A date with Joey

I had a date with Joey this weekend! A city, 24 food and music date, with a little bit of shoes involved too. Honestly, sometimes I just feel old, and I'm not ready to feel old yet. So these little 24 hours things we do every so often, we pack with age appropriate activities.
The event of the weekend was Joey's gift to me from way back in December, (age appropriate experience number one) tickets to see Beirut at BAM. Before city walking to the show, we ate at (age appropriate number two) Belleville, where we ate unpretentious French food and I got schnockered. It was very dark in there, and there were three desserts on one plate!

We walked and walked down 5th Avenue in Park Slope, and when we arrived at BAM, all I could do (schnockered) was to sit and look at people's shoes. Have you ever noticed all the shoes in Brooklyn? No muck boots here.



Since the show, I've been only listening to one song over and over, worth while even for it's title, My night with the prostitute from Marseille. You can also become obnoxious about this song by finding it here. Then imagine it with a full orchestra, and there is the highlight of my evening.


After the show, we city walked some more (45 degrees in February!), got some bubbly water at a corner market that had cats sleeping in the plastic bags, and dropped into bed at the illustrious home of Laurie Kellogg, who has recently opened up her amazing home to travelers in search of health care reform and really amazing breakfasts.

Did I mention breakfast? These waffles have bananas and applesauce inside of them.


If you find yourself devoid of lodgings in New York, email this woman at lauriekellogg@gmail.com She provides a fabulous room with your own bathroom, excellent conversation, and yes, I'll say it again, breakfast. Her place is also very child friendly and and she offers babysitting if you need it. Email her. Really.

A word about dates. I know a lot of couples make the decision to hold off on having kids, and they travel the world together, having couple-centric culinary experiences and looking at art. And I know that there are many good arguments for following this schedule. But let it just be known that this was not our schedule. "Joey and Alana" as some sort of identity came over us hard and fast, and before we could catch our breath, it was "Joey and Alana and Sadie," and well you get the picture. I think that the experience can be a little different for people who have had eons of time without kids, but then again, I'm not sure. But my experience is that when Joey and I are on our own for more than a few hours, everything takes on kind of a surreal, other worldly quality. And we tend to have all of these conversations about what life would be like if the girls weren't with us alternating with conversations about how much we miss them. Makes for dynamic dates, maybe tinged with a little bit of exhilarating guilt anyway. And the other good thing is that we tend to come back home with plans about all sorts of things, and this proves to be good for the marriage in general.
So much for my relationship musings. But as I sit here a few nights later, after having physically dragged Rosie to bed as she squeaks like a mouse (and she's still squeaking, every 10 seconds or so- I hear her through the closed door) and we're picking up the remnants of chaotic valentine creation and uneaten squash soup, I'm choosing to ruminate a little on the importance of long dates, and of unpretentious french food and interesting shoes. Keeps me feeling balanced, I guess.