Louie is a potato chip man. He is the only delivery guy whose name I remember, but there are other snack guys as well as Pepsi and bread guys who are also friendly when our paths cross on the job.

The potato chip guys are my stool pigeons. Just as customers try to get over on store managers by bringing in last week's rotten food for return along with the receipt for the food they bought yesterday, store managers try to get over on potato chip guys by seeking damage credit for bags that were chewed by mice. Do that one too many times, and he will report your ass.

I will write up a seizure form if there is even one chewed bag on the snack rack, because it is the little grade-school kids who are eating the 25c-35c bags of chips, especially the ones on the lowest racks closest to the mice. Whether or not little kids should be eating potato chips that will give them ulcers and diverticulitis later in life, I don't think they should be putting their hands to their mouths while they're handling foil bags that are covered with mouse piss, the Hanta virus, and who knows what else that will make them sick this week.

Right now I am drinking my favorite beer ever, Stille Nacht from Belgium, which I managed to get 5 bottles of this year and which I will miss from the end of the 5th bottle until next December. I toast Louie and all the other guys who drive all over Brooklyn with one eye over their shoulder to see who will rob them, violently or not, and wish them a great 2009.

Noam absolutely adores Alize, the restaurant at the top of the Palms casino, just a little off the strip, so the four of us went there for dinner. It was very hoity-toity, as in "I am Cloud [Claude, I guess] and I will be your sommelier." The views of the strip (all we could really see in the dark) were great, but there was so much rain on the windows that none of the pictures I took were worth saving. The restaurant? Meh, although perhaps if you eat meat you will have a better experience. The escargot appetizer was very good, although it's hard to have anything taste bad if you smother it in garlic butter. The bread was the best I had in Las Vegas. They offered 2 amusees, a foamy sorbet that was just fine and pate de foie gras, which Andrew and I refused on account of the likelihood of animal cruelty. The entree I had was terrible: a $55 special of truffles with seafood/cheese risotto. The truffle was ok, but the seafood consisted of an overcooked shelled lobster claw, which I ate, and a mush-looking but undercooked risotto, which I didn't eat once the truffle grated over the top was gone.

The coffee was merely acceptable. The dessert I got was nice, an assortment of small portions of 4 or 5 different desserts, most of which were sweet and good.


If I went again with Noam or someone else who loved the place, I would get the escargot again, and dessert (maybe a souffle, since Noam's of chocolate peppermint looked delicious), but would get a salad instead of a "real" entree in between.

( After dinner, we visited the Palms Casino before going to the Wynn Casino. )

Unfortunately, we did not have time to see the Faire Midway. We rushed by cab past New York New York (not NYC, despite the Yellow Cab)...


...to Bally's, where we joined Noam and tmcay for the Sterling Brunch. Andrew doesn't eat meat at all, and I don't go out of my way to eat meat or poultry, but there was a pretty good selection of seafood there, including caviar, and some very fine salads and pickled vegetables, as well as the traditional hotel buffet brunch items and an extravagant selection of cheesecakes and mini-pastries.

Amazingly, we were able to walk afterward, and we all started walking south to Paris, which Frommer's designates as having the best fake indoor sky in Las Vegas.

( Paris and more... )

We ate breakfast Sunday and Tuesday at Bellagio's Jean-Philippe Patisserie, and it was pretty damn good. They have bagels, crepes, Danish, assorted cakes, boxed candy and cookies that we took home for petsitters and coworkers, and a floor-to-ceiling-and-then-some fountain of chocolate:





( More chocolate, the conservatory, and the lobby behind the cut. )

We finished up the day with a look into Macy*s windows. The 34th Street side was the same old "Miracle on 34th Street" windows, wonderful the first couple of times you see them, but after 20 years, not so magical for us. The Broadway windows were very strange. The theme was "Believe" and the window scenes seemed to be an encouragement to believe in robots and space aliens.

