Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I continued my geographic traversals by flying out to San Diego to meet my new nephew Ryder and visit my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and Faryn, who drove down from Los Angeles. It was a classical San Diego weekend with time spent playing with my niece at the playground and briefly at the beach, sunny, warm weather, lots of eating - including an awesome Peruvian lunch in Encinitas and a Thai dish that we made at home that I take credit for....picking out ;o), plenty of Pike's coffee, breakfast burritos, and fish tacos - and a case of bronchitis for my poor niece, and therefore my poor brother and sister-in-law. The house was a pool of germs by the time I left and it seems as though I contracted something myself that has caught up to me now, hence the reason for me sitting at home blogging when I should be at the gym :o) !! I still had a great time, as it's always fun to sit around and chit chat or watch TV with my siblings. And my nephew? He is very cute and has Graham's perma-scowl :) !
This weekend I woke up with a scratchy throat on Saturday, but endeavored to go bowling with my volunteer group and a bunch of kids regardless. I must say that I am working on my form and I'm making some serious progress on my curve-ball - when it's not in the gutter :o) . Since I was bowling with kids, I went ahead and used bumpers once. I have no doubt that the Upper East Side volunteers thought much less of their leader once they saw me bouncing off those a few times!
Sunday, after brunch at amazingly (geographically and demographically) local Uptown near Paul and Cathy's with their friends Alicia and Erika, I hit the town on a mission: to find new jeans! I'm of the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that bootcut jeans are on their way out but that seems to be the only thing I can find these days in the chain stores that I hit on the way to Macy's, the holy grail of jeans shopping. It's very hard to find slim-cut jeans with regular legs that are not ultra-low rise. That is, until I found them at Macy's, of course the very last pair that I tried on! They fit me like a glove!
On my way home, it was dinner time so I wanted to find a place in the area to eat before heading back to the restaurant-dry neighborhood that I live in. I settled on a place of New York folklore, an institution standing alone amongst the modern buildings in Murray Hill - the Second Avenue Deli, which was recently, and controversially, shuttered in it's original location in the East Village and relocated uptown a bit. This place is a famous deli serving up gynormous pastrami sandwiches and a million other traditional Jewish dishes.
When I sat down to eat at the counter, I found myself in the middle of two worlds - quite literally. To my left were two recently-graduated college kids with their Blackberries and their voracious post-hangover appetities ordering many a thing from the gentleman behind the counter taking our orders. To my right, a cranky old Jewish couple with the man with a serious scowl on his face, thrusting his bowl of soup at the waiter because he didn't like it and the woman complaining about the fact she didn't get her fries immediately after she ordered them. It was a great experience to sit and observe these two pairs while eating my meatloaf (which they both looked at rather jealously).
After they left and I was alone with the waiter behind the counter, who's service was awesome despite the hectic nature of the place. I asked him frankly "Do you just get numb to the number of people that you churn through here?" He told me that sometimes you get customers like the ones to my right who want to be served immediately despite the crowds and aren't happy with anything, but you just have to take it and do your best to smile. It was a great New York moment, but you just had to be there to experience it :o) !
J. Riley, back to my wheezing and sniffling
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