The first toast from my new toaster! Breakfast is back.

Okay, so the most important appliance in my house -- the toaster -- went kaput the other day, and let me tell you, I slightly panicked. I mean, I've had this bottom-of-the-line Toastmaster toaster which I only paid $12.99 for at Economy Hardware on Mass Ave in Boston for 10 years. If I didn't find another chrome one that was similarly no-frills bottom-of-the-line and the same height, width, and depth as the Toastmaster, my Feng Shui toast mirror was going to be thrown all out of whack. And I wasn't going to mess up Double Toast; i.e., our riches. No way. Thankfully, there is Amazon for quickie research, and companies like Proctor-Silex who still believe in making a no-nonsense toaster for a good price ($15.99) that hearkens back to the 50s. Phew. Crisis averted.

And the 7 Train platform says:
It's my birthday!

[Click this link and read what I wrote last year.
So funny. I am totally the same.
Will be getting my 99cent DD Latte later today.]

When I was in grammar school, I used to get so excited on my birthday that I would fall and hurt myself on the playground pretty much every year, and wind up in the nurse's office with a skinned knee. Needless to say, I am being very careful crossing streets today. :-) Last time it was this warm and sunny was when I turned 9, and we all got to go play in my backyard and play tetherball. I remember exactly what I was wearing and remember being giddy with happiness.

It's my birthday! And I am going to do all my favorite things and revel in the sunny 73 degree weather. Most of the picture captions are links to previous posts. Click them!

Birthday commute. Just caught the 7 Train! Perfect timing.


Coming up the subway steps into Bryant Park from
the 7 train. Look at that sky!! To the right, One Bryant Park,
one of my favorite buildings. I saw a whole PBS show about it.


Aaaah, spring pansies freshly planted in Bryant Park. My favorite park.


Birthday lawn in Bryant Park. Not quite yet. Too much rain last weekend.
I love how their caution tape is green and says Bryant Park. So nice.
[click here to see last year's lawn on the other blog I write]


Birthday daffodils blooming in Bryant Park


Birthday Garment District Zen Garden.
A favorite spot for my eyes to rest.
Even though they redesigned it.

My favorite work breakfast.
Egg sandwich and iced coffee from the cart on
40th & Broadway. Nice guys.


My 99cent Dunkin' Donuts latte has a view of Times Square.
Nice work day today.


Yes, I had nice musings from the pool.
This Pisces must swim on her birthday.
aaaaaaaaaaah, calming.

As many of you may be sitting down to breakfast at this moment to read my blog, I wanted to bring you this beautiful breakfast neon for your dining pleasure. As you know, I have a neon thing happening on this blog. Everywhere I go in New York City, I see fantastic examples of neon. This deli has spared no expense for this elaborate 4-color sign with header and footer. The jaunty depiction of the steaming mug of coffee, the sunnyside-up egg, and of course, the donut, pleases me each time I pass it.

By the way, this is where I get my egg sandwich and iced coffee.


Breakfast, glass tubing, inert gases and clear plastic, Manhattan Avenue and Calyer Street, Brooklyn, NY

Did you know that if you keep your refrigerator closed for 8 days, the milk, that says it will expire on December 19, won't? Here it is December 29 and I am still drinking my milk with an expiration date of December 19. For the record, normally I prefer Skim, but the store was out of it at the time. I guess I should treat myself to new milk today. If I don't post for a few days, you'll know it was the milk.

I snapped some pics at breakfast time for you, my dear readers. I am in the holiday spirit, making little arrangements all around the house. On a red plate, even my peanut butter toast is festive! I will have more arrangments to show you in the coming days, some involving laser-cut plexi snowflakes, that I hope will please your eyes. 'Tis the season to make festive arrangements afterall.

ikebana 'vase' for the wall which i bought in Kyoto
dried arrangement with extra long cinnamon sticks,
lavender, red berries and dried pods


The extra-large upsidedown pinecone
looks like a Christmas tree, don't you think?
The red ceramic pot is for an amaryllis,
which I totally recommend planting soon, by the way,
because you will get a beautiful bloom for
the holidays.
While you're at it, get some paperwhites too!

I was just reading an old post, analog blogger, and remembered a dream I had the night before (the night before writing the post, that is) about a breakfast buffet at the Westin. If ever we stay in a hotel in my dreams, it is always the Westin. Curious.

I think it is because living in Boston for 14 years can make you think about the Westin a lot. Especially if you are a shopping mall enthusiast like myself. (The Westin is connected to the Copley Mall, and we used it as a cut-through on many a cold day, let me tell you.)

