Adventures in Kitty-sitting

I'm cat-sitting for some teacher friends who live near the bookstore.

Zero is a former tom who sheds fine white hairs on a sparsely decorated, but very nice two bedroom overlooking Fulton Street. Zero has a tabby-vest and apparently, his poop smells terrible, but so far, we've been quietly enjoying company. This is Day 1.

I am still reeling from the physical demand of last week.

The bookstore had a huge party for David Mitchell, whose latest Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (a Dutch colonialist, so I infer it is pronounced "dazoot") enjoyed a rave on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (by Dave Eggers, no less). We scrambled to make the store perfect, and plenty of folks noticed--the perfect part, not the scrambling.

I've been a fan of cold pasta these past few weeks, they're a nice alternative to cooking in a kitchen that is too narrow not to conjure hell when we broil chicken, boil eggs and melt cheese. I threw tri-color rotini, 1/2 a jalapeno, 2 pepperoncini, celery, fresh basil from the roof, pine nuts and turkey bacon together. Lunch for a week, bam.

Also, MayaBee started getting stuffy so I pretty much consumed two heads of garlic. No vampire bites for me!

I also wanted to share the notion of a watermelon salad that I tried at the FOJBBQ.

Long-lost-Long-Island's mother hollowed out a watermelon, sliced some plum tomatoes and red onions; poured 1 part balsamic (maybe red-wine), 1 part olive oil; and sprinkled fresh black pepper, good salt, and feta cheese. Suh-nap, that was tasty.

Any other delicious cold salads I should be trying?