I did it!

This day had "getting nothing productive done" written all over it. Starting with getting up at 5a.m. to watch the wedding. That was a no-brainer for me. I know I could have seen it 1000 times after but only once live. I have a thing about doing things on the day or at the time when it is most significant. I like to celebrate my birthday on my birthday. If there is a scheduling problem, then beforehand will do but no after the fact. It's over after the specific time. Not to say I don't accept birthday gifts that come late but there's not likely to be a party. A silly quirk.

So, after watching all the festivities and a nap, I hadn't scheduled anything else for the day and I was getting that bad feeling of uselessness. Alas, there is always the "bomb" room, my studio, where I can head and at the very least clean and organize. But I remembered that I had been procrastinating about learning how to make my own paper flowers. I've spent a lot of money buying the flowers I use in my art from others by mail. I purchased a machine several months ago which I had taken out of the box and tried once a couple of weeks ago. It was just too easy to purchase them at reasonable prices. Okay, so today I made myself make two different kinds of flowers; this is the second one which means it came out much better than the first. I've watched several tutorials on you tube, studying and doing my homework. On the first one, of course, I didn't do it as they said...dur...that's why it didn't come out as well. So this is just the first of many of my upcoming tries. And it's kind of on the tail end of the rage but maybe not. Cutting edge has not been that good to me so we'll see what happens. Thanks for stopping in!

Fun Spring break but no sun tan...

I used to think of New York City as lots of concrete and tall buildings. There are a lot of tall buildings but I've learned now, after many trips, that there's so much more like the many parks and gardens dotted around Manhattan. Above is one of the many, many gardens that we saw even in pretty cool weather in April. Another bunch of beautiful flowers in another beautiful park. Funny sign, another example that Texans and cowboys are welcome! Gotta love the Flat Iron Building.

Me and Lady Liberty.

Found Jamba Juice right around the first corner from our hotel. Yep, got to have at least one everyday.

We stayed near Times Square, wonderful all night and...

...then filled with bistro tables and chairs during the day for eating, hanging out, and endless people-watching.

Yep, another Jamba Juice. Hey, I left many JJ photos out of this post.

Would you ever guess this is a Mickey D's? Only in Manhattan do they look like very nice two story restaurants.

I took this during my first cab ride in NYC alone. I had walked Manhattan shopping all day and was going to Little Italy to meet Paul and Matt for dinner. I was totally chill while the cab driver drove 80 MPH in rush hour traffic.

A beautiful painting in the fab restaurant in Little Italy.

We ended up in this particular restaurant, Cafe' Napoli, in Little Italy by way of a pure NY Italian came right up to me on the sidewalk, put his arm around me, and said if we wanted the best Italian food, we should come with him. Having heard that every restaurant around there was great, we went with him...

...and it was one of the best meals we had ever had.

From the outside; as it got cooler they closed the wonderful iron and glass doors but still had the tables outside for the hardier folk.

Of course I knew that NYC was a foody town but we had not spent much time previously working on making the best of that until this time. We went to Greenwich Village to The Carnegie Deli which Paul had said was a classic "must do" (he's from NYC, so he should know).

While there I hear the waiter nearby say Texas loud so, of course, I had to check out the situation. This is a family from Midland who were two tables over. Right there, the daughter coined the term, "Bacon is the candy of meat."!!!! That's what the waiter was announcing to the whole place for historical record. New York and Texas do work well together-they are both so special...one more so than the other...guess which one I choose.

At the Carnegie Deli the walls are covered with celebrity photos who have eaten there since 1937.

Fun and full.

This is the only photo I have handy of the infamous Annex flea market where I've always wanted to go. I didn't have long or much cash but I did very well in this fab silverware department!

The creme de la creme of the trip, our first game at the new Yankees' stadium!!

And they were playing the Rangers! Not that I care about the Ranger but they would have been my choice just 'cause they from Texas. Perhaps I will bore you with the details of how I came to be a Yankees' fan. When I was growing up in Texas all we had were the Astros. Now the Astros got us the Astrodome and Astroturf, but they have never been very good at baseball consistently. I've never seen them win a game and I grew up going to their games (this was before the Rangers). Sooooo I was not a big baseball person plus Texas is mainly a football state. Fast forward to when Paul and I met, him being from NYC and growing up with the Yankees, I was ripe to embrace them.

And, last but not least, a grand view of the new stadium. Great trip. Matt got to be where in the world he love most and we all agree that we love it.

Catching up here and there...

At some point in your life math stops working.  People tell you that things occurred many years before you were even born.  e.i., "We met 35 years ago.".   And the response in your head is that can't be because I'm only like 28. Then comes, oh wait, my oldest son is 27...mmm...the math is not working out any longer.   In any case, I have this photo, above, from my 19th birthday party over 34 years ago (a calculator would be easier).  And this is Stephen.  I have mentioned him and seeing him on my Facebook wall but this occasion deserves a blog post as well.  Stephen was my sister's boyfriend for many years.  Our family was very close to him.  My parents adored him and visa versa as did/do I.  He always and still calls me Baby Girl.  I was the little sis.  He was there to pick me up after my first commercial airplane flight to San Francisco and drive us back to Pacific Grove where I was going to stay "just for the summer" between my freshman and sophomore year.  I fell in love with the Monterey Peninsula, and when I saw Big Sur for the first time, I went home and wrote my parents (yep, chicken shit wouldn't pick up the phone) to let them know I would be staying indefinitely and going to school there.  My parents got in their car, drove out to see this place, and also fell in love.  It took them six years to wrap up 25 years of life in Bryan, Texas and move to California to get into the B & B business.

Okay, enough...fast forward.  We all roamed around for a while (not my parents-they stayed 16 years), my sister and I separately back and forth.  But soon after we left Stephen moved to Idaho where his family had a vacation home.  He was raised in L.A.-in fact the only time I've been there was to have Thanksgiving with Stephen's family-but needed a change as a lot of us do from time to time.  Stephen and our family stayed in touch for many years.  In fact, 20 years ago he came to visit when we were living in Wyoming and he was there for a tournament.  There's a lot of yada, yada, yada here but, we lost contact.  Last December, Stephen's mother passed away and, as usually happens, there were a lot of historical stories and photos circling around.  Photos of my sister and I surfaced and caused Stephen to want to connect again.  He googled my sister's name and, unfortunately, first came to my dad's obituary.  Stephen hadn't know that we'd lost dad and it saddened him.  He wanted to reconnect with our family.  He called my sister, my mom, and emailed then friended me on Facebook.   With grand "luck" Stephen had a training session to attend in Emmitsburg, Maryland, about an hour away.  So week before last I drove up there and we had dinner together and it was, big sigh, wonderful.  I have been so blessed in the last few years to have had several very long overdue reunions with once-close friends.  And it never ceases to amaze me that, even though I realize I've missed these people, when I see them I let myself finally feel exactly how very, very much I'd missed them.  Seeing Stephen was no exception.  My heart was so full of love for him and soaked up his love for me.   Friends are soooooo special, and it's important to keep in touch, but these delayed gratifications are just so sweet and fulfilling too.  An upshot to not being able to make sense of math any longer.  I love you and cherish you Stephen.  I love and cherish all of my friends more than you could know.