Two weeks filled with re-acclimating myself to wintry weather, kicking back with the fam, visiting friends, re-acquainting myself with my beloved Honda (and its steering wheel on the left side), and indulging myself in free refills, enormous salads, sushi, home-cooked meals, shopping, shopping and more shopping...
The highlights:
-Spending 200% of my monthly Rwanda budget in 2 weeks.
- Target.
The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Rows upon rows of product paradise. I loved going there and just saying to myself, If I wanted to, I could buy that chrome-plated shower caddy.
- Starbucks.
Daily.
- New York City, rock-star style.
Call it karmic justice: after mildly ‘roughing it’ in Africa, I was treated to a lavish stay at the Four Seasons hotel and a monumentally extravagant meal at the pool room, all in the company of dear old friends John, Marley, Jeremy, and Anne. After an initial period of intense interrogation about Rwanda (“Who?” “When?” “Why?” “Are you nuts?!?” “Should we go on a luxury safari?”), we reminisced about our Charlottesville days and resumed our old habit of bar hopping and liver calisthenics. Going shopping (well, window shopping) at Bergdorfs and Henri Bendel, doing brunch at quaint bistros... some of the highlights of this all-too-brief jaunt and among the countless things I love to do in that incomparable city.
-A good old-fashioned house party.
- Meeting the munchkins, new and old.
Miss Cassidy Ann (Jody and Paul’s munchkin) has these gorgeous blue pools for eyes (from dad) and adorable little button nose (from mom) – the portrait of a beautiful, delicate Gerber baby.
Sir Tyler James (Nicole and Brian’s munchkin), on the other hand, outweighs her by some 10 lbs and rolls around like he’s Superman, surprising you with his toughness and crushing you with that irresistible smile, like he just knows how cute and entertaining he is…
Briana Madison – or Boo as she’s sometimes called – has had a soft spot in my heart ever since her parents Rob and Angela broke the news that they were pregnant to me over steaming Malaysian food in Philly. Suddenly (it seems), she's turning 5 and going to kindergarten in the fall. Such a precocious and charming girl. Without any instruction, she served me a donut from her Barbie kitchen and wanted to paint my nails in pink with silver sparkles. Really a girl after my heart!
- A family outing, high-rolling?
My parents wanted to take a day trip somewhere and since none of us had ever been to Atlantic City, New Jersey, we thought, why not? It wasn’t exactly on my list of must-see cities, but now that I’ve seen it, I can safely say that it would not have made the cut.
What an odd place. I thought about titling my next blog entry: "Why you should move to Africa: your weekend trips will no longer take place in Atlantic City." You can tell that the place once had some old-time charm, a la Coney Island, but now it has more of a down-on-heel, down-on-its-luck (ironically) feel… A place that seems to be trying really hard to be something it’s not… Much like the waitresses on the floor at the Trump Taj Mahal: mostly 40+-year-old women wearing heinous gold lame body suits with ruffle trim across their bottoms and bearing gratuitous freckled décolletage.
No one in my family is a big gambler, so I had to wonder what we would do there other than ogle the shops at the Pier at Caesars and walk along the - admittedly, very nice - boardwalk.
Then my dad had the wild idea that we should each gamble just $10. Black jack was tempting, but the minimum table was $10 and knowing my lackluster card skills, I didn't want to lose it all in one hand. So instead, my brother and I followed my dad to a poker machine where the 3 of us proceeded to huddle over the thing to figure out how to make it work, surely annoying the crusty old lady sitting on the right who looked like she had been glued to the same machine clutching her plastic tub of tokens and chain-smoking for at least 40 hours. After a few fumbles, we finally got the hang of it, and after a scant 5 minutes, my dad got… wait for it… a straight flush.
A STRAIGHT FLUSH.
The machine then lit up like Christmas and started clanging like a cash register until his $10 had turned into $134. With his jaw hanging ajar and a look of utter shock across his face, he said, “We have to go NOW.” 1000% profit – not too shabby. Maybe if I gamble with my dad from now on, I'll never ever have to visit the macaroni ATM again. :)
For all its glory though, sadly the visit could not be everything I had hoped it’d be… primarily because it was just too. damn. short.
'Til next time...
