It was the craziest of times, it was the looniest of times....
here – note the youngster in Yankee attire. :-) Loony times.
As luck would have it, the Pinstripes were playing the Mariners on Labor Day. So of course, Marc and I went along with “Brother Glenn”, Gwen (sister-in-law) and Harrison (nephew). Marc got to see Monument Park for the first time, which is good because we don’t know when we will be in town in 2008 and the Yanks are building a new stadium across the street. We needed to see it in its original form. Roger Clemens was going against Felix Hernandez so we had a match-up of old veteran vs. young phenom. Unfortunately for me, Clemens had blister, elbow and ego ailments, so King Felix (as he is known around these parts) put on quite the show and shut down the Yanks.
At that juncture, it wasn’t good for the Yanks since the playoff races were pretty tight. But things turned around, the Ms continued their slide and the Yanks dominated the remaining 2 games of the series – click here and here, and we got one back (scroll down to the bottom) for the Willie Bloomquist thing back in May.
Other things we did in NYC were:
- hanging with the family (Puff Daddy, Big Yves, Lisa, JB, Jeffrey, Glenn, Gwen, Harrison, Aunt Joyce, Charlie, Linda, Arianna) at Volare – see picture to the left which kind of sums up the evening
- meeting Siu Yun for dim sum (good stuff)
- dinner with Andi & Marshall at Blue Hill (excellent all around and 2 star sightings in one night – Natalie Portman and Hilary Swank; Marc hasn’t had all that many celebrity sightings since we met, so it was exciting to say the least)
- dinner with Chris W., Jeanne & Rahul at Perilla (good, but not fabulous as far as the food/service were concerned; on the other hand, the company was fun for sure – lots of laughs)
- dinner with Stef at Strip House (pretty good, but yet another star sighting – Jean-Luc Picard – aka Patrick Stewart)
- BBQ at Puff Daddy and Big Yves’ house with special guest star appearance from Janice and Michael
Crazy times. We headed back to Seattle to re-group for the remainder of week, and continued to celebrate with our neighbors – Jim, Gure and Eneko. They made a great dinner for us and we drank enough wine to cause a slight headache on the actual birthday, but that’s ok. Marc had a big dinner planned for the two of us at a surprise location, so I made sure I hit the elliptical for a long time. It is depressing when it asks for your age and you have to move the dial up a notch now that you are a year older, but what are you going to do? At least I was on the thing working out, right?
We took the bus downtown near the market and Marc led me to a restaurant called 94 Stewart, which is predictably located at 94 Stewart Street. When we got to our table, a cheese selection was waiting for us. Let me reiterate how cool my husband is. The whole experience was really enjoyable – a very comfortable atmosphere, great service, excellent food, and a nice selection of wine and cheese. If you haven’t been, you should check it out. Double thumbs up from me.
The next night, we had a get together at the house for some friends – it started as wine and chocolate, but then grew to beer and cookies. Whatever it was, it was fun to catch up with friends. There were some great desserts on hand (I kind of felt a little sick from the sugar overload) as well as some great wines on hand. We spent Sunday recovering, which worked out because it was NFL – Week #1 so Marc took his usual spot on the couch for most of the day. I ended birthWEEK by whipping up a short ribs dish from Second Helpings, a cookbook by Danny Meyer and Michael Romano (Union Square Café). Good stuff all around. I am a lucky gal.
Oh yeah, the other thing that happened during the week was the kick-off of the annual “shamelessly hit my family, friends, colleagues” up for money for JDRF. If you would like to donate, please click here. This is a cause that is near and dear to me because I have both family and friends who are impacted by Type 1 diabetes. I’ll blog about some of our other fundraising activities in another post. Stay tuned. The fundraising for JDRF is one of the most important things that we do each year and we have already received some very generous support from folks. Another reason to be thankful.
And finally, we’re winding down on baseball season. The Yanks are leading the Wild Card, but still are in the hunt for the AL East against the ‘Evil People’ – but hey, we did take 2 out of 3 this weekend against them. Highlight of the weekend: Jeter spanking Schilling on Sunday night with a doozy into the Green Monster. I was referring to that game as a match-up of Egomaniac (Clemens) vs. Blowhard (Schilling) and it lived up to the hype. The 6-run comeback against Boston’s vaunted bullpen in the 8th inning wasn’t too shabby either. I was pretty much speechless after that half inning, which is beyond rare for me while watching a Yankees game. And I think I have a favorite Baby Bomber (a young Yankee that will carry on the traditions set by Yankees before him) and he goes by the name of Joba Chamberlain. It’s going to be a crazy 12 days, and that’s just before the playoffs. Go Yanks!
And if anyone has seen the New York Giants defense, can they please let Tom Coughlin know?