Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving holiday was lovely, but it all went by so quickly. Now here I am over a week afterwards finally getting around to write about it. I'm so distracted right now.

Wednesday night after work I flew to La Guardia. The airport wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be, but I wasn't able to park in a cheap parking lot because they were all full. (Note to self - next holiday I travel, make parking reservations.) Kevin met me at La Guardia and there was much happiness. Even the taxi ride back to his place was happy. The taxi driver didn't smell bad and I could pay with credit card!

We goofed around the apartment for an hour or so before tumbling into bed completely exhausted. Plus we had big plans to get up early the next day for the Macy's Parade. Unfortunately, we were too tired to get up at 6:30am as planned. We did manage to drag ourselves out of the apartment before 9am though. Naturally we didn't get a great viewing spot of the parade at such a late hour. But I now understand why they have balloons. It's for all the people who are 10 people deep and can't see who's actually marching past. Those of us in the back can just look up into the sky and see the balloons. Speaking of balloons, I was most entertained by the crowd chanting "Charlie…Charlie…Charlie" when the Charlie Brown balloon floated past. When we were tired of watching, we strolled parallel with the parade, but a few blocks over. The weather was perfect.

After the parade, we made our way to Danny and Alyssa's apartment in Brooklyn. They cooked an amazing turkey lunch for us. I don't know Danny and Alyssa all that well, but I'm so comfortable with them. They're unusual in that they're very open and honest about their lives. They share what they're thinking. It's a good way to live and something I need to do more often. After lunch we played ate pie (apple and pumpkin!), video games, and drank wine. It was perfect. Later, Kevin and I dragged our very full, very sleepy, and very happy selves back to Harlem.

Friday we had big plans to sleep in. It was absolutely wonderful. There were also big shopping plans, but I got distracted. During breakfast I had an epiphany about the way Kevin's apartment was organized (or not organized in actuality). I decided that shopping would wait; we had to get things cleaned up. Even though Kevin and I have been dating for a year and a half, this was the first time we had ever cleaned together. (Cleaning isn't on the top of the list when we only see each other once a month.) Surprisingly, we make a pretty good cleaning team. I kept my nagging down to a minimum and Kevin didn't fuss too much over me touching his stuff. After about 4 hours, we had the place looking 100% better. Then we ran around town and shopped.

Saturday was the big out-of-town adventure. Kevin decided we were going to Beacon. It's a small town about 1 ½ hours by train from the city. Kevin lived there for a while when he first moved to the East Coast. Now it is known for the Dia:Beacon, a museum for Dia Art Foundation's renowned collection of art from the 1960s to the present. It was a very, very chilly day (at least for a Southerner), but luckily we spent most of it indoors. The museum was incredible to say the least. Getting to talk with Kevin about art was a great experience as well. We ended the evening at The Piggy Bank Restaurant where we had really good barbecue and the best cornbread Kevin has ever had. Kevin slept on the train back to the city while I read. Public transportation is wonderful, because I catch up on all my reading! Saturday night we ended up in Times Square trying to catch a movie. Our timing was off so instead of waiting for two hours in Times Square for the next showing, we went home and watched a crazy Japanese movie, Battle Royale.

Sunday was relaxing. We had a wonderful brunch at City Diner. We saw Macy's, which was a madhouse. That evening we ended up at the airport. My flight was delayed over an hour, but I finally made it home.

Kevin and I at the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving morning.

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