After three weeks of John being away directly followed by three weeks of family visits, tonight is our first official night of being by ourselves in over six weeks. My mom left yesterday and John’s parents, who came over from Sweden for a long weekend (and met my mom for the first time!), leave tomorrow. We’ve had such an incredibly fun time with all, and it feels kind of strange to not be planning a show, a dinner or other kind of entertainments for this upcoming week. For once I’m looking forward to just getting back into a normal routine – running and spinning, eating all our dinners at home. No more restaurant meals. No more late nights. Just John and I and our normal lives again. Never thought I’d have myself say those things but here I am…saying it…I’m looking forward to being boring!

Being married to a Swede has its moments. My favorite one to date happened last week when we went out to the burger joint under the West Side Highway with my mom, Elize, Justin and Marcel. The setting for this scene isn’t really important in the bigger scheme of things, but I’ll describe it anyways. Manhattan has two large highways on the East and West side of the island that connects South to North – these highways are always busy and always noisy. On the Western side, some fabulous person decided to open an outdoor burger restaurant with tables and chairs that overlook the Hudson River (and the lights of New Jersey across the bay) and is somewhat sheltered by the highway high overhead. This has become one of our favorite restaurants in New York – purely for the great burgers, cold beer and the fact that on a beautiful summers evening, you feel the cool breeze off the water and can see the moon’s reflection, made extra special if you can temporarily forget about the constant drone of cars above you.

We met for burgers a couple of days after my mom and Elize had arrived and with everyone except John being able to speak in Afrikaans, I think he was desperate to show off that he too could say some lines. Now in Swedish the word puss means kiss. Pronounced the same, but spelt somewhat differently, the word ‘poes’ in Afrikaans is a crude word for the female genitalia… This was always bound to happen but it still left me gasping for air (with laughter tears running down my cheeks) when John loudly proclaimed, ‘Lekker Puss’ after I had given him a lovely (lekker) peck on the mouth.

In his defense, I’ll be sure to publish my first Swedish faux pas here when it happens too! Either way, Ingrid Bergman said that ‘A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.’ Sometimes one should just shut up and kiss – it works in any language!

Last night I attended the launch of Lord & Taylor’s new menswear collection, Black/Brown 1826, hosted by Jeremy Piven of Entourage fame. Sponsored by GQ, I wasn’t surprised by the amount of beautiful men (dressed in the new collection, of course) strategically positioned all over the party, making everything look just that tad…hotter. The best part of the event, however, was the location – on the roof deck of Lord & Taylor’s 5th Avenue building, with the majestic Empire State reflecting on a tall glass building on the northern side of us. It was one of those beautiful fall evenings where you could feel a bit of a chill in the air, but it was still warm enough to bare the shoulders and don a strappy heel.

This morning when I left home to get to the office I could feel a definite frostiness – I think these hot, hot days are something of the past for now. I’m guessing I’ll have to persuade my entourage to keep me warm!

My mom celebrated her birthday in New York today and as a special gift I had gotten us all tickets to go see the Harlem Gospel Choir perform at the BB King theater on Times Square. The $60 ticket included the performance by this world-famous choir as well as an All-You-Can-Eat-Soul-Food-Brunch-Buffet. And boy, did we eat! Mac-’n-Cheese, bagels, sausages, bacon, grits, fresh fruit, cream cheese, collard greens, pastries, brownies, lettuce with ranch dressing and then of course fried rice, fried chicken, fried fish and boiled fruit. I admit that I went back for second helpings. And then for thirds. After my 5-mile run this morning I decided to cut the reigns for one day and go all-out for the soul-food! After all, it was Mamma Moolman’s big day.

The performance was fabulous. I’m not a huge fan of gospel music, but seeing it performed by these big Harlem ladies with incredible voices and energy was great. Even John ended up tapping his feet and jiggling his shoulders at times! I got my mom and Elize each a BB King fridge magnet as a keepsake to take back home. Oh, and we took about 200 photos!
After our extended dancing-brunch we walked through Times Square, did some shopping and then headed to Justin’s for afternoon tea. He had organized for all the friends to meet and enjoy famous Magnolia Bakery cheesecake and cucumber sandwiches in celebration of my mom’s birthday. So what’s a girl to do? After having broken the calorie rule for the day (just made that rule up, by the way) already, I figured ‘what the hell’ and enjoyed the best cheesecake New York has to offer.
My mom and Elize decided to finish off the big celebration by heading up the Empire State Building for sunset. Me? I headed home in a sugar-filled daze and have been lounging around trying to mentally prepare myself for the fact that the weekend is over. Oh…I didn’t mention that we had a super New York heat-wave today. Hot, sweaty, sticky, humid and hot. The air-conditioning unit is on full blast!

Last Saturday we experienced the first New York ‘hurricane’-strength storm. Much hyped up on CNN and all the other news channels, we didn’t quite know what to expect. So John and I went for brunch on Saturday morning and begged to sit inside (very strange for these wonderfully cool and non-humid Fall days) as it was so super humid and hot…It felt like we were breathing in a cloud, if that makes any sense. We ran around town most of the day and as we were in a cab on our way home these fat drops started coming down. It pretty much rained for 6 hours straight, which is more London than New York in my experience and when we woke up on Sunday, it was a perfect, perfect day.

John and I had rented a car (the only way to have a car in the city) to pick my mom up with at 7 on Sunday morning and the cool breezy day was the perfect New York introduction for her. We spent a lazy day lounging in the park once her friend Elize had arrived around 2 and it was such fun to introduce the New York crowd (aka our crazy friends!) to my mom.

It’s been a busy week thus far and I am super impressed at the ease with which my mom and Elize are doing their thing in the big city! They’ve been on the open top bus tour (Uptown, Downtown and Night loops) and have visited a doll factory, eaten lunch at Wholefoods (twice) and went to their first Broadway show tonight. It seems that this city is pretty easy to navigate once you have a travel pass, some free $$’s and a will to explore. (Except when there’s a hurricane upon us…then you’d rather just stay inside!)

Tonight is my last night home alone before John gets back from his three week trip tomorrow. What this means is no more dinner in front of the TV. No more ‘Thursday’s-left-overs-for-Sunday-dinner’ and no more leaving my handbag right in the front door. No more girly-soaps or Grey’s Anatomy repeats and no more hairy legs. But I’m super happy to give all that up just to have my man back in town. Three weeks were too long!

Labor Day weekend is one of the big holidays in the US as it marks the official end of summer. (Justin tells me that New Yorkers are only allowed to wear white between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but more about that particular take at another time…) Today is a public holiday and one of very few in this country – we are planning a little Central Park picnic for this afternoon to lie on the Great Lawn and enjoy the sun and the beautiful weather. No humidity, not yet too cold, just perfect.

John returns from a three-week trip to South Africa and Sweden on Wednesday night and I cannot wait. It’s crazy how empty certain pockets of my life are without him there! On Sunday next week my mom and her friend Elize arrives for a two week visit and I have bought us a variety of broadway tickets, including Mama Mia, Chicago and August: Osage County. Cannot wait to show them the sights and sounds of this magnificent city!

Well, I’m going to pull on some shorts and flip flops and walk down to the grocery store. Soon we’ll be back to boots, coats, scarves, gloves, hats…ugh, all the cheery winter stuff. Sigh. So long summer!