cathleen's place: Allison

Think they had a good time? Isn't it so wonderful that they brought back a picture of a lizard? I think that was just for me. Certainly I like the other pictures, but the lizard? Hey, he's perfect.

I've mentioned a few thousand times how crazy I am about Allison, right? I've been going through all our stuff to get us ready for the big move and I've come across some great pictures. My old scanner isn't packed yet, so...

I was thinking Allison might get a little miffed about this baby picture being posted here -- then I saw that she'd written something on the back, a teacher's name and room number. Well, how about that? She'd taken it to school, so that would mean she's okay with folks seeing it. It'll be a few days before she knows it's here since she's on another one of those trips (I'm pretty sure it's St. Martens this time). So if this pic disappears, you'll know what happened. Heh, heh

It is truly amazing to me that that baby grew up to become this woman. This woman is a runner and next November I'll be in New York to watch her run the New York Marathon. Whoa.

Allison recently celebrated a birthday -- she turned 28 (just kidding). She and Carl and a bunch of friends went bowling. Yes, bowling. I haven't done that in years. My mom was a bowling champ; she was in a league and everything. I might get a little yelled at for putting these up here, but oh well, what are kids for? (I did, after all, put up a picture of myself vacuuming the yard.)

Sunday was a very busy, but laid back day. We knew that at some point we were going to hook up with Liora, who was in the city visiting friends (before leaving on yet another globe-trot). Once we figured out that she wasn't arriving until the afternoon, we set off for brunch -- yay! This time we went to Brown on Hester Street. It's tiny and wonderful and has the best service. Here's an excellent review that really covers much more than I could say. The review ends with this:

"Someday I'd like to hunker down with a bottle from Brown's very reasonably priced wine list ($22 to $32) and see just how many side orders of that gratin I could put away. Until then I'll stick to ordering too many of Brown's super smooth espressos, each lovingly teased from the handsome espresso machine, no matter how late it gets." (That's for you, CM.)

We wandered around the neighborhood before going back to Al and Carl's place to wait for Liora. You can come sight-seeing with us, here's what we saw:

And here's my all-time favorite:

It was great seeing Liora. I hadn't see her for a very long time and she's been all over the world since then -- southeast Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Japan. So many adventures to hear about.

Even after all her travels around the world, just before this trip to New York she went with her mom to China and Tibet.
But I digress...

We all walked to the subway together -- Liora was off to visit her sister who's a student at Columbia and the four of us to see Evidence - A Dance Company. Oh yeah, now you're talking.

Needless to say, this is NOT my photo -- I found it on a college site, promoting the appearance of Ronald Brown and his Company. (I know it's silly but I like that we had brunch at Brown and the dance company was founded by Brown -- just a nice coinkydink.) The concert was fabulous and remarkable and wonderful and such lovely movements/gestures. The experience was slightly spoiled by an idiot in front of us who kept taking pictures with her f&^%*ng cell phone. I know what you're thinking: Nobody would do that, it's unthinkable. Yes she did! AND she was eating. No, I didn't say anything to her, but I did ask an usher to speak to her. Oh well. I should know that given my proclivity for being offended by other people's behavior (and perfume) that I should just NOT GO OUT.

Okay. I'm fine now. After the concert we had THE MOST AMAZING MEAL. We ate at the Rocking Horse Cafe in Chelsea. You must go there when you're in the city. ("in the city" of course means New York -- is there another city? I don't think so.)

I stole this from their site. Let me just say that all four of us had such incredible meals, each thing that came to the table was extraordinary, including the drinks. God, what an unforgettable dinner. And Chelsea is so fun to walk around in. This is another must.

And then Monday arrived and it was time to head back to Florida, yuck. We took the AirTrain again, but a different subway train. Allison and Carl do such a good job of looking out for us when we visit them. When we're all out walking and it's crowded, if Kim and I get separated from them, we just quack like baby ducks. Al quacks back and we find her. So easy. I think she was a bit embarrassed the first time we did that, but she realized it makes no difference what you do on the street in New York -- it's New York. Ah, I digress again. Allison and Carl had figured out a way to cut about 1/2 hour off our trip to the airport. That was cool. This train took us through neighborhoods in Queens.

And then we were at the airport.

Bye-bye New York. We were sad to go because spending time with Allison and Carl is always a great joy. But we were not so sad to leave the parts of New York that are difficult to take: really rude people; dog shit everywhere so that you better watch where you walk all the time; angry, aggressive people who come after you for any imagined slight (hmm, that almost sounds like me...nah.). This is not to say that there aren't lovely, friendly, happy people in New York, of course there are -- we met many. But it's easy to understand the aloofness of New Yorkers -- they have so little personal space, what else can they do? I'm sure I'd be quite a bit more standoffish if I lived there.

My next trip to the city will be in November when Allison runs in the NY marathon. Woohoo!

Part 1 was about Friday -- arriving, enjoying the view from the new balcony and eating the best pizza ever. The next day, Kim and I went out for an early walk (we wake up much earlier than our hosts) and we found the most amazing place. Allison and Carl live on the lower East side, north and east of Chinatown. It's a fabulous, history-rich area. And the place we found Saturday morning truly epitomizes this area: Doughnut Plant New York. Check out the history of this shop.

If you've ever said to yourself "Self, I'm not eating any more doughnuts, they're too lardy and they leave this nasty coating in my mouth and they feel like a huge weight in my gut -- yeah, that's it, no more doughnuts," I will completely understand if you think I've lost it because I'm recommending doughnuts. But these are not just any doughnuts. Believe me. And you'll just have to try them to get what I'm talking about. Ummmmmm. That doughnut in the upper right corner? Those are rose petals under the glaze. We didn't try that one Saturday morning, thinking we'd go back another time. Our next morning walk was Monday -- they're closed Mondays. Such a bummer.

