the pieces of my life

Can't miss the quesadilla grande at Benny's Burritos.

…Pinkalicious, The Musical!

Nothing controversial about this stop! A trip to Crumbs, for a cupcake
extraordinaire. She ordered the Reeses cupcake. Too bad she didn't
order a pink cupcake because our next stop is…

When searching for this online, I discovered that little girl mani/
pedis are a very controversial topic. I don't wish to debate it. The
girl loved it. And we now have matching nails.

The first stop on our whirlwind day is to the Plaza, Plaza, Plaza to
see, of course, if Eloise was home. We were rawther disappointed to
learn she was running errands with Nanny, but we did get to see her
picture and she was kind enough to leave Pie a postcard.

Note to self: When telling a four-year-old that you’re going to an art show, be sure to emphasize the art part and perhaps use the word “exhibit” instead of “show.” Because, otherwise, after entering an extremely crowded museum (luckily for free through the passes of my mother), you will have a sad child looking for “the people doing a show.”

Today was another trip down memory lane. I recently got back in touch with a former roommate, a woman I met at my first post-college job at Saatchi and Saatchi. We lived together in a one-bedroom apartment in Alphabet City, back when Alphabet City was a scarier part of town, about a year after the riots in Tompkins Square Park. Our apartment was one block north and one block east of the park. I know I’ve written about it before. It was the fifth floor of a walk-up, where the front door didn’t lock, and the light on the third floor landing was out so you’d have to step over the homeless guys sleeping there. She slept in the living room and I slept in the bedroom because, well, I whine loudly and she’s a nicer person than I am. The only closet, though, was in the bedroom so she’d tiptoe in to get her shoes, which was fine except when my sort-of boyfriend was there and when the psycho cat was having flashbacks (we had a cat passed on to us named Motorhead. A female cat named Motorhead. This cat had done more drugs than Flower, myself, the sort of boyfriend, and the rest of the apartment building including the guy sleeping on the third-floor landing put together. This cat was not normal but she did do a thorough job on the mice, of which there were a few). This was the apartment that taught me it is easier to buy more underwear than to cart my clothes down five flights and four blocks away to be cleaned. Hence why Adam does laundry today (no one–I mean no one–can outlast my supply of underwear, so I never, ever need to do laundry). I could continue with this little history for a long, long time, so let’s move on to today.

My roommate, Flower (the name I actually call her, but not her real name), found me online and I got to meet her for breakfast this morning at City Bakery. Pie came with us, got a muffin, met Flower (“Her name is really Flower? I can call her ‘Flower’?”), and then got picked up by my father so Flower and I could catch up. I haven’t seen her since I moved out of New York in 1994. So, you know, it had been a while. It was amazing seeing her–it brought back memories I had long, long forgotten (or repressed?), including a week-long stay in the hospital. How do you forget things like that? I had.

See? The magic of the Internet. I have Flower back! We had a nosh, we did a little shopping (I’m almost good on all my Hanukkah shopping), roaming the Union Square area (more memories–my NYU dorm was on Union Square).

After I said good-bye to Flower, I retrieved Pie and my mother, and we headed to the “art show” that had no “show.” The afternoon was saved, though, because the Guggenheim has a ramp. Oh! What a ramp! She climbed up and up and up! Occasionally we tried to point out the art work (“What do you see here? Aren’t these interesting colors?”) and she’d look for a second and then head back to the ramp. She had some interest in the Anish Kapoor piece and the gold of the beads. But, worryingly, the thing that most interested her was the Kitty Kraus, a room that basically had melted ink all over the floor. And us with those beautiful new floors at home. Oh well.

She became interested in the Kadinsky “bubble” painting after we suggested that when she got back to the apartment she could make her own Kadinsky-inspired art work.

