The scent of fall is in the air in New York City. One of my favorite things to do in the fall is take a nice stroll around the city and enjoy the nice weather and the lovely views and then do some shopping. With that in mind and with a new Crate and Barrel catalog luring us in, Lisa and I made a lovely plan for our Friday night. We’d stroll across the west side over to the east side to Crate and Barrel and do some shopping and then have a lovely dinner. No subways, no taxis, no hot weather. Sounds like a great plan, right?
One problem with this plan is that I never, never, check the weather forecast before planning any sort of event. If I were getting married outside next week, it wouldn’t even cross my mind to check the weather. It’s a good think I’m not a wedding or event planner.
It should then be no shock that strike one against our plan was the rain. All night long. However, Lisa and I decided to callous up and walk over there anyway. Yes, that’s right, we took a casual stroll in the rain for no good reason.
Strike two against our plan of a lovely stroll was the crazy man who approached us on west 68th street and said “can you hear me? did I stutter? I am telling you that I am going to eradicate you from the face of the earth and you are going to hell. Do you know what hell is like?” Yep, that’s right, we were threatened with eradication. That’s a new one for me. But don’t worry, we carried on and just kept a lookout for devices of eradication the rest of the evening.
Strike three against our plan was that we got to Crate and Barrel and were having a lovely time until the music stopped. Why did the music stop? Why are the employees suddenly taking inventory? Why is the security guard locking the door? Oh, oops, the store closed 15 minutes after our arrival. We hadn’t even finished looking at the first floor, let alone the second. Crap-it! So, we took our sad selves out of the store and tried to go home. I say tried because we decided not to brave the rainy walk home and attempted to get a taxi. Locals reading the blog know what a tricksy time this was for us given that it’s nearly impossible to get a cab when it’s raining in the city. Lisa and I experienced this last night. Worry not, we finally did get a taxi and then on to dinner.
We went to Citrus, a local restaurant on our street. The wait for a party of two for inside dining, twenty-five minutes. But there was instant seating outside. Okay, we’re game. There was scaffolding and we were thus protected from the falling rain. We had the best cocktail ever-ruby red grapefruit vodka, blood orange juice and lemonaid. Yum! For serious. MIx up a batch today! Then we shared some crab-cakes, a steak and some grilled shrimp. It was a meat fest and it was good!
Perhaps you are thinking that we had a crappy night and we would have been better off staying inside. However, I’m pretty sure that I speak for Lisa when I say that despite our gong show of an evening, we had a really good time. We did, however, make a plan to re-enact this day sometime next week when it’s not raining and when Crate and Barrel will be open for more than 15 minutes. I’ll let you know how the re-do goes.
