DUMBO IS STILL A SILLY NAME

over the weekend we took advantage of a supremely gorgeous sunny saturday afternoon and walked across the brooklyn bridge, along with all two million of the tourists here in new york city, but oh hey! it was actually rather nice. i'm slowly getting over my impatience with crowds. slowly but surely. this is real personal growth here, people. 

once we were across the bridge and after we made our usual stops for ice cream at the brooklyn ice cream factory and a ride or two around jane's carousel, we decided to wander around DUMBO for a bit, to see what all it was about. 

DUMBO stands for Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass, and it's basically the sliver of neighborhood under the manhattan bridge between brooklyn heights and downtown brooklyn. it's just a handful of streets, it's probably the smallest neighborhood in all of new york city that has its own silly acronym name (maybe TriBeCa comes a close second). when DUMBO first started "gentrifying" (really it was a rather quick metamorphosis from a bunch of old warehouses and jehovas witness watchtower buildings into the loft residences and trendy cafés you have there now), we were living in brooklyn heights just a few blocks up. we used to always scoff at how silly "DUMBO" sounded and "but there are no trains up there!" and "oh, that'll never take off..." and then there you have it. we're a bunch of idiots, and the previously sketchy brooklyn waterfront has now become the perfect little getaway for young families and bridal parties needing a good backdrop for their wedding photos. ;) shows what we know! 

anyway. and now for the photo portion of this blog post:

△△△ i couldn't pass up taking this photo of my twin boys and their twin green drinks. however. i WOULD like it known, just for the record, that huck is drinking water. and how gross is mountain dew, really. i just can't do it.

△△△ of all the water towers in new york city, this water tower has got to be my favorite. and that's saying something, as i tend to fall in love with every water tower i ever come across. i'm a water tower floozy. 

△△△ in one of my grander parenting moments, i taught huck the official ins and outs of flashing the peace sign in situationally appropriate . . . situations(?). i was so proud. i'd been trying to get him to say "you got it, dude!" a la michelle tanner for weeks but apparently he doesn't consider that culturally relevant enough and therefore refuses to cooperate. how rude! 

△△△ would you just . . . ugh. what am i supposed to do with that boy! i might have to eat him, he's that cute. 

△△△ those are mine! ALL MINE! what a world.

△△△ the other day i was talking to a friend who has twin baby boys. she was telling me, "i don't care if their individual personalities are squashed, i just want them to wear matching smocked bubble suits, okay?" to which i agreed, "i know what you mean! i just want huck to grow up to be the buster to my lucille, is there really something so wrong with that?" and the thing is . . . . yes there is and no i'm only kidding but yeah okay i stand by what i said. anyway. henryboy.

(yes i am kidding! gosh!)

the end.

oh! except to say . . . if you're watching season four of arrested development on netflix, it only gets really good in the last two episodes and then you are just left hanging. hanging like a motherboy ball if you know what i mean. but it's WORTH IT. my eternal crush on buster bluth just keeps on getting stronger. 

p.s. jane's carousel last year, 

the official holbrooklyn tour, for those in need,

the tourists tour of nyc i posted once a million years ago, 

and two random babble posts i forgot to link last week on account of forgetfulness: 

forever 21 yadda yadda

and great fourth of july beach party ideas 

happy tuesday!

TO MY BABY DADDY

happy father's day to the dead sexiest red headed dad i know. 

it's a pleasure making babies with you, b. 

here's to ten more! ;)

FROM THE AROUND-HERE-LATELY DEPARTMENT

a lot of photos of absolutely nothing at all are coming at you right now because that's what it is, kids. 

▲▲▲ up first, big bird in central park and sargent huck, reporting for playground duty! i took these photos on the first warm day of the entire year (shorts! my baby in shorts!) and i swear the sunshine was powerful enough that day to turn my solar power back on. there was a literal bounce in my step. since then the weather been acting all confused and disoriented. mother nature, should we be worried about you? have you had a stroke? it is june outside and today i needed a sweater. 

▲▲▲ this boy is really, really loved. 

▲▲▲ boys in the dirt. too many of our good friends are moving out of the city these days and it's really got to stop. 

 

▲▲▲ huck! ohhh huck. these days with huck are the greatest, he is the light of everybody's life in this whole city it seems, he is just the coolest kid ever. two has been so much fun. he's on a major pirate kick lately, always on the lookout for enemy ships and slices of pizza to pillage and plunder. he is also singing. ALL. DAY. LONG. he has an amazing memory for song lyrics and his favorite thing is singing with his mama as we stroll down the sidewalk. oh the looks we get. he makes even the hardest new yorkers smile. every night when i'm putting him to bed he says, "snuggle?" which is huck for "i'd like to put my arm down your shirt while i fall asleep, please." and so i let him! because you are only two once.

▲▲▲ five dogs in that stroller. f-i-v-e.

▲▲▲ the hat guy is out! i love that hat guy but he is too pricey.

▲▲▲ chelsea on a sunny afternoon, and riding turtles, as you do.

▲▲▲ i've only worn those pink suede wedges once, but dang if i didn't feel like an amazon warrior woman the entire time. worth remembering: stupid shoes are fine for walking in, but the minute you have to brave the stairs down to the subway you are sca-rewed.

