A Day in NYC

I went into "the city" today, starting off traveling with much of the family (mother, sister, sister's fiance), and then headed off on my own for a meeting about my high holiday job.  I saw the space (the Manhattan VA hospital chapel), got copies of their machzorim (Artscroll Interlinear, therefore 2 volumes- should be an adventure), met some random folks (a JTS trained rabbi who is involved in running their CPE program, the Catholic priest), and made plans for the care-and-feeding-of-Maya while I'm there.  Dear folks in Manhattan- I've told them that I'm hoping to walk myself uptown for second day RH afternoon and hopefully be with friends.  I'm hoping some of you are actually contemplating being in Manhattan for Rosh Hashanah.  Is this a reasonable presumption?  Otherwise, they can feed me and continue to make arrangements for me to have a spot at a shul down there, but I thought that if I had a chance at some actual friends for a smidge of the time, I'd take advantage of it. 

After the meeting I found a snack and a place to read for a little, and then called sharonaf on the off chance that she might be free, since I was already nearer to Brooklyn than I usually get, and I hadn't seen her in ages, much less met her new baby.  And lo and behold, she was home and invited me to come over.  Of course, picking up her son from camp meant that I got there while she was out, so I hung out for a while before I went over, but then we got to catch up some, which was truly lovely, and I met and got to hold the baby, who is adorable.  While talking to my mother, I tried saying that said baby was very well behaved, but then she pointed out that at that age, there isn't much "behavior" per se, and so I revised my statement to "she burps easily, didn't spit up, and was awake and not crying for a substantial amount of time".  It comes out to about the same thing, in the end, I think.  I also found that I and they will be attending the same wedding at the end of the month, which I am looking forward to.