I’ve wanted to go to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum since Katie and I took a tour of the Lower East Side with Jeff from Walks of New York this spring. On that tour, I learned a lot about the history of immigration to the LES and realized that I currently live in an old tenement building.
The other week, one of my coworkers invited me to his apartment for Thanksgiving morning because his apartment overlooks the trail of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I thanked my friend for the invite but told him I was heading home to South Jersey for my favorite holiday ever. Because it is such an iconic NYC event, I would LOVE seeing the parade, but I have a feeling I will never see it in person. And that’s okay!
For our second Frousin day trip this fall (read about our first here), Jake planned a trip a few Saturdays ago for the NYC & North Jersey chapters of the fam to visit Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York, about an hour north of the city (just like Croton Dam). Christie, Jake, Katie, and I rode up together to meet the others. Other cars may not have had to deal with such sassy backseat drivers (guilty) or may not have been as lost as we were on the way home, but I can also bet that we had better car games than anyone.
Last Saturday, a few frousins (cousins who are also friends, duh) and I journeyed down to Monmouth Park on NJ Transit to celebrate another of our frousin’s birthdays. It was also the NJ Thoroughbred Festival and my first time at the races. It made for an excellent day trip out of the city.
A lot of items end up on my to-do lists in order to redeem myself for times when I was younger and things didn’t work out how I wanted them to. For example, on my 25 List was “a successful ski trip” as redemption for falling a few times and giving up pretty quickly on the eighth grade ski trip. An item on my 26 List was to run a 5K. I joined the high school track team to enhance my college resume but it resulted in me feeling awful about myself for four straight springs for being the slowest person in the history of the team.
When I was in middle school, a friend of my dad’s called the house and asked me to tell my dad that he had called. I forgot to tell my dad, probably because I was too busy working on my ‘N Sync website, and it turned out his friend was going to ask him to go to The Late Show with David Letterman with him. Being from the sticks of Jersey and not being able to imagine at the time that I would ever even *go* to New York, I felt awful. My dad doesn’t remember that this even happened.
This month’s posts would have overjoyed the Erin of the early nineties – did you notice this theme? It truly was unintentional, but I ended up having a very nostalgic November, and have zero complaints of my recent experiences with penguins, Monet’s garden, Winnie the Pooh, and American Girl Place.
One of my favorite books growing up was the fabulous Linnea in Monet’s Garden, about a girl who traveled to Giverny, France and visited Monet’s house and gardens. I have been a huge Monet fan since childhood, when I dressed like what I thought an artist/poet looked like for a year of my life.
Bruce Springsteen is basically a member of my family. I can’t listen to him without thinking of my dad, sister, or cousins, and we would be more than happy to have him at our Thanksgiving celebration (and it *is* a celebration) this year. If anyone can hook this up, let me know STAT.
My parents came to visit this weekend and I was so excited to spend my Saturday with them. I won’t be able to make it home for the rest of the month because of my charity event and two weddings and I was at my college reunion last weekend. It was so nice of them to drive up so that I didn’t have to travel two weekends in a row because I get overwhelmed with things like that easily. I’m working on it. So we celebrated Father’s Day a weekend early and did the item my dad suggested for my 28 Things list yesterday.
Last weekend, I had the honor of watching over 45,000 runners race across the city in pursuit of finishing the NYC Marathon. I was out of town last year for the marathon, and this was my first year watching on the sidelines which happened to be a perfect year for cheering.
No, I probably won’t get ever sick of what I think are incredibly amusing MoMA/Mama related jokes (please see my last post about the MoMA, here: “Yo’ MoMA is so fat”), and I probably won’t ever get sick of the MoMA itself. I lurveeee the MoMa and have already been there three times this year.
One of the top things on my NYC To-Do list (not to be confused with my Holiday To-Do List in NYC for 2010, my 26 things to do before I turn 26 list, or my rappers I’d like to face in a freestyle battle list) was to do an Ellis Island / Statue of Liberty trip which I finally got to do on this absolutely gorgeous Sunday! I know most people probably did this on school trips when they were in elementary school, but I grew up just two hours too far from the city for that. My sister tells me that I actually have been to Lady Lib but I just don’t believe her as I have no recollection of this NYC trip.
Basically the first thing people learn about me is that I really, really, really like cupcakes. Multiple people have recommended that I be a cupcake for Halloween (this was not the winning costume decision). Some of my favorite things to do in NYC are to: try out new cupcake places, eat cupcakes, talk about cupcakes, make cupcakes, bathe in cupcakes, etc. Therefore, I have decided I should share my favorite cupcake places with my readers (aka Mom & George) so that you all know where to go when you need to suck up to me / apologize to me.
Autumn and I usually don’t get along too well. Not because Autumn has ever done anything to me, but simply because Autumn signals the end of Summer. Born & bred on the beach in South Jersey, Summer and I have always gotten along extraordinarily well. Autumn signals less sunlight, my tan going away, and the inability to wear flip flops on the daily.
10 miles behind me 