Coney Island fun

Sorry my poor neglected blog…

This summer has been amazing and full of fabulous only in NYC experiences. This past weekend I went to Coney Island with a friend who had never been there before. I was meeting my entire family there for a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game. The Cyclones are the Mets minor league baseball team and they play in this fun little cute stadium very close to the world famous Cyclone roller coaster. As I ticked down the subway stops until we arrived, I texted my food order to my parents for them to get at the World Famous Nathan’s. The original Nathan’s is located across the street from the subway station. This food was waiting for me when I arrived. (The original nathan’s has seafood!)


There were two people at my table who had been at the beach all day and gave us beers that they weren’t going to drink. Score!

The baseball game as starting soon so we went into the stadium and met up with my family. The game was filled with cheesy cheerleaders, hand painting, giveaways and rain booo. I totally rocked my bright orange poncho.

I didn’t really watch the game but was super excited for the after game fireworks. Before the fireworks started they played all sorts of cheesy music which my insane family and I danced to and videoed. Then BOOM there were awesome fireworks!

After saying goodbye to the fam, it was time to start the rest of my night. A second meal was in order… raw clams and hot dogs and candy apples for my friend! Then a ride on this insane slingshot ride… 150 feet in the air at 90 mph. Amazing and I did not puke or pee my pants as I feared.




After the ride, we took the train back into the city and went out to a bar. We clearly had not had enough beer and def not enough food. Because then we had more drinks and became friends with the guy at the bar who totally owned the pizza place next door and brought us each two slices with requested toppings!

After a few more drinks, it was time for bed. What an adventure-filled day!

Craigslist and the 5 boro bike tour

The tulips are out which means biking season has started again. I sadly missed the sign up for my usual first ride, the 5 boro Bike tour. This ride is 42 miles on car free roads in the 5 Boroughs of NYC. I realized that the ride is the Sunday and I had no plans so I went to craigslist to assess the selling of the bibs situation.

Since the ride is 32,000 people, there are tons of people who can’t make it last minute and want to sell their bibs to get back the cost of the ride. Some people suck and were selling their ride packets for well over the $80 it originally cost. I emailed a few of the more reasonably priced offers. I noticed there was one by where I live and he was selling it for $65!

I emailed back and forth with the guy and told him I would meet him at 7:30 on a street corner. Of course President Obama decided that he would like to visit NYC at that exact hour so I had a bit of a difficult trip driving home. I parked the car and decided that the subway would be a fast way of getting to the meeting spot. I was right but as soon as I got out of the subway I realized that the street he had picked was the street Obama’s motorcade was driving down. There were barriers up on both sides of the road and tons and tons of cops milling about. Then about 7 cops cars, sirens blasting, screamed down the street. Pretty intense.

I texted the guy and we met on the corner and did the exchange in front of a group of about 20 cops. That was the safest craigslist exchange ever!

Wish me luck on my ride on Sunday!

Adventures in Crocheting

My commute is so very long everyday that it allows me plenty of time to work on the three baby blankets that I am crocheting. I don’t have much time before the babies are born so even with all the transfers I make I still take out my hook and huge ball of yarn to crochet on the subway.

I have found out that people become mesmerized by the repetitive action of my hook grasping the yarn. Whenever I crochet on the subway, I have an audience. Most of the time the onlookers look away quickly when I look up, ashamed to have been catch watching me. I play a little game of counting how many people I can catch staring at my hands.

Sometimes some of the onlookers ask questions. I had a couple who were sitting across from me ask what I was making and if my mom taught me how to crochet. (A baby blanket, and no a friend in college.) They were intrigued and the woman said she always wanted to learn how. They complimented me and then continued to watch until they departed from the train.

Another morning, a man on the bus asked me in broken English about what I was making and if I was pregnant and it was for my baby. I laughed and told him no and then he shared a story with me about an old lady in the community (Harlem) who makes sweaters and sells them.

A few nights back, I was busily crocheting on the train when a couple walked on. They sat down and the man pulled out a digital camera. I thought at first he was just showing the images to the woman he was with but then I saw him discreetly press the button. He was photographing me crocheting! Then he showed the woman and she smiled and then looked up at me. It felt really cool to be doing something that a random person felt the need to record forever (or at least for a little while.)

So I continue to stitch 1000’s of little knots….

The urge to SING!

On my way home from work today I got into a completely empty subway car. This is a rare unless it is 3 in the morning and then you purposely should move to a full subway car so you don't have any bad interactions.

Well anyway, I wanted to take full advantage of this empty train so I cranked up my Ipod to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl and began to sing at full volume. "Uptown girl she's been living in an uptown world..... " That is my karaoke song of choice. The acoustics on a train are pretty fabulous and for two local stops on the C train I sang my song. I felt so free and almost like I was starring in some movie where the heroine just had a life changing event happen and was so happy about it she had to sing! Although I keep looking at the doors to make sure no one interrupted my private show, I felt like the train was moving just for me.

Ironically ,it was a very appropriate song choice as I went from 125th street down to 96th street. Not only am I an NYCbean but also an uptown girl.

Unfortunately, one man choose to enter my haven of a subway car at 103rd street. I went silent as the doors opened and stayed that way until I got home when I cranked up my radio and sang at the top of my lungs again.

I love NYC :)