19 Feb 2010

R: The frozen yogurt trend started in New York a few years back and probably hit it's peak last year when both Pinkberry and Red Mango opened in St. Mark's right across from each other. I have seen a variety of copycats all over the city as well, but YogurtStation two doors down from Pinkberry at St. Mark's is by far the laziest. It makes an effort as far as the obligatory bubblegum colors inside the store, and sure, it has the frozen yogurt and the toppings, but the owners clearly thought that was enough to ride the yogurt wave. Only one person needs to work at YogurtStation and only because someone needs to collect money. It's a self-serve station much like a gas station. It does have more yogurt flavors than Pinkberry and Red Mango like NY Cheesecake, Banana, and Chocolate, but beyond a barely passable sneeze-guard nothing separates the yogurt and toppings from bodily fluid misshaps and the insertion of unpalatable objects. In fact, the sole worker at the register didn't look at us twice when we, the only customers, strolled in.

You would think that a place like this gets absolutely no business, but at 35 cents an ounce some people are willing to forgive appearances, no matter how sad. Like my friend, K...I am such a fool for fools.

C: I woke up around 4:30AM sans alarm this morning, a result of having a tiny bladder and probably also the anticipation of the major event just a few hours away. Sugarland (I know that's not where you're from, but I like it better than Clear Lake) suggested yesterday that I go with his fiancée to help her find a dress at Filene's Annual Bridal Sale, known informally as "Running of the Brides". Selecting a wedding gown is a very personal event, and I'm not sure he understood that given his confusion at my extraordinary anxiety about going with L. I think I've been in her presence a total of three times prior to today; we're not enemies but hardly best buddies. Of my married and to-be-married sisters, I have never gone dress shopping with either of them. While my sisters and I chased our individual careers (much to my padres - especially Mommy's - chagrin), we managed to put miles between us that has made wedding planning so far a more isolated experience. As a result, going with L and her friends was an especially exciting event for me and technically my first of its kind of experience.

They arrived around 4:30, having made the hour-long drive from RISD to get to Boston. I met them at 6 (I swear I wasn't slacking; the T doesn't start until 5) and at that point there were at least 100 women in front of us and just as many behind. Fifteen minutes until the doors opened at 8, I would estimate that the number at least quadrupled. Five minutes to the hour, and they began corralling us, not unlike livestock (I was thinking pigs, because of the number of pink "Team Insert-Bride-Name-Here" T-shirts; L went for a tasteful silver foil sans serif font on white) toward the doors. By 7:58, Hugz and I were no more than 10 feet from the entry, but still with probably 80 women between us and the threshold.

I peeked at my cellphone: 7:59...all of a sudden, we're counting down from 5... 4... 3 - my palms were sweating, I could feel my adrenaline pumping much like being at the starting lines of the countless cross-country races I've run - ...2 and ...1! The screams and howls of brides- and bridesmaids-to-be replaced the hollow gunshot I expected.

Within minutes (it felt like less than five), I looked around and every rack was bare. I managed to grab between 6-10 dresses in my first run, and spent the majority of the next hour straddling a pile of dresses that L had put "on hold". NYSE had nothing on us; E-squared were trading and bartering as if they studied Econ and not art/design, and SC was cataloging our pile of at least 40-some dresses. Just when I was about to leave for work (very reluctantly), L found her dress - I can't show it in case Sugar sees this - and we knew when we saw her bounding from a negotiation across the room, broad smile across her face, that this was the one.