Weekend with Courtney

Still behind. Oh well.

A few weeks ago my best friend Courtney decided to come to New York to keep me company during a weekend when Ed was out of town. The last time she visited we were kept busy combing the Garment District for lace and bridal accessories for her upcoming wedding, so I was looking forward to having a less constrained weekend with her.

Courtney's trip from Boston was rough, and she texted me updates from the road. Her bus had some sort of mechanical problem that kicked in about halfway through the trip; the upshot was that it and couldn't go any faster than about 60 M.P.H. (Sounds suspiciously like a movie plot.) So she arrived late and we immediately sought dinner at a place that served some kind of booze along with the food. Tapas at Boqueria fit the bill nicely. Afterward, we went to sit in Madison Square Park. Drinking wine outdoors on a warm summer night is one of my favorite past-times, but drinking on the streets is illegal. So I hit upon the idea of picking up a few paper coffee cups with plastic lids from a nearby bodega. Courtney and I slyly filled them with wine from a bottle in my purse, then sipped and chatted in the big-city version of the great outdoors.

We slept in on Saturday, then headed to Central Park for a bike ride. The distance around the park is six miles, so the only to see the whole thing in a reasonable amount of time is to either jog or bike it. We rented bikes from a nearby shop like tourists and pedaled our way around the park. It was certainly warm, but not too terrible, and we stopped plenty of times to admire the view from different vantage points. The park was crowded and the people-watching was almost as good as the scenery.

All that cycling gave us an appetite, so we had lunch at a French restaurant near my apartment that has lovely garden, then freshened up a bit in anticipation of a wine tasting course I'd signed us up for that evening. Ed and I had taken a course with this company once before and it was a lot of fun, so I was excited to give it another try. It did not disappoint. We sampled lots of wines, each served side by side for the sake of comparison, and took notes about the different flavors and how climate and region causes them. And the cheese pairings were divine.

Cheers!

On Sunday morning, our first stop was Murray's Bagels. We took our breakfasts to the Highline Park to eat on benches, then walked along slowly through the park. Again, it was crowded, but we were early enough to avoid too much gridlock, and the Highline is so lovely it's just about impossible not to enjoy it no matter how many people show up. A the southern end of the park, we discovered some interesting artists' kiosks at street level. I checked out some photographs, then we wandered over to a table where a man sat next to a plastic tub filled with cheap metal forks. He was bending one of them into curves with some pliers and in front of him was an array of jewelry and figurines, all made from forks! Courtney and I were quite charmed and perused his merchandise for a while before deciding that we just had to have matching bracelets. The one Courtney liked had an interesting bronze sheen. I commented that I liked the color of hers better than the plain silver one I'd picked, and the man said he could fix that for me. He trotted over to his nearby car and came back with a torch, which he used to blast my bracelet all over for a minute or two until it turned a lovely shade of dark gold with tinges of purple. I was so impressed with his work that I picked up one of his business cards. For interested parties, his website is worth a visit. He's tremendously creative.

After a visit to my favorite china store Fish's Eddy (where I picked up a pretty plate for my mom and a cool sugar bowl and creamer both decorated with the New York skyline for myself), it was time to cool off with a quick frozen yogurt stop and then get Courtney on the bus. Apparently her trip home went much more smoothly, thank goodness. As usual, I was sorry our time together had come to an end and missed her almost as soon as she was out the door. But there will be other visits. And in the meantime I have my new bracelet to remind me of the good time we had.