Monday, November 28, 2005

Call me Martha

As if throwing my own birthday bash wasn't enough I volunteered to cook a Thanksgiving Feast for family plus two. My sisters suggested kindly this year to order one of those pre-packaged Thanksgiving dinners from Whole Foods. Sure it would be easier for me but I couldn't imagine having someone else dictate what we would have with our turkey. I don't want butter mashed potatoes. I wanted Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Garlic. Who knows what kind of stuffing they would give us. I already had my heart set on Stuffing with Chestnuts and Figs. So being obstinate I insisted on cooking it all.


Menu:
20 lb Turkey. Brined the night before.
Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Garlic
Stuffing with Chestnuts and Fig
Sweet Potato Spoon Bread
Cranberry Chutney with Asian Pears
Green Beans with sauteed red onions
Asparagus with Mushroom Ragu
Creamed Spinach



Dinner was scheduled for 4pm. And like a pro we had dinner at 4pm.
It was good even if I have to say it myself.
The turkey was picture perfect golden and juicy.
The side were delicious and plentiful.
Tina and Nathan provided breakfast, a light lunch and snacks throughout the day. Tina bought awesome Apple and Pumpkin pies from Witchcraft. Yummy. Michael (Nathan's friends) brought wine. Dennis brought another pumpkin pie and two bottles of wine. Yippie!

8 hours+ of cooking for a whole 15 minutes of gorging. Success!
Next year I'll put some effort on presentation and make origami napkins.

Monday, November 21, 2005

"All About Me" Birthday Party

November 19, 2005 - the party

The party was perfect.
Everything was better than I could have imagined and planned.
The office was set up perfectly for a party. We had a sofa, two benches and lots of chairs. No musical chairs necessary.
Many of my friends came. I felt so loved.
They brought tons of food and drinks. Nathan, my sister's boyfriend, made awesome vodka tonics (my favorite).
Music was so good. Donna burnt me a great four-hour cd which I got to keep! Bonus.
I was looking exceptionally good that night. Good hair night. A simple, elegant black dress. Cool fish-net stockings and my birthday heels (I wore them last year on my birthday too). Yes, I was HOT. Yeah!!! Not bad for a "27 year-old " (I'm sticking to that story).

In addition to celebrating my birthday I was also launching my photography career. I had a slideshow of my photographs projected on a big white screen. It was in front of the food table so everyone had to see it over and over and over again. It worked cause all through the night everyone gave such positive feedback. I felt so supported.

Yes it was a good birthday. The way I like it: a group of my friends, chilling with me, eating good food and having yummy drinks.

Day Between Actual Birthday and Party Day

November 18, 2005 - Friday
Packed with activities.

Morning was lots of last minute errands: borrowing projector, getting the rest of martini glasses and borrowing keys to Dennis' place so I can bake. After lunch I double check my guest-list for my building security and sent out any last minute details to friends. The rest of the afternoon I baked cupcakes for the party. The idea was to bake about 40 cupcakes so I could spell out my name and have enough for everyone attending. It would serve two purposes: birthday cake and signage for website. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for chocolate cupcakes. It involved a lot of cocoa powder, butter, sugar and sour cream. Yummy. Recipe seemed simple enough but turns out without a KitchenAid mixer it's hard work. Took longer than I'd hope and well let's say my first batch of 18 didn't make it to the party. Second batch came out like fudge. Good fudge but fudge. I will have to retry when I have a mixer or ask Lena to bake some and send them to me for comparison.

I wanted and needed to make another batch but I ran out of time. It was 6 o'clock and I was to meet Dennis at 7. He's taking me to Carnegie Hall for a concert. It was partly birthday treat and a thank you. I took time out of my busy schedule to be home for the shipping company that he hired to pick up and ship his double bass case he borrowed from a friend when he moved here. He's so lucky to have a neighbor who works part-time and is sweet enough to do such a good deed. We was going to buy me dinner as a thank you but I'd mentioned to him that I'd rather see a concert with him. I don't have a lot of classically trained musician friends and I rather enjoy doing stuff with people who are expert in a field. Like going to a baseball game with someone who knows stats of the player. Turns out it's a completely different game seeing with someone who knows the game. So I thought it would be cool to go to a concert with someone who knows music. And in our earlier conversations I mentioned how I've never been to Carnegie Hall. Dennis not only been in but actually played there. Isn't that wild? As if fated Dennis' friend Lisa was playing with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall this very weekend.

Having never been to Carnegie Hall but having watched many films involving Carnegie Hall, I got dressed up. Really dressed up. I did my hair differently. Wore a dress. Put on my high-heeled shoes and even wore pantyhose. It's Friday night and I'm going to a symphony concert. A perfect excuse to get all dolled up. I think the last time I got this dressed up was to see "Wicked" with my community center gals. Geesh that was a while ago.

