Looking for an editor to join the Cup of Jo team

I'm looking for an experienced writer/editor for Cup of Jo. Do you know anyone (maybe yourself?) who might be interested? This is a paid position based in NYC. Here are the details, below...Read More >

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! Can you believe 2014 is right around the corner?! Hope you're having a wonderful week!

Honestly, this year has has some ups and downs—long-time readers know that I'm not great with pregnancy hormones!—so I'm more grateful and touched than ever to have such incredible people returning to Cup of Jo. I love your funny, heartfelt and insightful comments and emails every day. I learn so much and can't express how happy I am to have you here. It's such a gift to have this warm and dynamic community of likeminded women.

Here's a quick look back over the past year, if you'd like...
Motherhood posts, such as co-sleeping with your children, six words to say to your child, five genius motherhood tips, naked babies at the beach, toddlers in the kitchen, a lullaby that really works...and the most moving post of my entire blogging career about a stillborn baby boy.
We also did a motherhood around the world series, where we interviewed mothers living in India, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Norway, Congo, Japan and Abu Dhabi. I was completely riveted by their answers and was inspired by parenting norms in different cultures. We'd love to do another series in 2014 with more countries.
Posts about toddler Toby, such as conversations with a two-year-old and three-year-old, playing his violin, his donut birthday cake, going on a babymoon trip for your older child, bringing his favorite book to life and preparing him for a sibling (thank you so much for the enlightening tips!)
Post about our new arrival, Anton, such as announcing our pregnancy, seeing his sweet profile, choosing a name, fast labors in cabs, introducing our two boys for the first time and decorating our very first Christmas tree.
Beauty posts, such as hair tutorials and nail polish trends, which are my secret favorite. We also did four reader makeovers (here are the afters!).
Fashion posts, such as a five-second trick for feeling pretty, my fall uniform, and the most flattering jeans.
TV posts such as the 101 best written TV series of all time, celebrity look-a-likes, casting auditions for The Office, SNL's spoof on Girls and a fantastic ballet documentary.
Design posts, such as natural home scents, how to arrange supermarket flowers, lost loves, the rain room and how to do...anything.
Home posts, such as a 500-square-foot San Francisco apartment, a vacation rental website for families and our own apartment makeover.
Career posts, such as a Q&A with the Girls costume designer and a Q&A with an animal photographer.
Food posts, such as crunchy roast potatoes, the beauty of eating dinner alone, 11 Nutella recipes, how beer's taste alone gets you a little high and three flavored waters.
Friendship posts, such as what to say when there's an awkward silence, how to say goodbye at parties, a spot-on personality test, the power of empathy, three things you're grateful for, wise words for when you're freaking out and the wobbly path to success.
Travel and NYC posts, such as 9 crazy things about living in NYC, what British people say vs. what they really mean, 11 untranslatable words from other countries, Swedish slides, a Positano travel fantasy and how to piss off every New Yorker in 36 seconds.
Relationship posts, such as making out in public, saying I love you, having sex on your wedding night, what marriage means, how to give a reflexology foot rub, having friends officiate your wedding, what you'd do differently if you got married again, celebrity crushes and a brilliant speech about the word "gay".
And, as always, random posts, such as a When Harry Met Sally prank, goats yelling like people, how a key actually works and how to walk on ice.

I hope you enjoyed this year on Cup of Jo, and thank you again for reading. Very much looking forward to new series and exciting adventures in 2014, and sending a big kiss to you. Happy holidays!!! xoxo

P.S. I'll resume posting on January 6th, if you're in a blog-reading mood:)

Salted Caramel Molten Chocolate Cakes

This month, we've asked food bloggers to share their favorite holiday desserts, and today, Izy of Top With Cinnamon reveals how to make these molten chocolate cakes with salted caramel. How insanely rich and delicious do these look? Here's how to whip them up...
Read More >

This Just In: If You Need Me, I'll Be Gone For The Holidays!

***Hats!  Books!  Hats and books!  Get them before they get you!***

Well fuck me, it's that time of year again:

Sure, yes, it's fender time, but it's also Christian Hanukkah, followed by the Roman New Year, which means I'm signing off of this blog until Thursday, January the 2nd, in the year Twenty-Hundred and Fourteen, at which point I will resume regular updates.

