Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. Ok, that's a guess, it was well past dawn when I got up, but the sun was shining and it was warm again. A quick phone call to Ethel and Fred and we were gathering for a shopping jaunt around the village. Ethel knew places were there might be sidewalk vendors on a day like today, and there was that music store that we promised ourselves we'd visit, so we were off again. 

Wandering aimlessly (sort of) we went to St Mark's Place, a couple of blocks of vendors with all sorts of great things to look at or buy. That place could be almost as much fun without money, I was just amazed at the kind os stuff you coud see, from hats (Ricky has a new leather one) to wigs to crazy sunglasses (hey Ethel, I gotta get these for Mardi Gras). Then we wandered a little farther and found a great store called "Love Saves the Day". Collectibles and vintage jewelery and clothes, that place was great. Ethel got herself a Lucy flask, and I got a new Beatles picture for my living room. (I took their card too and called back later to order myself a Beatles Flask). We wandered some more and ended up getting some pizza at Joe's, rumored to be the best in the world. The story goes that the line to get pizza at lunchtime winds all the way around the cornor, so we figure have to at least try it.

We get a couple pieces and cross the street to the park to sit down and eat it. The park was filled with piegons. When we are alomst done eating, Ricky decided to break off a few crumbs to feed them. We get up and Ricky throws the pieces on the ground, with Ethel gasping and saying "No, don't feed them". All of a sudden piegeons are converging on us from everywhere. I jumped up and said I'm outta here, and everyone was close behind me, but those birds just followed us until we crossed the street. It was weird like half of them came out of nowhere. Ethel kept busting us that they would all be perched on our window sill the next morning when we woke up, talk about food for nightmares.

The walk back was along the same path, because we at least had the foresight to realize that we really didn't want to drag the stuff all over. When we were almost at the apartments, we saw a 24 hour diner and copied down the phone number for later reference.

Saturday night found Ethel and Lucy dressing up a little more for the night, we were, after all, on a trek to the theatre. Ethel had gotten us tickets to an off off broadway show called “Love Janis”, so we put on our best jeans and our heels, and grabbed a cab to head back to the village. We had opted for the “cheap seats” and were very pleased to find out that we hadn’t paid an extra $50 (each) just for the privilege of drinking at a table, and there were no bad seats in the house. The play was great - 19 Janis Joplin songs performed by a woman who actually had a voice for it, although I felt she must have held back some in the first act, but who could blame her. That music would definitely take a toll on anyone’s voice (actually there are 2 different women who take turns playing the role because of this), but there was no stopping her in the second act, and it was great. The band was great too.

Ricky grabbed himself a beer at intermission, but got yelled at when he tried to get back to the seat with it and had to stand in the back (heehee). I guess I should mention that I saw several other people taking beer back to their seats, but for some reason we always get caught. 

After the show it was back to Bleeker St. to check out some more of the nightlife. Again we hit one mediocre bar before finding the club 101 where there was a great band playing (the Many Moods of Linnard) and people were having a great time. The place was packed (it was a small bar), and there was hardly any room to move and I swear we saw about 50 people going past us to the front, but they must have been sucked into a vortex, cause there sure wasn’t any room for them up there. 

Ethel was pointed out (by the band) as the one person who probably couldn’t sing along to “Proud Mary” (just the dit dit dit dit dit parts - obviously he didn’t know who he was dealing with). I did manage to get kudos from them when they told everyone to stand up, and for lack of room I stood on bench to dance (unfortunately this moment will be lost forever because our cameraman had been out of film for some time, and some photo-ops just can’t be recreated).

The last bar we wanted to see advertised that it was filled with “Happy drunks” on the weekends, and figuring we would feel like we were back at Jack’s, we decided to go for it. Little did I know that it was way down the other end of town (at least it felt like that to me) and my feet were beginning to get really upset with me, and the gang had to listen to me whine about how they promised that we’d take a cab for any major jaunts. The bar was a real bust, no band, super bright, and really nothing to do. Unfortunately the guys had to buy beers just so we could use the rest room.

So it's back to the apartments, and we dig out that phone number for that all night diner and decide what we want to order. I call, they answer, they tell me they're still delivering, but then decide that we were too far away (it was only 10 blocks). My shoes were off and I really didn't feel like putting them back on, and apparently no one else did either, so it was "What do we have to eat here". We scraped together what we had - 1 1/2 cuts of pizza, some left over salad, 2 bagels (but tons of cream cheese and butter) and those little tiny chocolate brownies. It was a feast fit for table five.

Once again the sun was shining brightly when the friends woke up on Sunday morning, the last day of the adventure. Lucy and Ricky were more than relieved that there were no pigeons hanging off the window sills or curtain rods in the apartment looking for pizza. Check-out day, and we had to be out early - ok, so 11 a.m. isn’t early to the rest of the world, but it is to us, especially on a weekend, and it definitely doesn’t leave me nearly enough time for my cigarettes, coffee and TV in the morning.

Soon, we’re on our way to what I’ve been looking forward to since these plans were made - Central Park and Strawberry Fields. Like I said, it was a great day, and Central Park was teeming with people suffering from cabin fever after a “long, cold, lonely winter”. 

There wasn’t a parking spot to be found. After 3 times around the block (big block) the guys get tired of listening to us whine (works every time) and pull into a parking garage. Not being really sure where we were going,Lucy and Ethel corner a very nice public servant, who was more than happy to tell us where we were, where Strawberry Fields was, where the Dakota was, the best place to take in all in from, and anything else we wanted to know. Gotta figure that guy just loved his job. Come to think of it, I might have loved his job myself, it is a great park. After checking out that section, we walked across the park to the main entrance, where you can find the zoo, and that great clock with the dancing animals (delacort). Looked like tons of people were out to get some ice skating in while they had the chance and the beautiful weather.

We ambled past the back of Tavern on the Green and caught the topiaries, including spotting the “Grape Ape” (does anybody remember that cartoon besides me?). Once we left the park it was over to a flea market a friend of mine had told me about (thanks Kathleen, it was right where you said it would be). Boy, they sold just about everything there, Ethel got some great African looking Jewelry, and I picked up some trinkets for the kids. We laughed at the finger puppets and marveled at the handmade jewelry and the vintage furniture and tin signs.