Cafe Antico

I found this cute cafe during my mad search for the Mount Kisco Post Office. It was sort of in the middle of nowhere in a sort of industrial part of town. Today Peter and I tried the food there.

We don't like to try new restaurants unless it comes pre-recommended, because we like good food and feel gypped whenever we pay for a bad meal. But we were feeling plucky today.

When we got to the restaurant, there was a sign that said it was "Zagat-rated" so we took that as a good sign. I mean, if Zagat is bothering to rate a restaurant in Mount Kisco, it must have something to it.

The restaurant is located across the street from a cemetery and everyone eating there was about 80 years old. It's more than a bit odd that old people are eating fancy Italian meals while looking out the window enjoying a view of tombstones. Peter and I were the youngest people there. The food was pretty good. I had Lobster Ravioli and Peter had the Tortellini.

One thing I noticed about Mount Kisco is that whenever we go to a restaurant, the owner comes out and says hello to everyone. He (the owner's usually a he) walks over to every table and chats with his customers about their vacations, knows all their kids by name and asks after them, and dispenses a few chuckles at each table.

I'm getting a little paranoid because the owners never come over to introduce themselves to us. So now I'm feeling self-conscious about this. Do we look unfriendly?

Of course, whenever I'm being treated differently by any person or organization, my mind immediately spins over to - "Is this because I'm Asian?"

Peter thinks that this is ridiculous and always points out that he is not Asian, to which I say to him:

"Well, I AM, and since you are with ME, you are perceived, not as the white person, but rather, the person with the asian person. Just like when we go to a Chinese restaurant, the waiter plunks down two forks at the table. My Chinese-ness is negated in your presence."

The Count of Monte Kisco

Peter now wants to be referred to as the Count of Monte Kisco.

I guess that makes me the Countess?

The Post Office is NOT a Post Office in Mount Kisco

In the town of Mount Kisco, there is a beautiful building on Main Street with "UNITED STATES POST OFFICE" in large serif fonts clearly etched across its front. I had a large bag full of packages to mail and walked down to - what I thought - was the post office.

I get to the building, and a paper sign outside says:

"This is not the post office. This is a private office building. The post office is located..."

Apparently, the post office is a historical building which is no longer the post office. I think there should be a larger sign people can read FROM THE STREET so that we don't find parking (which, by the way, is not free in this town), lug all our stuff to the post office, just to find out that the post office is not the post office.

The Smoker Outside

In our new apartment, we like to open the windows and the sliding glass door which leads out to the terrace. It's really nice to have a terrace - we go out there to sit on our $7/piece Home Depot outdoor chairs to watch the sunset. The terrace is also the place where we have placed the grill we got on sale last month, which sits unused because we have not gotten around to getting a propane tank.

Unfortunately, the smoker who lives a few doors down likes to use his terrace to suck on his cancer sticks. The smoke wafts into our windows and fills up our apartment with tobacco smoke. Apparently, he smokes about 300 cigarettes each night. Basically, he's slowly trying to kill himself and bringing us all down with him.

Although I am a person who truly believes that anybody who wants to smoke has a right to do whatever the heck he wants, I find all this really irritating. I mean, this guy isn't doing anything other than enjoying his terrace and not stinking up his house with the foulest of foul stenches. But he's stinking up MY HOUSE with this stench most foul.

What is my recourse? I wish that I could ask him to give me a warning, so that I can close all my windows. The part that really annoys me is that he doesn't even live that close. He's about five apartments down from us. He either smokes super-potent cigarettes or that the physics of this complex is created so that any odor molecules are magnified exponentially as it drifts down to our apartment.

What Happened on Grey's Anatomy?

Since we moved into this apartment, we have had issues with our cable box. I've had three different cable guys come in - for some reason, the HDTV DVR boxes we've had take one look at this apartment and say to themselves, "No way am I working HERE."

One box refused to change channels or communicate with the remote control. It would seize up and demand access cards be inserted - even though the access cards were already inserted.

The next box would invite me to press the remote buttons. When I did, it coyly laughed in my face by freezing its screen.

The third box seems to be the charm - it records great! It changes channels when I press the remote! It does not demand access card insertion with the petulance of an irate child! --- However, for some reason, it did not record Grey's Anatomy!!!!

