It came and went pretty smoothly. Kate and I finished reading Girl in Translation together and it is my new must read book for this season. Consequently I was able to deal with my mantra God is In the Details and I was organized like a german field marshall which was all to the good with a pre Thanksgiving dinner party for the Sheftalls who had just driven up from Georgia and other guests totalling 16 people and then Thanksgiving for 11 people. This was after Kate and her cousins went up to the Museum to watch the parade from a VIP vantage point that I had been able to wangle for them. Kate has turned into an amazing hostess and was a real champ about helping with the details of the Wednesday night dinner. Arnie came into town on Thanksgiving morning and did all the things that husbands do like reaching those bowls and vases that live on the tallest shelves, setting up the bar and being charming. On Friday I had to go into the office and pretend to work. No self respecting journalist worth their salt was working but I was there on the off chance that they might be struck by immediate interest in the Museum. Off to dinner with the Sheftalls again at our favorite New York restaurant Bar Pitti and then they went off to the theatre and we prtty much collapsed. The Sheftalls left on Saturday and Arnie flew out on Sunday. Actually the adrenaline was pretty much flowing for everybody until Monday night when Kate and I both went to bed at 9:00 am and woke up at 6:00am. what an indulgence.
Took Kate to school this morning who exhibited true New York City street smarts. As we got on the bus I noted to Kate that the back of the bus seemed crowded with very few people sitting near the driver. "Probably a crazy person is sitting up front...."
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
September/October/November Song
The weather is curiously warm even as Thanksgiving approaches. I have a favorite early morning walk with Miss Murray where the sun has a halo effect as it shines through the leaves of several still lush yellow trees. Then I can scuff my feet through the fallen leaves like a kid. Somehow it's very therapeutic.
Kate and I are in a new evening pattern where we have dinner -- or not -- depending on whether or not one or both of us are hungry and then we are reading a book outloud. In Translation is a book that I started and then we started to read it outloud and together. It's just a great way to spend an evening. Tonight of course nothing stands in the way of NCIS...and I'm also kinda cooking for Thanksgiving which will take up some time. But with some help from my friends I've managed to pare down the number of items I'm actually cooking. Now on my to do list is a cake and the stuffing. Don't ask what I had originally thought about preparing! The Sheftalls are coming to town tomorrow and will be staying in an available New York apartment and then having dinner with us on Wed & Thursday. Great fun.
Kate and I are in a new evening pattern where we have dinner -- or not -- depending on whether or not one or both of us are hungry and then we are reading a book outloud. In Translation is a book that I started and then we started to read it outloud and together. It's just a great way to spend an evening. Tonight of course nothing stands in the way of NCIS...and I'm also kinda cooking for Thanksgiving which will take up some time. But with some help from my friends I've managed to pare down the number of items I'm actually cooking. Now on my to do list is a cake and the stuffing. Don't ask what I had originally thought about preparing! The Sheftalls are coming to town tomorrow and will be staying in an available New York apartment and then having dinner with us on Wed & Thursday. Great fun.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Jubilation
Somehow I forgot to mention that we have a new toilet. Now it may sound like a gross and unsuitable topic to you, but to me....We had been having trouble with the aforementioned piece of equipment and relocated the plunger to the bathroom in an effort to forestall any trouble. And even so, we had trouble. It took several trips to Home Depot -- hate them -- to buy a toilet, special order and then to get it delivered and then installed without I might add quickly breaking the tile on the floor which was one of my major concerns. So now we have a toilet that works! Bravo for us.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Free Time
I had a day off on Thursday -- Veterans Day you know -- and it was exquisite for this veteran of life. On my way up 6th avenue to the dentist I passed a string of 3 camels parading along. Sensational. A trip to the dentist which was mercifully quite quick although Pam, my hygenist and I, have become good friends exchanging ribal life commentaries and bad jokes by e-mail. Time for a coffee and a chance to read the paper as I watched other people scurrying to work. A stroll along Central Park West to do some limited food shopping and then home for nap...why not. Girls lunch at home without Kate who was safely tucked away at school. Another nap because after all it's exhuasting to be at leisure and then cook a new recipe for a friend who ultimately cancelled dinner because of ill health. That was just fine too.
More days like that and less like today which is the second day of the frenzied week surrounding the opening of the Museum's block buster exhibition on the Brain. Kate and several of her classmates saw it on Friday and pronounced it both kool and interesting. What else can you ask for?
