Our friends William and Roxcy were in town this weekend.
I took some pictures with my giant, heavy camera.
Last night, Valerie exposed us to some more culture. We saw/heard the New York Philharmonic Concert In the Park. It was a gorgeous night and the concert was beautiful, but I kept getting distracted by other people's elaborate picnic accouterments. One group had on top of their picnic blanket a low table with a lantern on top. Another appeared to have brought a server with them who came with trays of prepared food, cloth napkins, a floral centerpiece, a large cake, and beeswax candles. This annoyed me.
While I was on line for the port-a-potties, I overheard two fellows talking behind me. They had just waved to a passing couple. When the couple was out of earshot, one guy said, "I don't get him. He spent $400 on shoes."
The other guy said, "I know. And he makes, like, half what we make. Like, a third or fourth what we make."
"Yeah. He makes like a third or a fifth what we make, but he spends half his paycheck on clothing."
Both men appeared to be in their mid-to-late twenties. One said to the other, "So how do you know those girls?"
The other said three girls names, and then said, of the first, "I know her from college. So we go back. Way back. Like, I've know her for, like, seven years. Or ten years or something. We go back." The second girl he knew through the first girl, and purported to have known her for almost as many years. The third girl was a different story. "I've only known her for like two or three years, maybe, but we have a total crush on each other, you know."
Eh.
Then one asked the other whether Mayor Bloomberg was a republican or an independent. The other said, "Well, I'm a registered republican, and I get his mailings, so I think he must be a registered republican."
The other guy said, "I'm an independent, you know — I don't want to be tied to either party — but I get his mailings too."
Shoes, money, pretending that girls like you when they don't ... and now you're political conservatives! Of course, I hated them and I hated being trapped on line with them as I waited for the inevitable grossness of attending a port-a-potty party.
I had brought our little camera to the concert to snap some pictures. But, all of a sudden, it didn't work. I kept replaying the last things I had done with the camera before taking it out at the concert. I had charged the battery, inserted it in the camera, then dropped it into my purse. Did it bang against something. Had I spilled water on it? The camera was completely dead.
Today I was about to call Canon tech support. But I noticed that when I took out the battery and looked inside the slot, I could see a small, silver piece of vaguely foreign-looking material. After some maneuvering, it became apparent the silver piece had actually originated as tin foil from a gum wrapper. The camera works fine now.
Which is good. Because we will need it soon. Brian and I are headed to Iceland at the end of the month. We'll be there for a week. Anyone have any suggestions?