I Wanna Be a Part of It, New York New York!

What a week it has been. I've been (as many are aware) in New York City. Everything was fabulous but I have to admit that I am glad to be home and have a second to breathe.

So last Thursday my mother and I took an 11:30 pm flight to JFK which meant by the time we got into the city it was 8 am. We imediately crashed and slept until about 11 then we unpacked and got lunch. We stayed at Linda's (a friend of my mom) apartment (nice not to have a hotel). After Lunch we decided to walk down to the New York Public Library which took several hours as the library is on 43 st and we started around 102. We met Linda for dinner and then the three of us saw Spamalot. Holy Crusades Batman! That was a good show. Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce, how could it be bad? Bloody fantastic.

Saturday then we spent a few hours at the MOMA. Not nearly enough time. There's so much to see that we didn't have time to really fully appreciate most of the art there. As it was we quickly saw everything on floors 4 & 5 (really good stuff - Dali, Van Gough, Picasso, Pollock) and about half of floor 3. So we totally missed floors 1,2 and 6, though 1 is mostly entrance and gift shop. Saturday night we went to The Blue Note (a rather famous Jazz club) and saw Terrence Blachard. We went to the earlier show and walked around Greenwich (pronouced gren-itch) a little. One of the big differences between NYC and SLC (there are several) is that there, the sex shops display thier dildos right in the front window, whereas here they keep them in a back room behind a curtain or heavy door and you really have to look for it.

Sunday we went upstate to Linda's house that she has up there. She actually lives at the house (she usually rents her apt, we were luck she didn't have any tennents when we were there) and commutes 2 hours to work in the city. The country was lovely. At dinner, we had fried cheesecake for dessert. It was certainly different.

Monday we went shopping in Soho and China Town. We window shopped a bit on Park Avenue too.

Tuesday my brother, Luke, his friends Julie, Jessie and Collin, and Collin's mom, Ramona, arrived. We met them at Battery Park and we all did the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The kids were all exhausted as they also came on the red-eye. After lunch we did a bit of shopping at south seaport and then the kids wanted to go to China Town and Mom and I decided to go back to the apt. On the way to catch the bus, we passed Ground Zero. It looks just like a construction sight- sort of a big hole in the ground. The kids weren't impresses. Last time I was in New York (way back when I was 13) we went to the towers. I remember standing inbetween the two towers and looking up- they just kept going. Linda actually used to work in Tower 2 so we had gone up to her office on the 44th floor. It was impressive how something so huge and solid could have totally disappeared so quickly and it was just more real actually being there. That night Mom and I saw Sweet Charity. Christina Applegate (played Charity) was really quite spectacular. She's not the strongest singer or the most impressive dancer, but she has HUGE presence.

Wednesday the whole lot of us went to the Metropolitin Museum of Art. They had a special retrospective of Max Ernst which was fascinating. Also there was a Chanel exhibit that was kinda fun. That afternoon we saw Wicked (v.v. good. Not much like the book but very excellent anyway). That night we saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with John Lithgow (v.v. funny). After the last show we all walked over to Lindy's for their "world famous cheesecake" which wasn't all that fantastic.

Thursday I stayed at the apt in the morning while everyone else went to the Museum of Natural History. I met them there at 1:30 for lunch. The kids seemed to like it much better than the Met, but I wasn't too impressed. It's got some interesting stuff but it's just a bunch of stuffed animals, dinosaur bones and rocks. Much of which you can see anywere though perhaps not on such a big scale. Connected to the museum is the planetarium and I did enjoy that. They have a neat Big Bang thing -they put you in a dark room, explain the BB and then make a lot of noise and flash some lights. When you exit the room you go down a spiraling ramp that has on it a timeline of the formation of the universe. I found it very interesting. Thursday night we ate at The Bubba Gump Shrimp Comany. Then we saw The Lion King. It was fascinating, really, the way they did it with the puppets was really different and plain brilliant. The show's been almost always sold out since it opened in 1998 (I think that's the right year). After the show we got Ice Cream.

Friday Morning we packed. At Noon we all went on a guided tour of NBC studios. From there we walked up 5th Ave and popped into to Tiffany's. We had Lunch around 3 at the Carnegie Deli. It was the most expensive meal we had while we were there (I think). The sandwiches are huge so we ordered one sandwich and one dessert for every two people. The cheesecakes there were MUCH better than at Lindy's and the portions are HUGE. After Lunch we went to FAO Schwartz. We left that night- 9:00 flight. I got home last night at 2 am.

It was a really lovely trip. I love New York, I really do.

