White knuckles

I confronted one of my fears over the weekend: driving a car in midtown Manhattan. R, C, The Fonz, and I drove up to a friend's place in Queens and the route took us through the Lincoln and Queens tunnels with a stretch of dense city in between. The directions looked pretty straightforward on a map, but when we came above ground on the island there were roads going in every direction and swarms of cars and pedestrians abound. We got off course a bit and had major difficulty getting onto the needed 42nd St. No matter where we zigzagged across it, there were no turns allowed onto that street. Some aggressive driving and cutting in front of fleets of cabs later, we made it across the island and placed the car in park for the rest of the weekend. Whew. We took an alternate route home, this time going through the less busy SoHo district aiming for the Holland tunnel. It went off without a hitch.

Our two-night stay was pretty low-key. Having a baby around is a handy excuse for not staying out late. Who would have thought we'd go to NYC for the weekend and actually get caught up on our sleep? My main purpose there was just to soak up the city one last time before we leave the east coast. We walked around a lot, ate some authentic New York style pizza, and visited with some friends. R and I split off of the group on Sunday for a look through the MOMA. There was a lot of cool stuff there. I'm a sucker for seeing the famous/iconic works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, etc. And R likes to ponder upon the occasional black square.

The baby did surprisingly well on the streets of New York, as long as somebody other than me was holding him. It's true -- I'm not yet comfortable with holding babies (and they know it). I'm counting on my paternal instincts kicking in before we have one of our own. Anyway, The Fonz is a trooper. It took me 20-some years to get to NYC; he's doing it within his first 3 months.

Speaking of the little guy... his acting debut will be posted here tomorrow night. Be sure to check back then!