NYC 2019

Central Park

Our trip to NYC this year was motivated primarily by Frieda's desire to visit her nephew Ken and her brother and sister. But she also wanted to meet Ken’s two-month-old son and renew her acquaintance with his two-year-old daughter, whom she hadn’t seen since shortly after she was born. In addition, she wanted to get together with a friend she'd known since first grade but hadn't seen in a decade. As usual, we took the red eye on Jet Blue and got into JFK around 6AM Wednesday morning. We'd rented a VRBO studio apartment on West 71^st as of the night before so we could go directly over there. I can't get any quality sleep on a plane so took a nap there while Frieda met her brother and sister at Sarabeth's on Amsterdam for breakfast. 

Tulips

She got back to our apartment about eleven, woke me up, and we ambled through lavish sunshine down 71^st to Central Park where the tulips and cherry trees were blooming, and the bicycles were swooping between the horse-drawn carriages. It was lovely and made me feel like the ordeal to get there had been worth it and that spring was the perfect time to visit the City. After circling Tavern on the Green, we made our way up Columbus to Pomodoro's for lunch, where we took advantage of the weather by dining al fresco on the patio, then went back to the apartment to relax. In the evening we had tickets for “Hillary and Clinton” at the Golden. (Since seeing “Hamilton” in San Francisco we’ve gotten a bit more theater oriented.) The playwright, Lucas Hnath, has gotten a lot of attention recently, winning an Obie a couple of years ago, so I was curious to see something of his. This play, his latest, starring Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow, was both funny and sad, the writing strong, somewhat reminiscent of Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” Afterward we walked to Don't Tell Mama, a cabaret nearby that has become one of our regular stops in the city, where we listened to live performances of songs from “Cabaret,” “A Chorus Line,” and “La Cage au Folles.” From there we headed to Victor's on 52^nd, a Cuban cafe that's another favorite stop, where we hoped to swill a couple of Mojitos but were disappointed to find they were closing, though it was only eleven o'clock. 

Don't Tell Mama

Thursday morning dawned gloomy and gray. We had breakfast in, then headed for Frieda's brother's converted loft on 19^th. We took the subway but got off too far away so had to meet him in Union Square, where he was walking his dog. We had a pleasant short visit before he set off to tend his boat moored on Long Island and we returned to Victor's for the best Mojitos this side of Havana plus Cuban tapas. Later we dropped by Whole Foods at Columbus Circle and took our purchases over to Ken’s apartment where, after the kids were put to bed, Frieda made dinner and we had a pleasant, relaxed meal and caught up on the latest gossip about mutual acquaintances. It was raining when we emerged, so we hailed a cab.

It was still pouring the next morning, so we shook out the umbrella and headed for the Natural History Museum, but it proved too mobbed to enjoy, with people jammed into the elevators like they were Tokyo subway cars at rush hour and swarming through the exhibits like locusts stripping crops, so we didn’t stay long. Ken, who was taking the afternoon off work, met us for lunch at Sarabeth's. He had a table by the time we arrived and pointed out Megyn Kelly sitting a few tables down from us. Every time we visit the City, we spot a celebrity or two. We had a leisurely, tasty lunch, then walked to his apartment through a brief lull in the rain. 

From Ken's Apartment

In the middle of the night I woke with a sore throat. I managed to get back to sleep but it was worse in the morning. Blaming it on the plane ride, I popped some Yin Chao (Chinese herbs) and we walked to Landmarc at Columbus Circle for pain perdu, the most delicious French toast you’ve ever had and another NYC ritual for us. Ken, whose apartment is nearby, showed up with his daughter on her scooter and had a cup of coffee, then we strolled back to his place. Frieda's sister, her husband and daughter Ubered over from New Jersey and we all, including the children, went to familial feast at nearby Rosa Mexicana. Frustratingly, I had to avoid interacting with the children for fear of infecting them. After the family left later in the afternoon, Ken ordered in Chinese for the four of us and we had another comfortable, amiable evening. 

Sunday remained gloomy and damp but drizzling more than raining. Ken picked us up in his X5 and chauffeured us around the area between Riverside Drive and Columbia University, the neighborhood where the Montessori School his daughter will be attending in the fall is located and where he's also been shopping for an apartment to replace their current one which now, with two kids of disparate genders, they are beginning to outgrow. Then he dropped Frieda at Alamo on 44^th to pick up our Altima rental. We hung at his place until about 4 PM just visiting, then threaded the Lincoln Tunnel and, after a quick stop to say goodbye to Frieda’s sister in Woodridge, New Jersey, cruised up to River Vale, where her longtime friend Diane lives with her husband Jimmy. 

