Spring Visitors

There are many adventures to report after our fabulous weekend with Ian's parents! After some unfortunate travel mishaps (a weather-related flight cancellation, a rescheduled flight to White Plains, a GPS-aided rental car trip from White Plains to JFK, an accidental subway ride to 125th St.) they arrived at the Mouse House Friday morning in surprisingly good spirits. Because we thought that they hadn't spent enough time navigating trains, plains, and automobiles, we immediately dragged them back down into the subway out to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Fortunately, the weather was good (not quite as sunny as I'd like), the garden was a peaceful oasis, and the cherry blossoms were magnificent. After a vegetable-y lunch at the garden's Terrace Café and a lovely afternoon strolling amongst the blooms, we trekked home and enjoyed a feast (burritos! enchiladas! mole! guacamole!) from our favorite Mexican take-out place.

Other weekend highlights included:

• Seeing Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: strange, thought-provoking, fairly bleak, with amazing animal-shaped topiaries and a brilliant performance by Robin Williams as the tiger;
• Dissecting Bengal Tiger (is it about guilt? forgiveness? war? the absence/presence of God? the problem with capitalism? love? existentialism?) over heaping mounds of gelato upstairs at Timi's Gelateria Classica;
• Adding extra meals so as to squeeze in: poppy seed bagels and poppy seed cake from Moishe's (no drug tests, please), kefir and knish from Yonah Schimmel's, a particularly tasty gruyere from the beloved cheese store, a late leisurely Tibetan dinner at Tsampa, tea, tea, tea;
• Trying to figure out why certain fundamentalist Christians love to talk about Ghandi going to hell;
• Discussing various arachnophobia cures—especially one involving architectural photos (!);
• Bombarding Ian's folks with an animated and perhaps overwhelmingly detailed description of our experiences at Punchdrunk's Sleep No More a few weeks ago;
• Buying a new air mattress!

A note on the grisly particulars of the mattress situation:

The small tumor in the old one had grown into a frighteningly large mass; we felt as though we were sleeping on a mountainside. The new one is firmer and, because it's a full instead of a queen, actually fits in the living room with a few inches of space around it! We hope that those who previously endured sleepless nights with the mysterious bump will accept our deepest apologies. Future houseguests: fear not.

On Saturday, Ian, Heather, and Chris also went to the Metropolitan Art Museum and to a cool photography exhibit at Grand Central Station while I was (literally) running around in the Bronx Zoo. But that's a story for another day.

Here are some photos from the garden. This was my first time seeing cherry blossoms. They were breathtaking; I'm a fan.

Easter

Just returned from a (very) brief trip to my homeland for Easter and my sister's 17th birthday. It was the most exciting and successful surprise operation I've ever witnessed, let alone participated in. I wore a big white bow because I was her birthday present. She actually squealed!

During this wonderful whirlwind weekend I also:

• Noticed as soon as I got off the plane in Tampa that everyone wore flip-flops and dark suntans;
• Celebrated Jocelyn's birthday with my grandparents, my parents, my Uncle Peter, and his darling children—all before Joss came home from rehearsal to find me and her cookie cake;
• Consumed massive amounts of Greek salad (with potato salad, as is traditional in Tarpon Springs);
• Helped Jocelyn pick out her junior prom dress (fabulous!);
• Had a drink on the patio of the beautiful Sandpearl Resort and ate grouper at Frenchy's (both for Jossy's birthday);
• Played with Arthur, the world's cutest dog;
• Heard my grandfather sing in his church choir on Easter morning (I love this hymn: "Jesus Christ is risen today Aaaaalleluia!");
• Dyed eggs on the sunny porch;
• Ate lamb and mint jelly for Easter dinner;
• Made my sister start watching "Arrested Development" from the beginning;
• Brunched with my mom at Kelly's;
• Achieved a slight sunburn while walking on the Pinellas Trail.

Realization: I hail from a tropical paradise. (This has been a very long winter.)

And, amazingly, when I returned to NYC, spring had finally arrived! Yesterday I read two hundred pages of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore (can't put it down!) in Tomkins Square Park.

Then Ian and I dyed our own Easter eggs using this weird tie-dye egg kit. The results are fairly psychedelic:

Happy Spring!

Jobs

Overheard on the way home from my run in the East River Park today: a little boy (I'd say five or six years old) talking to his mother about what he wants to be when he grows up. His top choices were:

1) baseball player,
2) poet,
3) music writer,
4) pet shop owner.

My kind of guy.

Someone I knew in high school recently told me that he works at a bank and makes $75,000 a year. I wonder what he would have said when he was that age.

Strolling in the Park

Here are some photos of our wanderings in Central Park on the day we saw The Capeman a few weeks ago. (Click to see the full-size images.)