Next week my mom will be visiting me here in NYC. Since she's been here several times, we are trying to decide on events, activities and locations that we haven't really frequented all that much. New places. On the list are some more obvious locations:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Cloisters
Then there are the not so obvious:
Korea town for lunch - this is a tiny block or so near Macy's/ Herald Square, and while I've walked the block a few times and stopped at the grocer in the area- I've never actually had lunch there. However, after perusing a few menu's and reading reviews online I'm sort of reconsidering. I'm pretty open to all types of foods, but the thought of oxtail soup (yes, it means cow tail) and raw marinated beef... make my stomach churn. I'm thinking about the vegan Korea town restaurant!
Visit the Smorgasburg flea market in Brooklyn
Elia's Corner for seafood in Astoria, Queens- I've been to this place once before, and it's truly the freshest, most authentic Greek-style seafood place around. There is no menu, and the waitstaff just rattle off all the fish for the day, the specials and sides. There's really noting like it! Delish.
Also, because it is my mom, and because she's been to NYC now, a few times- I will be taking advantage of these days off work and doing some of those things that I just keep avoid doing:
Macy's - I have a coupon for a free bra
Grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (because I have an extra set of arms, and my mom is like me- she loves a good grocery store!!)
Hang some pictures/ photography in our new place
Go get another tattoo
plus...
The Tuesday that she arrives is the first night of a Study I've signed up for on Spiritual Gifts which I may/ may not make it to.
Wednesday I've scheduled an acupuncture appointment & praise team rehearsal (followed by a summer hanging out together time. This is how we are maintaining community throughout the summer while choir is on hiatus.)
Thursday I have a chiropractor appointment
Friday I AM working (but only 8:00- 1:00)
Sunday I'm singing on the praise team
Whew!!!
Oh, and I hope to drag my momma to yoga with me a couple times while she's here!! (Not that this will be hard, my mother has done yoga much longer than I have.) She works out more diligently and with more vigor than anyone else I know. My mom is a swimmer with strong shoulders- and she does yoga- and she's probably on the elliptical machine most mornings. So, getting in a few walks in Central Park, or a few yoga classes shouldn't take that much coercing.
Even though we'll be in the city most of the time- just getting out to Queens and Brooklyn and more spacious places is really nice. Being in the company of my mom and having her prospective and listening ears and hugs will lift me up.
My parents knew they raised decent kids, I guess. Or if they were inwardly freaking out they never, ever showed it. Not when I got my first tattoo or my fifth. Not when my sister had dreadlocks and died them blue. Not when choosing colleges or careers or hobbies or mates have they been overbearing and unapproachable and distant. I know they feel something, but I want to believe that they truly understand that hairdo's and tattoos and surprise weddings don't really make a person who they are.
...
This week I received two Little Golden books in the mail that I ordered on Amazon illustrated by Eloise Wilkin; Wonders of Nature and My Little Golden book about God. As I searched through the books on Amazon I realized how as a child, my mom read me almost all of these. I loved the stories and pictures and still do. Even though so many of her books are now out of print (my mom still has all ours!) and all of them were published long before I was born, Eloise Wilkin remains one of my most favorite children's illustrators of all time. These are the things that make me think of mom: books & reading & games & living without television but being highly entertained. Being a family.
...
And in the book I'm reading, The Dirty Life, the author tells of her first interactions with her now husband. How he smelled of diesel and warm skin and earth. It made me think of my dad. Just this week on the phone, my mom told me that dad had taken Tuesday off work to work on his Farmall." He bought a new old tractor," she told me. I knew what this meant. The tractor he works with (not the parade tractor) is an antique/ rebuilt. So, when he finds a decent one for sale, he buys it for parts. These are things that make me think of dad: wranglers, the cold chalk-like smell of concrete and Carhartt coveralls.
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