Female Partridge Found, Housed

Things are finally getting back to normal for us after the craziness of the holidays. Although “normal” for us is right around mach speed, so I will get on with the update. Gayle, Dan’s lovely sister, was lucky enough to have a business conference in NYC recently. And since her company was picking up the airfare, she decided to extend her stay at our place and soak in the luxury that is Casa Dan and Bird. Okay, so I am using the term ‘luxury’ loosely, a point to which Gayle can attest should you ask her about our shower, especially after she experienced the Marriot Marquis in Times Square. In our defense, I told her that if the water pressure changes she must immediately remove herself from the stream. Aside from all of that, we managed to have a lot of fun beginning with the formal gala dinner Gayle was able to invite me to at the end of her conference. Sorry, Dan, you do this stuff all the time. Gayle and I got dressed up and took advantage of the cocktail hour before the dinner, during dinner (five courses) and after dinner (at the after party held in a two-level hotel room on the 43rd floor). We stumbled our way to the subway with Gayle’s bag in tow and back to Brooklyn at around 3am.

The next day was pretty relaxing for the girls, as we needed to recover a bit from the festivities. We made cinnamon French toast (and I do mean cinnamon, thanks to Dan who neglected to gently shake said cinnamon into the batter, and instead poured half the contents of the cinnamon bottle in) and bacon for breakfast, played a few games and basically sat around. I should mention that Dan was in a flurry of studying for his comprehensive exam (which he finishes today) and was rarely heard from during Gayle’s visit. We included him in certain things, like eating and ice skating. For the most part, Gayle and I shopped and chatted, played games and watched the Sound of Music sans the Dan.

Speaking of ice skating (were we?), the ice rink at Bryant Park in the city was in its last days of winter operation, so we took advantage of the 60 degree weather, donned rented ice skates and blazed into the rink. And by blazed I do mean wobbled, lurched, careened, reeled and bumbled, threatening to take out anyone who might dare cross our path. Generally we were successful skaters and became more confident with each turn around the rink. The one actual contact with the ice came when Dan unsuspectingly said to me “I love you, Bird” to which I replied “AIYAAAAAAA!!!” and proceeded to plummet to the icy ground. My attempt to bring him down with me as retribution failed and he has since been instructed never to say those words again while I am on ice.

Alas, my rambling narrative is nearing its end. We should have something new to post later on in the month, once Dan gets the results of his exam and I have (mentally) healed from the ice incident.