I Can't Believe It's Already August!

It's like that time we went down the shore

and saw two Hercules movies that launched

the TV series.

Our luck was unbelievable that we stumbled across this

wealth of wonderful TV!

Hercules!, Kevin Sorbo, and Xena (pre-Xena), Lucy Lawless,

you guys are awesome.

(In case you were wondering,

yes, that is a bust of Mr. T in a Chinese Communist hat 

with college honor ropes,

a lei, and Academic Decathlon medal.

He's very accomplished, Mr. T.

We recognize.)

Biker Gang

Pam, Jon, and I went bike riding through Central Park

one Saturday morning in September.

Pam and I had vouchers for discounted bike rentals,

so we met up,

walked our bikes over to Central Park

(we hardly ever ride bikes,

so riding on the NYC street seemed a bit suicidal),

and road from the Plaza end up to CPW and around 108th Street.

The park was extremely crowded

with other people on bikes, runners, and park trucks.

It made it really unappealing to bike around.

There is also a HUGE hill right 

as you round the northeast end of the park.

Have you seen Premium Rush?

It's the bike messenger movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

We stopped and exited the park around

the part when he's like WTF

because he has no gears to help him get up the hill.

I had to stop.

I hadn't eaten anything,

and I was freaking out from all the people.

And the hill seemed neverending.

I thought I was going to die.

So we walked our bikes across town,

and incidentally found a wonderful fresh smoothie place.

It had actual fruit pieces in the smoothie.

No powder crap at all.

We got lime/mint and watermelon.

I think Pam got mango.

I stood outside with the bikes,

snacking on a granola bar Pam generously gave me

(she's a smart lady),

while Pam and Jon went inside.

They said the man who worked there

was very nice.

He also sold bahn-mi sandwiches.

I'd go there again based on the smoothie 

and the recommended niceness of him.

YESSS! I found the place!

It's called Quick & Quality.

We road up a bit and then down

through Riverside Park.

Then we road along the bike path down by the river.

It got a little crowded with tourists and people walking their kids and dogs

as we neared the Boat Basin,

but it was mostly other leisure-bike riders--

not Lance Armstrong-types.

We walked back crosstown with the bikes to return them,

and headed to lunch with Kat and Tif at Bosie Tea Parlor.

It might be because I was starving,

but the eggs Benedict I had there was the best I've ever eaten.

I'm not sure how well this video will work,

but here goes:

The Lemon Ice King of Corona

Watermelon and Lemon

Once upon a time,

in the magical land of Corona, Queens

there was a king.

After Popo's delicious birthday dinner,

we decided to visit the king

to continue our celebration 

and feast on his lemon ice

(and dozens of other flavors of ice).

Our carriage and driver luckily found a place to stand

while we stepped out to get some.

We were craving blood that night too, I guess.

We were chanting for the driver to perhaps take out

the very slow peasant cleaning out his horse's behind,

because, well, didn't he see us trying to pull into the really tight standing spot behind him?

(The ass.)

Shockingly, Popo also agreed to "Get him!"

And that was hilarious!

Thankfully no blood was shed in front of

The Lemon Ice King of Corona.

He might have had us all beheaded, hung, or worse--

not given us any ice at all!

The other kind of funny Popo-story about this place is:

Out of context, she was saying something about how

Corona Ice is very good, superb, and exquisite.

I was so confused.

This was a woman who never drank and shouldn't ever drink.

And she was drinking a really crappy beer and raving about it?

And then I realized she meant the Italian ice!

It's a good walk away from Popo's house,

but when we were like two- or three-years-old,

apparently my cousin Steven (dude on the right) and I 

used to walk there with my dad.

Anyway, we ended the night with sweet, delicious ice.

I think lemon was the best flavor.

Next time I think I'd get even a smaller size too.

I can't wait until it's warm again for ice!

Life Is Still Shore Good

Crabs!

Sausages, onions, and peppers!

Shore food.

Mmm . . .

Too full for melons.

Maybe.

Ma doing the dishes.

Happily!

Feeling shore good.

Rain clouds on our way back north.

How Did That Get in My Mouth?

The other day I was talking to Lakshmi,

and I started coughing on something.

Though I had a summer cold

for half of the summer

(seems like it was allergies),

this cough was different.

This cough

was due to something odd in my throat.

So I pulled that oddity out of my mouth,

and what was it?

Well, I'm not sure.

Hay?

A piece of grass?

We were in Soho/Noho.

Lakshmi's phone provides a black background

for the piece of . . .

something

that I pulled out of my mouth.

Weird.

Gross.

New York Hall of Science

So besides Gwenyth Paltrow and her kids,

there were a few other activities

at the New York Hall of Science.

This display in the photo above 

took an image with one light,

and another image with another light,

and a third light erased it all.

It was cool.

This showed our hotness levels.

Short legs!

Long torso!

This is the hall of mirrors.

It was incredibly lame.

There was this mirror and two others.

Chris threw three balls:

baseball,

tennis ball,

and golf ball.

The experiment was to see which one went the fastest.

Guess which one went the fastest!

I had to zoom in.

Wee climbed all the way 

to the top of the rock climbing wall

WITHOUT a harness or anything but her purse.

Freakin' animal.

Not all things were Wee-awesome though.

She's as tall as a display showing how many molecules

--as represented by sand--

would represent a short human.

(Most likely meant to be a kid.)

(Okay, fine. She's just a bit taller.)

What's that?

Ha-ha, you flatter us.

We're not actually astronauts,

we just look like them. . . .

posing in the exact same way.

Jon's body shrunk.

