Week in Review

I'm getting behind on blog posts. So I'll play catch up with this one. Last Sunday I took my sister Lauren to go see Wicked. I have some connections in the city, which is a good thing otherwise we'd never have managed to get tickets. It was a good show and we had some great orchestra seats. I still like the book better and the ending to the broadway version was not so great, but I guess broadway is a little like Disney, they just can't help but give you a happy sappy ending. The guy next to me too a hundred dollar nap, which seems a little ridiculous. I guess some people just have money to throw away. At the end of the show they asked for donations for the broadway charity drive that they do every year benefitting something like kids with aids or cancer. The lady behind us made some snarky remark about having to listen to such a thing.

On Wednesday a co-worker of mine offered me a ticket to a show at Carnagie Hall. It's funny what you get used to being around. When I really think about it, casually going to Carnagie Hall isn't something most people can do. It was an interesting show with three guys who were jazz musicians but tended to do more of a musical noise routine. The vocalist just played around making different noises and at one point the show devolved into them throwing drumsticks around the stage.

Friday we had a softball game where I actually managed to make it home and caught a pop fly. I was proud. The quote of the day came from a new girl on the team who hit the ball and ran to first but didn't make it before the ball did so she was out. She turned around and said "All that running for nothing?" Haha, I guess the game is kind of new to her. We were pretty far behind, but in the last inning we managed to make a good rally and ended up only losing by three runs. I think the score was 18-21.

Here's a sneak peek at pictures from this weekend. I'll blog about them and post more later.

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade

Any adventurous people who like Halloween should definitely come visit me in New York at the end of October next year. I will show you a good time. Marching in the Village Halloween parade is an experience not to be missed. I tried to convince many friends here that they should join me, but they all either watch from the sidelines or pass altogether. When you're watching from the side, you really don't get to see everything, and you're so crammed in with other people that the only costume you'll probably see is the tip of some Wizard's hat. Of course there are the stiltwalkers and the amazing animatronic statues that tower over everyone's head, you'll see all twelve of those. But you won't see and experience the thousands of costumed people walking in the parade, and get people to clap for you, scream at the sight of you, cheer you on, laugh at you all while you have actual elbow room. Last night I headed down to Scott's lab and we got dressed and walked over to the start of the parade. That is the worst part, where you are standing in a large crowd of people who suddenly take up more room than they usually do, due to extra appendages and props. But once the cops let you out of the starting gate, it's smooth sailing. You can walk at your own pace and choose which band or musical float you want to walk by and dance with. You get to see everyone's costume, and everyone gets to see you. I had many small children tell me that I won, that I was the best costume they saw that night, which was a pretty great accomplishment considering the creativity that was on display. Of course, for all I know they could have said that to ten people that night, but I still felt proud. Two separate girls called me "cute" which I thought was a funny way to describe my costume, and many people did double takes as we walked by. A mime and a headless person, in love. That's an interesting plot line. Anyway, enjoy the pictures for now, and make plans to visit next year!

Worst CrossWord Puzzle Ever

Hello. I like this blog thing. It makes me think of other people all day. I walk around trying to see or find something that is interesting enough to write about. It really makes me notice things, or at least appreciate them. When you live in New York City you start to take things for granted, or well you take things for granted anywhere, but the things you're taking for granted are kind of remarkable. Some bad, some better. For instance I take it for granted that every restaurant I eat in has roaches, if I see one scurry across the table in the middle of a bite I don't yell and demand a refund I just shrug and shift away. I do draw the line when I find a little friend at the bottom of my rice carton. Then I stop eating at that restaurant. Yes, that really happened once, and that restaurant is now closed down. Anyway, all this week I've been weaving in and out of police barriers and secret service type men. It's because the UN is in session and all the foreign dignitaries are in town. Since I work across the street from the St. Regis many men in suits with earpieces stare at me as I walk past, and big black vehicles with signs like "Malaysia PM" are parked along the street. I like to covertly observe all the security dudes as I walk past and see how many I can spot, then I kind of get self conscious and worry that they see me seeing them and they're going to take me down for casing the joint.
And now for the picture portion of the blog. I was thinking of all of you today when I couldn't finish my crossword puzzle on the train. I know some of you are excellent puzzlers (by the way I've met someone who makes them as a profession.) and so you will be just as outraged as I was/am when I got to 5 across and realized that the stupid free newspaper can't even get the crossword right, let alone report any news. Now there are two free newspapers that I can get in the morning. One is "Metro" and the other is "AM New York" they're the caliber of papers that regularly sell their front page as advertising. I used to choose one or the other based on which front page story I found more interesting. Then one day I was doing the crossword in Metro and there was a blatant misprint in the puzzle, so I became an ardent AMNYer. But today just leaves me completely at a loss. Not one of the ACROSS clues matched up to the puzzle. Sigh, but the ones I managed to fill in before I gave up the puzzle for lost made me think of you guys. Dali- Hannah just got back from Dali's house in France. Oman- plus its clue, Sarah and I are going to Oman and Yemen some time. Wok- Scott wants a Wok. Ok that's a stretch but anyway, I just wanted everyone to know I think about them all the time. And I took pictures of the puzzle which includes most everyone else who reads the blog because of photography connections. Hah! I win.

