First Summer Friday!

My first summer Friday this year

was so much fun.

I just wish I'd worn a jacket.

It was basically freezing if you wander out without one,

and it rained a ton.

The best part of the day was when we holed up

in the back of a cafe in LIC

that played some great music.

For lunch Pam, Kat, and I went to M.Wells at P.S. 1 MoMA,

and it was quite delicious.

Bryan met up with us shortly after,

and we explored the museum.

One of the rooms was a room of ice.

I believe they were glacier specimens from an old glacier,

but it was too cold to really figure it all out.

Another room had global trashcans.

Some had actual trash (from snarky visitors I suppose.)

The building is much like the grammar school I went to,

though there are two sets of stairs,

and two stairwells in each corner.

It seemed a bit excessive.

The art in the halls was much more enlivening

than my grammar school's halls though.

As part of the rain exihibit at the MoMA in Manhattan,

there's this other exhibit at P.S. 1.

Basically in the atrium part,

they built an indoor pond with koi fish (see above).

And a waterfall.

I am not so much into standing around and reading about the art

as much as I am about seeing and taking in the art.

I've not had a chance to read about it,

but experiencing it was pretty cool.

The cold weather and the rain and the constant waterfall sounds though,

well, good thing there were some bathrooms around.

One other cool thing was the boiler room.

One of the pieces had saliva in it.

You just have to wonder why and where and why.

After lunch, museum viewing, and cafe catching up,

we headed into the city and join Nat and Dani

(Kat went home)

for dinner at Empellon

to celebrate an intimate birthday dinner with Pam.

The food was good, but it was all a bit expensive and loud,

and I wished it were just as cozy and low key as the cafe.

Arrested Development: Bluth's Original Frozen Banana Stand (and Luke Bryan)

I spy an oversize banana,

which could only be:

Some marketing folks from Netflix!

They were giving out stuff earlier,

but by the end of the day there was a line to take a photo

with some strangers.

And on my way home,

outside of Letterman, I saw

Luke Bryan!

(I've never heard of him,

but people seemed enamored.)

Meanwhile my cousin Samantha got her picture taken

with Danny Masterson (Hyde from That 70s Show)

because he was hanging out at her office since he has a friend there.

Dance, Dance!

So we're fortunate enough to have cool things like

this come to our building's gym.

And luckily we didn't have other plans

and the weather was pretty terrible,

so I went to both of these classes.

The class was wonderful!

I forgot how choreography is almost cerebral.

It's memorizing and understanding steps and movements,

then adding more.

I've been taking dance classes for years now,

and I've not had to memorize a routine since high school.

I've always just followed the instructor in the front.

But today I felt my brain working.

John was very nice

and his choreography worked surprisingly well with different genres

of music.

We kept doing the same few steps over and over,

and he built on it.

In total it was about 20 steps 

(8 counts each, so about two minutes worth of music)

and then it looped again.

So much fun!

During the stretch portion of class,

he noted that my pointe

(when you point your toes)

was very good and that I must've danced before.

He said very few people are born with a naturally good pointe.

Ah, all those years of pointing paid off!

A bonus of both of these classes was that

Jessica Williams from The Daily Show was in attendance!

She's quite tall.

I couldn't place where I'd seen her for a short while,

but then after ruling out everyone at work and friends of friends

and moving on to TV and movies,

it just made sense.

She's really pretty and is a good dancer.

It'd be fun to have her in more of my gym classes.

Mercedes Club Residents Party

The pool in our health club opened today!

It's not even 70 degrees out!

We went to the free party, which featured

some delicious little bites of lamb

on vegetables and a dab of something delicious.

Um, it was delicious.

And there were three different liquor tastings,

including the lovely gin and tonic drink above.

The gin drink was refreshing, but it wasn't as flavorful as my Hendricks.

The best part was the live music:

these two guys playing and singing Latin music.

And, of course, the snocones by Handsome Dan.

A block of ice turned into magic fluffy snow

covered in sugary raspberry syrup and fresh lemon juice.

I think he kind of looks like Jake Gyllenhaal,

so you might want to check him out

and eat his snocones in real life.

Hello!

I had another snocone because it was FREE

and so good.

(A pomegranate with condensed milk--

Handsome Dan explained that the pomegranate was a bit tart

so the milk will set it off--so cute, 

I just want to suck on sugary ice!)

Since someone couldn't eat all the delicious snocone stuff or drink

and had allergies, we left after the guys played "La Bamba."

Poor guy.

Another reason for leaving was that it was really awkward

watching the swimsuit models freeze.

#firstworldproblems

Jonathan:  oh man

they are having an ice cream party at work

for no reason!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I don't really understand this holiday.

I should probably look it up.

I just feel like it gives me another really good excuse

to present this photo of

Zara the cat in a sombrero.

Enjoy!

Kodak Instamatic Camera

My Popo brought this camera

to give to my mom

to send to my cousin

since she collects old cameras.

I wonder what crazy stuff this

camera has seen.

Prom: What's the Big Deal?

This statue that was outside of Christie's last year

demonstrates how I feel about a lot of things,

but mostly this article about prom.

I asked Jon to my prom after an evening

of browsing some galleries in Chelsea

in the fall of 2000.

We had sort of started really dating by then,

and I was optimistic it'd last for at least seven more months.

He didn't want me to go to his prom.

It hurt my feelings at the time,

but now I see that it probably was for the best.

The generation of kids in the article are unusual.

I spoke to someone who is about a decade younger than I am,

and she had no clue who She-Ra is.

She-Ra tells you her life story in the introduction--with a cute outfit change:

Good.

Now we all know who She-Ra is.

Do these kids' superheroes do everything with a huge song and dance

worthy of the typical tropes of reality TV?

I need to get into the racket of personalizing junk for special occasions.

Specialized prom snacks!

Specialized prom temporary tattoos!

Specialized prom cakes or pies or cookies!

Specialized prom underwear!

Hmm.

WIC might have nothing on the PIC!

::taps fingertips together thoughtfully::