Yesterday was our seventh wedding anniversary, and thank you to all our friends who liked our picture on Facebook and offered comments, greetings, and congratulations.

It’s the second marriage for the both of us, and that’s a good thing because we both have a little experience in living with another person and relationships and stuff. We learned something in our “starter” marriages. I for one said I’d never do it again after the unpleasant parting of the ways with my first wife, but then I met Danusia. Never say never.

After a lazy day together we decided top go out to dinner, we were going to see a new movie, A Very Dangerous Year, but decided to stay in and then go to dinner.

Most of our anniversaries involve us going out to a restaurant we’ve heard is very good and then spend time walking around in the freezing cold looking for it and sometimes not finding it or finding it packed full of people and not being able to have dinner there, and last night was no exception.

Danusia wanted to go to an Italian place on Amsterdam Avenue and 123rd Street, Max Soha. A friend recommended it, so we hopped on the M-100 bus to 125th Street and walked up the incredibly steep hill to 123rd Street. We found the place and went in. It smelled great, but the place was packed. There was a really large group monopolizing half of their tables, and though there was a table for 2 at the far wall the waiter deemed it “too tight” and asked us to wait. We left after 10 minutes because it looked like it was going to be a long wait and I wasn’t happy that the waiter decided for us the table was “too tight.”

We walked up an even steeper hill than the first to Broadway.  I’d read reviews of a good place on 139th and Broadway. After my bus App said it would be 10 minutes to the next bus we opted for the subway on 125th Street. It was only one stop, but cold as it was last night it was worth taking the train.

The day we got married seven years ago it was 12°. We wore trench coats over our wedding clothing, since that was the classiest outer garment we had, and froze our asses off. Don’t get married in January if you’re going to spend time looking for restaurants on your anniversary.

Classy Trench coats, no?

We found the other restaurant that I’d looked at on Yelp, a place called Trufa. It’s popular with the City College crowd and tiny. I wondered how a place that sat 10 people could make any money until I noticed the delivery guy making many trips out. They have a thriving take out business.
What was lacking in atmosphere was made up by the quality of the food; I highly recommend it.
We got home just in time for Downton Abbey, and the news of the impending blizzard.

The day it snowed last week I knew it was snowing the second I got up. I get up before dawn every morning, and it’s dark enough that I walked into a wall the first week we were here. But on the snow day it was so light in the apartment I could see shadows. The snow reflects ambient light very well.

The first thing I did this morning was to go pick up the laundry, I didn’t want to try dragging my Whole Foods shopping cart through 2 feet of snow. Then I dressed and ate breakfast and went off to do some work for a gay couple I prepared an apartment for two months ago. Last week one of them called and said they were moving again, and needed me to take down all of the light fixtures and dimmers I’d installed and transfer them to the new place.
I thought it was a little odd that they were moving again in such a short period of time, but hell, if I make money at it they can move once a month and I’d be happy. I went on Saturday and got about half of what they needed done and promised to return today, so off I went into the rapidly developing snowstorm.

View from the 32nd floor.

I finished with them around 2 PM, I was glad of that because from the window of their 32nd floor apartment I could see the snow getting worse, and I didn’t want to drag my tool bag roller through 2 feet of snow. By the time I got down to the street it looked like 4 or 5 inches of snow on the ground already.
Their place is on 60th Street and 9th Avenue, and I wanted to hit Whole Foods at Columbus Circle to stock up on milk and bananas and peanut butter. I slogged through the rapidly falling snow, dragging the tool bag though the worst of the snow-covered streets. I made it to Whole Foods and descended into barely controlled bedlam. I actually had to wait in a line to get a shopping cart. Kudos to the Whole Foods management for assigning staff to retrieve carts and baskets and hand them out to waiting customers. We’ll have no fistfights here, I thought; though I seriously did have the urge to knock out the fellow behind me on the checkout line who kept hitting the back of my ankles with his shopping cart.

“Sorry! So sorry!” He apologized profusely and then did it again 20 feet later. I was happy when he was directed onto another line, the bastard.
It’s funny how when a storm comes everyone is suddenly galvanized into action, grabbing armloads of bread and meat and whatnot, like we were going to have a nuclear winter instead of a blizzard. I was glad to get out of there with my shins intact.
The trains were coming with regularity, but they were packed with people who’d left work early. If there was this much snow around Columbus circle, I dreaded walking home form 155th and St. Nicholas Ave. Lucky for me there was an M-3 bus that brought me three blocks closer to home waiting when I got off the train. All I had to do was walk up the hill from St. Nick to Amsterdam on 152nd Street, and I did that in the middle of the street, just stepping off to the side when cars came down the street.

It was nice and warm in the apartment when I finally got up the stairs. I turned on the news in time to hear the Governor say there would be no subways after 11 PM tonight. Made it in time!