Recommendation

If you are going to see a Penelope Cruz movie, I highly recommend Elegy. (This trailer does not do it justice.)



Personally, I won't be seeing this one.

On a lighter note...

More cupcakes! (Sorry Lise!)

Someone got it right! I have never seen this blog before, but he even reviewed Amy's, which I think are some of the best in the city, if not the best, but most people don't pay attention to cupcakes from Amy's Bread.

Pictured here is the Yellow Daisy cupcake from Billy's, which is what I had on my birthday, so it's got to be good. And yes, the PB&J cupcake from Buttercup is really good--better than I had imagined.

I can check off most of these as ones I've tried, which is pretty good. The one I haven't tried is that chocolate souffle cupcake. They are located in my old neighborhood -- too bad they weren't there when I lived there.

One word...

Incredible!

Sonya, LCSW

This happened to be posted on my birthday. I'm taking it as a sign. Of what, I don't know.

Pistachio Cupcakes: Believe the hype

I started my birthday celebration on Friday night after work with a cupcake. I have heard about the pistachio cupcakes at Sugar Sweet Sunshine a lot over the past few months. Although I had been to this beloved bakery a few times over the years, I had never indulged because I always want what I want, which is usually the yellow/buttercream cupcake. Since I rarely go to the LES, I just haven't had the chance to branch out much, until now. So I'm here to say: I can bear testimony that the pistachio cupcake (pictured here on the right) is delicious and worth all the praise. The one on the left is the pumpkin spice and is also quite delicious. And Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes are still only $1.50, compared to Magnolia, which are up to $2.50.

Another reason I love Sugar Sweet Sunshine is that a few months ago, when my agency was doing our annual Celebration for the kids, they really came through for us. For as long as I have been involved (11 years) and probably many more than that, we have gotten our cake from a very well-known Italian bakery in the east Village. This year, they called the morning of the Celebration and said that they had been shut down by the health department and would not be able to deliver the cake. My co-workers scrambled and called SSS to see if they could help us out. They were able to make cupcakes for 100 people with just a few hours notice. They are heroes!!

That's Correct!

My last posting was about my decision to go see JM in Hartford, CT. We made the schlep to NJ to get the rental car, then we were stuck in traffic all the way on the Cross Bronx. We got lost in the suburbs of Hartford looking for a fabric store (this is what you do when you have access to a car for one day). The two things we planned to do in Hartford were to visit the Harriet Beecher Stowe house and the Mark Twain house -- but because of the traffic and getting lost, we were too late to visit the HBS house. We were still able to take a tour of the Mark Twain house, which was very interesting. The whole time I'm thinking, "Why do I do this for a concert? Why do I spend the money and the time for all this craziness?"

Then we went to the concert and said, "Totally worth it!" Then I woke up yesterday, the day of my actual birthday and said, "Why didn't I plan to go to Saratoga Springs to see him play there?" I'm just a junkie and I can't get enough!

It was a GREAT show! Definitely in the top five. We were sitting far enough to the left of the stage that we could see backstage and his parents were there. He dedicated "Stop this Train" to his parents, which he rarely plays, about getting older and the fear of losing parents. Before the show, Kathy and I made our wish list again. I think they were the same, but this time we decided to do our three choices of his songs and then instead of an alternate, we chose one cover song. We both chose "I'm on Fire", which he did not play. But he did play "Why Georgia" and "Belief" for me. He played all of Kathy's, "Why Georgia," "Gravity," and "Waiting on the World to Change." In the middle of the show, he did five songs in a row, all acoustic. I loved it! Then he switched gears and went into a blues number, "Mercy," which was about 10 minutes long (this link isn't from our show).

One more thing... I was excited to have my new camera to use at the show because it has a super zoom and I could get some great photos. However, because it's new and I'm not used to it, I didn't think about the fact that the battery might die (it did) and that it would run out of memory (it did). Even so, I got a few good shots.

Here are some photos of the two homes we visited. Did you know that HBS and Mark Twain were neighbors? Literally, they lived next door to each other.

Mark Twain's home (look at that great balcony -- right off of his writing/billiard's room)

And here's Harriet Beecher Stowe's house

My birthday weekend

I decided to see JM tomorrow in Connecticut instead of on my actual birthday. For one thing, he always does a better performance when playing in front of a hometown crowd (and that can include anything in the tri-State area of NY, NJ, CT). Since I've never seen him perform in his homestate of CT before, I thought this one could be the best of all. For another thing, it's a Saturday so I would have a better chance of finding someone to go with me. My birthday is on Monday, so I would have to bribe someone into thinking my ridiculous obsession is important enough to take a day off. I decided it wasn't important enough to anyone but me, thus, we are going on a Saturday.

All the stuff that is happening in the "news" lately detracts from my feelings about the whole thing, so I have to just get back to the basics. Here are the basics: