Built for Speed

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it...
There ain't nothing to it...
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill...
But since we're on our way down,
We might as well enjoy the ride.

James Taylor, Secret O' Life

Not sure where the time goes, but there's seemingly so much happening these days -- in a good way -- I barely can keep track.

First, Friday wound up being a busy day. There was rain, but mostly, there was a lot of work. It was a quiet day -- few, if any, clients calling me -- but there was lots of paper and e-mail to power through. I got about 90% of what I needed done before the weekend began.

Friday night I met friends at Make, a paint-it-yourself pottery place on the West Side. Well, actually, to clarify, Make has both Upper East and Upper West locations, but the location where we meet is the on the Upper West Side. Not sure why, but that's that, and I have no issue jumping on a bus and crossing the Park. I know as a true New Yorker I shouldn't be crossing the Park, and I know I should spend my non-working, waking hours on the East Side, but the truth is it's not a big deal once a week to cross the Park and hit the West Side to hang out with friends.

Soooo...Friday night, I hit Week 2 on my current Make project, a skull covered by a Van Halen-esque fire-engine red with black and white stripes. It might be completely awful, but it's a lot of fun after another long, tiring week to kick back for a few hours and do something mindless and relaxing.

Saturday was a busy, busy 24 hours. I did some work early after waking up well before my usual time and then met friends in the early afternoon in Soho for a few errands. We hit North Face and a few other stops, including Kid Robot, the Morrison Hotel Gallery, the Apple Store, etc. It was still kinda rainy so we didn't spend much time dawdling, but there were enough people on the street -- throngs, actually -- so that we didn't feel like we were just going through the motions of running basic, boring errands.

By the time we finished up, we raced home to get ready to meet back up in midtown for a party for a friend in from out of town. The town, incidentally, is Sydney, Australia. Naomi -- aka Gnomes -- is in NYC for a week so a friend got a bunch of friends to hang out and make sure she had a blast, which she did. To elaborate, we all did. A little alcohol and a lot of fun go a long way to make for a great weekend.

But, in the immortal words of Ron Popeil, wait -- there's more.

Today, Sunday, was Grandparents Day, so I met up with my family to spend the day and hang out with my grandmother in Riverdale. The day was perfect -- no rain, and despite a bit of heat I thought we'd left behind, some humidity in the sun -- we had a blast. The facility in which she lives, the Hebrew Home, had Bowser (of Sha Na Na fame, or infamy, depending on your perspective) and his current band entertain the entire crowd of 5,000 or so people. Since there were a lot of kids and older folk in the audience, it wasn't my style -- it was a tad vanilla -- but overall the people in attendance, as well as the residents of the facility, seemed to really enjoy the day. And we got a surprise visit from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which was a bit surreal. Being that this is campaign time, it made sense, but seeing the Mayor only 10 steps away was odd, especially given the circumstances.

Post-celebration, I hit the train and came home to catch the second half of the Giants-Redskins game. I'd missed the early NFL games, which is okay, but missing an entire Giants game -- especially the first game of the season -- would have really been irritating. Seeing the second half -- and the fact that the Giants won -- made it all worthwhile.

I think, given that tonight is the True Blood finale (as well as another episode of Entourage), I'm not quite ready for the new NFL season. But once I began watching today's second half, I was quickly reminded why I love watching NFL Football, especially the Giants.

Finally, tonight, I've got a wind-down ahead of the True Blood finale, and -- hopefully -- getting to bed after Entourage, because I've got a deadline this week and plenty of other stuff to handle in addition.

I guess it is true that time really does fly when you're having fun. I guess I just wish I had more time with which to have more fun ;-)

-B-