Good morning! It's a gorgeous day here in Manhattan and I've been up since the crack o dawn. I've been to the gym, I have been grocery shopping, the exterminator just left, and, at this writing, it's just 11:00am. But, in my defense, it's been an intense couple of work weeks what with the end of the fiscal year and handling a bunch of events. Winding down on the weekends is a bit of a challenge but that comes with the event planner territory. 

One of the events I helped with was a big company party at Rockefeller Center. A bunch of us on the team offered to help the planner by being 'extra hands' for her. I was put in charge of hanging a company branded flag from the underside of a large umbrella. It sounds easier than it was. lol

Anyway, the planner had done such an excellent job of logistics that the 'extras' weren't really needed. So, we got to enjoy the party as guests. 

You know, I've lived in New York for a long time and I've worked as a consultant at 30 Rock so being there isn't really super new to me, and yet, I've never actually stood so close that I could touch the gold statue of Prometheus. I mean, if I tried to, a billion security guys would pop out of the woodwork and drag me away, but the idea that I COULD was kind of cool.

It's occurred to me a couple times in the past couple weeks that, at 55, I still get giddy about this kind of stuff. I know that I "shouldn't" be giddy anymore about doing events at this or that place, having lunch at this or that place, or walking on the floor of Rock Center. But I still am. I kind of think that the day I'm not will be a sad day for me. 

My fond wish for you is that you go out and enjoy the day today no matter where you are - and that no matter what you're doing or where you are, you continuously find things that make you giddy! 

Yesterday, we needed a break. 

From work, from home, from internet, from cooking, from writing, from it all. 

The first half of the afternoon was spent spelunking in an old warehouse in the bowels of Brooklyn that houses thousands of old comic books. Getting to this place was like going to a super villains lair. I half expected the Riddler to pop out of the men's room and Catwoman to be over by the coffee machine stirring in Cremora. But it is spectacular. And spectacularly chaotic. You'd think my OCD would leave me unable to stay for long, but, strangely it was SO all over the place that I found it best to simply focus on one old title that I'm starting to collect and leave the rest to another day. It's definitely a place where you literally might find anything in any box at any time. I was looking through a box from one company and found a treasure that had been mis-filed. I bought it, of course, because, it was clear just laying there for me to find. Collecting is like this. The thrill is in the hunt and discovery. And that you know you'll find some gems in odd places ropes one in even more. Little successes when the odds are stacked against you is the reason that Las Vegas exists. 

After an hour in that, we went back to Manhattan and stopped at the San Gennaro Feast (now through September 22 in Little Italy). The streets are filled with locals and tourists (and locals that decide to pretend we're tourists) drinking, smoking cigars and eating a lot of food that's delicious but will probably kill you. Such is life. If I wanted to live to be a million, I'd wrap myself up in bubble wrap rather than eating a cannoli. So there's that. 

A dinner at our favorite place down there along with a bottle of our favorite red wine (that we strangely can only find there, how is that possible?) and then a walk up to the West Village where we stopped in to my new favorite comic book shop -the Mysterious Time Machine - but I don't think anyone really knows it by that name - it's just the cool comic book place one flight down into the lower level of a building that serves honey flavored bourbon on Wednesday evenings (comic book day). I had my umpteenth nerdy conversation of the day about comic books. I sometimes think I know way too much about this stuff. I do love the genre though. :) 

At one point back at the street fair we rode the Ferris Wheel. From the spin, you can see a lot of the layout of the street and the motion seems comforting somehow. I loved the reflection of the lights in the windows of the buildings next door and we joked about vomiting on people below, because that's what you do when you're middle-aged going on 13. :) 

From that high up, things don't look so bad. The colors, the lights, the dull roar of the crowd enjoying life, the universe, and everything. 

Some days it's easy to get caught up in the minutiae and, while important to know, following our story, which comic book is in which box and how many calories are in a zeppole, it's probably better that there are also some days when you just ride the Ferris wheel and see all the glory of life laid out in front of you in a technicolor spread. 

Recent blog posts you may have missed: 

Johns and Marys Chapter 5: Boys Don't Kiss Other Boys

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The Wow Factor

Good morning, and happy heat wave.

