It was our very great pleasure to fly to New York to attend the wedding of our daughter Madeleine to Phil Davis. We also got to meet the Davis family for the first time - Phil's parents Hannah and Duane and sister Rachel. Unsurprisingly, they all turned out to be wonderful people. The wedding itself was on Friday, October 4, at city hall. It was deliberately a small affair, including family and just a smattering of special friends, in order to keep the stress level down. Next year's first anniversary is planned to be the blow-out, full-stress event.
Louise and I had booked a room through AirBnB on 150th Street, a couple of blocks from Madeleine and Phil's apartment. We were happy that it was so close and quite inexpensive, although it was definitely not a luxury hotel. The entire bathroom would have fit in a small elevator, shower and all. Nevertheless, it served us well during our trip. We met with Madeleine and Phil on Friday morning and took a taxi down to city hall. We got there just before it opened and couples had been lining up on the sidewalk, eager to be spliced. It is there that we met Duane, Hannah and Rachel, along with some of Phil's friends. Entering city hall was not simple - we had to go through the metal detectors, past armed guards before we got to take a number for the ceremony. We then waited for quite a while before our number came up, providing an opportunity for photos to be taken. When our number did come up, it was just to take care of the paperwork and then we went to another room and waited some more. It reminded me of when I was applying for a green card back in the early 70ies - I would be ushered into a huge room stuffed to the gills with other immigrants, where I would spend about half the day waiting to be called. (That always reminded me of a line in the song "Summertime blues" - "Called my congressman and he sent a note: 'I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote.'") But I don't want to give the impression that the waiting on this occasion was a source of discontent - the cameras kept snapping and we were all too happy to notice the time pass.
Finally, there was a quick, non-denominational ceremony. We filed into yet another room and Madeleine and Phil went up to a lectern, behind which was a smiling woman who asked the hard questions - "Do you, Phil/Madeleine, promise ..." They said yes, and it was official. Yea!
The Davises then took us all out to the nearby Odeon restaurant on West Broadway for brunch. On the way, we passed Duane Street, which prompted another photo from Duane.
Louise and I spent the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum. We decided to limit ourselves to a section on armor and then another on Egyptian art. Needless to say, it involved miles of walking, and we were exhausted at the end.
Suit of armor | Helm | Helm | Japanese helm |
Madeleine and Phil's honor guard | |||
Sphinx | Egyptian bird |
Finally, we toddled over to the Pisticci restaurant for dinner. Pisticci is on the same block as Madeleine's (and Katie's and Anna's) former apartment on La Salle and we had dined there several times in the past. It has a nice comfortable feel, combined with excellent food.
In the subway, on the way to dinner at Pisticci | Anna and Katie outside Pisticci | |
The gang in Pisticci | Newlyweds | Mary and Toni |
Two-fisted drinker | Time to go |
Louise and I slipped out before the festivities ended, but Toni bravely volunteered to pay the bill (with our credit card). Back we went to 150th Street and our little home away from home. It was a glorious day that we will never forget - particularly now we have this fine illustrated account of it on our site.
We did not return immediately to Austin but spent time with some of our old friends from Larchmont, as well as one newer friend from Austin. On Friday we had dinner with the Roques, on Saturday with the Simmonses and on Monday with Debbie (a former neighbor from Austin, now living in Brooklyn.) We had booked a non-stop flight to Austin on Tuesday, but it did not leave until evening and we were ready to leave New York. Fortunately, we were able to change it to an early afternoon flight, with a brief stopover in North Carolina. The cats greeted us when we got home and all was right with the world.
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