You say it's your Birthday

Another year older...

My birthday this year was a lot of fun. I had been purposefully running into a guy that I met at the dog park, hereafter "dog park guy" or DPG for short. I discovered him one day when I was walking my dogs by the Green Cow (neighborhood deli). He looked like he just got out of bed, pants on inside out, messed up hair, yet still attractive. He was walking his dog. There were a group of people with their dogs enjoying the first bout of spring weather clustered outside of the Cow talking. My dogs wanted to say hi to their dogs. So, I walked over. I talked to the group for about 30 minutes. Then we all went our separate ways.

The next week, I ran into him on my way to the dog park. We chatted for a while. I made a mental note of the fact that he said his dog needed to excercise for at least an hour a day... and that he tries to take her to the park each day. THEN, I put my plan into motion. Scheming. Huh. I took my dogs to the park almost every day trying to run into him. Then, a week or so later I did run into him again.

My conversation went something like this:
ME: "Oh, I like your tattoo, where did you get it?"
DPG: "At this place in the city."
ME: "Did you like the place - I was thinking of getting one for my birthday" (subtle hint - perfectly leading him to ask the next question)
DPG: "Oh really, when is your birthday?"
ME: "Tomorrow" (leading to ask the next question)
DPG: "Tomorrow?! What are you going to do for your birthday?"
ME: "I don't have anything planned. It's a Tuesday night and my friends are all married and don't like to go out during the week." (...please ask me to do something....)
DPG: "Well, I am going out to the Spotted Pig in the City. Do you want to come?"
ME: "Wow, sure, that would be fun. Here is my phone number and email address. Let me know what time!"
DPG: "Ok, I'll call you tomorrow"

And thus, I had a date for my birthday. I had fun at 'the pig'. Rubbed elbows with some celebrities (too chicken to talk to them, but caught a few glances). It was a great night.

Beautiful Newark,New Jersey

Many years ago, I came to New York on a vacation. I would have to say it was probably in 1994, or sometime around there. On my visit, I can remember going through Newark - through the train station. I remember thinking what a dirty, scary place Newark was. It could have been that I was young and had never been to New York area before. But, I do think that I wasn't THAT naive.

Reading the paper a few weeks ago, I found out that there is a huge Cherry Blossom festival each year in Newark. I was thinking to myself, wondering how nasty icky Newark could have a Cherry Blossom Festival and decided to make it a plan to go and check it out.

So, over a long holiday weekend, I ventured to Newark. I was a little leary about taking the local Newark subway, but friends of mine told me it would be fine in the day time. So, camera in tow, I headed out.

The Newark subway was much nicer and cleaner than the New York subway. The park was beautiful, and I could have sat and looked at the purple and pink flowers all day. The wind was blowing the petals off the trees and making a carpet of pink and purple on the ground. What a great day.