12 posts tagged “new york city”
So I finally got my New York State driver's license. I'd been rocking the Maryland one for a while, mainly because it had a really good picture of me on it. (Downside: the MD license lists your weight.) Also, you have to take an eye test to get a new license, and I knew I would need corrective lenses, and as I said the other week, I only just got around to getting glasses.
Anyway, thank goodness my friend J. told me about the DMV express on 34th St. Forty five minutes in and out, wham bam I got my license. It was so quick, I felt violated. Not the usual soul sucking 4 hour DMV experience we have all come to know and love. I took a book and three magazines with me to read and didn't even get to finish the last 50 pages of my book!
And what a blessed event the eye test was. I could read every line. I wanted to volunteer to read more! ("You want I should do line eleven? Because I totally can.") But now, for the first time, I have a restriction on my driver's license. And of course I had to get my license photo taken with my glasses on. It's a shitty photo. Of course. Farewell Maryland license: I loved you so.
(Oh, and here's what I look like with 'em!)
It's kind of depressing now, I guess, that whenever anything like this happens in the city, I (and a whole host of others) immediately think "terrorism". Even just for a split second, until rational thought kicks back in. It was like when Cory Lidle crashed his plane into the side of a building; when you're at work and all you hear is "there's been a plane crash into a building" it's a license for your imagination to go crazy. (Particularly when the crash is a couple of blocks from mr. gaspode's workplace). I don't like it. I don't like that my mind is now programmed to go straight there.
Yesterday, mr. g and I went to Coney Island with our friends F. (who will only chew Wrigley's gum until the Cubs win the world series again) and D., who as far as I know isn't nearly as weird as her husband :)
Everything about Coney Island pretty much rocks (I can wax lyrical about the Nathan's hot dogs, the rides, the crowds, the boardwalk and the baseball team for starters), but the best part of Coney Island is the Cyclone. Built in 1927, it's a wooden roller coaster, that goes up 85 feet and gets to just under 100 km/h. Frankly, even though it doesn't do any loops or even go sideways, I find it terrifying. And, of course, awesome.
Under the Cyclone is the Coney Island History Project exhibition, which has some fantastic old photos, and lots of information about Coney Island over the past century or so. They are making an oral history archive of interviews with people and their Coney Island stories.
...belly...distended...send....help...
Last night, I went for dinner with two lovely women, J. and K., to celebrate J.'s birthday. We ate at Babbo. We ate a lot of food. A lot of food at Babbo. Actually, I ate a lot of food, because I am an idiot and forgot that I could just eat half of every course and get the rest packed up. Well, I didn't forget, my mouth was just enjoying itself too much (dirty!) and didn't let my brain register.
Here is the menu. And off it we ate -
Antipasti. J. - Lamb tongue, K. - tripe, me - octopus.
Primi. J. - Mint love letters, K. - goat cheese tortelloni, me - stricchetti with lamb
Secondi. J. - salmon special, K. - skirt steak, me - braised beef
Dolci. J. - a...blueberry tart I think? K. - formaggi (sensible lady) me - ricotta cheesecake
Yes, that was a lot of food. And cocktails to start, and champagne throughout. We ladies can eat. (Well, K. was clever and had half her stuff packed up.) And today my belly is taking one for the team.
So I'm trying hard not to get into political reading yet, as I'm sure I'll be wasting a lot of time next year with the upcoming election. That said, it's sometimes kind of difficult to avoid it. Especially with Rudy Giuliani a frontrunner.
Anyways, there is one thing that I keep reading that has me baffled. I'm not trying to be snarky here (I'd fail) but I am genuinely confused, so if someone could explain this to me I'd be grateful.
It seems like the accepted wisdom is that Giuliani is a strong candidate, albeit causing reservations in the Republican base because of his stance on gay rights and abortion (he seemed a little vacillating about that one recently, but apparently he's about to publicly embrace abortion rights, like, today or something according to google) and his personal life.
But this is the bit that confuses me. Often when I read about him, I read a statement that says something like "but he has impeccable tough on crime, tough on terrorism credentials".
