Tenth Anniversary Staycation

The view from our hotel room.

To celebrate our tenth anniversary Randy and I had decided to spend a long weekend in New York without the kids, but when time came to buy tickets, I couldn't pull the trigger.

"I just wanted to go because you wanted to," confessed Randy and I sighed with relief.

"We would be rushing too much, trying to cram everything in," I said. "And I can't find any shows I really want to see." (This was before I read Chris Jones's recommendation of the David Cromer directed Our Town that closed this week. Ah, c'est la vie. Mary Zimmerman's Candide next month should help me get over it.)

So we stayed close to home, close to the girls, spent the weekend in Chicago and had a great time. A forty-eight hour date, like those long fun weekends we used to have when we had no schedule other than the Reader's movie section. Just time to be together and wander this gorgeous city, getting our wedding rings cleaned, browsing for hours at the new Barney's and the Newberry Library Book sale, getting an earful at the Bughouse Square Debates in Washington Square Park, lunching at Le Colonial and RL (places I wouldn't yet dare take the girls), waiting half an hour in line for fancy cupcakes at More.

The last of which made me beam with affection for dear sweet husband who patiently weathered the storms of giggles from the all-women crowd. Another patient kindness out of the thousands that the man has extended to me over our seventeen years together.

Dessert at Blackbird. That "cherry" was a hollow sugar construction, filled with sorbet.

Friday night we had dinner reservations at Blackbird, where I'd never been, where the parade of couples and parties through the front door was half the fun, where I saw several versions of my black patent peep-toe platforms, where we raised glasses to those who had celebrated our marriage with us ten years ago but are not longer with us: Eric, Katy, Ross's wife Mary Ellen, my aunt Theresa, Uncle Phil. It is a wonder, isn't it, when you still feel so young but your contemporaries start to leave you?

Back at the hotel Randy surprised me with our wedding video that Brent made and we laughed and gawked all over again. How beautiful and young everyone looked, how small the children were!


Saturday night we took a bike taxi to dinner at Ria and then saw Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies at Second City (featuring a clever Shelly Gossman, who bears a passing resemblance to Tina Fey and was grabbed last month by visiting Lorne Michaels to write for SNL) and half of the later show, The Absolute Best Friggin' Time of Your Life before I called time for bed. Both shows brilliant, although Friggin' is getting the good press, since its comics are actually good singers, too. The rap "Rubenesque," a tribute to the curvy form sung by the show's three women brought down the house.

Flowers and truffles courtesy dear husband, fruit and nibblies from the nice folks at the Peninsula.