Unless I decide to re-imagine this whole enterprise as a foodie blog called "Bite It, You Scum"--which, of course, was also the title of GG Allin's* one and only book.  (Actually, the full title was "Bite It, You Scum: The Complete Compendium of Coprophage Cookery.)

*[Sorry, I should have mentioned that link isn't safe for work, assuming naked men making doody and eating it while shouting obscenities and assaulting audience members is frowned upon in your office environment.  Then again, if you clicked on a link called "GG Allin" and expected it to be safe for work then you're kind of an idiot.]

It could happen.

In the meantime, inasmuch as it's the end of the year (at least according to the calendar which has been foisted upon us by our oppressors, I prefer to follow an ancient system of measuring time based on the menstrual cycles of your local priestess), I've taken some time to reflect.  (Well, I've taken about ten minutes, or approximately a 4,000th of a priestess's menstrual cycle.)  In particular, I flipped back in this blog to about a year ago in order to see how far we've come during that time.  So let's take a look, in a little holiday-themed segment I like to call:

"Same As It Ever Was"

(Hey, that's my line, you dick.)

Take bike tech, for instance.  At around this time last year, a muddy race revealed that disc brakes suck for cyclocross:

Whereas, a few days ago, a cold race revealed that disc brakes suck for cyclocross:

That's a year of trying to push disc brakes on a sport that involves riding around on a closed course for an hour.  Maybe after this they'll start pushing discs for track racing too.

And what about New York City area drivers?  Well, about a year ago one crashed into a Dunkin' Donuts:

(Oopsie.)

Oh, that was the second time that particular Dunkin' Donuts got hit by a driver in six months.

Then, six months after that, another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:

The cabbie lost consciousness while traveling southbound on Prospect Avenue near Westchester Avenue at around 12:45 p.m. and almost struck a 17-year old mom and her 8-month old baby after he hit another car and jumped the curb crashing into a Dunkin Donuts on Prospect Avenue, cops and witnesses said.

Then a month after that another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:

(Wow, good thing they were kosher.)

One person was seriously hurt and four others suffered minor injuries when a car crashed into a Long Island Dunkin Donuts on Thursday afternoon.

It happened about 3:30 p.m. at the location on E. Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream.

Then, a month after that, another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:

As many as eight people were injured, three critically, after a sports utility vehicle smashed into a Jersey City Dunkin’ Donuts yesterday.

And so on and so forth, frankly I got tired of looking.

Anyway, here we are a year later and the streets are still plagued...by Dunkin' Donuts:


Well, in defense of the drivers, those Dunkin' Donuts franchises do sort of come out of nowhere.  And what is it with these arrogant people who shop at Dunkin' Donuts without wearing helments anyway?

They deserve whatever happens to them.

Moving on to Portland, at the beginning of 2013 Portlanders were losing their shit because it was "cold, to the extent they were writing poetry about it:

January —
The darkest time of the year
the rainiest month
the post-holiday sluggishness —
a bike commuter’s biggest challenge
Festive Christmas light brightened my December commutes
now gone

Leaves, vanished from the trees
dissolved into lingering dark mush on the road

Bitter darkness surrounds me
Blindly, I bang into multiplying potholes

Now it's almost a year later, and guess what?

Perhaps one day Portlanders will come to terms with the fact that winter brings cold and ice with the same inevitability of a car smashing into a Dunkin' Donuts.

Of course, my own life has been similarly stagnant.  For example, around this time last year I was coveting a folding bike:

(Why not just ride the bikes?)

Well, since then I actually did get a folding bike, but I haven't used it in months.

So there you go.

Lastly, it's been almost a year now since Lance Armstrong went on Oprah:

(When I say he "went on Oprah" I mean he was interviewed by her, not that he pulled a "GG Allin" on her.)

And now here we are in a new age of openness, transparency, and cleanliness in professional cycling.

Yeah, obviously that's a joke, Team Sky is totally on drugs, and riders are still blaming meat:

“I can advise that during the period 8th-17th October, before arriving in Japan, I was present in China for the WorldTour race, Tour of Beijing. I understand that it has been acknowledged by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as well as other anti-doping bodies, that food contaminated with Clenbuterol is a serious problem in China.”

Same as it ever was indeed.

And with that, I wish you, your families, your bicycles, your pets, and even those single unmatched socks in the back of your underwear drawer a nauseatingly joyous holiday season.  Thank you for reading.  I also thank the generous sponsors who have been duped into placing ads in the right-hand margin of this blog, and I hope you will patronize them with your holiday bounty if you are in the market for any of the wares that they offer.

