NYC: The Final Installment

Day three began with another trip to Ess-A-Bagel so that Oz could share in the deliciousness. He actually finished his entire bagel. We took the subway to Ground Zero and then headed to Central Park, checking out Strawberry Fields and a snowboarding event. For some reason I had it in my head that I should check out the Museum of Modern Art rather than the Met (since one museum every four days is my limit), so we'd agreed to do that next. First we had lunch there at Modern, which was ok. I had sausage, and he had gnocchi; so it was a strange lunch. None of the desserts grabbed me, so I put that off for later.

The museum had a few Monets I liked and some other artists I'd never seen and liked, but a lot of it was crap for lack of a better word. I'm sure that betrays my ignorance and inability to appreciate "art," but if it looks like a child sribbled all over a white sheet of paper with his pencil I'm not going to "ooh" and "aah" over it. And a shovel hanging from the ceiling isn't going to impress me either. So MOMA was in large part the wrong museum choice for me:)

Afterwards Oz returned to the room, and I set out for a good bakery. I found one thanks to a nice Ann Taylor employee--Buttercup Bake Shop where the motto is "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first." Sounds good to me--when I was leaner and younger, I often had to eat dessert first to make sure I had room for it; I've since "stretched" my stomach out, I guess. Since I only eat the top half of cupcakes, I figured three was a good number--two with the sugary buttercream icing and one with cream cheese icing. Then I retired for a nap and a really good workout, and Oz and I went to Sparks (a steakhouse) for dinner. I wanted cheesecake for dessert, so a return trip to Roxy's followed.

On our last day I took a nice long stroll to Hunter College to attend Redeemer Presbyterian's service, and it was awesome--a definite highlight of the trip. Finally hearing Tim Keller speak in person was such a treat, and the sermon was on point. It was interesting to hear his arguments against the common refrain I hear from people about how they "just can't believe in an angry God" and choose to just believe in a "nice, friendly, happy God." Afterwards, I grabbed a pepperoni roll for lunch and ended up making friends wtih two cute cops. They offered to give me a tour of their neighborhood, but I had to pass since my flight was leaving soon. Not too soon to grab one more cupcake though. So all in all an excellent trip; I'd love to return.

In other news, I finally met one of my mystery note-leaving neighbors (remember the Christmas tree offer?) because I came home early today after a meeting. He's my age and friendly; maybe I'll meet his live-in girlfriend one day. And I am going to respond to my very first Myspace message from a stranger; one of Aaron's friends wrote me. Aaron gave him a slight heads up, so the grammer and spelling usage is all correct:) Happy Valentines Day!!