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February 02, 2004
| La Vida |
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Well, I had an excellent weekend with Ginger in New Jersey/New York. We saw lots of friends, went interesting places, ran around like crazy, danced, drank, listened to music, took lots of mass transit, saw great art, walked our butts off, and generally reconnected after our 3.5 week separation. It was wonderful.
Friday night I picked Ginger up at the airport, and we cabbed it back to Jersey City, which was a bit of a splurge, but a good idea since she had luggage. We got home and she got to see the new place, although only after dark. We spent some time just decompressing together and talking about stuff, and then we had to leave for Brooklyn to go see Patrick Nielsen-Hayden's band Whisperado. When we got to the WTC site (which is now a PATH station again), Ginger mentioned that she'd never been to either New York or New Jersey. We'll have to add Connecticut and Pennsylvania soon too.
It was a good show, but it would have been better if the engineer wasn't also the waitress. After Whisperado, the second act was the Halley Deverstern Band, which shares a base player with Whisperado. Halley has a good voice and really should have an excellent career. She's got talent and skill (which are very, very distinct). The PA was better for her. If there was a soundcheck, she'd been the one who was drilled in. We sat and talked with Patrick and Teresa and we also met The Talking Dog, although he forgot to tell us who he was. We hung out with Patrick and Teresa until the wee hours and then took a late night subway ride to the PATH trains back to our apartment, where we collapsed for a long winter's nap.
Saturday we slept in and recovered from our previous nights. We walked a bit in Jersey City and decided to have lunch at Blimpies (which is both Ginger's favorite sandwich chain and the closest fast food to our new apartment). We went back after a late lunch, planned out what we were going to do on Sunday, and took a nap. We left in the late afternoon for Jessica's housewarming party. I've known Jessica since I was a sophomore in High School and she was in Junior High. We've kept in touch over the years on the sort of 'hi, we haven't talked in two years and I wanted to catch up...' way. Jess was extremely kind to me when I came up here last month, providing me a place to stay and someone to talk to and do things with while I was starting my job and finding a place to stay.
We got to Jess's brownstone about 5, and her party was just starting to get going. In addition to Jessica and Matt (who seems to be very good for her, and gets the friend-stamp-of-approval), we saw Robin and Thera and Mary (Jess's friends whom I had met in January), Marian (who didn't recognize me from high-school, but vaguely remembered me when Jess brought out 20 year old pictures (I do have more hair now, in more places, so it's kinda understandable.)), and Jay. We chatted with Jay for a bit, which was nice. Marian is living in Mendham, just outside Bernardsville (Where I used to live) and Jay is living in New Canaan (where I used to live). We'd been considering leaving around the time Jess had planned for the party to end, but I'm glad we didn't. I don't think the dancing started 'til an hour or so after that. It's nice to know that KC and the Sunshine Band is still a cause for spontaneous dancing.
We left a little early, since we had a big day planned for Sunday. We walked back to the subway, although we probably should have taken a cab. Jessica lives in Cobble Hill, which is an absolutely great neighborhood, but is not very close to the subway. We had to walk about 14 blocks. I'm a little more used to the walk than Ginger is, but both of us walked more than we were used to. It was a good party and it was interesting to introduce Ginger to some of my old friends. I think Jim Ridgeway knew me before Jessica and Jay Jay, but not by much.
Sunday we had ambitious plans. We were going to get up early, head into the city, go the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Master and Commander, and then head back to Jersey City to show our friend Amy, who moved to New York from Houston for grad school a while back. We ended up blowing off the movie and spending all morning wandering around The Met. We saw Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and Bravehearts:Men in Skirts. The Manuscript painting was very cool, and I liked parts of the men in skirts exhibit (after all, I wore a kilt at our wedding), but some of it was sorta boring. I didn't get excited by the coture attempts to introduce skirts for men.
We came back to New Jersey and Amy came by to see our place. We went to dinner at a little italian restaurant in Jersey City (which was OK, but would've been better if they had a liquor license). It was really nice having Amy over, we talked for a while about being in NY. I'd seen her when I got to Brooklyn, but hadn't seen her since. Amy is directing a one-act play next monday, which I'm going to try to see.
Monday morning we got up and got ready and Ginger and I took the PATH to Newark Penn Station, where we found her a cab to Newark Liberty International Airport. She's on her way back to Houston now.
Coda: One of co-workers said "You look happier, like you had a good weekend." I did.
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| .:Posted by Michael on February 2, 2004 10:18 AM:.
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Weekend UpdateFor those who couldn't wait for the blow-by-blow, here's Michael's writeup of our weekend in New Jersey. I'm going to......
Sounds like the two of you did.
And the Met IS a time trap, I should have warned you two more vociferously about that.
The Northeast is definitely more oriented to walking than other parts of the country. The two of you will get used to it.
| .:Posted by Paul (Jvstin)
( total) on February 5, 2004 12:13 PM:. |
Ginger and Michael's time togetherFor those who have not seen it as yet, Michael has put up a summary of what he and Ginger did when she went up to visit him. I do miss the Met. Maybe I can con Ginger and Michael......
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