Walking to the Highs and Lows

The view from the Empire State Building was glorious. Besides "eye-spying" the famous landmarks from 1,050 feet up (82nd floor), it was fun to recount all the movies that we have seen that featured the observatory, and we really enjoyed comparing rooftop gardens.

After grabbing a quick lunch for Teake...at Subway - you can take the boy out of SD, but you can't beat the SD out of the boy - we went thrift store shopping in the East Village. We discovered some lovely treasures to add some personal touches to the apartment...pillows, fabrics and baskets.

Dinner with friends was the highlight of the day. Mitch Maguire, Marcie Levi Maguire and Neil Turitz met Teake and I at Dublin on Hudson. Teake and Neil hit it off last summer when we all attended Mitch and Marcie's wedding at Sylvan Lake in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, so we were excited to see him again. Neil wrote and directed the movie Two Ninas and is currently working on getting a new project propelled. The conversation and food filled the entire body.

Mitch and Marcie came back to see my new digs and meet the cats. They agreed that the street looks like it is right out of a movie. It is official; I had my first guests.

After they left, Teake and I decided to take a walk. I took him over to the Lower East Side, which is a bit grungier - but hipper in a rock and roll sense - than Greenwich. We decided that Grandma Jan would be very nervous here....just the increased prospect of a vermin sighting would be enough to put her back on a plane. Every neighborhood certainly has its own atmosphere, On the Lower East Side one just expects to see Joey Ramone walking down Bowery with his guitar on his back or Iggy Pop and Patti Smith sitting outside a bar on Rivington having a smoke.

OINK (Only in New York) Moment of the Day:
Sitting outside having a dinner of crab cakes and vegetarian gnocchi. Is it any wonder why I love downtown Sioux Falls so much? It is as close as I get to a nyc meal in sf.