Posts tagged adam kaplan

Little Dog in the Big City

1 year ago

by Rachel in Adventures, Pets

Isabella and Adam in Grand Central Station

On Saturday, I made the brave decision to bring Izzie on the Metro-North and travel down to Grand Central Station for her first trip into the city of New York.

I was nervous to bring her on the train even though I’ve seen other puppy parents do it, plus it was the weekend when there would be noticeably less people traveling. However, Izzie gets territorial and protective over me, and it was no different this time and she barked and whined and many people who approached me on the platform.

She turned into an angel though whenever we got on the train. She immediately shut up and huddled close to my legs and sat on my feet. She was nervous but seemed to take the same approach to traveling on the train as she does when she’s in the car.

We pulled into Grand Central Station and exited the train to the platform. Everything was going quite well but then for some reason Izzie suddenly planted all four paws on the cement and refused to move even with my urging and leash tugging. I resorted to picking the poor girl up and carrying her to the main concourse. She briefly met with a new beagle friend as we walked up the stair cases to the outside.

The day wasn’t without some messes from the nervous dog, but I think she did remarkably well considering she is more of a suburban, almost farm suited, dog. We will be eventually moving to Brooklyn so really it was a matter of time before she would need to be exposed to crowds of people.

We met my fiancé, Adam at the New York Times building and made a pit stop at a local cup cake shop for an early birthday present! Our little family trekked down to the piers next to the Intrepid where we knew there was a small dog park. About a dozen or so dogs were in and out of the compound through the afternoon while we were there, and while we were hoping Izzie would be more social, after we took her leash off she was apparently quite content just sitting next to us in the shade. I felt like a mommy trying to get her reluctant child to go off and play with other children on the first day of kindergarten!

Adam attempted to get her to play in the kiddie pool that the town had set up for the dogs to play in but she would have none of that! She immediately jumped out and went back to chilling out in the shade. I couldn’t blame her, she seemed to be relaxing and enjoying herself. After more coaxing and a little more playing, we decided to start to head back to Westchester, but first stopped at the Shake Shake in Midtown that we had heard so much about! Luckily the lines weren’t took long and we were able to snag a small cup of soft serve ice cream that we shared (Izzie was particularly fond of the treat!) The trip back home was otherwise, luckily, uneventful and again Izzie was a perfect angel on the train.

Mommy and daddy wrapped up the night by having dinner at a local Italian restaurant that was down the street from my place but in the two years I’ve lived in Elmsford, I had no clue it existed! We joked that it was better that we didn’t know about it, otherwise we would have been poor and fat from going to it often. When we got the menus we picked out appetizer and main courses but entertained the server when he asked us if we wanted to hear the specials. We were immediately awestruck at the specials offered and changed everything we had planned on ordering. Adam ordered a delicious duck that was roasted in, of all things, strawberries and strawberry sauce! We started with the crab cake and for my main course I tried the lemony swordfish. The night wrapped up with a huge slide of tiramisu that we couldn’t finish.

All in all a great way to ring in my birthday!

Little Boots American Tour

2 years ago

by Rachel in Music, Reviews

I’ve been listening to Little Boots since I got a free iTunes sampler earlier this year which included her track “Stuck on Repeat.” Samplers are usually a hit or miss for me, and I was immediately hooked on her sound and personality. Unfortunately, she has only really released tracks in the UK and there are only a handful of legit releases someone from the States can get their hands on. I’ve gobbled up most of her EPs and Remix tracks via iTunes and she even offered a mash-up track off of her website that is composed some released and non-released music.

Boy was I excited when I found out via her mailing-list that not only was she going to do a tour, albeit short, in the United States, but that she was coming to NYC! To make it even better, she was going to be in town a mere days before my birthday! (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!) I scarfed up two tickets for me and Adam to see her and it only costed about $20 for each ticket. That was a steal for me!

Last night was the night and I was wowed! Not only from Little Boot’s performance and energy but by the two opening bands that night: Plastiscines and Yes Giantess. I should have realized I would have enjoyed Yes Giantess by the remix they did of Little Boots’ “Earthquake” that she released a couple weeks ago.

The Plastiscines were an all-female group with a hard edge. From what I could tell they were French due to their accents, after doing some research I found out I was right. I like being able to hear powerful women who don’t come off as whiney or bitches and they didn’t disappoint. I’m sorry to admit this, but I was really impressed with their hair and clothing too! To be able to rock and look good while doing it? Fab!

Yes Giantess was also a pleasant surprise. As we waited for them to make up the stage I watched the crew put together the different synthesizers and keyboards that the team were going to play and then there was a lone Mac laptop with red electrical tape spelling out “YES” sitting on there as well. These guys were outright nerds and seemed to have a jolly time up there banging away on the keys.

Then came the headliner: Little Boots. I had read Perez Hilton earlier in the day and knew she was to do a surprise set on whatever local event he was having that night in NYC, but I did notice it was here a few times peaking around the corner on the stage while the other acts played so Perez’s thing must not have been long. She had a disco-ball-esque dress on that refracted the stage light that shined in various directions. She has total control of the stage and is very adept at starting audience participation.

If you aren’t familiar with Little Boots’ YouTube videos, she performs with Tenori-On by Yamaha on some of her tracks. The device is so nerdy and dramatically different from all of the classical and modern day instruments out there. As I have interpreted it, you have to be competent in being able to program the machine and then can use your programming and sound bites to play. The most obvious song that you hear it on is “Meddle.”

Another interesting “instrument” she used was some sort of light beam that was sitting on a synthesizer and depending on how she moved her hand the sound would be different. I have no idea what it is called but it was awesome.

She wrapped up the night without playing “Stuck on Repeat” and I was getting a bit nervous! That was my favorite song and I think her most well-known. After exiting the stage everyone stayed on the dance floor and called for her to come back on. Then the first few bars of the song started to play and the crowd went wild! Everyone was satisfied.

She played all the songs I knew of plus ones I hadn’t heard yet since her debut album “Hands” isn’t available in the States yet so I can only hope that one day we’ll be able to hear it. I’m really excited about what she has to offer to indie electronic music and I hope people in the states will be able to share in it really soon!