Thursday, June 26, 2008

what a view...


This picture jumped out at me today. It was taken in the summer of 2006, when I visited Alaska for the first time with Brian. This is from the beautiful Alyeska Ski Resort. Such amazing views from the top of the mountain. I especially enjoyed the old, rusty-looking ski lift, resting in the summer. Such a peaceful place.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

twisted tree tuesday

I really like this tree in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I love how it twists out. This picture was taken before the leaves and flowers were really in bloom. I wonder how it looks now?

Monday, June 16, 2008

What's in a name???

I am up too late, doing random things on my computer. Okay - I've actually spent the past hour or so looking online for apartments. Definitely NOT my most favorite thing to do. If anyone out there knows of an amazing, beautiful, inexpensive apartment at a great location in New York City (Brooklyn included), please let me know ASAP! Thanks!
Since my brain is turned to mush from the apartment hunt I decided to do something random, like see how many people in the US have my name. Low and behold, howmanyofme.com can tell me something like that!

HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere are
7
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Tada!!! This site also tells me that my first name, the 292nd most popular name, is 99.9% female. Okay -- I'd like to meet that .1% male with my name. Hmmm....
I did the search on my immediate family names too. Out of all of us Mom is the only one that doesn't have a few duplicates running around out there somewhere. In fact, she is one of a kind: an original. How cool is that?
Go see how many people you share your name with!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Way out West!

Next week Dave is coming for a visit! I am really looking forward to hanging out with him because I have not seen him in about a year! I hate that part of growing up and making friends in so many different places. We get spread out and rarely get to see each other. On the other hand, it makes it nice when I have a chance to travel because I have good friends scattered about, so I always have someone to go visit.
Last year Dave took me to California. It was my first time to California and we had a wonderful time. I got to see his family, meet his friends, and see some friends that we had not seen in a while. Here is a picture of us at Yosemite National Park by a huge uprooted tree.

And here I am under a tree called the "clothespin". You can't see the top of the tree in the picture because the tree is HUGE. But can't you see how it got its name?

Yosemite was so beautiful. I love seeing all the wonderful parks and sights across the country. Even Frisson, my traveling penguin, wanted get a slice of the photo action!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

skyline

Here is a picture I took of the city when Stacy was here. It was taken very near where I lived before in Long Island City. I took Stacy over there to see the beautiful skyline at night. She thought the park at the river was nice and romantic. I think she would have preferred someone else being there with her besides me, but I did the best I could. :)

Friday, June 6, 2008

A Treat for the Tastebuds

I am getting in trouble for not posting often enough on this blog, so I am going to try to do better! I do have a billion pictures and they all have a story, so I should just go with that. I may have breaks in my posting, but at least I have stuck with it for this long. I would definitely have made it past "B" in my alphabet! :)
On to more serious matters... cake. Cheesecake. When Stacy was here we tried to do all things "New York" and she said she could not leave before we had some of that world-famous New York Cheesecake. It was her last night here and we had not managed to get any, so we made a special trip into midtown in search of the perfect slice.
We had gone to the Stage Deli on 7th Avenue for a pastrami sandwich one afternoon. I work in this area and it was easy for us to meet there. The sandwiches are piled high and served with a pickle on the side. We eyeballed the mountainous cheesecakes that day, but decided the mile-high pastrami was filling enough for that day. I digress... we are talking about cheesecake, not pastrami....
So... this trip back into midtown... we went into several delis in the area looking for the perfect cake and we were drawn back into the Stage Deli.
The other places looked wonderful, but there was something about that place that pulled us back in. We settled on the strawberry - split three ways. Three ways, you ask??? Yes. This is a serious slice - enough to satisfy three. Actually, more than just satisfy. It was enough to STUFF three. Just look at it!
It was so rich and creamy. I'd call it a "quintessential" ending to a New York trip...whatever that means. Yes, we finished the whole thing, and we were a few very happy people. No, we did not lick the plate. Not that we didn't think about it...

Monday, June 2, 2008

Random and the City

Unfortunately, Stacy had to leave a few days ago, but we had so much fun while she was here. We almost ran ourselves to death, but we saw a LOT of the sites around the city and had a blast doing so. We saw lots of random things. That's what you get in NYC: random things. You NEVER know what you are going to see.

On our first full day, we went to Rockefeller Center and saw that area, including the NBC studios and the plaza where they always report the weather on the Today Show. It looked pretty bare during the day - lacking the wall to wall tourists proclaiming their birthdays and greetings to their mothers back in their home states on colorful signs. Anyway, Stacy and I slipped into the magnificent Saint Patrick's Cathedral to admire the architecture and then slipped into several stores to dodge some raindrops. We ended up in Bergdorf Goodman by Central Park trying on shoes that cost more than my monthly rent. By the way, these Manolo Blahniks were in the clearance section! I was afraid I was going to be kicked out of the store just for trying them on! Especially when Stacy pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of the price tags!!! After seeing a $4,000 dress I didn't feel so bad buying a new dress at Old Navy later on.

We needed a break after all this excitement, so we relaxed for a bit in the park. The park is always a good place to see something random. We started our park adventure with a statue of Lady Liberty. People like to dress up and pretend they are statues in this city. Some stand perfectly still, others, like this one, want to be a photo op, while other (as we saw later) pretend the are mechanical and move slowly - like those mechanical dolls in shop windows at Christmas. Needless to say, they all want money. Actually - we saw TWO lady liberties. Memorial Day was earlier that week, so maybe we were still celebrating...

We had too many adventures for one blog post, so I will have to continue our exciting story some other day. I will leave you with the knowledge that even the animals are strange in New York. For example, why exactly did these ducks prefer to be in the water like this??? Bottoms up!!