Well, █████ and I had a splendid weekend. We started out with cheap, yummy Thai food at Sea, Second Avenue and 4th Street. I had a lychee mimosa, and ate the lychee. Then we walked down to the Bowery Ballroom to see what maybe possibly this time really will have been the final Dismemberment Plan show in New York City. It was a mostly all-requests set, so if it wasn't entirely cohesive, at least it was nostalgic and fun. I had psyched myself up to climb onstage during "The Ice of Boston" and dance with the kids, but when the song started the big guy in front of me rushed halfway to the stage and then stopped dead, and I couldn't get around him. Oh, well. The band was under orders from the house to let only thirty people onstage, so I probably wouldn't have made it anyway. We still had a great time.
The next morning, █████'s birthday, she and I set out on an epic bike ride. We made our way from Astoria to the Queensborough Bridge, across 57th Street to 5th Avenue, past the Plaza Hotel, through part of Central Park, out at 72nd Street, over to Riverside Park, then up the west side all the way to 181st. I'd never been to Washington Heights—nice neighborhood, but hills like San Francisco. We ended up walking our bikes up a couple of them. From there we hit the George Washington Bridge and crossed to New Jersey. Then we retraced our route back home. Using MapQuest, I figured out this morning how far we went. At least 26 miles. I was pretty impressed with myself.
That evening, █████ and I and our friend Liz went to Yama on Carmine Street for sushi—big heaping mounds of it. Much sake was consumed, and I capped things off with plum wine. Then we caught a cab to the World Financial Center and saw Seabiscuit and the new movie theater there in Battery Park City. It was an engrossing movie, but manipulative, simplistic, and jingoistic. It was the sort of movie that evaporates after you watch it. Pleasant but not great. Oh, well. We still had fun.
After the movie, we walked through the mostly empty WFC to Southwest NY, a restaurant with a bar that serves about twenty different flavors of margaritas. We sat out back on the plaza outside, staring out across the Hudson at New Jersey and the New York Harbor. Then we caught cabs home.
Yesterday █████ and I both had our regular hair appointments, and I went blond again. We consumed grapes, cheery tomatoes, French bread with mushroom terrine, four kinds of cheese including a lemon ricotta blend that was like ultralight cheesecake, and a bottle of pinot grigio.
Like I said, a great weekend. Now it's back to reality.
