The perfect weekend

If I were a contestant on that dating show that Jenny McCarthy used to host on MTV, you remember that one, the one where the logo was Cupid smoking a cigar... what was it called again? Anyway, if I were one of the three contestants vying for the affections of the sexy single guy on that show (who was rarely all that sexy, but that's neither here nor there), and they asked me what my perfect weekend would be like, it'd be like the one that just passed.

JP's birthday weekend began with a day trip to the beach (even as sad a beach as Atlantic City's) with good friends, frolicking on the boardwalk, yelling at kamikaze seagulls, stuffing ourselves sideways with all-you-can-eat king crab legs, winning money on video blackjack, singing happy birthday to JP in front of everyone while waiting for the bus, shivering and cuddling our way through the impossibly cold bus ride, and finally making it home at 4 am. He said it was one of the best trips he's ever been on! Once the clock struck 4, which officially marked his birthday, I unveiled his birthday present: a gigantic variety of Asian snacks and goodies, and a bottle of soy sauce so big he would be able to pour it onto his rice with reckless abandon. He liked it, and expressed impressive enthusiasm for 4 in the morning.

On Sunday, JP and I strolled across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time to see the telectroscope installed at the bottom. It was a gorgeous day made up of blue skies and sunshine and as we looked out at Manhattan from Brooklyn, I thought, "Wow." I could feel something swelling up in my chest. I think it was pride. For the first time since moving to the city, I was actually kind of proud to live here. We then wandered through the Afro-Caribbean street fair near Atlantic Avenue, stopping to look at art, read menus, and watch as men in grass dresses on stilts passed us by. We reached the Brooklyn Flea Market and ate Mexican style corn: grilled on the cob, smothered in mayo, rolled in crumbled queso, sprinkled with chili powder, and squirted with lime. Followed by pupusas and organic ice cream, blueberry pomegranate for me and a tangerine sorbet for him. We wrapped up our day in Brooklyn with a stop at Target, where we stocked up on stuff that is marginally more expensive in Manhattan. Hey. It adds up.

Monday (Memorial Day) morning, JP dragged me out of bed so we could make the 11:30 am showing of the new Indiana Jones movie. To compensate for failing to feed me beforehand, he bought me a gigantic soda and some candy. We made chicken caesar pizza at home while watching Men In Black, then thought better of wasting the weather and laid out in the sun at Battery Park for a while. Thanks to his fair complexion, we had to turn in after 40 minutes because he was pinking up, though I hadn't even gotten started. Still, I had no complaints when we watched National Treasure II. I love archaeological fiction!

It should be noted that there was ZERO alcohol consumption all weekend. And I still had an awesome time.

Of course, it wasn't always this way.

In the days of Singled Out (yes! the name of the show returned to me!), my perfect weekend would have included a beach, a sexy stranger, and many frozen drinks with little umbrellas sticking out of the glasses. Plural. Throw in a Crisco-covered watermelon, a darkened pina colada stand, and dancing on tabletops in a nightclub where the drinking age was supposedly 18, and we've got my high school graduation trip to Cancun. While this is still all good and well in my book, the heart flutterings in the quiet moments of this weekend trumped it all. Many times over.