Brianne Blogs?

A few years ago, I sent this video around in am e-mail, but thought I’d post it here for all to enjoy. And even if you got it in an e-mail, you will still love it this second time. I know you will. Meghan, Lisa and I quote this a lot. It’s good stuff.

all of New York City.

You know we’ve all been inside too long during the unseasonably chilly weather as of late when every person in the city hits the park on Memorial Day. In three years I have never seen this many people in Sheeps Meadow. It was madness!

We also saw more street performers in the park than we have ever seen before. Our favorite was this guy from Julliard who was playing “electric bongy things” as we decided to call them. If Meghan and I can ever figure out how to upload the video we took of him, I’ll show it to you. For now, you can use your imagination.

There’s nothing like your first day in the park in great weather. Meghan has been chomping at the bit for the weather to be nice enough and she finally got her wish and got to share it with every other human on the island. The best part was the people watching we did. Laughing at runners and various passers by. Good times.

Don’t worry yourselves, I didn’t confuse the seasons. I’m just very excited because my very good friend Autumn called yesterday to mention that she and her husband are trying to plan a visit to Brinny (what she has called me since college) in New York in October!!!

How excited am I about this possibility?! Words cannot say! There are very few things in the world that I like more than I like Autumn! And to have her here for some quality time would be fantastic. Since I have left Oklahoma, we haven’t had much time together. Every time I am in Oklahoma we try to see one another, but we never have very long as we have to work around her work schedule and my wedding schedule of that week (as crapping weddings seem to be the reason for my returns in the last few years-although as Autumn was one of the weddings, I won’t complain too much because I did get to see her that trip!).

This is Autumn and her husband. And I really hope that things work out and I can see them both in October. Autumn, there are only three words to describe what Brinny and Autumn in New York would be: Living the Dream!

Less than a year ago, I bought my first ever digital camera. I finally decided to join the rest of the world and get one. She was beautiful. Light pink and could zoom like a champion. How I loved her. We had a great summer. She took some great wedding photos.

The rest of the summer and fall went by uneventfully with my camera doing a great job taking great pictures for me. And then came the Oklahoma party. She gave it the old college try, but not too many electronics can overcome a fall from 6 feet onto ceramic tiles.

Before the fall:

After the fall:

Do you see the lovely fog that has settled over Jeff and Maren? Yeah, that’s courtesy of the ailing camera. From November on she has slowly but surely lost function. She stopped being able to zoom, sometimes she won’t turn on or off and lately she has gone blurry.

So, I finally decided to get a new digital camera since Lisa is coming back in June, mom and dad are visiting in July and we are in for a big and busy summer of good picture taking opportunities. As i want none of these events to be blurry or cloudy, I got a new one yesterday. He’s a real beauty. He’s smooth and fancy and works so well. I even did the smart adult thing and got the 2 year service plan which does cover me dropping it from heights and most other accidents that can befall him while he is in my possession. Thank you Best Buy. Let this camera buying frequency be a lesson to you all. If you drink during events you would like photos of, invest in a service plan. I am almost positive it will buy me my next new camera after some sort of accidental catastrophe with this one.

 P.S. Special shout-out to the awesome best buy worker who answered my questions, got me my new lovely camera, a new memory card and a 2 years service plan and checked me out herself and had me back on the street in under 15 minutes. Quite a feat at the 62nd and Broadway Best Buy on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks! 

Back in November/December, there was a Broadway strike. The stagehands went on strike. I supported this strike. The stagehands don’t make tons of money, so bully for them. However, the strike lasted for a long time and caused several really good shows to close because they lost all the holiday revenue they depend on to carry them through the rest of the year. These shows were some of our favorites of all time:

The Drowsy Chaperone

 The Color Purple

 These were not the only casualities of the strike. The show closings seriously upset Brianne and Meghan and we have since then (barring Rent viewings) been having our own personal Broadway strike. It wasn’t exactly intentional, we just felt very ho hum and a little disappointed in “the B-way”.

I am happy to report, however, that the strike is over. We saw “Sunday in the Park with George” on Thursday. We like it, but did not like the main guy who got nominated for the Tony this year. Go figure. Then, to really come back from our strike with a vengeance, we saw the farcical play “Boeing, Boeing”. It was great. So funny, as farces tend to be. Almost overshadowing this great show was the almost greater audience. Sometimes you get a really crappy audience. A bunch of geri’s or younger kids or people who are just not into the show like you are can really suck the life out of the show. Or, if you’re really unlucky, two ladies have a fight in the front row in the middle of an important scene taking place about 6 feet from them. And I quote:

Lady 1: Shhhhh!!!!

