playdate with M

Whenever M comes to town we end up shopping.  This time I want to do something different.  I buy tickets to a couple of shows.  That’s how we end up at Architectural Digest’s Home Show today.

M and I expect to show up and walk right in.  This doesn’t happen.  There are two long lines, and we are directed to the wrong one.  We try to move parallel into the right line, but meet with resistance.  “I’m sorry, but you are NOT getting in front of me," says an attractive, stylishly dressed blond woman.  So instead we get behind her, and the people we are now in front of are not pleased.  The blond later apologizes for her rudeness, “I think I’ve been living in New York too long,” she says by way of an excuse.  At the front of the line we are asked all sorts of information, in order to get on mailing lists, no doubt.  M loses her patience when asked for her first name to be typed onto a name tag.  “I don’t want to give it,” she responds.    So the identifying tag pinned on M's coat simply reads, “Lyn’s Guest.”

There are hundreds of exhibitors and all sorts of beautiful things.  M’s favorites are an outdoor shower and a whimsical stool with a shaggy mop of wool on top.   Mine is a spectacular oak buffet with fine cut glass in ivory on its face from a company called Ercole.

We take a break on a heated, white leather sofa.

Around three,  we leave and go crosstown to Asia Tui-Na for massages.  It’s a no-frills massage place where for $85 you can get an incredible 90-minute massage.   A waving plastic cat greets the clients.  I've been many times before and am always stunned by the strength of the small female masseuses. 

Cotton curtains separate the customers.  It is understood not to talk, as the curtains are paper thin (literally, I think).  To my right, is M.  And to my left, is someone who keeps coughing up phlegm and spitting it out.  Loudly.  It is ruining any hope of a peaceful massage.  Finally, M shouts out from her side of the curtain, “You are not going to keep doing that through the whole massage, are you?”  The people to my left respond as hoped; they leave.  The rest of the massage is great.

Alexander joins us for dinner at Yefsi, a busy Greek restaurant near my apartment.  The food is excellent, with the standouts being the calamari, Greek salad, and French fries. It’s a perfect end to a perfect day.