Teri Tagged Me - How do you do these things?

How to play this game of tag. Post these rules on your blog. List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 3 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
3 joys: Dan, turkey sandwiches, having a great long run on a beautiful day and taking days off of work (okay, that's 4)
3 fears: Being at a boring party where I don't know anyone and not being able to leave, Times Square (way too crowded, gives me social anxiety disorder), the ocean in general
3 goals: Put lots of money into my 401(k), take an amazing vacation OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES with Dan, run another 1/2 marathon sometime this year
3 obsessions: Project Runway (when the new season starts) and Lost, iPod and my Nike iPod chip (or any gadget in general), turkey sandwiches from the God Bless Deli II (see question #1)
3 Surprising facts about myself: I can twirl the baton (even the one with fire on the ends), I do a great impression of Axel Rose, I can flamenco dance!
3 people I tag: I only have 4 blog friends and Teri sent this to me...so I will have to tag the other 3 I guess...Corinne, Shelly and Chelsi

How cute is our deck looking?! Dan has been working so hard on all the plants and the table (varnishing and sanding and then varnishing again). We have even been cooking with our herbs! Last night we had mozzarella, tomatoes and basil with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled over the top. Yum!

Return to Nature

I have been dying for a little nature time lately, so I talked Dan into driving up to Bear Mountain on Saturday. We did a 5 mile hike along the Appalachian trail up to the most amazing look-out point. I got dirty and sweaty and saw lots of trees and caterpillars (gross amounts of them), so I can say that I fulfilled my wish!

On Sunday, we drove to our friends Dawn and Matt's house in Connecticut for a Memorial Day BBQ (more nature). They live in the cutest farm house that is the 2nd oldest house in Westport. They sleep in the hay loft. Seriously. I ate BBQ, slept in the spare barn, got bit by ants and got a little sunburn. It was the perfect weekend.

Dan and I are prepping for our joint birthdays. Mine is on the 3rd and Dan's is on the 6th of June. We are the same age for 3 days and then Dan is older again. Dan will be celebrating his birthday by going to Sammy's Romanian with his guy friends. Sammy's is this dirty restaurant in the Lower East Side that has been around since the beginning of time. They have giant steaks, vodka frozen in blocks of ice, a really cheesy keyboard player and dancing....lots of dancing with the entire restaurant. We describe the experience as "attending a barmitzvah in your friend's 1970's basement". I, on the other hand, will be celebrating my birthday in a very sophisticated way with sunset cocktails on my friend Jenn's beautiful deck in downtown NYC and then a dance performance at the Guggenheim. We will be celebrating jointly with a giant BBQ on Sunday. It will be birthday madness for days and days. I can't wait!

Bloomy Rind

Last night, Dan and I met friends Amy, Scott and Sue at Murray's Cheese for the "Tour of the Cheese Caves". It was a 2 hour class, full of wine, cheese, these great Spanish almonds and a lot of education on how to make and age cheese. After a brief introduction, our teacher Zoe took us down into their 5 aging caves in the basement of the store. The caves all smelled in varying degrees like: dirty socks, pee, toes or rotten hay. Some smelled worse than others, but none of them smelled good. Zoe explained the intricate temperatures and humidity needed to enhance and age each different cheese. We learned about rind washing and bloomy rinds and hard rinds and bacteria and B Linens and all sorts of other sciencie things that go into making cheese. It was awesome. Sue makes her own cheese and has a cheese cave in her basement, so she had the best questions of the night and even talked Zoe into giving her some salt wash and a cleaning cloth for her cave (I guess old, used rags and solutions work best). It's all kind of gross to think about, but also very interesting. I still love cheese!

We're in Grill Heaven

We would be in Grill Heaven, if only the weather would cooperate. Every time we get to the deck and uncover the grill and pull out all the plates, it starts to rain. It is still blustery and wintery and cold here in NYC and I hate it!! I want to be able to sit on the deck in a tank top. I want to have to wear a hat and sunglasses and drink iced tea. I want to sweat a little bit! Even through all my complaining, we were able to get a great BBQ in this weekend before it started to rain. Dan's brother Mike and his wife Erika and their new baby Dillon came over along with our friend Jenn, we ate beef kabobs and potato salad and coleslaw and microwave mac & cheese (which was delicious by the way). I didn't take any photos, so you will have to trust me when I tell you it was real fun!
Tomorrow we are going to a cheese class at Murray's Cheese, this great store in the Village. We will be drinking wine and touring the cheese cave, tasting delicious cheeses along the way. My friend Sue is joining us - she is the cheese master and makes her own in her basement, so hopefully she will have some challenging questions for the teacher. I love learning new things and I love cheese, so this should be a really fun night! I will try to take pictures.