Anyway, the dream was this: my husband and I were staying at the Westin in Boston, but it was located along the Ring of Fire fault line in Indonesia. While we were in line to get our breakfast, I saw a volcano erupting just outside, spewing red hot lava that was flowing quite fast in our direction. So naturally I alerted everyone in line, and then proceeded to pile up 10 pancakes on my plate. The strange thing is: I do not like pancakes at all.

Then we rushed off to pack and ran through the Copley Mall to safety.

This was my pre-show breakfast this morning. Today was my last day at the Market NYC for a little long while. I came for market research, I got my information, and now it's back to the Web for me. The good old Web. (subtext: shop online)

Notice how the sun's raking angle highlights the placemat's faux woodgrain and earthy texture of the Portuguese corn bread...


so much
depends upon

the Portuguese corn bread,
toasted slightly to my liking,

glazed with fresh-ground all-
natural peanut butter,

beside the coffee with a hint of hazelnut and cinnamon
in a melamine 'Modern Design' cup by BROOKPARK,
sans saucer.



A breakfast haiku of sorts.

My breakfast from the other day. A bialy with tofu cream cheese, tomato and cucumber. On a nice silver tray. With iced coffee. That was a good one. I should go buy more bialys today.

My breakfast this morning. Perhaps my favorite breakfast of all time. Yes probably. A Kossar's bialy, with spinach tofu cream cheese by Brooklyn All Natural. (the best tofu cream cheese! better than Zabar's even!) One half has sliced tomatoes, the other, nova salmon. It was heaven.

I will get the Beagles. Especially if you're going to get the Locks.

Friday I went to Acme to buy Nova for Saturday's breakfast, and asked my husband to bring home the bagels from Ess-a-Bagel. He sent me the above note and pic. :-)

By the way, have you gone to Acme Fish Fridays yet? I love love love standing in line there and learning about all the fish. It is positively the best shopping experience I have ever had. Better than Bergdorf's!

There was a long line on Friday with everyone shopping for Father's Day parties. She was giving out tastes of the Gravlax. I leaped! Two women standing in front of me were buying fish for a co-worker. He told them to get him $100. worth of fish. They bought one pound each of 8 different kinds, and still the bill only came to about $85. Amazing. Apparently, earlier that day, because of Father's Day, they sold ten 12-pound Smoked Cooked whole salmons!! She brought one out from the back. It was a beauty.

Check out Acme's PDF Brochure to see more of what I am talking about.

If you are just waking up to my blog, you have a bit of back reading to do. I posted quite a bit last night, to make up for not posting much on Monday and Tuesday. You see, I am thinking about you. :-) I have been working like crazy. Excited about all of my new projects, and excited about having a venue to show my latest designs every weekend for the next 4 weeks. There is nothing like an audience to ignite production.

So anyway, this is my new morning set-up with my favorite coffee cup and peanut butter toast plate. The cup is vintage, Russell Wright "Residential" by Northern (made in Boston!). Don't you just love Russell Wright? Plus anything plastic I have a thing for. I will call my autobiography, Penchant for Plastic. Really! The red plate, melamine. The placemat, real wood but faux grain. The other placemat, tomatoes! Purchased at The Block at Orange. OC, California. The tablecloth. Made by me. 100% linen. With those pertinent details digested, happy Wednesday! I have more work to do. Will be back later with a sneak peak at my ad running on Spree Dallas that begins tomorrow.

There is much debate about whether the use of well-placed mirrors will double your prosperity according to Feng Shui principles. A contested theory: place a mirror behind the burners on your stove and you have double rice (double riches). Whenever I move into a new aparment, one of the first things I set up is my toaster mirror and little hanging Buddha. Just in case the mirrors do work, I have double toast! Personally, I feel luckier and wealthier.


And in an unrelated story, I promised to show you more works of the venerable Bede Murphy that hang in my apartment. Here is one reflected in the toaster mirror. This painting is even nicer when viewed directly. Hee.

1. ate breakfast (actual breakfast pictured above: pb toast and coffee. how do you like this coffee cup? my friend just gave it to me. it is accurate down to the raised seam, but it is ceramic, not paper.)
   
2. wrote a blog entry
3. got involved in looking at too many websites while looking for pertinent links
4. searched blogger to see if my blog has been indexed yet
   
5. searched "perlov blog" and found mine and a few others that talk about me. neat
   
6. searched "elaine blog" and found this one
7. thought about writing to all elaines who have blogs just to say, "hey my name is elaine and i have a blog too!" but didn't.
8. tried to find out how i can get stats for my blog
9. checked my web stats when i couldn't figure that out
10. banned myself from the computer
    
11. set the egg timer and got to work