bethlet.net

One thing I did this weekend

This weekend, I did many things. One of them involved silver, and a gift for someone who is leaving the NY office this week - pictures of that will be posted once the gift has been given.

Another involved baking. My team delivered a great site on Friday (not yet live), and I've been promising cupcakes, so....

:)

So cool

I don't remember who linked to this (last night - it was still in my browser when I came in this morning), but this is just so cool.

From here.

William Stelcher, Jan 14, 1917-Sep 18, 2008

My favorite portrait of Grandpa, taken on Thanksgiving in 2006. He had great stories (some of which he told too many times), and in those he will live on forever.

Love you, Grandpa.

Boy it's damp here...

I'm in Chicago right now, having just gone to a very very lovely wedding in Galena - which is about two and a half hours west of here - almost in Iowa. The wedding was outdoor and the prognosis was not good. Ike has been spewing massive amounts of rain up north and it was predicted that it would rain heavily all weekend.

In the end, the weather in Galena was not dry, nor was it sunny, but it was only really slightly damp. There was no rain through most of the wedding, and the tents under which the ceremony and reception took place were amply dry. It was a great wedding - the first Jewish wedding I've been to. Lots of family and friends and a wonderfully close feel.

Today we drove back to Chicago, out of which I am due to get a plane at around 5:00. There was apparently 7" of rain in Chicago yesterday/last night and most flights were cancelled yesterday. Everything is flooded. Everything. Fields. Roads. Parking lots. Basements. One of the local high schools is being used as a shelter for people who have been flooded out of their homes. We just arrived at mom & dad's and... their (finished) basement flooded and now has standing water. The sump pump broke while we were out town and with no one down there to pump out the water, well. It flooded.

It could be worse, I suppose, though a lot of my dad's genealogy research was on the floor near his desk and is now soaked. :/ Also, my mom's life drawings from college got damp. There are naked people all over the living room floor now. Haha.

Hopefully (crossing fingers crossing fingers crossing fingers) I will fly out tonight and the rain will not affect my return to New Yorkland. As of right now, my flight is only a little delayed. While I'd love to continue to visit with my parents, I'm not thrilled about the idea of working from their house tomorrow. Too much of a hassle.

I'm feeling grateful right about now that I live on the 10th floor of an apartment building. If there's a flood at my place, it's very unlikely to reach my apartment. ;)

This is my job

It really does feel this way sometimes...

Beth's Fabulous VIP Adventure

I wore my black dress. In the end, I realized it would be fine, but that I proabably should get better shoes for it. So I did. Of course, new shoes at an event where you're standing the whole time = bad idea.

Anyway, we all met up in the office at 6:45. Then we spent the next half hour looking for cabs. Not very cool. When my little handful of people finally got there, we were dropped off over sort of around the side. As we walked closer, I could see there was a crowd. Around the red carpet. And that was just rubberneckers. There was a table at which we had to check in, give our names, and once that was over, there was the walking down the red carpet. With, y'know, paparazzi. As you do. It was intimidating. And I was Very Disappointed that we were not snapped walking down the red carpet, but I was also sort of relieved.

Procuring the first glass of champagne, once we were in, was surprisingly hard. It was all good after that.

There were a bunch of people milling about, and we gladly joined them, splitting up after a bit, circulating around, enjoying the champagne. The first famous person I saw was Alan Cumming, I think. But of course, Live Tyler was there, too. And Vivica A Fox. And Mary J Blige. And apparently some of the Real Housewives of Manhattan.

And Valentino, of course. Big man himself. Sadly, he did not bring his pugs.

I ended up spending a lot of time talking to Dtas people (of course), but also Danny Boome (who is a chef), who did some work with Dtas on the Guggenheim refridgerator microsite and a creative director for Saks.

Afterwards? Bottle service at the Bryant Park Hotel, which, sadly, did not serve real food. So we sat around eating chips and salsa all night.

All in all? It was pretty freaking fabulous, and probably the only time in my life that I'll be in the same zip code with most of those people. ;)

Oh... and Wireimage was there. Y'know. As they are.

Valentino VIP Party

Part of the Valentino project I've been working on is the site. We launched that. Woo.
Another agency has put together a corresponding exhibit. That is set to launch tomorrow night with a VIP invite-only party. Fancy.

As one of the people who slaved away for all of this, I have an invitation to this fancy VIP party. Procuring said invitation actually required a lot of groveling and schmoozing on our marketing lead's part, but in the end, a few of us Digitasians are invited.

On the invitation, it says "Dress to Impress."

My question is: what the hell does that even mean? This is a fashion thing, so... what? Cocktail dress? Evening gown? Really trendy, funky ensemble of some kind?

Wtf. So completely unhelpful.

What would you wear if you were me?

Quote of the Day

James, to me: You know, you're a retroactive optimist.

He mentioned he was looking through the DB Spouse category on this blog, and I admitted I barely remembered any of that. We had some pretty amazingly fabulous times, though. I remember those well.

Anyway, I'm not just a retroactive optimist. Indeed I am a very well-rounded optimist.

Also: I still want that purple chair.

Furniture Lust

My couch was in desperate need of pillows. My living room (ha ha - I live in a studio, but humor me here) consists of my grey-slightly-green couch, a neutral-with-a-little-brown/red/blue rug, a framed poster of a Chinese lady I got in Hong Kong on the street, and a neutral C&B print/painting. It's verrrrry neutral.

So I bought purple pillows.

And when I was at Crate & Barrel... there was this chair. Purple leather splendor. I have a furniture crush on this purple leather chair. Mmmm. Of course, there is nowhere in my apartment that it would fit. It's tragic.

One more motivator to buy a place of my own, I think.

flickr neglect

I used to be a flickrphile. My best friends in London are people I met through flickr. I love my camera, and I love taking pictures, and I love looking at other people's pictures.

After I moved to the States, it's sort of gone by the wayside. I still take the camera out on the holidays or at family get-togethers or when flickry people visit, but generally I've been remiss. I miss taking pictures, though! So I'm going to make a concerted effort to step it up a notch.

There's this group on flickr called 365 Days. It's a project whereby for one year, you take a self-portrait every day and post it to this group. Using yourself as a model in photography is easy because you're convenient. :) I always feel sort of narcissistic about taking my own portrait but it's something I indulge in periodically, and people do ask sometimes why I haven't done it recently.

So I think I'm going to do this 365 project. I was considering setting up a blog for it, too, but... does anyone really care? Let me know, either in a comment (not on LJ's syndication of this blog, please - those comments get lost after a couple days) or whatever. Feel free to let me know if you think it's ridiculous, too (I will agree with you about that, it is ridiculous). :)

As an aside, this is my favorite recent picture. Part of me wants to blow it up and hang it somewhere in my apartment because I think it's fabulous (not necessarily fabulous in a 'wow that's great' sort of way, but fabulous in a glittery, glamorous sort of way). :)

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