footy + french friday

footy_friday

long gone are foti fridays when john "foti" foti would come to work fully dressed up complete with a tie. for he's right, what's the point of going through all that trouble if your only gonna be at work for 15 minutes due to summer fridays. instead, to kick off the world cup, friday the 9th was declared footy friday. everyone came in their country's jerseys. well not everyone everyone and not everyone in their native country obviously. earle's not dutch and im no brasilian. nevertheless, it was a fun atmosphere. i brought my orange football in support of the dutchies. brockie was already telling everyone of the days he'll be taking off to see the brits play. cecilia was getting all set for her flight to hamburg to see the argentines play the ivory coast for the weekend. jim being teased for not having his italian jersey on and instead having his princeton, new jersey shirt on. nice.

art league award ceremony

once that bit of office morning fun was over, i headed up to the met for a board of education and art directors club award ceremony i was invited for. bit inspiring seeing all the high school students in all shapes, sizes and colors coming up the stage to receive their award. bit of a proud feeling as well, after the ceremony, hearing from the head of the school art league whom i met there that she's already heard a lot of good things about me. not bad to hear, always good to have education as a non-commercial back-up once i get kicked out of the colorful world of advertising. or not.

the met

once the award ceremony was done, got a chance to walk around the museum. something i have not done since the great il cone was still around and when i still had those tons of passes courtesy of the board of ed. well, the statues have not moved since. and the people-watching is still just as good as the art gazing. and the roof garden still offers a great view of the city. only thing that has changed perhaps was the dude who'd always be there coming up with a sketch of this one statue (or maybe pretending to) was nowhere in sight. well, maybe he's gone off to the guggenheim for his permanent home instead.

dinner at le refuge

once the dose of art and people watching was over, i headed to le refuge, some fancy nearby french cafe, where i was invited as a guest for the post-awards dinner. most of the 30 or so guests were grownups in the field of education—principals and heads of this and that. i sat at the "kids'" table. nice dinner actually complete with wine and lively conversations, mostly centering on the role of education and how terrible a global citizen the US is. well, it was a french restaurant after all. the food was good. the veal scallopini and wild mushrooms i had was exquisite and the profiterole with rich belgian chocolate just right. unless of course i was merely led to believe so having been refered to as misseiur. nice french cuisine. brought back memories of that dinner at chateau neercanne, the castle in maastricht, holland. well, except maybe that was 100 times better and more authentic. but anyway, no complains here for it was a nice group of people and the dinner was on them too. nice.