Apostrophe S

OK, so now I’ll admit I’ve slipped into the bad habit of not updating as frequently as I should. I’m starting to wonder what I’m up to these days. Part of the whole point of this thing is to chronicle my adventures, as much for my own enjoyment as for anyone else’s.

So last you heard from me, I’d been to the city on Wednesday night to see the 5.6.7.8.’s. What have I been up to since? Well, Thursday was pretty uneventful. I don’t even remember what I did. You see, that’s why I need to do this daily. Now Thursday the 24 of June, 2004 is forever lost in a sea of more poignant memories. I think we’ll both live.

Friday was another story entirely. You see, there’s been a brash of people at the paper I work for leaving to take jobs elsewhere. On Friday there was a small get-together to honor one of them. It was at this restaurant called Beacon Street Grille. (Think of a non-gimicky version of TGI Friday’s or Applebee’s.) There we just had good conversation and a few drinks. It’s nice to be able to build a network of people out here. After Beacon Street, some of the younger crowd decided to go to this bar-type-place called the Boathouse. Not exactly my scene, but I can dig just about anything. The highlight was a friend recommended this beer called Magic Hat #9. The stuff is good. It has a hint of apricot, but it’s not fruity. Quite tasty. Apparently it’s only available in the New England and East Coast area. I’d get it again. You should try it if you can find it.

It turned out to be a pretty late night, but I didn’t mind. The next day was Saturday, after all. And what a Saturday it was. I of course slept in. I mean, why wouldn’t I, right? Roxy’s had it in mind to do some gardening work, and I wanted to help. I kind of like gardening. So we had a meager breakfast (time to go shopping again) and then got our hands dirty transplanting and planting. It was kind of fun. Roxy’s friend Dope (obviously a nickname, to protect the innocent) was on a train on the way down to Asbury, so when he arrived we had to stop and go pick him up, which we thought would be a quick thing. Instead, we ended up taking him to the Asbury Park boardwalk to show him all the history. He’s a photographer, and the old architecture and general decrepitude of the Asbury shore are like a photographer’s dream, so he was snapping a lot of pictures. After we walked to boardwalk, we went to eat at this little Mexican place called in another town called La Hacienda. It’s very good, very authentic Mexican dining, with tables on the sidewalk. So cool. Then we walked down the street to this ice cream joint. Ice cream is good.

The rest of that day and night was pretty mellow. Dope came back to the house with Roxy and I; he’s staying for a few days. There was fun and conversation and music and a few adult beverages. A very memorable evening with good company.

Sunday was a whole other adventure. We (we being Roxy, Dope, and myself) decided to head into the city to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of those great art museums they talk about in your humanities books. It was very cool. It’s located on 5th Ave, and juts off into Central Park. The view from the roof garden is spectacular. You really get a sense of the city, and of how big Central Park is. You really feel you’re in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. While at the museum, we saw a Byzantine era exhibit, which is mostly religious imagery and symbolism. It’s really amazing how much money religious people have spent over the centuries to make objects. God is rich.

Another exhibit was the Eqyptian exhibit. It was very cool. They had a whole large room devoted to a temple that had been transplanted, complete with a reflecting pool around it. What really struck Roxy and I about the stones, though, was the grafitti. Between and even sometimes on top of the ancient hieroglyphs were taggings by people from centuries ago. People would carve their name and the date into the stone, defacing it. We had kind of thought grafitti was a 20th century thing, but the guide said people have been defacing things like this all through history. Many of the taggings we saw were the 18-whatever version of Mike Wuz Here.

Only being able to spend a few hours at the museum, we didn’t get to see everything. It was a nice little taste, though. And speaking of tastes, our next stop was a good one.

We walked down 82 St., past where we’d parked. (Roxy says we have good parking juju. We were very close to the museum.) We were looking for a good slice of New York pizza. We found it. We stopped at this awesome little Italian restaurant called Lacotta (I think, I’ll double check.) There, I had the best authentic Sicilian pizza I’ve ever had. Perfect carmelized onions, sauce to die for, a crust that was perfectly crispy yet gave very easily when you bit into it. Really, we talked about how good the place was for about a half an hour afterward, and again later that night when recounting our trip to a friend. I can’t say it was the best. It’s the only New York pizza I’ve had so far. But it was damn good. But, to be fair, if you’re a New Yorker and you know better pizza can be found, by all means, share the wealth. This is a call to all New Yorker’s: Where can I find the best pie in the 5 boroughs? I really would like to know. I love pizza.

We decided that was where we’d cut off a really great day in the city. I mean, who wants to spoil that by walking all over until our feet were tired. Granted, when I think about it now, we probably spent more time driving to and from and around Manhattan than we actually spent in the city. Traffic seemed pretty bad to me for a Sunday, but then again I’m not from around here.

It turned out that the next day, that is today, was our friend Mouse’s birthday. So after we left the city, we went straight to find Mouse and take her out for some birthday ice cream. We went to this place called Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. The gimmick here is they use a giant cold stone to prepare and mix their ice cream treats. It was very cool to watch. Now, the ice cream itself was pretty good. It wasn’t like “omigosh” good, but it hit the spot. Next we took Mouse home and had some tea and chatted while Dope gave Mouse a foot massage. (This is apparently something he specializes in.) That made for a good end to a good night and a good weekend. Hopefully today there will be more fun to be had.

OK, I must apologize for the long entries. I know you kinda want to skip over it. That’s another reason I should try to wright every day. It keeps the entries to a sane length. Take care…
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