Broadway

A friend from high school, Jamie Hanson, came to town recently.  I don't think I've seen her since 1995 and it was nice to catch up!  She organized an afternoon outing to see the matinee show of Chicago on Broadway featuring our other friend from high school, Eddie Bennett, who is a cast member!  I remember Eddie being a great singer and dancer from all of the high school productions, and it was so much fun to see him up there on that stage!  Here is his name in the program: 

Here he is on stage!  This is the opening number ("All That Jazz"), he is the first guy in the front just to the right of the blonde:

It was a great show, the whole cast did such a wonderful job.  Actually, as it turns out, I knew two people on that stage.  Eddie, of course, and then another dancer walked out and I turned to Jamie and said, "I'm pretty sure that's my neighbor!"  One of the other cast members lives down the hall from me. I had no idea he was in Chicago!  

After the show Eddie gave us a tour backstage - the performers' view of the theatre:

Jamie and I goofing around, don't you want to hire us?

That was actually my second time on a Broadway stage - my sophomore year of college, some friends and I went to New York (something like 8 girls in one hotel room, you couldn't pay me to do that now!).  For some ridiculous reason we decided to go see Cats (terrible).  Well during the intermission of Cats, one of the big fat cats stayed in costume and sat on stage with his eyes closed the entire time, and they allowed audience members to walk up on stage to take a look around at the set (and the cat).  My friend, Merritt, and I went up there - I don't remember who grabbed who's hand, but one of us spun the other around, our big dance debut, and we actually had several people in the audience clap for us.  I think I missed my calling.  

Eddie and Jamie on stage:

Jamie wore a special blouse for the event - our high school colors were black and gold and our mascot was the owl.  Look at the shirt she showed up in!  She claimed her husband picked it out from Anthropologie and it never even occurred to her the tie-in with GHS, but we know the truth, Jamie!  "Hail, Garland High School"!  :)

Backstage in one of the dressing rooms:

It was a lot of fun and a great afternoon catching up with old friends.  I have found that moving around (London, NYC), in addition to taking me out of my old routine, has placed me in the path of people I never would have seen.  I have loved seeing blasts from the past both in London and in New York.  If you come to town, look me up!

NYC Weekend

It was really nice, weather-wise, this past weekend.  A storm blew in Wednesday night that dropped the temperature by 20 degrees in about as many minutes.

This picture was taken by NFL player Dhani Jones from his airplane flying in to Manhattan - the whole city is engulfed!

After that passed, it was actually chilly all day Thursday but by Friday it was just breezy and sunny.  Perfect weekend weather!  We went out to dinner at a place that was billed as Mexican and actually owned by two Austinites, so we were probably overly excited about the possibility of tacos.  

The tacos, as it turned out (sadly), were good but not great.  But it was funny to be sitting in the city drinking a Lone Star and listening to acoustic county music:

Saturdays - if we don't have any specific plans we just like to wander around and discover different neighborhoods.  This Saturday we walked into NoHo and found a little slice of a coffee shop called Gasoline Alley Coffee.  I found out why they named it that, it was the strongest coffee I have ever tasted.  I got an iced Americano and could only finish about a third of it and was still shaky afterwards. It was good though!

This building in NoHo had little gold men (some with antlered deer heads...?) climbing up the left side of the building from the fire escape:

I loved this building, it had a very new, modern design and each window had its own sleek window box:

We try to do a mix of things that are both touristy and local, because I kind of feel we're both.  I'm not sure where on the scale this next thing falls but it was definitely something different to do on a Saturday night.  The USS Intrepid hosts movies on deck in the summertime, for free!  Walking up to the ship: 

The Intrepid launched in 1943 and served in WWII as well as other military action.  Right before the movie started they showed a short film about the ship and I can't remember exactly, but I think they said that it was integral in sinking 122 ships.  

On deck, waiting for the movie (Star Trek, the reboot):

The space shuttle Enterprise is now kept on deck (under the bubble) but we couldn't see it.  You have to pay extra for that!  

