Rain and Shine

It’s hard for me to remember a weekend which featured such a juxtaposition in weather and overall “feel” from one day to the next as what we experienced over the last couple days.

We went into Saturday knowing the weather forecast was ominous.  So we made a point to get up and get our one true “to do” out of the way early.  My 8 mile run in the park was the last true long-ish run of training and though there were periods of rain and many puddles, it was a pretty enjoyable experience.  That is, until I got home and turned on the shower.  I was greeted by NY’s finest, ice cold city water.  Perfect.

When it became clear that the lack of hot water was building-wide, it was time to shift into Boy Scout mode.  I put a stock pot of water on the stove and ended up rinsing off “Little House on the Prairie” style, a cup full at a time.  TMI? Perhaps.  But I think you get the drift of how miserable the shower experience was.

As I was dumping the last cup of water down the drain my phone rang and it was good buddy Michael Fulton telling me the key to our house in Durham wasn’t working.  Fulton (and his lovely wife Grace) were going out of their way to help us show the house to a potential renter.  After 15-20 minutes of frazzled telephone tage with our current renter, we finally got them in, albeit with our nerves shot and the need to rent the house weighing ever heavily on our minds.

With no real plans and cloudy with a chance of downpour outside our window, we proceeded along with what ended up being the relative highlight of the day - cleaning the closet by transferring in cold clothes and moving the warm weather garb to the foyer coat closet.

Yes, my friends, that 3 hours of monotony was actually the highlight.  Unless you count the 15 minutes Tracy spent on the phone with our neighbor at 7pm, commiserating in the lack of hot water (still!).  At least said neighbor had experienced a bright spot that day - she and her husband sat RIGHT NEXT to Sir Paul McCartney at brunch at the Lexington Candy Shop (83rd and Lex) and the former Beatle was an absolute gentleman the whole time.

It was just when she was telling us the story that the bottom fell out on the sky and the monsoon began.  When it rains, it pours.

The dregs of Saturday were but a distant memory on Sunday when we woke up to bright, shiny light in the bedroom window.  Perhaps it’s because of the fact that Saturday was craptastic, but we seemed to appreciate everything a little more on Sunday. The quiet routine of Sunday morning-ers as I grabbed a cup of coffee in the neighborhood. Intimate, reverential and profound church service on the West Side. A delicious brunch at a new spot (Fred’s) with some new friends after the service.  The autumn pallette of leaves on display in full majesty in Central Park during a late afternoon run.  An inspriring and encouraging time with our new small group of married couples from Redeemer.

And to top it off - we had a celebrity sighting of our own.  Walking back from brunch, Tracy turned to me and said, “Hey, that was Kevin Bacon”.  We turned around and sure enough we were 6 feet (not degrees!) from Kevin Bacon.  You’ll have to trust us I guess, since the only shot I got of him and his wife Kyra Sedgwick was this slightly creepy paparazzi shot from behind.

It was no breakfast with Paul McCartney, but it was a (double) celebrity sighting nonetheless.  So we got that going for us, which is nice.  All in all, not a bad weekend.