...friends with ninjas.

I really love my friends. My friend Denise Poon forwarded me this important ninja message. Leaving NY is going to be tough. Denise is a really creative fun person and here is her website: Denise Rules.

a trip to the berkshires...

I really had no idea where the Berkshires were before the trip started this morning. For living in NYC for the last 7 years, I'm ashamed that I don't know more about east coast geography. I knew we were going North... which meant "Connecticut or something". WELL, we ended up going further than CT in to MA!

...the Berkshires... it is very touristy by looks of the boutiques and antique shoppes but tons of fun interesting things to do. Shopping for cowgirl clothes in Great Barrington... Norman Rockwell Museum...

The Shaker Village... A trillion little antique shops... A million garden shops... A kajillion cute country cottages... and clean country air. I am now designing my own cottage which will be the perfect mix of country cabin + NYC loft. I've started drafting the plans, and a model will soon follow.

Today I got to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. In addition to a super interesting permanent collection of Rockwell's works, they had a special exhibit on graphic novelists/cartoonists. They also happened to have a cartooning workshop where Karen and I got a chance to do some drawing.
(See below)

drawings below by Karen:

In addition to the workshop, many of the graphic novelists whose works were displayed were at the museum for a book signing. We met a cartoonist Lauren Weinstein who put out a very funny book called "Girl Stories". Check it out!

When I got home I found a lovely photograph from my friend Andy below. He likes to freeze things, so I donated one of my toys that I will no longer need in my office. I knew the dino was too fragile to pack and ship to WA and that Andy would put him to good use. Bye bye Triceratops, Hello Iceratops! Thank you Andy!

It was SUCH a long but fantastic day.

... the day stretch.

Yesterday, Thursday April 10th... the first day in NYC that was warm enough for me to go sleeveless. Well, While in the sun it was warm enough to go sleeveless. How could I not smile on a day like yesterday? The management companies, co-op boards, and movers couldn't keep me down for long.

It was a perfect afternoon to meet up with a friend to walk, chat, and make up silly stories about the other park goers. It was a perfect afternoon to gnaw on ice cream sandwiches that were frozen so solid that they made crunching sounds. It was a perfect afternoon to jump off rocks and stairs, twirl around as if I were in a musical, and feel like a child again.

Although I captured mostly pinks and whites with my camera, Central Park was bursting with blues, yellows and greens as well. The cherry blossoms, magnolias, daffodils, narcissus, forsythia, and azaleas were all so beautiful ... and that is to name just a few obvious ones.

The big boulders radiated heat into the night as the sun set into the skyline of the West Side, making the day stretch just a little longer.

Eek-ez (yikes).

Who would ever know this creature was born out of a meal of fish and chips?

A View.

I love this view from Chinatown.

Courtesy of my friend Winnie.

You can just see the triangular tip of the chrystler building.