busy busy

The week I got back from Mexico, I had play practice three nights and a radio meeting and then Saturday, it was off to New York for some ABC corporate training. Saturday, I hung out with Anne at her apartment and we went to a Goodwill and a Salvation Army which were just hodgepodges of goods in very cramped spaces. We ate that night at Patsy's Pizzeria on 116th and 1st Ave, just blocks from Anne's apartments. We had this tiramisu for dessert.

After having eaten this fabulous NY style pizza and some bruschetta. Apparently, Frank Sinatra used to have Patsy's pizza flown to him in LA. There was a big (bad) oil painting of Ol Blue Eyes in Patsy's. But then there are 6 or 7 Patsy's in the city.

The next morning, I walked over to the Savoy Bakery on 110th St. between 3rd and Lex and got all these pastries for $7.25. Look! Chocolate-filled croissant and cherry danish and cheese danish and filled things and a puff pastry with smoked chicken. We need a bakery like that here. If we wanted to gain 200 pounds, that is.

And here's Anne's apartment.

Her bedroom where I slept with her Saturday night. On the way home from the pizzeria, we stopped at a liquor store and got a little bottle of Absolut for the girls and a bottle of wine for me. A bottle of wine which refused to de-cork. One corkscrew broke off IN the cork and another pulled it out and then that piece of the first corkscrew dropped into the bottle. I hope those girls do not drink it out of the bottle. And we watched several episodes of The Office which is pretty hilarious for regular network TV.

A living room. A sweeper. View into the kitchen.
I told those girls that with all the gentrification taking place around them, someone would be buying their building soon and turning their apartment into a $500,000 2-bedroom condo. Mark my words. It's on E. 109 St. which is in Spanish Harlem but Anne likes to call the Upper Upper East Side.

Sunday, I checked into my hotel. This place has great bathrooms with stainless steel sinks and marble showers and the best bed linens, big fluffy duvet, flat-screen TV. I went shopping at Filene's Basement which is on 79th and Broadway, just 2 blocks from the hotel. I had dinner with Anne on her break from Urban Outfitters at 72nd and Broadway. We had sushi at Empire Sushi on 72nd. I went back to the hotel but around 8, I was hungry (sushi). So I went to this great little market right across Broadway and got some bowtie pasta with peas and carrots and mushrooms in olive oil and a grilled chicken in flat bread sandwich which we ate when she got back to the hotel later.

Monday, she worked and I went to the training which was OK, about the new Disney system for entering ads into our websites. That night Anne and I ate at La Bella Giardina on 72nd between Columbus and Central Park West.

The food was great and for dessert we had tortufo. We asked the non-English speaking busboy what it was and all he could say was chocolata and crema and we said Yeah, we'll have that. So it turns out that it is a pear-shaped thing, chocolate gelato on the top and vanilla on the bottom, encased in a dark chocolate shell, with a center of raspberry preserve. OMG it was so delicious and only $5 which is practically FREE in NY.

The next day, Anne worked again and I went to training. I met her for lunch at Taco Grill on 72nd and said our goodbyes. She's headed for Europe for 2 weeks in May with three other girls. The training was at ABC headquarters on 77th and Columbus. We got out early and I walked back to the hotel where I had arranged for a car to the aiport. On the way I stopped at the Westside Brewing Co. at 76th and Amsterdam and had three vodka tonics and called people on the phone. As I was leaving, some 70-year-old guy at the bar told me it was a mistake to fly into Detroit. Or to leave the city. Or something.

So I get to the hotel and I am tanky so the bellboy gets my bags and loads them into my waiting black Lincoln Continental with black leather interior and I am whisked to the airport where the driver hands my bags to some bell captain who takes my driver's license and the next thing I know, I have a boarding pass and my bag is checked and I'm headed for the airport bar.

I had thought about changing my flight to Weds. since the weather in Ohio was so bad but instead, I opted for work getting me a room at the Detroit Airport Westin. I am so bushed by the time I get there, I just fall into their Heavenly Bed to sleep. The next morning, I drove to work, got there about 11:30, worked my ass off. It's a good thing I didn't change my flight because by Weds. the storm had moved into NY and no planes were going nowhere that day.

So tonight I had play practice and then I'll have a weekend at home. Where there is a lot of dirty laundry and no food. Radio show Saturday. Cards at Ron and Deb's Saturday night. Play practice again Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

Plus I have tickets for Lucinda Williams April 15 and Norah Jones May 4, both at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater. Maybe it will be warm by then.

Friday night, (cripe, tomorrow) Calvin Cooke is at Grounds for Thought.

Looking forward to cooking school on Sunday.