See you again on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2014.

I love you,


--Wildcat Rock Machine

Have a wonderful weekend.

Happy holidays! Are you heading anywhere this week? We're leaving tomorrow for our annual trip to Palm Springs and Los Angeles. We debated whether we should go or not, since a cross-country trip with two little dudes sounded intimidating, but in the end, we figured we'd give it a go! I'm so excited to see our family. This year, Anton's basically the same age as Toby when he had his first Christmas. And last year Anton was just a bump:)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and here are a few fun posts from around the web...

Beautiful nature photos.

Hibernation sweatshirt. Right on.

This snowy week, we watched almost all of Homeland season two—so addictive! This tumblr made me laugh.

Parents see their youngest children as smaller than they actually are.

Note to Santa: This is at the top of my wishlist.

A ballerina dancing at 39 weeks pregnant.

Santa school.

The Queen of England likes wearing blue.

Cute way to hang a wreath.

My friend Susan gave us this book and it's awesome.

The movie Her has been getting amazing reviews. Are you going to see it?

Why you should bring olive oil to a dinner party.

Cool Brooklyn pennant. (You can get any city you'd like.)

Great stocking stuffer.

Wish us luck on the flight tomorrow with those two little stinks! And if you need them: 10 tips for traveling with a baby, and 10 ways to entertain a toddler on a plane.

Lots of love and safe travels! xoxo

Norway has a show about knitting.

When I posted about the fireplace movie this week, a reader told me that Norway has a show about knitting. People shearing a sheep and then knitting for hours. That's it. The show is part of a movement called "slow but noble television."

The Telegraph reports:

"'Slow TV' has proved successful for Norway's NRK, a veteran in quirky programming, since 2009 when the broadcaster showed the view from the roof of a seven-hour train ride from Bergen to Oslo. Millions watched. In 2011, it broadcast 134 hours non-stop of a cruise ship going up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic, bagging the world record for the longest continuous TV program. Millions tuned in. In February, it aired a 12-hour show on firewood, featuring discussions about stacking and chopping, and a debate on whether the bark should face up or down. One in five Norwegians watched the show at one point."

Interesting, right? Would you watch these? If you live in Norway, do you? Now we just need some gløgg!

P.S. 10 surprising things about parenting in Norway, and how babies sleep outside in Denmark.

(Painting by Francoise Duparc)

Date idea: Pool lessons

Now that Anton is finally sleeping (yay!), Alex and I have been excited to go out on date nights again. So we checked out the dating and relationships company HowAboutWe, which has really fun date ideas...Read More >

Sailboat kite

How beautiful is this sailboat kite? You can fly it outside or use it as decor.

I believed in Peter Pan until I was embarrassingly old (and waited every night for him to come to my window), so this kite takes me back!

(Via Swissmiss)

Grinding Our Way To Year's End...

(Now that's an obit.)

In case you're still wondering where you stand as a cyclist in America, the answer is you don't stand at all.  Instead, you lie bleeding on the rear windshield of a speeding Mustang for two miles before the driver dumps you behind the garbage cans:

A Broward bicyclist was left in critical condition Tuesday after a hit-and-run driver struck him, then kept driving for two miles with the man caught in the car’s smashed rear window.

Once the driver arrived at his Pompano Beach townhouse, he removed the biker, identified as Craig Camlin, 53, from the car’s roof and dumped him in a wooded area behind a trash bin and bushes.

Then, the driver, who police said was 27-year-old Axel Inostroza, hid his damaged, black 2003 Ford Mustang to keep his girlfriend from seeing it and went inside to sleep, according to the confession he later gave investigators.

Merry Christmas!

(The shitter of humanity is indeed filled to overflowing with the feces of ill will.)

This is why you should never, ever trust a man with a sculpted beard and sculpted eyebrows:

I cannot think of single atrocity you could visit upon this person that would in any way make me even remotely uncomfortable.  In fact, I think they should just sculpt his facial hair with live rats like in "1984:"

Then when the rats are done with his face they could give him a little "manscaping."

It's not even lunchtime and I'm already fantasizing about rats gnawing off a man's testicles.

This is why it's so hard being a cyclist in the Internet age.  You can't go a day without reading something that makes you pray for someone's nuts to get eaten by vermin.

