response 34 of 104:

Jul 5 03:55 UTC 2001

Okay, here's the first quote again, more readable, I hope.  I'll post
another quote soon, in the hopes of eliciting at least *some* guesses.


The thing about Manhattan is that everything is here, all mixed together, 
that's what I love about it.  Ugly things and beautiful things you didn't
even think could exist.  It's loud and dirty, our apartment is teeny and
you have to walk up eight flights to get to it but we have a fireplace
with carved angels, a leopard-print chaise lounge, Maxfield Parrish prints
of nymphs in classical sunset gardens, pink-damask drapes and silk roses
in platform shoes from the 40's and 70's that Izzy has collected.  Izzy
grows real roses in pots on the fire escape.  She loves flowers and is
always teaching me the names of different ones.  She especially likes the
ones with really ugly names.  Anastasia grows oregano, dill, parsley and
basil on the fire escape.  She uses them in her special
inter-international recipes.  Anastasia believes you should never be
afraid to mix cultures. She makes a Japanese-Italianish miso-pesto sauce
for pasta and a bright-pink tandoori tofu stir-fry.  I can tell what she's
making just by sniffing the air.  Sometimes when Anastasia doesn't feel
like cooking, she and Izzy and I go to our favorite restaurants.  We have
golden curried-vegetable samosas and yogurt-cucumber salad under trees
filled with fireflies in the courtyard of our favorite Indian restaurant.
We have fettuccine at an Italian place where the Mafia guys used to shoot 
each other while they were sucking up pasta.  We like the pink and green 
rice chips and the rose petals in the salad with the peanut dressing and 
the ginger tofu at our Thai place.  There is a Middle Eastern restaurant 
we go to where you can get minty tabbouleh and yummy mushy hummus in pita 
bread for really cheap, and a funny Russian restaurant with bright murals 
of animals in people clothes dancing around cottages in the countryside. 
We eat borscht there, and drink tea from a silver samovar.