Family and Friends

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Yesterday I finally got to meet the lovely Dorinda Fox in person.  After email correspondence and phone conversations for over 18 months, we were finally able to meet when she flew into JFK after a trip to Ireland and I drove into the city.  Our time together started with lunch at a small storefront Caribbean restaurant.  I had a very spicy dish of curried chicken, which left my mouth on fire.  This was my fault, of course, since I told the server to pile on the heat, but I had no idea how hot the heat would be.  : )

During lunch Dorinda filled me in on some of the details of her trip to the Emerald Isle, and I shared some about my more mundane life.  For New Year’s Eve we saw the movie “Up in the Air,” starring George Clooney – a film I give a rating of 8 out of 10 dancing fish.  We then went to a Thai restaurant for dinner (earning dirty looks from the waitress when we dared enter the establishment at 8:50 pm . . . more than an hour before closing time.   I guess she was hoping to close early or something and get on with her own celebrations).  I had a less spicy, though delicious, entree of peppercorn beef, btw.  Finally, we brought in the New Year by watching the ball drop in Times Square . . . on the TV in the bar at a nearby Holiday Inn.  A bar, by the way, that was filled with Muslims drinking soda.  One additional note . . . Dick Clark really needs to give up appearing in the show that bear’s his name.  As sorry as I am to say this, one needs closed captioning just to understand what he is saying post-stroke, and he even messed up the countdown by forgetting a couple of the numbers.

This morning we ate a quick breakfast and headed into the city via the Air Train and the subway, which deposited us almost on the steps of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).  We had tickets to see the special Tim Burton Exhibition, and soon learned that Burton’s weirdness started when he was very young.  We viewed sketches, drawings and journal entries from his entire life thus far, and we were also able to view many of the models and props from his various movies – Corpse Bride, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, to name a few.  There was even an almost life-sized model of Edward himself on display.  We then toured the other exhibits, which included some of Richard Avedon’s photography, paintings by Wyeth, Van Gogh, Picasso, Warhol, and Pollock (one of Dorinda’s favorites), and then we had lunch at one of MOMA’s cafes.  Lunch was excellent except for Dorinda’s choice of dessert (a pistachio encrusted goat cheese cheesecake . . . what was she thinking?).

After wondering around the museum for a while longer, we made our way up to Central Park and wondered around some more for about two hours.  I took some pictures with my new Droid phone (both in the park and at the museum), though Dorinda would not let me take a picture of her. : (  Then it was back on the subway and Air Train and finally to JFK to drop Dorinda off for her flight home.

It was a great two days in my opinion, and I was absolutely thrilled to spend some time with Dorinda.  Of course, you’ll have to ask her how she felt about our time together.  In the coming days I hope to post some of my photos for you to see, so stay tuned.