Three Day Weekend

We were excited to have a full three days off together for the first time since....Christmas? Ridiculous, but true. We made the most of it.

Saturday started with a seven step process to get us to breakfast on a park bench (all within a couple blocks walk).

1) drop off laundry at Skillman Laundry
2) Geoff drops off shirts at Diamond's dry cleaning (named for the owners Maltese, who is always in the store. he's been there ever since I've lived here and is getting fat in his old age. which i love in a dog)
3) i go to Starbucks for my iced coffee
4) Geoff stops by Wendy's for iced tea (he doesn't really do coffee)
5) Geoff gets his bagel sandwich at NY Eats
6) I get my bagel & cream cheese from the bagel shop 2 blocks away
7) arrive park bench & enjoy (which we do)

I liked this guy. Green belt, suspenders and just his general demeanor won me over.


This guy..... just as fascinating, half as friendly.


After breakfast we wander home and come upon a street fair on Greenpoint Ave.


Inflatable castles & slides
tons of people
and really weird things for sale in tents.
Like this.


And Oscar. He's a Pug/Shitzu mix who belongs to the woman we met from Camp Bow Wow (the dog boarding place in our neighborhood). I love him. Clearly.



We were walking along, minding our own business when I was accosted by a small Asian woman who literally dragged me into her booth for a massage. Sort of hysterical. Not that great of a massage. But an experience. Can you see how she's digging her thumb into my arm?? She was strong!


After quickly popping into the eye doctor, (and we ended up having to go back again 'cause the contacts she gave me were not settling right in one eye. which ended up being because i had two lenses in that eye. which she says was not the case when i left the first time. no idea how that happened. how do i manage these things??) we headed home to get our bikes. Off we went over the Queensboro Bridge. We took a loop or two around the park and then headed to meet Megan & Jeremy O'Grady for dinner at Cilantro. We hadn't seen them since New Years. Which is NUTS. It was good to catch up. And then off we went, home on our bikes.

I'm loving biking. We both are. And riding from our house to Manhattan is such a great ride. Just the right amount/difficulty of hills. Heading into Manhattan there's a long slow incline until just past the middle of the bridge and heading back to Queens there's a steeper shorter incline on the first part of the Manhattan side of the bridge and then 2 smaller, slower incline hills when we're in the home stretch in Queens. I dig it.


Sunday dawned, a little humid but still nice. We hopped on our bikes and headed over to Long Island City for brunch. Found a great little spot called Masso with a 2 for 1 fruit infused mimosa special. Yay.

I loved this cute little container for the cream.


After brunch we just rode around LIC exploring. Such an odd/cool little neighborhood. Half hip/half commercial and some great waterfront apt buildings. We just tooled around for a while checking it all out. Really cool piers on the waterfront. We've talked about living there if prices continue to come down. Especially because they'll let us have a dog. And a big selling factor for me was that they've just put in a small Whole Foods-ish grocery store. Loved it.

Apartment shopping


Loved this cute lil' car



The view from our potential future front yard.


But also, we saw this. I don't even know what this is. Or how to understand it. But the top "car" seems to be cemented to the real car. No idea.


Geoff got some great bridge shots.




What is this place all about? I like to think about what it once was. Right at the base of the bridge, I bet it was an old waterfront mansion, since condemned and now closed up and surrounded by super scary barbed wire. I mean, it was probably a school or torture facility, but I like to think it was a fancy mansion with lots of history.


Requisite daily dog befriending obviously occurred. This is Max. I love a pug.


What a face!


Here's Max giving you "pensive"...


We headed home and spent the late afternoon in what I have now dubbed, our "cabana". Which is basically our room, with all the blinds open, breezes blowing, ceiling fan on and afternoon sun pouring in. Ahhhhhhhh. We had dinner that night at Cafe Boka. Aka our kitchen table. Wine, candlelight, good conversation and the random contents of our pantry/freezer. It was awesome. We've decided to dine there more often.