Viva la Italia!

One thing I really love about living in Astoria is how crazy any given ethnic group goes when their country wins the World Cup game they are in.

The other night, it was Italy who won. I didn't even need to see it on TV or hear it on the radio. You can tell by the flags people hang out of their car windows as they drive down the road, honking their horns.

The last point in New York

While I was in Coney Island, I walked to the end of the pier that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean off the beach. A load of fishermen (and women) were down there, fishing. Some workers from the Parks Department guarded the pier to keep people from jumping (apparently, this is common.)

It just strikes me as strange that such a calm, lonely pier on the most southern tip of Brooklyn is the last stop of one of the world's most bustling, crowded and lively cities.

Don't rain on my mermaid parade!

SO --- despite gray skies and rain, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade was a raging success! and I was in it this time!

You definitely feel like a celebrity because everyone wants to take your photo. Tourists asked me to pose with their children (to which I gladly obliged.) Come on, kids! Pose with the half-nekkid stranger!

The costumes were great --- some more naked than others. I could not understand what the Elvis impersonator was doing there, but seeing how he is The King, he can do whatever he wants.

I was behind a marching band, so i could walk to the beat. I was in front of this King Neptune wearing rollerblades and about a million green and blue plastic bags. Very good to recycle!

A little bit of Manhattan in Queens

I was walking around the Dutch Kills area of Queens yesterday and, at the corner of 36 Avenue and 33rd Street, I saw some white stone planters with the words "Saks & Company" carved into them, decorating the sidewalk.

Saks is on 5th Avenue by central Park. There is nothing even remotely resembling Saks in that particular area of Queens, and yet there these planters were.

Recycling at its best!!!!

My favorite bus driver!

I had my favorite bus driver on the 86th Street Crosstown bus today. She is a really nice woman who announces each stop, then tells everyone “Be safe, everybody. Safety is important. Have a blessed day.”

She’s so much better than all the other drivers who just snarl.

on craigslist today

Some guy on craigslist is offering $50 to "Hide in the Bushes" so, even though I have no intention of taking up the offer, I decided to read more. Here is the entire ad below:

"So I'm planning on proposing to my girlfriend at Turtle Pond by Belvedere Castle in Central Park this Sunday, June 18th. What I need is for someone to hang around Turtle pond for a few hours on Sunday keeping an ever-viligant eye out for our arrival. We will then devise some kind of brilliant visual signal, at which point you will steer a remote controlled boat to pull up to our location. I am aware that this sounds cheesy as hell, but the boat's got a whole history to it that I'll explain later.

We can discuss details later. Skills required include the ability to conceal oneself in Central Park's foliage for two to three hours, the patience of a saint, and you're probably going to want an ipod. I'll need you from 2-5 on Sunday and ideally I'd like to meet you at the Pond on Saturday briefly so I can give you the boat and tell you where we're going to be.

Obviously, if something goes wrong, you'd be destroying the sanctity of marriage, so serious inquiries only."

Pearl River Mart

The other day, I went to Soho and visited this shop I have always heard about -- Pearl River Mart (www.http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/soho/pearl-river-mart-000889)

This is a great place to go to find cheap but not-cheap-looking Chinese clothes, purses and home decor. I bought some gardenia soaps -- 3 for $1! Also very nice (although I did not buy them) were silk purses designed to look like take-out boxes for only $10 each. Maybe I'll go back and get them .....

the devil's day

It is June 6, 2006 -- also known as "6/6/06" -- the Day of the Antichrist! Apparently, he (or she) did not show up 100 years ago, and I really don't care if s/he shows up now. S/he has got to be better than some of the people with whom I work.