New York, New York (Part 2)

So here we are on the Staten Island Ferry heading toward New York City across New York Harbor...yep, it was a bit windy.



Good Times in Rockefeller Center...where you can see all those white umbrellas below is the skating rink in winter time.


The happy clan at the Yankee-Mariners game...yeah, the Mariners got spanked by the Yankees and I wasn't very happy - but Emily and James didn't seem to mind.


The clock in Times Square.


There she stands...the Statue of Liberty from our view on the ferry. I honestly can't imagine seeing that lady at the turn of the century on a boat full of immigrants...what brave people they were.



Central Park: the fabulous juxtaposition between skyscrapers and lush greenery. Central Park is packed out on a sunny day like we had.


Here we are on the top of the MET - it's the garden cafe level that currently is holding the whimsical statues of Jeff Koons. I love the view from the garden cafe!


Jeff Koons' statue of a dog is entirely fantastical...it looks just like a mondo version of a balloon animal.


I have come to really love New York City, and I love the fact that it is becoming much more familiar to me. Granted - I don't leave Manhattan all that much, but I have been branching out a bit to the Bronx, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Soho, and soon Brooklyn. I am also starting to understand why New Yorkers insist that NYC is the middle of the universe...EVERYTHING happens there! It is now so fun to watch news broadcasts, late night shows, movies, tv shows, etc. and see all the places that are now becoming so familiar to me.

James and I are excited to continue exploring this great city this summer...not sure that I'd want to live there, but it's great to be an hour train ride away. I still have these moments of feeling so "grown up" whenever I take the train up to Penn Station, and especially on the way home when I'm waiting to find out which track my train will be loading on. As soon as the track number is posted it's a massive rush to get on the train, and you've got to learn to poke a few elbows during rush hours to keep from being trampled. Yeah, I've been an adult for awhile but there's something about a small-town farm girl taking the train to Manhattan that gives a rush of real world adulthood. If I made that commute every day I'd probably go crazy, but for the occasional trip it's perfect.

The Princeton P-rade

The class of 1954 (above) in the tradtional orange blazer.

One of my favorite things about working downtown Princeton is that I get to experience all the festivals and traditions and events that usually happen right outside the Princeton Running Company. The Princeton Alumni weekend, including the P-rade, is one of them. This weekend thousands of Princeton Alumni will pack into the few hotels in the area and proudly sport their Princeton garb from whatever "era" they attended school. They will also sport their class buttons indicating what year they graduated.

Today at work I saw dozens of 1958 buttons, because it is their 50th anniversary this year. Fifty year - crazy! My favorite couple that I saw today were named Fitz and Dottie, both from the class of 1958 with the most pleasant southern accents. Fitz had one of those great straw hats - the kind all the men wear in Pollyanna with the flat top - but his hat of course had the orange and black striped band around the base. And Dottie had sewn a shirt for Fitz and a matching skirt for herself of a bright orange tiger print material. I am telling you - these people have no qualms with bright orange and black. They are proud to be a Princeton Tiger.

Tomorrow afternoon all these alumni will band together with their class and march behind the class year banner in an event that has been happening for over 100 years - the "P-rade." The Princeton Band will play, and members of the 25th and 50th reunion classes will most likely sport themed costumes...possibly Roman legionnaires or Uncle Sam look-alikes or Dutch Boys. (I know this because of all the old-time Princetonians that I work with). So I am excited for tomorrow to catch glimpse of this grand ol' tradition...even if it means I will be fitting dozens of 60 or 70 somethings for running shoes!

New York, New York

Can I just say that late spring in NYC is the best time to have guests come visit and traipse around the city without our fingers freezing off, and without our faces melting? The two days that we were up in NYC with Laura and Emily were such perfect weather - mid 70's with a slight breeze, and yet the early excitement of summer on the smiles of everyone in Central Park. The last time we hung out with guests around the city - Jay and Trish - was the middle of January and FREEZING! We had to dodge into a little sideshop every few minutes to warm our hands and escape the biting wind, and Trisha and I had our scarves wrapped around our heads like Amish peasants...we still had a lot of fun, but I decided that January is not the best time to be running around the city. And when we hung out in the city last September with friends from Wheaton, it was hot and muggy and humid and sticky, and sitting in the subway felt like you were being conjoined to the seats from the heat.