But hey, it's the holidays.  Let's set genital-gnawing rodents aside for a moment and focus on the things that tie us together as people.  Literally.  Because some "duders" out in California have invented a bike leash for skaters:



Flatland Towing for all Skaters or Launching Skaters into Rails or Ramps by temporarily clipping onto any bicycle seat then unclipping

I'm not sure why they need $15,000 to produce a device you could fabricate yourself from impulse items you can purchase at the counter of your neighborhood bodega and/or Petco, but then again I'm not a deeply stoned "engineer."

Also, it ain't no Bicycle Bungee:



Actually, that's not true.  It's exactly a Bicycle Bungee.

Still, it's marginally more practical than the Gear Grinder, to which I was alerted by a reader:

At first I assumed Gear Grinder was a band that put out an album on Earache in the early 1990s, but it turns out it's something even dumber:

Gear Grinder is the world's first pedal powered coffee grinder. It's a small chain driven coffee grinder that grinds a single hopper of coffee and is attached to the seat stay of a single speed bicycle.

Conceived and developed by two coffee drinking cyclists in London, Gear Grinder allows cycle loving  coffee aficionados to grind their morning brew the best way possible....by foot.

Okay, so like any coffee drinker I want my coffee first thing in the morning.  Ordinarily I'd just grind it in the kitchen, but with Gear Grinder now I can finally go outside, get on my bike, and ride around the block 10 or 15 times first, which sounds like a great way to streamline my morning routine.  Also, the Gear Grinder mounts to pretty much the filthiest place on your bicycle, so your coffee will taste of road grit.

Why anyone would fuck with the immutable order or morning operations (that being Coffee, then Bathroom, then Bike) is beyond me.

Or maybe this is a harbinger of something even more insidious, and coffee douchedom has gotten to the point that people are actually bringing their own grounds to the café for their post-ride slow-drip whatever.

"Hey, can you brew this for me?," asks the guy with the sleeve tattoos and the cycling cap.

"Sure, there'll be a corkage fee of $20," replies the guy with the sleeve tattoos and the cycling cap behind the counter.

"Gladly, you can't pay enough for authenticity."

It's strange.  I like bikes, and I like coffee, but for some reason when they come together I get extremely pissed off--except when it comes to my own coffee, of course, because I'm a whore:

Put that on your seat stay and grind it.

And wear a hat and read a book while you do it:

Hey, my toilet's not going to gold plate itself.

Speaking of me, around this time last year I made a New Year's resolution to not renew my USA Cycling license, and thereby cease being a card-carrying Fred:

Well, I'm pleased to announce that, with less than two weeks remaining in the year, it's extremely unlikely I'll be tempted to compete in an organized bicycle-cycling racing event, and so for the first time ever I will have actually fulfilled a New Year's resolution, meaning I am entitled to a reward.  I'm not sure what I'll treat myself to yet, but I'm thinking I may finally get that gravel bike I've had my eye on:

I'm going to blast the crap out of some gravel, though hopefully I don't need a special USA Cycling license in order to do so.

Also, I hope my Gear Grinder is compatible with it, because grinding gravel while grinding coffee puts you in the very eye of the cycling zeitgeist--especially if you wear orange and camo while doing it, at which point you become the embodiment of every single cycling trend going, until you go supernova and your SRAM hydrolic dick breaks explode, leaving you lying in a ditch with a brake fluid facial.

Lastly, anyone who rides a bike in New York City knows Access-A-Ride vans are the scariest motor vehicles out there (they make yellow cabs look like horse-drawn carriages), so it should come as no surprise that one has nipped onto the sidewalk and created another future passenger:

That's bicycle-lane bad, and I look forward to hearing how a cyclist was responsible.

A brutally honest NYC tourism ad

I love New York, but it can be loud, dirty and gross. This NYC tourism ad written by comedian Daniel Hubbard made me laugh out loud.

P.S. 9 crazy things about NYC.

(Via Mashable)

It's the Penultimate Wednesday of 2013, Spend it Wisely!

Seasons Greetings from New York City, birthplace of the expression "bicycle-lane bad:"

Simply put, Bloomberg was a mayor of tremendous consequence. Not all his ideas were good ones — some were bicycle-lane bad — but virtually all were big ones. Small ball was never his game.