Landmarc

 

I’d never met them before, but they proved so hospitable and friendly that I soon felt I’d known them for years. We had great fun talking, drinking, laughing, and eating with them, despite the failure of the Chinese herbs to stem my cold, and didn't get to bed until 2 AM. The next morning dawned cool but with some sun breaking through now and then. It was the second-best weather day of the trip and Jimmy took us on a scenic drive to Cold Spring, NY, on the Hudson River, for lunch at the Hudson House River Inn and then over to a place in Piedmont called Confetti for drinks. The owner was a friend of theirs and welcomed us warmly. Back at their place we watched Arya slay the Night King in the Battle of Winterfell episode of “Game of Thrones.”

Tuesday was yet another cold, gloomy day that meant back to work for them. After they left, we packed up, drove to the Farmhouse Cafe for some breakfast, and then headed to the city where the rental car was due by noon. With that taken care of, we phoned Lyft for a ride to JFK.

T-Rex

 

Given the generally gloomy, cold, wet weather we encountered, maybe spring isn’t the best time to visit New York after all. When you factor in that I was sick half the time, and that Frieda caught it from me, and we’ve only recently come out of it, it’s hard to feel really positive about the trip. Especially when you consider that our illness prevented close interaction with the kids, one of our primary reasons for going. I’ve been sick three times this year, on each occasion three days after getting off an airplane. All the same, we had a few good experiences to weigh against the bad.

Indian Wells 2019

Entrance

That's right, we returned to Indian Wells this year, yet again. Frieda had a fantasy about getting reserved seats one day in a shady section of Stadium 2, though they were more than three times the price of General Admission tickets, so we could come and go as we pleased and the seats would always be there, empty and waiting for us. We got them for the first Saturday (the tournament runs two weeks), which we figured would be the most crowded day, because it's Saturday and the day the male seeds join the fray.

We flew into Ontario Thursday midday, picked up a Toyota Corolla at the airport and headed east on I-10 through unexpectedly heavy traffic. We had anticipated getting to the tennis venue 2:30-3:00 PM but didn't roll in until nearly 4:00.

Stadium 7

Pulling into Indian Wells Tennis Garden we were engulfed in a swirling cloud of dust borne aloft by a frigid wind—not an auspicious beginning, and hardly living up to the epithet “Tennis Paradise” we found newly scrawled above the entrance. The lot was full and we had to park half a mile from the gate and walk back into the sun's glare filtered through the frigid, dust-filled wind. The dust subsided inside the venue, but the icy wind, which seemed to be blowing directly down from the snow caps on the mountains, remained. Perhaps because of this, decent seats were easy to find, but the diving temperatures soon drove us out, forcing the long hike back to the car. In short, Thursday was a bust.

 

Friday we hustled to the venue by 9:30 AM (the gates open at ten and match play starts at eleven) and nailed down good seats in Stadium 2 for Tomas Berdych vs. Feliciano Lopez, which Lopez surprised us by winning in two tiebreaks. Next up was Stan Wawrinka, three-time grand slam champion, against Daniel Evans, which went three sets, and then a second round woman's match featuring the #2 woman in the world, Simona Halep, who won easily. But by the second set of her match, late in the afternoon, the cold wind was starting to kick up again, so we bailed and motored over to Don Diego's on Highway 111 for dinner.

From Pizzavino

On Saturday morning we slept in because we knew our reserved seats were waiting for us. Even after we got to the venue we used up some time shopping for tee-shirts and didn't cruise into the stadium until the first match, Angelique Kerber from Germany (a former #1 currently ranked #8) vs. Yulia Putintseva, was underway. It was perhaps ironic that, after the extra expense we had incurred trying to insure ourselves some shade, we now were too cold and longed for the sun that was bathing the cheap seats in warmth. But we had foreseen this potential issue and brought sweatshirts along in a backpack. Once donned, they proved adequate for us to watch in comfort as Kerber (who eventually made it to the final) annihilated Putintseva (who won only 2 games). Next up was Madison Keyes, but Frieda doesn't like her and wanted to go to Stadium 7 to see the all-Croatian contest between Borna Coric and the 40-year-old, seven-foot-tall giant, Ivo Karlovic, with his massive serve. We found seats in the second row at the end toward the corner, so every time Ivo served into the ad court from the far side I feared the ball was going to take my head off as it slammed into the low fence right in front of me with savage force . Not long into the match we had to doff the sweatshirts because we got too hot sitting in full sun. It was fun to be out on a small court, up close to the action like the old days when the tournament was smaller. Also the outside environment was closer. You could see the bare rugged mountains in the near distance. Yet the crowds we had to push through to get there had exploded to three or four times the density they used to be in those old days. 