Andrew and dj_rose_red went inside, opened up a Macy*s charge card, and saved over 50% on a pile of clothing for her. I was exhausted and went home to walk the dog, remembering as I got to my front door that I hadn't brought my keys. Fortunately, the dog's 3x/week walker was at work at the vet a few blocks away, and he loaned me his key ring, but it meant my rest was delayed as I had to return the keys after walking the dog. Still, it beat the alternative.

dj_rose_red went home December 2 after going with me to Chinatown, walking around while I got acupuncture, and joining me for dim sum at Jing Fong, which I much prefer to Golden Unicorn. We tried a new dish for us: snails in black bean sauce. They were very tasty, but they take a long time to remove from the shell and eat. Thus, I would not order them again unless I was with a large group, because the portion size is large and ours were cold by the time we had consumed 1/4 of an order. No turnip cakes, but we did get taro cakes and their wonderful shrimp-stuffed Chinese eggplant.

( Three Macy*s pictures behind the cut. )

Nothing so remarkable about wet paint? Well, earlier this week, the MTA in its typical wisdom decided to repaint the yellow banisters on the stairwell from the Euclid Avenue-bound C train to the corner of Fulton Street and Rockaway Avenue -- all at the same friggin time. I know I do the reverse commute and it's exit-only on the Euclid-bound train at that corner, but still, they couldn't do one side at a time? I had some choice words for them as I hobbled up the stairs without the aid of a bannister.

My husband, who has seen a midtown Chinese acupuncture doctor weekly for over a decade, came with me yesterday to the Chinatown acupuncture doctor. There was a small store in front selling 100s of Chinese herbal remedies, then a small non-enclosed room (as in a walk-through aka railroad apartment) with a desk and 2 chairs and at least 50 plaques on the wall, from the very estimable to the ridiculous (in the Who's Who of Business one year), and then a narrow corridor with 3 small rooms with sturdy small beds that were like massage tables, with the hole for when you lie face down. The walls were very thin, as were the folding doors, and I could hear moans from one man getting a massage in one room. In the back was some storage/staff space and a small restroom with a Department of Agriculture & Markets hand washing sign over it, which was odd since I couldn't find anything there that would require our inspection, until I realized that Eugene, the inspector who referred me to this doctor, might have given it to him. Or perhaps it was another patient... the doctor mentioned that a very nice female food inspector visited him before, but I couldn't tell whether she was visiting as an inspector or as a patient.

Andrew came into the treatment room with me, because I started getting very tense and nervous when the doctor started putting needles in my hip. The doctor decided he didn't want me freaking out, so he said no electricity in the needles. "Instead we do cups. Then some massage therapy. Susan will come." He lit some herb or something with a match and used the flame around the edge of a glass to warm it up and then suctioned it to my right ass cheek. He said occasionally during this whole process, "Good girl," which reminded me how embarrassed I was at being a baby about this, given that millions of people have gone through this over hundreds of years, but didn't make me feel that much calmer. I could only feel 1 or 2 of the needles, but I felt every cup, and the 5th one, on the lateral part of my right hip, hurt so much I told him I couldn't tolerate it. Andrew said, oh that spot got very dark immediately, which means you need it there, so just relax, but I couldn't take it. The doctor decided that was enough, and he departed with, "Good girl. Not moving girl."

After about 20 minutes, a woman came in and said "I am Susan." Andrew left to get out of her way, and she took out all the needles and cups. The massage she gave was unlike any I've had before, not so much soothing (although there were soothing parts) as practical, involving only my lower back and my right ass cheek, hip, leg, and foot. Her touch varied from very soft and gentle to very hard pushing on pressure points to a few chopping motions and wiggling all my toes VERY vigorously until the knuckles popped, which felt bad during it and very good afterward. Sometimes she hurt me, but it was a hurt I could control. I don't like lying there face down with needles and glass all over me so I can't move without risking breakage. At one point in the massage, she stopped to put on rubber gloves and I was afraid where she was going with that, but it turned out to only be so she could use baby oil.

