January 28, 2008

Crepes

I know it's a grainy and far away photo, but this is what it's like to fly into home after being away for a day and a half. The skyline of New York is this warm welcoming cluster of high rises and the sky can't come close to dipping down and touching the tops of the buildings. From this vantage point we're minutes from touch down, believe it or not. LaGuardia is a few minutes from this photo. Oh, it was so good to get home Sunday.*Saturday morning we woke up between 3 and 4 to shower and throw last minute toiletries together for the Cinci trip to see Paul and Karen. Need I point out that between 3 and 4 a.m. for people over 30 is next to impossible. At least, it is for this pairing of over-30's. But, seeing as we had gone to bed a little after 9, we weren't really in that bad of shape - but landing in Covington, Kentucky (on time - we thank you, Delta), picking up our rental car which included smiling dutifully at the cheery Kentucky native behind the rental car desk and enduring her Kentucky drawal and inquiries about whether we needed a map, driving to Main Street under the overcast sky and finding Rima's Diner for breakfast - good ole Midwest grease-soaked comfort food breakfast (hi, lbs.) and navigating to the hotel, all of that wiped out us. And so we skipped the ceremony in Cincinnati. We had talked about the prospect of that on and off, and I wavered on the matter - who wants people showing up just for the reception and not for the beauty that is the tying of the knot?? - but the amount of exhaustion we felt would have definitely yielded an early turn-in if we did not nap. So we napped and rose and went to lunch and the Cock and Bull on Main Street, returned to the hotel (enter a fleeting moment where Craig almost drove into oncoming traffic seeing as Covington and Cincinnati alike are mazes of one-way streets, which puzzled Craig, the Big City Driver that he claims to be...) (luckily Kristin's shouting and pointing saved the day) and tidied up for the reception. It turned out that Rima's Diner was located diagonally from the Madison where the reception took place later that night. No one ever said Covington doesn't have small town qualities! Really, it was a nice time. Karen looked gorgeous and Paul was a nice groom. The oddities of living everywhere play a big role in what a small town the USA is. In other words, a year and a half ago I stood up in my best friend Jen's wedding and her husband's cousin sat in the congregation reading my bio written in their program which mentioned my company and how I move around. Turns out that that cousin of Jen's husband is tight with Paul (the groom this weekend.) So Dave (the cousin) called up Paul back when and said, Hey, do you happen to work with a girl named Kristin...? and Paul, meanwhile, had just started working at my job. Connections were made and sure enough, my best friend Jen married Pete, the cousin of Dave who was an usher this weekend at Paul's wedding. It may not seem so stilted but the fact that Paul is from Wisconsin, Jen is from Illinois, Craig and I are from different parts of Indiana, and it sounds like Pete and Dave are from Ohio - well, that creates a pretty interesting connection of one Midwest state to the next. To make it all the more interesting, in the morning (which came far too soon, of course) we dropped off our rental car alongside Paul and Karen as they dropped of theirs and we all shuttled together to the airport (they were headed out to their honeymoon in Mexico.) Really, what are the odds?*I won't go into flying out of Cinci (Covington), how desolate it was, and how quiet it made the Midwest seem to me. I felt a real sense of solitude being back on Midwest soil. Of course, weather plays into it (how overcast it was) and if a New Yorker were to ask me about my home ground I would jump to the Midwest's defense in an absolute heartbeat. Good people are grown in the Midwest. But it is very much the same, all of it. Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan...aside from quirky corners, the majority all blurs as one place. Maybe that's where the feeling of unity plays in. But when we got home, I felt so happy. The trash on the streets, the stick of the apartment lock, the honking of horns, the pungent curry in the apartment corridor, the storefronts' neon Giants signage for the upcoming Superbowl, the chaos of the 2nd Avenue Subway Line...it all felt so normal and comforting compared to the lonesome travel of a freight train across a no-named bridge that we could see from our hotel room. I guess it all comes down to what a person likes the best: the quiet, or the trouble of sound and bustle.*Tonight I was supposed to cook but we ate at Nina's instead. We had a Monday night date. I ate lasagna with no pasta - the layers were eggplant, goat cheese and parm and sauce. We ate tons of sauteed spinach, mixed greens and then we were given free dessert by the staff at Nina's (as always) so we ordered crepes filled with the gooey-ist caramel delight ever. And on the side was a dollop of puffy whip cream. The whole experience was heaven on a spoon.*Now, to bed, to work tomorrow for more of the same. It's a great thing our extracurricular lives can be so stimulating and adventurous.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear that CB remembered how to drive...even if the one-way streets did throw him off a bit. :) You crazy New Yorkers (which I know is the HIGHEST compliment for you)!!

I have decided that the new unofficial theme for the Midwest should be that annoying "Small World" song from Disney. Isn't it crazy how everyone seems to be connected from the Midwest? I kind of love that. :)

9:17 AM  

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