Arnie was in for the weekend and we did all the normal family things from taking Miss Murray to the Park on what I fear is one of the last really beautiful fall days with the maples in Central Park practically shimmering in the sunlight to soccer for Kate. I was given a pass because I cooked dinner and they had gone from an indifferent sushi restaurant to the soccer fields...Sunday was the date for Kate's interview at the Beacon school, one of the better high schools here in the city which required providing a portfolio of 7th grade grades, a sample of work from last year and an essay about soemthing they had a passion for. After some grumbling Kate developed a very sophisticated outline for a piece about soccer and the importance of geometry. An immediate grabber. And she also included poetry in her portfolion rather than some earnest English paper. So of course this was the topic of her interview because it's interesting. And then she had to write a paper about her favorite character in a book so Kate chose cryptologist Victoria in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons...great choice especially since Beacon has a cryptology course....
This school business seems never to end and keeps growing tentacles in its free time...
More days like that and less like today which is the second day of the frenzied week surrounding the opening of the Museum's block buster exhibition on the Brain. Kate and several of her classmates saw it on Friday and pronounced it both kool and interesting. What else can you ask for?
Arnie was in for the weekend and we did all the normal family things from taking Miss Murray to the Park on what I fear is one of the last really beautiful fall days with the maples in Central Park practically shimmering in the sunlight to soccer for Kate. I was given a pass because I cooked dinner and they had gone from an indifferent sushi restaurant to the soccer fields...Sunday was the date for Kate's interview at the Beacon school, one of the better high schools here in the city which required providing a portfolio of 7th grade grades, a sample of work from last year and an essay about soemthing they had a passion for. After some grumbling Kate developed a very sophisticated outline for a piece about soccer and the importance of geometry. An immediate grabber. And she also included poetry in her portfolion rather than some earnest English paper. So of course this was the topic of her interview because it's interesting. And then she had to write a paper about her favorite character in a book so Kate chose cryptologist Victoria in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons...great choice especially since Beacon has a cryptology course....
This school business seems never to end and keeps growing tentacles in its free time...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Nashville Stories
Big Adventure to go to this fabled American city famous for Lo-retta Lynn, horses and Garth Brooks...
My first impression was good. I ducked into the ladies room in the Nashville airport and found 5 Dyson hand dryers. Wow. I am crazy about the Dyson vacuum cleaner and think Dyson's designs for everything from wheel barrows up and down are amazing so a city that can +afford to both appreciate good design and and buy it for a public space definitely has something going for it. Nashville is a town with money and the restaurants are crowded and the tourists keep on buying cow boy boots...In all other respects it seems very normal city of a mid size where people voted democrat in a republican state.
We visited schools, saw good book stores, ate tomato basil soup, drank beer and walked the streets with the locals, visited diverse neighborhood real estate and experienced some very, very chilly weather. We also met some nice people, ate shrimp and grits but no biscuits, alas, and plan on going back in December to do the whole thing over again. But this time Kate will be visiting Nashville, too.
Arnie has a nice apartment with several flat screen tvs. Now that is a good example the out of town luxury thing! And he bought a car. A grey car. I realized afterwards that I should have asked about the brand of the car but city girls like yellow taxis and cars of color.
My first impression was good. I ducked into the ladies room in the Nashville airport and found 5 Dyson hand dryers. Wow. I am crazy about the Dyson vacuum cleaner and think Dyson's designs for everything from wheel barrows up and down are amazing so a city that can +afford to both appreciate good design and and buy it for a public space definitely has something going for it. Nashville is a town with money and the restaurants are crowded and the tourists keep on buying cow boy boots...In all other respects it seems very normal city of a mid size where people voted democrat in a republican state.
We visited schools, saw good book stores, ate tomato basil soup, drank beer and walked the streets with the locals, visited diverse neighborhood real estate and experienced some very, very chilly weather. We also met some nice people, ate shrimp and grits but no biscuits, alas, and plan on going back in December to do the whole thing over again. But this time Kate will be visiting Nashville, too.
Arnie has a nice apartment with several flat screen tvs. Now that is a good example the out of town luxury thing! And he bought a car. A grey car. I realized afterwards that I should have asked about the brand of the car but city girls like yellow taxis and cars of color.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Bedbugs
New York is in the middle of bedbug paranoia and some of the anxiety is well placed according to the experts and amount of press coverage that one of the Museum's bedbug experts is receiving...Everybody in the office has sat through these interview where our resident expert intones mournfully about how to avoid bringing bedbugs home with you from a trip or explains how high heat that you use to kill them just might destroy everything in your apartment from melting the glue in your furniture to buckling the floor.
