But check out this version of the trailer, which turns The Shining into a comedy.

The following is to give you an idea of what the atmosphere is like around here. I’m trying to stretch out my legs and take a break so I get up from my chair, take two steps and reach D’s desk. I pass my hand through his hair, messing it around a bit and give him a kiss. In the meantime he’s so focused on his photos that he doesn’t even blink, let alone acknowledge my presence.

Me: You smell like chocolate. Have you had chocolate?

D: Chocolate? What is chocolate?

"What is it? My dear?"
"Ah, how can we bear it?"
"Bear what?"
"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"
"We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world."
"And every day we shall have less. And then none."
"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"
"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."
– A.S. Byatt, Possession

• First thing in the morning, my nerves usually get trampled on by the guy who feeds all the pigeons in a one mile radius around the lab where I work. I think I’ve already written about my utter abhorrence of these winged rats that have infested the city… Most likely due to the senile old men who feed them bread crumbs and sunflower seeds. I swear the pigeons in this city have gotten so lazy they don’t fly anymore. They’re not scared of anything. When you’re near them, they just do a pathetic walk/wing flutter and almost don’t even bother getting out of your way. Multiply this by twenty (that’s how many birds are gathered around for their breakfast), and you’ll get an idea of what I go through every morning when I go to work.
• During the last two days, I’ve seen the same lady on the metro ride home. She gets off at the same stop as I, and while going up the stairs from the platform to street level, she reads a book. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with this, except it’s rush hour, the metros are full, the stations are full and so are the staircases. You can feel people literally breathing down your neck, there’s shoving and pushing and everybody is struggling to walk in the same rhythm as the (more or less) angry mob. And she’s reading! Irritated commuters mutter under their breath and go around her, sometimes people (accidentally) bump into her but she doesn’t seem to mind at all. Isn’t she afraid she’ll trip and embarrass herself in front of the 5 o’clock commuters when she sprawls on the concrete passage way? Beats me. I will say one more thing, though. That must be one interesting book!
• My last woe – mildly put because this is making me (even more) anti-social. What is up with all those teenagers that are asking for money? In supermarkets, on the street, they even come to your house. The first day we moved into our apartment, there was this 14-year old who knocked on our living room window and asked if we would help her gather the money for her class trip to the US somewhere. SERIOUSLY?! How about getting a job instead of begging? I’m sure it happened to you to have people waiting by the cash register in supermarkets asking you, after they’ve shoved your groceries in the bag if you’d like to sponsor their personal trips, projects, or what have you. Am I supposed to feel like I should give them something because they think they saved me 30 seconds (when actually they don’t really care if the potatoes are on top of the eggs or if my bread will get squished under a carton of milk)? Well I’m not.

Am I being overly bitchy or has the standard of what is polite and normal shifted a tad in the last few years? Honestly, I have no idea, maybe it’s just a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”. All I know is that more and more often I find myself thinking “People are weird! And not in a good way.”

The space below is all yours if you feel like you’re the only normal person left on this planet.

My favorite character? Phil Dunphy, of course. He just blows my mind.

In nature fathers are known to eat their young. Is it because they’re delicious? No. It’s because they want to give their female – bear, giraffe, what have you, the honeymoon they never had. Just to be clear, I’m not condoning eating your kids, but I sure as heck know why giraffes do it.

You can insult a lot of things about me – my hair, my voice, my balance-board exercises – but don’t insult my selling. That crosses a line. What line? Oh, you don’t see it? That’s because I just sold it!

In the interim, this is just WOW! I love Charlie, although he speaks in nonsensical phrases.

It doesn’t matter, really. The why. What matters is that I enjoy food. Cooking it, looking at it, smelling it and of course savoring it. My Mom is still amazed that I cook on a regular basis, recipes new to me and to her. She thought I would grow up to be one of those girls whose culinary experience is reduced to heating frozen processed meals in the microwave. But I surprised her (and myself) by actually enjoying the Martha Stewart game.

That being said, let the salivating begin.

I like stew-type dishes. I hate eating frozen vegetables heated and thrown on the plate straight from the bag. I try to eat as little meat as I can. But sometimes I crave a juicy steak. D is willing to indulge me and we go to this great steakhouse that serves delicious beef. We always buy organic chicken. (You would not believe the difference it makes!) As far as fish goes, I like salmon and pangassius. We usually eat both kinds grilled with tons of semi-boiled broccoli, avocado and rice. We recently tried edamame (soybeans in a pod) at a Japanese restaurant and just loved it so I’ll try to incorporate more of it in our meals. It’s so great as a snack!

I don’t really like sweets. There was a time a few years back when I didn’t like chocolate. What?!  I kid you not. I’m over it now, and I like chocolate again, but almost never crave it. What I do like from the dessert category are raspberry pies, and Hungarian poppy seed or pecan rolls… Oh, and my Mom’s home baked cakes – they’re divine! I can’t stand brownies. Especially the ones with fudge on top. Talk about sugar craze! Or cupcakes. What’s the deal with those? They look pretty but the fondant or buttercream is just abnormally sweet.

I love yogurt. The plain type, not the fruity kind, that one seems so weird and artificial… In France I saw a lot of people put sugar in their plain Danone yogurts and turn it into a dessert. I guess that’s better than having a fruity yogurt with lots of additives in it, right? And speaking of dairy, icecream, icecream, iceacream! My favorite kind is pistachio. But I won’t say no to mango or raspberry flavored ones either. 

I’m no fan of Indian and Mexican food. I don’t like spicy stuff, I feel that it distracts my taste buds from the actual taste of the food. I do love looooove garlic though. I would eat it with everything. And by that I mean raw garlic, not cooked. I remember when I was a kid, I used to eat soup (the sour kind frequent in Eastern European cuisines) with bread and  a few cloves of garlic. It was awesome! Now I can’t really do that because of you know, social etiquette and stuff. But suffice it to say I am a bit drooling just by thinking about it.

I feel I should stop here before I drive myself (and you) insane with cravings and hunger you didn’t know you had in you. But I promise I’ll come back to this soon with some of my favorite recipes.

{from this lovely lady}

Much as I hate winter, I have to admit that when I came back from the lab on Monday, the whole city was a fairytale. So I took my camera and stepped outside for 5 minutes. I’m so glad I managed to capture these because I took no pictures of the snow this year and until this week I was a bit disappointed… since we get so much of it around here. (I could say the same thing about me not knowing how to ski which is downright embarrassing really, but given my adversity for cold weather, let’s just be happy I don’t lock myself inside for 4 months).

In case you were wondering these were taken with a 58 mm f/1.2 on a Canon 5D.

                                                        We’ll miss you, Liz!