Exhausted after a week in the city

And waiting for a car to the airport.

Yankees and their monuments

A little over the top, ya think?

Williamsburg Bridge and Empire State Bldg

Brooklyn Bridge

Dinner in Little Italy

And wine, of course.

Empire State Building

Touristy, sure, but how could we not go at sunset?

Brooklyn Bridge

View from our harbor tour.

Dredge boat at entrance to Kill Van Kull

Ned has a statue growing from his head!

It's even colder than it looks.

Harbor Tour

We're about to leave for a 5 hour tour. Two more hours than Gilligan.
Hope we get back! (trivia fact: I've never seen that show.)

An evening on Broadway

We're at August: Osage County. Starts in 20 minutes. Dark play. Read all about it here. Trivia fact: one of the featured actors was the woman who played Jerry Seinfeld's girlfriend. Remember the episode where Seinfeld buys Elaine the cigar store Indian as a peace offering? Also, Kramer comes up with the genius idea for a coffee table book about coffee tables. More here.

Ned and Christina are famous!

Ned and our friend, Christina, made the paper on Sunday. Front page, B Section. Click here to see it. And, when you read the caption, now that MB was painting cannons. No way was I going to step on top of graves, even if it did mean I was doing a favor for the dead by cleaning headstones. Too much Lasseter in my genes for that kind of work.

Blogger Difficulties

Thought the iPhone is wonderful in so many ways, its camera is not the best. So we took most of our photos (including one with friend, Allison, last night) using my regular camera to get better images. Our intent was to post a flurry of photos each night so our public could know what we've been doing in NYC when they check the blog the next day. That would have been a great plan, except we forgot to pack the cord that connects the camera to the computer and transfers the photos. So, until next week (or until I can find an office supply store), NYC images will be spotty and grainy and probably not well lighted. But for the curious who want to know what we did, here's a brief laundry list: Seinfeld's restaurant, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, lunch at a Jewish deli, Fifth Avenue and all its excitement, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Times Square, Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History, Rockefellar Center, and the Park Slope area of Brooklyn -- courtesy of dinner with friends there. Great fun, but we're tired. On today's menu: Chinatown and Little Italy.

Mac store

Wow. It's huge and crowded and filled with people wearing headphones from their iPods. The whole city could be described this way, but I'm just talking about the Mac store.

Rainy day in Central Park

MB wanted a big salad

Out with Jennifer

Brooklyn and beer.

And the cocktail!

Jameson's Irish whiskey, St. Germaine elderflower, orange bitters. Served up.

Made it to the airport

First stop: One Flew South for sushi and cocktails. Sushi's for Ned.

Our travels begin

with prolonged debate about who has to get up and shower first. MB wins. Ned's showering.

A day at the park

Jeff and Erin painted the fancy gate. Ned and Christina cleaned headstones. Mary Beth painted cannons. And there were free t-shirts, which is good, because the ones we wore to work are now ruined.

There's an app for that.

I've spent most of the day building our NYC itinerary and trying to record subway directions on that itinerary so we won't get lost. But you know what I just realized? I have an iPhone, and there's an app for that. (I love those commercials!) Anyway, I've downloaded the app and these tired eyes are headed to bed for a few hours. In the morning, we'll wake up early and go to the military park to participate in a "spruce up the park" service project--I hope they let me paint a cannon!

Bread, Sweet Bread

The bread photo, though beautiful, isn't mine. I borrowed it from the NYT. Thanks, NYT photographer! Bread is the newest addiction on National Street. I'm making entirely too much of it -- about a loaf a day -- though we barely can eat half a loaf between us. The leftovers either get made into croutons or thrown to the birds, since fresh bread doesn't keep much longer than a day or two. Here's my new favorite recipe, by Mark Bittman. Too easy, and too good. And it really does look like the image in the photo when you're done. For the recipe from yesterday, see Epicurious here. And our favorite ciabatta bread is here. None of them require kneading, you'll note.

Ta-Da!

Today, finally, I mastered French bread. Surprise, Ned!

NY, NY

We'll see it, in full color, on Sunday. But don't expect the iPhone to record such dramatic lighting in my blog snapshots.

