Every once in a while, New York has what they call "Restaurant Week", when the top restaurants in the city go on sale for the week, offering budget-minded prix fixe, 3-course meals for the low price of $35. Wow, what a bargain!! Since I don't think that I've ever indulged in this extravaganza, I organized a little get together for a few of us at Calle Ocho on the Upper West Side. We are always up for things with Latin flare, and Calle Ocho was the obvious choice for such an experience. It offered a nice mid-week break for those that are overworked and under-paid. You know, financial auditors like Paul and Cathy ;o) . We had a pretty darn good meal along with some pretty darn good drinks, as the pictures that I will soon post indicate!
The next stop on my cultural expedition for the weekend was on Saturday. I live about ten block away from one of the premier art musuems of the country, if not the world. The "Met", aka the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've been wanting to become a member there for a while, just so that I have no excuses for not taking one or two hour trips there every once in a while when I have the day free, such as Saturday. I had nothing going on, my friends were all either working or out of town, and my apartment was already (realtively) clean. So....I hopped online and made my membership happen. Now I have no excuses for not going there when I'm bored or when it's a rainy weekend day. I had no agenda for the museum, I thought I would just walk around, people-watch, and look at some Euro paintings. I caught the tail-end of a tour being given on the artist "El Grecho" and got the chance to listen to the guide talk about what made that artist unique and what you could see into paintings. Let's face it, I have no idea what I'm looking at when I go to art museums. The tour provided me with some much-needed guidance in this area, and I sort of figured out what I should be looking at when I observe paintings. Not that I'm ready to bid $50,000 for a picture of some old guy, though....
After wandering around for a few hours there, I headed downtown to the premiere soccer bar in the city - Nevada Smith's. They show games there all day, every weekend. Real Madrid was playing that day and, since I'd never seen them play (they are the equivalent of the Yankees, they buy all the best players from the world), I figured I had nothing better to do than waste a few hours with some rowdy Euros and a few Americans. It was a good game, and Madrid scored some spectacular goals and made some stellar moves that made it worth the $5 Pilsner Urquell that I nibbled at.
Saturday night I polished off some leftovers before heading out to catch up with Paul and Cathy, who were recovering from their sixth workday that week and were looking for a mellow evening. Cathy heard about a Thai place that supposedly could burn a whole in your stomach it was so hot, and of course she wanted to give it the Becker challenge to see if it was hot enough for her liking. From what I heard, it did alright....Afterwards, we walked up to some theaters and saw Million Dollar Baby with Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, and Morgan Freeman. It was yet another depressing movie, but this time about a girl who wants to become a boxer. I actually liked the movie, but it did seem to be missing something, I'm not really sure what.
Sunday was America's cultural event of the year, the Super Bowl. Paul and Cathy were having a small gathering at their house with some food and drinks so that the girls could watch the game (neither he nor I really cared too much about anything other than the commercials ;o). Before the game, I did some shopping in order to waste some time and took my first trip into the famous Bloomingdales. Talk about some cash-money stuff - WHEW! $135 for a tie? Give me a break! They had some good sales (50% off Burberry shirts, for example), but I wasn't really in a spending mood. At least, until I bellied up to the bar - Dylan's Candy Bar, that is. This place is like a crack den for kids, with every kind of candy you can imagine. I seriously felt like I was in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and D was the victum of assault and battery by some little kids who were on a sugar high trying to fill their bags with candy. Baltimore Jenn and I were going to meet up later that evening for another flick, Sideways, so I was sure to stock up on the junk food prior to that event.
Despite being reprimanded by the girls watching the football game, I bid them farewell at half-time and headed downtown to the Union Square theaters. I had watched the trailors for it on Friday and had heard about it from some people back in California and realized that it was the perfect movie to see. I think Paul Giamatti is an awesome actor, and he didn't let us down in this case. The movie is about two college buddies who go up to the Central Coast of California to go wine tasting. One of them is an actor who is getting married to a rich family at the end of the week and the other is a divorced, pessimistic, aspiring writer who's trying to find out how to move forward with his personal life. It was very funny, but very serious at the same time as Paul Giamatti struggles through the week dealing with himself and his friend. Excellent, excellent flick....
Another insomniac night last night. Must have been lots on my mind!
J. Riley, operating on three and a half hours of sleep....
