CENTRAL PARK - day one

When we first set out on this mission to bocce the city by storm, central park came up first in the list of places to rock n roll. Think of the endless opportunities! It's almost infinite! Is it even possible to cover every inch of New York's most celebrated greenspace? Probably not, but we're sure as hell going to try. We can't spend just one day there, that's for sure.

Because Jessica BabyArms Berger lives on the Upper East, and he traveled down to the Village to play with us on Saturday, we decided to start our Central Park tour by the Metropolitan Museum. Unfortunately, the Great Lawn is not yet open for the season, so finding a patch of grass/dirt without screaming children and lovers locking lips proved difficult. But we reminded ourselves, this is URBAN bocce and we must take things like people/pets/

fences/rules seriously, and simply incorporate them as new obstacles along the way.

A recurring theme in yesterday's game was passersby not realizing the game we were playing, and, thinking we had lost a rogue ball, picking up either the snitch or a players' ball to give back to us. Fortunately, no one did that to a potentially winning ball, so it didn't really ruin game play. In another instance, when we realized we were in the way of a bunch of kids' playing steal the bacon, a lovely little girl invited us to play with them, "it'll be really fun!" Well I thought that was just so sweet of her.

Perhaps the best part of our first game--other than my winning it of course--was when Jessica BabyArms rolled his ball at a tree where a squirrel, curious, had his eye on our snitch. Unintentionally, the ball went straight for the squirrel, who then performed a miraculous twisted arial upon being hit by a bocce ball. It was pretty hilarious. Don't worry, the squirrel was fine. I wish we could have gotten a picture. Maybe the Asian tourists passing by did.

The second game took place a little further south and west, right by the pond in front of Belvedere Castle. There was real, green grass here! Bright and soft! I needed to sit on it for a while before we started our game.

This location was nice. The terrain was smoother and less unpredictable, the space was pretty open, and instead of children running around our neighbors were more the lounge-y type, thus it was all pretty relaxed. Plus we had such a pretty pond and a CASTLE in front of us! Man, every time I see that castle I think it's so wild, even though I've seen it a million times.

I, Tess, also won the second game yesterday, leaving our current standings at:

Jessica BabyArms Berger - 1

Tessbear (new nickname in the works) - 2

Caro (also needs a Bocce name) - 0

Hopefully Juicebox will join us next time, and add some new competition! And that goes for anyone else out there looking for an amazing way to spend a sunny afternoon in the City!

Until next time,

C & T