Quite the Busy Bees
It's been quite a busy weekend so far: Friday was the Light the Night Walk; yesterday was spent at South Street Seaport and meeting some of my Journey-fan friends for dinner and an Evolution concert; and today was spent sleeping way too late, bowling and eating frozen tomatoes.
The Light the Night Walk, which supports the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, was even bigger that last year, although Team Squash Lymphoma was a few people smaller. This year, we raised a little over $500, which is still a decent amount, considering I got a late start into fundraising. In addition to my white balloon, I received a "SURVIVOR" shirt this year, which I thought was quite nice of them.
As usual, the survivors and those under treatment hit the baseball field of Citibank Park before the walk started. There were double the amount of survivors than last year, which could only be a good thing. As I left the field, I ran into Betty and Regina, two of my nurses at Stony Brook Medical Center (Betty was the one who gave me my first high ever). It was so great to see them - ever since my oncologist moved, I haven't been back to the BMT ward, where I began my treatment in July 2005. The walk itself was a lot of fun; it seemed a bit longer than last year, then ended with a spectacular Grucci fireworks show.
I don't know if it were the chemicals emitted from the fireworks or what, but that night, I had a dream I turned Lexcie into a labrador retriever puppy and I had to train him to sit and lay down.
On Saturday, Lexcie and I drove to Massapeeeeequa and took the LIRR from there, as there would be more trains coming home later that night. Our first stop was South Street Seaport, where hot dogs got consistently more expensive as we walked west along South Street. We went on a tour of the USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), which was interesting, although we didn't get to see much of the crew quarters. Then, we went in search of fish and chips, which were $14 on the pier, but $5 if you went to the food court in the pier's shopping mall. Lexcie called it, "New York's knock off of San Francisco's Fishermans Wharf" - basically, same tourist trap.
My favorite part of the seaport was visiting Mariposa, the butterfly gallery. (This page offers a better picture of the store.) Mom has a few from the collection, but when I'm rich and famous, I want the $7,000 wall panels.
The next stop was little Italy, where we were going to meet my friends for dinner. So, we were walking up Fulton Street towards the IRT when I saw hot dogs for $1. And behind the cart was a quintessential New York hot dog man - not Middle Eastern, but Italian and wearing an apron. I went over and asked if he was always at that corner, because it was a pretty good price for a hot dog in that area. His answer, and the following 15 minutes, had nothing to do with hot dogs whatsoever:
Hot Dog Man: Where do you live?
Me: New York.
Hot Dog Man: Where in New York?
Me: Long Island.
Hot Dog Man: Where on Long Island? It's not like I'm going to come rob your house or something.
Me: Islip.
Hot Dog Man: Well, let me tell you - I used to live in Freeport and I was able to keep my doors unlocked, but now, people will steal from you and nothing's the same as it ever was...
And then he went on and on about how Long Island has changed, Italians, Irish, carpet baggers, lower Manhattan, the Mafia, how his uncle's barber shop on Fulton Street was money drop for the Mob, the police and various other subjects until Lexcie was finally able to cut him off and tell him we had somewhere to go. Poor guy - probably doesn't have people to listen to him, but it was getting to be a bit much.
We met the Journey gang at La Mela Restaurant, which is probably best known for its family-style meals. However, family style costs about $30 per person, so we quickly nixed that idea. Lexcie and I decided to split a chicken marsala dish, since we had eaten the fish and chips earlier. The waiter gave us an attitude and said, "You know that's a small dish, right?" Turns out it wasn't such a small dish - they just wanted us to order more. The service was pretty bad, on top of it. We had to ask for bread, they failed to tell us that we were paying for wine by the glass and not the bottle and it took a while to get anyone's attention. The food was the restaurant's only saving grace. However, it was nice to catch up with all my friends, even though we were sitting a bit tightly in the back.
La Mela also turned out to be pretty expensive. Coffee alone was $3, so Lexcie and I decided to go have dessert in Chinatown, which is infinitely cheaper. Our friend Chris came with us, but as we were walking up Mulberry Street, we found a street vendor selling gelato, tiramisu and cannolis at a decent price. Lex ordered a chocolate cannoli for $4 and me, a tiramisu for $5. So, we walked as we ate, and Lexcie discovered why it was only $4 - the cannoli cream had only been squirted at the ends of the shell, and the cannoli was empty in the middle. And someone forgot to put sugar in the whipped cream of my tiramisu, so it tasted like butter. Of course, the sugar that was supposed to go in the whipped cream went into the tiramisu itself, which was overly sweet.
