Friday, July 16, 2004

My Sisters--The Younger One

My sisters are awesome.
 
The younger one, well, sometimes it seems I don't know her very well.  But I certainly admire her wit and charm.  Here's a short sample of her from a letter she wrote on July 6th while visiting a friend in New York:
 
"Hello from midtown Manhattan, 35th floor, "luxury apartment." Today the sky is pretty clear, it is not as hot as it has been on other days, Im sitting in Baer and Mark's apartment (so is Mark, he got home from work early; I guess you can do that when you're the boss). The windows that go along the living room wall face south, so the view is of downtown Manhattan (it looks directly to the WTC site), also the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Jersey City to the right. We are about 3 miles from the water's edge, which of course seems much closer when you're looking from here.
 
Baer and Mark are treating me like a queen, as opposed to the week-long houseguest that I am.
 
I arrived Thursday night, as did Mike. On Friday we walked around all afternoon, to the WTC site, downtown, and up through Soho; then I came back to the apartment for a nap. Friday night we saw Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, with Alfred Molina. Baer got a great discount and we had fantastic seats. The show was absolutely fantastic! Mike wasn't familiar with it, and he just loved it. We were inspired to try to get tickets to The Producers, but didnt due to limited availability and very pricey tickets. No complaints, though.
 
Saturday we had a leisurely morning, then I think we just walked around more of the city. yes, we took a subway to the southeast side of Central Park and walked up through it, stopped and bought a lot of food and had a lovely lunch in the park before going to the Guggenheim (until they very rudely kicked us out 3 minutes before closing time). THAT is a lovely building, if you've ever been there (mom or dad?)--the design is wonderful, very user-friendly, open, sunny. Then we had a nice dinner at an italian restaurant in Greenwich Village.
 
Sunday we had another day of walking; we saw Grand Central Station and Chinatown. Then to an apartment right near the east river where a colleague of Mark's lives. There were about ten people and we snacked and tehn went up onto the rooftop to watch the fireworks. Macy's had 3 barges in the river shooting off identical shows, and we were pretty much placed directly in the center, so could easily see all 3. It was spectacular--best fireworks show I've ever seen.
 
Monday was yesterday and after a long morning of nothing we went to Battery Park, which is on the Southwest end of Manhattan, so pretty much directly north of the Statue of Liberty. We had reservations at a great restaurant, with the people from Sunday night, to have lunch outside near the Harbor. It was great until it started thundering, but they were able to move us inside before the downpour and the view was still great. We were a little concerned about the woman next to us who had obviously had so much plastic surgery we were hoping the rain wouldn't just cause her to disintegrate. She didn't look any worse when she left than when she came in.
Then we headed back to Manhattan for a matinee (in their building there is a theater) of Dodgeball. You have to understand we were all a bit brain-dead from all the walking and late nights. It was actually really funny!
 
In honor of Mike (the meat lover's) last night here, we went the "best steak house in teh US" which is in Brooklyn. I had salmon. Willem Dafoe was there, but he didn't want to sit with us. He looked like he was having enough fun with the people he came with. I don't know what he ate. For dessert we had cheesecake (about my 5th since I've been here) and also a big (I mean BIG) bowl of whipped cream served with chocolates and big (and I mean HUGE) strawberries. We took most of the whipped cream home, and I assume we will eat more of it tonight. Mark is also sending me a list of the supposed 10 best cheesecake places in teh city. If I work hard I can hit them all before I go. Then I will go shopping for new, bigger pants.
 
Today Mike and I went to Greenwich village again, and walked along the Hudson River, also through the meat packing district. Taht place is funny, it has meat packing plants right next to designer clothing shops, and cafes, bars, etc. We came back here a couple of hours ago and he hopped a shuttle back to the aiport. I am trying to make some semblance of order of the guest room, do laundry. I am having a relaxing afternoon. Baer will be home somewhat late from work and I think we'll probably order dinner in. Tomorrow Im going to do some painting in their apartrment to start to try to pay them back for their generosity and then I'll see some more sights, maybe do some window shopping (although you can get tired of that pretty fast because it's so overwhelming).
 
Well, I know this isn't very eloquent or poetic, but it's what I've been doing and Im a little exhausted and everything is great and Im having a very good time. I miss my cat, but have bothered Benjiman enough to know that he is taking fantastic care of him and that helps a lot. Baer says hello to everybody. Im sure if she were here she would commandeer the computer and write something very inappropriate and untrue about me, in that special way that she does.