The weather this past weekend restored New York in the eyes of New Yorkers… or maybe just Texans up North.
Either way, we finally had a weekend of nice weather, and by ‘nice’ I mean I didn’t have to wear a coat the whole time. It also meant I could visually see the particles in the air that are causing both AV and KR to sneeze and get sinus headaches. Driftwood, cottonwood, pollen, whatever it is- it's out there.
I walked into Whole Foods in Columbus Circle Friday evening after work to pick up a few things, and the line was all the way back to the bagel/muffin case, near the random salad buffets. Lines of this nature are usually only found when one waits to use the women’s bathroom after a movie or on tax-free weekend at the Gap.
I deduced by the number of people wearing sunglasses on their heads and sandals that most of them were grabbing food to go enjoy the park for the evening. One girl was really pushing it by wearing a strapless dress with no cardigan in sight.
I forgot how small sidewalks could be in New York. Restaurants wasted no time in expanding their clientele outdoors, packing tables closely and edging the walkers out onto the fearsome streets of the Upper West Side.
AV was in Texas all weekend to see her family and nephews, so KR and I had to make our own fun. We were invited by our friend SF to a cook-out on the roof-top of her building in Alphabet City. The weather being optimal, we enjoyed being coatless and outdoors as long as our weary post-work-week selves would allow, then headed home at a reasonable hour.
We slept in and ran errands on Saturday, then headed to the park to lounge with books and magazines for the late afternoon. I was confused, for a moment, after entering Sheep’s Meadow right inside the park at 67th Street, thinking we had happened upon Woodstock ’68. It was literally the equivalent of an outdoor concert with no musical guest appearance.
We found a grassy area and planted ourselves, abandoning all hopes of reading with all the great people-watching opportunities before us. Our friend MN joined us as we got settled to watch the carnival of people we had happened to find. First there were grown men and women hula-hooping… their hips did not lie. Secondly, there was the dude with Lincoln’s face tattoed on his ankle playing with his Boston terrier. Third, there were the guys who were taking turns doing back-flips in jeans. We were certain/hopeful that one of them would get injured, but to no avail.
It was windy enough for kids to fly kites and for plenty of unsuspecting nappers to get pelted with renegade footballs and badminton birdies. We also decided that there will have to be careful discernment between what appear to be Southern guys and what actually might be Cape Cod guys, both of which came out of the woodwork with everyone else. Nashville and Nantucket look awfully similar tossing a football in colorful khaki shorts from a distance. They’re not the same- trust me.
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.”
-Anne Bradstreet
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