A Look Back - November 2019
As I write this post on the first day of December we are just starting to see the first snow of the winter come down. Frasier is busy chewing on his rope and Jenn is enjoying a documentary about the first rides at Disneyland on Disney+. It’s been an amazing month and we can’t wait to see how the end of the decade comes to a conclusion.
RECAP OF THE MONTH
When I prep for these monthly recaps I spend a few minutes looking through my calendar and photos and jotting down a brief outline. Some months like October that takes a few minutes, but November was a crazy busy month and so an hour later I finally finished my rundown. On the first day of the month, we had a beautiful date night starting at dinner at Bar Boulud and going to see The Great Society at Lincoln Center.
The next morning we grabbed a Zipcar from near Lincoln Center and drove to Bear Mountain State Park where we took on a couple of mile hike through the woods and up the mountain. We were fortunate to have a beautiful day and Frasier did an incredible job of staying with us and going through some rough terrain. It had just rained the night before so it made some of the climbs up steep slopes even tougher then it would have been otherwise.
If that wasn’t enough for one day we drove back, gave Frasier a bath, and walked up to Central Park where we met a photographer that Jenn found online who took photos of the three of us for our first annual Christmas card. Jenn and I have always wanted to do Christmas cards but it felt weird just doing one with the two of us. So now that we’re a trio, we booked a photographer and thirty minutes and a dozen locations later we had our photos taken and a few days later they were in our inbox.
One of my favorite memories of the month was the following weekend. It was Saturday the 16th and we had just gotten back from taking Frasier to the dog park on 72nd street in the UWS. It was a cold day and we decided to go back to Totto Ramen for the first time in probably a year. It’s our favorite ramen place but its always busy and only accepts cash. We got there early, still had to wait, but got a seat at the bar and had one of the best meals of the month. When we got done we got two cupcakes from Huascar & Co and had a really nice easy evening that night. Its sort of what I love most about living in the city. The very next day (Sunday the 17th) we went back out, had brunch at The Little Owl which is right below the exterior shot of the Friends apartment and saw the movie Marriage Story at the once closed and now re-opened Paris theater. Jenn and I were devastated when we learned the Paris theater had closed before we could see a movie there but Netflix came in and saved it and we were able to see one of my favorite movies of the year there.
For much of November we had a big decision to make; did we want to go away for a vacation over Thanksgiving or stay local. Our initial plan was to rent a car and go to Boston and Newport (Rhode Island) and come back a day before Thanksgiving. But I’ll never forget about a week before Thanksgiving Jenn and I talked at lunch on a workday and we both said to each other that we’d rather save the money and do more traveling in 2020. So instead we booked a trip to Lake Louise in January and flights in February to California to meet our niece. We’ve also tentatively mapped out trips for the rest of 2020 but like everything with our travels, that’s subject to change.
So instead we took a week off of work and relaxed. We went to museums, we took Frasier for long walks, we did some day drinking, weekday brunching, and all-around enjoyed living in the city without work. On our first day off which was Friday the 22nd, we went to Absolute Bagels and walked the campus of Columbia University. We then made our way to the St. Regis bar (known as King Cole Bar) the original creator of the Bloody Mary. That night we hit our 11th (of 12) Michelin restaurants, on both of our lists, Gramercy Tavern. It absolutely lived up to the hype and we can see why this is a New York staple. This is one of those places I could easily see going back to.
One of the best days (if not the best) of our staycation was on Monday the 25th. After dropping Frasier off at daycare we made our way for the first time to the Whitney Museum. We spent a little over an hour taking the many floors of beautiful modern art. From there we walked a couple of blocks to a place Jenn has been dying to go for almost a year, the Restoration Hardware Rooftop Restaurant. She’s always been a huge fan of Restoration Hardware and their flagship store here in NYC just opened a year or so ago with a beautiful restaurant on-top. We came for breakfast and had some champagne to start along with eggs and bacon for Jenn and a truffle grilled cheese for me. I gave Jenn a hard time making us eat in a furniture store but it was actually a great meal. After lunch, we grabbed a coffee at Kobrick Coffee and made our way on the High Line and walked all the way back to our apartment. After a midday nap, we went back out to dinner to one of our new favorite places in the city, Il Buco. Jenn had heard from a colleague that we should sit in the wine cellar and without asking that’s where they put us and it was phenomenal. We had a great meal with amazing pasta and wine and a beautiful atmosphere.
