Archive for January, 2007

What I’ve been reading recently

Published by kindli on January 18, 2007 in books and reading. 0 Comments

Forever Barbie : the unauthorized biography of a real doll offers an intersiting take on the doll’s history and how it has played a role in shaping popular culture and little girl’s (and boy’s) lives. M. G. Lord does an excellent job of pointing out how Barbie is not a feminist, if anything, she’s about as anti-feminit as they come. Although parts of the book drag a little, over all I was quite happy with it, probably for all the wrong reasons.

Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators was quite a fun read. Riccardo Orizio goes and interviews seven deposed dictators who’ve fallen from view. Although I had never heard of most of them, I had heard of their associates, Mao, Gorby and a Castro. Most of the dictators were leftovers from the cold war era, and didn’t see anything wrong with what they had done. He also interviewed wives/girlfriends of the deposed.

Secret lives of the first ladies : what your teachers never told you about the women of the white house was a very fun book and a very nice read. Each lady has about 3-5 pages, so it is great to read on the bus or in the evening when you want to read a little and want a nice stopping place. The factiods imparted in the book are both bizarre and facinating, and the book is merciless to both sides of the political aisle.

I have just started Bill Bryson’s Neither here nor there : travels in Europe. I am only about 20 pages into the book and I know it will be great. Bryson always manages to relate his adventures (or misadventures) in a fantastic way, and having traveled through Europe, I can relate to some of the situations –they are always more amusing in retrospect (or better yet, if they happened to someone else).

using hydrofluoric acid on granite bathtubs will kill you

Published by kindli on January 17, 2007 in books. 0 Comments

Martha Stewart’s Housekeeping Handbook arrived today, so after dinner Gavin sat down with it and started to flip through.

Martha covers everything from polishing silver to installing a dimmer switch in a straightforward manner that manages not to make you feel stupid. She give advice ranging from don’t iron towels, they’ll loose their absorbency, to don’t use cleaners with hydrofluoric acid on granite bathtubs, it will kill you.

The book is simply fascinating, she explains the little washing symbols on clothing (she has a most brilliant diagram), and gives tips on composting. It is also chockfull of pictures of her own home showing how she has put many of her suggestions to work.

The best part is Martha is not condescending, and you’re sure she wouldn’t recommend something unless she’s tried it, and it’s worked. Gavin and I were quite thrilled to find that the home office pictured featured an Eames office chair.

Although it is a hefty volume, nearly 3 inches thick, I am sure it will provide us with answers to many of our horribly basic questions (how to polish and safely store silver, and any question we may ever have about laundry), it will also save sifting through bad advice of

they hide them in the back corner so no one can find them

Published by kindli on January 13, 2007 in adventures. 0 Comments

Today Gavin and I got an early start on things. We caught the 9 am bus to Central Square and got Gavin’s passport paperwork taken care of, then we walked down Mass Ave in the direction of Harvard Square.

Mass Ave between Central and Harvard is lined with furniture stores, most of the things we looked at went well beyond our limited spacial constructs, but it was still fun to look.

We window shopped, because nothing was open, and around 9:40 we stopped at Au Bon Pain and had breakfast, hot chocolate, a cinnamon raisin roll and a chocolate croissant.

At ten, well breakfasted, we ventured into the shops to look around and see what we might want once we have more square footage. We went into several stores: Design Within Reach had a lovely collection of Herman Miller –including the new updated versions of the ugly orange fiberglass chairs, now made in plastic (mine are better).

We also looked at Crate & Barrel Furniture (we’re still saving up for our dining room table –and putting off buying it, hopefully it’ll go on sale).

Most stores had an area hidden well in the back with “floor samples” for sale. We found a very comfortable “floor sample” for $89 (originally $179 or some such) at Bo Concept– “Take your time, keep an open mind, we can change the fabrics, and all our wall units are modular, we can change the finishes, the woods, whatever you want,” (and can afford) Gavin wasn’t thrilled with the black seat cover, but as I pointed out, you don’t have eyeballs in your rear and its not like any of the chairs match at this point anyway (we’re going for an eclectic look, it seems to be working well so far).

We ended our morning with a 20 minute wait in the drizzle for the 86 bus outside Harvard Square. Monday we are going to pick up the ZipCar and go retrieve our new chair, we are also going to go to Bed Bath & Beyond and exchange the garbage can for a new one.

Tuesday it is supposed to snow.

the TSA, helping us dine in style

Published by kindli on January 2, 2007 in adventures and travel. 0 Comments

A new trend in airport dining has emerged in the post-911/TSA/paranoid about air travel world: the plastic knife.


To make everyone safer, someone decided to take the knives in airport cafes away and replace them with plastic (Gavin pointed out they’re made from oil).

The plastic knives brought up more questions than answers: Are the knives washed and put out again, or simply discarded with the rest of the trash? Who was really going to take one of those abysmal stamped metal knives anyway?

We also noticed that the tines of the fork had been filed down. How are you supposed to eat your salad if you don’t have pointy tines? I guess no one wants you to puncture the tough skin of a tomato (or fellow passengers).