rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to Me

On Saturday night, we had our only local friends over for dinner, and the wife unit, who is a classically trained pastry chef, surprised me with a birthday cake!

It was 3 layers of genoise interspersed with cr�me fraiche/mascarpone cream and strawberries. When she served it, each slice got additional berries and a splash of strawberry/raspberry coulis. So, so delicious! Just the sort of fancy I love.

Yesterday was my official birthday and TA took to day off so we could go to Manhattan. We went to the Chanel show (loved the dresses, but the show itself was totally underwhelming and poorly designed,) saw the Ernst exhibit (appreciate but do not love the Surrealists,) missed the Diane Arbus exposition because I was starting to get that sort of punchy that comes from low blood sugar.

After lunch (at the Pink Pony) we walked around Soho, and looked at/sat on lots of different sofas. The verdict? They all suck and we are going to be sofaless for longer than we�d hoped. Everything is crap! Poorly made with cheap upholstery, bad veneer-over-particle board construction, inexpensive foam. It�s shocking that you can�t get anything of quality for less than $3000. I now understand why so many of those lifestyle catalogs never use models�you can�t sit on half the shit they produce! The cushions shift, the frame tweaks, the pillows fall off� if they set up a shoot with a real, live person using the furniture, the illusion of quality would be shattered.

Here is a building in the West Village entirely covered with wisteria. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

You know what else stopped me dead in my tracks? This fashion designer. I LOVE HER! I grabbed TA�s arm and was all, �Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!� He had no idea who I was taking about. He�s terrible at celebrity sightings; show him a redhead, and he�ll immediately start chanting �That�s Carrot Top! That�s Carrot Top!�

Anyway, she looked exactly as I expected her to, which is to say, like a working designer. I love that about her. When you see her at her shows, or when she turns up at a fashion event, she always looks like she�s just arrived from her studio. She doesn�t seem to be a designer like C. Herrera whom you can just picture peremptorially waving her Latina manicure around to get her assistants in gear, or a designer like MJ who probably parties and thriftshops with his assistants.

I also saw this model and this anorexic socialite. They were less impressive.

It was a good birthday, even if the train got delayed on the way home.

10:52 a.m. - 2005-05-11

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