Actually, we have no autumn leaves by our window; the trees by our apartment are still green. But, if you walk a block north, you end up in the southernmost corner of Prospect Park, where the autumn leaves are in full, orangey-yellowy color.
Ari and I are both relatively free on Thursdays, so we took a short walk through the park to get some shots of the trees before they all fall off in the next few days. Annoyingly, it's been cloudy ever since I charged my camera to take pictures, but--I am worried I may not get another chance to photograph how gorgeous it is!
And, just for good measure, I took some shots of our new apartment, finally put together in a way Ari and I are both happy with. We spent last Saturday morning carrying the yellow couch from Ari's old apartment (about 3 blocks away) to our new place. I wouldn't have made it, so thank goodness our wonderful building super helped Ari heave the couch up the final flight of stairs to our place.
The main living room
Here you can see our tiny kitchen (with a dishwasher! That we still haven't used!) on the left.
The bedroom, with an actual BED!, and the same Ikea bedspread I've had since freshman year of undergrad....
So that gives you an idea of the place. We're pretty happy with it, barring a few non-deal-breaker issues (central heating is SUPER loud, kitchen sink leaks a little, oven is difficult to turn on). We also hope to get a nice area rug for the main area to really tie the room together. Hooray for not living out of my suitcase anymore!
About the movie I saw today: The Young Girls of Rochefort (Original title: Les Demoiselles de Rochefort), from 1967. This film screened at Film Forum as part of a Jacques Demy retrospective, and the only thing I knew about Demy was that he made The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I watched on a whim in undergrad, and found interesting enough and unique, if a bit vacuous. Lots of singing, very colorful, vibrant sets and costumes, and the beautiful Catherine Deneuve at the height of her charms.
So, I figured I'd go see this other film by him, since I knew it also involved music and dancing and Catherine Deneuve and awesome 60's design. But I didn't know how awesome it would be. The plot was still pretty darn pointless, don't get me wrong. But that didn't bother me--this is basically movie escapism at its finest. First of all, the two main characters are two sisters, played by actual sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac. One of them teaches ballet, the other one composes music and teaches piano. And they play like 6 instruments TOTALLY realistically:
That song in the YouTube video gives you an idea of what the rest of the movie is like. Sure, it's over 2 hours, which is a little on the long side. But there's dancing!
And Gene Kelly's in it! Dancing! And being overdubbed speaking French! (He also happens to be 30 years older than his love interest in the story, but...it was a different time?)
And randomly, the guy who played Bernardo in West Side Story (George Chakiris) is also in the movie, also dancing and ALSO overdubbed speaking French! (He's the guy in the orange shirt.)
And everyone's singing is overdubbed! Hooray!
But seriously, if this kind of movie doesn't drive you crazy with its saccharine ridiculousness, you will love it. Rent it. Or see it on the big screen if you can!
And BONUS if you want to watch another awesomely retro dance scene:
Basically extremely cluttered. I am taking deep breaths. We will build the Ikea armoire next weekend. (We spent all this weekend building the bed, which required extra time due to the fact we forgot to buy an integral part of it and had to go back to buy it this morning.) And then we will feel much better about life.
It just occurred to me that I am teaching my ESL students about the wonderful American constitution and government this week--coincidentally the same week that our government has SHUT DOWN.
And I can blog about it because we just got internet yesterday! Things are looking up!
Ari and I were finally able to move into our new place this Saturday, after much calling back and forth with the realtor and the building manager, then arguing about whether we had to pay rent for the weeks we hadn't moved. (Because there wasn't gas in the building yet! and no dishwasher installed! And the apartment was still dirty! But I digress.)
So me, Ari, and my friend Michelle (who Ari lived with the past year) moved all our stuff into the newly renovated, yet pretty darn tiny, apartment where we'll hopefully be staying for the next year-and-a-half to two years--at least until Ari finishes his MA at Teachers College. It is so small. But I like the way it's shaping up so far. We have yet to put together the new furniture we bought from Ikea on Saturday, so we can't really figure out the room layout yet. Hopefully that will happen this weekend, when we both have some time to actually build stuff!
Also, it's kind of funny because the building is still pretty intensely under construction. There are workers here every day from about 7 in the morning till 5pm, painting and working on the unfinished apartments. And fixing some of the issues, such as the fact that our shower apparently leaks really heavily through the ceiling of the apartment below us. So we had a plumber knocking on our door at 6:45 yesterday morning, asking if he could check out our bathroom. Then, just now (at 7:50pm), another manager guy knocked on the door to see the bathroom AGAIN, about the same issue. Honestly, it feels like Indonesia all over again, what with random people knocking on your door at all hours of the day. I think I'm a little less disgruntled by it then I would have been a year ago.
Anyway, I'm happy to be in the new place, and starting to settle in. I will try to post pictures as soon as the place looks halfway put together.