The Giant Slide

On Saturday, our neighbor had her 4-year-old birthday party. Her parents are terrific -- they rented her a blow up slide that filled the back yard! Fortunately, Morgan was kind enough to invite me and Ned for a ride on the slide. Too. Much. Fun.

Saturday night at Crechale's

Good food, great company, PLUS we sang the birthday song three times in an hour. And the jukebox--wow. If we had a truck, we'd have offered to buy it and take it home with us: Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Hank Snow...oh my! I can't believe we've not been to Crechale's before--it's exactly the kind of restaurant we love. Thanks for dinner!

In Jackson

Contemplating fish theft from MA's house. No laws were broken.

A Vicksburg Perk

Sunset over the Mississippi River.

Cheers to Marvin's Birthday!

Happy birthday to our brother-in-law from Texas!

A trip to Faulk's

Mary Beth went to our favorite garden store this week. We'll plant these just as soon as Sunday's cool weather passes. Chocolate mint has got to be good!

Lasseter Luck/Italian Fest Flashback

I didn't register to play "Bocce for Bucks" because I figured I'd just be throwing away $5. So I watched the competition from the sidelines and, after it was all over, I tried a roll just for fun. The object was to get the bocce ball in the circle. A ball on the line was acceptable. I rolled this from about 30 feet. And, of course, I hit the circle. Had I not been so cheap, I'd have won $200. Of course, then I'd probably not have hit the circle. Lasseter Luck.

Europe, here we come!

We thought that Ned's meeting was in London, but we were wrong. It's actually near Amsterdam. Whatever...it's all Europe. We booked tickets today: we have a flight into Amsterdam and a flight out of Paris, so we'll definitely see both of those cities. Everything else is up for negotiation after my stack of travel books arrives from Amazon. Woohoo!

Garden, Day Two

Newspapers are between the rows, for weed control.
Landscape fabric is in place. Tonight, zinnias are in beds and we have three hills of squash planted. We forgot to take photos of the herb garden, but we were in a hurry this afternoon. There was home brew to bottle and a GREAT neighborhood cookout tonight. Thanks, ladies!

The garden begins

Mary Beth sprayed the Round-Up last week, thus the dead grass. It made for easier tilling.
Ned loads the year's worth of compost to the tarp for hauling into the garden. We think it saved us from buying about 20 bags of dirt...not bad.
After tilling, Ned forms rows. On Sunday, we'll add landscape fabric and a few plants (we're planting in stages this year.) Back by the shed, you'll notice MB's news herb garden. Close up photos to follow tomorrow. For now, we're tired and very sore. Who knew some of these muscles even existed before today?

Incredibly clean feet, for having just grape stomped

Dinner at Sandy's

Great company. Fabulous food. Fun Thursday in Vicksburg. Thanks, Sandy! And, though MB missed ND in the NIT, I was able to catch up on the W here.

Happy 2nd Anniversary, Sarah & Brian!

Patrick's coming for a visit!

MB went grocery shopping today in preparation for baby brother's
arrival. Ned's excited, too. The cabinets haven't been stocked with
this much guy food since he's been married! Move over, yogurt.
There's beer for the fridge.

Supper tonight

Broiled flank steak, bean salad, asparagus. Yum.

Italian Fest Fun

Grape stomping in Cleveland

We await the results from the second round competitors. We stomped a respectable 7 cups, second place, in our round.

Call us "Team Micelli" (it kinda sounds like Mitchell)

Tonight, Ned and I are driving to Cleveland. Cleveland, Mississippi, of course. We're looking forward to awesome spaghetti, visits with friends and family, and -- hopefully -- a championship in the Italian Festival's grape stomping contest. Photos to follow...

Marriage

We went to see a barbershop quartet tonight in Vicksburg. MB's on an advisory board and promised to help with the crowd. Then, since date night was underway, we went out for trashy Mexican (that's Mex food that's all cheese). Now, we're into the Tums and getting ready for bed
at 9:15. Ah, married life.

Upon return from travels

We found everything had sprouted! Everything, that is, but the peppers.

The UM gift bag pays dividends.

See this photo in Time magazine. See the handoff on my friend, Tom's, blog.