Shack Attack

(note: sorry to drag the whole NYC recap out, seeing as I've been home for like 2 weeks now. This will wrap it up.)

Let’s be honest. I just don’t consider it “vacation” if I’m not spending 75% of my time eating. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the SIL-E’s (our cruise director) first pass at a trip itinerary consisted solely of the restaurants I had requested we eat at while in NYC. Man did we have some good meals. We did a tasting menu on Thursday night at the Bread Bar, and let’s just say I was glad I had gone with the stretchy skirt option for my outfit, so I wasn’t prevented from having dessert. Friday we gorged at my man Bobby Flay’s restaurant, Mesa Grill. And yet, later that night I still found room in my belly for 2, yes 2, Gray’s Papaya hotdogs (note to Mamma Vaughan: I much prefer a Lucky Dog). And this isn’t even mentioning all the great breakfasts we had! But all these gourmet establishments not withstanding (did I just call Gray’s “gourmet”?), my favorite meal of the weekend was at a little joint called the Shake Shack. It is in the middle of Madison Square Park, and came highly recommended by PRuff and wife, CRuff (of Monument Park fame—see below). It was very hot in NYC while we were there, but unlike H-Town it actually cools off at night, so we were able to sit in the park to enjoy our dinners, and just have an all round enjoyable meal. The weather was tolerable, the company wonderful, and the food …well, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. I opted for the standard Shackburger, split cheese fries with the HSH, and a wonderful “Black and White” shake, that I didn't split with anyone. It was delish. RH on the other hand got the Shake Stack defined as: sandwich of 2 cheeseburgers and a ‘shroom burger served with lettuce ,tomato and shack sauce, with a ‘shroom burger being a crisp-fried portobello filled with melted muenster and cheddar cheese. I’m not sure why I enjoyed this meal so much. Maybe it was the New York vibe of sitting in the park for a meal, or maybe it was the twinkle lights above me, or maybe it was beef coursing through my veins. I’m not sure. What I can be sure of is that I highly recommend this place for anyone venturing to NYC soon. If you’re headed there, I’ll take mine to go.

The Shake Stack in all its glory.

RH getting every last drop of goodness.

RH working on an early heartattack.

The House that Ruth Didn't Build

While in NYC we went to Yankee Stadium. In fact, going to Yankee Stadium before it is torn down was pretty much the impetus for this trip. It’s fascinating to me to be somewhere and say this is where XYZ happened, or so and so once stood right where I am now. I’m a sucker for anything old and filled with History. And lets face it: Yankee Stadium has lots of history. It’s played host to 3 popes, several presidents, and countless baseball greats. True, the stadium has been renovated so it’s not TRULY the house that Ruth built, but why quibble over details. Muhammad Ali fought here. The ‘win one for the Gipper’ speech was given here. And it was here that Lou Gehrig declared he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I enjoyed being surrounded by all that history and getting to take in a game before it was destroyed.

Lets for one second though pretend that Yankee Stadium is not where all these things happened. That it is not in New York, and not home to one of the most successful franchises in sports history. If you remove all those factors then I think we can all agree on one thing: Yankee Stadium is kind of a dump. Before any baseball purists start throwing things at me, let me point out that if you picked up Yankee Stadium and put it down in Cincinnati everyone would agree that the Reds play in a sh*thole. It’s only because all these afore mentioned things happened there, that it’s survived this long. These days the baseball landscape is such that everyone is racing to have the fanciest, most luxurious, gimmicky-est ball park around. And Yankee Stadium ain’t it.

That being said, we really enjoyed our trip there. Thanks to the diligence of NJ we managed to get into Monument Park. Our group naively thought showing up 1.5 hours before game time would be sufficient to get in line to see the area where Yankee’s greats are honored. When we asked for directions to the line though, we were laughed at. “You gotta be here way before now to get in” the cop scoffed. The line was closed. Every usher told us the same thing. But NJ pointed out, what the heck else did we have to do but see if we could get in. We quickly found the end of the line, and there was no one there preventing us from getting in it, so we queued up. Soon a gentleman (I use that term loosely) was walking up and down the line telling us we didn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of getting in, and why didn’t we all just go away and make his life easier (ok, not in so many words, but that was the general spirit of his message). But still we waited. Other around us, cursed and walked away. But still we waited. Fans tried pressing their case to ushers, with sob stories of nephews on their first and only trip to Yankee Stadium (get in line buddy). But still we waited. And finally, our perseverance paid off when, in one final surge to the park, we made it through! Glory Be! I think I heard angels singing. Ok maybe not, but it was pretty cool to see. Besides we felt like we pulled one over on the meanie New Yorkers who tried to tell us our wish was futile.

It should be noted that New York did redeem itself when a nice gentlemen offered tickets for an air conditioned section of the park to the SIL-E when it became clear that the surface of the sun, a.k.a. our seats, was no place for a pregnant lady. The Yankee’s also obliged their out of town guests by giving us a few extra innings of baseball. If only they could have produced some shade, I might have become a Yankee’s fan.

