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Posts Tagged ‘Coney Island’

That’s Right: I Hung With The Polar Bears

This was amazing.

Seriously.

I’ve done a few adventure-seeking-ish things in my life (bungee jumping, hangliding, riding motorcycles, scuba diving)…but this one was definitely among my favorites.

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Weekend Snapshots

As it turns out, everyone in our family enjoys a day off spent in the company of Jon Stewart.

(Fridays are so much fun when Dad tags along for lunch.)

We met up with some family members at Quatorze Bis, on the UES, for “Passover” dinner (as in, we used Passover as a nice excuse to get together and eat French food).

Quatorze Bis is somewhere I was initially skeptical of – NY Mag describes it as a place where “Joan Didion rubs shoulders with Erica Jong,” and it all sounded a bit too polished for me – but once night falls the place takes on a lovely, mellow atmosphere, and the classic bistro dishes (I had the house specialty half chicken with herbs and goat cheese salad) are great.

We spent Saturday morning taking some family photos with Ari Moshayedi (who took some of our very favorite pics for us shortly after Indy was born)…

…and then I headed up the Hudson again to look at more blossoms, this time in the backyards of houses we were considering. (Pretty garden, right?)

On Sunday, we shot a segment in Coney Island (Kendrick was the guest videographer, it being Easter Sunday and all). He wore his favorite custom Converse, and I wore…

…a bathing suit. In April. More on this in a mo’. (The suit, by the way, is Huit.)

This was fun.

Oh, and Kendrick won us a new family member. I am afeared he is not long for this world, but am doing my very best to perk the little guy up.



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Weekend Snapshots

(Any weekend that starts out at John’s Pizzeria is bound to be a good one.)

The #1 thing I was excited about this weekend was seeing Hangover 2, and the degree of horribleness of that movie was nothing short of heartbreaking. It is exactly the same as the first movie. Exactly. To the point where all of the characters need to keep remarking upon how weird it is that everything is exactly the same, but never actually halt the action to deal with the fact that they are 100% re-living an experience that was utterly implausible in the first place.

Still sorta funny, though. And I will watch Bradley Cooper do anything (big kiss to Todd Phillips for the slow-mo shots).

Post-movie, we decided to walk up 5th Ave, towards Serendipity. I knew there’d be a wait…but an hour and a half for a banana split was a bit much, so we continued on our way uptown to Big Daddy’s…

…where Kendrick was attacked by wayward birthday balloons.

On Saturday night, we discovered Angry Birds about a year after the rest of the global population. This is a MAJOR PROBLEM, because we cannot stop playing it. We sat in bed trading off until very, very late on Saturday, and then continued our path of destruction on the train to Coney Island the next morning.

Seriously, I can’t stop. Somebody help me stop.

I wore this sort of ridiculous thing to Coney Island because I’m trying to prevent myself from developing something called “the mask of pregnancy,” which is a temporary facial discoloration brought on by fluctuating hormones (and made worse by the sun). I also wore it because I love hats.

As it turns out, Kendrick possesses a bizarre amount of knowledge about Coney Island history, and so he did a bit of regaling. Present-day Coney Island, it seems, is built on the site of a theme park called “Dreamland,” which contained structures like an Elephant Hotel and burned to the ground in 1911 (before it ever opened) when a fire started in an exhibit called “Hell Gate.” The park as it had been originally conceived of – amusement for the upper classes – was never rebuilt, and Coney Island ended up going in a decidedly more freak-shows-and-carny-rides direction that ushered in a popular fascination with “lowbrow” attractions.

In other Coney Island news:

I won a prize. (Balloon toss.)

Do not like.

Like very much (Mozzarepas & fried oreos).

Sunday night we had a picnic up on the rooftop with Stephen and Dave featuring Dave’s guacamole, my guava sangria, and Luke’s Lobster takeout.

Perfect weekend; perfect ending.



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Saturday / Coney Island

Saturday was Coney Island Day: always an excellent day for us, and one that we will likely be repeating a couple more times before fall hits (most certainly for the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival over Labor Day weekend, totallylookingforwardtoityay).

Coney Island is surprisingly easy to get to: about an hour on the N or Q trains from most points in Manhattan (the R has too many stops; don’t take it), and once you’re there, you’re there. Like, right in the middle of total and utter bliss.

My Coney Island Must-Dos:

- Ride the Spook-o-Rama

- Jump around in the water fountain/palm tree-thing on the beach with the kids

- Stop into Ruby’s Old Tyme Bar & Grill (on the boardwalk) for a beer and fabulous jukebox action

- Eat a Nathan’s hot dog with sauerkraut

- Play that dart-throwing game (I won Lucy’s new best friend Louis, pictured below), Skee-Ball, and Dance Dance Revolution

- Embarrass self at Whack-A-Mole (score: seven)

- Visit Coney Island Craft Lagers to learn how to home-brew a dry-hopped pilsner (buy them HERE)

- Check out the Circus Sideshow

Clockwise from top left: On the N; Kendrick in Ruby’s; at Nathan’s, waiting for my dog; Skee-Ball; Coney Island Pilsner; my boy Louis (won from throwing darts with incredible, spot-on accuracy).

Snippets & Joy:

Coney Island! from Jordan Reid on Vimeo.



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