So anyone out there wanting to come visit us, we recommend early spring. (Although we realize that beggars can't be choosers!) Anyways, we stayed very busy running around and checking out the sites and sounds and smells of this "center of the universe" grand plaza. I guess I can see why New Yorkers think that NYC is the center of the universe...everything happens there and they have everything! We had a fabulous time, but I do have to say that by the end of the second day up there I had done so much walking in "non-walking shoes" (you have to look cute in the city, so who needs supportive sneakers?), that my muscles were so sore and my feet so blistered and dirty that Emi, Laura and I immediately soaked our feet in the bathtub for 20 minutes to clean them off and help ease the pain. I have to admit that I felt like an old woman, but boy oh boy did it feel fantastic!

I will be posting pictures of our grand adventures when our Internet isn't so fritzy and my eyes aren't so droopy...

Memorial Day...and Finally a BBQ!

The flags (above) were amongst the dozens of flags flying in Rockefeller Center this last weekend.

James and I at a Yankee game - he finally made it to Yankee Stadium!



Ok, so it's the day after Memorial Day but I am still feeling very patriotic. We just had a wonderful last few days of enjoying some highly "Americana" festivities (and yes, that means we are finally done with our never-ending papers!) We finished our papers last Wednesday, and then Emily and Laura flew in that night and left yesterday afternoon. We had such a wonderful time! I have plenty more pictures and things to say about our trip later, but in brief we went to New York two days, went to the Jersey shore one day, and hung out in Princeton for a day and a half. New York City was great - Laura and Emily had never been there so we got to see all the favorite sights - Staten Island Ferry past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Gardens, Grand Central Station (which I hadn't been to before and it was brilliant), Penn Station, Central Park, The MET, Times Square, and Yankee Stadium for a Yankee's Game. (more to come about this trip later)


After we took Emily and Laura back to the airport yesterday I was feeling slightly melancholy, but when we got back to CRDub we were immediately invited to a BBQ down the street. It was such a glorious Memorial Day evening! There were literally a dozen or more BBQ's going on in our neighborhood, with little kids running all over, the sun shining with a slight breeze, plenty of laughter, and the official invitation of summer relaxation. Two of our neighbors, Rachel and Casey, had spent all last week making this game they call "corn holing" (I guess because the little bags you toss are filled with corn?), and it was great fun. We also played several games of Bocci ball, and I have decided that I adore lawn games. We need to invest in some croquet and bocci ball sets. After it was too dark to play anymore, a whole bunch of "husbands" decided that we should all watch the Big Labowski...I hadn't seen the whole thing through before so I was game. And I have to admit that it was pretty funny...but I think much more of a male movie than female.


All that to say, James and I have finally stopped to breath a bit now that school is over and we are very excited for summer time BBQ's and lawn games and fudge-cycles (as we know have in our freezer), and Memorial Day served as the perfect sneak preview for us.

"Oh Finals Week" - to be sung to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum"

Chorus:
Oh finals week, Oh finals week, you never cease to drag on;
Oh finals week, Oh finals week, our relationship is so fickle.

You drive us to be coffee gluttons,
you find such pleasure in pushing our buttons.
...Chorus

Thank God for the steak salad we love to eat,
praise Jesus for Wendy's just down the street.
...Chorus

Our bed is such a nice soft break,
From the hard wood chairs our butts do hate.
...Chorus

Once the end has come we'll dance and sing,
and roam the streets with bells to ring.
...Chorus

Here James models the practicality of our lovely new bedspread.


Am I sleeping...probably. I'm down with knowledge transmission via osmosis.


James and I both nestled on our bed, hard at work on papers due the next morning.




Yeah, this steak salad was the highlight of the week for us last week...nice red meat, blue cheese crumbles, crusty role, and a glass of wine - I've realized that food becomes a very important prize for us in the midst of mental Olympics.