Cinema

I saw two movies this week. Probably the same two as everyone else. Tuesday night I went to Mr and Mrs Smith. I have to say I liked it quite a lot. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both very hot and they had nice chemistry. It was a funny movie with lots of explosions and shooting. It was brilliant. Last night I saw Batman Begins. Also very good, though there were a few more plot holes. If YoU hAvE nOt SeEn It, YoU mAy WaNt To StOp ReAdInG. Like they forgot to give the antidote to the scarecrow's poison that was making half of Gotham crazy insane. And how did the Bat manage to call swarms of bats to him? Yes, he had a sonar thingy in his boot, but come on! That so wouldn't work and he's still afraid of bats thoughout the movie so making a dramatic getaway with them flocking around his head should have been traumatic beyond all reason. The Scarecrow was awesome, I have to say. And the (sequel alert!) Joker bit at the end was exciting. Kinda like when, at the end of X2, you saw Peonix in the water. Christian Bale was brilliant as Bruce and Michale Cane IS Alfred. Good show. Plus it had more character development than you expect from a big summer movie.

Gay Day

Yesterday was Pride Day in Salt Lake. I woke up early to go to the parade down town and then to the festival with my friend, Arrakis, and her friend,Kris, his boyfriend, Chris, and their friends, Eric and Brian. It was a lot of fun. The festival is great for people watching- guys in dresses and stillettos, girls with mullets and a few of those people that you just can't be sure what gender they are. The protesters were fantastic too. There were the expected guys protesting homosexuality on the whole (Homo Sex is Sin! God Will Judge You), and people protesting the protesters. My favorite were the two signs protesting shrimp (website: www.godhatesshrimp.com).

May The Force Be with You

So, at work (I bet you all miss hearing about the toystore) we have these little Joe Bender things (little magnetic posable people guys). We have four or five just floating around the front counter, generally on either of the two steel posts that seem to help hold the ceiling up. One day I was working and had nothing particularly to do so I made two little light sabers (from ribbon, tape and stickers. I'm very crafty) for the two benders that were findable at the time. The red bender with the pigtails got a blue light saber and the blue guy got a red saber. It made sense at the time. Over the next week, their positions changed as an epic battle was fought on the pole. On that Saturday, another bender (this one blue AND green) showed up and Lucy asked me how I made the light sabers. So I gave a demonstration and made a purple light saber. So then we had a random Jedi, Samuel L Jackson (Mace Windu!! Insists Clint) and a random Bad Guy. Sometime last week, someone (pretty sure it was Clint) made a cloak for the bad guy. Now we have a random Jedi, Samuel L Jackson (Mace Windu!!! It bugs Clint to call him by the actor not the character) and Darth Sidious. It's kinda neat, but sad that we a) took the time to do all that and b) are so amused by it. Oh well, that's what we get.

Celebratory

Ah, the morning (wait, it's 12:30 pm) after my birthday. Last night Todd (wonderful kid, really, love him to death) took me out to a bar and bought me a few drinks. I enjoyed them all. Many thanks to Todd too because I think he dropped at least $30 last night. Then Alex, Cheng and Cris came and bought me some more drinks. I can remember everything I drank (good sign). I find the names of some of these things very amusing. This is what I had (in order even): Adios Mother Fucker (AMF), Kamikazi, Sex on the Beach, Southern Comfort shot, Pink Taco, Elephant Hill (Heffevisen), Mai Tai. There's a nifty little web site where you can check what's in those (except for the Pink Taco which may be a Greenstreet original). www.barnonedrinks.com Well, Horray for being 21. Cheers, mate.

Round and Round and Round

Carnivals are wonderful things. You have to be in the right mind set to thouroughly enjoy them. You have to think that it's novel and exciting to waste money, experience motion sickness and risk your life on rides that could easily fall apart and kill you. This last weekend there was a little carnival in a mall parking lot. I decided to go with a few friends. One of them, we'll call her Thing 1, went all out with me and wasted $17 on a wrist band that let us go on unlimited rides. We took full advantage and went on everything once and one (the Gravitron) twice. Horton and Cindy Lou Who only bought 4 tickets and only went on one ride. It was brilliant. I thought it was well worth the $17 bucks and am only disappointed that I didn't have enough cash to buy over-priced cotton candy and try to win a giant teddy bear by throwing a baseball at rigged milk bottles.

