"World's Best President"

I am very excited about Tuesday.

That being said, the Congress (collectively) has really bad taste. These inaugural gifts look like something a second grader would have chosen at a school store for Father's Day (I didn't even know that there were inaugural gifts, but I guess they need souvenirs, or it'll seem like it never really happened):


(The image is from the above link. Click through if you want to see what the VP bowl looks like, or a slide show involving Dianne Feinstein and the president of the crystal company that made the bowls.)

The only thing missing from the engravings are corny poems about what a great president/vice president the respective recipient will be.

Maybe those are on the back?

The General Consensus

Is it that 2008 wasn't so great?

Mine was going swimmingly, I guess.

Except for the part/s in which I:
a) didn't get anywhere near finishing my thesis;
b) left Spain, which makes me wistful;
c) got hit by a car and had my commuting bike totaled (although, to be fair, I am physically alright);
d) had my beloved touring bike not show up in time from Spain, and when it did eventually show up in the wrong place (NJ after I had left for CA), had a huge dent in the top tube and the stem ground down. Grrr.

I guess there are some other things, too, but the ones above are the ones that make me particularly grumbly. I guess that they're the concrete ones that I can put a finger on without sinking into general despair. The thesis one's pretty big, though.

I also never managed to get around to getting an aerator from the tool library or mulch for the front yard. I worry that the house where I live is the one with the appearance that sets the blight standard for the neighborhood.

Oh, and there's also the part in which I didn't manage to fall in love/write a novel/have offspring/whatever it is that we're supposed to do so that society thinks we're worth something.

Maybe 2009'll work everything out, though. Especially that thesis part.



Wrought about leaving Spain: my bike and my heart

Clarification on Curry Hill

I went with my cousin's wife to Indian lunch yesterday. We took the 6 down to 28th, and popped up above the ground on that little strip of Lexington where it's all Indian food all the time. Then we just had to pick where to eat.

I didn't want to eat at the delicious Saravanaas (sp?), since I'd eaten there with Zora and Peter not two weeks ago (although, to be fair, it was last year) and since it's a menu that's pretty typical of West Berkeley chaat houses. There's the place with the big kosher certification in the window at the corner of 27th, and that has really tasty food for not expensive, but it turned out that it is closed on Tuesdays. And of the two places, one right next to it, and the one next to that, I remember not having been bowled over by the one, and the other was closed.

So there we were, window shopping for Indian buffet, and someone was outside of one (Dhaba; I hadn't been there before) cleaning the windows. The place looked pretty schmancy, but the buffet was right under $10 and there seemed to be a fair amount of people there, at least two of three who looked Indian (although it wasn't the ideal overwhelming majority), and so I figured I'd ask the window guy if he had any opinion of the food.

This is the conversation that we had:

Me: The food here, it's good?
Guy Cleaning Window: No.
Me: It's not?
GCW: No.
Me: You don't like it?
GCW: No.
ME: Do you like Indian food?
GCW: No.

After this, I paused for a couple of seconds. I mean, the people inside all seemed really happy, and the restaurant wasn't empty. So I decided to try the conversation again.

Me: Do you like the food here?
GCW: No.
Me: Why?
GCW: No English.
Me: What do you speak?
GCW: Spanish.

So I started the conversation over again, and this is how it went:
Me: La comida aqui, ¿está buena?
GCW: No.
Me: No?
GCW: No.
Me: No te gusta?
GCW: No.
Me: ¿Te gusta la comida India?
GCW: No.

Long story short: the lady from inside came outside, and told us that we were welcome to see the buffet if we wanted to consider it first, and so we went inside and took a look and it smelled and looked delicious and there we stayed until we were full and couldn't eat another bite of the sooji halwa they had for dessert.

Dhaba is my new favorite Indian restaurant in New York.