So, yeah, I did it. I turned sixty. Wow! Too late to die young, I guess.
Boy, were my fifties weird. Let’ s see what my sixties look like.
I’d had some grandiose ideas about hosting a big cocktail party at some famous New York City establishment to celebrate. But I realized I just didn’t have the energy. I almost didn’t come through with what I actually did, which was invite some of the ‘squad of ladies’ who have really held me up since the thing to afternoon tea at the Plaza. Some couldn’t make it, so it was just three of us: Patti (C’s best friend), Susan (my friend who I met doing opera chorus in Philly and who has been through many many artistic endeavors with me since), and Mariah, my upstairs neighbor. The birthday was a Wednesday, which I’d taken off. I spent the morning staying out of my housecleaner’s way, then Mariah and I took the subway in, meeting Patti and Susan at the Plaza.
I do sort of have a mental checklist of “New Yorky” things that I check off once I do them, like, say, going to Sardi’s for the first time. And I don’t think I’d ever even been in the Plaza before. (I certainly knew what it was, and Vance bought me the Eloise books once he realized I’d never read them.) So it was great just to see it.
The tea setup was much the same as it was at Fortnum & Mason last month. Susan needed a vegan tea, which we’d warned them about, to steer around her egg allergy. Patti and Mariah got the basic tea, while I got a slightly upgraded one (I wanted to try the crab savory thing they offered, and the chocolate poundcake). Some of us had bubbly. We all picked our own tea. The staff was super nice.
We look lovely, but I look big as a house. Is that really what I look like now? Argh.
Anyway, it was all delicious, except my tea came with a – get this – macaron with foie gras inside and caviar on top. I like foie gras, and I like macarons – although I assumed this would be savory. Not a big fan of caviar. But it was a bit of a mess structurally and it was not a good combination.
The little chocolate pound cake (why were none of the pastries on the basic tea chocolate? So you’d upgrade, I guess) had gold leaf on it and they were all really good. But then they brought a little chocolate cake with a candle for my birthday – which was lovely, and which was shared out – so really I could have just stuck with the basic tea myself.
I’d deliberately not made plans for afterward, although I’d gotten several nice offers, because I knew I’d want to relax. But the four of us did a stroll through the Central Park Zoo and around a little bit before splitting up. Patti went off to Grand Central to go home, and we went to Astoria to get Susan’s car and she drove us home to Jackson Heights.
I knew that Astoria to Jackson Heights by car meant we would go by the cemetery, and Susan always offers to stop by when we do (and I usually say ‘yes’). But it was getting close to closing time for the cemetery and so I proactively said, ‘before you ask, no, I don’t want to stop by the cemetery’. Which prompted Susan and Mariah to then protest, ‘oh, no, we can, you should, there’s enough time’. Dumbass, I should have kept my mouth shut, because I then had to be a hardass and say, ‘no, really, I don’t want to’. I really don’t like to just stop by the cemetery as if it was an errand on the way home – although I have done that quite a few times, it’s not ideal. Anyway…
I’d gotten a gift card from my dad to Uncle Peter’s, one of Jackson Heights’s nicest restaurants, and I thought about going there by myself for dinner, but decided to stay in and order a pizza and watch TV, and this was perfect. (Mariah was actually kind enough to reach out via email around 6-ish saying, ‘if you’re going to Uncle Peter’s, Josh and I don’t want you to be alone, we’d like to join.’ But that was a non-issue, and I appreciated the reaching out, even though I really did want alone time.)
The rest of the week was unusual in that I usually go in just on Wed, and this time I went in on both Tues and Friday (and not Wed). Friday, I had an appointment with my old opthamologist. I think I’d stopped going to him when my insurance changed a bunch of times, but my local optho just retired and my previous guy (who I always liked) is on my insurance now, so… Looks like my eyes are much the same, but (as I feared) my left eye especially is getting more cataract-y and I’ll have to deal with that at some point. I’m not particularly afraid of that – it’s a common operation and afterward, I won’t even need glasses much – but it doesn’t have to happen now.
Niece Allison, who lives up the Hudson in Beacon, hadn’t been able to make it to the tea, but she’d countered with an offer to come down over the weekend, or have me come up. I realized that if I went up there, we could do Fun Fall Activities™, and she even offered to have me sleep over. And even though I was being stupid about it, she ended up planning the whole thing (thank you, Allie!).
So, Saturday, I got my laundry together and dropped it off at the service, then packed and headed to Grand Central. The train ride up wasn’t bad, not too crowded, and it’s only like an hour and a half (and it’s pretty, as it goes right along the Hudson). One amusing part – there was a guy walking through the train picking out the people reading (like me), and plugging his book. (He gave me a bookmark with all his info about the book on it.) I thought that was ballsy, but also kinda impressive. But I did a little research just today. Turns out that he’s not this Ryan Cahill. He’s his own Ryan Cahill, just has that one book out. And, if you read the blurb, you realize his protagonist is named “Bryan Grayhill”. Oh dear, this is heading into farce territory now, isn’t it. So… yeah, take that for what it’s worth.