Carnegie Hall is beautiful. I recommend everyone going there at least once. We were sitting in the balcony section so we could see the whole orchestra. The acoustics was amazing. The symphony sounded like a recording, clear and vibrant. I especially enjoyed seeing the movement of the string section. It looked like currents in water.

Afterwards we went to the back door to meet up with his friend Lisa. Well it turned out to be a reunion of sorts for Dennis. He was running into people he played with in various orchestra or from Yale where he also met Lisa. This is where I realized I was shortsighted about my dress. It was freezing that night and I didn't dress for the weather especially to be standing more than 2 minutes. Next time I'm gonna have to opt for warmth than looking good. Actually who am I kidding. I'm gonna make this mistake again.


We ended up in Lisa's hotel Novetel's lobby/bar. Had drinks and some food. I was starving. Didn't eat anything since lunch. I don't eat when I bake. Luckily the food at the hotel was good and the company was good. Lisa turns out to be Korean. Her friend Eugene is also Korean. They found out I was Korean almost 2/3 into the night. We quickly bonded not because we were Korean but because we didn't see ourselves as typical Korean. Kinda funny. They were cool. I had a good time.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

My Birthday day

I'm back.
After weeks of craziness I finally have a moment of stillness. I'm sitting at my desk at my office listening to the internet radio KCRW. A lovely blues song is playing. The perfect musical score as the sun is setting behind me. Why am I at the office on a Sunday. Well as many of you know I had my big birthday bash last night/early this morning. Came in to do some cleaning so I can transform the office from party central back to a regular office. Well regular with a killer view.

A lot has happend so I'll break it down in a few entries.

------

BEFORE NOV 17TH.
Days leading to my birthday I was incredibly busy. Besides trying to plan this party, I was working, volunteering and trying to put together my photo portfolio. The last item took the most time and stress. I decided to announcing my decision to pursue photography as my career at my birthday party. Yes, it's official. I've finally come out of the closet. It's scary but exhilarating at the same time. Of course having only recently decided to do this I didn't have much of a portfolio. So I was scrambling to print as many recent works as possible and find some good images from old films. Amazingly enough I did find a few. This also prove to me that photography was always there in my life. Signs were everywhere but I was definitely playing dumb.(You can ask Nam how stupid I've been about this.) Once I decided it was full steam ahead. I was meeting other photographers and learning how much I have to "catch-up." Turns out it's ten years to be exact.

November 17, 2005 - My Birthday
It started out great. My friend Dennis who lives in the building next to me slipped a birthday card under my door before I left for work. It put a smile on my face. At the office no one was in except the office cleaning guy Robert. Robert is very cool and sweet. He brings me plants for my desk. Turns out his birthday was the day before mine. Then like clockwork Jae calls me to wish me a happy birthday. He never fails to call on birthdays and holidays. Cool. So I settled into work waiting for the rest of the crew to show up. One by one they did. No one said anything. Turns out no one remembered. It was only later in the day did they realized that it was my birthday and wished me lame wishes. No cake. No present. No nothing. Totally sucks. I hate my work. This only proves how stupid I have been for staying as long as I have. I'm so done here.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my slideshow. I put it all together days before but failed to preview it until that day. Good thing cause some of the images did not translate well on the computer. So I had to rescan a few prints. Stress. Then my friend Ken emails me about the website. It was suppose to have launched on my birthday. I thought he was going to tell me to it was up but instead he was sending me concepts. I guess it wasn't going to happen. Disappointed but not a big deal. I was content with having the slideshow at the party. The whole point was to come out to my good friend first anyway. The slideshow does that. But like a good friend Ken promised to have something in time for the party. Cool.

The birthday day is looking sad. The day was gone and I felt pretty alone. My plans to go shopping, lounge at a cafe and get a facial, manicure and pedicure was lost. Well almost. I did schedule a facial for 6:30 which thankfully I couldn't cancel. So I went and it was good. I had a 75 min facial followed by a 30 min manicure. I was feeling better.

The evening proved to be a better part of the birthday. My wonderful friend Nam had invited me for drinks a few days before. I agreed. To my delight she invited Donna, Linda and Winnie. The drinks became dinner and drinks in the East Village. Bought my drinks and dinner and made me laugh all night. I was not alone. I was spending my birthday the best way I know, with good friends.


to be continued...

Friday, November 18, 2005

New & Improved After 12,410 + 1 Day by Nam Kim



"Birthday by Beatles"

You say it's your birthday

It's my birthday too--yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time

I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party.