So the first thing I do is call my sister, who picked up the phone and said, "Did you just watch Grey's? Wasn't it great?"

When I told her I wanted a synopsis, she said:

"It was such a great episode...Izzy was lying on the floor of the hospital and wouldn't get up...an abandoned baby was found and they had to find the mother...the Chief's wife left him...and...oh, yeah...for a little while, they all thought they had The Plague."

My reaction was "WHAT?" "What happened to the underpants?" "Did Izzy get kicked out of the program?" "Who did Meredith choose?" "Did Burke get his hand back?" "Did he forgive Christina?"

"WHAT'S GOING ON IN THAT SHOW?"

L'Anjou Patisserie is Rude

Before our drive into the city, Peter and I stopped at the local patisserie for some breakfast. We were in a rush, so we ordered two croissants to go. The girl they have working the cash register could not get it together. She charged me $18 for two croissants, a coffee, and a juice.

When I pointed out that it shouldn't cost that much, the old lady who works there acted like I was trying to sneak off with a pastry under my shirt. She insisted that the total was correct. I told her (very nicely) that I wasn't paying $20 for two croissants.

Of course, during this whole exchange, Peter is sitting at a table, munching on his chocolate croissant because he "couldn't wait a minute longer" and watching this whole exchange as if he was just a casual observer not in the process of consuming what may well have been $8 worth of croissant.

It took about 10 minutes for me to spell out what I had ordered and for them to straighten it out. While the old lady was punching in the numbers, she said - under her breath, "I bet you'll end up paying even more."

The total came out to be $9 and I said, "Where I come from, that's a lot less than $18."

After all the hubbub, we got in the car and I was so annoyed at the old lady. I couldn't believe that she made that snide comment.

"Oh, come on. She was just joking. You can't read people at all," Peter said.

She was so NOT joking - but Peter didn't want me to blacklist the patisserie because he likes their food.

I get settled in the car, take a sip of my juice, and on the Saw Mill Parkway, I bite into the ham and cheese croissant.

It was ice-cold, and rock-solid. I couldn't believe it!

I spit it out, turned to Peter, and said:

I am NEVER going back to that place EVER AGAIN!!

I Interviewed for a Job

I interviewed for a job today at a college.

Anyway, I applied for the copywriter's job there, mostly because it seemed like a great job opportunity - but I'm 90% sure that I'm not going to get hired.

Instead of asking me pertinent questions about my job experience or what I can add to the college, the interviewer wanted to talk with me about what I enjoyed reading. She also told me that in her last interview, she talked about reality TV shows. I really didn't know how to steer the interview back to my qualifications and the job. I've never interviewed for a writing position where they did not ask for any writing samples and did not give me a writing task.

I think that, to the interviewer, writing is very much like stocking oranges and apples at the A&P - anyone can do it.

I wasn't sure if she was a really inept interviewer or if she already had someone in mind for the job and was going through the motions. I thought that perhaps she was not that bright and considered explaining my qualifications - like:

Barnard College is a really good school, it's a top-tier liberal arts college, not one of the top 250 colleges in the Northeastern region like this one.

My graduate degree from NYU is really prestigious - they only accepted 20 students the semester I attended, out of the thousands of people who applied. The program is the 6th best program in the country according to US News and World Report.

I wrote for the New York Law Journal, which is the most widely-read legal daily newspaper in the country.

During my interview, I came to the realization that, perhaps I should be interviewing for a job where my skills and talents and credentials actually mean something, because according to Peter, the same lady who was interviewing me once said something disparaging to him about "people with fancy degrees."

Which all boils down to this. I think I should work at a place for "people with fancy degrees." I might fit in better.

We Have Been Traumatized

So the movers we hired - Seaman's Movers from the Bronx - SUCK BALLS.

They broke our bookcase, overcharged us for everything, and hit our new neighbor's car with their gigundous moving van. I am traumatized, Peter is traumatized, and the dogs are oblivious.

Also, the foreman was a complete jerk. Instead of wrapping our furniture in blankets like ALL previous movers have done, he decided to use boxes that he charged us $20 each, to wrap our furniture - hence breaking our stuff.

In the future, I plan on interviewing and personally meeting all moving foremen. Either that, or I'm NEVER moving again.

I'm just going to throw out all my stuff and buy all new stuff.

That would be MUCH less stressful.