[What To Do In Park Slope When...] You Want to Take Advantage of an Early Spring

Photo via Wikipedia

Temperatures are supposed to get into the mid-50's this week, which is a sure-fire sign that the Mayans were right: the world is about to end. Since we're all going to die in a few months, we all might as well just throw caution to the wind. Why not elect Rick Santorum to be President? How 'bout we try to boil vodka on a gas stove in a paper cup? And after we've done that, let's all quit our jobs and go to the Botanic Garden!

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[What to do in Park Slope When...] You Want a Day of Self-Pampering

The holiday season is a craptastic frenzy of finding the right gifts for your family, fulfilling Christmas party obligations and writing stacks of holiday cards. Let's get real: it can be a pain in the ass. While the season is about the joy of giving, there is real joy is giving to yourself. I'm not encouraging a Scrooge-like attitude this season, but a little self-pampering is important for spirit. Plus, you get to feel like the 1% even if it's just for a day.

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[What To Do In Park Slope When...] You're Dating on a Budget

Way too often I hear other dudes complain that they can't date because it's too expensive. They're wrong. To quote Kevin Bacon: "Anybody can get laid when they're famous. I got laid a lot when I was not famous, and that was something I was very proud of back then. Being a fucking waiter with no money, not a lot of drugs, just a mattress on the floor - and still being able to pull chicks. That's when you separate the men from the boys." With that in mind, I'm about to drop some serious knowledge on the broke-ass, would-be-playboys out there in Park Slope. If you've only got $20 to spend on a first date, this is how you use it. Read closely and take notes. 

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[What To Do In Park Slope When...] Your Manhattan Friends Come For A Fall Staycation.

Image via Eric Ryan Anderson

The word "staycation" is maybe the worst atrocity that marketers have committed in the last hundred years, but I'm using it here because it's the only appropriate word for when your friends from Manhattan "come all the way out" to Brooklyn for some rest and relaxation time. Fall is a particularly frequent time for Manhattanites to travel the full fifteen minutes it takes to get to the Slope, expecting a full on autumn Festival as soon as they haul their asses off the R train. 

Rightfully so. People actually decorate shit for harvest/Thanksgiving/Halloween in these parts, and no one loves a cornucopia like this girl. 

SO, what do you do when you being asked to provide a relaxing fall-themed day for your Manhattanite friends?

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[What To Do In Park Slope When...] You Want to Funnel Free Floating Nostalgia

OK, I'll be fair. Park Slope is *not* the Brooklyn epicenter of olde-timey-ness. I'll leave that title for Williamsburg or Cobble Hill/Carrol Gardens to duke it out over. Farmacy and Henry Public give any absinthe-tinged-elixir peddling "public house" north of the BQE a run for their money. That said, we're pretty guilty of that sort of aesthetic, achronological, retro fondness here in the Slope, too.

I've not done the research but I'm willing to bet that the Gimlet-to-Appletini ratio in our hood is about 7:1. Not that it's a bad thing - it's just that you need not limit your appreciation for "simpler" times to cocktails and the occasional blue grass jam at Union Hall. So turn off that Smithsonian Folkways recording, put down that glass of ice cold buttermilk (thanks Boardwalk Empire) and grab some headache powder or tincture or whatever -- we've got a full day or old style activities for you right here in Park Slope!

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