 

Near Village Square at Night

When that match was over (Karlovic won in straight but not lopsided sets), we headed back to Stadium 2 for a match between the steady grinder Phillip Kohlschrieber and the talented but moody Nick Kyrgios. Kyrgios had won the tournament in Acapulco the week before in a close final against Rafael Nadal, but in the course of it had insulted Nadal. Kyrgios is known for having a big mouth. Apparently some Nadal fans did not take kindly to that because he was booed when he came into the stadium. This may have put him in a peevish mood—it doesn't take much for him—because he smashed his racquet early on and in the end his occasional flashy shots could not save him from Kohlschrieber's calm, even and consistent play.

 

There was a long break after this so we went down to the smaller courts again to see if we could catch some doubles play, but could find no empty seats, so we returned to Stadium 2 and went upstairs to Pietro's Pizzavino restaurant. Fortified by their succulent if, for our taste, under-cooked pizza (they were perhaps trying too assiduously to move people through), we walked over to the Village Square where the John Stanley King band was playing. While we were sitting in a pair of chairs listening, a group of guys all costumed to look like young Bjorn Borgs, complete with long blond wigs, danced through the crowd in a conga line. Frieda took a few pictures and in one of them a cute kid she'd been making faces at photo-bombed her. The band closed their set with Bowie's “Space Oddity” and we headed back to Stadium 2 for the Wozniacki match, which was next up. Wozniacki is a former #1 player, currently ranked #13, that Frieda doesn't like. However, she was eager to see Dominic Thiem, from Austria, who was scheduled to play after Wozniacki. It was already getting cold again, and Stadium 2 was the warmest stadium, because it was more enclosed. Wozniacki infuriated Frieda by dragging the match out to three sets as the temperature dropped. I found the match so boring it reduced me to watching the swarms of sphinx moths that had invaded the stadium. The size of small hummingbirds, they swooped and dove and crashed into the lights in suicidal frenzy, frying themselves. We'd never seen them before but someone told us they'd been drawn to the rank vegetation produced this year by the excessive winter rains. In the midst of the third set the icy wind kicked up again, even our puff jackets couldn't cope with it. Some Canadians sitting nearby complained to us about the cold. By the time Thiem got on court we could only hold out for three games before we had to flee to find some warmth. Thiem ended up winning the whole tournament, defeating Roger Federer in the final.

Court 9

Our last day, Sunday, we got to the venue at 9:00 sharp, were able to park only a dozen yards from the entrance, and went to nearly the head of the line. We got great seats in the second row of our usual section of Stadium 2, where Nishikori (#6 in the world) was to play Mannarino. This turned out to be a very tight match, perhaps the best of the tournament for us. It ran two and a half hours, finally going to Nishikori in a third set tiebreak. The choice for our favorite match would be between this one and the Karlovic/Coric match. Next the women came on, Kiki Bertens (#6 in the world) vs. Johanna Konta. I was rooting for Konta to pull off the upset. She had plenty of chances but choked every time. I gave up on her after she lost the first set in a tiebreak she could easily have won, and we went to Court 9, another small stadium alongside Stadium 3 where we found some great seats on the end for a match between two guys we'd never heard of, Alex Bolt and Guido Pella.

Photobomb

For lunch we went to a place called BajaMex in the Food Court where we got the worst nachos I've ever had: soggy chips swimming in Velveeta. We should have been tipped off by the short line. After that we wandered around a bit looking for something interesting to watch but didn't find anything so we decided to get on the highway early. It was good we did because once again we ran into far more traffic than we had anticipated. We had planned to have dinner at a restaurant in Ontario but ran out of time and had to eat at the airport.

Will we go back next year? Well, there's no doubt our ardor for tennis has gradually cooled, yet the Tennis Garden remains a lovely venue, better, arguably, then either Roland Garros or the US Open. As with civilization in general, the tournament keeps improving every year in some ways, yet these improvements are largely vitiated by overpopulation. Frieda made reservations at the hotel to keep our options open. She's talking about Saturday and Sunday with reserved seats next year. As I said at this point last year: we'll see. 

Nawlins

On our first trip to New Orleans, four years ago, we stayed in a B&B on the edge of the Quarter, just down St. Ann's from Rampart, so this time I suggested we stay at the Place d'Armes, smack in the center of things, just a couple of blocks from Jackson Square.  To further enhance the experience, we invited our good friends Kathy and Mark, who had never been to New Orleans before, to come along.  

We arrived in the early evening on Wednesday and after getting situated at the hotel, set out for dinner at Sylvain on Chartes St., where we'd had brunch on our previous visit and found the food excellent. Though it was already dark, the evening air was so mild we sat out on the patio comfortably sipping Moscow Mules.  I ordered Papardelle Bolognese, which turned out to be even slightly better than at Little Napoli in Carmel, my quality standard for the dish, and we planned out our next few days with the help of some pertinent tips from our very personable waiter.  Afterward we strolled over to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee.   

