The rain did stop for my swim on Saturday (long, hard, slower than I would have liked, and now over), but not on Sunday when Lucy came out to Brooklyn for brunch in Brooklyn. We ventured out to Olea for a delicious meal on Eating Clinton Hill's recommendation, but it was pouring by the time we were done so while Sam and I couldn't give a proper tour of the neighborhood, we did have an excuse to go to the mall.

This weekend, we're heading to Minneapolis to visit the in-laws. Should be fun to go check out the state fair that I've heard so much about. And hopefully relax after a busy week at work.

This week has been a bit of a headache, what with having to do massive amounts of laundry on Monday, discovering that the likely cause of the bites I've been getting recently (approximately 1 small patch per week) is from bed bugs, having slapped one as it was biting me Tuesday, getting hit by the large price of custom made drapes, necessary for our oversized window on Wednesday, and the large price of extermination on Thursday, as well as a coop shift thrown in for good measure. Does anyone know any good exterminators?

And re: the title of the post, which was the title of an email Sam and I were passing back and forth this week, to quote my husband: "It is like the title of a book about modern spousal communications in the web-enabled age..."

P.S. Assuming a lightning storm doesn't break out tomorrow morning, I'll be swimming in the Hudson from 56th St. to The Little Red Lighthouse under the GW Bridge, so take a wander over to Riverside Park if you live up that way and cheer me on. We'll be starting around 8:30, and I expect that I'll finish somewhere around 10:30 if all goes well.

Last week I went on my second business trip, for a meeting with the project team in Montana.  On the way there, we stopped in at Park City, UT, since we had to fly through Salt Lake City anyway, and had a good work session with a member of the project team.  Park City is a pretty nice town, even in the summer, though its changed a lot since I was last there (sometime around 1994 is my best estimate).  For instance, The Canyons, where we stayed, didn't even exist last time I was there. 

The owners of The Canyons are a client of ours, so it was nice to take a look at what they refer to as their ideal ski area, but in reality I only spent about an hour awake while we were there.  Then it was off to Montana for a two hour meeting, which was preceeded by a two hour lunch since we weren't needed earlier, and followed by a work session with my boss since we had time to kill before we had to get to the airport.  I had a 3.5 hour layover in Denver before catching a red eye back to NYC, and while the Denver airport is probably as good a place as any to hang out for a few hours, I was pretty sleepy so I didn't explore too much.

When I got back to NYC, I crashed for a few hours before going to work, and then met Sam to celebrate his b-day in style at The Strip House.  Mmm, best strip steak I've ever had.  Very yummy. 



Then on Friday I met Sam in Queens after he picked up a rental car at JFK and we headed up to my parents weekend house in the Berkshires.  Much needed relaxation ensued, with interludes of bike rides and seeing family.  And best of all, the dahlia's were in bloom in the garden just in time for our visit. 

Saturday morning started off with swim practice and a trip to the Borough Hall farmers market to pick up some delicious heirloom tomatoes. Then, after some popovers for breakfast, we set out to do some much needed laundry. However, all the washing machines in the building are full on coins so that you can't put any money in them (the super is on vacation and his sub might not have the key...), so we weren't able to waste half the day doing laundry. Instead, we did something much more fun and wandered over to the Nowhere But Brooklyn Block Party on Grand Avenue between Lafayette and Greene. It was a bit dead when we got there, despite the info saying it should have started an hour earlier, but it picked up quickly. We had good seats in the shade for listened to Puerto Rican singing and drumming, but it wasn't until later that the real entertainment began - Lucha Libre wrestling! What a hoot! So fake its funny.

Later on, I took advantage of the tomato season and made a Tomato and Onion Tart. Delicious as always and a perfect display for tasty tomatoes. So good that we brought it with us to the Fort Greene Park for a picnic brunch with the Sunday Times.

After hanging out in the park for a while, we headed to Court Street to catch a flick and then wandered around Brooklyn Heights to the promenade before finally heading home.

A great laid back weekend in which we didn't even step foot on a subway. Just what I needed before a busy week of work travel.

+ A full photo set of the block party

Last night, as I walked from my parents house to the subway, getting thoroughly drenched, I marveled at the water flooding over the curbs. It had been raining almost that hard for close to an hour, and what was running through my head was, what intensity of a rainstorm is this? A 25-yr event? 50? Or a measly 5? This is on my mind these days because I'm currently designing stormwater management plan for a project in Idaho, and yesterday's crazy storm made me question whether it could really handle that kind of rain.

So for reference, I checked out the National Weather Service and discovered it rained approximately 1.41" fell in an hour. My textbook tells me that this is around a 2-yr 60-min storm (amazingly, a 100-yr 60 minute storm would dump 2.75" of rain in a hour!). So no big deal really, but stormwater systems are supposed to be designed for 2-yr events and all the curbs were overflowing. Compared to Idaho, though, it was huge! A 100-yr 60-min storm only tops out at around 1", so I guess we'll never see anything like I did yesterday. Which is a relief, because I had visions of our swale eroding away and the golf course flooding and Jack Nicklaus yelling at me for ruining his putting green.

Oh, and on the matter of flooding, you would think the MTA would learn how to deal with a 2-yr storm. I mean, seriously, this will happen EVERY OTHER YEAR! I should have had to wait for the 1 train for 20 minutes before giving up and walking to the C, which was running on the express tracks to that I had to take the B and transfer at 59th St and all in all take at least 1 1/2 hrs to get from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn. The C tracks don't even go above ground! Bah.

With things busy at the office, going out of town over the weekend, and last week being so freakin hot, I've been bad about downloading pictures off my camera.

The top picture is of Paris sporting a snazzy ice pack on her body from last Wednesday. As you know, Paris is a hefty gal, and therefore she didn't seem to be able to handle the heat quite as well as her sister. She was breathing heavy and wasn't leaving the bathroom floor, so Sam brought her ice packs to nestle against. There was a call to my friend the vet to make sure she was ok, but since she was back to normal in the morning, we're assuming it was just the heat.

And the bottom picture is from Tuesday. Did you know Tuesday was Pokeman Day in NYC? You do now! I was too busy to check out the festivities, sadly, but I guess there's always next year.