I was sitting at Clarkson (225 Varick St, NYC), chatting with a member of the Independent Panel of Judges and drinking a margarita while writing about margaritas. I’d have finished the post too if not for the restaurant’s rule of no laptops out after 5PM (They want their patrons to “join the party”) For a brief shining moment, I was a triple threat of efficiency – simultaneous drinking, writing about drinking and socializing.
I’ve been streamlining my life for some time.
I like to read myself to sleep and since my Marketing Director and West Coast Bureau Chief gave me an I Pad, reading in bed took on a note of danger. Laying down and holding the I Pad up in front of me like I would a regular book only works until my eyes droop. I endured two rude wake-ups, my I Pad edge slamming into the bridge of my nose, before I came up with a better way. Now, I curl up in the fetal position with my I Pad propped up on the pillow next to me. I can snuggle under the covers and only need to stick a single finger out into the air to flick the pages. I’m primed for sleep, already in my favorite position on my favorite side so when I read the same paragraph twice and my eyes flutter shut, my nose is safe. The unexpected bonus – the I Pad is in position if I wake in the middle of the night or in the morning and want to pick up where I left off. The only downside is that sometimes the bedclothes cover it but since I never make my bed, this isn’t really an issue for me.
For those of you who want to try this at home, as long as your partner isn’t a fitful sleeper, you can prop up on a person too.
Streamlining doesn’t stop here! Showers are faster when I don’t wash my hair and if I go easy on hair goo, I wake up day-ready and don’t even have to wet it.
Going out to eat saves cooking and cleaning time. If I don’t go out, I order dinner and have it delivered.
If I do go to the supermarket and if I bother to write a list, I write it to follow the supermarket set up so I don’t retrace steps.
I believe “if it’s yellow let it mellow” and I save a flush.
At work my most impressive, finely honed skill is delegation.
To clean my floor, I step on Swiffer cloths and skate around, catching dust bunnies while my hands are free to do other stuff.
I avoid the washing machine by owning more underwear than anyone should. Employment and relatively stable weight over the past 10 years means I’ve been able to expand this principle. My closet bursts with enough shirts, pants and dresses to outlast my underwear. It’s usually a pile of dirty exercise clothes that thwart me so I found a solution for that too – I rarely work out.
For those of you who think “efficient” isn’t the word that jumps to mind, I’m about to knock your sox off (I hope, like me, you have spare pairs).
When laundry day finally arrives, my clothes are in the washer by 6:30AM and I go to the gym. I work out until it’s time to transfer the load to the drier and sometimes until the clothes are dry. My clothes are clean and calories burned before 7:30AM. If the story of my morning comes up in the office, and it usually does but I don’t know how, my co-worker’s expressions are nothing short of dazzled. Wishful even, that they’d be motivated to hit the gym and do laundry in the sleepy hours before the day really gets rolling. (It’s nobody’s business that I go to the gym because the laundry room and gym are on the same floor in my apartment building and it annoys me to have to go up and down and up and down – in the elevator – so the gym is preferable to watching my whites soap and spin.)
Drinks at Clarkson
Even though Clarkson’s no lap top policy kept me from efficiently banging out this post, I kind of like the restaurant. It has an Amelia Earhart meets Mad Men vibe. (I felt like there should have been a sky blue Chevy convertible waiting on a dusty tarmac to take me home.) The party at Clarkson hasn’t started yet as they’ve only been open for a week. For much of my visit, they had more wait staff than customers, but I think it’s going to take off.
Please go and get the calamari with white beans and chorizo (menu here). When you look at the dish and wonder where the beans and sausage are, they’re ground into a tasty paste and stuffed in the calamari shells. The margarita was good, maybe too sweet and too “hot” with alcohol but made with great care and lots of love.
And when you go, please say “hi” to Jeremy, the head of the bar program. I know him from his last gig. This means I either drink too much or he’s a really good guy. I vote for the latter.
When I plotted this post in my head, I figured I’d review pre-mixed drinks – the ones you buy in a bottle or squeeze frozen out of foil wrappers. But that would have entailed finding them, buying them and trying them. I think this is better. Don’t you?
margagogo 