Thursday I headed downtown again to meet my friend Buzzy for dinner and to see the show Alterboyz (real website seems to be hosed, oops). The PATH train took less time than expected so I went around the corner from the Christopher Street station and had The Best Manicure Ever. (If this sort of thing doesn’t interest you — which may very well be everyone but me — tune out temporarily, but I have to write this down so I’ll remember it for next time). Nails were trimmed to correct length, filed so that there were no scratchy bits (tough being that my nails are naturally flimsy and prone to splittage), and painted with base coat, two color coats and top coat. Whenever a little bit got on the ski (inevitable), the nice lady used the tip of her nail (dipped in nail polish remover) to clean it off. End result: perfect nails. Happy Gina.

Nails done, I headed back to the station to meet Buzzy. He and I wandered around Greenwich Village (I think) for a while, browsing (many cute stores) and trying to find a suitable place for dinner. We happened upon a little cafe, wherein I had a wonderful proscuttio and swiss with pesto mayonnaise on Italian bread sandwich. Mmmmm. Will look up place for reference, as it was really delicious (service kinda stank, but I wasn’t in a fussy mood, so I wasn’t incredibly bothered) — ah, wait, here it is Cafe Rafaella) . Then onto Alterboyz, which was fun. Some of the music wasn’t my style (hip-hop, I suppose it was), but anything where there’s five-part harmony is pretty fine by me, so most of it I liked. After the show we wandered around a bit more before Buzzy ever-so-gallantly took me all the way back to the PATH stop so I could find my way home.

Late Friday afternoon, I headed into town for some shopping in the “Fashion District” — not for clothes, mind you, but for beads and buttons and bits with which to make things. I found a wonderful stash of “old stock” (vintage but never used) Swarovski crystals, which called to me so loudly that I had to take some of them home. They’re stunning, but a bit tricky as the back is actually pointed (trivia: this is called a Chaton shape, as opposed to a Flat-Back, which are far more common. I dunno how I’m going to mount these…

Then I met compositeur and Buzzy for drinks at Splash (I’d link to the website, but it’s most definitely not work safe), a very happening gay bar. Drinks were two-for-one (and I can’t resist a bargain), so I had (tasty) cosmopolitans served by a half-naked barman. Since Perry and Buzzy are both from Raleigh and both love music there was plenty to talk about and it was great fun catching up with them both.

After dinner, I toddled down to Craftbar, the little sister of Craft (websites are down) where Jeff and I had reservations at eight. Dinner was very rich, and per norm, I think my eyes were bigger than my head, as the risotto I had for an appetizer, duck with figs I had for dinner and apple tart I had for dessert left me full-to-nearly-bursting. Jeff had a fried softshell crab for an appetizer, rabbit for dinner (don’t remember what was with the rabbit though) and ?? for dessert. Very lame description of the meal, I know, but honestly, the two cosmos and glass and a half of wine I had on an almost empty stomach made the whole thing a bit hazy. Good. But hazy.

Saturday I shopped. I found Mood Fabrics, which had an absolutely astonishing assortment of incredible fabrics and spent two and a half hours there just drooling. Silk satins, the most amazing variety of woolens (I found a beautiful green/turquoise herringbone-ish pattern that desperately wants to become a gored skirt), leathers, prints (on 60″ rolls!)…oh the wanting. I restrained myself (at least a bit) and only bought five pieces.

Then on to MJ Trims for buttons and clasps (just a few, really). Finally, I met Jeff at Spadium, the Korean day spa that we visited for the first time back in October. I <3 this place. The routine runs somethign like this: shower, dry sauna, steam sauna, hot tub, cold tub, scrubbing, face mask, more scrubbing, more face mask, massage, milk rinse, hair wash, hair conditioning, shower again. Here’s the amazing bit: showering is just about the only thing you do for yourself — everything else is done for/to you. I came out with all new soft-and-nice-smelling skin. And, whoa, Nellie! A BARGAIN! < $100 for the whole thing, which was several hours of pampering!

Surreal spa moment: when my nice not-much-English-speaking masseuse started humming Amazing Grace. I hummed too. Love that song.

Sunday was (mostly) a day of rest except for the six hours that I helped Jeff pull cables. Lessons learned:

• It is more than a little difficult for someone who’s slightly dyslexic and fairly “spatially challenged” to correctly diagram existing cable layouts. All those cords, all the same color, all twisting and turning and getting muddled about…eeek. Problem exacerbated by the fact that the numbers were like: 01-02-02 12 vs. 01-01-02 12. Problem further exacerbated by the fact that if you don’t know *how* any given data will be used, it’s hard to ensure that the data are recorded in a useful fashion.
• For someone who *likes* pulling cable, a “3- or 4-hour” project can easily turn into a 5+ hour one
• If you’re tired and sick of something and you think it’s cause you’re bored, check your watch. It could be that you’re tired and bored because you’ve been sitting waiting for cables to be pulled for 5+ hours.
• If you wait until past 9:00 on a Sunday night to eat dinner, the sushi place will be closed. Also, as a corollary, the sushi place is always closed on Monday.

Monday we went into town again and found an adorable French cafe, complete with real French (smoking and everything ;-) Best salad nicoise I have had in *eons* — possibly since I was in France après high school (I dearly wish I could remember where that one was… that the memory of it persists almost two decades later…mmmm). For reference, the café was called “Le Quinze” which, in context, I believe may have had something to do with some sport, as the walls were covered with posters of “le football” and (other?) sports.

We also found (after some about of circumnavigation) Pearl Craft, which I had high hopes for based on Pearl Art; however, it was sadly lacking in much goodness, and was, in fact, less fun than your average Michael’s. :-(

Then airport & home. (BTW, this was *quite* the logistical undertaking. From Jeff’s apartment, we walked to the Path station, from which we took the train to Newark station. Lotsa walking in Newark station (including two ramps that couldn’t have been ADA-compliant), followed by an Amtrak train to Newark Airport. Walking more, then onto the airport train to the terminals. Then security. Then more walking to the actual gate area). Whew. Made me really thankful that Jeff actually comes home on weekends!