar ever since I saw a write up last month in the Metro. Last night, we stopped by Pemberton Farms on the way home and I finally found it there, Pemberton has an overwhelmingly large fancy chocolate section. It's really delicious, the peanuts are caramelized with a hint of smokiness and the sea salt is a great complement to the sweet milk chocolate. It's like a fancy Mr. Goodbar which were always my favorite of the miniature Hersheys.

Cobbler

I just discovered the cobbler can put thin rubber soles on my leather soled boots...brilliant. My shoes will last so much longer. I'm going to bring in my other shoes and get them tricked out.

plasticann's clothing maintenance reminders to self

1. Fold and hang up clothes
2. Don't use pants as a napkin substitute to wipe off fingers sticky from eating donuts

Countdown...implications for lunch

I'm in the process of switching jobs. My new one starts next Tuesday back near Kendall Square and my last day in Downtown Crossing is Thursday. Therefore, I've been carefully planning my last few days of lunches as the end draws near. Today, I went to Sam LaGrassa's for my favorite pastrami sandwich. I forgot how delicious their pastrami is, I'm sure going to miss it. I also plan on enjoying one last Chacarero BBQ Beef sandwich and lastly, I have a Milk Street Cafe gift certificate I need to use.

Clothing Explosion

I just had a wardrobe planning session with a personal stylist/shopper this afternoon to update my look. Above is the aftermath from pulling out all my clothes. She was really nice and diplomatic and realistic, but one theme that kept coming up was, "if you take care of the things you own, they'll look better." Things like folding my sweaters neatly, hanging up my pants, ironing, dry cleaning, etc. She had lots of other great thoughts and ideas, but the following conversation will give you a good feel for my major weakness...clothing maintenance:

PS/S: This is a great jacket, I love it.

plasticann: Oh yeah, I haven't worn it yet, it's new.

PS/S: Ummm, why is it already wrinkled if you've never worn it?

plasticann: Hmmm, I think I left it in the bag for a while before I hung it up.

Total Immersion

plasticmom has been immersing herself in studying Japanese. She's somewhat conversational given that she went to college in Japan, but she's been brushing up on her language skills this quarter. So dedicated is plasticmom at immersing herself, she walked up to two strangers on the street in Los Angeles asking for directions...accidentally in Japanese. Only problem, the strangers weren't Japanese and plasticmom thought she was speaking English, thus everyone involved was baffled.