Lady 2: Don’t you shhhh! me!

And a few more “whispered” loud enough for all of the audience and cast backstage to hear. Good times. Anyway, Friday’s audience was great. The whole first row of the balcony was a group of teenagers who loved loved loved every last minute. They were sitting on the edge of their seats and hanging on every word. They were laughing, clapping, looking at eachother and lauging it up throughout the entire thing. It was great. They looked like they were at their first Broadway show and they were living the dream! It was great to watch. Almost as good as the show!

It’s good to be back with the singing and dancing that Meghan and I know and love! We missed you, Broadway. Try not to screw up again!

For those of you who follow the ole blog, you might be thinking that I lied when I guaranteed a loss for the Yankees Wednesday. However, I feel confident in the fact that the Yankees only won because we weren’t there. Zak was sick as a dog today and his original plan for the day was to spend as much time as possible in bed between vomitting.

However, we convinced him to come to our house and eat some food and try to have some social contact on his birthday. So, we skipped the Yankee game (you are welcome Yanks) and had a nice time with Zak.

I am happy to report that his favorite part of this birthday was the Sister Act singing birthday card we got for him. If we had known how much he would have loved that, we would have skipped the actual gift part of it all. Happy Birthday, Zak. We’re sorry you were miserable for most of it, but glad you were able to rebound in the end! Go Yankees 8-0!

Happy 26th birthday Zaie Risingee! Since Zak has never read this blog, this birthday greeting will just go out into the void, but now the rest of the readers will know as well. And happy birthday to Meghan’s mom!

Happy 30th Anniversary to my parents. This is them at Maren’s wedding last July. When I was doing the math just now to figure out how long they have been married, I thought I had made a math mistake as I can’t believe that they’ve been married for 30 years. Especially since I am the oldest it means that one day not too far from now I will be approaching 30 years old. It’s a horrifying thought! Nonetheless, happy anniversary mom and dad!

Zak and Brianne love sports. Football, basketball, baseball, tennis and etc. Living in NYC has given us a great opportunity to see some great sporting events. Namely Yankee games and The US Open Tennis tournament. The only problem with this is that Zak and I seem to be the kiss of death to our favorite teams/athletes. Last summer the Yankees lost every game that we went to, including the come behind to tie in the ninth and send it to extra innings (14 to be exact) before losing effort. Bummer.

And our US Open track record isn’t better. We got there early and so we watched a juniors doubles match. The duo we chose to cheer for was ranked 8th and was ahead when we started watching. Cue their downfall. Yep, they lost to their unranked opponent. Sorry girls, it’s our fault. Then, because we hadn’t learned our lesson, we headed over to the big stadium to ruin some more dreams. Namely those of Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. Yep, that’s right, not only can we bring down little girls, we can take down champions! Serena Williams was playing Justine Henin, a tough matchup, but a severe loss in straight sets. And I’m not talking hard fought straight sets, I’m talking 6-1 and 6-0. It was bad. It hurt. And I fear that Zak and I were responsible. Responsible, but not done with our days work and we still had Nadal to dispatch. Now, Nadal was supposed to win his match. He was playing a guy whose name I can’t remember but who Zak and I call Pirate Agassi. He lookes like Andre Agassi and a pirate had a baby. Or like Andre Agassi as a pirate, but I prefer the image of the pirate and Andre mating. Anyway, this bad boy was long. Nadal fought hard, but Zak and Brianne were not to be bested. Oh no, you cannot win when we are there cheering for you. We won’t have it! It is for this reason that we are sorry to all Yankee fans everywhere for tomorrows inevitable loss to Baltimore.

Since you will all hear a lot about Ezra and “the Ezras” (his family), I thought I’d give you a picture so you can imagine the right thing. Enjoy this photo of super cute Ezra. I’m not sure that you’ll ever meet a more pleasant five year old! He’s quality people! Also, I’m pretty sure that this is a HIPPA violation since he’s a patient and I have now posted a picture, so do me a favor and don’t alert the authorities!