Midlife Meditation

So much for the hip hooray and bally hoo. It was a cold day, a windy day, a no-amount-of-cloth-covering-fingers-will-keep-them-from-freezing day. It was Thursday, and all our walking was brisk.We parked in a garage, walked to Times Square, then up Broadway to Central Park, spent a couple of hours being alternately awed by fossil skeletons and creeped out by more modern stuffed dead critters, and in the middle of that, I took a call from my sister-in-law Intaba, who is now living an hour north of Manhattan. She was excited at getting to see us, and was hoping to see a show with us. Her idea: lottery tickets. We thought we'd take a stab at the half-price ticket booth at Times Square first, though, so after filling up on pizza, we headed over there. The line was long, and Amy volunteered to stand in it with Sarah. Sean and I walked over to the display of what shows were available and how much tickets were discounted. What followed was a half hour of three-way shuttle diplomacy, w...

Here's the view we were supposed to have, and did, for about half an hour (and no, I didn't take this, it's a stock image off the internet): And here's the view we wound up with instead (also a stock image, but you get the idea): How did this happen, you're wondering? How did our romantic New York getaway end up with us staying at the Saddle River Residence Inn, a 35 minute drive away from the view we originally paid for? The one word answer: AirBnB. We booked the "Shangri-La on the Hudson" in January. It seemed perfect for the spring break adventure we planned for ourselves, Amy's daughter Sarah, and my son Sean. We'd spend all day Monday getting here, flying into LaGuardia, then driving a rental car to our apartment in West New York, New Jersey. Every night, we'd have that view at the top of the page. During the day, we'd travel into Manhattan for sight-seeing; at night, we'd dine at one of the many ethnic eateries within walki...