A lovely weekend in New York

Spring is slowly asserting its presence so it was a lovely, sunny warmish weekend here in New York City. Saturday I met up with Karen, Ralph and Kristy for a brunch at Brown down in the Lower East Side/Chinatown. Then we walked over the Williamsburg Bridge to Amre's where Karen was dogsitting for Reine for the weekend. We collected the dog, got some Breyer's ice cream in a cone (mint chocolate chip - my favorite ice cream of all time but only in Breyer's; I hate it when it's green), and walked to the park. We probably spent an hour or so walking around enjoying the flowers and all the people watching then we went back to Amre's and recouped after all of our walking.

For the evening, we met up with Rich down at Battery Park City for a free screening that was part of the Tribeca Film Festival. It was a movie called "Word.Life" and it was a documentary about a program in NYC that got young people involved in hip hop by encouraging them to tell their real stories and not pretend like they are drug dealers or gang members just because that's what's on the Top 40. Overall it was good but I was a bit disappointed in the fact that at the beginning, the creator of the program, himself a survivor of the streets, was talking about wanting to tell the students that there are more things for them to be than just hip hop stars and basketball players and yet as far as I could tell, they didn't learn much about all the other aspects of the music industry - producing, engineering, marketing, publicity, contracts, etc. While I think the program was successful in that it gave the kids focus, made them stay in school and let them know there are people who believe in them, I think it could have been better if it had shown them other ways they could work in the business without having to be the MC.

Sunday was another beautiful day and I would not allow Rich to spend it inside working as he had done on Saturday. We made waffles for breakfast then went to Central Park equipped with snacks, a big sheet and some reading material. We strolled through the park with all the other walkers, picnickers, roller bladers, runners, cyclists, families, etc and finally parked in Sheep's Meadow, a piece of the park familiar to anyone who has seen movies with people lounging around Central Park. Above the tree line rises the skyline of Manhattan - so beautiful. After a couple of hours we packed up and continued our stroll through the park. We stumbled upon a roller skating dance party which was just delightful. So many happy people skating, dancing, watching - it was such a happy spot of the city, not even the children were crying. It was the kind of snapshot of a day that made me so happy to live here. I get homesick for Seattle so I seek moments like that, when I can begin to build reasons to love living here and call it home.

After the park we met Deana and Mike for dinner. We spent 2.5 hours chatting, laughing, catching up. Deana has been a close friend of mine since we met first semester of our freshman year at BU. I met Mike the summer after my senior year when he was a TA for a high school summer program I was working for in the College of Communication. They started dating after they had both moved to NYC and they are getting married in September. I love it. They are one of my favorite couples. I love Deana, I love Mike and I love them together. They split up for a bit a couple of years ago and I was devastated so when they reconciled I couldn't have been happier.

After dinner I went over to Karen's to watch The Sopranos then came home and went to bed. Such a wonderfully satisfying weekend. I'm so glad I didn't do one lick of housework or lose one ounce of sunlight to a television or a movie theatre. Today, of course, I have to compensate for the housework part but it was all worth it.