caught in a downpour

M is in town.  She drives up from Boston this morning.  Our plan is a simple one:  shopping during the day, a nice dinner at night. We confer on dress.  It’s hot and humid and we’ll be doing a lot of walking.  We decide to dress casually and wear sneakers during the day, then change into something nice for dinner.  That never happens.

I meet M around two at Saks.  From there we walk over to Bergdorf’s, then Barney’s, then Bloomingdales.  In between we successfully accomplish our missions of buying shoes and a tie for M’s son’s upcoming birthday, a group birthday gift for a friend of mine, and the perfect (I hope) wedding gift for Lisa, Alexander’s aunt.

Service everywhere is slow, and soon it’s eight pm, and we haven’t even thought about dinner.  But now we’re getting hungry.  We discuss various options and decide on Ethos, my favorite Greek restaurant. But that's not where we end up.

We go to leave Bloomingdales and see throngs of people gathered at the door. 

Soon we know why.  It is pouring.  Lightening everywhere.  It’s the kind of rain that’s impossible to walk in, even with umbrellas, which we don’t have.  Of course there are no cabs anywhere.  And even if there were, there are at least ten people ahead of us.

We go back into the store to get plastic bags, but the best the store can provide are paper ones.  We put them over our heads and start to walk. Others on the street are doing the same.  After a block of walking in the torrential rain we see a Chinese Restaurant and an Indian one.  We duck into a nearby nail salon to check my iPhone for the restaurants’ ratings. Next to Dawat, the Indian restaurant, we see the words sublime and superb.  We go there. 

We walk in.  People are well dressed.  The hostess greets us, then immediately offers us towels with which to dry off.  We look as if we’ve just stepped out of a shower while fully dressed.  

But the food is great.  We eat too much.  And exit to a clear sky.