Game 3.

Before we get this party started, let me just say that if I sound snippy for any reason in the next few words, it's because I spent two hours putting this post together, and Blogger deleted it. It cleared all of the work I had put into this thing, and wouldn't bring it back no matter how many Undo's I clicked. That being said, this had better be a freaking fantastic second draft.

H woke us up incredibly early the next day (9 o'clock Eastern Time is still really freaking early in the correct time zone), and had the day all planned out for us. First things first, coffee. He had found a spot just a couple of blocks north where these two guys were making coffee out of their car-cart. After waiting what seemed like an eternity for the guys to finish making these two ladies in line ahead of us a tiny, tiny espresso, H decided we should head on over to this little breakfast place he found. It's called Sarabeth's, and it quite possibly could be the smallest restaurant I've ever been in.


H has impeccable ordering skills. He can pinpoint the best thing on the menu in one minute or less. I, on the other hand, look for the weirdest thing on the menu to gawk at, then find the most normal thing on the menu to recalibrate my senses, then hem and haw about something in the middle of the spectrum for very long minutes. I had almost settled on steel cut oats with apricot jam when H says we should split the Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict and the Granola with Greek Yogurt, Strawberries, and Bananas. What a man. Our waiter was kind enough to get us our coffee orders posthaste (black coffee for H, latte for me), then chatted with us about the Royals and how he was actually from one of the suburbs of Kansas City.

Let me take a moment to relive the eggs benedict experience. Perfectly fluffy poached eggs sitting atop smokey, tender salmon, supported by crispy-crunchy toasted english muffins, smothered in a hollandaise sauce with just a hint of lemon. Next to that incredible deliciousness was a pile of fresh arugula lightly tossed in what I can only describe as the best vinaigrette I've tasted. In the days since that breakfast I have seen a recipe for made-from-scratch english muffins, a recipe for smoke-your-own-salmon, and a recipe for hollandaise sauce. It's like the recipe fairies are telling me to spend an inordinate amount of time in order to recreate this one meal.

I realize that most people would think of the granola and yogurt as an afterthought, but it really wasn't. There was this dainty dish of honey (probably collected from rooftop beehives by talented metropolitan beekeepers) that you could lightly drizzle over the strawberries and bananas. I firmly believe that if I had only eaten the eggs benedict, my belly would have felt too heavy to walk around for the next six hours. It was like the granola and yogurt created a protective barrier around the smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce in my gut so as to regulate the feeling of tummy fullness and slow the release of energy.

A look out over The Pond in Central Park. 

 As we entered Central Park I wasn't quite sure why people were so hyped up about a park in the middle of a city. I've seen parks. A public collection of grass and trees, perhaps a structure for the wee ones to climb on, possibly a bench or two. But as we walked further into the grounds, there was something enchanting about the green thumbprint of Manhattan. Maybe it was all the winding paths, or all of the energetic people (speed walkers, joggers, bicyclists), or just the joie de vivre floating around in the air.

One of the main thoroughfares in the park. 

Hundred year old trees, signs saying Please don't walk on this lawn, we just put some new grass seed down and we'd hate it if you ruined it, and lots of colorful people. We walked by a group of thirty or so German or Dutch athletes posing for a picture in front of a fountain and saying what I can only hope is the equivalent of "Cheese!". We sped past a delightful man that was spouting either Italian or Portuguese to no one in particular. We happened upon a man attached to a saxophone that was serenading us from underneath a small tunnelled overpass. I threatened to challenge him by belting out the opening saxophone line from Careless Whisper. H gave me the evil eye until we were out of the tunnel.

Just one of the architectural structures scattered throughout the park. 

Underneath the arches, on the ceiling of that structure shown above, lay hidden a design of subway tiles colored mustard yellow, brick red, and navy blue. It was mesmerizing, and it hypnotized me into forgetting to take a picture of it. On the other side of this archway was The Lake, as shown below.

At the water's edge. I wonder how deep the water is. 

We walked around for another thirty minutes, or so I think. We strolled past a bronze sculpture of Alice, The Mad Hatter, and The White Rabbit located in a small courtyard with children galloping all around it. Opposite the sculpture was a small playground with more tiny hooligans having the time of their life. We followed the path towards the noisy hustle and bustle of a street, and suddenly we were right beside The Met.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

What a breathtaking structure. We walked up the steps and into the foyer - there were three wings we could choose from, and while I wanted to see them all, I doubted we could see them all in one day so I pulled H towards the Roman Era wing. We stepped up to the Admissions desk where a soft spoken young lady let us know that there is no admission fee, only a recommended donation of twenty five dollars. How odd. Well, we purchased our tickets, put on the stickers that came with them, and made our way to the entrance of the wing. But I have to ask - if there is no actual admission fee, why do they insist you wear a sticker to show you went through the admissions queue?

"That dude's got swaaaaaag." 

