Grace did an amazing job of unpacking the kitchen and some other areas on Sunday. But before we were hardly settled in, I was off to NYC the week of August 28th for work. On Monday, I headed straight into the city to meet Jon, Tina, Jen, Millie and Bobby for dinner. It was nice of them to meet me out so late, which by NY standards is probably just dinner time (at home, I may have been in bed by then). On Tuesday, a colleague and I took the train out to Warren, NJ. That evening, I met Jen, her friend, Stacy, Jeanah, and Chae, who had just moved to NYC, for dinner at one of Jen’s favorite local spots. It was nice to finally meet Stacy and it was great to catch up with Jeanah and Chae.

Jen had bought 12 tickets for the Tigers vs. Yankees game on Wednesday. It was just a coincidence that I was in town, but I was very happy to go. She even scored some extras so Bobby could attend. All of the cousins were there, including Lou, who also just moved to NYC, Millie, and even Clarence, who made a special appearance. It was too bad Liz also could not make it. Jen had another group of friends join us, including Carrie, who was also one of Grace’s friends from college, and Jon Arney, who sold me the behemoth TV in the moving picture below – I still love it, but you can barely give those things away now.

The Tuesday game was rained out, so it ended up being a double-header. Detroit lost the first one and after going up early in the second, fell behind later in the game. We had a good group of Detroit fans nearby, but we were still surrounded by Yankee fans, who seemed overly sensitive to the fact that someone could actually be rooting for the away team. At the top of the 9th, Detroit was down 4-2. With 2 outs, they hit a 3-run homer to take the lead. We went CRAZY – Yankee stadium became quiet. Bobby had already left “to beat the traffic” – so lame. It was a tremendous sports moment. We ended up winning the game. On the subway, we met up with many other Detroit fans as we coincidentally boarded the “D” train, while everyone chanted “D train.” It was good that we were traveling in numbers. We changed trains at some point and I hadn’t noticed that Jen was chatting up some guy. As I got off, she introduced me to this guy who apparently went to West Bloomfield High School (much younger) – small world.

The cousins, Jen and I all went out for a drink on the upper west side. Carrie and Jon Arney also caught up to us. It was late, so we all headed home in our separate directions. Instead of just getting into a cab, I started walking with Lou. We ended up walking all the way to the Apple store on 5th Avenue. It was past 1am by this point, but we strolled right into the beautful glass cube, as it’s open 24/7/365 – so cool. Sometime before 2am, we were on our way home for real. It was a very fun evening. Thanks to Jen for organizing and treating everyone with the tickets.

On Thursday, I trained up to Schenectady to visit another customer. I flew out of Albany to go home (via Dulles). It was really a planes, trains, and automobiles kind of day. Grace took that week off to unpack and nest. She did a very good job! I was very happy to get home to Grace, Snickers, and babyrhee.