I would like you to dance--Birthday
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance-Birthday

I would like you to dance--Birthday
Dance

You say it's your birthday

Well it's my birthday too--yeah
You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time

I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Contributing Editor Nam Kim



Hi this is Nam. I will be the “guest editor” for the next few “issues” of New & Improved Cindy. If you folks are wondering how I got this job, I created the position and asked nicely. I just thought it was so unfortunate this Blog came to a complete halt due to technical difficulties/busy schedule/blah blah blah. Why should the blah blah blah get in the way of all of us keeping up with Cindy?

So last Sat. Cindy and I ended up at the Community Center… (if you remember from previous New & Improved Cindy entry, it's what a few of us call Linda and Winnie’s apartment… great location, clean bathroom, nice sized TV and they let you keep your toothbrush there too.. again, if you ask nicely) Winnie had few of her fellow grad students there for dinner, and Cindy and I knew right away if we didn’t put our coats on as we were cutting the cake and didn’t put our shoes on as we were savoring the last bit of cake… we would end up there until 4 am. So like terrible guests, we got up and left once we saw the bottom of the plate that was once filled with mounts of food. Swallowed the last bit of frosting as we got on the elevator. Sorry we left you with dirty dishes, Linda.

Next day Cindy went to Church in the morning and then like a very, very good girl went to volunteer for Children’s Hope Foundation. Taught teenage girls how to knit and crochet while showing them the value of volunteering their time for a good cause. All of that sounded agreeable to me except for the “teenage girls” part. So I accidentally but intentionally didn’t make myself available to go volunteer. I think she understands. I was involved in a volunteer group that had teenage girls once and everyone learned really fast except for this one girl. She actually thought if she got the metal sticks to touch each other and if she rhythmically moved her elbows, the string of yarn was going to turn into a beautiful square knit piece. Why am I being so harsh you ask? Because she didn’t try. I have taught/failed to teach people but they've all tried. I don’t give up on people who try. I don’t make fun of people who try. I am harsh on people who don’t try and then without even trying, give up. That is so not my style… (so that was me giving you the Cindy report and then easing into me mE ME…… that wasn’t too bad, was it?)

o.k. so an article in this month’s Detail Magazine made me really happy and I actually typed out the whole thing for a friend who needed some happy thoughts since she is desperately looking for a job in London.(<- long sentence) With all this ctrl+c and ctrl+v we do these days, I didn’t realize how much of a big deal it was for me to type out half a page of magazine text. Feel’n all accomplished and sh*t. So now I share it with you. I think it makes me happy because Yohji Yamamoto is this old little Japanese man with wild hair and here he is, talking about what's sexy. “Stop! Please! That’s perfect.”

(from DETAIL)
Yohji Yamamoto on What’s Sexy:

I believe that there are three conditions to a woman’s beauty. First, you must realize that not all women are beautiful all of the time. Sometimes beauty comes on a subconscious level. When she is in love, or has met someone new and exciting, she shines. Second, you must understand that life is unfair. Beauty is something that, for some, must be worked at. The third condition is luck. Some women can just be lucky.

my role in all of this is very simple. I make clothing like armor. My clothing protects you from unwelcome eyes.

color, for me, has too many stories wrapped around it. I like black, white, gray, and navy. Like a uniform.

life is better for beautiful people. You can become lucky if you are beautiful, you can become rich. But there is no truth in this definition of beauty.

if you feel strongly about someone, go up to them. Pursue what you want in life. Why be shy about something like that?

you can tell what a woman is going to be like in bed just by looking at her. there is a feeling about someone that comes from experience. When you’ve seen it once, you will recognize it again.

fashion cannot make you sexy. Experience makes you sexy. Imagination makes people sexy. You have to train yourself, you have to study, and you have to live your life.

I love the back. A beautiful back makes a beautiful front. When you slouch, think about what happens to your front. You have to keep your back in the right position. This is where your spirit lies.

men’s clothing is about tiny details, and I hate that. I am very small and I look stupid in a perfectly tailored suit. I want to be able to wear things that don’t fit perfectly, with the sleeves far too long. I wish clothing came with no sizes at all. It would be much better that way.

the biggest mistake you can make in fashion is imitation. If we keep on like this, fashion will die. There was a time when I used to fall in love on the street every day. I would see someone with such a way about them or such a flawless item that I would have to say. “Stop! Please! That’s perfect.” That never happens anymore. Everything is too similar. Soon it will be only a t-shirt and jeans.

I don’t think we should try to make space our own. I believe that as modern people we should live in mobility. We should always be moving.


P.S. I don’t need to remind all of youz what day tomorrow is, right? (Hint: CAKE DAY….. New & Improved Cake Day…. hmm)


Signing out.
Best,
Nam

Thursday, November 10, 2005

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words


Compliments of Dennis.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Where did it all go?

Don't ask me how but I did it.
I deleted my blog.
Hours and hours of working on it (I have a witness) and poof, in an instant it's gone.
Oh well.

Maybe this will allow me to have more interesting entries.

Stay tune...