East Village

So yesterday, Beth, her sister and I went vintage/boutique shopping in East Village.


Lot's of fun even though everything was way too expensive.

We found a wall that had interesting graffiti...


We ended the day at Lombardi's and then made out way over to a bier garten 'Lorelei's'. On the way, what did we run into? Another gratified piece:





Hooray for graffiti. That's the lower east side for you...


Here are some funny pictures from last night.


We pretended to be Indian couples. Terrible...


Now "normal" ones.



Today I took a neato picture of Joey.

Sara

I'm posting some pictures of Sara. She is absolutely adorable! (obviously)






We were in Madison Square Park at the time. I decided to take some pictures of the perdy flowers around us.



For some reason, when I upload pictures to the blog, the colors lose their vibrance. Because the rose picture looks so good in my iphoto....but not so much here. Oh well.


I took some interesting shots of Joey on our laundry day.

For all the dog lovers out there...

You must ready this book: 'Marley and Me' by John Grogan. The author gives a funny and relatable story about owning a wild Labrador. I felt like their was a spy who came and recorded all of the chaos that Teagen put me through and wrote a book about it. It's an easy read so you will fly through it in a day or two!


They even made a movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson that will be released Christmas this year. I can't wait!

http://marleyandmemovie.com/


Even though Teagen was the dog from hell, I am still obsessed with labs. I walked a 19 month old service dog yesterday, (Sara was her name) and she had gone through 16 months of training before she could even be placed with a disabled person. Her owner is deaf and uses her to help with any day to day things that he can't do. For instance she alerts him when someone is knocking on the door, alarms going off, etc. She was a pure bred white Labrador. I fell in love. Hard. I stopped at a Starbuck's for some coffee and went out to the park with her. I sat on a park bench that had dividers in between each seat. She looked up at me with her tail wagging and jumped up on the seat next to me. Just sat there and looked out. Occasionally turning to me with these cute little crunched eyebrows. It was like we were two friends just talking. So precious! People were just stopping and laughing at us. I get to see her again Friday evening. So I'll be sure to snap a picture of her.

Game On

After spending half the day looking out the window at the clouds, Melissa and I rallied the troops for a friendly game of kickball in central park. The previous winner being Team World with 19, Team USA with 10. Naturally, USA was very bitter about this loss and wanted to exact their revenge.

The day started with a light drizzle that we were somewhat protected by since the field is surrounded by trees. Not everybody could show up so we ended up having a  7 on 7 match. We had held a draft previously, to distribute the newbies. Melissa easily came out on top in the draft in which she managed to get the first 2 overall picks, and my 1st pick didn't even show up. 

So we began the game, under some light rain, Team USA on offense. 3 quick outs later and World was up to bat. I set the lineup that we used for the rest of the game. It was an all-star lineup built for one purpose - running up the score, which we did very effectively. Admittedly, I was a bit worried after the draft because USA got some good players, but after the 1st inning, my worries were gone. We went up 10 - 0 in no time. The rest of the game went much the same way, keep working the left fieldsman and the game is ours. World won that game 22 - 1, with that 1 point coming on an error. 

USA did not take the loss lightly and demanded a rematch then and there. We reluctantly agreed to it, although 2 of our members had to leave soon. After scoring 1 point in the first inning, USA took an early lead in the bottom of the 1st scoring a quick 3. A team meeting was called on the pitcher's mound to discuss the situation. I managed to calm our team down, issue some quick instructions, and bring us back together again. It was that meeting that changed the course of the game. We got the 3 outs quickly and started our comeback. The game took a turn for the worse when USA stopped talking, and probably stopped having fun as they realized we were up 16 to 5 with one inning left. They scored one more point to make the final score 16 - 6, but clearly not enough to deal with my all-star team. 

Left field was our bread and butter, with occasional groundball homeruns down the first base line. The results of the 2 games yesterday put Team World at an undefeated 3 - 0. USA obviously has a streak of 0 - 3. We'll see how the next game turns out, there may be a redistribution in lineups to make the teams more even. As it stands, World is just too good.

