Little Island and other delights

 

Just taking a work break to post a pretty picture of the new waterfront park in Manhattan that opened last year. I haven't gone exploring there yet, but I will definitely go with my cousin Nicky next week after she arrives from Trinidad to spend the month of November with us! Nicky is like my little sister. When she was in college at Howard University in D.C., and I was a newly employed twenty something reporter for the reincarnated LIFE magazine, she caught the bus to New York City to hang with me almost every weekend. The two of us sat in sidewalk cafes happily chatting and people watching, and my friends all thought that Nicky went to college in New York, because they saw her all the time. Maybe we will do a lot al fresco dining on this visit, too. It will be nice to have a ready companion to go all the places in the city I've been meaning to go for more than a year now—especially on weekdays, when most folks are working. I plan to take a few days off while Nicky is here. I have a running list of things for us to do, like visit Little Island early in the day before the crowds hit, and catch the Night Market, a gourmet smorgasbord staged outdoors by the city's top restaurants, a kind of traveling food festival with music and crafts that pops up at different locations around  the city, until the weather turns cold. But first, we will do what Nicky always wants to do on the first morning after she lands in New York—order pancakes at our favorite Greek diner. For Nicky, nothing says I'm in New York City like sitting in a diner over a stack of pancakes swimming in maple syrup. Ooooo, I'm getting excited to see her. Packages for her are already arriving at our door, so you know the time is near.

Okay, back to work. I'm closing in on thirty thousand words.