A Visit from Mommy!

We celebrated Mother's Day weekend with a visit from Erik's mommy!

On Friday, Erik had to work, but that didn't stop Katy and Jeannie from cruising the town. They braved heavy rain and cold temps, making it down to Grand Cental Station, which provided a full afternoon of shopping, people-watching, and margarita-drinking at Zocalo. For those who have never been, Grand Central Station is a spectacular building on its own, and it is also home to some wonderful food and (high-end) shopping.

At the end of the day, Erik met the girls at Grand Central, from which they braved the rush-hour subway crowd to head back home. Once we made it home (through the continuing cold rain), we decided to stay dry the rest of the night, so we had some dinner delivered from one of the 150 restaurants that delivers to our apartment.

We decided to celebrate Mother's Day on Saturday, because it was the only way we could guarantee ourselves a brunch table at Alice's Teacup, which had been recommended to us by a friend (thanks, Jen!). It was well worth the recommendation, as we had the best tea (Sessa) and scones (Pumpkin) you could ever imagine. After that wonderful, fru-fru affair, we hopped on the subway and headed to the Guggenheim Museum, where we took in Cai-Guo Qiang's stunning, yet largely unexplainable "I Want To Believe" exhibition. (By the way, continued thanks to my wonderful employer for all of the free museum admission. . .)

After the Guggenheim, we took a long, aimless walk through Central Park, which turns up new sites and surprises every time we go. Eventually, we popped out on the Upper West Side, where we decided it was time for some coffee and cupcakes. (Let me interject here. . .Katy is obsessed with cupcakes. I don't know why. Nobody knows why. Thankfully, you can find cupcakes in NYC as easily as you can find hot dogs, so they're always in ready supply. The problem is, whereas *every* hot dog tastes good, only 10% of cupcakes taste good.) So, we headed over to Buttercup, recommended by another friend (thanks, Deborah!), which had some good cupcakes. Once Katy had her cupcake fix, we hopped on the bus back over to our side of town.

Saturday night, after a wonderful dinner at home, we took mom to our neighborhood pub, the Banshee. What better way to celebrate mom than an ice cold Blue Moon with a slice of orange? How about a second ice cold Blue Moon with a slice of orange? How about a third ice cold Blue Moon with a slice of orange? How about. . .no, wait. . .mom and Katy started talking about the cute bartender. . .it's time to go home.

To be continued. . .