May Your Home Always be Too Small to Hold All Your Friends

One of the best things about having a doctor for a friend is his ability to quickly and effectively deal with a medical emergency. When we finally crawled out of bed around 10:30, Dave had already identified the closest Starbucks with his iPhone app, so we took Mordecai over and self-medicated.

Gill and Cindy continued our rehabilitation with an excellent breakfast, and sometime after noon we were ready to brave the world.

It was an 11-Elmo day as we passed through Times Square on our way to Central Park. I was tempted to get a picture of the Naked Cowboy riding Mordecai, but Gill thought that was demeaning. I assume she meant to Mordecai. The Cowboy was busy posing with his hands on the butts of some very senior ladies who were giggling like school girls.

Cindy led us to Balto’s statue in Central Park. Balto was the dog who, in 1925, led the last leg of the run to Nome, Alaska, to deliver serum to combat an outbreak of diptheria. The Iditarod commemorates the journey each year, and Balto even starred in a movie where he sounded a lot like Kevin Bacon.

We left Balto for a visit to Strawberry Fields, then found a place to eat, The Smith on Broadway. It was freezing outside, but we took a table on the patio so Mordecai could join us. Gill, Cindy and Dave each had the soup and a salad. I had on omelette and gave the washroom an honorable mention.

Walked home along 5th Avenue. Gill and Cindy showed some interest in the Abercrombie and Fitch store, but I suspect they were just concerned that the shirtless model standing in the entrance was going to catch cold. They monitored him closely for a while, and Cindy is a nursing professional, so I guess they decided his condition had stabilized satisfactorily.

Back home, we double-fisted some coffees and cocktails, then hopped in a cab uptown to see Once, a Broadway Musical about a forlorn Irish folksinger and a Czech pianist who helps him rediscover his muse. This is the way to make a musical. Honest and simple. Everyone sang, played their own instruments, and the songs came so naturally. I stand corrected. I only hate mostBroadway musicals. Loved this one.

We left the show looking for food and music. Cabbed our way to the Village Vanguard for some jazz, but they weren’t serving food during the band’s set, which had just begun and looked terribly serious, so we walked over to Olio for dinner.

This was the same place Gill and I had lunch on Friday, but this time we ate in the dining room, warming up by the pizza oven. The table beside us featured 5 women amusing themselves as a toddler danced on their table holding a pen. Dave recounted various stories from the emergency room as this all played out, and let me know he’d be morally, ethically, and legally obliged to report the mother the moment the pen punctures the soft palette.

We said a little prayer for the child, and turned our attention to beer and pizza.