After a quick stop at Starbucks, where an old Chinese lady stole my chair, we headed of to The Canal Room for the Evolution show. Had I done my homework before the show, I may have thought twice about buying tickets - it was pretty small. And considering it had both Evolution fans and fans of the following Dave Matthews tribute act, it was pretty tight. The sound system wasn't all that great, and the sound system overpowered lead singer Hugo's vocals. Halfway through the set, I saw Lexcie was getting restless, but we had promised Chris we would wait for her. At least the West Coast Evolution show had seats.
I found out during the show that there's a good chance that Arnel Pineda, lead singer of The Zoo, was hired as Journey's new lead singer. Apparently, this news has been around Melodic Rock for a while, but realized that I don't give much of a flying duck about Journey's drama anymore. But if you want an interesting read, lead singer frontrunner Jeremey Hunsicker started a blog on how he was in (and quickly out) and Jeff Scott Soto posted his reaction on Melodic Rock's forums.
By the end of the night, we were pretty thirsty (beers were $7!) and deaf, but we made it in time for the 12:38 a.m. Babylon train home. When we got off at Massapequa, we saw a young guy who apparently missed the last westbound train - and he was screaming, carrying on and punching brick walls because the next train was in three hours. "I can't believe I missed the $#@!ing train!" he screamed. "How the $#@! could this happen to me!" We were pretty amused, but decided to leave before he went downstairs and started smashing cars or something. Tempers, tempers.
Lexcie and I were so wiped out that we slept until 1 p.m. today. Lexcie so kindly made an omelette for breakfast (lunch?), but in his words, "There was a lack of better mousetrap, so one omelete ended up being a fractionated omelete that we were gonna use for dinner. There was like an abundance of fude all the time." In English: he attempted to make an omelette, but since we did not have a proper utensil to flip the eggs, it wound up becoming an egg-ham-peas-and-mushroom scramble. The second attempt resulted in a better omelette, so the scramble was put in a Tupperware to be used later in cooking dinner. Because of the way we cook, there are always so many leftovers.
We later went bowling, where Lexcie cheated and used two balls at once in order to get a strike. We fancied some ice cream afterwards, so we went to the Friendly's in East Islip, where I ordered a garden salad and ice-cream sundae, and he a Fribble and cup of coffee. Well, lots of things went wrong tonight. First, my sundae came before my salad. Second, my salad was too cold and the tomatoes went crunch - they were frozen. Third, the Fribble wasn't thick enough. Fourth, Lexcie's coffee never came - they were "making a fresh pot" for 20 minutes, and finally decided to leave without the coffee, which still wasn't finished.
Perhaps we should stay away from restaurants for a while..
(x-posted to http://www.amandanoelle.com)
The Light the Night Walk, which supports the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, was even bigger that last year, although Team Squash Lymphoma was a few people smaller. This year, we raised a little over $500, which is still a decent amount, considering I got a late start into fundraising. In addition to my white balloon, I received a "SURVIVOR" shirt this year, which I thought was quite nice of them.
As usual, the survivors and those under treatment hit the baseball field of Citibank Park before the walk started. There were double the amount of survivors than last year, which could only be a good thing. As I left the field, I ran into Betty and Regina, two of my nurses at Stony Brook Medical Center (Betty was the one who gave me my first high ever). It was so great to see them - ever since my oncologist moved, I haven't been back to the BMT ward, where I began my treatment in July 2005. The walk itself was a lot of fun; it seemed a bit longer than last year, then ended with a spectacular Grucci fireworks show.
I don't know if it were the chemicals emitted from the fireworks or what, but that night, I had a dream I turned Lexcie into a labrador retriever puppy and I had to train him to sit and lay down.
On Saturday, Lexcie and I drove to Massapeeeeequa and took the LIRR from there, as there would be more trains coming home later that night. Our first stop was South Street Seaport, where hot dogs got consistently more expensive as we walked west along South Street. We went on a tour of the USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), which was interesting, although we didn't get to see much of the crew quarters. Then, we went in search of fish and chips, which were $14 on the pier, but $5 if you went to the food court in the pier's shopping mall. Lexcie called it, "New York's knock off of San Francisco's Fishermans Wharf" - basically, same tourist trap.
My favorite part of the seaport was visiting Mariposa, the butterfly gallery. (This page offers a better picture of the store.) Mom has a few from the collection, but when I'm rich and famous, I want the $7,000 wall panels.
The next stop was little Italy, where we were going to meet my friends for dinner. So, we were walking up Fulton Street towards the IRT when I saw hot dogs for $1. And behind the cart was a quintessential New York hot dog man - not Middle Eastern, but Italian and wearing an apron. I went over and asked if he was always at that corner, because it was a pretty good price for a hot dog in that area. His answer, and the following 15 minutes, had nothing to do with hot dogs whatsoever:
Hot Dog Man: Where do you live?
Me: New York.
Hot Dog Man: Where in New York?
