A Divine Day in New York City

This is a window display on 5th Avenue of Baltimore's own Divine. We had an amazing day in NYC. We saw two great shows, had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant, went to the top of Rockefeller Center, had a run in the park and a wonderful breakfast at the Brooklyn Diner. We want to move here. We love New York!

Seeing Next to Normal

This was an awesome show! I highly recommend it. Alice Ripley was amazing. We'll be back I'm sure.

Shane and Alice Chit Chat

Next to Normal star Alice Ripley chit chats with Shane about the show.

Tony Winner Alice Ripley, Star of Next to Normal

Alice signs my playbill after the show. She and other members of the cast spent a lot of time mixing with the crowd outside the theater.

Ben Stiller and Sexy Gal Pal in NYC

Ben sat right in front of us at Next to Normal. Luckily, he's not very tall.

Top of 30 Rock

Generic Time Square Picture

Shane waits impatiently as I take a picture of Time Square.

Dr. Phil On Broadway

Dr. Phil created quite a stir in Time Square and I helped. Dr. Phil? Oh yeah. He knows Oprah.

Watching Wicked on Broadway

It's intermission and the show is great. The photo is the dragon over
the stage and the curtain.

Breakfast at the Brooklyn Diner

I had a frittata and polenta.

Running in Central Park with a Few of My Friends

I ran the Park Loop Road around Central Park this morning. I had invited some of my blog readers to come along and was very pleased with the turnout. The park is very hilly, and the weather was warm, but it was an awesome run!

Swinging Over to New York City

Shane and I are on MegaBus to NYC. Roundtrip was $23.50 all together for the both of us. Since it's Friday night, we're stuck in MegaTraffic.

The photo is of the trapeze school that was near the bus stop downtown. How cool would that be to do?

Capitol Sunset

Looking down Pennsylvania Avenue near our house on my way home from the drug store. The iPhone camera makes the Capitol Building look further away than it is (10 blocks).

Work Happy Hour Surprises

Notice the blue string near my collar.

We had a work happy hour last night and we surprised my boss, who had recently turned 50. This is her and I as she is performing my mid-year review.

For the Happy Hour, we had to come up with a "fun fact" about ourselves, which people at the Happy Hour had to then guess who's fact was who's. Mine was that I once buried a man as his young son watched. Nobody guessed it was mine. There were some very interesting facts revealed. Someone in my office had been in a Lil Kim video, and someone had dinner with Michelle Pfeiffer. They both sound a lot more fun than burying a man.

As I arrived at Eastern Market subway station on my way home, I looked down and noticed my work badge was not on my person. I wear it on a blue string around my neck. I don't remember taking it off, but I remember seeing it in my pocket at the Happy Hour and it is clearly around my neck in the photo above. I got off the train and got on another going in the opposite direction. I went back to the restaurant and checked at the Metro station from where I left, but nobody had seen it. I went over to my office and reported the badge was missing to the guards, so it couldn't be used to access the building. By the time I got home, I was in a very bad mood, hot and sweaty, had a splitting headache, and was very unhappy. Happy Hour Fail.

Today, somebody named Andy called me on my cell phone and told me he found my badge on the Metro train. I must have accidentally taken it off when I removed my backpack from over my head when I sat down on the train. Andy sounded very nice and offered to mail it back to me. I thanked him and accepted the offer, but I'll still have to get a new badge because that one will have been deactivated. I'm off work today, because I have to go to a meeting tomorrow, which is my regular day off. Now I have to go in early enough to have a new badge made. I have no idea how long that will take.

Hump Day Art -- Don Bishop Paintings

This is the painting we purchased last year at the Blue Hill Bay Gallery in Blue Hill, Maine. It is called Afternoon Glow and is an oil on canvas, mearsuring 12 by 16 inches, by Don Bishop.

This painting, also by Bishop and available at the Blue Hill Bay Gallery, is called Purple Iris. It is also an oil of canvas and measures 16 by 20 inches.

Don Bishop is rapidly emerging as one of the accomplished tonalist painters in the Pacific Northwest where he divides his time between plein air and studio work. Most of his pieces are painted alla prima using different color combinations according to the season and light. His roots are firmly planted in the early Californian impressionism because of the outstanding patterns of color and atmosphere associated with this school. Don has patrons throughout the US, which include Senator John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, of North Carolina, and the more happily partnered Mark and Shane.

The Ross Sisters Sing "Solid Potato Salad"

I found this video on the blog, Tales of a Tenor, as I was exploring the interwebs. How can you not want some Solid Potato Salad?

Be sure to watch the dance after the singing. They are quite bendy.

Last Cactus Bloom of the Year

It was one month ago today that I posted a blog about my cactus budding. Now, the last of the blooms is blooming. They only bloom one night and dry up and fall off by morning. These photos were taken by porch light with the iPhone.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #200

He's omnipresent you ninny. Of course He's in.

The above is the cartoon for New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest for week #200. Let me know if you come up with a caption. Click on the link above to enter.

Blue Sponge Weekend Round-Up

Here's a summary of the weekend. Above is another photo from our concert at Wolf Trap where we say pops conductor Marvin Hamlisch do a show about his work and work that inspired him. I posted a photo yesterday of me prior to the concert, and this is one I took of Shane relaxing before the concert. We were disappointed with the show. Marvin played the songs like he was trying to catch a bus. They all seemed very rushed. It was mostly all music, which was fine, but he had a so so singer on some of the numbers. We left before the end to beat the rush, though I had never seen so few people at a concert there.

On Sunday, we went to see my Mom. She lives in a small town in Maryland near the Pennsylvania border. It is about 2 hours north of DC. We took her and my sister out to lunch in a restaurant in Port Deposit, MD. In the photo above, Shane and my Mom are sitting on her patio waiting for my sister to arrive. You might notice her very tall lilies, which have amazing blooms on them.

Here's my Mom, still on the patio. She has got quite a green thumb.

We went to the Susky Grill, a restaurant on the Susquehanna River in Port Deposit, and we all had crab cake sandwiches. They were very good and the restaurant was very nice. It was the first time all of us, except my Mom had been there. She had gone before with the Blue Birds. They are like the Red Hat Ladies, but only different. My only complaints about the restaurant were the service was a bit slow and they made up put our umbrella down and it got rather hot. That is what the waitress is telling the couple near us in this photo. The wind picked up a bit and they were afraid the umbrellas would make the tables topple over. You'd think they could figure out a way to secure the darn umbrellas. It got very hot out in the sun. Otherwise, it was a nice place. We'll stay under the shaded porch next time.

When we got back to my Mom's house, I gave her a lesson in scanning photos onto her computer. She wanted copies of some family shots my uncle (her brother) had. This shot is my grandmother standing with Flossy (on the right). Doesn't she look like Janet Gaynor (my grandmother, not the horse)? How many of you know who Janet Gaynor was?

At Wolf Trap with the Geriatrics

Shane and I are at Wolf Trap, the National Park for the Performing Arts, waiting for a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra with guest conductor Marvin Hamlisch. The show is called Hamlisch Conducts Hamlisch. It is to begin with the Overture to Gypsy (which I don't think Marvin had anything to do with) and include The Way We Were, and music from A Chorus Line.

Surprisingly, it isn't that crowded and it isn't the young, hip crowd you'd expect.