The Day of the Chinese Delivery

So today marked our one-week anniversary in NYC. Fittingly, we slept in after our exciting night out on the town and wandered to get coffee. We headed for Chelsea market, which turned out to be an amazing building filled with gourmet food shops – you should’ve seen the size of those steaks. However, we were unable to find a coffee shop with an espresso machine with a sufficient patina (apparently regular coffee drinkers are in the majority in this town, although there are Starbucks every 3 feet), so we wandered back toward home.

Things are starting to feel homey -- we went to a place right by our house that serves good coffee and all-organic vegetable meals. As we sat and drank our pint-sized espressos and read the Onion, I realized that we were somehow reverting to our Boulder life here. If it ain’t broke…

We returned home to work for awhile, then headed up north to attend free night at MoMA, which, judging by the block-long line out front, was not an original idea. Midtown is so different from our neighborhood – many more tourists and fewer “real” people (as J likes to call them). The museum was absolutely incredible. We were mesmerized by the collection, which includes Monet, Picasso, Gauguin, Chagall, Pollock, Klee, Matisse, and many, many, many more. Although it was crazy busy, the art was enough to distract you from the hordes of pushy tourists (I love saying that like we’re not included). Just as we started walking through the many exhibits, we spotted a photo taken from Flagstaff looking out onto Boulder. It felt like the universe was smiling at us. In fact, as we leaned in close, we could see the Gier household with Doug sitting tying flies in the back shed.

After feeling completely overwhelmed at the art and the pushy people, we decided to try our hand at finding a happy hour drink in Midtown. We headed for Tao, but determined that we were sadly underdressed, so it was off to find a dive bar on 45th and ninth. As we sat drinking our $6.75 pitcher of Miller Lite, I again noted how we had reverted back to what was comfortable. Somehow, uptown just doesn’t fit, but we’re going to try to work on that. Fancy martinis, here we come…
We walked the more-than 30 blocks home only to realize that we still hadn’t eaten and everywhere was packed. It was then that I made the fateful mistake of suggesting Chinese delivery…oh, if only I could take it back. It arrived so quickly and we were so hungry – it was a little after 10 by now – that I didn’t think twice before snarfing it down. At about 2, my stomach had something to say about it. The night we decided to stay in and rest up to be ready for the weekend, I ended up staying up contemplating the meaning of life while sitting on the cold bathroom floor, my thoughts interrupted only by the occasional need to rid myself of noodles and broccoli…perhaps tomorrow we’ll head uptown for dinner.