When she was done, I breathed a sigh of relief, or only a half-sigh, because she then said, "You get cups again." 4 or 5 more suctioned glass cups for another 5 minutes or so, then the doctor came in, took them off, pressed in a few spots, and said I could get dressed. "Drink water. Lose weight." I was there for over 90 minutes, and left with some oral herbal pills that look like tiny cannonballs, take 9 of them 3 times a day, and some herbal patches to put on my hip when I go to sleep instead of using Tylenol. Andrew also got some cold pills that he's had before and some digestive pills that he hasn't. All together it was under $160, which is phenomenal. A NYC natural doctor outside of Chinatown would have charged about 3x that for a first visit, with that much time spent, and with stuff to take home.

I go back Thursday afternoon, and Andrew said he would go with me again. Yesterday's lunch and dinner were the first two meals he's eaten in ages without feeling bloated afterward, and if that keeps up, he wants to get more of those digestive pills.

I felt well enough (about 1/4-1/3 reduction in pain while walking, though stairs are still a bitch) afterward to walk slowly with Andrew down East Broadway to his dim sum restaurant of choice, Golden Unicorn. Their turnip cakes are the best. We got there at a bad time, I think, very busy and long intervals between carts with scanty offerings. I'm glad I grabbed the turnip cakes as I was sitting down and the cart was leaving our area, because I didn't see them again until we left. Still, I was full on leaving, mainly because they serve the bamboo leaf rice packets only in pairs, and Andrew doesn't eat them. One of the carts offered some good-looking General Tso's chicken's feet. I'd never seen chicken's feet prepared that way, and it was the first time I considered eating them. We didn't get them, as there are about a dozen in a bowl, but I would have tried them if I were with a bigger, also curious group.

Tonight is a big TV night. The Amazing Race getting TiVoed in the living room while we go downstairs to watch The Simpsons, featuring Will Shortz and Merl Reagle and little Lisa in a crossword tournament. I have to go do today's NY Times crossword now, since it will be featured in the show. The icon today is from the NY Times website's puzzle page. Lisa as pictured is how I imagine ennienyc as a child.

Within the past 2 weeks, the end of the 25-cent bag of chips

Sun. Nov. 2, noon; 5 Obama cupcakes and 2 McCain cupcakes sold

Mon. Nov. 3, 5:30p; 0 Obama and 12 McCain unsold

Nice man who made a delicious mochaccino for me: "We'll probably have to throw them away."

Sold in the same country store where I found the food in the icon.

We all had a great family-style dinner at Good n Plenty (not fam.Squonk/Cecil unfortunately). The desserts there aren't anything special, but that's ok, because there's no room for them. The buttered noodles alone were worth the all-you-can-eat price.

I would love to do a day trip at Philly Con with an early morning maze visit (they open at 10) followed by lunch at Good n Plenty. I guess breakfast would be on the bus on the way down, although Cherry Crest does sell watermelon and cookies and other foods that could pass for breakfast.

Most of us visited the petting zoo at Cherry Crest after dinner.

You can find 3 pictures of the baby goats and chickens here

( More animal pictures, sunset pictures, and a bit of narrative here )

Wed. night I just remember picking up one of everything from the handout table in the hospitality suite, note that lots of games were going on, and head upstairs to pass out. I had a brief conversation with Catherine of the musical Lala nom, in which she said she might want to go out with me in the morning, but would prefer a group of 3 or more. She took my cell number, but as of 9 the next morning I hadn't heard from her, so I headed out for Pete's, which Frommer's recommended as having killer breakfast burritos. I would agree with them, and add yes, in more ways than one if you have coronary disease or irritable bowel syndrome.



I noticed the sign in the lower left of the window and felt like I was back in Brooklyn. Why pay $1 at the hardware store for a standard sign when you can create your own crappy hand-lettered version for free?