Tough on crime I can see. Tough on terrorism? Didn't 9/11 happen on his watch? I mean, yeah, good on him, he hightailed it down to Ground Zero when others were taking off to their secure locations, and he was visible and did a good job with the aftermath. But how does that equate to being tough on terrorism? Preaching fighting words after the fact isn't "tough on terrorism". Cleaning up nicely isn't "tough on terrorism".
I'm confused. 'Splainy?
Last night ET the New Zealand cricket team won the deciding match of the Chappell-Hadlee trophy against Australia. Yes, yes Australia were resting a lot of players; I'm not going to go on about how we won. Just that it was such a fucking exciting game to watch.
Mr. gaspode and I had dinner reservations at 8.45 in SoHo, which enabled us to head down to Eight Mile Creek early and catch the last 20 overs of the Australia innings, despairing at the fact that they set a record for a one-day innings at Eden Park, and then head to L'ecole for 5 courses of French cooking and paired wines. We finished dinner and came back to the bar to watch the end of what we thought would be a blowout, another typical loss for the Black Caps. When we walked in, the score was around 130ish for 3 in the 23rd-ish over (lots of wine, can't really remember). Which actually is not too bad, but was way behind the required run rate. But then we had the fun of watch Ross Taylor compile his second one-day century, ably supported by Peter Fulton and then replaced by a fiery Craig McMillan, throwing his bat around like Eden Park was a backyard, only without the 6-and-out rule. The bar was slightly biased in favour of NZ, and the noise when the kiwis got a boundary or when the Australians made a mistake in the field was deafening. Awesome.
It was the second biggest winning total made by a chasing team. I don't know if anyone will ever best South Africa's defeat of Australia chasing 438, but we'll see.
If only the bar offered more NZ beers than the yucky Steinlager.
For our last wedding anniversary, in October, mr. gaspode gave me tickets to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. It was on Monday and yesterday and it was awesome. We have been before, 2 years ago (when the German shorthaired pointer won, and I totally called it), so we knew that it would be kick-ass. It was at Madison Square Garden, and on the second day, the day that Best in Show is judged, the stadium was nearly packed.
The best part about the WKC dog show is that the dogs are required to be benched and accesible to the public during the day. So even though the group judging starts at 8pm, I got there around 6 each day to go "backstage" and play with the dogs. The owners are always really nice and talk to you and let you play and pet the dogs. It's so much fun!
The photos I took are on flickr, but here's a selection.
Last night we went to see Mission of Burma play at Irving Plaza. We got there in time to see the second band, Oneida, play. We weren't so psyched to see them, because last time we saw Oneida they...kind of sucked. Well, that's not true, they just played music that we didn't like very much. Last night though, they were great. I really enjoyed them and I think mr. g did too.
But of course, MoB was the main event. They went on at around 10.45 and played for about an hour and a half - with only a 5 minute break at 11.30. They were tight and loud and sounded great. The cool thing was that their newer stuff (and remember there was a 22 year gap between albums after they broke up and reformed) and their older stuff just sounded seamless when sung in a set together. The older stuff sounds more punky and stripped down, but also more poppy with harmonies and singalong choruses (see song that's the title of this post). The new stuff is more rocky and full. More bass. But it's all fantastic.
The fun thing about going to see bands like Mission of Burma is that the audience is so diverse. You have all the people there who are the same age as the band (who did make a few cracks about how old they are - including reiterating that yes, they did still have sex) and then all the people who discovered the band throughout the 20 years that they were broken up, probably due to the vast number of other bands who have cited MoB as influences. There were a bunch of kids there who can't have been older than 16 or 17. I think that's awesome.
Today is just such a fucking awesome day. I spent the early afternoon just wandering around the streets enjoying the feeling of being out in January, wearing nothing on top but a t-shirt. It put me in a good mood all day, that not even the prospect of doing work right now is dimming. So to celebrate the good mood, I'm listening to the music that keeps me there.