We weren’t done exploring. The next morning (the day before Thanksgiving) we took Frasier for a long walk through Central Park. Jenn has been training him off-leash so it was fun to see him roam around on his own, constantly checking with us. One of his favorite things to do though is playing fetch so we grabbed the ball and found a giant open field where we let him stretch his legs and play fetch for a while. After we dropped Frasier back off at daycare we went back out and for the first time ever ate at Katz Deli in the Lower East Side. We split a pastrami sandwich, fries, and macaroni salad. I hate to say this but neither of us loved it, it was a nice experience but the food for us wasn’t anything we need to go back to. After Katz we walked by and decided to go into Russ & Daughters another famous bagel shop in the city. We waited for about twenty minutes but ordered a couple of bagels, cream cheese, and some chocolate graham crackers.
Thanksgiving rolled around and we had a beautiful, relaxing day. We took Frasier on a couple of walks and had a nice meal at Tuscany Steakhouse near Central Park. We kept it pretty low key this year, deciding to watch the Thanksgiving day parade on TV rather than brace the high winds and crowds. That night we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (our new Turkey day tradition) and did a late-night stroll through Central Park.
The month ended with our longest-running tradition, Christmas decorating. Jenn once again did a stunning job with an amazing tree and beautiful touches all over the house. As I’m writing this, I’m staring directly at the tree and its hard to look away. It’s always so much fun getting the decorations out, starting the Christmas music, and bringing that joy into the house. Decorating the tree is easily one of my favorite days of the year and this year was no different. And thus wrapped up a very busy but relaxing month of November. One month of the decade left and I can’t wait to see what the end of 2019 has in store for us.
TV WE WATCHED
I didn’t realize until I put this together how much TV we watched in November. We started two new shows on Apple + (a new service) and really fell in love with The Morning Show. We are only a couple of episodes in on the third season of The Crown but it continues to be some of the best TV on right now.
BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)
Sadly this month I only finished one book, although I am incredibly close to finishing my 33 books of the year thus hitting my goal. The one book I did read which was a President Obama summer book pick this year was Exhalation by Ted Chiang a series of short stories that I fell in love with, especially the first story in a collection called, The Merchant and the Alchemist Gate. It had a quote that I haven’t stopped thinking about since:
“Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully.”
MOVIES WE WATCHED
I can’t always get Jenn to watch or go see a movie but I did in November and we saw three of my favorites of the year plus watched our first two Christmas movies of our annual dozen Christmas movies. But really there were two movies that I’ll be thinking about when the year wraps up and those were American Marriage (which I mentioned above) and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
THEATER WE SAW
Three plays in a month is about the max we do and it was quite the month. We started the month off seeing Brian Cox (of Succession fame) play LBJ in The Great Society at Lincoln Center. We followed that up with Marisa Tomei in The Rose Tattoo. But the best show we saw was a musical based off Macbeth called Scotland PA that was phenomenal.
GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING
I thought by this post I’d be further in The Outer Worlds but I hit a wall in that game and probably won’t be finishing it. Most of my month I’ve focused back on Madden NFL 20 and NBA 2K20. The only other game I’ve put considerable amount of time into is Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order but that’s another game that I started out loving but sort of fell off of.
2019 GOAL TRACKING
Goal #1: Read 33 Books: I've read 32 books and am currently way ahead of schedule to hit my goal.
Goal #2: Run 300 Times: I’ve run 257 times so far in 2019. I will not be able to hit this goal but will get close.
Goal #3: Keep Weight Under 140: I've yet to go over 140lbs
Goal #4: Eat at 12 Michelin Star Restaurants: 11 so far, on schedule to hit 12.
Goal #5: 12 Monthly Recaps: 11 for 11.
