The Reyes Report

Monday morning finds Conrad and I recovering from a great weekend at home. We were plan-less on Friday night, so in our “we live in NYC, there must be something free/cheep we want to do” movement, we caught a late show at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade … a comedy club where entrance costs < $10 each.

Saturday was a day for spring cleaning. Our apartment has been dirty … with real dirt. Open windows on a ground-floor apartment of a pretty major NYC road mean lots of street grime may there way onto and through our window screens. Blech. So now that the trees are mostly done spitting out clouds of pollen, it was time for the semi-annual deep clean. It was actually fun because we could see the progress we made. Saturday night, even better, we met up with Kelly, Factor, Marty & Natasha (“Natty Bo Bo” I believe she may soon be nicknamed???) for a little outdoor movie fest. In Raleigh, this would mean about an hour in a parking lot, a 10 minute walk from car to random field laden with camp chairs, and a night under starry skies. In NYC, the rules were simple: “Food allowed; chairs provided.” Nice. You see, in small NYC apartments, there really isn’t room for most people to stock pile those lovely camp chairs. So we took the train to trader joe’s, picked up some snack foods, and walked on down to an empty parking lot where folding chairs were set up facing a painted brick wall … y voila, projectors be envious. The sprinkle of rain showers did not keep us away; I’m sure from the back it was quite the scene with couples nestled together under small umbrellas, determined to watch the movie and have a good time.

Sunday, even better, Amerstdam Ave held it’s 24th annual UWS street festival. This meant from about 75th to 90th, Amsterdam Ave was closed to cars and open to vendors selling grilled corn, giros, hamburgers, hot dogs, Thai food, Indian food, socks, sheets, mops, jewelry … just about anything you may (or may not) need. We wandered up to our Sunday farmer’s market just as the rain really started coming down… so the trip was pretty fast. Sunday ended as Sunday’s should … curled on the couch watching reruns of bad movies (Indiana Jones, the trilogy … I considered it research).

Oh, and I nearly forgot our big event. Whilst cleaning I held up the dusty DVD player Conrad has been “saving” for an unnamed friend. “It’s going,” I said. “But it works!” said he, “fine, we’ll drop it at Salvation Army later today.” But wait. We live in NYC. We stuck a note on it: “Works. Free” and set it on the stoop, the thing was gone in less than 5 minutes … and we saved ourselves a trip to the donation store AND a dust-catcher. Now that’s how the locals roll.