One Week

I turn 21 in exactly a week. :)

Desserted Weekend

Raise your hand if you think this sounds fun: Sling a 30 lb pack on your back and hike for a few hours, as long as it takes to go a little bit over two miles plus a half hour digression for a wrong turn. After finding a nice overhang to sleep under, walk up a canyon for a bit until it gets dark, look at stars a bit and will the clouds (blocking your view of the cosmos) to go away. Wander back to your overhang, stretch out in a sleeping-bag on the ground and sleep. Wake up a little stiff from a combo of carrying a big pack and sleeping on the hard ground. Try to make tea and realise that the camp stove you brought is totally out of gas. No hot water. Eat a bagel for breakfast and wash it down with some water. Make lunch. Hike for four hours (stopping every now and then to climb a big rock, in the process scrape up your arms and legs - it wouldn't be an adventure if you didn't get a little roughed up right?). Eat lunch. Notice that you've already drunk more than half of the water that you brought with you on your little day hike and that it's that time in the afternoon where there is virtually no shade. Head back to camp. Finish your water on the way. Get back to camp, drink a lot of water and crash. Vow never to move again. After enjoying catatonia for an hour or so, get up and wander around the canyon. Eat dinner - the exact same thing you had for lunch (cheese-in-a-can and salami on totillas, it's not gormet but it packs well and it's light). Wander around the canyon again. Watch the sun set and the stars come out. It's cloudy again. Go back to camp and sleep on the hard ground again. The clouds clear up, but the full moon rises. Full moons are nice but sort of ruin star gazing. The good news is that from where you're sleeping when you wake up in the middle of the night for no real reason, you have a perfect view of the Summer Triangle. Wake up around 6, eat breakfast (totilla with peanut butter. You have dehydrated food but can't make it without hot water. Now you're out of tortillas). Throw stuff back in your pack and hike out to the car.
So, guess how I speant my weekend. Yes, I went backpacking with my Dad. We went back to one of our favorite places for outdoor recreation- Capital Reef- and trekked up Spring Canyon. The first time I camped up in that canyon I was only 5 or 6. It was an amazing time. Yes, we ran out of food and maybe got a little dehydrated on Saturday, but that just made it more fun. There's something exciting about being able to pretend you might be testing your survival skills. Everything about it was beautiful though, it really was. The days were a little warm (in the 90s), the nights were perfect (low 70s high 60s), the canyon was green for the dessert. Bonus: we took my dad's convertable so the drive (4 hrs) down and back was very fantastic and glamorous. And windy. Wicked good time! Pictures:

Tree!

Somehow I had the brilliant idea to climb up a cliff. Ok so it really wasn't very hard but it was pretty high. Dad had the brilliant idea of taking a picture of my ass while I was climbing

This is where we camped. That's me stretched out behind the green things. After hiking 16 miles or so I crashed.

Me on top of a very big rock.

Same rock, different angle.

Canyon in which we camped

Tea Pics

Me in my retro fabulousness

My Grandma, Me, and Mom all duds up

Tea Time

Happy Weekend everyone! For once I'm not working today (being Saturday). The reason for this is that I had a fancy tea to go to with my mother and my grandmother. It was an afternoon of tea and fashion, but not today's fashions, but the styles of the 40s-60s. They had a few people modeling old clothes. They had retro hats for rent. We were all encouraged to dress to the decade. So, as I never pass up an opportunity to get dressed up, I turned myself into a total anachronism. Pictures will show up here soon.

I guess it's been a bit since I've posted. I hope you can all forgive me. Then again, perhaps you've not even noticed, I sure you all have other things to do and simply got on with your lives. If not, you really should find something else to do and do it when I am slow in updating my blog. I s'pose I should give a shout out to all the moms out there as Sunday was Mother's Day.
So, a few weeks ago, my little baby brother (ok, so he's only three years younger than me) took his girlfriend to Prom. This is not unusual, but they went dressed entirely in duct tape. Below is a pic. Aren't they cute, muggin' it up a bit, but cute. FAQ:
I thought duct tape was silver, how did they get so colorful? Ha! sucker! Duct tape actually comes in just about any color you could want these days. Including clear. Although silver is not unicorporated in the outfits.
Is Everything REALLY made of duct tape? Not quite, shhh don't tell, he's wearing a real quasi shirt. It actually has the sleeves cut off. and the hat just has a duct tape band. She's not wearing duct tape shoes, but he is. The flowers (boutoneire and bouqeuet) were duct tape also.
Is it just duct tape or is it duct tape over clothes? With the exception of his shoes and the aforementioned objects, it is all 100% duct tape.
Wow! Were can I find a person crazy enough to go to prom in all duct tape? Who knows, who cares.

Decked out in Duct Tape

Happy May Day

What is May Day supposed to be anyway? When I was younger, it meant making maybaskets with my grandmother and leaving them on the neighbor's porches. My grandmother told us that when she was little, she would do this and if a boy answered the door he was supposed to chase her and if she were caught, he would have to give her a kiss. My neighborhood has always been a little lacking in children my age, so this part of the tradition wasn't really held up.
Turns out that May Day started with something to do with labor. These days the only people who celebrate it properly in the US are commies and socialists. England, of course, does a proper job with morris dancers (http://www.rathergood.com/morris_dancers/), maypoles and madrigals (sung from rooftops). As for me, I like the Irish holiday Beltane which is almost the same thing but really very different. It's very pagan (as Irish holidays often are) and involves fire. Big fires. And the official start of summer. I like summer.