Family Visitor

I love it when family and friends visit me in New York. I go out in the city a lot, but there are certain activities I rarely do...except when visitors are here:
1. Broadway shows - Too expensive to do on a regular basis, and I usually try to avoid Times Square at all costs...but shows are super fun for visitors.
2. Dancing - Nobody likes to go dancing more than Mindy, so I usually save crazy dance clubs for when she is in town. We have been known to close down a place or two. Plus, Dan refuses to dance, so I don't have many opportunities to get a groove on these days (except in the apartment when he is gone...I like to try out old-school Solid Gold moves in the living room).
3. Attractions like the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, Chrysler Building, Times Square and the Statue of Liberty. I refuse to deal with the crowds...

We had a great visit with my mom last week. I miss her already! We were able to get out of the city to tour a Rockefeller mansion. It was their weekend country house...all 44,000 sq. ft. The best part were the gardens, which were absolutely amazing. We also saw a great Broadway show, shopped, ate a lot, and had Mother's Day dinner with Dan's parents. I probably won't get home again until the end of the year, so it was really nice to see my mom.

Pictures from Mom's visit to NYC

Our Busy Weekend

Dan and I had a fun and busy weekend. It was supposed to rain the entire time, but we were blessed with sunny, warm days. Thank you Spring!
Friday, we went out with Dan's friend from high school and his wife. Dan's friend is great. He's sweet and funny and really nice. His wife is a different story. How is it that nice guys end up with such brutal, angry, complaining women? I see it all the time and it makes me sad. Anyway, I had a decent time because we went to one of my favorite restaurants Le Sans Culottes where I ate giant sausages, tilapia, pate and had to drink lots of wine to be able to deal with Grumpy Mcgoo who was sitting next to me.

Saturday I got up early and had lunch with my friend Belinda. We went to my other favorite restaurant Fig & Olive. Who was sitting next to us but Ivanka Trump. I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got back, Belinda informed me that Ivanka told her friends her e-mail address while I was gone. So, now I have her contact info. I plan to send her an e-mail that says something like:
Dear Ivanka,
I sat next to you at Fig & Olive on Saturday. You're really pretty.
Love,
Amy

And then I will see how long it takes her to change her e-mail address. After brunch, we hit Madison Avenue for some shopping. We happened upon a great sale at BCBG, which wasn't so great for my budget.

Saturday night, Dan and I went to a fab b-day party in the Bronx. We all met on Arthur Avenue for authentic Italian food. Arthur Avenue is the birthplace of Robert DeNiro in case you wanted a little trivia in today's posting. We walked into the restaurant and this group of guys at the front table gave us a rousing "ey oh, oh ey" (say in Tony Danza accent). Hilarious. We had an amazing dinner, toasted Jenn's 39th birthday and then headed back into the city.

Sunday I had a yoga date with my friend Sue. We signed up for this 3 hour workshop a few months ago and were totally looking forward to some relaxing yoga time together. The class was called "Shoulder, Hips, Core Restore". It was all about poses to open up and strengthen your core. My hips and shoulders are always so sore and stiff, so this class was definitely a challenge. We did 2 hours of intense yoga poses and then 1 hour of relaxing and meditating. Sue had a girl next to her with the worst case of gas. At first we thought the farting was funny, but eventually it wasn't so funny when the farting started to smell and Sue said it was messing up her meditation concentration. We all got a laugh when one of the girls fell asleep and then started to snore and then snored so loudly that she woke herself up with her own snoring. All in all, a hilarious, fun and totally intense workshop. I left feeling amazing and then took my time walking home in the Spring sunshine. It wasn't until later on that night that things really started to kick in and I realized what I had done to my body. I think I released all sorts of toxins from my joints because I started feeling sick and got the worst headache that I am still fighting today. The headache might have something to do with the many headstands we did......not a good idea.

I got home to find that Dan had replaced the deck table and had varnished everything and installed the umbrella. Dan is great around the apartment. He's really handy and has impeccable taste. We sat up there enjoying the weather and all our plants until Dan had to go to dinner. One of his friends was in town from Ft. Lauderdale. I stayed home to watch bad t.v. and nurse my headache.

We are so lucky to live in such a vibrant and busy place like NYC.

Feisty Sue

My friend Sue turned me on to Feist a few months ago. I had heard a couple of her songs on the radio, but had no idea how great she really was until seeing her show last night with Sue. We were totally blown away by her pitch-perfect voice, her cute attitude and her rockin guitar playing. The concert was at Hammerstein Ballroom at 8:00 p.m., so we decided to grab a bite to eat before the show. Here's where the craziness started. There was a homeless and CRAZY woman who kept coming by the restaurant, staring into the window and then knocking until someone came out and told her to leave. She repeated this every 20 or so minutes. I might have felt bad for her if she weren't so annoying. Just as we were beginning to enjoy our dinner, something else outside grabbed our attention. There was a crowd of about 8 people, dressed in all white feathers, walking down the street on stilts. From the view of the restaurant window, all you could see was stilts and feathered bottoms walking down the sidewalk. When we thought the night couldn't get any funnier, a homeless man complimented Sue's bag by saying "damn girl, that is one fabulous bag". A homeless man with great fashion sense. Only in NY. It was a great night with a great friend. If you haven't heard Leslie Feist, you MUST check her out.