What is there to survive, you want to know? None of it was bad. It was all very good. But it was completely and totally draining. If I were the type to keep scrapbooks, I’d now be staring at a pile of ticket stubs, napkins, photos and things to paste into said imaginary scrapbook. But I’m not, so here’s a digital photo dump.
Monday the 10th our good friend Audrey came into New York for the evening, and Jim and I went down to see her by train. At the Hawthorne station, I spotted these awesome steelworks. There’s a whole series of them, from hobos to women waiting at the station for people to come in on the train.
We had some lovely sushi in midtown. It was so nice to see her.
I miss Audrey. We used to see her a lot, and w are only lucky that she comes into New York quite a bit for business. Otherwise, the distance between Chicago and New York would seem a lot bigger.
The following Thursday morning, I went for my first jog with a group in forever. But the group didn’t show up. So I slogged around on the Bronx River pathway for a little half an hour, and then I went home and prepped for my morning meeting in Irvington, New York, where I was reminded of how much I like the river towns and their sharp slope downwards to the Hudson River.
You can just see the Tappan Zee bridge in this photo. I liked living there, back in the mid-90s.
Later that day, my friend Nic, another ShelterBox Response Team member, came to visit me. It was Nic’s first time in New York, and after being stuck in traffic for sometime, we finally got back to my place and hot-footed it down to the Big Bad in time for Nic’s hair appointment with an acquaintance of mine. I had a pedicure in the meantime. (I am shocked, by the way, to realize that almost a month later, they still look pretty good.)
Spotted this building advert on the way over.
Later we went to see a friend of Nic’s art exhibit. It is art of the type I call stupid good: You don’t have to know anything about art to know it’s just damned good work. Damien Hirst bought two of the ones on exhibit, and although I’m not one for picked cows, I do trust the man has good taste in art.
We’d met Robert and his girlfriend Sarah at the exhibit, and then we went off to get Nic some good old-fashioned eats at Katz’s Deli. Yum.
Good haircut, right?
Nic was with us for a week. It was really nice, and pretty whirlwind, but it was immediately comfortable–Nic just sort of fit into our daily routines. She could have stayed for months and we’d not have cared one iota.
We took her to part of the Appalachian trail and the woods by us and in general had a great time. The day after Nic left, my parents dropped in.
We took them all over, too, and Dad took a bunch of pictures, but I’m convinced they’re all still on his camera. He still has photos on there from my brother’s wedding. That was at the end of January. Storage cards are a bad thing for some people.
My mom wanted to go to Bergdorf’s. I took her. We saw these. I want some.
They are salt and pepper shakers. More important, they are eggs with legs on them. Most important, they are hilarious.
We took them to Rhode Island. They liked it. I liked that my mom has always wanted to go there and never has been, and now she can say she did that.
My parents were in town for a week. Two days after they left we drove to Rhode Island again, for a wedding. But this trip was far more casual. We spent Sunday at Bluff Point, which is probably one of the prettiest places int he world. I could totally live there, maybe in this house:
And we saw lots of gorgeous flora:
Actually, all of these photos were taken at Hadley Farm, neighboring Bluff Point.
And then later we did actually go over to Bluff Point, which is a state park and at which you can mountain bike, ride horseback, stroll and swim if you’d like.
And fish, obviously. I like this picture. It has a Winslow Homer quality to it. But of course I flatter myself.
I love the fractal quality of these ferns. So pretty!
If you’re wondering why I’m taking photos of what looks likeĀ a plain old gnarly root system, it’s because not three minutes earlier I watched a little girl, no more than 8 years old and wearing Crocs, kick ass down this section of trail. She just rode it, like it was nothing. So cool.
Here we are at Bluff Point. It was a nice day.
Later on that evening we went back to Narragansett, not far from where we’d taken my parents to see the Newport mansions, for my friend Tom’s wedding.
As usual, my head is enormous. But the dress, which I bought at a second-hand store in Pittsburgh, actually turned out OK. I had it taken up a bit. For $45 plus the $25 for the alteration, it was a steal. And I’ve always wanted a vintage cocktail dress…this one is from the 50s and has these stiff sized panels at the hips to give me more shape.
It was a really awesome wedding. Tom is Jewish and Sabrina is Brazilian, so their huppah was constructed of branches Tom had found after a windstorm in Central Park and a beautiful tropical cloth. It was adorned with tropical flowers. Gorgeous. Their declaration of intent was Buddhist, we recited a Shinto prayer of happiness, and their song choice was “Time After Time,” performed by two of their friends. Way cool. And we met some really nice people.
We drove home the next day and plowed through the workweek, and then we went to York, PA yesterday for one more wedding.
York is an interesting place. It clearly had had its boom time, but it’s a little downtrodden now. We stayed at the Lafayette Club, and that was interesting.
The portraits you see lining the walls are all of presidents.
The building itself is awesome. Definitely a little run down, but the historical details were fabulous. The price was right and the location–across the street from the reception site–was terrific.
Perhaps the best detail of all, though, was the old communication system.
It looks very muppet-like.
Anyway. That is why I am tired. Now I am sitting here in my living room, realizing that I really must commit to more blog posts so things like this photo dump don’t happen again. My fingers are tired. I have bored you for 1150 words. I must stop.
‘Til next time,
Your friendly local airhead
Manamana!
Do dooo dee do-do
Manamana!
Do do dee do
nice name – audrey. love the ferns.