Saturday.

Friday December 1st was a very strange day, weather wise. When I got in the elevator at work in the morning, I saw that it was 67 degrees outside. This was at 8:30am! Crazy. By mid-day, a storm was brewing. I made the mistake of taking a long walk and got caught in a lovely rainstorm on my way back to the office. I had an umbrella, but with 30 mile an hour wind gusts, it was futile effort to even attempt to use it.

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I had to run an errand after work. It had stopped raining, but the wind had not let up a bit. First, I tried to call Elizabeth from my cell phone and the wind was too loud to even talk. I was then even having a hard time walking in a straight line! The wind whips through downtown during the winter. Not fun. When I got to South Street Seaport I saw Christmas trees knocked over everywhere. Luckily, the "singing tree" as I like to call it, was still intact. Each weekend during the holiday season, a choir sings at the seaport. It was really nice to sit and listen for a couple of minutes, and kind of funny to see the entire choir wobble with each gust of wind. I was actually kind of scared that the whole thing would just fall over, and everyone singing in the choir looked nervous as well. As you can see, it was so windy that I could not even get a clear picture, but with a little help from Picasa I was able to make it look somewhat... pretty? I thought it sort of looked like a watercolor painting- or, at the very least, a blurry picture that could have had potential!

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We met our friends Kellie & Jason for dinner in Greenwich Village Friday night. We are in search of the best real Mexican food (not "fancy" Mexican cuisine) in New York and made yet another attempt at discovering "the one". I don't think we found it last night, but it was still fairly good. I was reminded yet again that one of my very least favorite things is smelling like food! We all smelled like fajitas when we left. We watched a hilarious movie at their apartment and called it a night. It was fun to catch up, but kind of sad to see how busy we can get (and how much time passes between seeing our friends!).

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Meal wise, we had a quick turnaround time and woke up early this morning to go have breakfast at Bubby's with our friends Kyle & Corinne. It finally felt like December this morning (it dropped to about 45 degrees), but we decided to walk up to Tribeca in lieu of a cab before feasting on pancakes, french toast, eggs, etc, figuring it would do us well to burn a few calories. Luckily, we got there before the crowds and had a good time catching up.

After breakfast, we made a brief search for the perfect sized Christmas tree (we failed), taking a slight detour home. We walked by John Street United Methodist Church on our way. The church itself is nothing spectacular (besides its historical roots dating back to the early 1700's- the financial district is the oldest area of Manhattan), but its contrast to the buildings which surround it are always breathtaking. It is always striking to see such a tiny church surrounded by such monstrous buildings. Such is downtown- centuries of history intertwined with the modern center of America's economic structure.

This afternoon we hopped on a train out to Connecticut. We were in desperate need of a Costco run, and went to the mall to check off a few gifts on the seemingly monstrous list we have. Christmas kind of snuck up on me, and I realized this week that I don't have a lot of time to get everything accomplished. I think that our intention of doing Christmas cards might evolve into New Year's cards unless I get my act together quickly.

Mike's little brother Bryan is a junior at New Canaan high school and played in the Connecticut State Football Championship tonight. The won the game by about 30 points. It was freezing cold, but so fun to watch. It brought back a lot of high school memories. Everything seems like a long time ago. The cheerleaders at the game seemed so young. I grew up in Spokane, Washington. Sometimes I feel very strange being in Manhattan, or even New Canaan for that matter. High school & home both seem very far away.

(Translation- I am fairly certain I am homesick.)