Weekend update
It was the weekend of running late.
While driving up to NY, I did my usual stop at the first rest stop on the NJTpke. There was no food available, and the lines were half an hour long. Usually there's no one there, but as my dentist appt was 30 minutes later than usual, I was 30 minutes behind my usual schedule.
So I said "screw it" and left.
Second rest stop. I am officially hungry and need to eat, because I'm going to get a filling and that will mean no food for a while, at least until the lydocaine wears off. So I go and and...enormous lines again! Dammit, I think, where did all these people come from?
I figure I should at least get gas, but the gas pumps also have long lines. I don't have time for this. I continue on.
Third rest stop: lines, but they're all stupid people who aren't picking up food from the bins, but are instead waiting for who-knows-what, so I shove past, grab a ham/egg/cheese croissant*, and get on my way. There are also no lines at the gas pumps, so I fill up on cheap Jersey gas and go on.
I was about 15 minutes late to the dentist because of all the unscheduled stops.
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Took mom to pick up her Christmas wreaths. She must have ordered them late because those wreaths were threadbare.
I bought a cedar bough and a velvet bow, because I like to hang something on the door of my apartment. Also, maybe the cedar scent will keep the moths away.
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Then my only on-time moment of the weekend:
Had dinner with S and her husband, then the NYPhil. Edward Elgar violin concerto and Mozart's 36th symphony, with Sir Colin Davis conducting. My primary reaction to the Elgar, after "wow, this is awesome!" was "You can tell an entire generation of movie composers took their inspiration from him." (That generation being the guys who wrote in the '30s and '40s.)
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Sunday morning was planning brunch with swimtech at 11:00. At 10:45 I woke up, my alarm having failed to go off or failed to be audible. I threw on clothes, called swimtech to tell her I was going to be half an hour late, kissed Mom goodbye, and raced into Manhattan. In the pouring rain. Remarkably, there was very little traffic. I'm sorry ST had to wait around, but at least she was in a comfortable place to do it.
Afterwards we went to Murray's cheese, and I had remarkable parking karma and got a spot right in front of it. (In the west Village, you understand, on Bleeker street. This is a rare occurrence.) Ah, finally, able to get my Fleur du Maquis again! Also a whole bunch of other cheeses I had never had before. Last night I ate a pile of Preferes des Montagnes for dinner with raisin-fennel-semolina bread. Mmmmmm. I love runny cheeses.
*And thank you, Burger King, for contributing to the dumbing-down of America by now calling them "crescents" instead of croissants.