I Love NYC 2010

I love New York. Some might say it's "not normal" but I say it's delightful. I love meeting new people and trying new food. I love shopping everywhere from Canal Street to Filene's Basement to Lingerie shops where the undies cost a hundred bucks and smell like flowers, to tiny Boutiques to Saks. I love seeing plays, even edgy ones, but mostly musicals. I love the food: Chelsea Market, Little Italy, Street Vendors, Cafe Lalo, Juniors, Uncle Nick's, John's, Faico's, Hot Dogs at Yankee's Stadium. I love the Subway- even the rats. I love smiling at everyone I see and wondering what their stories are. I love the architecture. I love seeing where Edith Wharton penned Ethan Frome (my favorite book) and where Washington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I love getting manicures at holes in the wall salons where a foot massage, shoulder massage and manicure only cost 10 bucks total. I love dickering in China town for beautiful scarves, knock off sunglasses and jewelry. I love singing Take me out to the ballgame during the seventh inning stretch while my husband holds my hand. I love seeing Ground Zero and that the most beautiful part of humanity can come out of the ugliest. I love walking in highline park and making up stories about the passers by. I love walking six and a half miles in one day. I love the buying flowers wrapped in paper at a flowerstand just for fun and giving them to someone I don't even know. I love seeing Juilliard and sighing sadly about what might of been but then seeing the temple across the street and sighing happily for what is. I love feeling like "New York Christie," the carefree girl that I am underneath all this mommy-ness. I love doing my hair and makeup, dressing up in stilettos and leggings instead of jeans and a stained t-shirt and feeling "hot." I love meeting Doug's business associates and investing time in getting to know them. I love sleeping in a king size bed with eight pillows and taking 2 baths a day with fancy bubble bath. I love slipping out of the hotel at midnight for Nachos on time's square. I love going on a food tour and meeting awesome fellow foodies, trying sushi and being the weird one who wasn't drinking. I love sitting in Washington Square Park and listening to the street musicians. I love seeing the Statue of Liberty and that familiar lump in my throat that creeps up every time I see her. I love complimenting a mother (who looked to be my age) on her beautiful children only to have her laugh at me and say "I'm the nanny, I'm too young to have two kids." I love that I have two kids. I love seeing the children everywhere around the city and thinking about how much I love children. I love the realizations that I have time to have as I wander the city. I love driving in Cabs and finding it so ironic that I scream at Doug for driving like a maniac at home yet feeling perfectly safe driving 90 mph across the brooklyn bridge with no seatbelt and a cab driver who doesn't speak English but definitely knows how to swear in another language at other cabbies. I love being in New York with Doug who tolerates it at best, but loves seeing me have fun. Thank you Doug for taking me with you to New York. While you worked, I played and had a great time.