Catch-up

The last few weeks have been life-changing. Not in a dramatic, rethinking my whole belief structure way, but in a significant, review the situation and make subtle changes way. First things first - my sisters came to visit. The excitement built up to this day over a long period and culminated in a deep clean of the apartment and the return of cat Louie to the Petco shelter. We didn't think he could handle an influx of people into his domain so we sadly parted company. We tried to preserve some sweet memories by taking photos but Louie would have none of it. We ended up with photos of Timon grasping at a grey blurry blob. Poor terrified Louie.

Timon and I prepared the welcome kits of twinkies, twizzlers and cookies and journeyed out to JFK armed with spare metcards for the girls. It took me a while to twig that they would be arriving on a domestic, not international flight, so the pickup area was in a whole different area. Freyja will attest to the fact that I have a pretty bad airport pickup record. But we made it in time and loitered around the baggage claim waiting for L & L. While waiting I spotted Britta from Community standing by the carousel, guarded subtly by an incognito security guard. After several attempts at directing Timon to my gaze he spotted her too (his first official celeb sighting!). She looks much smaller in person.

We found the girls, had the hugs and waited for ages for their bags to come around. As is customary, Timon and I shouldered the larger ones and we made the long, 3 train trek back to our apartment. But you see, everything is a little more fun when you have new people to share it with. I love love love showing off the mundane stuff we do to fresh eyes. It makes every experience shine in a new way. We got back to the apartment, dragged the bags up all 5 floors to our stuffy apartment (sorry Lauren, the heater is NOT on, it's just this hot naturally). The girls were buzzing even after 24 hours of traveling and we talked, ate and watched the food network until 1am. I setup the carefully maintained double airbed (only used once) only to realise the next morning that it had slow leak. I hoped I had made an error in plugging it but after 2 nights of deflation the leak theory held true. Lucy made the couch her new bed while Lauren put up with it until the morning blood rush to the head forced her onto a makeshift floor bed.

The first morning was an early one. The 3 of us left around 9am (having been up for 2 hours) while Timon slept in. We walked west to Broadway and started the epic journey south. Photos were taken, shops were shopped and Gray's Papaya hotdogs were eaten. We walked from 105th to 59th and took in the bottom edge of Central Park. We baulked at the way-too-expensive horse and carriage rides and sticky beaked at various souvenir tack. I showed off my favourite hotel - The Plaza, we squizzed the giant piano floor in FAO Shwartz and wandered down 5th Avenue, stopping in at Tiffany's just to look. We hunted down Manolo Blahnik and met up with Timon at a much more reasonable hour for lunch at the Moonstruck Diner. The group hit Bloomingdales, Daffy's, Urban Outfitters, H&M and Aldo just to name a few. All in all 9 hours of shopping and sight-seeing. The plan WAS to attend a party that night hosted by Lucy's NYC friend Andre. We did not make this party. I'd say everyone was asleep by 11pm.