Road Trip: Manhattan Style

Yesterday I "discoverd" a new part of Manhattan that I am anxioius to explore in more depth in the near future. I had signed up for brunch with Alan and Andrea yesterday morning to hit up a local place for some early-afternoon grubbin', but then they changed their mind about the location and decided that we should go to a place called The Spotted Pig down on Greenwhich Ave. Alan, notorious for prefering the high-rises of the Upper East/West Side to the Bohemian streets of downtown, made a comment about it being a "road-trip" to go all the way down to the West Village. Poor Alan, his mind has been warped during his tenure here in the city. As far as I can remember, I don't think that the phrase "road trip" have ever been appropriate on an island that is 12 miles long and 3 miles wide ;o)

Last Friday I was scheduled to have my eye(lids) operated on...again - finally! So I mentally prepare myself all week to go under the knife and visualize myself walking home with a patch over each eye and scaring the kids on Saturday with two black eyes (I was supposed to go on an art treasure hunt at the Met with my kidz). Well, Saturday's trip got postponed, which made Friday an even better day to have this thing done and over with. I even carved out Friday night as a recovery night. All set and ready to go...I get to the doctor and he looks at me and says he isn't going to do it afterall. He decided that he doesn't want to touch them because he'd rather have a specialist surgeon take care of them because of their location. Ok. This is the third time I've been to this doctor in the last month. I scheduled the surgery two weeks ago. Why the hell didn't he figure this out beforehand so that I didn't have to waste half an afternoon of work, the mental stress, preparation, and scheduling of my precious time? Trust => 0. I forsee myself now scheduling another surgery for two or three weeks from now (since I'm going to training this week in San Diego) and I also forsee myself not returning to this doctor.

Saturday morning I went to an awesome brunch to Sarah Beth's with Sean and Lauren. Isn't it funny how the body works at lunchtime? I mean, I ate two servings of oatmeal at 11:00 that morning, and by the time we got seated (12:30ish), I was ready for another meal. It's like no matter when I eat breakfast, I am starving by lunchtime. This theorum is further supported by the story of Sean and I stopping at In 'n Out Burger on our way to Lake Tahoe at 9:30am (12:30 NY time) because we were starving, even though we ate at a full breakfast at 7:00 that morning. Maybe it's mental. Or maybe I'm mental :o) !

After brunch on Sunday, Alan, Andrea, and I went and saw Born Into Brothels, an independant film about children living with their prostitute parents in the red light district of Calcutta. The English lady in the documentary teaches the kids how to use cameras to capture their lives and eventually helps get some of them enrolled in boarding schools in the hope that they can escape the lifestyle they were born into. It was actually quite a film, though of course depressing. I enjoyed the fact that it put a face and personality on such an epidimec, making it a bit more personal and affecting the viewer more than a ficticious film would. It, of course, begs the question of what can we do to help a life or two of people in vicious cycles such as this? The reality is that from our comfortable homes, it's almost impossible to have a significant impact. One of the great things about living in a cultural epicenter like NY is that there is the possibility of being exposed to something like a photography exhibit that would sponsor a child's boarding school education. Whether or not we embrace these opportunities is a different story altogether....

A few notable blog facts:

1.) Summer's blog gets far fewer hits than mine, even though she's funnier than me. I encourage you to read it ("Foody's Blog", linked on the right hand side of this page).
2.) I've added a link to Lemuel Park's blog on the right. He's no longer working for "the man" and is working at a non-profit in the African country of Mauritania. He has an active blog about his life over there.
3.) There are some people in New York and Connecticut that have cable modems and read my blog, but I don't know who they are. Post a comment below if you wish to no longer remain anonymous.
4.) My blog is now being read by Peruvians. I wonder if they're worried about what I'm writing about them ;o)
5.) I customized my blog to do cool things with comments now. Write me comments! I thrive off of them, anyway. Click on the "Comments" link below to see the new trick!

Time for racquetball (however that's spelled),
J.