One last post from 2021

As I mentioned here, Kent and I flew to New York the Saturday before Thanksgiving for a few days’ vacation. (We went to Nashville for Thanksgiving and I have exactly zero photos of that, you’ll have to take my word we were actually there).

Kent used a ton of loyalty points that were about to expire and we chose the ultra-cheesy tourist route and stayed right on Times Square. Click the photo of the buildings so it’s bigger, and look closely: that’s the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. As Kent said, if we’d been one room to the right or left, we wouldn’t have seen that. 

Saturday night, we had Indian food and that restaurant was the only one that didn’t check our vaccine cards, although the sign in the waiting area indicated that they would. Masks were required there, and everywhere else. The food was really good; I’ve always said that the best Indian food outside India is in London and New York. This restaurant supported that theory.

We deliberately planned only a few things as we mostly wanted to get away, be with each other and not feel compelled by a schedule. This was a restorative trip, and since we’ve been to New York many, many times we did not miss anything.

Sunday we saw the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggeheim. This was paired with Etel Adnan’s Light’s New Measure exhibit and Gillian Wearing’s Wearing Masks exhibit. Adnan’s work was interesting but it didn’t reach out and grab us the way Wearing’s work did–her masks were compelling, creepy, provocative and I thought about them for days afterwards. 

Monday, Kent and I met with a friend of mine and wandered the Christmas Market at Union Square Park. In an example of “this is a really small world,” I bought something from a kiosk and the vendor’s payment machine needed to be restarted. He apologized and I made a comment that we’re from the Midwest and don’t get irate easily. He said he was too, he was from Kansas. Well lo and behold, he’s from Prairie Village which is perhaps two miles from where we live.

Then Kent peeled off and my friend and I met another friend for lunch at ABC Kitchen. This restaurant had all vegan food and I had the best ever vegan burger, and the most amazing chocolate cake for dessert. Writing this post reminds me that I need to track down a recipe for that burger.

Before dinner Monday evening, we had drinks at The Rum House, which of course specializes in rum. I'm not a huge fan of rum but my drink (the Tortuga) was pretty good as it had ginger in it.

Other than that, we walked a lot, we slept a fair amount, we ate really good vegan food (Beyond Sushi did a great job with sushi, and P.S. Kitchen was so good we ate there twice).

Tuesday we headed to Nashville, all relaxed and rested.

 

Whatever happened to Linda Schwartz?

Last night on the drive from La Guardia to our hotel on Times Square, I thought of Linda Schwartz. I hadn’t thought of her in years, well decades actually.

She was married to Rick’s youngest brother, Ron and was from some pretty serious money here in New York. In 1979, after Rick and I got married that December, we spent some time with Ron and Linda up here (they weren’t married yet but were engaged). I vividly remember going to her parents’ penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park—the elevator just opened right in their space, no need for a separate hall or anything as they had the entire floor. She came from that kind of money.

But she wasn’t happy, I don’t know what the pain was from but it was there and she and Ron didn’t have a good relationship. Let’s be clear, he wasn’t happy either and I have a much better sense of where his pain came from, so this isn’t a bash Linda story.

What stays with me the most, all these years later, are two things:

• She didn’t care for the ring Ron bought her. If I recall correctly, it was 14k gold and she wanted 18k gold. So she replaced the ring herself. I always thought that didn’t bode well for them. There’s nothing wrong with wanting something different, it’s the not talking about it that seemed to indicate things weren’t going to end well.
• When Ben was born, she was livid about the name. That was the name she was going to use for her (as yet unborn, not even a glimmer on the horizon) son. That baffled me. OK name your kid the same thing, it will be confusing but there are worse things and oh by the way, that sure wasn’t aimed at you. But she took it as an attack.

I think they limped along together for about 8 years, maybe a bit longer, and had two children, one of each I think. But that’s all I know.