An Essay On BBQ's

Here I am again, distracting myself from the work that I should be doing to finish up this long-lasting semester. In this case I've actually been working long and hard on a paper today and am taking a well-deserved break to reflect on spring-time BBQ's. Earlier this evening James and I were taking a dinner break and decided to walk to Whole Foods for some tomato bisque soup and a crusty rustic role (one of our favorite "splurges" from the normalcy of groceries at home) and on our walk there we passed five different BBQ's. And I was slightly jealous for a variety of reasons: A) The burgers, steaks, chicken and all things meaty smelled amazing and my tomato bisque didn't sound as good anymore; and B) all these people were already done with their finals and have evenings of relative freedom to enjoy for things such as leisurely BBQ's in the perfect 70 degree weather (The paper James and I are working on is for the University which is on a later schedule than the seminary); and C) the BBQ's were all fellow students and families that we know, and I was feeling desperately social.

So I've decided that I'm going to have a big bash of a BBQ the night we finish our papers, because a good BBQ is, in my view, the pinnacle experience of spring and summer time. It satisfies all the desires that have been building over the winter months: time spent relaxing outside in the fresh air without seeing the warmth of your breath against the coldness in the air; the casual attire of flip-flops, shorts, and tanks; the gastronomic pleasures of grilled and smoky meat with chips and salsa aplenty; and the joy and pleasure of friends and family gathered in the ultimate of relaxing environments.

Actually, I just realized that we are going to a BBQ on Friday night for a friend's graduation party from Seminary. So I shall cling to the goodness that is coming Friday as I abstain from the BBQ's tonight and the one we are invited to tomorrow night all in the pursuit of knowledge...or something like that. Let's just say that I am ferociously ready for a burger or a dog...

One more moment of Procrastination...

This pic was taken a few weeks ago, but this is the bulk of our "Sunday night dinner" crew. We have dinner most Sunday nights with a group of friends, and we all take turns hosting. This week we were at Courtney and Daryl's house, the lovely couple on the right. Peter and Megan Kline are the couple on the left, and our friends Chris and Lana were gone for the evening. Yeah, I'll miss our Sunday night routine over the summer...have a great dinner with beer and wine, stay too long, go home and cram for the Monday Greek quiz. Or actually, I guess we'll keep the same routine sans the going home and cramming for the Greek Quiz - and that sounds great to me right now!

Tests, Papers, and Procrastination

It's Saturday evening, but for all I know it could be Wednesday. I'm sitting at the library trying to work on an exegesis paper of Ezekiel 34, but I'm finding myself entirely distracted. I have been looking at all sorts of random web-sites inbetween my meager attempts to structure this paper, and the question occurred to me of what in the world people did in the library here at Princeton 100 years ago, or even 40, 30, etc. years ago when there was no wireless as an immediate source of distracting gratification? Did students actually sit still for 5 hours straight and focus on their paper, or on memorizing facts for their finals? That seems so unfathomable to me, but it also makes me realize that I am a typical addict to the age of technological distractions. Here I am--probably haven't spent a total of 60 solid minutes working on my paper, but I've sure found plenty of interesting blogs and craigslist patio furniture and modern architectural homes. I can't get myself to focus for more than twenty minutes straight without wanting to change mental topics...I think this is a great tragedy of our era. Hmmm....what is the solution for this schizophrenic generation? I guess less tv, more time reading, more time engaging in good discussion with friends rather than movie times, and putting strict mental limits on how much net surfing I can do. Yeah, mom: I'm glad you didn't let me get a Nintendo when I was young, and when Grandma Jean finally bought one you rarely let us use it. I don't think my kids will be getting any video game consul either...they'll need all the help they can get in learning to concentrate.

Granted, I got four hours of sleep last night...stayed up until 2:30 studying for a final, got up at 6:30am to keep studying, left the house at 8:45 to get to the test by 9:00am, and wrote essays for 3 solid hours. So my mind's a little shot...but I've still got two papers and a Greek test to gear up for. And perhaps if I didn't let myself get distracted so easily I wouldn't be cramming quite so badly here at the end.

Well, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is at get off the Internet! Here starts my new attempt to focus for more prolonged periods of time without changing mental subjects. Anybody else struggle with this problem?