▲▲▲ cute.

▲▲▲ SPEAKING OF CUTE! so, huck is big into having his daddy sing "god bless america" while he runs through this little kid-sized flag over and over like a bull. i don't know where that one came from, but the way he informs brandon that he'd like to play it is by shouting, "BLESS A ERICA?" and it is just beyond my wildest dreams.

▲▲▲ we had roberta's pizza at madison square eats a couple of weeks ago and it has been haunting me ever since. OH MAH GOSH. apparently roberta's is in bushwick and the lines get crazy. and i just want it written here for time and all eternity that roberta's IS the best pizza in ALL of the city and that is all there is to it. and so it is written.

▲▲▲ this was a LONG time ago, but while we're on the subject: we finally went to georgetown cupcake in soho and they are better than, like, all of the cupcakes of ever put together. look at this! best pizza and best cupcake in one post! this is turning into such a serviceable blog, who'd have seen that one coming?

▲▲▲ lastly, in case you are wondering what an eight-day sinus headache looks like, it looks like this.  sitting down in the middle of every day tasks in case your head is going to fall off. (i've been to a doctor, there's no infection, but i have a prescription for antibiotics for just-in-case.) and i'm wearing my rain boots in the house because? 

▲▲▲ huck! the end.

THE BIG APPLE BBQ + THE IRRESPONSIBLE SUMMER OF MY SOUL

i'm crazy in the middle of the irresponsible summer of my soul just now.

oh you know what i mean.

i've never been a gemini, i have no way of knowing, but lately i am wondering if this is what it might feel like to be a gemini? i am talking inner conflict here! there's the one side of me that dislikes smiling politely at people and making small talk in grocery store check out lines (that would be my city side), and then there's this other side of me that just wants some danged wheat fields already. the sundress, the unbrushed hair, the farm house with the blue pick-up, and all those old horses and chickens and fresh eggs and the day's menu planned around whatever's ripe in the garden out back. the whole thing. long stalks of wheat that drag through my fingers while i'm out on thoughtful walks to nowhere, and sunlight! ohhhh sunlight for ages, endless quiet sunlight on my face and arms and no tall buildings for interruption anywhere in sight! freckles for days. and lemonade! there's lots of lemonade in this pastoral vision. and plenty of room in my head for these thoughts that otherwise get pushed to the side to actually develop into sentences for once, maybe even one day whole paragraphs! aprons dusted in flour. what am i baking, it really doesn't matter, just  . . . why not, mason jars too. shall i keep going?

i'm also realizing just how much my ornery side needs to be fed in order for it to be kept in check so i can keep on being a "good girl." if you know what i mean.

like, i really want a tattoo. i know, i know. but that's the point! it's haunting me. i want something stupid and borderline meaningless and very permanent, and i want it somewhere really, really obvious. like right on my forearm, impossible to miss. that would be so dumb. it's such a bad idea. but oh isn't that the point! i am a thirty-year-old and i want to be making decisions like i'm sixteen. i want to do potentially dumb things. not too potentially dumb, but just level-2 kind of dumb, maybe. nothing i'll really regret but something i'll regret just enough to shake things up a bit. it's really not the end of the world if i do get a tattoo and so it's tempting me in that kind of empty way you know what i mean? oh how sad the rebel fantasies of a (not always so) good mormon. ;) so maybe i should just pierce my nose instead. oh wouldn't that just be really stupid and grand?! an "eff you!" to all my stupid worries already about my poor sad nose . . .  oh i'd like that. that's such a really bad awesomely good idea.

"i'm just feeling boxed in!" i exclaimed to brandon one warm evening over the weekend while joni mitchell popped and fizzed on the record player. "hey, you don't have to tell me!" brandon said back. because that brandon, he always knows. ever the poet in tax attorney's clothing, that's my husband for you.

i am just itchy. for things rather unimportant both in the long run and in the short run, but that's why i like it. it's the irresponsible summer of my soul! just like i said. i do think it's leading to good things. i'll take it as a sign that i'm still "on" in here at least, and maybe just remembering that will be enough. it feels really damn good, in an itchy type of way.

over the weekend we stopped in at the big apple bbq, which goes on once a summer at madison square park. it's so much barbecue. soooo much blasted barbecue! and it was such a metaphor FOR MY LIFE. (i am being uncharacteristically silly about things!) (hah!) my southern friend from louisiana with her big southern drawl was there and there was all this pulled pork and pickles and the summer sun in the middle of the big city, but if you squinted real hard it could very well have been someone's back yard in the middle of nowhere off a dusty side road and in some cosmic way it was exactly what i needed. 

i can't have it all. except for sometimes. when i can.

(i'm pretty sure anyway.)

a special thank you to the checketts who let us come and mooch off their bbq passes. WE LOVE YOU, CHECKETTS! in all caps that one because it is truth. and i'm sorry again mary martha that your louisiana drawl always brings out my latent paternal south carolina drawl, i swear i'm not doing it on purpose, it's so sad and embarrassing. my inner pretentious madonna accent-sponge just happens to be an ozark hillbilly, that's all. ;)