Urban Photo Shoot Craziness

...or Winter Picnic: Part 1

So I am having one of those situations where I have so many things I want to share with you, but seem to have an inversely proportional number of free minutes to do so. I have decided this is a good problem to have (consider the converse, shanda!) but it is still a problem and one I am trying to deal with.

One of the ways I am trying to deal with said problem is to post things that are little shorter but perhaps just as fun for you to read and enjoy. You see, I took this four day trip up the East Coast full of blog-worthy visits to restaurants and quality time with some of my favorite former Washingtonians (who have now relocated to cities like New York and Boston) and I have been kept up at night thinking about how I will recap all the fun that was had in this space. Okay, not really kept up at night...but I have surely not figured out a way to do the trip justice in blog format. So my solution is to blog about highlights and organize them all in a series.

This post will be part one in the series which I am calling "Winter Picnic." I'm going with this name for the series for two reasons:

1. The other day it was really lovely out. Maybe like 50s in January... (Global warming...eek.) ...and I had a winter picnic with my colleague and friend Alex M. outside our office building at a little table on the sidewalk featuring delicious wraps from the Juice Joint! Alex labeled the bag that our dinners came in "Alex and Emily's Winter Picnic."
2. I love the idea of winter picnics. My mom used to read the BEST book to me called Winter Picnic when I was little and I have very fond associations with the concept and the book.

Okay, so now that you know where the title of the series is coming from, I can begin with the first post!

While in New York, I stayed with my friend Cara F. in her fabulous Upper West Side apartment. We snacked on Levain Bakery cookies (obviously) and ate at a really great Greek restaurant (more about this in another Winter Picnic series installment). While on our way from the Greek place to the dessert place (Cafe Lalo, featured in You've Got Mail), we decided to do an impromptu urban photo shoot.

One of my favorite aspects of the shoot is that I had never met Cara's friends from college, Shannon R. and Andrea D., before dinner. And they were SUCH willing photo shoot participants. (Shannon even changed her Facebook pic to one of the results, always a good sign.) Here are some favorites...