It’s hard to imagine how quickly the first month of the year has already gone. I think that’s less a testament to how fast time moves and more a representation of just how busy both Jenn and I were this month.

When we left The Modern right before the year turned to 2023, we ran home to be with Frasier. Of course that meant we started the year in our fancy clothes taking Frasier down to the indoor dog run as the start to our 2023. Luckily by the time we woke up the skies had cleared and we had a gorgeous first day of the year that we kicked off with our normal long Riverside Park walk.

One of the highlights of the month for me was going to our first symphony since the pandemic. Lincoln Center re-opened their concern hall in September of 2022, but this was our first one. We saw Yuja wang, Lindberg, and Beethoven and it was a surreal concert. Genuinely one of the best symphonies I’ve ever seen.

But if I was to characterize the month of January as anything, it would be one of the hardest working months in recent memory. I’ve never seen Jenn and I work hard or for a more prolonged period of time as I did in January. Most of our weekends either contained or were dominated by work. It’s not something we make a habit of but was a reality.

Over MLK weekend Jenn’s Dad came to visit her here in New York and I flew to California to visit my family. I arrived on Thursday, January 12th late in the evening (after a delayed Delta flight) and came back on Monday' the 16th. I drove to visit the Nordbeck’s from LAX on the 13th in a Tesla Model Y. I thought this would be the perfect trip to rent one and it was fun to drive, although I'm not sure I’d personally buy one. It was great seeing how quickly both Gracie and Cam have grown up since I last saw them. That evening Jake, Amy, Ryan and I went to KBBQ. The next day I drove with Jake to Menifee and got to visit with Abby before going to Gracelyn’s 3rd birthday! Gracelyn had a blast and so did all the other kids even if it was raining outside. My last day in California was spent in Orange County where I met Jake, Amy, Ryan, Cam, and Gracie at Red O and then to Jake’s apartment. It’s always great to be back home and to see everyone even if by the time I was flying home on Monday I was completely wiped.

A week later I was off on my first work trip of 2023. The trip began in Paris for two days and ended in London. Most of my time was spent in the office working late nights on some projects that were due. It was a rare trip that I didn’t go to a lot of team dinners or events. It was nice and cold in both cities but I still made sure that I got myself out and about to both St James Park and the Eiffel Tower, staples of any visit.

I arrived back with only a few days of January left. We went to a show (& Juliet) and mostly recovered from what ended up being a very busy and tiring first month of the year.

TV WE WATCHED

If January is any indication our TV watching is going to slow down in 2023. We finished up both Bad Sisters, Mythic Quest, and Amazing Race Season 35 at the start of the month. But after that its been slow going on pretty much everything else. We’re a couple of episodes into Industry Season 2 (not loving), Treason (started on the flights to Europe), The Last Of Us (one episode in), and Shrinking (two episodes in).

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

I put out a goal of 35 books and although I know I will hit the goal I didn’t get off to the fastest start. I read two books in January, The Eye of the Needle which was an incredibly satisfying spy thriller, and Billy Summers another example of why I love Stephen King. Two great books from two of my favorite authors.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

As I do almost every year I’m trying to watch all of the Best Picture nominations. Two of those movies that I got through in January were Triangle of Sadness which I watched on my flight home from London and was middling on and Tar I watched on a Sunday and loved. However my favorite movie this year so far is The Menu which was a crazy over-the-top thriller that had me laughing and shrieking the entire time.

THEATER WE SAW

Is it too early to call it the play of the year? I am not sure I remember a time I had this much time laughing at a play since Book of Mormon. Basically & Juliet is the sequel to Romeo and Juliet that’s set to late 90’s and early 2000’s pop / boy band music. It is so much better then it had any right to be that I havent stopped thinking about it since we saw it.

GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING

It’s the normal staple of games. Sadly I did fall off on RDR2 when I went back to work in early January and have mostly kept with sports games for the rest of January.