I think Wee is hunched over slightly.

I'm a bit on my tippy toes.

Space suits are amazing!

Next to the display was a giant fan 

that you could power by pedaling a bike.

It had the tiniest seat

that looked mightily uncomfortable.

A very large boy

enthusiastically demonstrated it for us though. 

We thought about heading into space since we were dressed

in our space gear anyway, but then Jon remembered

the aqua fresca lady selling that and some Mexican food

out of a shopping cart

under the nearby underpass.

(Thank goodness she went back to her minivan to go home instead.

I could just imagine the stomachaches from eating

street shopping cart food.)

That's the Hall of Science

as taken from afar

on a very hot Saturday.

Maybe when we have kids old enough to run around

it'd be worth going back,

but as adults,

it's really not that great of a place to spend your day.

We really should have gone to the beach,

in spite of the predication of rain!

My Husband Is Very Corny; Me, Not So Much

As we made our way to Jon's cousin's wedding on Labor Day,

we passed by a farmer's market with the coolest corn statue.

It was about two p.m.,

and we needed to still get changed

for the wedding that started at two thirty p.m.

There was plenty of time. . . .

I was starving,

but I was trying to save my appetite for cocktail hour.

The bride and groom

went to culinary school,

so their wedding food had to be tasty.

Jon got a roasted corn that a dude 

at the back of the farm

was selling.

Jon didn't like the corn very much.

He said it was too late in the season for good corn.

To put Jon's love of corn in perspective,

earlier this summer,

we bought corn from D'Agostino,

which in the scheme of life isn't a good market for produce.

However, it was really awesome corn.

To his chagrin, they didn't have corn for a while after,

so he bought a ton of corn from Fresh Direct.

When he got that corn that weekend,

he toted around with us,

in case we landed somewhere

(my sister's house was a huge possibility)

for him to cook and enjoy it.

He was so paranoid about sharing it though

that we ended back home

so he can eat it all himself.

I like corn.

Creamed-canned corn was my favorite.

I thought it was God's nectar

when I was a kid.

Sweet, salty, creamy goodness.

As a finger food that needs to be gnawed

(see: ribs, wings, etc.)

corn on the cob falls into a love/hate category.

Still, the lack of fresh corn on the cob

in the fall and winter and spring

just illustrates why fall and winter and spring

suck.

On a side note,

the farmer's market was selling fifty pound bags of potatoes

for only $12.99!

That's cheaper than some cocktails!

Derecho: Or a Very Cloudy Afternoon

A few weeks ago,

NYC and the tri-state area

faced the evil

DERECHO.

It's simply a hurricane

that comes from the land

vs. the water.

So the things to fear were:

heavy rain

hail

high winds

lightning

I had only heard of the term "derecho"

as I was walking home.

At around 6 p.m.

it was supersunny

and there was hardly threat of any rain.

What actually happened

about an hour later

was just a midsummer evening's rain storm.

It was as anticlimatic as Irene,

which is always a good thing.

Lots of people got cool pics of it.

At the time, Twitter had millions of Instagram photos.

Jon's account of the derecho:

He fell down the stairs of his office building

with his bike.

Then realized he forgot our food to make dinner,

so he walked back up to retrieve it.

He securely fastened the groceries to his bike.

He raced the derecho home,

but since his bike fell

the gears weren't correct,

so he wasn't moving very fast.

He saw a cool opportunity for a photo,

but he wisely decided against stopping to take it.

(It started pouring as he got to the apartment.

His ankle was extremely swollen for the weekend.)

Friendly's Wattamelon Roll

The Wattamelon Roll has become a staple of our summers.

I'd never had a Wattamelon Roll

until I met Jon.

Per the website

it's described as:

"Refreshing watermelon and lemon sherbet 

with rich chocolate chip seeds."

Unlike a real watermelon,

I think the seeds are the best part.

The bitter chocolate helps

break up the sherbet sweetness.

When we went down the shore

a few weekends ago,

Jon had sprained his wrist

and his ankle

(on two separate occasions of him being a klutz)

and my parents felt really bad for him.

To cheer him up they got him one of these bad boys.

Crabs and a pass on going to the beach also helped.

The Time We Saw Gwenyth Paltrow, Apple, and Moses at the New York Hall of Science

When I spotted Gwenyth Paltrow,

she looked like any ordinary mom:

kind of tired but happy to be out with her kids.

Her kids seemed kind of bored of the place

(they were zooming through it as fast as we were, 

and they're only a third our age),

but they had some fun playing with the giant bubbles.

It was in the animation section 

of the New York Hall of Science

that I spotted her.

We were at the New York Hall of Science because

I had a Google Offer coupon that was expiring.

We didn't go with any kids,

so it was really weird and kind of lame for us.

Seeing Gwenyth

was a lot of fun though.

Gwenyth plays with bubbles too!

To not be too obnoxious,

I took these photos of her through fish tank.

(Kind of like a fish eye lens,

but totally not.)

These photos look really stalkerish,

but it's better than being superobvious, I think.

A few adults recognized her and took

"discrete" photos of her too,

but mostly everyone was concerned about making

giant bubbles.

Jon posed 

so I could try to take a better photo of her,

but I really like this photo the best.

Wee's looking at the poor dead fish 

floating at the top of the tank.

Gwenyth is in the back.

Summer Friday by the Pool

Though I was coughing my head off,

I did manage to have a wonderful summer Friday

by the pool.

August 3rd was gorgeous!

I read a little Caletti,

sweated, coughed,

and took a dip whenever it got a bit too warm.

And when I was done,

I took the elevator back up home.

Soo nice.