Brunch at Landmarc the next day - I like my mimosas served with my own bottle of champagne!

The rooftop of a bar in the Meatpacking District called the Brass Monkey (right before it got crowded):

Looking up from the rooftop, the Standard Hotel - this place kinda looks like a dump from the outside but it is actually a major hot spot and pretty swanky inside.  Warning: if you stay there, yes people from the outside can see in.  So keep that in mind if you walk up to the window to close it while completely naked...

Monday morning, walking home from the gym (to make up for the weekend indulging)... I can look down the street and see the Empire State Building.  That never gets old!  

Beautiful Merci

Here are more pictures of Merci, because she is so cute and I just can't help myself!

This morning, 3:00 a.m. photo shoot:

Today, heading home from the hospital... she is wearing a bonnet I gave her made from a white lace handkerchief that one day she can carry on her wedding day:

So precious!!!

My new baby niece!

She's here!!!!

Baby Merci Sauve ("seh-VAY") arrived yesterday at 4:38 p.m., 5 lbs 15 oz, 18 inches, and is completely perfect.  My sister is an absolute ROCK STAR, as she brought this little being into the world with NO EPIDURAL.  Rock star.  

Here she is!  She's so precious, I just want to pull her through my computer screen and give her lots of kisses!

Life and Reliving

Last night I was talking to my sister on the phone, she is 9 months pregnant with her first child.  A baby girl!  I am so excited to have this little girl join our family, she will be the first new baby and will make my parents grandparents.  

I was listening to my sister talk about her day and her belly and the end of the pregnancy in general, just all kind of surreal and special.  And I had this moment...  

I do this thing from time to time, I don't know how it started - I think it stems from my desire of when I die, I would like for a wish to be granted where I can go back and see some of the best moments of my life, and also go back and be able to see my parents' and grandparents' lives, when they were younger, just how everything started and led up to my life and beyond.  I think that would be a great gift and wonderful way to say goodbye to everything.  So from time to time, when I'm living a particularly wonderful moment, something I think I would like to see again in my "last wish journey", I pretend that I'm already dead.  And that I'm back here again, in this moment, reliving it.  Life changes so much through the years, we all age, some wonderful life chapters end, and before you know it years have passed by.  I think this reliving mind trick allows me to savor something with even more gratitude.  How wonderful would it be when I'm on my deathbed to really get to hear my sister's voice again, young and pregnant with her first child, describing her experiences of the day.  I just think that would be the best thing, to see these special moments again.  

I don't tend to do this reliving thing during the really big moments of my life, like not when I was saying my wedding vows or something, it tends to be the smaller, quieter times in life that it really hits me - this is the good stuff.  I realize that this is kind of a weird habit (I told someone once and they were like, wait, you pretend you're dead??), but it's not meant to be morbid, it's meant to be celebratory.  

Anyway, I told my sister at the end of our conversation last night that I had a reliving moment while on the phone with her.  As I said, she is 9 months pregnant and we were talking about the upcoming delivery and how she was feeling a little unprepared (is anybody really prepared for a coming child?), but excited about meeting her daughter soon.  I am beyond excited about this baby.  I know that she is a creation of Lauren and Jerry's love and family, but I also feel like it's an extension of our sisterhood.  There is now another little girl in our group!  I can't wait to tell her all about her mama.  

As it turns out, I was talking to Lauren on the last night of her pregnancy.  Her water broke at 2:00 a.m. this morning and she is currently in the hospital with contractions.  It breaks my heart that I am not there to greet her when she comes into this world, more so than I was expecting, and I am counting the days until I fly home in two weeks!

Little baby, come join this fabulous circus of life.

Summertime - Finally

Okay!  Four months into living in NY, I'm finally starting to blog about it!  There are things I never covered last year such as the Royal Wedding (we saw the Queen/Duke and Prince Charles/Camilla) and hiking in the Lake District (where we jumped off 25-foot waterfalls into the river and rock climbed a sheer cliff), but onward!  

