Tag: New York City

Wherein a small child invades NYC

Yesterday I began my extended holiday early by heading into New York City for The Moppet’s first trip into the big, bad city. After a sprint to catch the train, it started like this:

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And ended like this:

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And in between there was stuff like this:

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Overall it was more of a proof of concept than a true holiday excursion. There was no real planning beyond, “Let’s go to the city and see the big tree.” Which was somewhat silly to do so close to Christmas, but miraculously worked out.

We started with a lovely lunch at Le Pain Quotidien (which means The Quotidien Bread – thank you 4 years of high school French!) as The Woman used to frequent there for their decadent hot chocolate. After which we made our way over to one of the most famous toy stores… only 3 days before Christmas. Brilliant, I know. Surprisingly, once past the main entrance and all of the mammoth stuffed animals, the store was “relatively quiet.” Very busy, but certainly not the hectic nightmare of consumerism I had expected.

Once the nonstop parade of toys she can’t play with began to overwhelm Kayleigh, we packed up and headed to see “a really big tree.” Yes, that was enough to convince her that there was more to see outside. Thanks to a little help from Facebook we were able to meet up with a friend in the area who was even kind enough to take a picture of us in front of said tree. Maybe someday I’ll get around to posting it. In the meantime, just picture three people in front of a really huge tree. That’s close enough.

And that was also enough for us. Come spring time I’d like to really walk around with The Moppet and introduce her to the joys of CD shopping in The Village and fighting tourists in Times Square, but 4 hours was enough stress for now. Especially with the regular addition and subtraction of many layers that sort of, but not quite, kept us at decent temperatures. Still, she was quite the trooper throughout the tramping around such a strange environment and was even kind enough to fall asleep in her stroller for the walk back to Penn Station.

Fortunately she woke up in time for her favorite part – staring out the window of a moving train.

In like Schwinn

With the pseudo-encouragement of seeing friends sign up, I finally took the plunge yesterday and registered for the Five Boro Bike Tour (or Bike New York, as we lazily refer to it). This will be my second time on this 42 mile trek, although the first in about 7 years – which puts me clearly on the opposite side of 30.

I still have to figure out if my current bicycle is up to snuff, or if a new purchase is in my future. I also still have to test my theory that me being slim has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I am in shape. At least I’ve got 38 days left to worry about it train for it.

Since The Woman is growing ever-larger, she will be unable to accompany our rag-tag group of immature amateur cyclists. However I plan on strapping my camera to my back/handlebars/helmet/face/whatever in order to take photos along the way that will never be shared be immediately posted that night for all to enjoy. Wish me luck or, better yet, join in the humiliation fun!