Real Women Ride Fake Bulls

This Saturday night, my gal friends and I dressed up cute, knocked back some whiskey, went to a bar that played karaoke-worthy hair metal and was populated with a dozen bronzed B&T bachelorette parties and rode mechanical bulls until our thighs ached.

That's pretty much it.

Oh, and we saw a lady's naughty place. Please people, if you're gonna ride the mechanical bull, be classy. Wear underpants. For the benefit of all of us. Or at least bring wetnaps. The more you know. XO

Oh, fine. Audio/visual aids below. Of me and my classy friends. Not vajayjays. Pervs.

Soup Is Not A Joke

Here's the deal, people. I'm a professional lady of many talents, but I take my homemaking skills seriously. Beds are made every morning. Brownies are made from scratch, preferably with hazelnut spread. And soup? Soup is a goddamn religion.

We all know that homemade chicken soup is infused with magical powers. It just is. But when I say homemade, I mean you don't start with a box of Campbell's broth. Bullshit. NO. You start with a damn chicken. Like Perdue. You wanna kill the sucker yourself, go for it, but really, that's magic overkill.

You immerse the chicken in water. You simmer it. You chop vegetables. You watch the Oscars for four hours while it turns into liquid gold. You tend to that sonofabitch. You drain it. You skim it. You pick its dead carcass. You get meat out of vertebrae. It's messy and involved and infused with LOVE.

Then you freeze it. You wait until you or a loved one fall ill. Then you bring it out of cryonics to save the day, like Stallone in Demolition Man. Chop up a few more veggies. Add some egg noodles. What's that, cold virus? FUCK YOU. YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR UNBEATABLE SOUP LOVE MAGIC. BE GONE.

And that's what soup is all about.

I cooked up a ton of this recently. I decided I would have it for my dinner at work this week. So I brought 2 quarts of it in Tupperware, and put it in the Ackloo fridge. Out of the way. Not taking up much space. Ahn. I'd be healthy, well-fed, and if anyone fell ill, I could easily deliver the magic elixir to them on the way home. Soup love magic!

So on Friday night, after a hard day of doing nothing much except SAVING THE WORLD AND STUFF, I just wanted a bowl of soup. So at 6, I went off to the fridge and...

Nothing.

No soup.

No Tupperware.

No magic.

No dinner.

So I did the only logical thing. I bitched about it on Twitter, fired off some incensed texts to friends about a soup thief, and then I blogged it out. It's a process.

I can only hope that this was some Les Miserables-type-shit wherein someone was so desperately ill and poor that they were too ashamed to even ask for the soup. That would be heartwarmingly lame.

But I think it was just a thieving douchenozzle.

So. Hours of preparation. Gone. Just think about that the next time you raid the office fridge. You're not just stealing dinner. You're stealing magic.

I hope you choke on a magic egg noodle, soup thief.

UPDATE: The soup apparently fell victim to an overzealous cleaning crew on Friday. I have recovered my Tupperware. I have not, however, recovered my indignation. Aggressive labeling system now in place for all fridge commodities.

In Praise of Zelda the Turkey

Like anyone else who falls in love with New York, I'm a sucker for the marquee attractions. I visit the Met at least once a month, I swoon over the skyline, and godsohelpme I love Rockefeller Center at Christmas. But it's the little things that make for an enduring affair. One of my very favorite little things about New York that few people know about is Zelda the turkey.

Maybe I'm ornithologically biased because I'm a big old birdwatching nerd, and I've mentioned Zelda briefly before, but I think the fact that there's a wild turkey living in Battery Park for no discernible reason other than she just seems to like it there is charming as hell. She even has her own Wikipedia entry. She's a bona fide New York character. And she's named after F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, who at one point was found wandering in Battery Park in the grip of madness. If that's not New York gothic, I don't know what is.

But as for Zelda the turkey, she seems to be pretty well-adjusted. She's been in Lower Manhattan for years, she takes tourists in stride, and happily wanders among the people lining up for the Statue of Liberty ferry, though she will get a little annoyed when kids chase her. The other day she sat next to me as I ate my dinner in the park. It was awesome.

And there are no male turkeys reported in the area. Zelda does not seem to mind. She is her own turkey. We could learn a lot from Zelda.

Here's a brief video of Zelda saying hello. It's not my best cinematography, and I inadvertently cut it off early because I was so delighted she was coming over, but you get the idea. Viva Zelda.