So in New York bedbugs have taken over from headlice as the #1 public enemy. This morning it was my turn to sit in Lou's overstuffed and skeezy office as he did a telephone interview with two major outlets about the prevalence of bedbugs, how he feeds them -- on his arm so they drink his blood - which always grosses me out and then began to hear the crunch of what sounded like paper or lettuce.
Oh, said a researcher, as she popped her head around the test tubes and stacks of books, I'm just making my lunch. And then she was eating it, too.
Double gross in that lab....
So in New York bedbugs have taken over from headlice as the #1 public enemy. This morning it was my turn to sit in Lou's overstuffed and skeezy office as he did a telephone interview with two major outlets about the prevalence of bedbugs, how he feeds them -- on his arm so they drink his blood - which always grosses me out and then began to hear the crunch of what sounded like paper or lettuce.
Oh, said a researcher, as she popped her head around the test tubes and stacks of books, I'm just making my lunch. And then she was eating it, too.
Double gross in that lab....
Monday, November 1, 2010
More transistions
So, what's the most important thing this morning? It's about Me and the fact that I'm wearing shoes for the first time in 6 weeks. Beautiful black slides in fact. I don't count sneakers as shoes so this experiment is all good news for as long as it lasts.
Arnie came into town from Nashville and we all had a great weekend with a full schedule of Cactivities from Chinese lessons, soccer and bat mitzvah plus unexpected outings to buy contact lenses for Kate and a new toilet for our bathroom. Both very much needed. I had really hesitated about getting lenses for Kate but discovered that she really hadn't been able to see. She was reading everything from street signs to ads as we walked home with the sense of pleasurable discovery that a blind person might have on regaining their sight. I guess that if you have glasses but don't wear them then the blackboard will always remain a mystery to you! Egads. Of course I should be sympathetic to this because my parents discovered I couldn't see when I kept saying "What fish are you talking about?" Or have I already told that story?
And the new toilet? I don't know that I have time for a full fledged rant about how much I detest Home Depot...We made 2 trips to buy the damn toilet and came back empty handed both times because it's never as simple as people would have you beleive. We finally had to special order the thing and that it was done at Home Depot was only due to the efficiency of Richard, salesperson in training. Well, that already put me into a quandry because what can traineees do? Well, this one followed through even when I had to blow him off because I was in the middle of the chaotic Museum Halloween celebration on Sunday. It all got done. But I still hate Home Depot. I have time to be right because I won't have the toilet until the end of the week.
New York finally got very chilly Autumn weather this weekend and on Saturday as we dropped Kate off for a bat mitzvah, Arnie and I went on a very New York date. We went to a movie in Yorkville and stopped at the revamped Papaya King for a swell dinner of hot dogs. Cost to the local host: $7
Halloween trick or treaters came to the apartment on Sunday -- they were there and then they were gone like a summer storm -- and this year Kate had the good sense not to go out with them because they were all 4 & 5 years old. She will regret not haing a stash of candy but so be it.
Arnie came into town from Nashville and we all had a great weekend with a full schedule of Cactivities from Chinese lessons, soccer and bat mitzvah plus unexpected outings to buy contact lenses for Kate and a new toilet for our bathroom. Both very much needed. I had really hesitated about getting lenses for Kate but discovered that she really hadn't been able to see. She was reading everything from street signs to ads as we walked home with the sense of pleasurable discovery that a blind person might have on regaining their sight. I guess that if you have glasses but don't wear them then the blackboard will always remain a mystery to you! Egads. Of course I should be sympathetic to this because my parents discovered I couldn't see when I kept saying "What fish are you talking about?" Or have I already told that story?
And the new toilet? I don't know that I have time for a full fledged rant about how much I detest Home Depot...We made 2 trips to buy the damn toilet and came back empty handed both times because it's never as simple as people would have you beleive. We finally had to special order the thing and that it was done at Home Depot was only due to the efficiency of Richard, salesperson in training. Well, that already put me into a quandry because what can traineees do? Well, this one followed through even when I had to blow him off because I was in the middle of the chaotic Museum Halloween celebration on Sunday. It all got done. But I still hate Home Depot. I have time to be right because I won't have the toilet until the end of the week.
New York finally got very chilly Autumn weather this weekend and on Saturday as we dropped Kate off for a bat mitzvah, Arnie and I went on a very New York date. We went to a movie in Yorkville and stopped at the revamped Papaya King for a swell dinner of hot dogs. Cost to the local host: $7
Halloween trick or treaters came to the apartment on Sunday -- they were there and then they were gone like a summer storm -- and this year Kate had the good sense not to go out with them because they were all 4 & 5 years old. She will regret not haing a stash of candy but so be it.
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