Back from NYC

Nice to be there this week and see some folks. We drove down Friday night in pouring rain and traffic -- yours truly drove the whole way, and felt like a Hick with a capital H. I have forgotten how to drive in the city, but my friend Kim says I should keep doing it to keep up my skills. Ha.

At any rate, many potholes later and a couple of very close calls where I was on the triangle between the highway and the turn-off ramp, we got to Margaret's very comfy house and all went to sleep immediately. Dave went off to the theater with David F, lucky dog; I had brunch with Kim and then hung with Margaret, and Lily spent the day with Georgia-Rae and her mom at PS 261's talent show. I made it over there a lot later in the afternoon and had a great time chatting and saying hi to old friends, parents of classmates, the amazing principal, etc. The talent show was also really special. And it all really struck me as to how WHITE our lives are here in western Massachusetts. Very.

Saturday night I slept better than I've slept in a long time, surprisingly. She has shutters on the windows and even though the room is on the street I didn't hear any noise. It was lovely to sleep until 8am, which I never ever get to do. And on Sunday we went to a luncheon in honor of Dave's cousin, who was being feted by her temple. The food was surprisingly good -- excellent Middle Eastern-- and I had a great time belting out American Pie with a crowd of 40- and 50ish folks.

Got back to Dave's mom's around 5, and Lily went to her room and turned on her TV and I went to my room and turned on ours -- god I love cable -- and dozed while watching Law and Order reruns. God there is a LOT of awful violence on TV. Reality forensic shows, and one shows the dead woman's actual skull. Another is a competition between logging companies in Oregon. Weird stuff.

Then on Monday Lily and I took the train into the city and went to the natural history museum for the afternoon. That was a gas. It feels great to be back at some of these places. I can either pretend I was a tourist or a native; I guess I'm both, at this point. (I was stopped in the subway by real tourists trying to find their way to the World Trade Center; they asked if I lived here and I hesitated. But WTC I can do from Columbus Circle. From where we were standing, A to Chambers.) We saw the new exhibit on the horse, which I noticed had nothing about black cowboys (did I miss something?) and said in one place that horses had been domesticated for at least 6,000 years and in another, 5,000.

But I also was a bit cranky about the Discovery room, which wasn't open when the sign said it would be, until I turned back and read it more closely and realized it had summer and winter hours. So maybe I read the horse thing wrong. It's possible.

Then we went to the Katharsis Theater Company's benefit and saw Ruth and Emily, which was lovely, along with some of the theater folks I knew back in the day. And dear Henry, of course. We ducked out at 8pm and Dave drove us all home -- we picked up his mom for the week, so she came with us. Lily and I slept the whole way but I am still zonked, head-achey, recovering from being in NYC and what an emotional thing that can be at times. So I took a soak tonight in the tub and am going to bed.

There you go, Mom, there's my report!

I'll try to post weekly. hahaha.