Weekend Review

I spent the last couple of weeks lamenting the fact that I wasn't going away for the long holiday weekend. Once I moved through that, I started sending out emails to friends about all the fun stuff I wanted over the weekend. I had a taker for every item. People were interested and schedules fell right into place.
As such:

I left work at 1pm on Friday and met Nessa-Monster at MoMA for the Marina Abramovic retrospective. This is the first retrospective MoMA has ever done of a performance artist. She was actually there performing a piece called "The Artist is Present," in which she sits in a chair across from a participant (from the audience...and the line starts early in the morning) and looks at them. I watched her look. I watched her be present, and it was lovely. There were lots of videos and photos of her previous works and a few recreations by other artists, the most memorable being two nudes standing about 8" apart from each other in the doorway. To get to the other room, one must pass through them. There is no way not to touch. (The museum did offer another doorway, but that's no fun!) I found that I was so concerned about not stepping on their toes in my big wedges that I didn't even notice I was brushing up against private parts. So much for the cheap thrill!

Saturday morning found me piling in the car with Schmennifer and David-Down-Under and heading to Wayne, NJ for a little hike up High Mountain. We had a book. We had a trail map. We got lost in the woods. The first sign should have been the deer that looked at us like, "WTF? What are you guys doing up here?" We somehow (accidentally)found our way back and started the trail over...backwards. It was a bit of a rocky climb here and there and by the end of the 7 mile (6-hr?)day we were all a little tired, but had all enjoyed ourselves. The summit of High Mountain (which isn't really too tall of a mountain, by the way) has a view of the Manhattan skyline, so that was an interesting juxtaposition. If only we could get to those hikes without toll bridges and traffic! There are 60 hikes in the book. Away we go!

Sunday I slept most of the day. I looked at the laundry. I looked at the TV. I rolled to the other side. I napped. I at some point showered. My hamstrings and knees were very sore from the hike. I tried to treat them well. At some point I put on a little sundress and hopped on the subway to Brooklyn to join The Cuban and The Redhead on their roofdeck for a frozen margarita and The Cuban's Semi World Famous Super Special Ingredient Burgers. After a while, the lime juice ran out, but there was orange juice, so there were orangaritas. Then there was no more OJ, but there was wine! And there were strawberries and cherries! And there was ice and a blender! And there were a few sloppy drunks!

After all that, I somehow drug myself out of bed on Monday morning, mounted ye-olde-bicycle, and rode 10 miles to Brooklyn to meet Sugah-Man, were we together rode another 15 or so miles to the Far Rockaways for a look at the beach and a couple of fish tacos at a pretty popular little beach taco stand. (Who waits an hour for a fish taco?!! We and many others, that's who.) Since we were there, I stuck my toes in the freezing cold North Atlantic Ocean, snapped a photo, and ran back up to the boardwalk and the warmth of socks and shoes. Brrr. By the time we got back to Brooklyn, I had ridden 40 miles, my legs (perhaps not fully healed from the hike) were killing, and I only had an hour of daylight left to do the last hour of riding. I threw in the towel and took the train home to collapse.

Not too bad for having no plans! I love my friends! I love their "up-for-anything" attitudes and senses of adventure. We shall have many, many, more.

Now, who's going skydiving with me?

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