New York: A Small Town?

With plans to meet my new friend, I hustled back to my hotel to freshen up, and felt like a new person. I even splurged with a cab ride to the very close by Bitter End:



There I met lots of new friends, as well as the "old friend"/investment banker from Cafe Figaro, who had invited me. We heard the musical stylings of Austin Willacy:



Austin's music struck a great balance between being rocking and soothing. He was also very friendly after the show, a charming quality in a sexy musician. When the music ended, our group moved next door to the Peculier Pub, another charming hole in the wall kind of place, also with cheap beer!:



I enjoyed chatting with the folks I was with, including one Yankee fan with whom I had a spirited discussion of the upcoming Cubs/Yankees series and the season each of our teams is having. One person in our group was a nanny from Russion who had a fascinating story of her arrival in America, which sadly entailed her leaving her own children behind. Everyone in the group was nice and had an interesting story to tell. It felt great to be meeting new people again, something that only very rarely happens where I live.

One of these people had just moved to NYC from Boston, where she was a bank examiner. I took a shot in the dark and mentioned that I had a college friend worked as a bank examiner in Boston eight years ago. Unbelievably, this woman said, "Joan Bryant? She just moved here from Austin--I work with her!" What are the chances of that?!?! Joan was once one of my closest friends, but we drifted away over the last several years . . . I think it happened because I let my feelings be hurt over something stupid. I had considered getting back in touch with her a number of times, but didn't know what I would say.

So when this woman said she knew Joan, I was somewhat stunned and did not even think to get Joan's number before I ran off to meet Jay for a drink at this neat old speakeasy:



(This isn't Jay--it's a picture I found on the internet). Here is a review of Chumley's that sums it up pretty well:

The walls of this onetime Village speakeasy are cluttered with dog-eared photos of famous writers and the jackets of their most influential tomes. Stop in and check out the distressed-wood décor before 6pm or after midnight, and it's not hard to imagine Hemingway and Fitzgerald bickering in a back corner over a few too many whiskeys; during prime drinking time, however, the crowd is more J. Crew than T. S. Eliot, making the place feel like a fraternity reunion. But you've got to check it out at least once. It's saturated with history, the drinks are cheap, the food's pretty decent and, in winter, there's a working fireplace.

—David Amsden. Thankfully, we arrived after the frat boy crowd had departed, leaving only regulars and a nice wait staff that permitted me to lift Freddy onto the bench next to me. There is something comforting about stroking a downy-soft dog while sipping a wholesome brewed beer.

Suddenly, we were hungry. The Chumley's kitchen was closed, but one of the nice things about New York is that you can find any kind of food at any time of day or night. We wanted something healthy and headed to Jane:



There we nibbled on a lovely Cobb salad, feeding bits of meat and bacon to Freddy, who lurked below the table in the most charming way possible. After a short stroll, we called it a night, with me feeling as if I had had the perfect New York day.