Walks

It's been a really amazing weekend. Not only is it difficult to embrace Sunday nights for obvious reasons, but it's particularly upsetting to wave goodbye to a memorable weekend. Friday night we headed to Astoria armed with a red and a white wine to visit our friends Eric and Lynne. Eric is a painter and we've decided we would like to hang something of his behind our new couch (the one that we haven't yet bought!) so he invited us to their apartment so that we could dine and discuss art. Their apartment is absolutely adorable - it's precisely the kind of place I would imagine young artsy New Yorkers to live in, and it's even sans a television, which I admire although I know that wouldn't work out for us, as sitcom and drama-hungry as we are after a long day at work! Anyway, they had all of their windows thrown wide open and Friday evening's breeze was cool coming in and their curtains are gauzy and pretty and were just blowing gently. Eric and Lynne made us chicken cordon bleu, mesclun salad and corn cakes with chives. Lynne also offered us two cannolis each from a famous bakery around their way - delicious! It was really a wonderful several hours that we spent there, discussing Eric's unique construction landscape (if I may call it that) which is in progress, Lynne's dance company, our work, modern art and really just whatever came up - Eric convincingly sold Craig on an argument for Mondrian, which is Craig's least favorite artist showcased, as he said, at every museum we have ever been to (I remembered, while Eric spoke, just how intuitive he has always been on the subject of art, since we were teenage college students learning the beginnings of shape, color, composition control and visual texture from the Masters). I flashed my Nikon D40 to them, which impressed Eric because he very much likes digital SLR's also but does not yet have one. It was a really nice time - great conversation, good background music, delicious food and Spanish wine (as I explained to them, now that we've been to one Spanish wine tasting, we believe ourselves to be pros!) Following dinner and more conversation, Craig and I left their company around 11.30 and lucked upon a cab which had us back in the neighborhood in no time. We decided to duck into Biddy's for "one" beer, which turned rapidly into too many, since Corey (the tender oftentimes when we're there) gives us every third beer free (we're nabe favorites at all of our haunts). Craig was beginning to become a little sleepy so we struck up a game that I titled, simply, "Music Game" ("inventive, KB," he said) wherein each time a new song played on the jukebox, two points could be awarded - one for artist, one for song title - a take on Name That Tune only accompanied by beer and a loud crowd at the bar! I was really rocking for a while but then Craig took the lead with a Tom Petty song - I made a turnaround with The Cure, "Friday I'm in Love" but he came back and beat me by two points, at the end! We were out until three, which, for us anymore, is practically like staying out all night. Saturday we stayed in bed way too long, but still wound up hitting the road for our Brooklyn adventure by eleven. We drank Jamba Juice Acai smoothies for breakfast and took the 4 to the Brooklyn Bridge station. What followed was just a lot of walking. We walked the whole bridge, which neither of us had yet done before!, and found the Telectoscope Exhibit that Laura told us about last weekend - we have a date to see her next Sunday from the London side!! - and walked around DUMBO, found a totally beautiful mixed use space called "Retreat" with "Rebar" upstairs in a converted loft space (gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous) and had iced coffees - then we returned to Manhattan for the barbecue festival taking place in and around Madison Square Park. We ate barbecue from The Checkered Pig and Blue Smoke, and by this time, the sun was blasting down. My skin is quite pink. Hmm, well it isn't like me to abruptly end a blog post, but more details will follow with more photos from our weekend. For now, Indian food has arrived and we're having Movie Night Sunday with Lars and the Real Girl and 27 Dresses...I promised Craig. He likes Movie Night very much. To come: beers with Jeff Devine, Long Island City madness with Jeff Devine!...