Blue turning grey

So my beautiful orange, yellow and red fall was rather short-lived. The trees are now shades of grey (to match the sky most of the time these days), and the weather has turned from chilly to brrrrrr.

While all this was taking place outside, lots of stuff was also happening inside. Including, but not limited to, THANKSGIVING.

Mom came to visit for Thanksgiving, and we had lots of fun visiting PS 132, eating lots of food and doing lots of shopping. Fun. Here are some pictorial highlights:

Matt Sto ... I mean, Kermit the Frog at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The best part of the parade? The pooper scoopers! What a fantastic job!!!

Becca and Smurf!

Macy's lalalalalala

Mom taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me .... creepy, huh?



And later that day ....

Mom, Becca and Courtney cooking a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.

Bryan doing what men are supposed to do on Thanksgiving: watch T.V.

Here's me caught somewhere in the middle of the kitchen and the living room. As the official Thanksgiving photographer, I didn't really have a place.

There's a party in my tummy! Yummy yummy!



Later that weekend...

The Brooklyn Bridge, probably my favorite spot in Manhattan. Please know that if you come visit me, we will be taking this walk.

Lovely!

Hey mom, you look cold!

I don't have much coming up soon, except that there are only 12 school days until Christmas break. C-R-A-Z-Y. Can't wait to go back to Phoenix and eat some Mongolian, some Ethiopian Christmasy stuff, Caffe Boa and Four Peaks. Oh, and see you all fools again, too. :o)

I recall Central Park in fall ...

My first real fall:

The North Lake


Leaves!

I made Courtney pose for a dramatic falling leaves photo.

Follow the Yellow Brick (Leave?) Road

Kicking a pile of leaves!! How I've always wanted to do that.

Two more reasons to love NYC

6. The leaves are changing. I walked by Central Park on the way to brunch this morning, and all the leaves are shades of red and yellow. Expect pictures sometime this week.

7. I went sailing in the harbor last night with a friend from high school who has the very fortunate job of being first mate on a boat. The city never looked more beautiful. Pictures below:

The Brooklyn Bridge from the East River

Downtown and the Brooklyn Bridge (to the right) from the Harbor

The Financial District from the Hudson River


And in other news:

Frodo Baggins and an evil Gladiator on Halloween.

5 reasons I love NYC this week

1. I found the only Ihop in Manhattan, and it's only 20 minutes away!

2. It snowed! Sure, only for like, three seconds, and only in the Bronx. But it was awesome.

3. Bruce Campbell (of the Evil Dead series) is here this weekend for screenings of his new movie, answering questions and stuff. Jealous?? You should be.

4. Halloween in the East Village is AWESOME.

5. This morning I randomly walked into a street festival in midtown. Turned out to be a Greek Festival. Yum!!

Recap of good times

I don't have a lot of time to recap the last couple of weeks because I have a lot of school stuff to get done today, my day off (bless all these random holidays).

Shon came to visit last week, which was really fun. We ate fried chicken and waffles, went to McSorley's (the bar downtown that is the oldest bar in the US -- Abe Lincoln used to drink there!), shopped along Fifth Avenue, saw all the sights (Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Little Italy, yadda yadda), visited NYU and visited PS 132.

Here are some highlights:

Our second round of fried chicken in the East Village.

Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge

Some policemen on horses who seemed shocked when they learned I taught in the Bronx. A little too shocked, if you ask me ...

Anyway, besides that, it's been all school for me. Still trying to figure things out. It's hard, but it already feels rewarding.

Until next time, which I promise to be sooner rather than later, ciao!

Best Day EVER

So I took a walk around the neighborhood today to take a break from unit planning, and I noticed that they're building quite a few large structures over on 116th and the FDR. After some investigation, I found out they're building (drum roll, please ... ) a TARGET! Whahoo!

Best day of my life!

I went to Coney Island and all I got was ...

To celebrate my last Saturday before school starts for the year, I dragged Stephanie to Coney Island quite against her will. At the very southernmost tip of Brooklyn sits Coney Island, the beach and small amusement park that has seriously declined in cleanliness and popularity since it's pique early in the 20th century.

After an hour and a half ride on just two subway lines, we arrived, and went straight to the original Nathan's Famous Hotdogs, which was founded in about 1916, or so says Wikipedia. Here is Stephanie in front of Nathan's:


After hotdogs, lemonade and cheesy fries galore, we felt ready to hit the amusement park. But first, we stopped for a little balloon racEing ... notice that extra E in there. God bless Coney Island!


Here's a view of the amusement park from the beach/boardwalk:

I took this photo for Robby:

Unfortunately, we did not ride the pirate ship, because Coney Island rides are absurdly overpriced. However, we did end up riding the Cyclone, the roller coaster that I think was built in the 1960s. It was very scary. Not in the scary roller coaster way, but more in the way that you think constantly "I just saw the wood creak, omg the coaster is going to break and we are all going to die" sort of way. Quite the adrenaline rush. I guess I forgot to take a photo of it. Here's a pretty picture of Stephanie and the beach instead:

After sticking our feet in the Atlantic Ocean, we decided that we'd had enough heat, humidity and hot dogs for one day, so we headed back to good Ol' Manhattan.

On the way home, in a random subway station in Brooklyn, the most remarkable thing happened. Bogart was resurrected!! An advertisement on the wall somewhere near the Manhattan-bound Q train contained a picture of, I kid you not, an exact replica of my precious, prized and now very sadly broken ceramic coyote. Here is a picture of my dear Bogart from the Subway station:

Anyway ... While I was uploading these pictures, I realized I never posted pictures from when Mom was visiting. Here are a couple of those:




That's really all I've got going for now. School starts on Tuesday, and I'm temporarily at the awesome PS 73 in the Bronx. I just don't know how long that will last. My future plans include reading some Wheel of Time, eating a cupcake and maybe, just maybe, seeing the sing-a-long version of Mama Mia! that is playing in Chelsea ...