Is it cold enough now? My one experience with that rink from last year, the ice was like water.
In that case, jet skis will also be available for rent.
Friday night it was fine -- the ice didn't seem soft at all. I haven't been skating midday, so on a sunny warm day it might not be good. But it's so pretty, skating in the middle of all the buildings, with the library on one side...
I need to check that out. Pre-Christmas ice skating is my guilty pleasure.
Is this the ice skating that we see in all those romantic movies and TV shows like Futurama? Or is that at some other location, drawing all the tourists away so that this place remains comfortable?
The well-known spots are: (a) Rockefeller Center (b) Central Park
The Bryant Park rink is not so well-known. It's new.
You probably have seen the Rockefeller Center rink -- with a big gold statue of Prometheus reclining all Art-Deco-ishly next to it? The ice is about the size of my living room, and it's packed with people.
This rink, in Bryant Park, is new last year and much bigger and less crowded.
Rockefeller Center is lame. The Wollman Rink in Central Park is the cute romantic place you see in all of the movies.
I hate the music they play at Wollman. Is it too much to ask for, like, Nat King Cole singing Christmas tunes? I don't want to hear "My Humps" when I'm trying to enjoy a winter wonderland.
At least Friday, the Bryant Park music was show-tunes. Still blared at a painful volume, but skaty-type-music.
9 - Totally. When we went last year, it was all John Mayer. Gag.
Wait, 11 was me. I don't know how I became "n".
And while we've got a bunch of New Yorkers in one place, perhaps we can help Catherine with her "what should I do on my NYC visit?" question.
Interesting Top of the Rock comment over there, Becks. I've never been, but I've certainly waited in that grueling Empire State line. Is it nice up there? Is there, like, a bar or anything?
Tiny caroline went ice skating for the first time yesterday. One of the first things she had to do was learn to stand up on the ice without help after having fallen down. Molly and I were on the sidelines watching as she stumbled and fumbled her way to her feet, with a big adult skating instructor next to her doing nothing.
It was heartbreaking, like watching a foal stand for the first time. She stood up, though.
14 - I really like Top of the Rock. It has glass panels preventing you from jumping instead of the iron bars at the ESB so you have a perfect, unobstructed view. It's also very spacious (the ESB is way too crowded), the line is much shorter (you can reserve tickets ahead of time online, too, I think), and you get a really pretty view of the Empire State Building which, obviously, you don't get when you're standing on top of it. I don't know what the bar situation is - we've usually done our drinking before or after going.
You're probably looking out your window at citrus trees in your backyard, too.
I'll be restrained, and not point out that by any reasonable definition (earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, desert, mountain lions) most of California is uninhabitable. Pretty, but uninhabitable.
And your last post on choices made me very, very sad. I haven't got anything really useful to say about it; I'm just sad.
9: I prefer jackhammers and tortured cats to Christmas music. And I've already started hearing it in stores, which make me want to buy a gun.
I prefer jackhammers and tortured cats
But considering the source, this is actually saying very little.
Someone's not getting invited to my Carols 'n Whiskey party this year.
You have a Carols n' Whiskey party? Um, can I come? I only get to sing carols when I go to the annual four-hour Mormon potluck-sing-a-long hosted by friends of my grandmother, which I haven't done for six years.
18: No citrus, just avocados. Am considering getting a potted lime for the patio, though. The tropical flowers whose names I don't know are still blooming, too.
19: Thanks, I was feeling down and irritated at Mr. B. for reasons I shouldn't actually blog about. I think it'll be fine, but I too am sad at the probable difficulty and possible impossibility of landing a t-t job around here in the next couple years. Maybe I'm just being negative, though; who can say.
I don't really, but I could! It sounds like an m-party if there ever was one.
You totally should. A whisky & carols party where someone actually can play the piano would be really fun. But only if there were an absolute moratorium on making people who can't sing feel bad.
Particularly people who can't sing well, but nonetheless do. Loudly. And enthusiastically. And who know the words to the second and third verse of most of the carols, leaving them singing solo, because no one else does.
(Not that I know anyone like that.)
Me either, especially not when I'm drunk.
This sounds like a grand time. My roommates would murder me in my sleep, though.
Anyone else have a piano?
My honey does. I'm not sure I should start volunteering his place for parties though.
Anyone else have a piano
(Raises hand) -- I'm a willing host but all the way out in Jersey.
I have a really out of tune piano and a house built for parties. Let's have it out thisaway.
Bonus: we can all go to the beach the next day.
impossibility of landing a t-t job around here
Y'know, I read this and my first thought was "How hard could it be to get a tit job in California?" Then I thought, "Why in the world would B be in the market for a tit job?"
Then: "Oh, tenure track."
That's funny, apo.
I went for a haircut the other day and the guy showed me around the salon, drawing attention to the fact that they've got someone on staff who does botox and the like. I sorta went "mm" but inside I was thinking, "please. As if."
28: Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying - sealed in the stone-cold tomb.