Exterminators

Well, this is a first. Yes, at last, after 1 year and 4 months of living in New York sans rodents, insects, foul odors drifting in from the neighbors down the hall and anything else unpleasant one might associate with living in New York, we have roaches. I shudder to even type it! It all began about two nights ago when I was finishing up some dishes and I spotted one. He was a tiny guy, so quick on his feet that I wasn't able to get him, but I shrieked and almost dropped whatever it was I was holding, and Craig played insect sleuth until the thing finally got nailed by the above photographed flip flop (a homemade exterminator) swung by my hero, the owner of the flip flop, Craig. He managed to scare another small one out of hiding in the morning to follow by simply switching on the light. Then last night I had poetry at Sharon's and took a car service home, which found me and a driver sitting at a dead stop on the FDR (at which point the driver said, "Sweetheart, would you like me to stay on the FDR?" to which I replied, like a natural, "You can take 1st Avenue, I don't mind.") So we drove along 1st Avenue for twenty minutes, and I've got to say, the driver seemed a little bit of an amateur but he was still quite kind and I tipped him well, and then I came home to Craig who took me out for Brazilian (avoiding the kitchen and its possible infestation). Brazilian is just across the street, an intimate little hot spot with nice atmosphere, and we shared a bottle of wine and creamed spinach and I ate pork medallions topped with a lavish salad of mesclun greens, walnuts, corn, Kalamata olives, beets, radishes, leek slices, balsamic and olive oil, and he ate "traditional Brazilian fare" of black bean stew with Brazilian sausage, beef, some kind of yucan dried powder, collard greens and rice. Then we suffered miserably through a warm chocolate brownie with banana flavored-walnut ice cream and some kind of banana-flavored drizzle. Craig said, "I can hear us getting fatter." Haa!! He's adorable. So, anyway, tonight I had huge high great plans of making "Easy Meatless Manicotti" which would find me experimenting with baking dried manicotti shells (doused, of course, in tomato sauce and 1 cup of water and filled with cottage cheese and spinach and herbs). I built my anxiety level up pretty well on the subway ride home, imagining a whole kitchen filled with roaches of all sizes, shapes, noises, colors and covered in eyeballs which would stare me right out of my apartment (despite the fact roaches run away when in contact with humans) (normally, anyway) (though, not in Texas, but I don't really want to remember those days at this point in time) and I stopped at Key Food, grabbed stray items for "Easy Meatless Manicotti", crept slowly into my apartment, first switching on the kitchen light which is right by the door, squinting as if watching a scary scene in a horror movie, seeing nothing, and deciding, Hey, they're gone! I unloaded the groceries, changed into some comfortable clothes, grabbed the cabinet door and soon followed a quick little beast, scurrying up and around and into a crack between the cabinet and oven. I let out a sound and ran from the kitchen in terror.

10.25.07, continued from last night...I suppose it isn't the bugs themselves that really get under my skin, so to speak. It's more the startle-factor when they scamper from hiding into light and back into hiding that freaks me out. The above pictured cabinet contains my Pyrex dish for the manicotti - now, was I really going to stick my hand inside of a possible nestful of ugly black insects all for manicotti? No way. So I called Craig and told him to be prepared to eat out again. We went to Genesis and I ate salmon and vegetables and felt really, really dismayed that the entire week's diet has been not only dictated by the fact that we were out of town all weekend, then I had after-work activities Monday and Tuesday, but also by our unwelcome tenants in the kitchen. What Craig did is he picked up a box of little poison hotels for these bastards. He installed the hotels when we got home from Genesis. As of tonight, after dinner at Sala Thai (out to eat again! Weight Watchers who??) there appears to be no stir of activity amidst the encroaching (pardon the pun) community. Craig even wiggled things around a little - opened cabinets, peeked in the oven, lifted the stovetop lid to peer inside and so forth. We are hoping the poison hotels fed them well and now they are in blissful bug heaven. I don't even care if their lifeless bodies are pooled behind my oven. As long as they aren't jumping out at me like little goblins!*Sala Thai was an abrupt reaction to our shitty commute home, to be honest. The 7 train was fine, we sat on the W at Queensboro through 2 more 7 trains (unsual) but then as we walked downstairs at 59th to catch the 4/5, we saw seas of heads of people, which translates, in subway language, as not good. Seas of heads of people means no train in some time, or "earlier incident affecting all related subway lines", which happened to be the case, so the gurgled announcement informed us. Craig and I stood through four 4/5 trains, unable to squeeze into any of the four that passed through. Finally, the fifth one rolled up and we slammed into it somehow. Luckily, we only ride for 1 stop, from 59th to 86th, because I was quite contorted on the subway, like, one arm bent behind my head and another practically embracing a stranger just so I could make enough space for 8-10 other people standing exactly on the same small spot of train as me. So, walking home, I said, "Hey, there's Pesce Pasta, wanna go?" (a fave on 3rd) to which he said, "I don't know, do you?" (this follows a long conversation about our health and diets which led me to firmly say, "NO, I HAVE TO COOK TONIGHT.") We walked past Pesce and then he spotted Ooki Sushi, a newfound fave. He said, "Hey, Ooki Sushi, wanna go?" I said, "No, not really," and we kept walking. We repeated this with a few more restaurants on 2nd until we reached Sala Thai and then I gave up the feeble desire to cook manicotti (from last night's intention!) with all the roachy sous chefs of my kitchen. So we ate at Sala Thai and I had a mishap with the waitress (the basil chicken chili sounded good but had 3 pepper icons next to it, which means, "light my face on fire at the base of my chin so it works its way all the way to my eyelashes", or that's my loose translation) and I inquired of her, "Is that dish REALLY spicy? TOO spicy?" and she just kept nodding her head and I finally said, "Well, instead, I will have the chicken with red curry," but somehow, in our brief exchange, she must have concluded I wanted the 2 pepper icon chicken with red curry dish to be spiced up to match the spicy quality of the 3 pepper icon dish of basil chicken chili. So my dish was essentially unedible! But I shoveled into my mouth, not only out of pride because Craig pointed out the waitress' confusion and predicted an overheated dish, but also because it's only polite to eat what's served, right? Sala Thai, in the least, serves portions that are much closer to what America should be served. Their food comes on plates looking sophisticated, with the decorative basil leaf poking out from the rice, and the small pile of food centered in a pool of runny attractive pale yellow curry sauce. We do like it there.*Now that I've exhausted my food talk (and entimology conversation, while not sure if I spelled entimology correctly and not sure I care to look it up!), I'm heading to the living room, where Craig is completely passed out on the couch and Grey's Anatomy has started (I will have to back it up a little, loving technology and the ability to record live TV all the while!) Tomorrow night is me, Craig, and my kitchen (I will defeat the tribe and cook once again) and Saturday is the Aubree-Brian party somewhere on Long Island. Sunday is ours, ours, ours. All luxurious long day of it. I will figure out our menu for the week, write a grocery list, get the groceries, settle into long hours of poetry while Craig watches football, make dinner and enjoy Sunday for all it's worth. Oh! I'm so excited.*