And now for some pictures!

The Half Street at Yankee Stadium!

Don't let the smiles fool you. It was hot. Real hot. Surface of the sun hot.

NJ & JP. Yes, JP has his collar popped. Yes, the HSH had it also. Yes, we made fun of both of them. They claimed it was to protect them from the sun. Sure boys.

The HSH and I enjoying some A/C with the HS-Bro and the SIL-E. We would use the SIL-E’s discomfort to our advantage at the Empire State Building as well. Thanks niece, I owe you one.


Monument Park. This is about the place I heard the angels singing.

This guy is related to our friend PRuff. And yes PRuff, you look kind of alike, only you move around a lot more than he does.

Wordle

Quick break from NYC posting (Yes, McD I promise I'll get to pictures eventually!). One of the blogs I read brought me across a cool site called wordle. You paste in text and it creates these pretty word clouds based on word frequency and whatnot, that you can then manipulate the format, colors, text, etc. As a test, I pasted in an email that the priest who married us asked me to send him before the wedding. In it I was supposed to give some background about my life, my life with the HSH and why I wanted to marry him. This is what it spit back to me. The randomness of it all is pretty amusing when you see some words it groups together! I think there are lots of fun potential uses for this. You could create some pretty images using any text that is special to you...poems, passages, nursery rhymes, love letters, spam. Sure! Spam!

Why not? The possibilities are endless!

Happy Wordle-ing!

If I Can Make It Here...

The Half Street was in NYC this past week. It was the HSH’s first trip to the big apple, and was loosely a birthday trip for me. Yes, my birthday is not till October, but we really wanted the HS-bro and SIL-E to be able to come with us, and being that SIL-E is about to give birth to the last little girl in my niece quinella, it was now or never. In fact the SIL-E’s doctor’s vote was firmly in the “never” category, but E worked up some tears to persuade her to give us her blessing. We were also joined by some good friends from H-town, so we had a regular little party going. The itinerary included: Good meals, South Pacific at Lincoln Center, Good Meals, Yankee game, Good meals, some sightseeing, and more good meals.

South Pacific was amazing, and the SIL-E and I were thoroughly enraptured for the whole 3 hour performance. (yes 3 hour, including a millisecond intermission. Can’t you give a girl a chance to pee?.) We were on the edge of our seats, and burst into applause at the conclusion of each song. We must have made quite the little group, as we were accompanied by 2 men feigning interest to please their wives. A word about seeing shows with my brother and sister in law: This is the second time I’ve seen a great show with them, and the second time we’ve had some off stage drama. The first time we saw Spam-a-Lot while it was still in previews in Chicago. It was a wonderful show, with a wonderful cast (Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry, Callie from Gray’s Anatomy before she was Callie—she went on to win a Tony for her performance.) However, we had some jokers around us who also thought they should be nominated for Tony’s. They not only sang along with every song, loudly, badly, but they also uttered every punch line approximately 1.01 seconds before the actors did. It was infuriating, and threatened to ruin the show for us. We weren’t alone in this sentiment and other people began heckling them, and soon the men turned their loud voices on our whole section, basically berating us for being kill-joys. Thankfully an usher quickly intervened (I was shocked how long they let it go on for) and the men were removed from the audience so the rest of us could go on with enjoying the show. Fast forward several years, and change cities and it was deja-vu all over again. This time it was a lady behind us, who was talking very loudly as the orchestra cued up. She showed no signs of wrapping up her conversation either. She was quickly hushed by several people around us, and someone finally said "would you PLEASE be quiet" to which her conversation partner responded, loudly “GET A LIFE!” SIL-E and I about fell out of our seats as we whipped around to see if any punches were going to be exchanged. Fortunately (?) this ended the encounter, and we went on with enjoying our show. Although, someone behind us sang along with every song. Seriously, I know that it is hard to resist jumping in whenever you hear ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair’, but really. The man on stage is a classically trained opera star, who recently won a Tony for his performance in the show, and you really think we want to hear YOU singing ‘Some Enchanted Evening’? Buy the song on i-tunes and jam out in your shower, but please, spare us. Geez.

More posts, including pictures, to come. Topics to include: Yankee Stadium (aka What It Feels Like on the Surface of the Sun) and Roger’s trip to the Shake Shack (aka How the Record for Most Beef Consumed Per Second (BC/S) Was Set)

A Coast-y Fourth

It was another fun 4th at the coast this past weekend. As usual, it was fun to hang out with my new extended family. Also per usual, the weather sucked. No matter, we still managed to eek out some fun. Here are some highlights:

The dogs are never far from K when she’s eating. They aren’t dummies. Here K’s dog Cooper, never lets his eyes leave the Oreo’s while the less experienced Rip loses focus to pose for a picture. K is such a fun age right now! She has loads of personality to go with those loads of curls. A highlight for the HSH was teaching her that no one can say no when you preface it with “pretty please with a cherry on top” which of course came out more like “petty peas cherry on top” This should get her through high school.