We were hoping to meet the Tweedle Twirp for a late lunch, but Pie pooped, so we headed back to the apartment. Tweedles and I went out for some Japanese food and a trip to the Strand, and Pie stayed back at the apartment to create an art museum with my mom. I listened to Tweedles’s life of academia and woes about bedbugs (yes, she had bedbugs! And did you know a bedbug registry exists? Awesome! She had to heat everything in her apartment to above 120 degrees using some special machine and everything the owned was put in ziplock bags. She also had to buy new furniture. Fun times!), but apparently it’s too soon to joke about the bedbugs, so no snide comments here. We came back to a wonderful art museum in the apartment–Pie spent quite a while making wonderful drawings.

Tomorrow is the day of Pie surprises. I’ll try to post as we do them so you can be surprised along with her. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow and hope the girl can keep her stamina up. We start the day with a breakfast at the gallery that’s having her show, which Pie knows about, and then we continue with the ultimate girl day.

The only thing marring this trip so far is I’ve developed a rather bad cold. I keep checking in with myself (“No fever. Good. Oh, that cough is in my chest and phlegmy. Check. Stuffy nose. Yep.”) just to make sure it’s really a cold and not H1N1. One of my favorite things to do in NYC is of course running. I love going down the West Side, in Henry Hudson park, around the tip of Manhattan. But with this cold, that’s not happening. Luckily race season is over and I’m not training for anything, so I can allow myself to be a slug for a few days.

So for now, I’m off to take my Nyquil. Good night, everyone! Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

My daughter is definitely a City Mouse. And I am not nearly as organized as I’d like to be. My plans to leave home for the Big City at 6 a.m. kinda petered out as we finally left at 7. And by 7, I mean 7:38. But we made great time right up to the point where we weren’t making great time, and Pie only asked seven times in the first hour, “When are we going to be in New York?”

The drive was painless right up to Westchester, when the powers that be decided to make the three-lane highway and one-lane highway, extending out trip by a full hour. But we made it to my parents’ apartment just in time for lunch and then we headed out for our adventures.

Our first stop was my old office. Well, not really my old office, but yes really my old office. Once upon a time, in a decade far far away, I worked for the book publishing company Putnam Berkley, which has since become Penguin Putnam. Our offices were in the Murray Hill area. The offices have since moved to a swank building in SoHo. So I never worked there. Except that I have because my very first short-lived job out of college was working in advertising. In the very same swank building.

Visiting the office really made me miss those days of having a place to go and work to do. The woman I visited is now the head of the whole department, and she was the also the woman who replaced me when I left the job in 1994. A lifetime ago. It’s hard not to think what ifs. What if I had stayed in New York. What if I had stayed in publishing. What if, what if, what if. But really, I remember finding my job rather dull, and I was near the end when I applied for grad school. New York was grating on my nerves–I spent way too much time working (I had to do freelance after work to make enough money to pay my rent) and not enough time doing the things that one moves to New York to do. So I left.

But it’s still fun visiting them, hearing what everyone is up to. But after I got my grown-up time in, it was on to kid stuff. We hooked up with the Nana and headed to Milk and Cookies for, surprise! Milk and cookies. Yummy, decadent cookies. And then off to Porto Rico for superdark coffee. (Note to anyone else whose husband says, “Buy me superdark coffee.” That’s not actually a coffee name. Just a description. And you’ll look like an idiot if you just walk up and say, “A pound of the Superdark, please.” Just sayin’.) And finally to that shopping mecca, the destination that one litle girl has been pining for lo these years: LittleMissMatched. That girl of mine is obsessed with socks and MissMatched socks at that. I think we pretty much bought the store out. We walked a bit. Pie is a great people watcher and she sat happily for a bit at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. She wanted to go see if Eloise was home, but she started to fade so we headed back to my parents apartment (“Yea!! Subway, subway, subway!” [sung to the tune of “The Bundle Dance”).

Next few days are full. I’ve already called my boy twice–I miss him like crazy, but know he’s going to have a good guys weekend, which apparently includes eating copious amounts of steak. And we’re going to have a great girls weekend, which includes… Well, I can’t tell you. Because when I told Pie on Wednesday, “I made some fabulous plans for us,” she squealed, clapped, and said, “Don’t tell me! I want to be surprised!”

So we’ll have surprises all around!