Little Italy

Last night we went to eat dinner in Little Italy at this place called Gennaro's.



The weather was nice, so we ate outside. I got some interesting shots of Joey...






























































Joey was really proud of this picture:


Then we stopped for some banana gelato. Yummy!




Here's Joey with his #1 fan...


Tomorrow is our second kickball game!

The theme will be Team USA whipping Team World's butt! We had a draft last night for new people joining in on the game. I was so proud of my picks...I think we have a really good team. I have some strategies, but I would be a fool to post them....since I know my enemy will be taking a peak at the post. I checked my e-mail box yesterday, and within a few days I had gotten 72 e-mails about this kickball game from people. They were mostly from a really long chain e-mail filled with trash talk. To sum it up, my team will have an endless supply of haterade for the proper hater hydration. Team World will come fully supplied with their over inflated egos from last game....which will cause them to lose the game.

I'll post a recap after the game.


PS- I changed the song to a Led Zeppelin song Joey's learning to play.

Because we are bold!

Joey shaved his head and I dyed my hair! Our look before was "safe". Like we could have been selling some gap shirts around the block. But now. Well. Look out world, here we come!



I've never made a hairstylist nervous before. My guy was trying to talk me out of it. He was asking if I was sure...warning me it would be drastic. Warning me that it would fade. It would cost more going from blonde to brunette, this and that. Basically he didn't think I would look good with dark hair. I told him no, I'm doing it!


Oh my!

In the end Tim was beaming he was so happy. He was like not bad Ms. New Orleans! I was like 'mmmmHmmmm' *finger snap* :)

While I was getting pampered by my entourage and Lucy was -well, doing what she does best, Joey was riding his bike all the way to the financial district! Trainin' hard for that triathlon.


Toodles!

New camera- yippee!

I don't know about you guys, but I sure was glad to see Joey make a post! He was so excited to do it. I mean he did it completely on his own with no coercing from me at all. ;)

I love the camera he got me! Love it. I have been wanting an SLR for as long as I can remember and now I finally have one. Last night I took a bunch of pictures. Mostly of my "voluntary" guinea pigs Lucy and Joey. And I must say some of them came out really good. And you know, I would be posting some of the pictures....but as I was uploading them my iphoto crashed before my LAST picture (out of a guilty 164) uploaded. Before I uploaded them I clicked "delete pictures after import" which is why they are no longer on my memory card or camera! I wanted to cry. Or maybe stomp my feet and pout. So of course I did all of the above...

Anywho, I am looking into a recovery system for my memory card. If and when I get them back I'll post some of Joey with his new guitar and Lucy's 'National Geographic' shot.

Today was so HOT! It was in the 70's yesterday and shot up to the mid-90's today. I felt like I was back in LA. We went back to the pier and I took pictures of the pretty scenery while Joey killed himself running. And yes, those pictures were deleted as well :(

Then we spent the rest of the day at the Met. I do have those pictures. So take a look:

This is the rooftop area at the Met. One of my favorite spots because of the view!

Well wait, ladies look away from Joey. That's not the view I was talking about! (Bad-a bing!) ....oh that was bad....

I love the way this one came out. Everything in the backround is blurry except for the shrubbery in the front.

Plus, they are always changing the art outside. I think you would have liked the current stuff Alli- oop.





The European sculpture room! I think I've posted about this before. I think it's number one on my list.



I am still learning about all of the settings on my camera. Here is an obvious example of how much a difference there is between the right and wrong setting:

Before:

After:

All together now: Woooooow! :)


We decided to eat at a cafe while were there. We ordered "small plates". Mine was of ravioli....


Ehhhh. Yeah, when they said "small plates" they really meant it. The cafe was next to that European sculpture room. So maybe they were giving us French size portions.

So I won't bore you with a narration for each picture. Here are the rest:










We walked back through the park to the West Side....and guess what I spotted? A swing set!

I couldn't resist of course! I will admit though I got scared! I don't know how I went so high in second grade with no fear...




And once Joey saw how much fun I was having he joined. :)


Then we ate at Edgar's and called it a day. Phew!