welcome to new york

Among my favorite things about New York are the people. Brash, honest, and profane, New Yorkers are a gift to the world. They also happen to be a small gift to me, in particular as it relates to my children's perception of my use of "bad" words. I dabble from time to time in the forbidden lexicon, but am by no means a master. Given their apparent non-exposure to such words from other people, however, my children have come to the conclusion that I am the frickin' curse champion of the world. No longer. Today alone allowed us to hear three separate people bellow out variations of the f-word to their fellow New Yorkers for what appeared to the the slightest affronts. God bless you, good people of New York.

Another of my favorite things about this city is mass transportation, in particular, the subway. Not only does the subway serve the obvious, important, purpose of moving millions of people from point A to point B, it serves the somewhat subtle, but critical end of putting human beings from diverse backgrounds in close, confined spaces on a daily basis. Our home city is filled with people driving their cars to their stand-alone homes, many inside gated communities. I can't help but think the lack of a community ethic in Phoenix would be helped just a little bit by something like the subway.  (Pictured below is the subway sign that inspired Owen to say to a middle-aged subway rider, "Excuse me, but I think you are not supposed to lean against the doors." Thank you, sir, for not telling my son to blow it out his a**.)

In terms of our daily activities, we began the day by seeing some of our Phoenix family who made the trip here for tomorrow's wedding of my cousin, Katherine. We then ventured into the East Village where we enjoyed a wonderful brunch with Keri's cousins, Sharon, Joe and Adina.

After stuffing ourselves with bagels, lox, rugalach and chocolate babka, we returned to Brooklyn for a rehearsal lunch/dinner at a fantastic pizza place called Speedy Romeo. I was in no way hungry when we hit the restaurant and somehow managed to stuff down three different appetizers, four types of pizza and three kinds of desserts. I highly recommend it for anyone in the Clinton Hill area.

After "linner," the four of us decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Actually, only three of us voted for that. Owen made clear his opposition at the outset. Following a series of manipulations the details of which are now hazy, Owen relented.

Somewhere over the East River, things took a turn for the worse, Owen decided that he had been sold a bill of goods and stopped all forms of communication. Fortunately, our arrival at City Hall Park in Manhattan created the prospect of a cherry slushee which, miraculously, allowed the power of speech to return to our younger child. Keri and I are quite concerned that we are headed to a no-slushee/icee continent.

We ended the evening by going to the roof deck of our Brooklyn hotel, where we ran into Katherine's fiancee, Dan, and his family. Dan was kind enough to share with us a 44-year old bottle of Canadian whiskey that his grandfather had never bothered to open. A toast to my future cousin-in-law and his great family, tomorrow to become part of ours.