EMILEE'S A MOMMY!

Congratulations to my wonderful friend, Emilee, and her husband Jim, on the birth of their son - James Dayton Bond. Dayton was born on Saturday afternoon and since I don't have a photo of him just yet, here's one from Em's shower. We can't wait to meet baby Dayton!

MR. PENGUIN'S BLING

While we lived in San Francisco, Adrian's wedding band cuffed the arm of a stuffed penguin who sat on his computer table. Both the wedding band and the penguin came with us on our summer European adventure, so that Adrian could wear the band on special occasions and so that Mr. Penguin could see more of the world. (See what great parents we're going to be...) Over the course of the trip, the wedding band ended up in one of our traveling bags and stayed there until just the other night when I wanted Adrian to wear it for our anniversary dinner. The penguin, luckily, has been perched on Adrian's bookshelf since we moved to New York. The morning after our anniversary, I noticed that Mr. Penguin once again had his shiny armband in place and I commented on this to Adrian. Now here's where it gets strange. Adrian swears...swears...that he didn't put the wedding band back on the penguin. I figured he was just joking with me, but I know Adrian and he wasn't joking. So then I teased him that getting older must suck when your memory starts to go...except he wasn't having any of it. He was seriously spooked. I finally told him that since he always undresses near the bookshelf, he must have placed the band on the penguin without even thinking about - just an unconscious gesture with the aim of putting the band back where his mind knows it should go. He still isn't buying it, and we still don't know what happened. Though we have speculated that Mr. Penguin just wanted his bling back, and went and got it himself.

CREATE YOUR OWN PELLEGRINO

If you've watched a lot of Oprah, you know that she is a big fan of that gut feeling people have when they just know something isn't right. That hair standing up on the back of your neck sense that should make you instantly want to change the situation you're in. I had a glimpse of it early this morning when Adrian and I were coming home on the subway from Mark and Jillian's in Brooklyn. It was close to 3 a.m. and we had gone about two stops (in an appx. 15 stop ride) when a very drunk guy got on and sat right across from us. The first thing I noticed about him, besides the beer fumes radiating off of him, was that he was holding his coat over his lap and keeping one hand under it. This normally wouldn't have been a big deal, but the fact that there was not a single person on the train not wearing a coat (it was probably below 20 degrees) made it seem strange. Then there was the constant shifting of both his eyes and body, almost like he was waiting for something. I made a point, when he wasn't looking, to grab on to both my purse handles in case he was wanting to grab and go. Luckily, the train grew fuller as we headed uptown, but my sense of unease seemed to escalate. I eventually turned to Adrian and whispered that we needed to create some sort of code for when I felt that it was imperative we leave a situation, no questions asked. He instantly knew what I was talking about and said that he was staying hyper-alert for that reason. I sat there with thoughts that varied from he's holding a gun and planning to rob as many people as he can to he's staring at the girls next to Adrian and touching himself. I just wanted him off the train as soon as possible. He eventually left, with no drama, about four stops from ours. Turned out, he was just a really drunk guy who gave me the biggest creeps of my life. So on the walk home, Adrian and I worked on our code and we came up with the following: danger in Spanish is peligro, but not wanting to be so obvious about it (remember, it's supposed to be a code), if I ever need to get Adrian's attention, I'll ask him, "What's your favorite sparkling water?" to which his reply will be "Pellegrino" to which I will reply, "I want some right now." And off the train, or out of the store, or whatever we go. Somewhat wordy, but I know Adrian will get it too if I just say "Pellegrino" and that's all I care about.

CHO-CHO

We saw our first snowfall yesterday. It didn't stick, but it was still cool to see snow outside our window while we sat on the couch. It makes for a cozy day and we look forward to a real snowstorm soon. The mystery of Keri Russell's wimpy workout (see CS/10) became evident with the news that she's pregnant. My friend Emilee is just days away from having her baby. It's hard to believe the next time I talk to her she'll either be in labor or be a new mom. Craziness. I'm reading "Lolita" right now for my book club and it's really good. I guess I somehow missed it on my jaunts through high school and college. Katie's work is bringing her here to New York in March. And somehow we're getting to Bermuda by the spring.

CS/11

Walking out of The Container Store today as we were walking in was none other than Bette Midler. Both Adrian and I, and another lady, stopped in our tracks to watch her hand off a package to her driver before continuing down the street. Guess what her driver was driving? A Toyota Prius. Go Bette and your eco-friendliness.

COTTON ANNIVERSARY

Because nothing shows how much you love someone like a bouquet of Q-tips. Happy 2nd, Adrian.

CS/10

Having switched to "all access" on our gym memberships, we are now allowed to visit any Equinox location in the country. Since our old gym closed for renovations, we have moved to the 92nd street location and we also go to the one in Greenwich Village since my trainer moved there. It's not as far as we thought - today it took us less than twenty minutes on the subway, and that was even without taking the express train. On Tuesday, our first trip to the Greenwich location, my trainer told me that she's seen a variety of celebrities working out on the top floor. So today when we got to the gym, Adrian and I, jokingly, ran up to the top floor to see if we could see anyone...and we're not even to the top of the stairs when we see Keri Russell standing there working out with a trainer. Of course I could have professed my love for the show "Felicity," but instead I calmly trained right next to her while sneaking glances in her direction. Adrian watched her too from the treadmill - he says her workout was wimpy. I guess you can have wimpy workouts when you're as tiny as she is. Me, I get sweaty, dizzy, nauseous...all in a training day's work.

SLEEPOVER EVOLUTION

Back in the day, our sleepovers usually occurred after a dinner club or a late night out and everyone either slept where they landed (couch or floor) or we all piled into the one bed and slept like puppies. Never very comfortable. Now, however, with the addition of a guest bedroom, we've evolved to a more civilized sleepover. Sure, we've had houseguests, but a sleepover, by our definition, is when the guests really could go home, but just choose not to. Like last night, when Mark and Jillian (or really just Mark) decided to forego the subway ride home to Brooklyn and spend the night at our place. While Jillian stressed about not having makeup or clean clothes for work the next day and I stressed about not having cleaned the sheets from our last houseguest, Mark and Adrian set up the Xbox. We all decided that this sleepover was just a ruse for Mark and Adrian to dress alike and pretend they were eight.

"THE LITTLE DOG..." GOT NAKED

When you enter a Broadway play that has a sign on the door stating that the play contains adult material and adult nudity, and then you find out that the play only has four characters (two men and two women), and you're watching the play with two men, you can bet that they're both praying really hard that the women are the ones shedding their clothes. And you can guess just how not happy they are when it's actually the men, both of them, who do it instead. Neither was the old man behind us who loudly said, "I'm not sure what review I read..." before being hushed by his wife. They so couldn't handle the adult content or nudity that they left at intermission. And that my friends was the best thing about the whole play - the offended old man, not the nudity.