This might be my absolute favorite sculpture. I love, love, love it. I love the fact that the head has been either broken or left off intentionally so that the viewer can't quite discern who this is supposed to be. I love that the arms are no longer there to distract with what I imagine were a shield and sword. And I love that this sculpture almost reads like a fabric, there's so much detail put into the work. It's also ballin' as all get out.

H referred to this as a meerkat, but I think it's more like a tiger. 

What a lovely room. The columns, the atrium, the sculptures,
and way in the back there's a man photobombing my perfect picture. 

If I'm not mistaken, this was made out of clay. It makes you wonder what you could accomplish
if you didn't have a day job and had a perfectly still person in front of you for hours. So incredible.

This was one of those times where I wanted to reach out and touch the glass.
Even if I had, I bet all of the detail was on the opposite side, the inverse, so I wouldn't have felt any brush strokes. 

This sculpture represents a young goddess who ate the last piece of pumpkin pie and was justly
forced to exist at the bottom of the ocean where a sea snake dragon is trying to eat her face off.
(Sometimes I wish I had taken pictures of the placards.)

This was once a fountain. This was also one of the pieces I really wanted to feel as to ascertain how smooth the marble was. Also, it looks pretty freaking badass washing your hair, standing on a clamshell, with snakes to do your bidding. 

This table! H hated this table. He didn't understand why I liked it so much, and I couldn't really explain why.
It was just so shiny and angular, and I bet they used it for cartography. 

The ultimate chess set. Hand carved tiny beings to play out your strategies. 

Look at the detail on these babies. 

This painting reminds me of another, but I can't remember which one it is. It's in the Dallas Museum of Art, in the European Painting wing. While I was looking around for it on the DMA website, it seems there's an entire page dedicated to deaccessioned pieces. If you click on one, they list the way they returned the piece, and all (if any) evidence as to how it was taken from its original place of rest. Quite fascinating. 

This fireplace used to reside in King Louis the Someteenth's manor/castle.
Nowadays you just have a fireplace with a faux-fireplace on top of it for decorating. 

Sometimes a painting grabs you. There's something mischevous about this one that I can't quite put my finger on.
The sign beside it describes it as a self portrait, but a portrait of a younger version of the artist.
If you had to draw yourself from scratch, even with a mirror, could you do it? 

As much as I love the smooth, polished look of the previous painting, I'm drawn to the brush strokes in this one for their sense of action. Also, how would one get to the top of that cliff? 

I love the use of shadow in paintings. While I tend to be a happy, bubbly, neon-color type of person,
I love me some dark, brooding paintings. It's like eating dark chocolate and black licorice at the same time. 

This cat amuses me to no end. Like most cats, even if the object of their desire is absolutely and entirely down for the count, this furry predator is crouched, ready to pounce if it's target decides to rise from the dead. 

The view from the second floor balcony just outside the painting gallery. 

Near the end of our painting tour there was a huge, heavy-looking table in the middle of one of the rooms. The top had a mosaic design, with bits and pieces of porcelain or colored stone creating an image of some lauded battle scene, and laying on top of all that was a thick glass cover. I reached out toward it, saying "H come look at this!", and ever so gently pressed my fingers against the cold glass. Suddenly, a voice booms out from somewhere in the room,

"Don't touch the aht!" says the New York accent.
I shrink back, look for where the sound came from, and up against the wall of the room is a security guard glaring at me.
H, all intellect and courage, says, "There's glass on top of it. She wasn't touching the-"
"Don't. Touch. The Aht."
"Jeez, fine. Let's go," says H. He ushers me out of the room and into the adjoining one. I try explaining to H that I wasn't actually touching the art, I was just touching the glass. He completely understands, and mentions something about how that guy probably stands there all day waiting to get a rise out of people by yelling at them.

This is a really interesting read, if you can zoom in on the panel. It's a small sketch for a larger painting (most likely installed in a villa somewhere). It's neat to think that painters kept a black and white "copy" of their work. 

This is the exit from the painting wing, steps leading down into the main entrance to the Met.
If I could build my own house, I would install these columns as my first act of regality. 

Just outside the Met.

H and I took advantage of the food carts right outside the museum. As we ate, I looked at all of the white stone used to make the surrounding buildings. The afternoon light just made everything look incredibly modern, despite being built eons ago. We finished our dogs and took a walk around the reservoir that takes up about a quarter of Central Park. We meandered back to our hotel, and took a quick nap before heading out to the game (since Game 1 took over five hours, I was very serious about this nap).

I guess I had time for a quick selfie to show the view from our window. 

I'm going to save how we got to the game for the next post. What I want to emphasize is that on Game 3 night, it was the coldest of the three games. It was so cold that I thought I was going to freeze in place, hands in the pockets of my heavy winter coat, toes frozen to the insides of my knee-high boots, and hair frozen into perfect ringlets as the wind whipped around the hoodie of my coat and across my face. I busted out the hand warmers I stowed away in my luggage, and even with those buddies, I had trouble keeping my hands toasty. H admitted later that he felt the bitter hand of winter, but I think he was more focused on the fact that we were at the World Series, in New York.