Music Monday: Starring Lara Ewen, Luke Wesley, Grace Love, The Swell Season, Bryan Dunn,and Kelli Rae Powell

Oh, Park Slope. So manicured. So genteel. Give or take the odd brutal tire iron beating. So posh. So goddamn hard to get to from the Upper East Side. I mean, really. Can the F train work with me even once? No? Dammit, you guys.

Such is my commitment to hanging, though, that I've been clocking a lot of hours at Bar 4 lately. One of the reasons is the lovely Lara Ewen, who sings some pretty tunes when she's not getting me into a reasonable amount of trouble:



Also this week, Bar 4 hosted the Local Correspondents Tribute to Radiohead, featuring Luke Wesley:



...and Grace "American Idol-bound" Love



But it's not only folks I know rocking the Slope. On a gloriously mild evening, I went to see the Swell Season at Prospect Park, and oh my goodness, wasn't it lovely. Seriously, I think it was one of the best live shows I ever saw. This is one of the more quiet moments:



But lest the Lower East Side feel left out, I spent some time at Rockwood with Bryan Dunn, accompanied by the soon-to-be-wed Kelli Rae Powell:

Aruba Haiku-ba!

Postcards may be an endangered species. With wireless everywhere, you're never really out of touch. But I'm still a little old-school. I like sending them. And from what I gather, people still like getting them. Getting real mail is fun! The problem, though, is that it's hard to make vacation postcards exciting. You have next to no room to write (though this is less of a problem if you're a skilled Twitterattzo), but really..."Having a great time! It's lovely here! See you soon, SUCKERS." Not the world's greatest prose.

But Lisa and I have this figured out. We decided to detail last month's vacation in a bunch of haiku poems, and distribute them among our pals. We put a lot of thought into this. We made sure that no two people in the same social circle received the same poems. Of course, this assumes, pretty narcissisticly, that our pals would be so damn delighted that SURELY they would be comparing which little nuggets o'verse they received from us. Which is highly unlikely. But the point is we were being THOUGHTFUL.

So, five weeks after the fact, we're pretty sure that the third-class mail system has delivered all of the postcards (I said we were thoughtful. I didn't say we weren't cheap), so here is the complete Aruba Haiku-ba collection. Poetry, you guys. Classy stuff.

Routine
Get up, go to beach.
Drink, eat. Go to beach. Eat more.
Life is very hard.

Sunscreen
Poor application
of SPF 70
yields grotesque patterns.

The girl is splotchy.
Kerry just wanted a base.
The skin cancer brews.

Mission Statement
Our mission here is
to keep a constant buzz and
wear no proper pants.

Off-Roading
Dangerous terrain
and guess what? You are driving.
This is not a joke.

The jeep bumps along
and I never thought this was
how I'm gonna die.

Snorkeling
Parrotfish seems nice
but he's only using you
for your Wonder Bread.

Storytime
Well, in retrospect,
Kite Runner and Black Dahlia
make for weird beach reads.

Boys
Single men are scarce.
It's okay, there is some rum.
Birds flock to the bar.

Just when things look bleak
along comes the Dutch navy.
There is hope again.

Hors d'Oeuvres
Cheese is so awesome.
We eat a lot of gouda.
Yum on a triscuit.

Mistaken Identity
Who is the old guy
singing Sinatra? Oh, it's
the prime minister.

Good Morning
I don't care that it's
only 10:30. There is
rum to drink, dammit.

Cocktail Hour
Ice clinks in Robyn's
glass, signaling a request:
More coconut rum.

Uninvited Guest
The sea is tranquil.
Calm. Clear. Without disturbance.
'Til fish in my pants.

Threat From Above
Pretty sky. I look
up to see blue. Or am I
soon pelican food?

Either Way A Winner
Icy clear with salt
makes me happy. Ocean? Or
margarita glass?

Acid Reflux
Lasagna is good.
I'm uncomfortably full.
It's cool...I caught it.

Shwa Returns to New York

Our buddy Shwa has been in LA this summer doing...whatever the hell it is you do in LA. Lest we be bereft for too long, he came back for a visit recently, and treated us to some songs at Rockwood.

Here's his cover of Beck's "Sexx Laws"



And the best song written about "Rookie of the Year," maybe ever.

Robyn Draws: Internal Affairs