Not native, never will be

My two readers already know this, but as of this Friday, July 31st, I will say good-bye to New York City, and subsequently, this blog. I had the best intentions of staying in New York for at least two years to experience life on the East Coast: the golden autumn, snowy winter, sprightly spring, and sweltering summer. The pizza, bagels, wings, and Shake Shack. And the subway trains and cab rides, the masses of people and the tall buildings.I managed to do a lot of the things I wanted during my time here, including:

• An off-Broadway play, "God of Carnage" (of which I had always meant to blog about and which actually won a Tony award this year)
• a ballet production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Lincoln Center
• a New Yorker Festival event
• a Mets game
• a NY Rangers game
• an air guitar regional championship
• the AIDS Walk
• visits to the Guggenheim, Natural History Museum, MOMA
• Afternoons talking bikes at Continuum Cycles
• 2 trips to Fire Island
• 2 trips to Naples, Fl
• 1 trip to London
  
• a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
• Many visits to Pegu Club and to our local Community Food and Juice (which was blighted by a kitchen fire what seems like many months ago, boo! Re-open before we leave, please?)
• Many bike rides through Manhattan, Central Park and along the Hudson
  

All fun activities that made me fall in love with this city. But I also spent the whole year alternately wishing each of my respective home cities, San Francisco and New York, could be a little more like the other. Unfortunately, I think I will always suffer from wanderlust. Thank you, New York. I guess if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.

Midsummer review

How does that saying go again? If a blog (with very few readers to begin with) is left unattended in cyberspace, it not only dies, but also doesn't make a sound? That has unfortunately become the fate of this blog. Perhaps if I had a more functional MacBook this past year (one that, in fact, functions), I probably would have been more diligent with my posts.

I would have followed up on our fabulous trip to London, where we admired many a fixie in Clerkenwell, gorged on the gluttonous bacon butties and chips at Smith of Smithfield's (SOS).
drank a Fruli here and there,and strolled along the Thames.I would have also summed up our second trip to Fire Island. The weather wasn't as great this time around, but the ferry ride was still funand it was great to see the same endearing wagons awaiting us at the Seaview Ferry Terminal.There have also been picnics on the fire escape, complete with pitchers of Pimm's.Combined with last weekend's Fourth of July feast of smoky chipotle pork burgers, sweet potato fries, buttered corn on the cob with cayenne pepper, BBQ baked beans, a homemade peach and blueberry crostata,and our new puppy, Lucie, it's safe to say we've been busy and up to good things in New York.

Ye Olde English Holiday 2009

We sneaked away to London for a bit of a transatlantic holiday. Three initial fashion observations:

(1) Unbeknownst to me, Brit blokes love American Eagle shirts and are rocking a popped collar look.
(2) Ladies, buy your floral print dresses and accessories now before the English roses move on to the next hot trend. (Try not to look like Elaine from Seinfeld, circa 1993).
(3) Leggings. Still.

Pictures and day-by-day posts anon!

Eastern Destination #1: Fire Island, Suffolk County, NY*

This west coast girl can get used to east coast beaches! Being on Fire Island is like being in an episode of Barefoot Contessa -- sans Jeffrey, my black convertible Mercedes, and my astonishingly handsome gay bridge partner. The sea grass and cedar fences that dot the soft sand dunes along the Atlantic are a sweet contrast to the rugged and craggy beaches of the California coast. It's the perfect place to escape the hussle and bustle of Manhattan.Thanks to Evan's friend's parents, we had a chance to experience living at their spacious and well-appointed beach house for 4 days. We left the city Friday late morning and took the 20-minute ferry ride from Bayshore, Long Island to the Fire Island Seaview Terminal. There, we were greeted by cute wagons that families leave tied up near the terminal to cart their belongings to their (2nd/3rd/4th/?) homes. Carfree, it's the perfect place to: ride beach cruisers,
play with Molly, one of the sweetest dogs in the whole wide world,watch out for jellyfish, and find my dream house. Come Monday night, I was sad to see the wagons all tied up and to say good-bye to the last hurrah of the summer, but there's always next year.Fire Island in late August: as Ina would say, "how bad can that be?"
*Technically, my first east coast destination outside of the city is Paramus, NJ, which is surprisingly just as blogworthy, but for different reasons. Ha.

Things found this weekend

Hot salty beef!!! (Vegetarians, avert eyes now.)

An Edenic grocery store

A Zagat Award of Distinction bagel shop

And a home! :-)

More details soon. xoxo

Hot time, summer in the city*

How foolish is it to move to a city that you've never really visited in the summer? As a child of parents who could be considered positively British with their constant preoccupation with the weather (do not let that richly caramel colored Filipino skin fool you), this may not be one of my most well-crafted ideas.

In any case, I'll find out tomorrow morning. I'm off for 5 days to hoof it around town in search of a neighborhood, an apartment and possibly, a job to support the whole process. Among other things, I'm equipped with a book that's à propos for a trip to NYC and, er, nylons. (Thanks goodness for East Coast friends to help you stay professionally polished.)

Updates forthcoming. xoxo

*If you can complete that lyric without mumbling or inventing words, I'll bake you a fresh batch of these.