New York Moments

It's 7:30 in the morning. Our bedroom is sweltering, but the living room is pleasantly cool. There's a storm outside; thunder booms every few minutes. No one else is awake yet. I'm reading about Jon Snow riding through the Haunted Wood. All I need is a cup of tea.

Walking through Central Park. It's still drizzling, but there's no real need for an umbrella anymore. The trail is spotted with puddles and a couple is carefully leading their three children around each one. I splash straight through. Because I can.

We just ordered nachos and Texas-sized margaritas at a place called Tequilaville while we wait for our last friend to arrive. This can only end well.

Dinosaurs were huge. I mean, intellectually you know they were big. And the name means giant lizard (or is that just something I'm clinging to from childhood that isn't actually true?) But you're never quite prepared to be standing in a huge hall surrounded by skeletons towering above you. Wandering around among their bones is always a good time. Even if you accidentally go through the exhibit backwards.

Someone selected Only the Good Die Young on the jukebox and I'm dancing and singing along. The music is drowning me out, which is probably best for everyone. We're playing shuffleboard, and we've introduced a new rule: living on the edge. If you get a puck to hang off the edge without falling off, and it stays there til the end of the round, the other team buys a round of shots. We can turn anything into a drinking game.

Heading to the Natural History Museum we discover we took the subway to the wrong side of the Central Park. No big deal, we'll just cut across the park. Except we somehow find ourselves under the park instead of in it. I haven't had any caffeine yet, and my tea is spilling over onto my hand while I wait for it to cool down. On the other side of the park, we're still 12 blocks south of where we should be, but that's a nice excuse to actually walk through the park for a bit.

Our friend has some truly horrible ginger beer in her fridge. She's trying to get rid of it, but no one wants to drink the last bottle. We finally come up with the brilliant idea of using it as an arbitrary punishment in a game of connections. The first person to connect the entire group must drink the beer. I'm so glad it wasn't me.

It's the biggest Barnes&Noble I've ever seen. Four stories high and each level is surprisingly spacious. I could spend days in a store like this. But time is limited, so I hurry up to the science section, the graphic novels, the fantasy. I even find the right edition of Fellowship of the Ring to replace the one I lost years ago. My Lord of the Rings is once more complete.

The Lesser Kudu is a great name for an animal. Not only is kudu fun to say, the name implies that there's an even bigger version of this animal (also on display in the African Mammals exhibit). Plus they have cool, spiral horns. And then you find out about Kudu Dung Spitting. We live in a strange world.

Some mad genius turned a boat into a bar/restaurant. Incredibly, we're the only people there at 3 in the afternoon. We get a couple pitchers of beer (bacon beer sounds better than it tastes, fyi) and grab some tables. Slowly the group expands from 6 to 15 as people trickle in. We order more beer, catch up with people we haven't seen in years, and try not to get too nauseated every time the waves get bigger and the boat's rocking becomes noticeable.

On the west side of Manhattan, there's an elevated park that used to be a railroad line. Now it's a fun way to walk through the city without worrying about traffic. We admire the architecture while our popsicles melt down our arms. Every time someone wants a drink of water, we are subject to creepy public art.

The sun is rapidly setting. We take a taxi as far as 10th avenue before traffic backs up. Then we keep walking west until the fireworks start. We don't make it very far before the first ones blast into the sky. They're going off right at the end of 45th street, and we have a pretty spectacular view of it. It looks like the display is repeated every few blocks all up and down the island. The show must be overwhelming from the piers. But that requires camping out all day. Instead we enjoy our slice of the show and imagine it repeating in both directions.

Cheeseburgers and drumsticks. Potato salad with pickles and pasta salad with salami. Chips and dip. Lots of beer. And Jack. And then tequila. Perfect summer evening.