coney island with higgins

jes and i had a wonderful day yesterday. we got up and had some bagels from terrace bagels: DELISH.

then we headed into the city. jes had a meeting at VLA (her clinic for the semester) and I accompanied her to look for a bday present for my best friend mary. when i failed to find what i was looking for, i headed to central park to read The Nation and to write a letter to my friend ara. it was a gorgeous warm sunny day and a very peppy labor day parade was going down 5th Ave. I heard drums, bagpipes and marching bands.

after we finished in the city, jes and i came home and took a quick nap (the city exhausts me and i don't know why) and then got up and ready for higgins to get here. when she arrived, we hopped in the car and drove down to coney island. higgs had never been there, so we were excited to show her the sights. on our way down we discussed roller coasters. at coney island there is an amusement park called astroland. its real old and hella seedy, but they have a roller coaster called the cyclone. word on the street is that disney bought all the lake front property and they are going to tear it all down and put up princess pirate hell, so we really wanted to get on the cyclone before it became fire wood. higgs said she is not to crazy about roller coasters, so we told her she didn't have to go if she didn't want.

now the cyclone is a really small looking wooden coaster and to me, it looked like it didn't go very fast. sort of like the wizard at six flaggs in gurnee, illinois. more like a primer for the real coasters. higgs, being the fucking champ she is, decided she could do it. here is a pic of her and jes in front of the coaster:



here they are making sure they are tall enough for the ride. thank heavens, they are:



so about the coaster: i lied. in fact the drop is fairly severe, it goes fast as fuck and it really throws you around. jes has the bruise to show for it. i sat by myself and jes and higgs sat together. they were both fairly unhappy during most of the ride. i laughed until i cried the entire time. part out of the fun i was having, and part out of fear that higgs was going to beat my ass when the ride was over. she in fact, did NOT beat my ass, but she was a bit wrecked by the ride. here are the cuties immediately after:



luckily, they find found the way out:



after the coaster, we walked up and down the boardwalk. it was such a lovely night and there was this gathering of folks dancing to some really great salsa music. it made me happy that i live in new york. here is a pic of all of us and the ocean:



as we walking off the boardwalk, we came upon this loveliness:



the announcer guy kept yelling "shoot the freak! hit a real live human target!" i had to see what they deemed as a "freak."
all i can say is i wish i had abs like that "freak":



after coney island, we headed to fort greene (i love that neighborhood) to a restaurant called RICE. yall that is some good food. we got some super salty edamame to start out with and shared a divine bottle of red wine. for dinner jes and i shared some black rice, arepas and veggie dumplings. we all shared some tofu meatballs with black rice, and higgs got tofu satay. it was SO GOOD. the ambiance was divine and they played old school michael jackson, outkast and shakira. we were rocking!

after that, higgs hopped on the train and we came home and watched a few episodes of weeds. i love that show.

today we cleaned the house a bunch. and we went through a bunch of our clothes and got rid of a bunch of stuff, namely, jes decided to get SIX PAIRS OF SHOES. yes, dear reader, read that again: JES DECIDED TO GET RID OF SIX PAIRS OF SHOES. i mean its almost like i don't know who she is anymore- but i LIKE IT.

tonight we are having dinner at glennda and kim's and we will get to love on bambino. ali might come too. yippee.