A picked me up at the train station and we went to her place, where I got to meet her new as-yet-unnamed kitty. New kitty is a very pretty girl, supposedly two years old, but insane in a kittenish way, so maybe not? I love her. Then we headed out to Weed Orchards and Winery for apple-picking. Can you believe it? I’ve never been apple (or pumpkin)-picking before. Of course, I’ve never had small children, but I like cider and donuts… of course I’ve been a city boy for a long time now. Anyway, it could have been an insane crowd, but it wasn’t because the weather was threatening, and it wasn’t bad at all. They had musicians, the winery, a cafe, food trucks (I got a hotdog as soon as we showed up, because I hadn’t had lunch), a gift shop, lots of picnic tables.
They had four types of apples ready to pick, and pointed you to the rows to use. There were Gala, Honeycrisp, and.. um.. two other types. (I don’t know one apple from another.) The bags were not-too-big and we got samples of all four types. Then we each got a boozy apple drink called an “Apple Pie Oh My!” with cider, whiskey, cinnamon sugar around the rim and one slice of apple. Those were fun. We looked around the gift shop. Bought donuts. And knew we wanted to buy wine, but wanted to see if they had a flight to try first (they did). We tried a pinot grigio, a peach, a rose and a blueberry. Some we liked better than others, and we were going to buy a bottle of the peach, but by the time we got up from our table, the line for the wine stand was huge. But we’d seen wine at the gift shop, so we went there – and it turned out the wines there were mostly different. We could have bought a peach wine, but bought some basic white.
And that was pretty much it – a nice experience. Drove back a different route (and, to our surprise, passing by a farm owned by one of A’s co-workers). Apartment for chill-out time, then we walked pretty much the length of Main Street to go to Melzingah Tap House, which was really fun. I got a glass of wine, A got some odd cocktail, and we got the “kung pao brussels sprouts” as an appetizer, which was perfect. Then they forgot about us for a long time, then apologetically realized they had, so we didn’t get our entrees for quite a while. A had scallops, I had a fried chicken sandwich. I told A that that kind of sandwich often has all the fun in the breading, and the chicken itself is tasteless but this was good all the way through – except it wasn’t structurally sound. The bread wasn’t strong enough for the fillings, and fell apart. Argh. But it was delicious.
Back home where A made an apple crumble from the apples we’d bought, bringing me out a slice of each of the four types of apple to compare and contrast as she mixed it up. It was delicious when done and served. And we watched Suspiria, which I’d never seen (and it’s time for spooky movies now) – and loved it, except we didn’t finish because it hit midnight and we still had a half hour to go. (I’ll finish it this week.)
A was nice enough to give me her bed and she slept in the living room. I was going to protest, but then I remembered how many times I’d done the same for my aging relatives back in the day. I’m an old man now, time to take advantage of that.
Sunday, we got up and cleaned up and she made breakfast for us, which was great. Eggs, bacon, more apple slices, and croissants! (although we also could have had more donuts, or English muffins) A’s mom (my co-sister-in-law – we married brothers) came in about nine so we could do flea markets together. A and Dottie are big flea market connoisseurs. We first did the little one right in Beacon (half the stuff covered up because it was kinda raining) and then drove out to New Milford, CT for the Elephant’s Trunk flea market.
This was awesome! The weather had kept people and vendors away, but there was plenty to look at. A and D both got a lot of stuff. I got (at literally the very first booth we saw) a framed print of a handsome fisherman, and then later on, a crystal clock and a blue cobalt glass bluebird. I was also in the mood to buy Halloween and Xmas tchotchkes, but didn’t see any I liked. There were also a lot of instruments – quite a few clarinets, trombones and trumpets, a flute, a French horn (a single F – I tooted it, but had no reason to get it), some guitars and stuff, even a string bass! A and D claim they never see instruments, but I suspect it just doesn’t occur to them to look for them usually. There were a lot.
One booth also had a hilarious porcelain unicorn with a clock in the middle. I was like, “who would laugh the hardest if I gave that to them?”. It would be a great white elephant gift. But I let it go by. Also the glass skull in rainbow colors. It’s for Pride and Halloween!
Back to Beacon, where we’d have just enough time to get my stuff before I got on a train back. And lo, they were having ‘Beacon Day’ (which A vaguely knew was happening) and were having a Main Street parade and all these streets were blocked off and we couldn’t get to the apartment. Well, we finally found a way around, but it was a big PITA and A was freaking out a little. (I was like, “I don’t have to get that train, it’s OK.”) But we did finally and A had time to make me a bag lunch with a sandwich, an apple, two cider donuts and stuffing-flavored popcorn (who knew?). And I made the train! (I ate the sandwich and the popcorn before it even showed up.)
I knew the train would be crowded on the way back, and it was, but not bad. Train to Grand Central, then 7 train back to Jackson Heights. My closest stop is closed in that direction while they do upgrades, so I had to get off on the previous stop (not too bad, a 15 minute walk). And it was raining! (grrr) So… schlep home dragging my suitcase. Was super beat and felt yucky, so got right in the shower.
After some lazy time and an hour watching Jonathan Capehart and knitting, I decided to do the solo dinner at Uncle Peter’s I’d skipped on Wednesday. It was lovely. I deliberately did not read at the table, decided to be all reflective and enjoy my food. I had two cosmos, a Caesar salad, the chicken cordon bleu special with mashed potatoes (I only ate about half of it – the rest is dinner tonight) and tiramisu. Went home and read, and went to bed early.
Thus endeth the birthday week, and the start of ‘OK, this is sixty’. I am super-blessed in my family and friends, and that’s a great thing to have as I continue forward on my own.
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