Broke AND BORED sometimes maybe.

So, sometimes that whole, "Hey, let's take advantage of all the awesome free stuff to do in NYC," thing doesn't work out. Like, epic catastrophe doesn't work out.  I know, because it's happened to me.  Last Friday, after a crappy weather forecast forced me to cancel outdoorsy plans with a friend, the skies miraculously cleared at the last moment and E convinced me it was a good idea to go to the free New York Philharmonic concert in Prospect Park.  I begrudgingly agreed, even though:

1. We decided to split a PB&J that had been bouncing around in E's work bag all day to avoid having to buy dinner
   
2. IT WAS GODAWFUL HOT AND MUGGY AND OMG.
3. Our work schedules didn't line up and my office building has a strict GET-THE-FUCK-OUT policy on Friday afternoons, so I had to go sit on a bench on a traffic island outside of E's office for 40 minutes. It was hot.
4. Neither of us had ever set foot in Prospect Park!  I know, this is crazy, but honestly, we're rarely in Brooklyn.
5. Because of our work schedules, we were destined to make it to the park around 7:15, a mere 45 minutes before this free concert in the city's most populous borough was set to start.

In the end, he convinced me to go by talking up the fireworks display set for the end of the evening.  However, beginning when I sat outside of his office building for 40 minutes, sweat literally dripping down my legs, hungry and tired, I was cranky.  And it didn't stop when he got out of work, or when we were on an air conditioned subway train, or when I finally had a bottle of cool, delicious water in hand.  While we wandered aimlessly through the massive massiveness of Prospect Park in search of the Long Meadow, I whined.  I whined about the heat, I whined about the fact that we saw about 500 fireworks displays earlier this month, I whined about being tired, and hungry, and about my feet hurting. I refused to take off my cardigan on principle, so I could have something else to whine about, because I was being passive aggressive.  I whined about the crowds and the heat (IT WAS HOT, GOSH) and the impending long ass commute back to Queens.  I was a real terror, and it was not my proudest moment.

But then we found the Long Meadow (after E sent like 6 people off in the wrong direction as if he had a CLUE where we were), and we got seats, and we ate the PB&J and hung out.  And it was still hot, and we didn't have a blanket so the grass was scratchy, and I wasn't able to flag down one of those guys who sells glow-toys at fireworks displays, but it was kind of nice.  The Philharmonic started out with a couple of fun pieces, including some West Side Story stuff, and we started to relax and have fun.  There were cute kids everywhere, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, so why not?  Then it was intermission, and more kids bought more glow toys (but I still didn't), and the sun went down so the temperature dropped, like, 3 degrees.

But then. THEN. The Philharmonic came back and played an utterly interminable, very, very slow-and-quiet piece. It was SO. LONG. And we could BARELY. HEAR. IT.  I get it.  The people in front are the people who are donors and ~serious music-y people~ and whatnot. BUT YOU'RE IN A PARK. There are a few thousand people sitting on the grass to hear you play. Melting in the heat. Listening to other people's conversations. Tolerating other people's children and their glow toys. They are obviously dedicated.  PLAY SOMETHING THEY CAN HEAR.  Every time the music stopped (which we mostly marked by the polite applause of people closer to the stage, but not close enough to know you're not supposed to clap between movements or w/e), we watched hopefully for the conductor to turn around. He never did. It was excruciating. At some point it devolved into a giant glow-toy swordfight.

And then it finally ended, and the fireworks started, and... they were kind of crappy. And over in like 3 minutes.  So that was that. And E had to use the restroom for about an hour, and I was getting there myself, so as soon as the "grand finale" (I use the term loosely) had ended, we hightailed it out of there (the perks of not having blankets or luggage or children) to beat the crowds to a restroom. We walked past the port-a-potties in the park and to the nearest food-selling facility, a bakery about a block away.  We bought a god-awful red velvet cupcake so E could use the bathroom, only to find out that the bathroom was out of service. After wandering a bit, we realized that there was nothing else around, and found ourselves heading back to the park. For the port-a-potties.

I hate port-a-potties. HATE. There are few things as revolting to me as a portable pisser. So, on a night when it was still in the 80s hours after the sun went down, when thousands of people had probably relieved their full-to-bursting bladders there, I knew these things were going to be rank. AND OH MY GOD THEY WERE. To think about it now causes one to nearly vomit in one's mouth. Utterly miserable.

Having survived that experience, we dashed to the subway and began the long journey back to Queens. You would never think that Queens and Brooklyn abutt each other on the lovely Long Island based on the ease of public transit between them. It's sort of astounding. But so it goes. We made it home, immediately showered to try to rinse the port-a-potty grime off of us, and I mentally swore never to get suckered into something like that again.

...Until I was. But that's for another time.

Where I talk about things I would buy were frivolity and money no object.

A custom-built bike from Urban Outfitters!  Look how cute it is!  I had no idea this was even an option, not being a big UO shopper myself, but I am totally smitten.  I don't even ride bikes! I bought a bike at a tag sale before we moved to Boston in 2008, and I never once took it out of our apartment building's basement.  We lived halfway up a giant hill on a busy street and I am a big baby.  And then I was going to sell it before we moved here, but decided to keep it because I wanted to become a big, tough, bicycle-commuting (or at least picnicking) gal.  But again, it sat in the lobby of the building, unused, with deflated tires, for months before it disappeared.  So, no, I would likely not get as much use out of this 400 dollar custom-built bike as I should were I to blow money on it.  BUT IT IS SO CUTE.  It has RED TIRES, people, RED TIRES.   And no worries, I even have my eye on a few not-totally-fugly helmets already, for when I win the lottery and can buy a bike and matching helmet to sit in my building's lobby -- this time with a lock.

