July 2021: What do you call a prologue that takes place in the middle of the story?

July has been shaping up to a month with plenty to blog about, and in order to trim down the main post, I’m making this post about last week now. Call it a return to blogging in a timely matter or a late birthday present to my sister, but here’s some stuff that happened when Cory, Blake and Rachel were in New York last week.

JULY 20: Things got off to an excellent start when we met up for a lunch of burgers, bacon, and tomato & onion salad at Peter Luger’s. Followed that up with a little walking around Williamsburg before taking the train back to Manhattan for a visit to Chelsea Market, Little Island, a walk up the Highline, time at Hudson Yards that included beverages at Shake Shack and buying a suit for Blake at Suit Supply, then a walk over to B&H Photo for a look around (preceded with a visit to a lemon grove and the new train station), then a walk up to Times Square for dinner at Tacos No 1 and dessert at Shmackery’s. You may notice that the photos stop after Little Island. Weird, right? Guess I was just living in the moment and also starting to get tired of walking and taking pictures of everything.

JULY 21: I met up with Blake and Rachel in Soho and we went in and out of a lot of stores. The Soho Zara was closed for some reason and this was clearly ruining a lot of trips to Soho. But we survived. After a while Cory snuck up from work stuff and he and Blake ate gluten-free cupcakes while Rachel waited patiently to be reunited with Prince Street Pizza pizza. Then she and I walked around Chinatown while Blake and Cory ate gluten free pizza. After we were all reunited, Cory ran off to a work dinner and Blake and Rachel went back to their hotel and I went to Festus’s birthday party (but that’s content for the forthcoming main July post).

JULY 22: Rachel had come to New York in hopes of eating a bagel, so I had her and Blake meet up with me at Absolute Bagels by Columbia. I believe it was a bagel success? Blake needed to eat, too, so at Mom’s suggestion I took him to a street meat stand for some chicken and lamb and rice. Rachel was understandably skeptical but it was a giant hit with Blake. Then we walked by Grant’s Tomb, through Columbia campus, visited the reclining Statue of Liberty in Morningside Park, and THEN walked all the way down to Sheeps Meadow, through and along Central Park.

BUT at that point we weren’t even nearly done walking! Because we needed to get down to Times Square before 3:30 to see the Instructure lights in Times Square. Signs seen, we: ate really good gluten free pizza, walked over to Rockefeller Center, used bathrooms, walked up 5th Avenue, found a Zara that was open, went down into the Apple Store, went and got street meat for everyone from the Halal Guys, went and got Rachel some Magnolia Bakery banana pudding, and then went back to Shmackery’s. It was a huge walking day and I actually tied Tuesday exactly on exact number of steps stepped.

Teenagers: Only way to get them off their phones is to put some other phones in front of them!

This Security Guard was constantly having to keep people off the VERY sittable Apple Store skylights

See?!

JULY 23: While Cory, Blake and Rachel were still in the city for a bit on Friday I wasn’t able to meet up with them as I had a bus to catch to Philadelphia and miles and miles of walking to to recover from before I put in a few Philadelphia miles. But what a great visit! It was grand to get to put in some uncle time with my oldest niece and nephew. I hope they left feeling they saw a thing or two and ate a few good things, too.

NY Catch Up

Maybe I should make a blog post? It’s been a bit. Here’s a few things I’ve gotten up to in New York since I last posted.

MARCH 20: Went down to the Met to check out their Alice Neel exhibit. It was great, one of my top 5 art exhibits I’ve been to during my New York days for sure. Her portraits aren’t what you’d typically call realistic, but something about them leaves an impression about who the subject is. Felt I knew these people better than if someone had painted a photo realistic approximating portrait them.

Also, there was a big line that morning. But the nice thing about being in line at a museum is you get to look at other art as you wait.

Look at the line when I got out of the exhibit! (Actually the line I waited in was about as long). Post-Alice Neel I checked on some old Met favorites and went and saw the Big Bird that’s on the roof for the summer.

MAY 22: Walked up into the Bronx, took some of these pictures while I was there.

Have you seen the Ferryman?

JUNE 10: Went down to Union Square and had lunch at Han Dynasty with our friend Ryan, followed that up with a little Village and Soho walking around.

JUNE 18: Left my apartment, took the train to midtown, then I walked to the Whitney to see a little art that night with Patricia. I’d say, pound for pound, to me the Whitney is the most reliable museum for a good little visit we’ve got in the city. And I love spending time out on its terraces.

JUNE 19: The stake organized a trip to a pro football game in New Jersey, so now I’ve been to a pro football game. But not the American kind.

Vaccination Vacation, Part 3: Highland, Ut!

MAY 5, cont’d: And so, a few hours later (PLUS the time it took me to walk from gate to curb in the new, disastrously bad Salt Lake Airport) Kristen picked me up and we got some Mexican ingredients for dinner and then she bought me a birthday Pretty Bird sandwich. Won’t someone please make a hot chicken sandwich that is hot enough! That night we made birria tacos and a bunch of TEENAGERS came over and ate them. The teens were all very polite! And at night we watched Walker, Christian and Nate skate.

MAY 6: Went down to Provo/Orem and ate at new area sensation, Holy Taco, with displaced NY’er Rebecca. The black sauce with the sesame seeds? Be careful! I like that they only have Al Pastor there. You may think it odd that I only had 3 tacos. You’ll see why I ate so light in a bit. After Holy Taco we went to the BYU art museum and walked around campus a little bit in the super bright mean sun.

And then I had Taco Lunch Number 2 with displaced NY-er Arthur. And then Erick showed up with a couple other New York kids. What a reunion!

MAY 7: Had a Salt Lake night and woke up the next morning in Midvale at Cher’s new crib. She took me aon her trademark 5 mile Midvale walk to show me all the sights. Seems kind of odd that I didn’t get a picture of Cher. I’ll try to do better next time.

Then I went and had lunch at Cancun Cafe, Grandma Barnes’s favorite restaurant, with Erin and Cindy. After that Erin treated Cindy and me to a walkaround of new house as it undergoes amazing renovation. Realizing that Erin lived rather close to Teresa I went over and paid a surprise visit to my aunt.

And then . . . I went up to Midway for dinner at Hawk and Sparrow Bread Company Headquarters and met their new employee!

MAY 8: This day I woke up in Highland. I went with Kristen and Cory to watch Walker’s lacrosse game but got the numbers mixed up and watched #39 the whole time thinking he was my nephew. Oh well!

Back at the house we started celebrating Cory’s birthday by discussing how to celebrate it. We wound up having sushi and going bowling, what a celebration! And then that night I got to meet up with the grown-ups at my first anti-masker restaurant! Sorry that I hardly have pictures of anything. I was chillin’!

MAY 9: Mother’s Day! And I got to celebrate by being part of the plot to surprise Cory’s mom down at Cover Fort where his folks are in charge of everything. It was a nearly successful surprise and a totally successful good time!

And even though it was a nice big outing we still had the strength to take a walk when we got back.

MAY 10: I spent most of what I thought would be my last day down in Salt Lake, seeing the sights (Temple construction), visiting Jake and Natalie, and getting Jaripeo with Tom, Cindy, Eve, Jared and lots of wonderful children!

MAY 11: I was going to go back to New York this day but my flight was so delayed that I just rescheduled it for the 11th. It was a pretty chill day. One thing I did was go to Costco with Kristen and take one picture while I was there. Just of watermelons. And then on the 12th I got up and went back to New York. No pictures of that, either. I took too many pictures at the beginning of this trip and didn’t have any picture-taking energy left by the end!