Before we left Florida I'd gotten in touch with old friend, former student, and incredible photographer Donna, who I hadn't seen in many years and asked her to meet us for brunch Saturday. We met up at Sarabeth's on the upper East side, about 45 minutes of walking and subway from Al's place. Again, another fantastic meal. I had a spinach and goat cheese omelette. Ohmygod. There are five Sarabeths in New York (one of those is just a bakery, no restaurant) and there's one in Key West, Florida (go figure). The best part of being there was catching up with Donna. She told us wonderful stories of being a professional photographer in New York -- really fascinating and surprising, about how wealthy people spend $1,000s to have a pro photographer at their child's birthday party. It isn't that that's so weird, but for most of us it's out of reach. Donna's in that world regularly. She looked great and she was obviously happy. (Don't ask why I have no pictures of her. Just don't.)

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the upper West side, mostly at Columbia University. In all the trips we've taken to New York, we'd never been there. It is magnificent. In a fantasy life, I would be a full-time student at Columbia. I wouldn't have to work, I would immerse myself in some area of academia and then, when I was done, I would DO something. I get a bit confounded when I think about choosing an area to study: they all seem good. I had that trouble when I was 17, starting at ASU. My academic counselor asked me what my major was going to be and all I could think of was "everything."

We had dinner at Brassierie 8 1/2 in midtown. According to Allison and Carl, midtown restaurants are mostly for week nights, not weekends. It was a forgettable meal. The waiter was the old-fashioned kind of New York server: snooty. I spoke to the manager on our way out, he seemed to care that our experience hadn't been completely positive. I suspect though, that Allison and Carl won't go back.

I'll leave you with this: one of the thousands of phenomenal tile mosaics in the subway.

This was the first time we didn't take a cab into the city from JFK. The city finally finished the AirTrain so travelers can save big bucks getting to and from the airport. After the AirTrain, we took the J train into Manhattan -- it's above ground all the way across Queens and Brooklyn and the Williamsburg Bridge, then it drops underground just as it arrives on the Lower East Side. Allison and Carl live two blocks from that stop.

This is the view from their balcony late in the afternoon, which is when we got there.

Pala Pizza Romano

That night we went out for the most incredible pizza we'd ever had. Al and Carl have these favorite places they take us, oooh, so yummy. This place is voted best pizza year after year.

So, this is part one of our trip. More later. Kiss kiss.

Allison and Carl moved into their new apartment just before Christmas. This is the first place they've had that has a balcony. See the strings of red lights behind the tree? That would be the balcony. It's really wonderful because they have a totally awesome view that you don't have to climb three flights of stairs to see. I have lots of photos taken from the roof of their last place.

So, the other day Carl is enjoying the scenery from his new balcony and you'll never guess what he saw. A peregrine falcon.

The falcon is in there. Somewhere. In there. But isn't that a gorgeous view? Even, or maybe especially, in wintertime.

Okay, we've zoomed in a bit and the falcon is right there -- about the middle of this picture. Do you see him (her)?

There. Now you can see him, yes? He's so beautiful. There are lots of stories about birds of prey making their home in New York City. Fascinating. But that's just me.

The first New Year's Eve that Allison was a little person who walked and talked, she misunderstood what we were saying to each other all through the evening. She would walk up to a new arrival and say "Happy new you!" with her big smile. Everyone loved it. Of course. It was actually closer to the sensibility of the moment than happy new year. The idea of new year's resolutions certainly has everything to do with making yourself over, doesn't it? On the eve of a new year, we can re-invent ourselves, become whatever we can imagine.

So Allison and Carl and me and Kim wish all of you a very HAPPY NEW YOU!

This is the story of Allison. She's really amazing. I've thought so since the first moment I saw her. She's always smiling. She just smiles and smiles and smiles. If smiles were money I'd be so rich.

Okay, maybe she didn't smile every single moment, maybe she cried once in a while, maybe she pouted once when she was upset about not getting another cookie. But honestly, she just was such a happy baby and a happy child. At least that's what it looked like to me.

She wanted to learn ballet, so she studied at a studio run by a graduate of the Royal Academy of Ballet Teacher program. It was a very good program -- an inspector came from the Academy once a year and held examinations. Sometimes the teacher would spend too much time correcting a particular student and the rest of the class would drift off. It was fun watching the classes. It takes a really special person to teach little girls that age.

A bit later Allison tried cheerleading for Pop Warner football. Neither one of us liked that very much. The football coaches were awful -- they encouraged violence and dangerous risks. The cheerleading coaches were just as bad. The cheers were horribly sexist and made the girls look ridiculous. Allison caught on by herself and decided she wanted to play soccer. Now that's what I'm talking about.

She also played the flute and loved to be in stage plays. She even majored in Drama for a while at San Diego State. She lost interest in that eventually and graduated with a degree in Psychology. Allison decided that San Diego was too small and moved to New York. That was a tough one. I worried -- needlessly -- for months. Such images I had! But I'd forgotten that smile, that amazing immediately-melt-you smile. She dazzled everyone she met. (That, of course, is a mother talking. She would have a very different version if you asked her to tell you about it. But I'm the one telling this story. So there.)

She had a few boyfriends in the first couple years she was there. And then she met Carl. Carl. He smiles a lot too. And it's a great smile. You wouldn't know it from this picture. This is them playing footsie.

So Allison and Carl fell in love and now they smile all over the world, starting in Central Park.

And San Diego....

And Jamaica...

And St. Martin...

And Rio....

And Sao Paolo.... (oops, where's Carl?)

And Germany....(for the World Cup)

And Montevideo...

And Seattle....

And Napa...

Aren't they lovely together? Where will they smile next? I'll keep you posted.