For those up in the middle of it, stay cool and stay hydrated. If you have an elderly neighbor, please check in on them esp if they live alone - they may have turned off their ac in order to save money. Today it's supposed to be 99 degrees. Oh joy. No, not another 'weather' post (see here for the one I wrote on Thursday), just an acknowledgment that 'holy cow, it's a scorcher!" :) 

Good morning and Happy Friday!

About a week ago I managed my first real onsite event for my new job. It was a dinner for retired members of the team and it took place at a beautiful venue in New Jersey. It was also storming pretty hard so it added an extra layer of worry. But, thankfully, it went brilliantly. Two retired members of the company even came up to me at the end of the dinner, shook my hand and said "we saw you working the dinner and we saw what you did - making sure everything was top notch for us. thank you!"  It's nice when that happens. :) 

Now, I just started this new job in late May and on top of the usual on-boarding and throwing myself into events, I also took a pre-planned trip to LA to reconnect with some people I love and then, later in June took a few days to go to a wedding in my hometown for a woman I have loved/adored for 50 years (which is funny since we are both perpetually 29 <wink>). I'd been planning this trip for a year and a half and it was the culmination of a lot of various threads of my life.

So you might say that it's been an intense past few weeks (to put it mildly! LOL). By the end of that evening, I was, understandably, cumulatively, mentally exhausted by the long haul of it all. Everything had turned out well, but, it was at that point, a matter of getting to a specific point in time to allow myself to exhale. 

I called a Lyft to get me back home to Manhattan and the guy showed up in less than 10 minutes. He lives in NYC and had just dropped someone off from NYC so the timing was perfect. I sat in the back of the car, the driver expertly handling traffic, the weather, etc which allowed me to begin the exhaling process. I was home before the next train on NJ Transit would have even left.

It routinely occurs to me that we don't really know the impact we have on others but this night illustrated it brilliantly for me:

To the Lyft driver, perhaps, I was just some guy getting picked up in the rain; a convenient fare.

To me, he was a golden ticket home, to the Mister, to an earlier bedtime than I had anticipated, and a welcome safe ride through tumultuous weather at the end of an emotionally charged sequence of events. 

As I exited the cab, I thought that I should say - "I saw what you did, making sure that the ride was safe and swift, thank you", but suddenly I felt a little foolish and overly emotional... but I think he sensed my relief as he jumped out of the car and grabbed my bag from the trunk and flashed me a warm smile, pausing slightly as I fumbled to get my keys out of the bag before driving off. 

Life is always difficult. We know this to be true. But it is the small, perhaps even theoretically insignificant, kindnesses that make the difference in this weary world. The kindnesses of the comments, the driver, meant a lot to me on a weary rainy evening. 

So the next time you think the little things you do don't make a differences, know that they do, even if you may never know it.

I see you. 

I see what you do. 

It's noticed. 

It's appreciated. 

I can think of no better note to end the work week with! 

Happy Friday! 

Good morning and Happy Sunday. 

Last night we got caught between the blackout and Manhattanhenge.

We were coming back from a birthday party in Brooklyn and decided, somewhat unfortunately, to get off in midtown around 7:45pm to grab dinner. The streets were filled with hoards of people milling about as the theaters had just closed from the shutdown.

It was a kind of just the kind of crowded smush that the Mister and I earnestly avoid, and there we were smack dab in the middle of all the chaos. As they had already announced before we got out of the subway that the Columbus Circle station was closed due to lack of power, we figured we would be better off forging ahead and getting a cab on 10th Ave. Uptown we went passing by one dark building after another until W. 72nd Street marked the end of it. 

A few minutes later we stumbled out of the cab, took a shot of Manhattanhenge and enjoyed dinner at one of favorite uptown eateries. We live on W. 102nd and no power outage at home. 

Manhattanhenge has always been one of my favorite weird, fun New Yorkery things to do and due to various circumstances over the past couple years (weather, travel, work) I've missed the last several, but glad to have caught a glimpse of the one last night.

Life has been so kooky over the past few weeks that I'm glad that we ended up skirting the calamity and having a beautiful night!  

The view from a friend's rooftop deck on July 4th. Photo by Andrew Altenburg