Hooray for Spas!

A word of advice to husbands/wives or boyfriends/girlfriends: just tell your partner what you want as a gift. It makes thinks so much easier for the person buying the gift and the person receiving the gift gets exactly what they want. So I'd like to say thanks to my loving husband who gave me a gift certificate a few months ago for the Great Jones Spa in Manhattan. I was able to indulge in an hour-long heavenly massage followed by relaxing by the hot and cold pools surrounded by a waterfall while reading a magazine. I highly recommend this spa. If you buy a service over $100 you can utilize the rest of the facility for free, or if you spend less than $100 you can use the facility for $50. The rest of the facility includes the hot tub and cold plunge pools, a steam room and a sauna that you can use for as long as you want. They also provide items needed for showering so you can go on with your day without having massage oils caked to your hair. And, there's an organic juice bar next door, which I didn't try but I'm sure it was tasty. And since it's located in a great spot on Great Jones St. near Bleeker St., you can easily walk to Union Square, the East Village or wherever after your rejuvenating afternoon. I know I'll be asking for another spa day again soon!

Because I Care

With the unemployment rate as high as it is and myself being unemployed, I thought that there are people out there who need help and I have the time to do something about it. So after going to an orientation for New York Cares a few weeks ago, I signed up to help at a food pantry right in my neighborhood of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. NY Cares has so many volunteer opportunities that it was hard to pick one but since I wasn't sure how I'd do with animals, seniors or kids, I thought that helping people select free food was the way to go. It was great to meet all the other volunteers, many who return every week to donate their time. But it was even better knowing that I could help out just a little to the people that really need it. And the project was very simple. Basically, anyone can come to the food pantry at the Child Development Support Corporation between 10am and 12pm to pick up a certain amount of food depending on their family size. The food options today (and I was told they can change depending on what has been donated) were cereal, pasta, rice, beans, peanut butter, canned meat or frozen meat, canned fruits and vegetables, milk, and then an assortment of fresh fruits/veg and baked breads. I think it was about enough to last a few days to a week maybe.

If anyone is interested in volunteering with New York Cares or donating, you can go to their website. If you would like to visit CDSC's food pantry on Thursdays, the address is: 352-358 Classon Ave.

Inconsiderate Cell Phone Users

How is it that more than 30 years after the cell phone was developed people still don't understand cell phone etiquette in public places? Apparently there should have been instructions along with how to program your voice mail. One would think that when making a call you wouldn't want the entire Amtrak train car to know where your house key was hidden and the alarm code, but alas, I was lucky enough to hear all about one woman's problems who was not sitting next to me or even behind me but actually sitting about five rows behind me. While the rest of the train car mumbled under their breadth for her to shut up or looked at each other rolling our eyes, inconsiderate cell phone user continued to talk to someone who I hope was 90 years old otherwise I have no idea why she was talking so loud. So to all you cell phone users out there, please be considerate to those around and use your "indoor voice" that you learned when you were three years old.

The Suburbs

Having lived in NYC for about 10 years now it's always a huge change of pace when visiting the suburbs. I do enjoy the quiet, the trees and the ability to just jump in your car and go. But finding something to do to entertain yourself besides the mall or the movies is always a challenge. So on Saturday night while visiting family up in MA, my father decides that we are going to go see a play. Now a play in Boston would be great, but a play in Arlington, MA is another story. The town itself is quaint with it's make your own pottery stores and cute restaurants, which then makes me wonder what will this play be like. The play was called "Drop Dead!", which is what I would have liked to have done after about the first 10 minutes. Since my family knew two of the actors in the play we had to sit through it unfortunately. The irony of it all is that "Drop Dead!" is a play about the making of a bad play with bad actors, oh and there is some murder mixed in there. So I saw the comedy in it all and stuck through it, even when they turned the heat off at intermission (yes, there was even an intermission). I am generally impressed by any person who is willing to have the guts to get up on a stage and perfom in front of a crowd - that is if there is a crowd. This audience was about 40 people in a huge theater and I think 10 of them left at intermission.

The best part of the whole show was the opening act, Dave Russo, comedian. I should have realized that if there's an opening comedian to get the audience in a good mood before the play, that the play itself probably can't stand on it's own. Dave Russo, who had won the Boston International Comedy Festival, had some pretty funny and relatively clean jokes that made the first 1/2 hour all worth while. And when he was heckled by a 103 year old man in the front row after having his mic go out, I thought this was a pretty funny night in the suburbs.