Things I loved about New York

In no particular order:

-Dinner at Perilla
-Finding out our luggage arrived (was contemplating not getting out of bed if I had to rewear my clothes!)
-Lots and lots of walking (so I didn't feel guilty about all the eating!)
-Central Park on Sunday morning
-Sunday morning brunch (mmmm...crepes.......)
-Watching the Packers beat the NY Giants
-Power shopping!!!! (although I didn't buy too much as our luggage space was limited)
-NYC brick oven pizza (mmmmm......sliced meatballs and fresh mozzarella.......)
-Madison Square Garden and all of it's history
-Seeing Rush at MSG
-Finding Labatt Blue on tap at MSG
-Upgrading to first class for the flight home

I'm sure there's tons more I'm forgetting, but the main point is we had an awesome time!

NYC, Baby!

Well we finally made it to the Big Apple. It was starting to look a little touch and go, since the first leg of our journey didn't get off to a great start. When the plane that we were going to be on landed, the pilot did his visual inspection and found a puddle of hydraulic fluid on the ground next to the right rear wheel. Not a good thing! After much of what looked like nothing getting done, a couple of mechanics came out to take a look at it. They disappeared after a while, and we were told that there would be further delays while they got parts. After what seemed like eternity, they came back and got everything fixed. We knew it was a good sign when they started loading our baggage! So I don't know exactly what time we left, but it was late enough to miss our connecting flight. Luckily another one was there and we managed to get on board just in the nick of time. We ended up in the back next to the engines, but at least we were there! All in all, we got to NYC only 45 minutes late, which wasn't too bad.

Of course when we got to LaGuardia we found out our bags didn't. No big surprise there. We had reservations at Perilla, which is owned by Top Chef season 1 winner Harold. The food was terrific, the atmosphere was wonderful, and the service was outstanding! I started out with an appetizer of crab salad, while Mike had the special-diver scallops. We were both really impressed with our dishes. My main coarse was spinach truffle ravioli, yum! Mike had fluke with a butternut squash puree, and that looked really tasty as well. We shared a side of risotto, which was made with a whole grain rice and just melted in my mouth. Dessert was a dark chocolate tart with peppermint ice cream. The mint was real mint-you could almost taste the leaf! A thousand times better than mint flavoring.

We wandered back to our hotel, stuffed, buzzed, and sleepy. American still had not called us about our bags, and they were not waiting for us when we returned. Luckily we had our toiletries in our carryon, but the only clothes we had were what we were wearing. So plan B was to go shopping first thing in the morning. However, when we got up this morning Mike decided to call the desk and sure enough, our bags were here! So now it's off to wander the Big Apple, and thankfully in fresh clothes!

Guys, is it so hard to follow the beat?

I've been going somewhat regularly to kickboxing classes at the gym, and it's pretty much the same people all the time. It's mostly women, but there are a few guys that show up semi-regularly. These guys drive me nuts. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always that coordinated. Sometimes I zig when I'm supposed to zag, and when the instructor tells us to shake our groove things while pretending to hit a speedbag, well, my groove thing doesn't shake that well. That being said, I look like the picture of grace next to these guys. Fellas, it's not a contest to see who can punch the fastest. Stop and listen to the beat. One, two, three, four. Not onetwothreefour and wait a couple beats to catch up the rest of the class. It's pretty distracting to see your limbs flailing about like a drunken octopus. I understand if the internal metronome may not be working properly, but you do have eyes and you can watch what the rest of the class is doing and follow along. There's one guy in particular who is the worst offender, and I was near him today because I came in late. A couple of times, he was racing ahead of the beat and turned around to wait for the rest of us and almost was introduced to my fists.

If they're this uncoordinated and are hurrying to finish during kickboxing, I feel sorry for their significant others.