jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

Is anyone who knows him surprised that Damon was teacher’s pet at the NY Trapeze School yesterday?

In the time it took me to get comfortable in my chair (feet on the ground for me, thanks) Damon was high above, swinging by his knees. He also did multiple flips into the net and made me clutch my hat to my head by accepting the invitation of the instructor to try a few catches. Of course he landed them all, each time swooping backward off his trapeze and grabbing hands with the teacher who had swung out to meet him. The instructor followed us out saying, “Man, you should really come back.”

So we both win. He’s circus performer material. And I’m an ace wife who cooks up really good birthday surprises.

I tried to get photos but all I could capture was a blur whizzing by far far above my head.

So, if I see a page that has an RSS button, how do I make that feed into my Live Journal? Anybody? Anybody?

You meet the nicest people on the train.

En route to meeting John for a sushi binge a woman entering the train at the last second lost her balance and wound up in my lap. She was probably in her 50s, looking kind of mom-ish. The weird thing was that as I reached up to control her comedown I got her around the waist and she felt light, like a pillow. I swung her around like we were square dancing and popped her right back up on her feet. We laughed, she apologized and I told her I fall on people all the time.

A few hours later Damon and I shoe-horned ourselves onto a packed A train. The only open patch I could snag forced me to grab the overhead bar. It’s hard for me to steady myself there because I have to extend my arm all the way over my head and then stretch to the side — being of the shorter persuasion. We’re zipping along Central Park when the conducter hit the breaks. The bar popped out of my hand and I went backwards like someone had tipped the train up on its short end. Now picture Dick Gregory in ‘The Shining.’ Imagine if Jack Nicholson hadn’t axed him in the stomach and he’d lived another ten years, getting a little more gray and grizzled. That’s the guy into whom I went reeling, my back to his front. The funny thing is, once again, everything felt so light. It didn’t hurt when I clunked into him. I didn’t bump or smack into anything. We laughed and he helped steady me back on my feet. After I was righted and secure I could hear him chuckling behind me.

Friendly city.

Lovely day. We had brunch at Popover Cafe with Daniel and Rachel. Popover is a returning theme in my restaurant life, as I’ve become fixated with the pop art in a popover sandwich. It’s sauteed onions, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, gruyere cheese and russian dressing all packed inside a fluffy popover. The first few times I went there I noted the fruit cup on the menu. The Popover Cafe sells a fruit cup for, I think, $5.95. I rolled my eyes. Maybe on my third visit the table next to me ordered it. And it looked lucious. So I caved in and ordered one. And now I can’t go in without getting the $6 fruit cup. It’s a soup-sized bowl full of whatever fruit is the best that day. And many fruit cups later I can say I’ve never been dinged. No hard, tasteless melon lumps, no sour apples, no pithy orange. It’s worth it.

It was also nice to see Daniel and Rachel.

I’ve been doing a little mooning about how it’s cold and wet and windy here and that I want to go back to Hawaii RIGHT NOW. Obsessively watching Lost isn’t helping.

Tonight when I came home from work I opened the front door and Damon was standing there in his Hawaiian shirt and wearing red and yellow leis. He put a beach hat on my head and two fluffy leis around my neck and said, “Aloha! Welcome back to Hawaii.” Our hallway was lined with candles and at the end (in the doorway into the living room) was a glittery green and gold palm tree. When I parted the fronds and walked in, I saw what was making it sparkly. The whole room was filled with candles. The coffee table was gone and Damon had laid out bamboo mats and a bunch of colorful pillows. There’s a collection of tiki guys around the tv (including a bobble head) and — the funniest part — bright-colored puffy little paper fish surrounding our seating area.

He said that we never made it to a luau in Kauaii, so we were going to have one tonight. And we did!

We ate, we watched Lost, we looked at our newly-developed honeymoon photos. That’s not all we did, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Lucky, lucky girl. That’s me.