Monday, August 13, 2007

I'll see you around


On Sunday. I had one of those days that made me gitty about New York. It was gorgeous weather, after some rather frightening rainstorms during the week, and my friend Monika called me to say she was walking across town through the park and wanted to have lunch at the a cafe on the Hudson just down the streets from me. We got a table outside in the shade, ate too-expensive, though delicious sandwiches, and watched the boats go by. I was shocked the place wasn't packed.


Earlier that day, I bumped into my friend, Steve, who lives a 7 blocks away and took an unexpected field trip to an open house of an apartment only 4 blocks away from me. Once I am settled in, I'd like to make these open houses in my neighborhood a past time - by nature I'm always curious to see how the other half lives, the other half being those who can afford to sell the apartment they currently own in order to upgrade to another, more expensive, bigger apartment. A girl's gotta dream...


I took a little jaunt over to The Home Depot later on that afternoon to try to find a drill bit for a project I'm working on in my place. In inherited several traits from my mother - 1.) my ability to suspend all belief in reality so I can talk to the TV as I watch a movie or TV show, 2.) my teeth - we both had braces for quite a while to take care of our "vampire-like" alignments, and 3.) our desire to want to be really good at home improvement, though a complete inability to make that dream a reality. Despite a trip to THD and several to my local hardware store, I'm still not quite sure how to pull off this project. Just imagine when I have a whole house to take care of someday!


The greatest thing about that Home Depot trip was that it took me across Central Park to East 59th Street. People were everywhere, enjoying the weather with friends, reading a book or a newspaper, jogging, laughing, driving remote-control boats or paddle boats across the numerous lakes. I was so thrilled to be there that I walked all the way home too. I just couldn't make myself get into a bus or subway, even though they would have been much faster.


I've recently depleted my karma pool - great apartment, great job, dating, seeing old / new friends, an overall pretty fabulous life. This is all making me very nervous. (Those of you who know my life story can understand that too much good fortune makes my deepest neuroses kick in.) In an attempt to replenish my karma, I am opening up my little studio to two friends visiting this week, yes, I said week, as they look for an apartment of their own in New York for the first time. One is a very dear friend and I just couldn't imagine them paying all of this money for the hotel when over the years so many people have kindly let me sleep on their couches when I've visited. I need to pay this forward. So this has lit a fire under me to get my place semi-set up. I went out to try to find a bookcase at a home store to get my small collection out of boxes.


I walk down about 5 blocks from my apartment to a home store, didn't find a bookcase, though did find a total of 3 Mister Softee trucks. I am an ice cream hound - I will literally starve myself all day if it means I get a chocolate Mr. Softee cone in the afternoon. I'd choose ice cream over a drink any day. And all for $2? It's the greatest bargain in New York and they're everywhere. Is this the greatest city in the world or what? Friends and ice cream just around the corner from me - what else could I really ever need?

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