30 year old exercising over ground zero

Two days post the awesomely saucy 30th birthday extravaganza I find myself in NYC. Just got back from a business dinner. Our business partner picked a Mario Batali restaurant for dinner and it was *fantastic*! I had some red wine and a campari cocktail and, ergo, am now in the fitness center on one of those lovely, new, expensive pieces of exercise equipment that exist in swanky hotel gyms and which make me actually feel like working out is a bona fide treat.

the hotel is called the millenium hilton and is literally across the street from ground zero. and that is the view both from this gym machine and from my room. the expanse is larger than I imagined. all i can think is "bones". incidentally, that is also the thought I often have when staring at the ocean.

the 30th birthday sauceaganza was a pretty incredible fete, marred only by the lack of time to talk with everyone and the absence of a few well-loved friends. Usually i have a smaller, more intimate dinner, or multiple intimate dinners with groups of friends to mark my birthdays. this was big and i commented that it felt a bit bridal (the enormous banner my mom made and had people sign added to this feeling). In the back of my mind, when planning this big shebang, I kept thinking of a Japanese movie I love called "After Life." In the movie, when people die they have to choose one memory to live in forever. Then a crew in heaven reconstructs the memory and the person disappears to live in that memory for eternity. I kept wondering if this would be as close to that memory as I have had. But, like I said, there were enough notable absences to make it fall short. will have to try again either at 40 or at wedding time, whichever comes first. my hope is that once you have made the memory, when you live in it, you get to change it--i would be able, for example, to play games with EVERYONE in attendance. one group at a time. and maybe instead of the game room at the old folks mobile home park it would be in Paris. :)

the journey over here was pretty hilarious. LaGuardia-bound flights clown me every time. Never on time. This one was actually canceled! Luckily, O'Hare has hourly flights to NYC and I was booked on the next one. One of my coworkers coming on this trip was actually on my same flight and we were supposed to be meeting the rest of our group for dinner at 7. we landed at 530 and traffic was so bad that we actually had to drive directly to the restaurant and check our luggage at the coat check at mario batali's restaurant! you can bet we were party faves. but who cares because we had awesome meats and cheeses, wine, and OLIVE OIL gelato. totally a top chef moment for the julie.