( Restaurant review and dollhouse museum visit here behind the cut. )

Y'all will have to wait a day for the start of the illustrated Con-fessional. Things may not be posted exactly in the order/grouping you'd expect once I get started with that, fwiw.

Instead I will post some old sign photos from Brooklyn, so I can (1) delete them from my to-be-posted photo folder and have only Con stuff in there, and (2) get the hell out of here and watch guys with big bats hit balls over the walls.


Directly above the C station at Fulton and Franklin.

( More Bed-Stuy food, plus disturbing subway ads )

This used to be a good place to get a cup of tea to drink while waiting out front for the bus in the wintertime.


( more from the storefront behind the cut )

Here's another feel-good sign from Master Lou's Bakery:


Last week I had a turkey burger deluxe there, mm mm, and a peach tart wrapped up for later.

Yesterday in the "North Crown Heights" section of Nostrand Avenue (I'll post a sign from there, maybe, soon) I found a place that makes fried fish sandwiches and has 2 little tables with 8 chairs. This is a godsend in a neighborhood where almost all the lunch food is in bodegas, West Indian restaurants, and cheap Chinese restaurants. Now I don't particularly care for Jamaican food (once in a while is ok but not every day or even every week), the bodegas have nowhere to sit even on the rare occasion I would eat something they prepare, and the last place I would go where I inspect is a Chinese place. The reason is that when a customer approaches me politely in a store, at least 90% of the time they are there to ask one of two questions:

1) How does someone get a job like yours?
2) Do you inspect the Chinese restaurants? because the one over there [points down the street] is disgusting!

So yesterday I had the whiting supreme sandwich and today I had the tilapia supreme sandwich.

3 pieces of whole wheat bread (possibly Home Pride) making a double decker thin breadcrumbed fish fillet sandwich. In one of the layers is a mayo dressing, sliced tomato, and some lettuce, and in the other layer is a slice of melted American cheese and 2 slices of dill pickle.

The whiting tasted the same as the tilapia and was $1.50 less, so no more tilapia.

Since I pass by this block a lot more than the block with Master Lou's, I will probably be eating a lot of fish sandwiches.

I know this was a long post about a goddamned fish sandwich, but I'm telling you, finding this place was in the top 5 of Highlights of My Week.

This shop is on John Street near Broadway in lower Manhattan.

Besides the traditional baby chickens and crosses (shudder) in chocolate, they offer for Easter several varieties of dinosaurs as well as alligators and rhinos.

I stuck with tradition and got a lamb and a bunny in marzipan for Andrew and a bag of speckled malt eggs for myself.

Is it just me, or has anyone else had problems today where nothing but the first page of friends recognizes that I am signed in?

Anyway, here are the pix:


Going out to dinner is enough of a project without worrying whether I'm dressed well enough to be let in.



About 40,000 people live in the zip code where this Chinese restaurant is located. Aside from Chinese restaurant employees, there are probably less than 40 people there who speak or read any form of Chinese as a first language. Why bother?

If I wouldn't go to a restaurant to listen to music, I shouldn't go to the opera to eat lunch.

"Iphigenie en Tauride" at the Met had a bunch of sad music, some great singing of said sad music (especially the gay love song duets between Placido Domingo and the fabulous Paul Groves), and enough energy in the choreography and staging to more than make up for two straight hours of dirges.

Still, we should have left the house a half hour earlier to have a proper lunch.

At the Met, $25 gets you: a 12-ounce bottle of water, a plastic cup of Diet Pepsi, and modestly-sized chicken and salmon sandwiches (one each). Even with my appetite, and the size of the sandwiches, neither of us could bear to finish them.

The intermission brownie was just ok. I have to buy some mint M&M's and make some proper brownies. There are certain foods I just never enjoy as much as I could if I had made them myself: most of all, pancakes, but brownies are on that list. A few other foods I love, like eggplant parmigiana or gnocchi, I think I make great, but they're just so much work that I'm thrilled to eat those made by competent others.