Yes, here the bicycle lane is synonymous with the very worst our city has to offer.  That's why bike lanes are causing 30-car pile-ups on the Gowanus:

Oh, wait, I'm sorry, it wasn't bike lanes, it was black ice--and if you're wondering what "black ice" means, it's a euphemism for shitty drivers who feel invincible in their crappy "crossover" vehicles.  Some might argue that if a trip's not all that important it's better to take public transportation or even just stay home during a snowstorm, but it's crucial to keep in mind that some of these people had urgent business in town that simply couldn't wait, like looking at a stupid tree like the one in your living room, only larger:

One driver, who was headed to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, told the Daily News, "I slid for about 20 seconds. I screamed, ‘I can’t stop.' I feel lucky. There was a bus behind us. If it hadn’t been able to stop, we would have been dead."

Right.  Because no trains go to Rockefeller Center.

By the way, if you think 30-car pile-ups are an argument against driving when it comes to urban planning, think again.  I mean, look at all the money changing hands here!  Police overtime, towtrucks, insurance companies, auto repair shops...  This isn't an "accident," it's a freaking bonanza!  This is why those poor hapless bike advocates need to stop arguing that bike infrastructure makes sense because it's "inexpensive."  Uh, don't you get it?  Inexpensive is no good!  Get the granola out of your ears, for chrissakes.  When you build a highway a lot of people get rich!  Politicians, contractors, supply companies...  Meanwhile, who's getting paid when they slap some green paint on Prospect Park West?  Nobody, that's who.  It's a few gallons of Benjamin Moore from Pintchik, big fucking deal.

No, if we want some bike lanes we better start pushing for some multi-billion-dollar projects, like maybe a 200-foot wide bicycle superhighway from Staten Island to the Canadian border.  See, a lot of people would stand to gain from building a great big shitshow like that--and that's when the bribes start to flow and the politicians get their asses in gear.  Then, before you know it, you've got the green light, and 50 years later ground has been broken.

Meanwhile, in other news, today is an auspicious day since it marks the 300 millionth time someone has emailed or otherwise alerted me to the "Copenhagen Wheel:"



You know what?  Screw this smug piece of crap.  I don't want to turn my "ordinary bicycle" into a "smart electric hybrid," and I especially don't want to "connect it to my smartphone."  I hate my fucking smartphone!

Sure, I'm addicted to it like every other asshole out there, but that doesn't mean I don't hate it.  Hate it!  If I were to suddenly become a billionaire (I'm already a millionaire, obviously) the only lifestyle change I'd make would be that I'd smash my smartphone to bits every time it annoyed me, which is like every three seconds. For fuck's sake, is there anything worse than Twitter?  It's death by a zillion brainfarts!  And these people think they're going to save the earth with their dumb little wheel that connects to your phone?  Please.  In 75 years, when we're all trudging knee-deep through discarded smartphones like piles of autumn leaves on a planet has been ravaged for its lithium, we'll wish we could go back to the days of analog bicycles.

But it will be too late.

Then we'll all be dead.

Merry Fucking Chrismas.

But enough gloom and doom.  Let's watch cyclocross videos!



As you can see, the sport has changed very little over the years, except back then the bikes folded and you occasionally turned around and took a shot at one of your competitors:

Yeah, cyclocross used to be cool before WWI, but by WWII it started getting lame, and then the hipsters came along and ruined everything:



What with their trendy Surname wheels and all:

Actually, I love the Surname wheels.  They "spin up" real nice and other clichés, though if you're "running' the traditional 36-spoke box section Surnames you'll need to "change them out" after you get married.

That's a dated matrimonial reference, but it's not as dated as this:

Bitcoin my scranus, I'm putting all my money in the Cipollini since I'm guessing it will be the only form of currency with any value after the impending global economic collapse.

What's that?  You haven't heard about the impending global economic collapse?  Oh yeah, it's coming soon and it's going to be a disaster, and this is what it's going to be like afterwards:



Of course, if you want to see the rest it will only cost you $27,000 (not sure why they need $27,000 for ketchup, cogs, and SPD cleats, but then again I'm not a filmmaker), which comes out to about five (5) Mario Cipollini pogs in post-apocalyptic currency:



I wonder if, at least in the case of films, Kickstarter would consider adding a "kill fee" feature, wherein for only twice the amount of the goal the filmmakers promise not to go ahead with the project.

Seems like a bargain in this case.