A year in the life

It's been exactly a year since I arrived in New York City. You probably didn't know that there are hundreds of songs written about this great city i.e, Broadway Baby, Downtown (yes, Petula Clark's song), Down and Out in New York City, Easter Parade, New York State of Mind, Only in New York, Silver Bells, Stay'in Alive, just to mention a few. There are other great cities, we've lived in many of them, but there is something about New York that inspires this sort of creative homage. While we haven't yet written our own song, we have loved our first year in the city. When we moved here we committed to doing at least one thing each month that you can only do in New York. For example, this month we will see West Side Story and two nights later we'll attend the opening game of the Mets. Here is just a quick list of some of the things that I love about the city. Perhaps I'll put it to music one of these days.

Central Park--in every season
Watching the George Washington Bridge light up at night
Nodding to our neighborhood Jewish families on Saturday as they walk to their synagogues and knowing that they probably understand our devotion as we pass them on our way to church on Sunday mornings
Knowing how to get around on the subway
Filling up the gas tank in the car about every three months
Having family and friends visit often
Discovering small and interesting shops in our neighborhood
Being asked for directions (like I"m a native)
Picnics on the Hudson River
Meeting Paul almost every night after work and walking home together
Sharing this year with Paul
And there you have it.

Emergency Essentials

How many times have you heard the cry, "Mom, we're out of toilet paper!" or "Honey, where are the peanut M&M's?" And then you drag yourself out to the car and fight the traffic to the grocery store. This problem was recently solved for me when the retail space of our apartment building was converted into a CVS. That's right folks, we are living above the CVS and we are taking full advantage. Now whenever someone needs something I can reply, "Run down to the basement and pick it up" This solves all of our food storage problems----we have plenty of snacks and drinks to last a year----in the basement. How great is that?!