Cutie Pie

I got to spend part of my Sunday in company with this cutie. Her name is "Charlie" short for Charlotte. We took her photos last year as well. It's so great getting to see my little clients growing up. Her mom gave her a sugar treat before the photo shoot, so she was ready to go! She was playing and running everywhere. Even, taking care of ridding the city of those nasty winged rats called pigeons by running them out of town. We made good use of a clown nose that we were handed, I'm not sure why they gave it to us. (Don't worry, it came wrapped, we didn't just stick something on her face that a bum gave us.)

This is Not Exciting

Today I will:

• Clean House
• Do Homework
• Photograph a baby shower

Tomorrow should be very similar except I'll photograph an outside baby.  Apparently baby showers around here are a big deal.  They expect it to go until midnight.  This is why you aren't getting a report on the interesting part of my day.  I've never heard of a pregnant person who wanted to be up past midnight.  I'm sure it will be fun though.  More interesting material tomorrow, I promise.

For Posts Sake

I don't know that I have anything particularly interesting to say, but I'll post for posting's sake. Scott made some friends when he was in Chicago, so we took them out to dinner at Please Don't Tell, which means I can't really tell you about it. But you do enter through a phone booth, in super secret Super Man style. I was a bum and left afterward instead of going out. I've got two photo shoots this weekend. I could have three if I'm feeling up to it, but I don't think I've got it in me. I don't think my poor camera does either. Looks like I need to raise my prices a bit so the work slows down. Well, I won't have that problem soon. I'll have to say goodbye to all my adorable clients.

Close Encounters of the New York Kind

Have you ever been close to a man? I mean really physically close, and sat there inspecting some small detail, such as his scalp or the little patch of razor burn on his neck or perhaps the fibers in his jacket? I did this tonight, but the people were all perfect strangers.

I started off the evening doing some photography for an awards dinner at work, but unfortunately the power in part of the building went out, which meant that about 100 people were up on the 35th floor with only one elevator to their name. That was a comfy elevator ride, made longer by the fact that it stopped on every floor because if someone happened to press a button anywhere in the building, that elevator was going to be the one to stop. I finally got downstairs and realized that I'd left my coat, all the way up on the 35th floor, but decided to brave the chilly weather rather than try to get up and down again.

Then I got to the Path train, where people were already shoving onto the train at the first stop. Each consecutive stop just shoved my face a little closer to the guy standing next to me. If you were ever to try this as a social experiment, without the excuse of a crowded train, you would probably get arrested for invading someone's personal space. I kept waiting for someone to crack a fart joke, hopefully not a real fart. Public transportation can be wonderful, but it can also get too close for comfort.

Leaving you with a photo, my boss made a tasty apple pie and brought it in today.

Heard on the Train

"Who throws snowballs at Santa? That’s so fucked up."  - Said the guy on the train in reference to the Philly's fans, who apparently have done that.  Many people around here want the Yankees to win the world series.  I'm not a big fan, but I would like to point out that everywhere that I've moved to, the local team has won the world series.  The Diamondbacks won when I moved to Arizona, if the Yankees win now and then the Rockies win when I move to Denver I should market myself to baseball teams as a good luck charm. That could be a lucrative career.

Wining and Dining

Monday was a busy day, which is why there was no post, even though I may have said something at some point about posting every day because it's :: announcer voice::  NATIONAL BLOGGING MONTH.

It was busy because we had an event that involved every single employee in North America and Canada and I had to help coordinate the New York portion, then after that we went to the Tisch Gala, a fundraiser for the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.  When my company buys a table and needs someone to fill a seat I'm happy to tag along for free dinner and drinks.
I got to see Glen Close very very close.  And Marcia Gay Harden was next to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.  They were all sitting at the next table over and had to walk by me to get to the stairs.  No I didn't reach out and try to pet them, or ask for their autographs, or just yell "hi" and smile and wave real big.  I acted like any proper New Yorker and feigned indifference.  I did consider stealing their leftover eclairs and trying to auction them on ebay, but ultimately decided against it.  Next time I'll at least steal the eclair and take a picture of it for y'all.

The room where we had dinner was gorgeous.  This is a picture similar to the set up, for our dinner. The room overlooks Columbus Circle and Central Park. 

You can see a slideshow of images from the event to see all the famous people I mingled with here .  You can see Howard Stringer, the CEO of Sony in one of the pictures. He was a presenter which is why I got to go.

Is This Thing On?

When you can't see your own eyeballs it's tough to tell if they're on straight.  This Halloween I was a slow starter, as in the day of Halloween I finally decided that I should make a costume, so Scott did some excellent fabric store scouting and found the perfect cheap fabric and we went to town making ourselves into the Yip Yip's from Sesame Street.   I'm not sure if I liked them before, but watching this again had me cracking up.  I think people either have fond memories or really disliked these characters, but a good majority remembered them at least vaguely.  Scott and I lined up to join the Village Halloween Parade.  They only let a few people through at once so the street starts getting more and more packed with people plus their costumes that may or may not include horns, antennae, halos, backpacks, or spikes, all of which can be dangerous to precariously glued on eyeballs.  It gets worse when a tightly packed crowd of Wild Things, bees and beasts find themselves in the midst of a downpour unable to move.  Some umbrellas come out which can be good or bad depending on your precise location.  Large umbrellas can cover a lot of crowd, but if you're the unfortunate soul at the edge of an umbrella you become a drain pipe for all the cold water that isn't reaching everyone else.  Discomfort aside, everyone was in good spirits and at least the rain made it cooler under those costumes, since after days of 50 degree weather it was suddenly 70 out.  We had a good time prancing along calling out "yip yip yip" and brrrring!  Everyone seemed to remember different parts of different skits, which we happily reenacted.  At certain points we had large swaths of people saying yip yip yip along with us.  A few people thought we were pink and green Elmos, close but not quite.  Or some people forgot what we said and shouted "beep beep beep."  When we'd finally had enough we got onto the train with our costumes half off and inquiring minds wanted to know what the heck we were.  As hot and soaking as we were, we shoved our heads back inside and did our Yip Yip bit, to the approval of the Entire Subway Car.  Many people were excited to see us and told us we were their favorite costumes of the night.   I will miss New York Halloween.

From 10_31_09_Halloween

From 10_31_09_Halloween