Faraway places

Tonight I am dreaming of all the places we could go if we repurposed our wedding budget. Oh, wanderlust, I haz you.

Please note, basically all of these photos come from random sites that aren't really worth checking out. Except the one of Sacre Coeur. Check that link out. Gorgeous.

 

Chile (via)

 

The Mayan Riviera (via)

Thailand (via)

 

Spaaaaaain omg spaaain (via)

Granada... as in the country. (via)

India. India. India. (via)

And, of course, France. Paris. PARIS.  (via)

Okay, so obviously our wedding budget would not allow us to jaunt all over the world and visit all of these places, and there are about a bazillion other places I want to visit of which I am not scouring the web for pictures.  But even one.... sigh.

Elephants on Parade!

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, the CIRCUS is coming to New York City! And, since the train comes into Penn Station, which is, woefully, very underground, and since elephants and horses haven't mastered escalators yet, they're taking to the streets!  The train stops in Queens, they unload the elephants and horses, and then walk them through the midtown tunnel to 34th street, where they parade through the streets to Madison Square Garden!

via

I was gearing up to go, if not on the Manhattan side then the Queens side, but the wind/rain/lightning/thunder outside my window is intimidating me. Also, it happens at about 12:30 am and I'm not going to be able to convince E to go with me, because he has class early tomorrow, boo.  Maybe I'll bone up and go, or maybe I'll have to wait for next year. But what if there is no next year? I'm pretty sure this would be one of the coolest things I've ever seen.  Decisions, decisions. 

Today, in Geek Household...

E and I actually just had an argument about who got to fill out the Census. It was an epic battle over who got to be Person 1 versus Person 2, and it involved a lot of "No, I wanna fill out the Census!" whining back-and-forth. In the end, he won because he had the initiative to actually get off the couch and get the form, but I wouldn't let him fill out the Person 2 section, and filled it out myself instead.

And now it's off to the Census Data Collection Center or whatever, where the government will cull that data and use it to allocate money and government representatives and blah blah blah. Fill out your censuses, people! I know that last semester, when I was doing research with the 1860 census for one of my professors, I was glad all those schmucks answered the door to the census takers!

Not Belgian Waffles (which were premiered at the World's Fair!)

I made breakfast this morning. I'm actually not a big fan of breakfast. I know, I know, that's a sacrilege. But it's true. Give me soup or a sandwich or a stew any day. I even prefer eating lunch/dinner foods for breakfast most of the time if I can. I know my way around the kitchen for any meal, but somehow I'm best at breakfast. I've recently started making what have been called "diner quality" homefries, and the combination of avocado, eggs and tomatoes is amazing -- usually I prefer the eggs over easy, all on toast, but we're lacking bread today.

Otherwise it's been a lazy day. Slept late (and probably will again tomorrow since we're losing an hour by setting the clocks ahead), avoided the torrential rain, watched Moon (so, so, SO good!), and ate gyros, and now I'm watching an awesome documentary on the 1964-65 World's Fair. The World's Fair is a recurring theme in my life, apparently.

Miniature things are always better!

As a budding museum professional, you might assume that I enjoy spending time in museums. You would be correct. As previously mentioned, I also love theme parks, and the intersection of museums and theme parks is, arguably, World's Fairs! The day we leased our apartment, we had to drive across Queens to get cash out of the bank, and we drove past the Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the site of both the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World's Fairs. From the highway, you can see the Unisphere, the New York State Pavilion (which is basically in ruins), and the Queens Museum of Art, which was the New York City building, served as the meeting place for the UN General Assembly for a while, and also housed an ice skating rink, which was apparently decommissioned last year.

Immediately, I was stoked. We went for a visit in August before E started school, checked out all the remnants of the fairs, and went to the Queens Zoo, where the aviary is a geodesic dome that was the Winston Churchill pavilion at the fair. Insanely cool. The whole park is full of recognizable things. It was built on an ash-dumping ground that F. Scott Fitzgerald called "a valley of ashes" in The Great Gatsby. The observation towers on the New York State Pavilion were the alien spaceships at the end of Men in Black. The US Open is played there, and the Mets play at Citi Field on the grounds. The Unisphere is one of the most recognized symbols of Queens.

And, tucked inside the Queens Museum of Art, is one of the coolest things I've seen in a museum: an amazing scale model of Manhattan and its boroughs. We decided to have a cheap daytime date today ($2.50 per student!) and go check it out. The photos on the museum's website do not convey the scale of this thing. At over 9000 square feet (that's like 10 of my apartments, FYI), it takes up most of the sizable building, and features nearly 900,000 (THAT'S 90% OF ONE MILLION!) individual structures. I found our apartment! I found Coney Island! My school! E's! A thousand other awesome things! And all in one very large room!

The viewing platform is a ramp around the perimeter of the panorama, mimicking the original simulated helicopter ride in glass-bottomed cars from 1964-65. We spent a ton of time in there, taking everything in, though the rest of the museum is pretty cool as well. Afterwards, we went outside and enjoyed the January thaw by meandering around the Unisphere (and spent about 15 minutes trying to get the perfect picture of me playing Atlas with the Unisphere on my back). With another museum (the New York Hall of Science), a theater (Queens Theater has taken up residence in the usable parts of the former NY State Pavilion), and several sports arenas on the grounds, I anticipate spending more time at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the future. Especially since I am now intent on bringing every visitor we have to see the amazing panorama at the Queens Museum of Art. SO. COOL.