Looking backwards at September

I've been so busy, I didn't have a chance to mention my trip to New York.

Fine, I'm lying. I went on a trip to New Jersey. But I did manage to snag about 20 hours in Manhattan at the end.

Lyle got unexpectedly sent to New Jersey for work. Our planned pleasant weekend at home together got the boot and he flew off to New Jersey on a Thursday morning. On Friday I was lamenting that I missed him and was "not digging being home alone". So he said, "Get on a plane."

Right. Like I'm gonna' find a house and dog sitter for the weekend, buy a ticket to fly on the same day, pack, ditch work and fly over five hours... all for the opportunity to stay near a convention center in New Jersey?

It must have sounded better than that, because I got it all organized in under half an hour.

Friday night I went to a friend's birthday party with my luggage in my trunk. After the party I drove to LAX and boarded a plane at midnight. I arrived in New Jersey at 8 am.

You know how sometimes stuff happens in your life and you say out loud, "I just want my mom." Well, stuff had been going on in my life and it turns out, "I just wanted my husband." It was a lovely thing to notice.

The convention in Edison, New Jersey was less than stellar (and so was the nearest mall). I felt like I had been locked inside a low rider boom box bass unit for 8 hours at a time. The cast of characters that passed by was the land that time in front of a mirror had forgot. I won't immortalize it here. I don't want to remember it.

But we had a good time. Lyle and I. We had a good time because we were together. And we had a good time because for our last night in New Jersey, we moved into Manhattan. We had dinner out with two stellar people that we never get to see, then walked around SoHo at midnight. We woke up in one of our favorite cities the next morning, and had lunch with another beautiful friend. I may have been in the wrong place (Edison New Jersey convention center) but I was with the right person.

We came back to the hotel one night to find this tour bus parked out front. I think this would be a brilliant business model.

We ate at Bobby Flay's restaurant, Mesa Grill. We had the coconut cake.
THE coconut cake.
OMG. Delicious!

We had a chance to walk the newest park in Manhattan, the Highline. It's an old elevated railway that nature had taken over. They kept seeds from all the plants that had thrived here before they turned it into a park, and once the park was completed returned the seeds to the soil. Its an amazing space.

Can you believe it!? There they go again, using my body without my head. It's all a ploy to get around paying me my royalties.

THIS, is how it's supposed to look!

Our last fleeting shot of NYC. Meatpacking district, just under the Highline park (up there on the right), pretty sky.