White knuckles

I confronted one of my fears over the weekend: driving a car in midtown Manhattan. R, C, The Fonz, and I drove up to a friend's place in Queens and the route took us through the Lincoln and Queens tunnels with a stretch of dense city in between. The directions looked pretty straightforward on a map, but when we came above ground on the island there were roads going in every direction and swarms of cars and pedestrians abound. We got off course a bit and had major difficulty getting onto the needed 42nd St. No matter where we zigzagged across it, there were no turns allowed onto that street. Some aggressive driving and cutting in front of fleets of cabs later, we made it across the island and placed the car in park for the rest of the weekend. Whew. We took an alternate route home, this time going through the less busy SoHo district aiming for the Holland tunnel. It went off without a hitch.

Our two-night stay was pretty low-key. Having a baby around is a handy excuse for not staying out late. Who would have thought we'd go to NYC for the weekend and actually get caught up on our sleep? My main purpose there was just to soak up the city one last time before we leave the east coast. We walked around a lot, ate some authentic New York style pizza, and visited with some friends. R and I split off of the group on Sunday for a look through the MOMA. There was a lot of cool stuff there. I'm a sucker for seeing the famous/iconic works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, etc. And R likes to ponder upon the occasional black square.

The baby did surprisingly well on the streets of New York, as long as somebody other than me was holding him. It's true -- I'm not yet comfortable with holding babies (and they know it). I'm counting on my paternal instincts kicking in before we have one of our own. Anyway, The Fonz is a trooper. It took me 20-some years to get to NYC; he's doing it within his first 3 months.

Speaking of the little guy... his acting debut will be posted here tomorrow night. Be sure to check back then!

Afternoon in the museum

We are feeling a little New Yorked out after making another day trip to the city on Sunday. An old friend of R's and her husband were vacationing there, so we met up with them as well as some other mutual friends from the area. Our first stop was the American Museum of Natural History. A big, interesting place it is. Due to time constraints we had to take an abbreviated tour, but I can see how the place could take days to explore.

Oh yeah -- we had a star sighting at the museum. We saw this guy. You may have seen him in Roseanne or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Okay, so maybe calling him a star is stretching it, but he was famous enough for me to recognize his face and voice while I loosely trailed him through the dinosaur exhibit.

From there we worked our way through Central Park and relaxed on some shaded lawn. The weather was just barely on the hot side of perfect. We watched a roller-skate dance party, ate some ice cream sandwiches, and paid our respects at Strawberry Fields for the third time.

Following that, four of us went out for an awesome dinner at a restaurant on Houston named Jane. I highly recommend this place, especially if you happen to know one of the servers. My steak was already reasonably priced, but with all the freebies (champagne, calamari, cheese gnocchi, dessert wine, banana brulée) from our friend who waits/tends there, we made out like bandits -- stuffed bandits. Holy cow that was some good food.

We finished the night by meeting up with the rest of the group again for some Sapporo at a Japanese restaurant in the East Village... and then we made the late night trip home. It was quite a day. Recounting it now reminds me of why R and I were so worn out on Monday.

At least we're getting to the point now where we've seen the major touristy things in NYC already, so now when we go we can just enjoy it and not have to worry about checking things off our list. I also slacked off on the picture taking this time, so I don't have anything worth sharing. Sorry about that. Maybe next time.

Parents weekend

R, dad, and mom hoofing it to the capitol:
Mom and dad looking upon Lady Liberty from the ferry: R and I enjoying the pagentry of antique carriages:
My parents flew out here for the weekend to visit us and see some sights on the east coast. What a whirlwind weekend it was! We explored DC on Friday, New York City on Saturday, and the greater Wilmington area on Sunday, which included an afternoon at the annual Point-to-Point festival. It's a good thing my parents are still in good shape because we covered a lot of ground on foot. I'm beat... but I can't complain. Everything worked out so well -- the weather, the timing, the whole works. The best part, however, was just having the chance to see them again and to catch up in person.

A night in New York

The city was hopping this weekend, and we faced the hustle and bustle head on. We sardined it in Rockefeller Center, browsed the window displays on 5th Avenue, caught a glimpse of Alec Baldwin on the street while eating dinner, and spent the night at our accommodating friend Ben's place in the East Village. Oh, and there was one other thing...

David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (he prefers it typed in all capital letters) was playing in one theater in the entire city, and we were there Saturday night. It should come as no surprise to anybody that I liked the film. It is bizarre and uncompromised, beautiful and haunting. Only time will tell how I rank it among Lynch's other work. I remember finishing my first viewings of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive with a similar feeling. His movies leave me in awe, yet somehow unsatisfied. They come close to making sense but purposely do not. That's what leaves me wanting more. I'm anxious to see IE again--to literally feel it projected on the screen (the volume was so high, the entire theater vibrated to the opening shot of a needle grinding on a record), to refresh my fading memory of the hallucinatory visions, to try to figure it all out.

A lot could be said about the movie--a lot has already been said--but I'm not going to go into detail here. There are plenty of reviews online that discuss it at length, if you're interested. Try to see it for yourself when it gets a wider distribution, and then let's discuss it over a cup of coffee or a Heineken.

NYC again

We returned to the city for the day on Sunday to meet up with some vacationing Minnesota friends. We took a new route this time, parking on Staten Island and taking the ferry over to Manhattan. The views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty were fantastic. We had brunch at a trendy restaurant called Jane, viewed the New York Earth Room, walked through Chinatown, visited the WTC ground zero site, saw the big bronze Bull on Wall Street, and had an all-around good time. The day out was a nice way to break up a Memorial Day weekend otherwise spent painting the interior of our house -- a big job!

NYC

R. and I were in Manhattan for the weekend. We had a 6 course dinner at a middle eastern restaurant called Mamlouk and spent Friday night at the ultra-swanky, yet (moderately) affordable Gershwin Hotel. On Saturday we visited the Met and also hung out with our friend Ben who rents a cool little place in the East Village and was gracious enough to put us up for the night. It was a nice get-away. I'm glad we live close enough to the city to be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time. For a guy with small town origins like me, visiting New York is always a bewildering and exhilarating experience.