Been a short summer that flew by like a bird that I saw a brief moment and then it whisked away. All is well, although I caught a random summer cold that kept me in bed for 2 summer weeks. Sucks.

Past weekend, I spent planning some activities and a couple of trips. 3 days off next week for a Stay-cation - some coffee house musing, maybe a long bike ride up to the Cloisters before summer completely runs away. But I am also planning a week in New Orleans over Halloween - mmm....Creole goodness and powdered beignets, chickory and Hurricanes. Voodoo Fest, the Halloween Parade and even a bike tour through the Garden District.

I was just musing with a co-worker that life is good. We both got a promotion this year and were quietly celebrating our good fortune. From burning out to enjoying life....too happy!

The man-friend is away part of this weekend and I miss him. However, it does give me some time again to take care of things like laundry, cleaning out all the old cupboards and sweeping out the attic of my brain. It's odd, I realized today, I had forgotten the names of two of my ex-boyfriends.

Isn't life grand?

An old game.

I used to work with these people that wrote daily haiku poetry and sent it to each other over the email. It used to get fun and crazy.

Here's mine today:

I am on my way...
-Come quickly, dinner ready
Not coming for food.

Guernica...I felt like a woman in this painting today.

Sunday....

the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art at the Asia Society...

Swimming at the MPHC?

Flea Market?

Battery Park cycling!

Wonder.

I'll try to express the wonder and joy of riding home from work along the esplanade in Battery Park City. I was able to leave work before sundown tonight - (still shaky from my recent crashes), I rode more gingerly. I felt the crush of other madly joyful NYers shaking themselves out of down coats and big winter hats.

Runners on the path, large groups of strollers and...meanderers, kids running screaming races to imaginary finish lines...burly manly-men self-conciously stretching pecs and leg muscles. Warmth! Heat! A sundown that lasts two hours, as though reluctantly, the day didn't want to end. The sky went from brilliant blue clarity to sunsoaked yellow, salmon pink mixed with tangerine, then violet and royal blue to grey flannel.

Exhausted. Today was like San Francisco was...super sunny, a very sharp seabreeze blowing through the streets and making the walk to the subway that much chillier. I watched outside my (office) window as families played with kites along the water and the long lines wound throughout Battery Park to board ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Sucked having to work today.

These past couple of weeks, I've had, not one, but TWO bike crashes on the Westside Greenway! My hands are skinned, my eyebrow sports a bright red gash, and the left side of my face is swollen - I look like a victim, or that I am part of a Fight Club.

I walked my bike home unhappily today from 42nd Street westside for about a mile and a half home, not knowing that the entire left side of my face was streaked with blood from the cut above my left eye. I love NYers. 5 people stopped me, asking if I was ok, one girl stopped a phone call, a group of young kids in the park asked me if I was attacked, a couple on 42nd street....in other places I lived, when I was hurt and by myself, no one asked if I was ok. (Gosh, in California, after I flipped hard over the handle bars of my bike in a very full park on a Saturday, people actually stepped over my body, completely unconcerned that anyone was hurt or needing any medical attention, not able to focus on anything but what was 1 foot around themselves. They blow.)

And that's why I love NYC.

A long time passes....why did I stop blogging? Tonight, I got immersed in reading the history and tales of an old-old friend from a past life - she, now a writer, is "memoir"-ing. SPINSTER (no, I am not being judgy, she calls herself that, read her blog....) waxes introspective and revisits the past to understand the present.


Over here, it's been steady and quiet. Percolating and humming along. Life, I mean. I am surprised that I can live happily and comfortably on a very little income, but still, all dreams are coming to fruition. Back here where I belong in NYC, it's been almost a couple of years of bliss now and I am forgetting my relocations, painful relationships, and embarrassments because...well, I've just been busy.


Biking to work every day, reaching almost a zen-like contentment kanoodling past the Hudson River, yanking up my bike onto the 42nd Street crosstown bus, eating candlelit dinners in trendy-tiny-yummy cafe's, and breathing again. It's going by so fast, the days are getting longer again, and it's warm out. The sun sets at 7 now and everyone is walking a slow languid stroll and looking from side-to-side-to-side.

I planned a few travels, for leisure! Not business, not visiting family, not....moving away...just sitting on the beach in the Dominican Republic for a couple of days, playing rummy with my oldest childhood friend, and then chatting for short spurts with the girlfriends of my best friend.

The Carribean was lovely. The rest was amazing.

When I came back, my sister informed me...it was my turn to use the family timeshare. Anywhere. And so, and so....laissez les bon temps rouler...the condo was transferred to the Big Easy, and I am in for a week of crawfish and gumbo and beignet si vous plait.


The condo is fantasy place, its own kitchen (yeah right, I'm cooking in one of the most artistically gastronomic parishes in the world), a courtyard with wading pool and old sculptures under weeping trees, and a couple of blocks from the French Quartier....yep, I will trade my mis-timed quips for a low-slung drawl and just hit every single well-known and little-known bar, resto, alleyway, major thoroughfare, and neighborhood in NOLA.





Lastly, and bestly, I am going (all stars aligning) with my....