Spend a Couple Minutes »Turtle Water Park

What, September already?! While I love Fall, the end of Summer is still a little sad and one thing I’ll be missing is weekly visits to McCarren Park’s Turtle Water Park. It’s a small kid playland, hidden and unnoticed by most others that live around here (unless you’re there really early and sharing with a few sleeping drunk men).

Van, a big fan of water, loves it and I can see it becoming one of those halcyon early-childhood memories he cherishes many years from now–one of those fuzzy experiences that nag at the back of your mind and you wonder if it ever really happened or if it was just your childhood imagination… Or one of those spots that look so small when you return with an adult’s point of view.

Look at me, I’m getting sentimental about it for the grown up him 🙂

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Posted on September 3, 2011

Drinks »Cocoa Bar

228 7th Avenue, Brooklyn

An iced hot chocolate is more than an oxymoron – it’s a very special thing.

It’s the rich. snooty older cousin to chocolate milk and Cocoa Bar in Park Slope mixes a mean one with chunky high end chocolate and creamy whole milk.

The pleasant cafe also offered lots of cakes and other chocolate treats.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

Spend a Couple Hours »Prospect Park Zoo

450 Flatbush Ave, Prospect Park

The city offers so much for babies and kids.. so long as you can manage getting from A to B with baby, a days worth of stuff, stroller and sanity.

But nothing helps get you out of your comfort zone better than a new, adventurous friend, so thanks Rachel and Spike for inviting Van and I on a day long excursion (and our first time with the stroller solo on subway) to the lovely little Prospect Park Zoo!

The park is intimate and small, just like I like them. Kids get to see all the animals pretty close up, and as you can see, Van’s reaction to seeing a real live monkey for the first time was priceless.

There is a great petting zoo complete with food to feed the llamas, sheep and goats as well as a wooden milking station that kids were queuing up for.

The sea lions get center stage in their giant pool and we were there just in time for a feeding, which Van specifically woke up from a hard earned nap to watch.

My favorite though, had to be the Pallas Cat, which looks like a real life version of Grizabella. She was elusive (hence no photo) but it was amazing to see the line of babies go nuts when she made an appearance.

This is an excellent park for young kids, not too big or exhausting with the beauty of Prospect Park just outside its walls for additional strolling.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

Style Icons: Female »Julie Newmar

Catwoman!

As long as my household is in Batman mode, enjoying the zany, still ahead of it’s time sitcom during dinner, I might as well carry on with the theme and give praise to the gorgeous Julie Newmar who leads purring sexuality and glamour to the role of Catwoman.

Her wild eyebrows, her purrfect undefinable accent, her henchmen in furry tiger striped suit jackets, her insistence on being a lady even as she plans dastardly crimes, her jumpsuit (which Newmar made herself!), those cute dimples, there’s just so much to adore about her!

She’s still a knockout today and has been a muse to Theirry Mugler as well as credited with beautifying parts of LA with her investment properties (and her beautiful smile).

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Posted on September 1, 2011

Songs »Got a Hold on Me

By Christine McVie (1984)

Got a Hold on Me is often mistaken as a Fleetwood Mac song but it’s pure McVie.
Shunning the spotlight for the past many years, she left is this lovely adult contemporary love song behind before taking the high road to peaceful living.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

Desserts »Julia’s Best Banana Bread on the Planet

Kahekili Highway, Wailuku, HI

How, you may wonder, did I end up eating a slice of Julia’s Best Banana Bread from a green beach side shack in Hawaii?

No, there was no last minute flight to Maui to escape Irene but we are lucky enough to have a very generous neighbor with an exciting travel life.

Julia boasts her bread is the best on the planet. It’s a bold statement but I’m not sure that I can disagree.

The loaf is moist as can be and when coupled with a small glass of whole milk (which I probably haven’t had since I was a teenager), wow! Real late night (and again in the early morning) decadence.

Thanks Brad!!

(right photo found here)

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Posted on August 31, 2011

Albums »See What Tomorrow Brings

by Peter Paul and Mary (1965)

Peter Paul and Mary are mostly known for their hits Leaving on a Jet Plane (yay) and Puff the Magic Dragon (ehh) but See What Tomorrow Brings displays the trio’s diversity and their signature beautiful harmonizing.

From the bluesy lament of forbidden love in Tryin’ to Win to the medieval awesomeness of one of my favorites (obviously), Hangman (which of course makes me think of this gallows folk song) SWTB shows range.

I am also happy to find that it’s all refreshingly new to me. Even songs I am familiar with and associate with other singers (like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face which belongs to Roberta Flack) are fun to hear in a new way.

In a prolific 50 year career, this album seems to have almost been forgotten but it is a fine folk experience that deserves to be remebered.

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Posted on August 30, 2011

Drinks »Six Point in Cans

at Your Local Bogeda

I know, Sixpoint cans have been on the shelves for a while now so it’s no big scoop I am sharing with you. Still, we think it’s pretty great that we can crack open a Sweet Action at home.

When we attended a Murray’s cheese and Sixpoint beer tasting, the Sixpoint representative was quite the purist, doubting a day would come when they could stand behind a super market product. I am glad that day has come.

But beware! I’ve found the cost of these beauties fluctuates wildly.

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Posted on August 30, 2011

Hunks »Frank Gorshin as The Riddler

Green Tight Spaz

I’m not sure if my attraction to Frank Gorshin‘s portrayal of The Riddler is one of my strange quirks (like thinking Benjamin Horne was kind of a babe) or if he gives everybody hotpants.

I mean sure if you were dating him and brought him out to dinner to meet your friends, undoubtedly he would be referred to as a total spaz – probably because he’d have made his entrance by exploding a Moldavian friendship cake in a plot to steal a priceless stuffed pachyderm BUT wouldn’t you agree that he’s like a leaner, funner James Cagney type who fills out a pair of green tights just fine?

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Posted on August 29, 2011

Movies »Exit Through the Gift Shop

directed by Banksy (2010)

Even though I trusted all the rave reviews from the press and friends, I wasn’t sure that Exit Through the Gift Shop would capture my interest as I am not a particular street art fanatic.

However, to my surprise, I was drawn into the film which is clever, humorous, and thought provoking and I walked away with a new found admiration for artist and filmmaker, Banksy.

A thoughtful artist so disinterested in the spotlight that he conducts his interviews in “crime witness” fashion – darkened silhouette and altered voice, Banksy is a foil to Thierry Guetta, a French obsessive who loves attention and doesn’t quite seem to “get” even his own art.

The film begins with Guetta shadowing the biggest names in street art but ends with him becoming the rather comical focus as he stumbles into art superstardom Himself (by basically ripping off the style of all the artists he’s met but ignoring the meaning).

There’s a theory going around that the whole thing is a hoax, that Guetta is Banksy’s own creation. While if anyone seems clever enough to pull off such a hoax it would probably be him, Guetta seems far human and real (honestly no one could fake his insane film within the film Life Remote Control). Banksy and Fairey genuinely seems regretful for their role in creating Mr. Brainwash.

Either way, this is a great watch and you can see on Netflix instant.

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Posted on August 29, 2011