This Was May

I think one of the best things you can do during the second half of June is finally blog up about everything from the month of May that didn't involve Tennessee, musuems, or fire.

The month kicked off with a Mets game to celebrate Jeff's birthday. I finally got my picture with the Mets dog. She loves her pipe. Don't try taking it from her!

I go to sports games for the chicken fingers. And I buy chicken fingers at Citifield for the pickles.

So there's a player named Brignac?

Let me tell you about a grand Wednesday night in the middle of the month, right after I got back from Tennessee. It started with dinner at Salvation Burger with Bryndee and Lauren

Popcorn pie? Ok!

(fun fact: a few days later there was a big fire at Salvation Burger and it has been closed ever since! Those are the risks of wood fired burgers made manifest.)

And ended with seeing La Sera in Brooklyn at the Market Hotel. La Sera has been one of my favorite bands the last year-ish or two, I find their last three records infinitely re-listenable, so it was just so good to see them for real. 

(Todd and Katy are married)

How much did I like the show? Just look at me! It gave me a Star Wars smile!

Here's a video of La Sera taking a break from the punk and country punk to cover Led Zepplin's Whole Lotta Love. Stick around for (or just skip to) the end to see Todd shredding. For a few records La Sera was basically just ex-Vivian Girl Katy Goodman, but bringing in Todd has infused the music with a loud, fast, out of control, and FUN guitar energy. For me, this is a perfect band.

Ok, moving on. One Saturday Angelique had a few of us over for an oyster luncheon. We sampled four...or six?...different varieties of oysters and all tried to shuck our own oyster. It was a grand time. I'm always up for eating a few oysters, even if I don't know what I'm doing.

One Sunday after church Cameron and Dave led an expedition to go see Manhattanhenge (that's the twice yearly astronomical event where the setting of the sun lines up perfectly with the city's East/West streets). It was a little too cloudy for a good 'henge, but henge-watchers were out in force, hoping to catch that perfect stock image for the next Gothamist post announceing the next Manhattanhenge.

And lastly, another year of tutoring has drawn to a close. Shout out to my boy Christian (who I have been working with since he was in 8th Grade) for getting into BYU-Idaho and to Rudy for his mission call to Brazil! And shout out to Kristin for being the only person tough enough to run Hot Dogs and Homework.

Best Neighborhood Party

Looks like that in my move I've traded ten days of the Feast of San Gennaro for the single afternoon, Puerto Rican Day Parade pre-party known as the 116th Street Festival. 116th between Lexington and Second Avenue and a great length of 3rd Avenue were closed off and the whole thing was packed by locals and visitors all united in a celebration of Puerto Rican pride.

What are these folks gathered around? An electronic boxing bag. You'll see more of that later.

He didn't fall. This is a breakdancing action shot.

Hermano Grande is watching

This woman turned up dancing anywhere I went that music was playing.

There was this electronic boxing bag that was a huge hit. Great big line of people paying to give it a wallop and bigger crowd of spectators.

Biggest line at the festival was for a free sample of McDonalds fries, the Cronuts of East Harlem.

Do not worry. There was a Segway guy there.

The festival was full of enterprising entrepreneurs, lots of people selling cold water bottles and sodas out of coolers, but nothing tops the people that remember to bring out their giant snakes.

Bargaining hard over Emoji pillows

Vigilante recruitment programs in effect. Young Guardian Angel outfit not much less embarrassing than my summertime Boy Scout uniform. At least there's not knee high socks with tassels?

Was there a parade? No. But that's no reason not to show up with a float.

Another popular attraction: Cats behind a fence.

A Four Alarm Tuesday

Tuesday, May 17th I was walking home from tutoring and there were a lot of fire trucks in my neighborhood. The trucks became denser and denser the closer I got to my house and my attitude crept from "wow, so many fire trucks" to "uh oh, so many fire trucks" As I approached the end of 118th at Park (that's my intersection) I was like "Oh good, my building isn't on fire." But something very big had been going down.

The situation is: There's the garden center/nursery beneath the Metro North tracks between 116th and 117th and they have a bunch of storage and offices between 117th and 118th. About twenty minutes after I had left my house that evening to go to tutoring a fire broke out in the storage area (cause of fire later determined to be someone refueling a still-hot generator) that quickly escalated into a spectacular four alarm blaze that brought out every fire engine in the world and shut down the Metro North right in the middle of rush hour. The street was all taped off and the firemen said I couldn't go into my apartment building (although I could see my neighbors in their windows). Me and this other guy just kept asking different firemen if we could go down the block to our apartments until we finally found one that said yes.

The fire was completely out by the time I was home, but they were hosing it down and working all night right outside my window. The Governor even stopped by to check on the situation.

The fire was so hot that it bent the girders that hold up the train tracks and the next day they were already working hard to reinforce the girders...even the job looked done to me by the end of Wednesday, they keep working on it till this day.

The fire was so hot it melted the sides of cars parked on the street

But that's nothing compared to this truck that I assume was under the tracks during the fire.

As soon as I saw my building wasn't on fire my first concern was for the chickens that live at the 117th street end of the garden center. It was a real relief to see they were all ok Wednesday.

Oh, also no humans died either.