The subtitle for today's entry should be adventures in public transportation, but more on that later. We started the day with brunch with an old friend and her family in their apartment on the upper east side. We all enjoyed bagels and orange juice as we looked out of their fortieth floor window to a beautiful view looking south towards downtown. Henry quickly hit it off with my friend's daughter. They had such fun together that he didn't mind jumping in their cab as the eight of us headed over to the Central Park Zoo. There the kids enjoyed a petting zoo and a puppet show before our friends left us to fend for ourselves in the park.
Central Park is simply amazing. We walked across it and back but still saw only a fraction. After a rainy Friday, it seemed that people were eager to soak up the beautiful weather Saturday had to offer. Children climbed rock formations, families picnicked, sunbathers luxuriated, and lovers relaxed in each other's arms. Unless you looked up and saw the skyscrapers towering above the trees, it was easy to forget you were smack in the middle of Gotham City.
There were, however, reminders. Dozens of roller skaters had convened in an open space to show off their disco moves, most of them looking as if they were still longing for nights spent in Studio 54. A few yards from that we came across a heated soccer match in which two contestants nearly came to blows. The fight was avoided when an older but not necessarily wiser player explained loudly to his angry teammate, "He don't like you? What the fuck do you care if that Argentinian faggot don't like you?" And with that, the matter was settled.
Somewhere in the middle of all this chaos a butterfly alit gently upon Alison's shoulder, as if to pull our attention back towards the nature all around us.
We jumped in a cab to head back downtown to our apartment where we'd stop off quickly before having dinner and meeting a friend of Leslie's for dessert. As we got ready to leave the apartment, however, I discovered that I had left my backpack in the previous cab. A quick Google search told me that the odds of finding it again are just short of astronomical. There are, afterall, about 13,000 cabs in the city. Gone are the leftover bagels from brunch, three jackets, a change of clothes for Kate, and some NYC travel tips.
After dinner at our favorite Sugar Cafe, we started walking crosstown along Bleecker Street towards the Magnolia Bakery. All the while I had the Simon and Garfunkel song in my head, but it wasn't until the way back that we saw the part of Bleecker that they were probably singing about.
We met Leslie's two friends in line at the bakery. I wonder if this place was as popular before America discovered it through Carrie Bradshaw and her friends, but it's certainly popular now. A doorman stood outside and every so often he opened the door and invited a certain number of customers to come inside and peruse the cupcakes, cookies, and cakes. I didn't make it inside because I was busy wrangling Henry who was hyper and Kate who was carried screaming from the store by Alison. Kate continued to kick and wail, much to the horror of the customers in line, many of whom could be seen making mental notes never to have children or at the very least never to bring those children into Manhattan on a Saturday night. She didn't stop until another couple, a couple who clearly had children of their own but were gloriously unemcumbered by them at the moment, stopped to chat. The woman spoke gently to Kate as she writhed in my arms and went so far as to offer her the sample scent she'd received from the perfume shop next door. It smelled just like a flower, she said. Kate took it, smelled it, and stopped crying immediately. I will now carry tiny, perfumed slips of paper in my pockets for the rest of my life.
When Alison, Leslie, and her two friends emerged from the bakery, we all crossed over to a park that seemed to have been built just so people would have a place to eat their cupcakes. Dozens of people came and went, including a bachelorette party, all with white cardboard boxes filled with cupcakes and dreams.
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