Encounter with a Bicycle - July 9
Our Rock in Central Park
It has a good view over a main path that is always full of walkers, runners, roller bladers, and bicyclists. We get our excercise watching them. Just on the other side of the path is a lake.
We've really enjoyed watching spring do its magic. We've watched the trees, bushes, and flowering plants grow around our rock (making us even more secluded); there is a bird that hangs out in a nearby tree with a beautiful call that we've never heard anywhere before; and we have a new raccoon friend that Dan named Rufus. And then there is the mouse that likes to run up on the rock for some reason, then he sees us and flees. He does it over and over, almost as though his memory is only a couple minutes long.
Kickball!
Fourth of July 2009
This year Macy's sponsored the fireworks on the Hudson River. This year is the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson discovering New York City and the Hudson River. They had five barges stretched along the river between 24th and 54th streets. We're at 72nd, so we walked down a little ways on the West Side Highway (they closed the whole highway down for event) and had a great view of all five.
They had some new fireworks. Some came out like smiley faces, some like boxes, and some that look like nautical shells that look like they're just hovering. My favorite, as always, is the one that booms really loud and sounds like it is rippling through the air. They had the added bonus this year of having more buildings to echo off, thus making it sound even better! At the end of the show, all of the boats tooted their horns; we were thrown off by it because they were the really deep horns that only big, big boats use, and we're used to the little tootin' horns from lake boats. Otherwise, the fireworks display was an average display.
On the news the next day, they reported an estimated two million people watched the fireworks - only in New York!
The Strand
The Strand is a landmark in NYC. They have been in business for 80 years, and boast that they have 18 miles of new, used, rare, and out-of-print books. The place is lined from floor to ceiling with books; the tables in the aisles are full to the brim. Barnes and Noble cannot even compare.
A must see for all book lovers when you come to visit us. (And probably where everyone's Christmas gift will come from.)
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon - May 29
Jimmy Fallon was probably our favorite show to see. He has a great energy about him, and interacts with the crowd more. The whole process was more laid back. Once again we lucked out and got front row!! The only down side is that we were hardly shown at all considering all of the time that Jimmy spends in the audience. But you can still see us several times throughout the show. We were right behind the Producers, who hardly did anything during the taping. One of them had a laptop in front of him and was going between twitter.com, his e-mail, and the home page to Jimmy Fallon. It was a bit distracting. In front of the other Producer was a very nice screen that showed exactly what was being taped--nice for us for when a camera was blocking ourview.
The Roots were awesome! They play throughout the "commercial" breaks, before Jimmy starts, and after the show is over, so its almost like getting a free concert too. What you see them playing on tv is so short, that you miss out on all the great music! One thing that surprised me was the drummer--you can tell he is a big boy on tv, but when he stands up away from the drums, he is pear shaped and quite large.
One cool thing I saw that I don't remember at previous shows, was the HD on the camers. They had the borders marked on the camera screens so that the cameramen would know what was seen whether you were watching on standard tv or high def. One guy had the middle in color, and the sides in black and white. Another guy had all black and white. I wonder if that is an option on the camera......
http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon/video/episodes/#vid=1115181
Our Very Short Trip to KC - May 17-19, 2009
We made a very short but meaningful trip to Ft. Scott, Kansas, to celebrate the opening of the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center at the community college in Ft. Scott. Dan's father and grandfather both gave short speeches at the beginnin of the ceremony. His grandfather talked about how and why they started the The Ellis Foundation, and the touching story of Dan's Aunt Kathy.
It was very exciting to see all of the family, and how much his cousin's kids have grown in just six months. Everyone was there, even Dan's cousing Brooke, who came all the way from Switzerland (she only arrived one day before us and left one day after us--long time in a plane for such a short time!). When Dan's grandfather introduced the family and where everyone lived, the audience had "Ooooohs" for Brooke, and laughs for us. Guess coming from New York City pales in comparison to Amsterdam!
Danny and Willa also graciously arranged for the Kansas City Symphony to play at the ceremony. It was a wonderful selection of music, and even the little cousins behaved very well for the event.
As a side note, we did get to spend about an hour with Sara's family. This was important as we ha
My Sister is Having a Baby!
Laura really raked in on the gifts. My favorite was the army onesie and booties. I can't believe no one else (including myself) thought of that! (Brian is an army man and is currently serving in Iraq.) All of her friends were so generous. This whole baby thing, classy baby shower included, is making me realize that we are adults now!
It was a friends shower, but almost everyone there was someone I would have wanted to see. The obvious was Laura Murren--I always love hanging out with her (she may be Laura's best friend, but we can share). Laura Murren's mother came in town for the occassion (we've had some good times on the porch with beer). My cousin Anne made it; I usually only get to see her a couple times a year, and since we missed Christmas AND Easter, this helped make up for it. Our honorary brother (my old roommate) Dominic braved the shower even though he was the only male. Brian's sister-in-law came (Laura's got good in-laws! Almost as good as mine!). Julie's best friend Melissa (aka Kitten) drove in to town, and I hardly ever get to see her! Heather (aka Hedder) made it. She is one of the many that started as a friend to one of us whom we all like to call friend now. There's too many to mention, and you're probably tired of this monologue now (if you're still reading.....).
During my short time there, I made an effort to see as many people as I could, but found myself drawn to my friends with kids (I have Baby-Fever!). Two of my friends that used to work at Lockton back in the day have had babies this year (both had girls). My great friend from college, Michelle, had her second (a boy!). (While I was in KC I got to watch the finale of ER with Michelle. We watched it when we were in college, starting Freshman year, so it was really special to see the end together.) I also got to catch up with my high school friend, Chip, and play with his two kids (not babies, but really fun kids to spend time with!). I even got to spend a couple late hours with my friend Christian, whom I really miss hanging with as one of my few not-a-mother-yet friends left.
I even managed to spend some time with just my family, as we celebrated my sister Molly's birthday. And I squeezed in appointment with my oncologist--my 10 years cancer-free appointment!
Our One Year Anniversary - March 22, 2009
For our anniversary we went out to Bar Baloud, as in the famous chef Daniel Baloud. It is near our apartment, but pricey enough that we've reserved it for an occassion such as this. We enjoyed it, but probably won't go back. But now we can check it off the list! Other than dinner, we pretty much just recovered from our week with visitors and very little sleep.
Ellis Family Visit
They arrived Sunday evening, and we celebrated their arrival by having a delicious dinner at Del Friscos. There are very few place in New York City that have good steaks, but this was one of them. We didn't even need a knife to cut it. After dinner we walked to Times Square. This was Christopher and Nathan's first trip to NYC, and we wanted to be with them for the first experience of the craziness (turns out they saw it in the cab on the way in, but still...first time on foot). The Virgin Records store was going out of business, so that was a hit for all of us, and how often do you get to shop for music after midnight? That was just a sign of the lack of sleep we were going to get all week.
Monday we saw Les Paul at the Iridium Jazz Club. He is a guitar legend and inventor. He is 93 and still plays guitar every week. He has a dirty but amusing sense of humor. He also has different people play with him each week for a song or two. He had two guests the night we were there, one of which was an 11 year old jazz pianist. It will probably be another 10 years before the kid can truly appreciate this experience. All in all, it was a really fun night.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday Dan took off work to spend with the fam. He and his brothers spent all day developing and writing songs (which we later named with Chuck Norris references). Chris and Cathy were able to enjoy alone, and then saw Wicked in the evening (I'm jealous!). Afterwards they came over to the apartment for a last hurrah. Sadly, they were leaving early Saturday morning. But we made the most of it!