Here I was taking a picture of baby A. Rip left K’s side on the off chance baby A had some food. Hilarity, and germs, ensued.

When I told the HS Mom that the weather kinda sucked, she asked what we do when we can’t be outside. The answer, apparently, is give your father-in-law a Mohawk. Here SIL-B busts out the mousse on Mario. (it just occurred to me that my sisters in law are “SIL-B” and “SIL-E” get it?? Sil-e? Silly?.....god, I need a life.)

The weather broke for a bit on Saturday just long enough to indoctrinate the newest member of the shark club! Here cousin R poses with her catch. We’re not at all sure how he managed to lose the top bit of his fin, but it created some intense moments as we brought the shark into the boat. The final product left the boat looking like a crime scene worthy of CSI. All my TV watching came in handy as I was able to use the phrase “blood spatter” for the first time in a sentence. Before it was all said and done, both the boat and R were covered in blood. Isn’t fishing fun?!

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th!

Way Better Than Christmas

Happy 4th everyone. Not everyone knows this, but the 4th of July is by far my favorite holiday. Don’t know why, but it’s the lack of gift giving pressure. Or maybe I’m just a patriotic sap at heart. Ok, I AM a patriotic sap, but I doubt I’m telling most of you anything you don’t already know. Anyways, being that it's summer, I wanted to call a wee-bit (to all 20 of you who read this) of attention to a pet cause I’ve talked about it in this space before. Did you know that over 113,000 of the 263,000 service men & women deployed overseas right now are parents? 16,000 of them are single parents. That leaves over 155,000 children back home with parents who are or about to be, absent from their lives while they go off to wherever they are needed in this crazy world. I’ve always believed that families serve in the military, not individuals. They go where they are told, and do what is asked of them, regardless of how they feel about the task at hand, or the state of the union in general. In recognition of this sacrifice, I donated a little bit of money today to Operation Purple summer camps. These are free weeklong camps, held all over the country, where kids with a parent who is deployed can get away for a little bit, and try to act like normal kids. For one week, they get to be around other kids who know what their daily life is like, and maybe leave behind some of the uncertainty they face every day. If you feel so moved, I encourage you to do the same.
To read an interesting CNN article about one family’s experience, click here.
To donate, click here.

Patrons of The Arts

I’m not sure when the “tradition” of brides and grooms exchanging gifts came into vogue. In fact, I’m not even sure it is at all. Somewhere along the wedding planning way though, the HSH caught wind of this idea (probably brought to us by the same people who brought us baby bachelor parties…don’t get me started). And he was on board. Not so much on the giving as receiving. Thankfully for him, I made his part easy by giving him a lay-up of an idea, defined as something I would have bought myself eventually.
We have a good friend who is a fantastic local artist. We’ve been to several of her openings and shows, and every time we go, I drool over a variety of things I wish I owned for my own boring walls. So to commemorate our wedding the HSH commissioned a work of art. WE COMMISSIONED ART! Holy cow. We’re like a royal family or something. Cool. Anywhoo. Wendy came over to talk about our life together, see the space we wanted to hang it in and just generally discuss what we were looking for. Basically our instructions were roughly “You’re the artist. We trust you.” She parted with little more than a photo of us looking our happiest at McD’s wedding. Apparently that photo was all the inspiration she needed, because we couldn’t be happier with the final results. And so I bring to you the Halfstreet life so far, in 3 parts. The first one is called “The Good Life” and is supposed to represent our beginning, where we were “written into the book of life”, and we pretty much thought we had it all figured out (I’m paraphrasing here). The second one is “The Flood of Love” described by Wendy as “Change comes with a deluge” which is supposed to represent the engagement and marriage. And the last one is "Re[New] Life" which is supposed to represent our future and married life, and Wendy describes as “a new life can be so different and so good”. Hopefully I didn’t butcher the interpretations too badly. Wendy has promised us a letter fully explaining all her inspirations, so we can hold on to it forever. Which would be good, because I love the paintings, and...I have a feeling I'll need help remembering what they represent in the future!

Warren Buffett Is A Lot Smarter Than Me

I haven’t really had a lot to say lately, so instead I’ll let Mr. Buffett do the talking. A while back I thought he said one of the wisest things he ever said when asked why he wasn’t leaving all his money to his kids. He responded that he believed kids should be left with enough so they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing. I admire this line of thinking (although I'd love to hear the Buffett children's candid thoughts on the subject). Then today I read an article where he was talking about how important it is to live your life by an internal yard stick. Doing things that you know are right, rather than looking to others to tell you where things stand on a moral scale. I think most people try to live this way, but I've never found anyone that claims it is easy. Buffett went on to say that a good way to measure whether or not you abide by this is to ask yourself the following question: Would you rather be considered the best lover in the world, and privately know that you’re the worst – or would you prefer to know privately that you’re the best lover in the world but be considered the worst. Granted, the thought of Mr. Buffett using the word "lover" is a bit unsettling, but I still thought it was thought provoking.

To get the whole Buffett/lover thing out of your mind, here is a cute picture of Rip. Enjoy.