High Bridge

I have been wanting to photograph this marvel of a bridge over the Harlem River for quite some time because I see it every day on the bus ride home from the Bronx. I always keep an eye out for several things on the way, but this is definitely one of them. Once I saw an episode of Secrets of New York (which I personally can't get enough of!) where they talked about this bridge and the Croton Aqueduct. Apparently this bridge is a remnant of times gone by when water was pumped into the city from the Croton River into a huge reservoir, into pretty much, Times Square. Weird huh? Read more here.

Choosing Beauty

These are the series of books by Scott Westerfeld which is all the craze in the teen world at the moment. It's serious business, it's being passed around my school in the Bronx as if it's going out of style. I decided to pick of the first book, Uglies, before my trip to Ireland, and finished most of it on the plane ride home. Pretty good, very futuristic with some good social commentary, which I think it good to get kids to think. These are the next two, which I picked up tonight.

My friend Bertina called and asked if I wanted to meet her at Barnes and Noble. It was true, I needed out of the house. Either I drank WAY more wine than I thought (I didn't drink anything after leaving Kate's apartment!), or I got food poisoning because I was so incredibly sick this morning. I couldn't get out of bed all day, except to run to my bathroom or hang my head over my trash can. Something got me good. I haven't felt right all day. I can't eat! I can barely drink water! This sucks. At least I can read!

Happy B-Day Kate!

So, it's belated, but the party was not. This is Kate, Maggie, me and Chelsee. Sometimes we go to happy hour, but sometimes we have parties in our homes. Tonight we had some wine and snacks at Kate's, then headed out to the bar for more Kate festivities.

3-D Beer Pong

So, I'm not a huge fan to beer pong, but I think it's because a lack of trying really. I had the utter pleasure, of not only experiencing beer pong, but 3-D beer pong with Kate and her roommate Carla and co. It's serious business, the point being to get the little ping pong ball into the other team's cup. If it reaches a cup on a lower lever, the ponged team must then play a sort of Jenga game with their cups to drink the cup with the ball. If they can't Jenga it out, then they drink all the cups of beer necessary to proceed drinking the cup with the ball. Then you wash the ball off and throw it across the table. This might actually qualify for a really awesome installment of "Stuff White People Like", which is an astounding new website that seems to be making the rounds of 20 somethings I know. Hopefully you find it funny, and not racist, like me. But it's true. White people like beer pong. But I guess it can be either expanded or constricted (however you see it) to "stuff that college-age, or slightly above like". Interesting stuff.

Cilantro and Sangria

Kate and I have made it sort of a ritual to try to hang out on Thursday nights, to either kick start the weekend, or see each other after several days of grueling teaching to bitch about our children/schools/lack of social lives. Now that it's getting warmer out, the trick is to head out into the domains of the upper east side in search of the perfect sidewalk perch for a bite to eat.

We stopped off at a place called Cilantro tonight, with yummy mexican, the fancy and varied quesadillas a highlight. Also, it has delicious home made pitchers of sangria. Today it was filled with rasberries. Yum-o!

Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar

However, if you know that my roomate's name is Dan Smith, you might know that he will not, in fact, teach you guitar. That is because my Dan Smith does not know how to play guitar. It kinda makes it funnier EVERY TIME we see one of these signs at one of the diners or bodegas around town. They seem to be everywhere. In fact a month or so ago, we decided to look up this so called "Dan Smith" to see if we could find anything out about him. Not only did we find about his lessons, in a rediculously AWESOME blog post where this guy actually tracked him down to take the lessons, but we also found a website devoted to tracking the posters. It's amazing! And hilarious. This is what Dan and I do sometimes. We sit in our respective rooms and read each other funny things and laugh into our living room.

Tree of Hope

This is a sculpture/art instulation that I've always enjoyed at Thomas Jefferson Park, whenever I walk that way home from East Harlem. I looked up the park here, which has quite a history, dating back to 1905 when the area was considered Little Italy. You can learn more about it here.

This particular sculpture is the one called El Arbor De Esperanza, or Tree of Hope, by L. Brower Hatcher. I have admired it for almost two years now, and even though it does sort of remind me of this toy, but it is sort of hopeful every time I see it anyway.