Late Wednesday Thoughts, Floating Up and Away

Started out the day unpleasantly, with a tap on the elbow that turned out to be the finger of Friend. Friend, who two weeks ago again wanted to know why it was that we couldn't be together, since we seemed to get along so well, and since I seemed to like him last year, and thus forever shutting the door to any chance I might have again seen him as anything but annnoying and immature.

Harsh words, I know. But he kinda deserves it.

Fortunately, I transfer at 96th Street, and so was able to flee within a few stops. I was so unhappy sitting there with him, trying not to be totally rude, but also feeling like he was the LAST person on EARTH I wanted to see, much less be forced into speaking with.

A wee bit of work this morning on an environmental due diligence project that I apparently should have done yesterday. Whatev.

Lunch at the Four Seasons, where the staff provided two of our party with jackets, even though it was the ladies who were freezing in that high-ceilinged dining room with the frothy pseudo-Greek stone bathing square in the middle and various palm trees, incongruous and wistful.

I had a $15 broccoli vichyssoise and a filet of bison (all the better to follow up on the venison I had yesterday at Aquavit, a fancy Swedish restaurant -- when I fall off the vegetarian bandwagon, I fall but hard) that cost somewhere between $40 and $50. I was sitting at a table with the grandson of Kurt Vonnegut and a beautiful Palestinian man. A kid across the room was eating a huge pile of pink cotton candy (not on the menu, but you can order it). We ended up going over the limit of $70 per person, and had to shell out $23 each. For seven people, the bill was $500, and thus, the tip was $100. As my contracts professor said, that's nice bread.

The bison was very good. I asked for it without the foie gras on top. I do draw the line at the liver of a goose that was force fed to create such a delicacy, just as I draw the line at a baby cow kept in darkness and immobile for its short life, to create tender meat. I just feel too badly to even try it.

In the afternoon, I did a small research project for the cute associate from Oz, which in the end involved a trip down to the firm library for an actual honest-to-god real-life book -- an IMF publication that wasn't online, or included in the reaches of the Crimson E-Resources library. After searching the web for it, I had a small surge of brilliance and called the firm librarian, who showed me how to search the firm's collection. And lo, it was there. And lo, I went to fetch it from the 10th floor. And lo, it had the exact info I was looking for (the extent of control certain governments have over their countries' exchange rates). And lo, the book was Good.

I left the firm with one of the three clothing items I need to return -- this one was a skirt whose twin ripped the first day I wore it (I had purchased three skirts, two in the same style but different colors, and one nicer black one). I had it repaired, reinforced, and it ripped again, this time not along the seam, but the fabric itself. Forty bucks, and the shoddiest manufacturing I've seen in a while. I've had skirts a quarter of that price that were better made.

Although it was more than 2 weeks since I'd bought it, and it was a sale (and therefore non-refundable) item, I explained the situation and won myself an exchange. Then hunted through the store for half an hour in an almost vain search for something, ANYthing I wanted to wear. In the end, I bought a skirt identical to the nicer black one that didn't rip. It's a sleek enough looking pencil skirt.

I went to One-Armed Maggie's house after that, since it is coming upon my last week in the city, and I haven't seen my friends as much as I would have liked. I bought ingredients for bruschetta along the way, and we had dinner. One-Armed Maggie's grandfather died last week. Double M's grandmother died last month. And my uncle's sister, the only sibling he is still in touch with, is dying in Oklahoma this week.

Someday, when I die, will I have grandchildren who will mourn? And will some child (maybe an adult, but a child to me) think about me briefly as they witness my grandchild's sorrow?