1999: ??? to Montreal, Canada

(i.e. why you haven't heard from me sooner)

Most significantly this year, I left my job at the airline, considered a move to southern California, got a job in New York instead, and moved to a pretty cool city to work for some funny Italian guys at a great design firm.

Being surrounded by the arts, I heard the New York Philharmonic in Central Park while picnicking, and later, their premiere of Disney's Millennium symphonies. I was fortunate enough to see a lot of theatre including The Tempest, King Lear, Fuddy Meers, Experiment with an Air Pump, Fosse, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Schoenburg's Moses und Aron, Kiss Me, Kate, Moliere's Tartuffe, and Rent. I visited exhibits in NYC and DC at the Sackler Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Start Sightings of 1999: Ralph Fiennes, Bryan Adams, Sidney Poitier, Connie Chung & Maury Povich.

While in New York, I also bicycled across the Brooklyn Bridge and in Prospect Park, rollerbladed in Central Park, ventured to Grand Central Station, the New York Public Library (every time it was closed), ascended the Empire State building, walked through Central Park, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Chinatown, explored St. Patrick's Cathedral, Battery Park, and the Conservatory Gardens, shopped at Century 21 and FAO Schwartz, and ice skated at Wollman Rink in Central Park.

Five things I learned in New York:
1. Everybody walks really fast. And a lot. Wear comfortable shoes.
2. How to grocery shop without a car. Tip: Don't buy a gallon of anything and limit the canned stuff.
3. What life is like without a washer and dryer in your home.
4. How to survive 100 degree weather without air conditioning (New York's hottest summer on record)
5. How to get one's car stolen and what to do when it's recovered.

Random other things with which I busied myself: watched I Vitelloni by Fellini in a park in Little Italy, enjoyed a special reading of the children's book, Madeline in America, by J. Bemelmans Marciano, went to Tracy Pilzer's New Year's Day Brunch, the Dolby's Twelfth Night Party, the Giglio parade and party in Brooklyn, an Easter Brunch, ate potato latkes at Hanukkah, hiked, skied (for the first time), attended the Boston-NY and Washington DC AIDS Ride closing ceremonies, enjoyed a rooftop barbecue at Todd & Hannah's, Jenn & Mike's wedding, Laine's World 3 Benefit party, a LeBa Family Reunion in Virginia, Thanksgiving Dinner at Lisa's, and even had dinner in Harlem.

May your new year be fun and full of friends and family. May you have all you wish for. May you fulfill your dreams. May you pay me a visit in New York. Life is grand.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
- wrongly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Author unknown.