Walk Manhattan 7/1/07

I'm finally catching up to myself with the blogging. Here goes:

July 1
The weekend after we returned from our honeymoon, Scott thought we would just stay home and relax. When I heard that Sky and Anna had plans to walk Manhattan, something we'd planned for over a year, I had to nix the staying at home and join them for a little stroll. The plan was to "Walk Manhattan" from tip to tip - 220th st to Battery Park. Google Pedometer (you'll have to zoom to see our route) says it is about 14 miles. So we took the train all the way up, which took about an hour, and realized that the end of the line didn't quite go as far as we needed to go because of weekend subway construction. So we got on a bus that would take us all the way up across the river so we could officially start our walk of manhattan.

At 215th street we stopped to climb some stairs, though I didn't climb them since I knew there were still hundreds of streets left to go. I think we were just excited to get started though. At 207th st. we came accross the subway station where we exited. Whew it felt like we were making some progress at least. I saw a street anqtiques vendor with some turquoise beads I liked, so I made my friends buy them for me. Aren't I nice? I felt I needed to own some adventure beads. Then we stopped in at a drug store for water and ring pops. I'm not sure why Anna thought we needed those, but she insisted that we did. The only ones we could find were Care Bear ring pops. It made me very nostalgic, I remember watching Care Bear cartoons when I was a kid. We tried to find some little doll or thing that could be used so we could take a picture of it on our adventures, like Flat Stanley, but we didn't manage.

I felt like a real New York kid when we came upon a hydrant that was spewing little jets of water. We stopped to play in it. The weather that day couldn't have been better, warm but not hot and breezy, perfect. We thought there were a few things we wanted to see along the way, but we hadn't planned very well, so we didn't know where these things were. I think Anna wanted to see a church that has the largest gardens or land or something in the U.S. We passed a few churches and pretended that they were the right ones.

We thought that perhaps we'd do something fun like price a head of lettuce every 20 streets to see how the price changed, but I think we forgot about it after 10 streets. It was very interesting to see how things changed along the way. Like a spectrum or gradient of wealth. The closer to Midtown the closer to money and the taller the buildings.

We wanted to get food that was specific to each neighborhood, but when we asked someone and they told us the best place was behind us, we just couldn't back track, so we stopped for some bbq and enjoyed the break at 166th street. Up in the higher streets there seems to be more of a community, with street vendors and families all wandering around. I saw a guy who had a little shopping cart vending business going on. He had a juice press and he'd sell you fresh fruit juice. We thought it looked good, but we were too full from lunch, so we kept going. We introduced Sky and Anna to the street ice cream carts. They're all over in Jersey City. It's not really ice-cream. It's more like gelato or sorbet with a little bit of creaminess to it. They sell it to you in little dixie cups for a dollar.

We paused at Columbia to check out the campus. It's very beautiful, I'd never been there. The grounds have some nice sculptures and a nice neighborhood-y feel. After that we decided we should pick up the pace since we weren't quite half way and it was getting late. We hoofed it down to Central Park where we paused at 60th street for Anna to change her shoes. I couldn't believe she had worn flip-flops the entire way. So she changed into sneakers and we got about 5 streets further starting to complain about various aches and pains when Sky decided he wanted to take a picture of the pond in Central Park. At that point they realized that his camera had gone missing, and must have been left at the shoe changing place. Sky and Anna jogged off to try to get the camera before it was taken. When we met them 20 minutes later hopping out of a cab, they told us that they'd gotten to the bench to find a note under a rock. It said "If you can describe the camera, call this number..." So they called and some guy answered and told them to come meet him. Sky was very glad to recover the camera since his dad had given it to him, and well, it's just nice to get things back. So on we went trucking on down to Korea Town. We paused there for some Pink Berry, my new favorite dessert. and kept going until we reached Battery Park. It was pretty dark by then, but we felt like we had conquered Manhattan. We saw a guy catch a pretty big fish and decided we would catch a cab home. No more walking! Phew, anyway it was a good and very satisfying day.

Brian, a friend of Scott's from his lab, told us about this website http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/ when he heard about our adventure. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this guy who has walked every street in Manhattan, is from New Mexico. I e-mailed him to see if he'd found any good NM food, but he's had no luck either. I'm still searching. Perhaps if we walk enough it we'll find it.