Diary – March 1st 2009

Sniffles

So I came back from the weekend with a cold and attesting my weekly declaration that I’m allergic to the country.

Sunday started with sneezing, having already endured the sorest of throats on Saturday night. As we were miles from anywhere, the only remedy was a good old fashioned spoonful of honey. A first for me but I was soon addicted. It’s good stuff!

 By Monday I was going through a tissue a minute but I still had to leave the house for some fresh air – and supplies. I figured I can’t live in New York and not even go outside. A visit to the store was in order and I took the scenic route past Central Park to go to DaGs for honey and soup and Duane Reed for cold medicine as it was too far to go to CVS, despite my loyalty.

Tuesday was much the same but by Wednesday I had to be fit for class but when I turned up, I was the only one there. I was just getting used to both the terror and the delight when in walked 2 more.

Skipping

By Thursday I was nearly back to normal so I practically skipped the 15 minutes to my coffee shop. I was so happy to be alive, celebrating with a $30 sale purchase of brown booties from Aerosol afterwards.  Never been there before but will be sure to go again. Quirky, comfy, shoes at knock down price that I‘ve already worn twice and would have worn them all weekend had the heavy snow not been threatening.

So I have stayed in all week, something I’m proud off particularly as saving on one dinner has paid for those boots that no doubt I will get years of pleasure out of.

Friday, I needed to go out and Riverside Girl was exhausted after her sometimes 14 hour nannying days this week but luckily Jersey Girl was around to go to Caffe Vivaldi with me. A first for her, on nodding terms with the bar staff for me. I didn’t fancy a Friday night with the Crazy One after the sensitive week I had just been through but had agreed to see her for Saturday brunch, after much peer pressure to do something during the day for a change.

Caffe Vivaldi had a singer /songwriter night with regular Kristin Hoffman and 3 others having a friendly competition. It was a great creatively melodious evening with the discovery of even more talented songwriters – one of which is an Emmy award winning former TV song writer.

Let’s Go Greek

Saturday’s brunch never materialised as Crazy One’s appointment ran hours over so I wasted an hour of my life and missed Liverpool being beaten by Middlesborough for nothing. Never again. Seriously, never again.

On the upside, my subway line is running weekends again so I got to Grand Central in super quick time and got the earlier train to the country.

We did the Classic American date, dinner and a movie despite this being our 10^th – count them – 10^th date. You have to hand it to the boy, he’s picked an original restaurant every week and this week we went Greek. I had Falafels and a lovely salad to start. The movie was The Wrestler which yes I have seen a couple of months ago but really would have preferred to see it with CB in the first place and as he wanted to see it and there wasn’t much else on in the artsy Burns Theatre, I relished the idea of seeing it again. I still loved it.

Afterwards I tried to sort a few issues on his PCs; I’m his computer geek, because I didn’t want to delay it until Sunday…..

Carling Cup Final

Again he came up trumps and didn’t let on if he minded having the alarm set at 9am and subsequently snoozed several times until the match at 10am, only to be booted out at kick-off so I can watch the match on my own – and without his taunting.

The cup was the least important of the 4 United are going for but it sure would give the boys a boost to win it.

The game went into extra time and the most painful of all, penalties. Not again! But we won so that’s the second time on a shoot-out in the current Fergie era.

 Afterwards, I got dressed in my traditional post match winning red. I must have been confident as that’s all I had bought with me and having missed breakfast, we went out for lunch. Unusually for me I craved a big English fry-up – of course that was out of the question – so we went to a pub that did burgers and the most unusual fries. They were like home-made English chips and needless to say, mostly went un-eaten with the burgers being so huge. That filled me up for my early journey home to get ready for Carnegie Hall.

Sunday night at Carnegie Hall

TT’s husband is one of the conductors there and had invited RG and me to join her. That’s the thing about New York; you never know who you are going to meet and where they can take you.

After a cab ride from 125^th in Harlem and 10 minutes to get ready, I was back out and as it turned out not late at all to meet the girls for pre-concert dinner. I was going to eat light as I was still really full but couldn’t even face that. I wanted soup but didn’t like the idea of wearing it on my dry-clean only silk top so I decided on something more splash proof; Potato skins. I couldn’t even finish that so decided to be like a New Yorker for a change, have the rest wrapped up to go.

When we got to Carnegie Hall, we were told we had a box so that made it even more glamorous. The concert was in 3 parts with our Conductor in the second instalment. I decided to stay until the end and the girls stayed too. How often do you get to sit in box seats at Carnegie Hall?

By the time we got outside the promised snow was in full flow but we dashed around the corner to nip backstage and then onto Park Central Hotel, where TT and the Conductor had a room for the night when he works late into the night, even though they only live on 149^th Street.

Last week Madison Square Gardens. This week Carnegie Hall.

Life is good.