Quick Visit

How was everyone's Fourth of July? Ours was fantastic! We had an excellent time. We took about 250 pictures yesterday (wow!), so I'm in the process of sorting through them and will be posting the recap of our Fun Fourth tomorrow. In the meantime, I thought I would share a couple pictures from our Friday to get things started.

Eric and I did not have many plans on Friday, so it was perfect when my friend Dorothy called to see if we could meet up for a drink. Dorothy and I used to work together at Calico Jack's, during my last year in Gainesville. She's so sweet, and I was so excited to see her again. Her mom lives in upstate New York, so she, her husband Chase and their two kids were spending some time there. Dorothy and Chase decided to come into the city on Friday to see Eric and me, plus a couple other old CJ's veterans.

We met up with Dorothy at P.J. Clarke's, a little Irish bar on the East Side. I thought it looked so funny, just this little old building sitting there on the corner, dwarfed by the skyscrapers next to it!

P.J. Clarke's on Third Avenue

We had a couple beers and some lunch with Dorothy, Chase, and another former CJ's employee, James. James was the veteran bartender when I worked there, and he was usually the one who came in to relieve me from my (unbelievably dull and painfully slow) daytime bartending shifts, so he could make the good night time money. But I'm not bitter. Anyway, James now lives about 45 minutes outside of the city and is opening up an Irish bar of his own there!

James, Eric, me, Dorothy and Chase at lunch

It was really nice to see my old friends, but after lunch we parted ways with them to run some errands for our upcoming trip. We also made time to have some fun with benches and signs, of course.

What can I say? I'm just a rebel like that.

We also stopped at Crumbs on our way home to pick up some cupcakes. Oh, those cupcakes. Eric had a yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting, and I had the "Grasshopper" - a chocolate cupcake with mint frosting and chocolate chips. These cupcakes were HUGE (we're talking eat-it-with-a-knife-and-fork huge), moist, and so, so delicious. Mmmm.

Oh, cupcakes. Yum, yum, yum.

And that was our Friday! It was a fun way to start the weekend. I'll be back tomorrow to recap our Independence Day!