In the morning Kathy and Mark headed for the Garden District, which Frieda and I had toured on our previous visit, while we walked down to the Mississippi, muddy brown as always but more swollen than I remembered it.  From there we wandered upriver to the Jean LaFitte Info Center.  A romantic figure, LaFitte was a smuggler and pirate, a handsome rake and ladies’ man with aristocratic affectations, who operated in the Gulf of Mexico in the early nineteenth century.   He was said to treat captured crews well, often returning them to their ship after stripping and selling off the cargo.  His reputation was as a Robin Hood, a thief with honor.  After ambling through the exhibits there, we took a Lift to meet Kathy & Mark at Mohony's Po-Boys on Magazine St. for lunch, a new neighborhood we hadn’t been to before.  The Po-Boys did not disappoint.  After lunch we wandered down Magazine St. looking at clothing and antique (or some might say, junk) stores.  

  

Around six PM we took a stroll over to Frenchman's St. to catch some music, stopping briefly in The Spotted Cat, Bamboula's, and BMC: but none of the bands grabbed us.  In BMC, mostly empty, the band had their amps so cranked it was painful to be in the room, so we shoved off for Bourbon St. to see was going on there.  We found that three weeks before Mardi Gras it was already crazy.  Some scantily-clad woman out in the street in front of a bar near the end somehow persuaded Kathy and Mark to let her blow four Jell-O shots apiece down their throats, and that set our evening off.  Later we bought $5 Hurricanes and went dancing, first at a disco club with a talkative DJ who shouted instructions over the music like a drill sergeant and then, when we tired of that, at a club called Fat Catz that had a live band. 

                                                                                  

House in the Faubourg Marigny

Friday morning we ambled through the French Market, a trinket-fest down by the river, explored the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood with an on-line tour that Kathy looked up on her phone, had lunch at Pere Antoine, then shopped for souvenir trinkets on Royal St. for an hour or so.  The Krewe Boheme parade (“krewes” are social clubs that sponsor parades) started at seven, so at six we trotted over to a bar on Dumaine and Chartes for a few Moscow Mules, then staked out a position on Dumaine, not too crowded at that point.  The Krewe Boheme, a new parade, not that large, was our first Mardi Gras parade.  After it passed by in a swirl of noise and light and color, we headed to Rouses Market, where we grabbed a couple bottles of wine, some cheese and crackers, and returned to the hotel to seize control of the large patio table and take advantage of the continuing mild weather to drink and chat.     

Longue Vue

Saturday, we decided to dial things down a bit by touring the Longue Vue house and gardens, built in the Lakewood neighborhood in the twenties and thirties by Edgar Stern, a cotton baron.  The grounds featured the distinctive flora of the locale and promoted serenity.  When we felt sufficiently calmed, we walked to the nearby Metairie Cemetery, where Kathy wanted to locate the grave of Louis Prima.  After she'd succeeded at that with the help of her very smart phone, Frieda played “Just a Gigolo” on her phone and we danced around his grave in tribute.  Exiting the cemetery, we caught a Lift to Rosedale Restaurant, a one-time police station that looked shabby on the outside but all new on the inside, where I had the best meal of the trip: Bourbon chicken thighs, utterly delicious.   

Bourbon Chicken

After a rest, we returned to the same spot as the previous night for the Krewe du Vieux, a well-established parade much larger than the Krewe Boheme.  Perhaps they had organizational issues on account of the size, as we had a long wait for it to show up at our viewing location.  It was worth it in the end though for the raunchy anti-Trump political satire alone.  The street was mayhem, more than triple the crowds of the night before.  Unbelievably crowded and crazy.  We could barely force our way through the mass of people to get back to Rouses Market to buy a couple bottles of wine, chips and guacamole to take back to the hotel.  

Krewe du Vieux

On Sunday morning, our last day in New Orleans, we went to Johnny's Po-Boys for breakfast and strolled the Quarter one last time.  Back at the hotel we packed and checked out, then went down to Jackson Square for Pimm's Cups, our final cocktails, and back to Johnny's to pick up Po-Boys to take to the airport.

I’m not a true enthusiast of New Orleans, it was Frieda who pushed for a return visit, yet I have to admit the city has its charms, is a unique novelty worth experiencing, and having a couple good friends along for the ride enhanced the experience.  We had some pleasant experiences and I did come away with some fond memories, so I don’t regret it; although, on the flight home (I presume) I picked up the nastiest chest cold I’ve had in years. 

G'bye Nawlins!