Tom & Alissa

Did you know we’re over 200 days into 2007? Past the midpoint. Whew.

I led a mostly-uneventful weekend; on Friday night I worked on our thank-yous and watched Friends With Money (great acting, intriguing, but in the end unsatisfactory; still, not a waste of time) and more of Six Feet Under. I ate random things from the refrigerator in an attempt to not buy groceries last week while Tom was working. I eat very strangely when he’s not around, because I don’t really want to cook for myself (a lot of mess and time), so I end up eating a lot of cucumbers, noodles, and sauted canned cannellini beans. Not necessarily a bad thing.

I got to go running on Saturday morning, finally, because the weather was cool and lovely, and after I got home, showered, and worked on more thank-yous, I headed out to DUMBO to take some pictures. Though the trip was unsatisfactory in the way of photos (I took less than 200), I did have several serendipitous discoveries:
• Firstly, I bought an iced coffee at Retreat and was bowled over; it was the best iced coffee I think I’ve ever had, and I drink a lot of iced coffee. Perfect balance between roast-y and sweet without being either bitter or sweetened. Splendid. I’ll be back.
• I stumbled on the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is funky and lies between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, two of my favorite places in the city. Grassy and uncrowded, even on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it’s filled with random installation art, smells like you’re at the ocean because of the salty East River water, and has a lovely view of east Manhattan. I think they do movies there as well all summer.
• I made an attempt to walk the Promenade, but because I’m an idiot I completely missed it and was walking along an ugly street facing some Port Authority buildings, talking to my mom on the phone, when I looked up and saw the Promenade waaaaay overhead, above the BQE, which I’d been walking beneath. Nice.
• But, I happily turned left at the end of the road and found myself at the corner of Joralemon and Willow in Brooklyn Heights, which is really one of the loveliest neighborhoods in all of New York. It’s weirdly isolated, lacking necessities like cafes, or it would top my list of places to live in NYC. But, it does strikingly resemble Beacon Hill in Boston.
Pictures will show up soon, very soon.

I got home Saturday night and went grocery shopping out of desperate need. Over the rest of Six Feet Under and many more thank-yous, I had a dinner of gourmet tortilla chips, fresh salsa, and pan-fried quail (strange, but good), and finished it off with just a couple of spoonfuls of creme brulee ice cream. Delectable.

Tom got home around 5:30am on Sunday (he was driving cast and crew back and forth from set most of the night) and slept a few hours, and after a pit-stop for pumpkin-raspberry-cream-cheese muffins and coffee at our favorite Brooklyn bakery, we went to church, and happily, our dear Angela was there. We had lunch at Philip Marie afterwards with her, our storyboard artist friend Jeaney; our longtime friend, groomsman, and going-off-to-seminary friend Darin; and my former roommate and rockstar architect Katie. A good Sunday brunch, which lasted late into the afternoon. We came home and watched two disks worth of Arrested Development and laughed ourselves silly over smoked mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and pretzel chips.

Very excited; tomorrow night we’re seeing our favoritest band ever - Nickel Creek - with Fiona Apple(!) in a Central Park venue! Tom’s shooting nights this week, but he took tomorrow off so we could go together. Who would miss the farewell tour?

Ah, the good life.