Me: Long Island.
Hot Dog Man: Where on Long Island? It's not like I'm going to come rob your house or something.
Me: Islip.
Hot Dog Man: Well, let me tell you - I used to live in Freeport and I was able to keep my doors unlocked, but now, people will steal from you and nothing's the same as it ever was...
And then he went on and on about how Long Island has changed, Italians, Irish, carpet baggers, lower Manhattan, the Mafia, how his uncle's barber shop on Fulton Street was money drop for the Mob, the police and various other subjects until Lexcie was finally able to cut him off and tell him we had somewhere to go. Poor guy - probably doesn't have people to listen to him, but it was getting to be a bit much.
We met the Journey gang at La Mela Restaurant, which is probably best known for its family-style meals. However, family style costs about $30 per person, so we quickly nixed that idea. Lexcie and I decided to split a chicken marsala dish, since we had eaten the fish and chips earlier. The waiter gave us an attitude and said, "You know that's a small dish, right?" Turns out it wasn't such a small dish - they just wanted us to order more. The service was pretty bad, on top of it. We had to ask for bread, they failed to tell us that we were paying for wine by the glass and not the bottle and it took a while to get anyone's attention. The food was the restaurant's only saving grace. However, it was nice to catch up with all my friends, even though we were sitting a bit tightly in the back.
La Mela also turned out to be pretty expensive. Coffee alone was $3, so Lexcie and I decided to go have dessert in Chinatown, which is infinitely cheaper. Our friend Chris came with us, but as we were walking up Mulberry Street, we found a street vendor selling gelato, tiramisu and cannolis at a decent price. Lex ordered a chocolate cannoli for $4 and me, a tiramisu for $5. So, we walked as we ate, and Lexcie discovered why it was only $4 - the cannoli cream had only been squirted at the ends of the shell, and the cannoli was empty in the middle. And someone forgot to put sugar in the whipped cream of my tiramisu, so it tasted like butter. Of course, the sugar that was supposed to go in the whipped cream went into the tiramisu itself, which was overly sweet.
After a quick stop at Starbucks, where an old Chinese lady stole my chair, we headed of to The Canal Room for the Evolution show. Had I done my homework before the show, I may have thought twice about buying tickets - it was pretty small. And considering it had both Evolution fans and fans of the following Dave Matthews tribute act, it was pretty tight. The sound system wasn't all that great, and the sound system overpowered lead singer Hugo's vocals. Halfway through the set, I saw Lexcie was getting restless, but we had promised Chris we would wait for her. At least the West Coast Evolution show had seats.
I found out during the show that there's a good chance that Arnel Pineda, lead singer of The Zoo, was hired as Journey's new lead singer. Apparently, this news has been around Melodic Rock for a while, but realized that I don't give much of a flying duck about Journey's drama anymore. But if you want an interesting read, lead singer frontrunner Jeremey Hunsicker started a blog on how he was in (and quickly out) and Jeff Scott Soto posted his reaction on Melodic Rock's forums.
By the end of the night, we were pretty thirsty (beers were $7!) and deaf, but we made it in time for the 12:38 a.m. Babylon train home. When we got off at Massapequa, we saw a young guy who apparently missed the last westbound train - and he was screaming, carrying on and punching brick walls because the next train was in three hours. "I can't believe I missed the $#@!ing train!" he screamed. "How the $#@! could this happen to me!" We were pretty amused, but decided to leave before he went downstairs and started smashing cars or something. Tempers, tempers.
Lexcie and I were so wiped out that we slept until 1 p.m. today. Lexcie so kindly made an omelette for breakfast (lunch?), but in his words, "There was a lack of better mousetrap, so one omelete ended up being a fractionated omelete that we were gonna use for dinner. There was like an abundance of fude all the time." In English: he attempted to make an omelette, but since we did not have a proper utensil to flip the eggs, it wound up becoming an egg-ham-peas-and-mushroom scramble. The second attempt resulted in a better omelette, so the scramble was put in a Tupperware to be used later in cooking dinner. Because of the way we cook, there are always so many leftovers.
We later went bowling, where Lexcie cheated and used two balls at once in order to get a strike. We fancied some ice cream afterwards, so we went to the Friendly's in East Islip, where I ordered a garden salad and ice-cream sundae, and he a Fribble and cup of coffee. Well, lots of things went wrong tonight. First, my sundae came before my salad. Second, my salad was too cold and the tomatoes went crunch - they were frozen. Third, the Fribble wasn't thick enough. Fourth, Lexcie's coffee never came - they were "making a fresh pot" for 20 minutes, and finally decided to leave without the coffee, which still wasn't finished.
Perhaps we should stay away from restaurants for a while..
(x-posted to http://www.amandanoelle.com)