I spent Friday in NYC on business - saw a screening of Teacher's Pet, a Disney film coming out next February (though it is pretty much completely done). Liked it a lot. Took advantage of having to be there to spend the weekend in Brooklyn with my sister and my bro-in-law, which I seem to be doing a lot lately. I ended up spending a lot of time in Chinatown, sort of by accident; on Friday I was in town early, having driven myself to Brooklyn and subway'd in to the city, so I met S on Canal Street for lunch. She took me to a vegetarian dim-sum place off of Mott. It was just a hole in the wall, but very tasty. I loves me some dumplings. We resolved to research a good non-veg dim sum place for next time.

Saturday we met up with a couple of girl-friends and went shopping in "Nolita," which I refuse to un-quote because it's such a stretch of a name. We each bought something at a designer's market held in the gym of a Catholic school. Then there was snacking, and more shopping, and then back to Bklyn for take-out barbecue from a new place called Biscuit. Very yummy.

Sunday S and S and I went back to the Chinatown realm for a visit to Pearl River's new location. The store has been completely transformed. It was a slightly dirty warren of dusty merchandise on three low-ceilinged stories. now it's a massive Old-Navy-like huge open space, all clean and well-lit. Same stuff, same good prices, so I was happy. I bought a tremendous amount of crap, including three small beautiful bowls, some men's Pocky for P, coffee-flavored gum, cheap dry noodles and can of baby corn, some "Budlet" powdered face papers, and a cute character-decorated chopstick case with kid-sized chopsticks. Once we were fully laden with crap, we took off for our main destination, a huge, dusty, fabric trim store. It was overwhelming, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of every kind of ribbon, rickrack, piping, cording, elastic, edging, lace... it was crazy. Unfortunately the prices weren't great. Sarah tried to haggle with one of the guys - they were cranky old orthodox jews, and I'd never seen such a real-life stereotype in action, which was uncomfortable to watch - over some plain plastic buttons that were priced at a crazy 50 cents apiece. He finally said "45 each" but then charged her 50 cents anyway. Jeez. I did end up with some edging I want to add to a pillowcase skirt I made, and some cheap cut-out flocked stuff to use in one of my collage boxes.

Anyway. We ended up deciding to eat in Chinatown before I was to go home. Our choice was New Pasteur, another hole in the wall, this time Vietnamese food. It's kind of like Thai but without all the dairy and coconut milk. Loved it, and it was crazy cheap - under $5. On the way back to the subway, we passed a little hut where a man was selling tiny egg-shaped cakes - cooked, and tasted, like mini-waffles - twenty for a buck. Can't beat that. We bought a bag and wolfed them down. They were warm and sweet and eggy and crispy - so good! Damn. We finished them, and then a block later, S and I smelled them again, and immediately started glancing frantically around - "Where? where?" We quickly zeroed in on another little egg-cake stand and bought another 20 for a buck. This time they went a lot faster.

The drive home last night ranks among my top five worst drives ever, and living in New England, that's saying something. I was all happy, starting out at 5:30, that it had stopped raining. I didn't realize that the strong winds were bringing much colder air, and all the puddles would be freezing... I took the Merritt up, because it feels faster than 95, and is twisty and hilly like a roller coaster, which keeps me awake. Right after I crossed into CT, I hit really bad traffic. Really, really bad. I had to put my car in neutral and use my parking brake just so my left leg wouldn't fall asleep. Every few minutes we inched forward 10 or so feet, and then nothing, no movement for several minutes. I figured it was a new accident and it would be cleared soon, but no, I sat in that fuckin' jam for well over an hour. Finally I called my sister and they found out the cause online - a serious accident, due to icy conditions, near exit 31; expect full lane closures, it said. What the fuck? Why should I expect that? Unless they're trying to scrape someone off multiple lanes, they should just rush a tow truck in there and clear the way. I had been between exits for the half-mile or so I'dd traveled so I didn't even know how close I was to it. About 20 minutes later I came in view of the next exit sign - 31. I could even see the turnoff. But it was still parking-lot time. People were getting out of their cars, walking away, or rearranging stuff in their trunks... I decided that even though I was close to the problem, it wasn't going away anytime soon, so I waited until I could squeeze up the on-ramp, took it and got on 15 in the opposite direction. It was nice to get my overheating car out of first gear, but I quickly hit my first patch of ice; though I had watched multiple salt-trucks driving down that side of the road, I still felt some queasy slippage. I slowed way down. It took me about 20 minutes to get to 684 north, and then I was home free, going in the right direction again. I knew it would take me about two hours to get home from there, and it was 9:15. I should have been home at 8:30. I passed multiple accident sites, and they all looked the same; first a line of flares, then a cop car with lights flashing, then a big patch of black ice, then an empty, crumpled car by the side of the road. Eventually I stopped somewhere to get gas and a couple of McDonald's dollar chicken fajitas. By the time I got home it was 11:30. The whole trip felt like a dream where you're running down a hallway and you see the end stretching further and further away from you. It, in a word, sucked.