Hot on the heels of some glorious weather last week, Long Island was hammered with driving rains and wind on Saturday night. Trees were downed, shingles were torn from roofs, anything that wasn’t secured down such as garbage cans went tumbling through the neighborhood.

With the strong winds came rough seas. On Sunday afternoon we went to Smith Point to watch the angry waves roll in. The dunes and the sandy beach were all but gone. The foamy tide relentless pounded the shore up to the retaining wall.

Birthdays, Christmas, Fathers Day all elicit the same reaction from so many women. What do you give the man in your life when he already has so many of the toys that he wants? Motorcycle? Check, check and check. Tools? A definite maybe but, another torque wrench under the tree just doesn’t cut it. Sweater vest? Uh… no. After wracking my brain trying to find something neat for my better half Kenny for Christmas, I settled in to a gift certificate to partake in the Gotham Dream Car Tour. 

The Gotham Dream Car Tour puts you in the driver’s seat of some of the world’s most exotic road cars for a day.  The tour gives you the unique opportunity to pilot six exclusive autos out on public roadways, spending about a half an hour behind the wheel of each before moving on to the next car.  I was fortunate enough to be taken along as a passenger on this great day of driving.

Much to the collective palpable disappointment of the 7 drivers participating in the Tour on that day, no one would be getting any seat time in any of their Lamborghini cars, which were all in some state of requiring mechanical attention. To their credit, Gotham knowing right away that this would be a major letdown to the group gave each driver a fifty percent off certificate that they could use on a daily rental or on another tour. Beggars can’t be choosers, so the drivers would have to suffer through a pair of Maseratis, the poor things. The lineup of cars that we would have the opportunity to ride in on this day was the Maserati Quattroporte, Maserati Gran Turismo, Bentley Silver Spur, Bentley Continental GTC, Ferrari 360 Spyder and the Ferrari F430.

The way that the tour works is each driver is listed on a driving rotation sheet, allowing each person to experience about 30 minutes behind the wheel of each car. After the safety meeting and car orientation the group received their driving badges and the driving rotation. You could see each driver excitedly scanning the paper looking for their name to see where they fell in the car driving lineup. Let’s face it, each of these boys wanted to pilot those Ferraris on the twistiest part of the route to get some understanding of the amazing handling that they’ve all read about since they were wee lads. It seemed that Lady Luck was riding along with us as Kenny got the 360 Spyder and the F430 while we were going to be driving in Harriman State Park which offered the most winding roads of the route and then the Silver Spur and the Gran Turismo on the to and from highway legs of the drive.  Score!

When the tour leaves the garage facility in New Jersey the train of exotics tails a lead car that is a rather inconspicuous looking sedan. Following behind is a sweep car of similar non-descript ilk making sure that none of these very expensive sheep get lost. Each car is equipped with a CB radio to keep in verbal contact with the entire group. Route directions, road hazards, Smokey is hiding in the bushes type messages all come across the radio during your drive with a northeastern accent that had me chuckling at times. One of the messages actually included the phrase, “a couple ten fifteen minutes.” You just don’t hear that outside of the New York metro area.

The lead car radios the group to pull in to scheduled stops to make driver changes. What ensues is then something of high profile Chinese Fire Drill. Excited chatter about their impression of the car they are exiting flurried between the drivers. On this day each of the drivers was salivating over the Ferrari F430, wishing they could just get a little more time behind the wheel of the Italian beauty. The group could not escape without pictures, questions or just general awe at the collection of fine automobiles all congregated together.

As a passenger, my impression of the driving segments of the tour overall can be summed up in a single word: Terrifying. Admittedly, I am probably the worst choice as a front seat passenger. As Kenny, with an uncharacteristic giddiness, blipped the paddles and moved through the gears of the Ferrari F430 it rumbled a delicious guttural growl through the deep green surroundings of Harriman State Park, I sat gripping the door white knuckled all the way. The car skimmed across the roadway with agility at speed unlike anything I have ever experienced before and am unlikely to again. The term handled like it was on rails never meant anything to me until riding in this car.  It was ferocious and manly and oh so exhilarating and being a passive entity in the ride was absolutely scary. Watching the man I love be truly overcome with the driving experience, wrapped up completely with an excitement that I don’t think I’ve ever seen from him before was hands down worth the price of admission.

What I came away from this event with was an understanding that giving the gift of an experience will leave a lingering joy unlike anything else. Clearly the people at Gotham Dream Cars understand this. I would absolutely recommend the Dream Car Tour to anyone with a thirst for exhilarating pursuits.

To read a firsthand account of the Dream Car Tour, visit Kenny’s blog on watermelon18.com.

Reason Number 487 to love my boyfriend.

Today, on this dreary and sleepy day as I pulled up to the house after work I notice what was about a 4 1/2 foot cardboard box wrapped in plastic waiting for me at the doorway. Something had been delivered to the house while I was at work. It was addressed to me.

I carried the box in, opened it up and… what’s this? A Longboard! My honey surprised me with an Earthwing Supercharger.

I will be the first to admit (I’m sure he’s feeling a weird tingle right now) that he absolutely does listen to me when I talk about stuff, even if it is just in an offhand way. I’m a happy girl.

Now if it would just stop raining…

It’s that time of year again. Time for me to once again head on over to the Dollar Tree to pick up el cheapo gift bags, wrapping paper, tape, and hideously aged candy. I have oft imagined a network of sweat-shop elves wearing beer stained wife beaters, green cigarette-burned tights and a yellowish hue in their beards, feverishly restocking the shelves of the Tree each night. All through the night their chubby digits cramming heavily dented cans of baked beans next to Swirly brand toilet brushes and seemingly brand-less bags of “Chips.”

Last night, my eye-rolling family found themselves once again humoring me as I strode up and down the aisles of the store with a curious mix of wonder and maybe I shouldn’t touch that with bare hands. All the while in my apparent oblivion I chirped things like, “isn’t that awesome?” and “ooh look at that! Can you believe it’s only a dollar?” When yes, they can in fact believe it’s only a dollar because a) it’s a piece of shit and b) every piece of shit in the store is a dollar. See how that works? The whole store… everything in it… $1.00. Hence we have, the Dollar Store err Tree.

That brings me around to one of my favorite pastimes, Dollar Store Haiku. You missed it, I know.

Innuendo Snacks
Swiss Roll in the Honey Buns
Taboo 40 States

Got Jungle Fever
You’re Icing My Zebra Cakes
Sweet Cosmic Brownie

Requires great skill
Taking on Banana Twins
Eat one from each hand

In the world of bumper stickers, you have like 3 second to catch someone’s attention and tell them something. Something about you, about how you feel. Something you must feel pretty strongly about in order to take the time to purchase said sticker and place it on your vehicle for the world to get a window into your psyche through.

Without further ado – some snaps as of late: