Simple. Wonderful.

It's been a beautiful weekend, the perfect blend of lounging, visiting, seeing, buying and experiencing. Staying in Friday night was a glorious decision--it gave me time to go through some of my files (a task I'm still working on today), watch a couple movies ("Age of Innocence") and chat with that lovely Papermoon girl. My plans for Saturday included a trip to the dry cleaners, a stop by Macy's and Old Navy and a visit with my darling cousin who was down from Montreal for a quick weekend trip with her boyfriend. Oversleeping caused me to miss the dry cleaners and to rearrange the rest of my day, but it was perfect. I met up with my cousin in Midtown and we walked up Broadway, through Times Square and over to Fifth Ave. Some coffee at Dean & DeLuca kept me caffeinated and on a slight whim I decided to go over to the Museum of Modern Art and become a member. I had come across a coupon in a special museum section of Thursday's Times and after considering the benefits for a few moments, decided it was worth the expense. Now I can visit the museum whenever I want in addition to bringing guests for only five bucks, free screenings of MoMA movies and entrance to special exhibits and previews. I am official a patron of the arts in my own tiny way.

Next up was a subway ride down to SoHo which was pretty crowded with shoppers and tourists. The sun was so uplifting--and so was my second stop for coffee--that I didn't mind all of the people. We made our way all the way up to St. Mark's Place and stopped at a bakery, recommended by my cousin's boyfriend, on 1st ave. and 11th. The cases in the front of Veniero's Pasticceria were filled with cannoli, biscotti, zeppole, pignolli and at least twenty other kinds of cookies. I had a chocolate chocolate cannoli that was perfection. After I parted ways with my cousin, I fulfilled part of my original plan for the with a stop at Old Navy for some jeans, a fun red spring jacket and some black, gray and white t-shirts--hey, at least the jacket was red (I'm still working on the whole incorporating color into my wardrobe thing)!

Today has been a lazy day thus far filled with more filing, taxes and some clean up. Simple. Wonderful.

Now it's time for some old movie viewing--"Niagara," a 1953 thriller starring Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe...


...Weekend Anna

Happy Birthday Mr. President....

It's James Madison's birthday today--so I'm toasting the occasion with some red wine and the reading of the Constitution. Yes, for once I have red wine in my apartment. The red wine, aka "date rape wine" because it knocks you right out, is leftover from a weekend-o-fun with my aunt, uncle and cousin. We had so much fun and I miss them already. We did too much to recount in anything but a list: pizza/date rape wine, Hoboken, walking along the water front, Ellis island, LES, Rockefeller Center, St. Pat's, MOMA, Upper East Side, Bagels!, Central Park...

So much fun. So exhausted...


...Weekend Anna

Easily Distracted...

I keep sitting down to write a post and then something else grabs my attention. Last night it was a combination of realizing that Ida Maria is opening for Glasvegas at the end of the month at Webster Hall and the release of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs newest album, "It's Blitz!" on iTunes at midnight. I've had a love for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs since I stumbled across a recording of "Art Star" online the summer before my sophomore year of high school, smack in the middle of my I-love-the-Beatles- and-everything-about-the-1960s-and-maybe-I-will-dress-in-hippie-clothes-and-not-wash-my- hair phase. I fell head over heels for Karen O--her crazy outfits, her onstage writhing, and her howling scream punctuated with flirtatiously coy lines ("I've got a dealer in Tokyo/ I've got a rep in Paris/ I've got an agent in Cologne/ Shit, I've got a gallery in New York!). I was hooked and the rest is simple: "Fever to Tell" was next followed by a trip up to Cleveland to see that writhing in person. Then relatively unknown TV on the Radio (Colbert bump!) opened on the waist-high stage in the tiny ballroom. I was right in the front, close enough to feel the sweat from Karen O.'s hair whipping around when she danced and the champagne she squirted out of her mouth like a fountain. It was glorious.

"Gold Lion" from "Show Your Bones" pops up on my playlist at least half a dozen times a week and I've listened to their latest album in full three times since I downloaded it less than 24 hours ago (not including the dozen times I've listened to "Zero" and "Hysteric", my two current favorites). "It's Blitz!" is different from the others, less raw and disjointed. I love it though and right now time will tell if it enters my list of favorite albums.

The last two weekends have been amazing...but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have kept me from writing about those weekends for at least another 24 hours...

...YYY Anna