Day 56: We Intellectual-ise, somewhere Off Broadway.

Pictured: A deconstructed sfogliatella. Less palatable than the evening's intellectualising.

Today my manager told me what I already knew. Sigh. I and others attempted to protest and it was interpreted as acquiescence. But then again, it's not like there's choice involved. Sigh again. Don't worry, I haven't been fired. I just like to be cryptic.

Anyway, on to better things. I had spotted this play that looked pretty interesting and so the other marsupials and I had talked of going. But things as they are, we didn't make any advance plans. Be that as it may, fatigue, colds, and lastminutenessbeingadangerincrowdedmanhattanness notwithstanding, the Atomic Squid and I set out undaunted into that tall, noisy, crowded Midtown.

The play we were to attend was in the Workshop Theatre, a small blackbox theatre on the 4th floor of some downtown building, not far from Madison Square Garden. It's a pretty cool place -- they carry productions through the initial workshop-scripty stages to the final production, with support at all levels, hence the name. Also it was the first indie-ish thing I've seen in Manhattan, in shiny corporate Midtown especially. It reminded me very much of small theatres in Vancouver, except of course the not-having-any-connections part :P

When we got there they weren't sure there would be tickets available, so we put our names on a waiting list and tried our luck. We figured it wouldn't be time wasted anyway since the people watching was quite fun - arty types, society types, grubby student types (we counted ourselves among the latter, at least we looked like them). In the end we did get seated and popped into the theatre just as the show started.

Intellectuals was a highly entertaining screwball comedy type thingo that played with a bunch of stereotypes. The basic premise is that a woman decides to leave her longstanding marriage and "become a lesbian", with hijinks galore following from there. Think Midsummer's Night's Dream after Puck's spell. We did feel that the play lacked a bit of heart - as the A.S. pointed out, it was very mannered, which worked extremely well in the funny bits, but was a bit less convincing in the serious parts. In addition, the supporting characters were extremely well done and the leads perhaps a little less so. However, there were one-liners galore, including some references to Canadian filmmaking that left me especially happy, and we spent most of the 2 hours chortling away. An excellent venture into the wild world of New York theatre.

Then we popped down to the East Village for a quick bowl of ramen and a dissection of the evening before heading back to Brooklyn, home, and bed.

Day 55: Conspiracy theories.

Today was just another day in the office. With the added bonus that all the paranoid rumours we had been hearing lately were finally confirmed. Somehow office gossip always finds itself last to the people it properly concerns....anyway, our team spent most of the afternoon in little huddles exchanging snippets of information and lashings of griping. I still don't know what the changes are going to mean for me, and I may not know for sure for weeks...sigh. All this is very tiring.

So, the Atomic Squid and I decided to turn those frowns upside down, so we took off (relatively) early for the East Village, and ate Japanese street food, and gawked at a beautiful kosher bakery. I had just been craving rye bread, too :-) Then later we met the Grand Pademelon and four Australians and consumed many pots of steaming congee at the eponymous Lower East Side "village". Another day, another dollar, another hoping that I'm not out of a job :P

Day 54: Living the high life in Paramus, NJ.

Today was a grand day. Today I went to IKEA.

Earlier we had gone to the Elizabeth IKEA, which has only 3% tax, but is rather jammed full of people and correspondingly understocked. It's closer, so we were going to go there again this time, except there was some kind of toxic chemical spill right in the parking lot, so er, we changed our plans.

The Paramus IKEA is new and shiny and big and not as many people go to it, so we had a grand, rampagey, relaxed time. Mostly we were relaxed since we just bought everything in sight, but hey. I spent rather a lot of time diving into tall barrels of as-is stuff and came out victorious with some sheets and a pillow and a picnic cloth and such things. And I discovered the joy of the IKEA kids' meal, pictured above. A tiny bowl of overcooked mac'n'cheese and a little drink for 99c! And there's not even a height requirement like the one that keeps me out of the ballroom. Life doesn't get any classier than this, let me tell you.

Day 53: Yet Another Sad Farewell

Pictured: aval or poha, flattened rice flakes revivified in a porridge with yogourt, banana, and a bit of honey.

Today Pseudonyme left. But first, we ate this nice Indian breakfast, a first for both of us. I'd rather dwell on food than partings.