gone tourist

the bull








wall street











ground zero. i had to stick my camera through a hole in the fence to get this snap.










um, ok...so something about walking by this cemetery struck me funny. how the heck do they expect anyone to "rest in peace" in the middle of new york city?









hehe, just ripley's believe it or not








hmm...don't know what this is, but i liked it =)











St. Peter's Cathedral











in the subway








this was as close as i could get to lady liberty...and the picture is zoomed & cropped =)







a couple fellas break-dancin'











the front of grand central station








the chrysler building. is king kong the first thing that pops into anyone else's mind when they think of the chrysler building, or is it just me...?










just another street








my only companion...she's not much for conversation or physical touch, and she only comes along on sunny days. but on those days, she keeps up with me wherever i decide go to =)






some freakish jekyll & hyde club...interesting building, though!

this might be news to some of you, but just for your information, although i absolutely love to travel, there's something about being a tourist that i don't love. so my first several trips into the city, i kind of avoided the tourism and just tried to find my way around the places i needed to know...to familiarize myself with certain areas and with the public transportation systems. but a few sundays ago i finally broke down and took my camera out of its hiding spot in my backpack. i walked the whole day! i arrived in the city around 11.30 a.m., stopped for a 20 minute lunch break around 2, and then walked until i boarded my train at 7.30 p.m. i probably could've covered the whole length of manhattan that day, but i wanted to book it to one touristy site just to take a picture then book it to the next one =) it felt great to walk so much, though! and it feels even better to be confident in being able to find my way around.

"cool, big guy stuff"

i took tati & ian and their cousin max to bear mountain state park for awhile this morning...

...then tati went to a birthday party while i took the boys to the beach to do "cool, big guy stuff," according to ian. it's ok though, it's not much of a stretch for me to do things with the "guys" since i have a long history of tomboyishness =) the other little guy in the picture is our friend tomas. he's in ian's class and his sister is in tati's, so we hang out a lot.

just us

the kids and i had a great time making movies the other night =) once (if) i get the video uploaded on my computer, i'll post it. but i would start to narrate to help get their minds going a little, then leave a blank where they had to decide what their character was going to do or say next. the funniest was when ian wanted to be a "knitting boy who has no answers," meaning, he only knew how to knit and he didn't have a voice. hehe!

train ride

i love the last 10 or so miles on the tracks along the hudson back to the garrison station, when i get a seat on the left side of the train. ((the other side...not so interesting))

this is bear mountain bridge. it was built privately by some family way back when.

my little buddy

this is one of our angel fish. he's so funny...he seriously follows & watches me every time i walk by the tank, and when i open the top, he always comes right to the top of the water. i know he just associates me with food, but hey...it's fun =) i never really liked fish before we got this aquarium. guess i'm cool with this one because i don't have to do anything to take care of it, except feed them occasionally. i can get lost just watching all the stuff charles has going on in this tank.

common phrases, classic mispronunciations, etc.

"...wul'...wul'..." ((...well...well...)).  ((translations?  "...i'm trying to argue my way out of the trouble i just got myself into," or, "...i'm right, even if you think i'm wrong.")) --ian

"janessa...(either long silence, random question, or statement from out in left-field somewhere)...??  janessa...?  janessa...?"  --ian

"wu'f...?"  ((what if...?))  "...oh, i know..."  --ian

"yew nork city"  ((new york city)) --tati

"play that funky music black boy..." --tati.  "tats, did you know that the song really says, 'play that funky music white boy',"?  --me.  "play that funky music white boy........but that just doesn't make any sense!"  --tati

"it's opposite day!  do you think i'm the meanest?" --ian.  "yeah, you're the meanest!" --me.  "aw, thank you!"  --ian.  "you're the nicest person in the whole world!"  --tati.  "ahh...that breaks my little heart!"  --ian

"please don't stop that music, music...please don't stop that music..."  --ian

and, my all time favorite..."transgenderation"  ((grand central station))  --ian

the beach

sometimes we like to go to the beach along the river. it's a chill spot, but there are always a lot of people there. the whole family went this time and we took the dog plus our friend frank (the extra guy in the second picture). lisa and i stayed out of the water...this was a couple weeks ago when both of us were in the middle of our messed-up-edness =)

this last picture was taken earlier at a different spot along the river, but i love it (although my camera doesn't take the best quality pictures) so thought i'd throw it in, too.

spiderman's 4th birthday party

showin' off his muscles!

this slide was his birthday present. charles dressed up as a villain (in a wet suit & goggles, with a hose from the shop-vac as his weapon) and it was up to spiderman to save the day. so funny to watch =) the kids loved it, although spiderman hadn't yet arrived on the scene in this picture.

and i just think this one is sooo cute =) didn't know spidey played the harmonica!

jammies & face paint...pure bliss!

lisa painted the kids' faces the other night. tati was so enamored with her ice-princess face and had a hard time concealing the bliss of it all. i love her face in this picture because she's trying so hard not to just burst at the seams with her smile. and then there's ian. he's just funny. he's some sort of super-hero, with a kung fu panda head band.