Hot Sarah in the City

I am back on the Big Apple side of North America.

And boy oh boy is it hot here.  I mean HOT.  Not Vancouver heat wave hot.  This hot is like a whole other hot I've never experienced before.  The Engineer states that it's like being behind the exhaust pipe of a bus, ALL THE TIME.

Heat induces laziness, hence the lack of blog entries of late.  I have just about enough energy to drag the bed directly in front of the air conditioning and then type three words.  The rest of the time is spent asleep.

What does one do for fun in such a hot city?  There are no pools, no nearby lakes, no beaches I would feel comfortable swimming off of.  What have we been doing?

Watching movies outside.

Clearly this is the new 'it' thing to hit cities across the continent.  Every one loves to watch an old movie from the comfort of a beach blanket in the great outdoors.  In New York, it's an art.

Bryant Park is the birthplace of the outdoor movie.  Thank goodness for reviews on Yelp, otherwise I would have had no idea what to do.  The grass is available at 5 pm.  The movie starts at 8:22 pm.  And people start camping around the grass at 3:45pm.  We opted for 4:20.  It was enough time to grab some iced coffees then claim two chairs on the border around the grass.

At 4:48 pm, the border around the grass was full and everyone was standing up.  I started to get nervous.  At 4:52 pm, everyone was shaking out their blankets to make sure they could 'run and drop'.  My heart was doing flips.  Like when I was a kid at track and field, waiting for the gun to go off.  At 4:58 people were stepping onto the grass and getting yelled at by police and the loudspeaker lady who was eerily like Big Brother.

The Engineer and I had a plan.  I would run with the blanket and claim some grass - but I would aim for center field.  He would attempt to go straight, diving between the hoards of crazy movie-goers and throw himself into a starfish on the ground if he found a good spot.  We would then see who got the better deal.

At exactly 5pm, the lady called 'enjoy the show' and MASSES of people ran into the grass.  I was practically hyperventilating.  I dropped as soon as the people in front of me did.  I literally had to drape myself over my blanket with my whole body so that other people did not try to crowd me out.

And for the next three and a half hours we read, ate, and ordered pizza.  It was fun.  It was crowded.  I was two inches from the person next to me.

I have to laugh at people who are idiots in these types of situations.  Clearly, hundreds of New Yorkers know to get there early and come prepared.  But there is always that one loser who shows up at 8:20 and asks the girls next to us if he could sit on the corner of their blanket where their shoes are.  They tell him no.  He moves over a few blankets, to FRONT ROW CENTRE, shoves himself between two men and then is joined by two girls, one of which is carrying 6 shopping bags.  RUDE!  And stupid.  I was glad that the people around them didn't give them any space and they were forced to sit hugging their knees.

Those are the same people who show up late to a movie on opening weekend, like Harry Potter, and then ask if the three seats next to you (in prime viewing space) are available when the rest of the theatre is full and the only seats left are the front row.  Yeah right, wank-head, these prime seats that I got here early for draped with sweaters are definitely free for your lame-ass, clearly, as the rest of the theatre is full, you numb-butt.  

Wow, I get really mad at that.

Anyways, we watched "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".  It was fun.  Central Park had a movie last night, it was great.  Not at all crowded and I was able to watch George Clooney AND the lightning bugs darting in the trees.  How awesome is that?

It's no Brohme Lake, but New York in the summer ain't so bad.