I feel like the deal I made with myself about our most recent move ("well, you have to leave London but at least we'll have a proper summer again!") finally kicked in.  With lots of sun!  And hot weather! People all around are complaining about the heat, but I actually love it.  Plus, it's still not as hot as it is in Texas!

For the first time in my life, I live near a beach.  This is awesome!  Well I guess in London we were close to Brighton, but having a sunny weekend day with nothing else planned was rare so we never went.  A week and a half ago we decided mid-morning that we should take an impromptu trip to the beach.  It's really a great mental trick knowing that on any sunny day you can hop on a train and be at Long Beach in an hour.  

It's not the white sand beaches and emerald waters of the Florida panhandle (where I went every year growing up), but it will do the job!  It is also about 10 degrees cooler on the beach than it is in Manhattan, so on a really hot day that's reason enough to go.  

Long Beach is close to JFK International Airport, so lying on the beach you see these huge double-decker jets flying in from overseas.  It's much more impressive than watching the regular jets!  

Of course one of the best things about being at a semi-crowded beach is the people watching.  It's interesting, you really can see the Italian influence of the local culture in the darker skin.  So many super tanned, dark-headed bathing beauties!  I look like I'm Irish compared to them.  We took a little cooler with us that day, and as the afternoon sun was setting we walked back on the boardwalk to a local pizza joint and had dinner.  We then hopped the train home and were back in time to walk the dog and go to bed at a decent hour!  Lovely!  

Last weekend we had another first - our first ferry ride off the island of Manhattan.  There are several little islands right by Manhattan, of course Liberty and Ellis Islands are pretty famous (as is Rikers Island, for totally different reasons), but an island neither of us were familiar with is Governors Island.  It has a varied military background, but is now used during the summers as public space for recreational activities and festivals.  Stephen read about the Cook Out NYC event going on, so from the bottom of Manhattan we took a 10-minute ferry ride and were there!  

Our entry to the cook out bought us a couple beers each and free tasting of all the food venues.  Pretty nice!  

There was a kimchi tent complete with a kimchi eating contest later that day.  Kimchi (as I learned) is a traditional Korean dish made from vegetables (cabbage, radish, cucumber) and lots of different seasonings.  There is a wide variety of seasoning, but holy crap is it hot.  We tried tacos with kimchi - I asked for the mild version (there were three different spicy levels) and it was so hot I could not finish my tiny taco.  I had yet to get a beer so I had to take emergency sips of Stephen's.  Before the taco I had a completely empty stomach and for a while afterward I could feel my stomach lining reacting with the spiciness!  Stephen got the medium spicy taco, and his lips were on fire afterwards.  If we weren't sweating before, we were after that taco.  I can't imagine the spicy version! 

This guy, in the red apron, was awesome.  He was really selling it when it came to his chicken!  He was determined to let everybody know that he had the best chicken in the place and was hootin' and hollerin' things like "this chicken will Cajun-slap your ass!!"  I was full by the time we got to his booth, but Stephen tried the chicken just because of his excellent salesmanship.  He said it was good!  

I swear, Stephen absolutely cannot eat without spilling something on his shirt.  That goes double if the shirt is white.  :)

The last thing I had before heading out was ice cream from my absolute favorite truck in the city - Van Leeuwen!  The truck carries artisan ice cream in flavors like Earl Grey, Gianduja, Ginger and Palm Sugar.  They also have vanilla bean and chocolate!  My favorite thing is their affogato - vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over.  Yummy.  But that day they had a special flavor - roasted banana with brown sugar, so I had to try that!  So delicious.  There is always room in my stomach for ice cream.  

The event had the ubiquitous bank of port-a-potties, but they also had working sinks with water, soap, and hand sanitizer!  Why are these not everywhere port-a-potties are?!  I know we've all had bathroom experiences at summer concert festivals that we'd rather not remember.  

Walking back to the ferry:

We missed the ferry we originally planned to take, but there is a beach complete with tiki bar right there which makes waiting so much better!