Tuesday, September 8 - Day 4

25 years ago today - Bruce was playing golf with Wade in Mount Elgin, I was getting my hair and make-up done - the only day I've ever had hair and make-up done - and we were getting ready to be married. We had a really fun wedding in T'burg with all the family, great dinner, dancing, our wedding night at Susan Lowrie's house, and a honey day the next day in Niagara Falls. Good times! Now, 25 years later here we are in NYC.

Angie and Susan and David and Roberta had contributed breakfast in bed for our 25th - thank you! We aren't able to actually have breakfast in bed but we spend quite a bit of time reading through our various resource materials to select the perfect place to have our anniversary breakfast. We decide to take the subway uptown to a place called "Good Enough to Eat" which has a good write up in NY for Dummies. I notice that Maya isn't out today and wonder where she is but I'm not too disappointed not to see her as my hair looks terrible today!

Breakfast is delicious - especially the home made biscuits with strawberry whipped butter (yum) - and for our first celebrity sighting, we see Kevin Bacon seated right across from us. I think there's a sweet irony to this considering it's a breakfast place and all. Definitely worth the trip up here. We'd come again except there are several hundred other places we'd like to try as well.

We saunter over to Central Park to walk off our breakfast and catch a glimpse of the Public Theatre - sadly the season is done for this year but we get a sense of how fabulous it would be to see something here. We also see the Belvedere Castle, the Great Lawn, Cedar Hill, about a bizillion nannies, often in groups with their wards afoot, musicians, walkers, joggers and the like. Lots and lots of people no matter what time of day. We cross the park and come out right at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Just a quick walk through the lobby and gift shop as we are actually on our way to Greenwich Village today and can't do justice to the Met in just an hour or so, so after buying a booklet in the gift shop (and guess what - my change is $9.11 - sounds strange when the cash register man says: "here you go - nine eleven.") we continue on our way. Back into the park for a quick look at the Jackie Kennedy reservoir, also catching a peek at the Guggenheim exterior through the trees.

Decide to take a bus down to Greenwich Village so we can see more of the city on our way. 60 blocks down Lexington Avenue later we arrive.

First we wander a bit through the Lower East Side looking in some restaurant supply stores - it's pretty trippy seeing whisks as big as my arm, and salad bowls that look like they can hold enough lettuce to feed several hundred. We continue winding our way through Little Italy, past a schoolyard where kids are playing sports under a huge billboard advertising a MOMA exhibition with two scarey looking skulls facing off - it's like life and death side by side - weird. Then a basketball game in a public court - that's fun - looks like a scene from a movie. Lots of little shops, restaurants, cool buildings.

Time for something sweet so we visit the Washington Square Diner to share a banana split - it is sin in a dish! With whip cream a cherry on top!

Then on to Washington Square Park, right beside NYU, a park with an amazing energy - tons of people, music, and a hundred dogs. I take lots of photos of these big city dogs and wonder what it's like to be a dog in NY. We ask ourselves if NYU was the place that the characters on Felicity went to school - remember that show? Makes us want to nod our heads and say "Hey" to everyone who walks by. A guy comes up to Bruce and asks if he'll pay him a buck for a good joke. Bruce, being a nice guy, complies. Here's the joke he got for a buck - "If Iraq was having trouble invading Turkey from behind I wonder if Greece would help." Pa Dum Pum...

Then we see an oom pah band playing some Jacques Brel tunes and our day is complete - come on, how much better can it get than this??

Emily had emailed that it was the Tribeca Barnes and Noble that Kathy Griffin was going to be at and since we are going to try to catch her we decide we'd better book it over there just in case she has some fans in NYC - ya think???!! So we hop on the subway at Washington Square and head over.

Is it strange to be going over a bridge? - HAH - we either got on the wrong train or we're going to Tribeca via Brooklyn! So, after we get switched back around, go back over the water to Manhattan, back to Washington Square, get on the right train and get over to Barnes and Noble, we're way behind schedule and we can't get a wristband that guarantees the book will get signed. But we buy the book anyway - "Official Book Club Selection. A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin" and get into a huge line-up that snakes its way through the bookshelves on the entire 2nd floor. We are by far the oldest and straightest people in line and we aren't even close to being in the wristband group that gets to hear her do her schtick, but we wait it out and eventually we do inch along toward the book signing table and there she is. I bet she easily signed 500 books already and yet she is still making eye contact with each person and thanking them for buying her book. I got some good pictures and I'm very happy with my signed copy.

For our anniversary dinner, we decide on John's Restaurant - another tip from the tour guide who told our group that's where to get the best pizza. It's not too busy but crowded enough to have good buzz in the restaurant and the pizza is, indeed, delicious. Wade - that dinner was on you - thank you!!

We make our way home around 11 p.m. - we're enjoying the familiarity of the neighbourhood now and it's good to be "home" and put our feet up. That was another big day for a couple of old folks who've been married for 25 years! Who'da thunk it!

Fantastic Anniversary - thanks everyone. G'night.