Pat the Bunny

I like to consider myself a well-educated, fairly sophisticated, well-traveled individual. But few things give me more happiness than the free-range bunnies at the Central Park petting zoo.

First of all, the Central Park Zoo is one of the best things going in New York. It only costs $3.50 for both the regular zoo and the children's zoo. It's small enough that you can fit in several other tourist stops in your day, but big enough that you're more than adequately entertained. I highly recommend getting there in time for the feedings of sea lions and penguins.

But I do have a fondness for those bunnies.

They're located in an enclosed pen so they can romp about. One rabbit, who I assume to be of opposite sex than the others, is segregated, but it manages to engage the others in bunny tomfoolery despite the wall of chicken wire that separates them. The fence is tall enough that I suppose they're not meant to be touched, but its spaces are big enough that one can fit a clandestine pat in here and there. The black and white one I made friends with was very obliging.

Do visit the bunnies if you're in the area. One can't be sad watching bunnies romp in the grass.

Robyn

Washington, DC

Have you ever walked around Washington at night? You should. It's very pretty. At least the parts around the White House and Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm sure there are parts of the city that are a bit more unsavory, but that can be said of anywhere. Moving on.

This was my first visit to downtown Washington in four and a half years. Last time I was there, it was January 1998, and there were TV cameras everywhere to cover the newly-hatched Monica Lewinsky scandal. This weekend there were only a few protesters camped out in fromt of the White House to mar the scenery, but I suppose you can't fault them too much for that.
The monumental buildings are fairly impressive in the daylight, but at night they're all lit up and quite pretty. And the Metro in DC kicks the New York subway's butt as far as aesthetics and safety go, so it's all right to stick around that particular part of the District after hours. Not a lot of pedestrians, but lots and lots of cops and official-type people about.

Try to stop by the Old Ebbitt Grill as well. The menu changes every day, and it's quite reasonable. That's my recommendation for the day.

Robyn

Weiner Dogs and Woody Allen

This is why I love living in New York.

Despite weather forecasts that threatened the region with the remnants of Hurricane Lili, yesterday's weather was beautiful. So I decided to take myself to Washington Square Park, where something very special was going on.

Yesterday marked the date of the autumn Dachshund Fest. Hundreds of dachshunds and their owners gathered in the north end of the park (as the southern end was dominated by some very hopped-up nannies who were getting ready to march to City Hall to demand labor standards). The event culminated in the group gathering together to hoist their weiner dogs above their heads to sing the Dachshund song.

This, friends, is why you never leave the house in New York without a camera.

Not content to end my day with that, I paid a visit to the Met. As I was walking to the 19th-Century European wing, the family of three a few paces in front of me stopped to admire the sculpture courtyard below. It was Woody Allen and Soon-Yi, with their young daughter. They wound up in the same room as me a couple of times in the Impressionism section, and plenty of people noticed them, too. Nobody seemed to care all that much.

In three and a half years, that was my first celebrity-in-the-wild sighting. At least the first one that I noticed.

And tourism in this town is flagging? Come up and visit, people! All this happened in a span of four hours. Imagine what you could see in a weekend.

Robyn

MeanKitty.com

I was directed to a website a few weeks ago that claims to be the antithesis of any pet-related site extolling the various precious and cutesy-poo aspects of kitties. The site claimed to be dedicated to only nasty, wholly unlovable animals, and the webmaster invited guests to post their own bad-cat stories. Being the owner of a rather heinous cat, I decided to check it out.

What a bunch of sorry-ass cats.

These folks' idea of a mean kitty is one that likes to sleep in the bathtub or yell at the television.
Normally I wouldn't bother with such silly sites, but this one really needed rectifying.

And Gato was there.

Robyn

Vagina Monologues

I went to see the dirty play with the nasty name this weekend, and it was better than I thought it was going to be.

It wasn't that I was squeamish about the subject matter. But based on the play's premise, I thought it was going to be a bit too girl-power, down with men, rah-rah-sis-boom-vagina to carry me through an hour and a half. After 30 minutes, I figured I would have heard all that I needed.

But it was a fairly engaging, and very funny, production. Admittedly, some of the monologues didn't ring true or seemed a bit gratuitous, but the performances of the three actresses that read them were very good, and there was enough valid and interesting stuff that it didn't seem too silly.

It goes without saying that it's not for everyone. If you think you're going to have a problem with the subject beforehand, you probably aren't going to enjoy it. But if you're so inclined, it could be worth a look. I wouldn't not recommend it.

Robyn

Do the Doogh

Oh boy is it ever raining here.

I haven't been caught out in a rainstorm such as we had today in a long long time.

As mentioned, it rained a lot in London, but it was rarely a torrential downpour. Except that one time in Kew Gardens, which sucked heartily.

Anyway, Jeffrey visited this weekend, which means that I got to go out to eat. We visited one of our favorites from the days when we lived on 26th and 1st Avenue, Bamiyan. Bamiyan is a very nice Afghan restaurant where you can sit on the floor, if you wish, and enjoy kebabs and pasta and dumplings and oceans of delicious yogurt sauce.

My favorite part of going to Bamiyan is the doogh. Doogh is a delightful concoction on yogurt, salt, mint, and seltzer water. I enjoy it, although I have yet to find a sympathetic doogh taster. It complements tasty seasoned meat very nicely. For honest.

Crissie said it tasted like the dentist's office. I don't know what that means.

She didn't take a very big sip.

Perhaps next time she'll be more open-minded.

Robyn

A Spot of Pessimism Before Bedtime

I just read a passage stating that the twentieth century went off-track in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This, of course, is no big news. Anyone with a high school diploma knows the awful repercussions of that act, and the world war that followed it, and the atrocities that were to come. But then the book, which was written in 1994, went on to say that the events of the 1990s were somehow un-doing all of the nastiness of the previous decades: bringing down the Berlin Wall, ending apartheid, dissolving the Soviet Union, etc., so that the coming century would have a fresh new start.

It would be terrible to think that it all got screwed up before the first year of the new century was over, wouldn't it?

Of course, you'd have to agree with the idea that the 90s were a shiny, happy decade that did more good than bad for world history, and I think that remains to be seen. And you'd have to be mighty superstitious to believe that one event can set the tone for a whole century anyway.

Or would you?

It's just an idea. But if September 11 becomes the turning point for this century the same way that World War I was for the last, I quit. I quit, or move to Anarctica to live happily among the penguins.

Sorry.

A little pessimism never hurt anyone, right?

I've been watching too much TV.

Robyn