Cold Day Dressing

Man, has it been cold here the past few days! When it gets cold like this, there’s only one thing to do… layer.  Leila has excellent layering skills (on a typical cold morning, 7 layers on her upper body alone!). The difficult thing about layering is that you get so hot while in the apartment that putting shoes on has to be done very quickly, or with the front door open, so that you don’t start sweating. Leila was a good sport to pose for a picture because she was already burning up – the layers were doing their ‘thang.On this particular day, when Leila left the apartment the elevator was already on our floor (usually the elevator isn’t, so Leila takes the stairs down). She looked to see if the elevator was there and got excited, and yelled out, “yea!!!” jumping up and down, and running to the elevator. As she was doing this, a Dominican man exited the elevator, and seeing the level of excitement being generated by Leila, asked her, “Como estas?” Leila was so excited about the elevator that she didn’t hear him, and he asked her again, “Como estas?”

I bring this story up because this is something that happens frequently to Leila – people think that she is Latina and just start talking to her in Spanish. They are always shocked to find out that, not only does she not speak Spanish, but I (you can’t get any more gringo than me) do. It’s just one of those funky things that makes life so fun.

The Babes and Me

Today I had the chance to take care of the Jones children (aka: The Babes) while their mother, Heather, helped Leila at work so that Leila could attend a special class that she’s taking this week. We had a blast! Pictures are posted here.

We did all sorts of things. We read a fascinating Spiderman book, played with action figures, played in the insanely popular basket, watched a sweet movie, built a mountain out of the couch cushions, ate Macaroni and Cheese, walked Des to his school, took a nap, picked Des up from school, went to the post office, and built another couch cushion mountain. It was an action packed day of goodness.

One of the games that the Babes enjoyed playing was the train game. This game consisted of Des and Zoe pretending to be trains (complete with arm motions and train noises). They started down the hallway, ran through the kitchen and second room and into the living room. Upon entering the living room the climax of the game’s experience consisted of jumping on top of me, while I sat on the couch awaiting their arrival. They would then run back to the hallway and start the cycle all over again. Clearly this was a great game, and I was able to capture some of its goodness on video.

Sleepover = Bad Food

On Friday night, I hosted a sleepover.  We ate veggies and junk food, talked and talked, and watched Waitress.  Girl time is so important and something I think we really needed.  The evening was a spawn of several events of the last few months: finishing Flux, hearing Tansy speak about her all night movie marathon, and realizing that girls need the space to just chat.  The evening was a hit and I can’t wait to host another one! 

Neibaur took the opportunity to have a guy’s night out by watching National Treasure.

Spontaneous Saturday

Neibaur and I started out our Saturday intending no spontaneity whatsoever: arrive at 10am to get student rush tickets for 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (which closes in three weeks), borrow books from the NYU library, get a haircut (Neibaur), go grocery shopping, go home.  What we actually did in no particular order: Got rejected at the Spelling Bee box office, stopped in at a comic book store (in there for total 10 seconds), withdrew cash from the bank, got haircut, inquired about a membership to the Reebok gym ($2000 to join, $200 a month-no thank you) went to the Lincoln Center public library, watched Juno ($6 matinee), bought T-shirts on sale at Banana, went to the NYU library, lunched at Pommes Frites, rented a movie, and the highlight….drumroll please…..approached Christiane Amanpour at Whole Foods!!!–I was so starstruck I still can’t quite talk about it.

The Opera

Neibaur and I have been having some fun opportunities to add culture into our lives.  This is why we feel so blessed to have new friends Wendy and Micah, who think of us when they have tickets to the opera to give away (and also when they have dinner parties!).  Wendy is a soprano with the Met.  We jumped at the opportunity to attend, on Friday night, Wagner’s Die Walküre, the 2nd part of the 15-hour Ring of the Nibelung.  We arrived at the Met by the 6pm starting time.  We walked out at 11:10, partly due to two intermissions that totaled roughly one hour.  The entire cycle comprising four parts takes roughly 15 hours to perform.  The second part alone was quite something!

We were mesmerized by many things during the performance and feeling a range of emotions, good and bad, coupled with the desire to yell out, “Ok, move it along people,” and, “We want Wendy to come out now!”.  Despite the pace however, there was a moment for me during the second act when I “got” it.  “It” is difficult to explain because when you go to an opera without having studied how to study an opera, it can be overwhelming.  But there was a moment, an important moment, when I felt a bit transformed by the whole experience and began to openly absorb the music, drama, story, voices, stage, the setting, the Metness of it, the whole thing.  Thank goodness for Wendy and Micah!