Laborious Day Weekend

Ahhh....Labor Day Weekend. It's the last weekend of the year to enjoy
true summer weather - if you live in New York and the year is 2009,
apparently. In fact, it was pretty much the only typical summer
weather that we go to experience the whole year, other than the two
weeks of swampy nastiness that we got back in August. With the weather
so nice out, it was great weekend to take advantage of outdoor
activities like the beach, collecting your vitamin D in a park next to
a river, or drinking fresh, cold brews in your local beer garden.

It turns out that it is also a great time to celebrate your Brazilian
heritage. Of which I have none, despite trying as best as I can to
pull it off. I failed at capoeira, I failed at trying to attend
Brazilian Day festivities in New York on Saturday, and I nearly failed
on finding a welcoming venue to watch the Brazil vs. Argentina (!!!)
World Cup qualifying game on Saturday night. I also fail at having
bronze skin, but that is stating the obvious.

All was not lost however, as good things come to those that wait. I
did manage to successfully wallow through the streets of New York
before enjoying a sushi feast at Sushi Samba and enjoyed overly-drinks
drinks and mildly flavorful food at the wonderfully themed and aptly
named "El Basuerero" (Spanish for "garbage") with Erika and Susannah.
We followed that up with a neighborhood search for the big game (why
does everyone insist on charging $10 to watch a mammoth football game
like this?) and after more than three strikes against us, stumbled
upon a pizza place that was showing the game free of charge. And as a
bonus, on the way home we found a Brazilian restaurant that had a
samba band playing music with amazing dancing going on (not including
yours truly!) and sweet demonstrations of capoeira *inside* the
restaurant, followed by even more samba dancing.

On Sunday, after nearly getting snuffed out by throngs of Brazilians
on 6th Avenue celebrating Brazilian Day, we made our annual road trip
to Jersey to spend the day with Andrea and Alan. We always have a good
time with them, despite the trials and tribulations of figuring out
New Jersey Transit, which frustrates me to no end and causes me to get
yelled at by my wife for cursing Jersey on more than fifteen
occasions. But, we arrived at the target location without much
incident and, again, had a great day out there. Andrea and Alan made
us a huge pile of barbecued and homemade food that led to some serious
expansion of the ever growing gut. But we did manage to properly burn
off a few inches with the help of the Wii, which I had never actually
tried before. Man, is that the best thing ever invented or what? Wii
purchases for Erika and me will be graciously accepted for either of
our name-days, birthdays, or Christmas. Or anytime, really!

Other than that, we spent Friday night in the company of some of
Erika's Peruvian friends for one of their birthdays and ate some
underwhelming Peruvian food in the village, though we did have a good
time with them. We also continue with our salsa classes (we got
unlimited lessons for a month for $125 - look out John Travolta!!!)
and look forward to my parents' arrival for five days tonight! We are
going to make only my second road-trip in the six years that I have
lived hear on Monday, hopefully it goes better than some of my other
driving experiences in Jersey when I first moved here!

J. Riley, Civil War country, here I come!