Eva in NYC

Country mouse, city mouse, country mouse, city mouse!?
Well which is it Eva?!?!
Maybe I am sort of a hybrid, a city/country/Leo/neurotic mouse?

Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City.

Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real and I myself am not a dream.

Helen Keller

This weekend the country mouse went to the Big Apple and indulged her inner city mouse. Even better, it was sort of a business trip and a really fun assignment to boot. If you can call interviewing your best friend from high school on a New York City street corner in a neighborhood where you spent your childhood a "job."

People are so PRETTY in New York! The streets are packed full of drop dead beautiful model-type people, well-dressed and stylish. Pages of a glossy magazine brought to life and walking down the street, crammed into a subway car and jabbing you with their fancy purses.

I miss the animal buoyancy in New York,
and the animal vitality.
I do not mind that it had no meaning and no depth.
Anais Nin

My first day in town was freezing rain all day long. Joy.

But it was ok because me and Parisa got to drink in some Klimts at the Neue Gallery. I have never seen a Klimt in person so I spent much time staring at brush strokes as close as the security guards would let me. Hot cocoa and lox in wood-paneled, ancient Cafe Sabarsky was worth of every European penny.

Then two days of sunny but frigid weather and a storm to beat all storms. I had to leave early to escape the madness and that meant missing out on seeing more people, a show and a party. But I did manage to cram in a happening Friday night with Meri and some tasty Indian food and an early Saturday morning in Park Slope with Sandra and the kids.

I spent lots of my time freezing my butt off on street corners and keeping my friends company as they sold stuff. I must have crap circulation because even with furry boots, Cabot socks, and long johns I felt like frozen Popsicle sticks.

It is good to be home in my cosy house with the animals even if I almost broke my back shoveling the driveway. Lucy loves her new pink handmade sweater from the Village and Crawford wants to make out with Parisa's pillows.

I gave in and indulged my inner consumer a wee bit as well. But mostly I was buying things for other people, mostly. Of course, most of the gifts are for MOLLY of the UNDEAD (she is SO greedy!) who had a lovely hand drawn card waiting in my mailbox for me when I got home. Nothing says home like a little dose of Molly in your mailbox!

I am glad to be home but miss the hustle and bustle, sights, sounds and smells more than a little. I gotta get busy and build that portal in my basement so I can travel freely between country and city more frequently.

New York has more hermits than will be found in all the
forests, mountains and deserts of the United States.
Simeon Strunsky

The city of right angles and tough, damaged people.
Pete Hamill