muppets take manhattan

Last week Cora and I went on a big adventure to New York.  One of my best friends lives in Harlem and is moving back to New Orleans next month and I decided that the time had arrived.  Plus, Henry has been trying to study for his licensing exams but keeps getting sidetracked by his job (which tends to metastasize all over his life, much to my annoyance) and his very adorable baby who is being spottily parented by his chronically sleep-deprived spouse.  So I figured it would be helpful for us to skip town for a week and get out of his hair so he could get organized and get some work done.

We had a blast. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get out of town and bust up the routine a little bit.  It was great to see Leslie… a lot of laughing and philosophizing was done, a tattoo was procured (not for me, unfortunately… I figured Henry would never let me go travelling alone again), and a boat-load of good food got eaten.  Cora had her first experience with Playground Swings, and I had my first Moment as a mama in a playground full of toddlers and expensive strollers and other mamas. Cora loved the swings.  It may have been the best part of her trip.

We stayed in Brooklyn at the house of some mutual friends, and I really really liked it.  It felt like Sesame Street and Portland mashed up together, minus the mountains and plus the whole rest of the world.  I loved hearing twenty different languages on the subway and seeing the hoards of Hasidic Jewish kids in the neighborhood.  It made me a little sad to realize how white-bread Portland is… we are going to have to intentionally look for ways to teach our kids that the rest of the world isn’t white and doesn’t shop at REI.

And mostly, it just felt like we were in the pulsing center of everything.  New York is so happenin’ and so un-American at the same time.

And at the end of the trip we went to New Jersey and stayed with Cora’s Uncle Matt and Aunt Leah for 2 days…  all in all a fantastic trip.  I’d love to do it again, but next time I’m bringing Henry.