30 Hours In New York City;

Or; In which my boobs nearly explode, people beep a lot and no cheesecake is had.

I went to New York City (New York CITY??) two weeks ago, just me and O, to meet up with Allison and Kate. After much to-ing and fro-ing on the subway, we dropped off our bags at the hotel and did a bit of shopping.

Allison was hot to find an H&M, since they apparently don't have these in Portland. Me, I have one around the corner. I was hot to shop at Dean & DeLuca and when I saw the HORDES of people in H&M, decided I'd just meet up with them later.

Dean & DeLuca makes me drool. It is full of food-wankery, choc-a-block with silly mustards and fancy dijon ketchups and things like truffle oil and high end espresso machines (oh, how I lust after one of those). O and I had a blast poking around, sampling the high-end goodies. And then, O being my daughter and all, said, reverently, "Mum! Loooooooook!" And there was two, count 'em, two tables FULL of chocolates and candies and other luscious goodies. I know I should have bought something for my candy exchange partner (more about that in a later post), but I didn't have my partner's name yet, and I didn't want to get the wrong thing. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I wanted to eat the candy myself. I'm a selfish, selfish person when it comes to chocolate.

I managed to restrain myself. I bought two packages of marshmallows - one vanilla, one chocolate. But these are no ordinary Stay-Puft marshamallows, my friends. No. These are light, fluffy, pillowy cushions of sugary goodness, with nary a drop of high fructose corn syrup in sight. This was a marshmallow revelation. I will never look down on a marshmallow again. At least, not a marshmallow of this caliber. Mmm. Yummy.

Then I spotted the Belgian chocolate. The Belgians have a reputation for being boring. Whatever. They make fanTAStic chocolate, which completely redeems them. I got a bar of Dolfin chocolate. It was infused with Earl Grey Tea. Yeah, yeah, wank city, I know, but it's good. Really good. It's got a good snap to it. The chocolate is not shiny and you can smell the tea. It gives the chocolate an interesting flavour. There's a slight hint of bergamot in there, which is nice. It's not a super dark chocolate, more in the 58% area, so this would be a good bar for someone who's not huge on dark chocolate but wants to try something different.



We spent another twenty minutes or so, wandering thru the store, petting things and sighing wistfully. But hey, we got chocolate! And marshmallows! Life was good at that moment.

Dinner on Saturday night was at Cibo. We met Art Sweet and Scott Strumello and his partner there and had a good time talking about diabetes in general and dumb comments people have made about diabetes. People compared pumps and infusion sites and endocrinologists. It was very cool and very relaxing to be sitting at a table with a bunch of people who get it, who understand what this life is like, whom you can use shortcuts and abbreviations with and they'll know what you mean instantly. There's no sighing or eye-rolling when someone is low or when someone's pump beeps. It's all folded into the night, things are dealt with and everyone keeps rolling. It was great. I can't quite explain the feeling; it was like belonging.

On to the exploding boobs.

I realized when I was about 45 minutes away from the train station that I'd forgotten the breast pump. Since the Bug was staying at home, I'd planned to bring it and pump and store the milk. When you have a baby who nurses roughly every 2 hours, you make a lot of milk. If you don't find some way to get the milk out, well, the boobs just get bigger and bigger and harder and harder. All day long, every time I glanced down, it seemed I'd added another cup size. Expanding a couple of cup sizes in 8 hours is not really comfortable. Someone bumped into me in Times Square and I hissed at him. Since this was Times Square, I didn't even get a second look.

I kept popping in and out of the Duane Reade's that blanket New York City, but couldn't find any hand pump at all. Toys 'R' Us in Times Square had one, but I wasn't paying $50 for something I was going to use three or four times. I spent a lot of time with my arms crossed over my chest. I wasn't angry, this was pure boobage protection.

Art-Sweet drove us back to our hotel after dinner on Saturday and kept apologizing to my boobs every time she went over a bump. I don't believe I've ever had anyone apologize to my boobs before - A-S, you are the first.

Anyway.

We met Wendy and Val, who are also pumpers at the Museum of Natural History. Honestly, I could live without going there again. Ever. I'd forgotten how static the place is. O and I went to the planetarium, which was very cool, but I was underwhelmed by the rest of the place.

The museum has its own subway stop with some very cool mural work.


While we waited (and waited and waited) for a train that never showed up, we chatted with an older couple. They commented on O's Boston College sweatshirt and said that they loved Boston. We talked for a bit about both cities - they cracked me up, they kept finishing each others sentences and talking simultaneously. They were hysterical. The woman said "Oh, you're so much nicer up in Boston." I told her she'd obviously never been on the Mass Pike at rush hour.

I was very sad not to get any cheese, any cheesecake or even an bagels. I think I may have broken a couple of NYC by-laws by not doing at least one of those things.

On to the photos:

Some cool graffiti in SoHo.

The ubiquitous water towers.

Like Madonna didn't already have a big head....

The smartest lions around.



One can never have too many shots of the Chrysler Building. I love this building.



Someone was VERY happy to see me when I got home.

Sweet suffering fuck, woman, where've you been??