otto's coney island birthday

Otto turned 5, and since he is a train enthusiast, his birthday party was a long train ride to Coney Island for a morning at the beach. 15 kids and parents met at Lisa (Hege's boss, and friend at Chickpeas) & Keary's house in Park Slope at 10am and headed out for the cat herding. we cleared our subway car in 2 stops, and continued down to the Surf Avenue stop amid one continuous, high-pitched squeal of joy.

jack, rachael, & hennie on the F train

lisa had made every kid and each parent a sack lunch. ours was fresh mozzerella, tomato, pepper, fresh basil, and pesto on a sourdough roll. it was impressive preperation.

beach patrol

hennie and I found a horseshoe crab, barely alive. so we prolonged its death throes by taking it back to the group and parading it around; hijacking the entire party for a heartfelt march to the surf to return the dinasour to the ocean. i noticed that the thing had obviously slipped into extinction before we were halfway across the beach, but i said nothing and layed it down far out enough that the first retreating wave took it away. I yelled out - "Look at him swim!"

i think i've commented at length in previous posts at how strange a place coney island tends to be

after the party broke up a few of us walked over to Astroland for a few rides, which was a pretty nice way to end the early afternoon

hennie, bishopp, & roger (mette tried one ride. actually, mette tried half a ride before the operator had to stop it and allow hege in to rescue her)

hennie & bishopp winding down with a hotdog