Keeping a family together

Emma's dissertation was accepted last week and approved for oral defense on October 31st. All I can think about was how proud Gregory would have been. He loved that she went to Cornell. He wanted to know more about her research. He knew she would follow her dream and finish the degree. I wished that he could tell her himself.

I have been thinking a lot about how families are held together; how they continue to grow so that family comes first and that we don't take family for granted. But also, that we don't forget that family will not be surprised that we might expect more from them even without constant contact.

Kathryn came down for the weekend and we wandered the city discovering little things and lots of good food. We ended the holiday weekend at the 7pm performance of The Band's Visit, a surprise in the musical world of Broadway; subtle, nuanced, gentle and jarring. It was a story with layers of love and the tension of cultural difference and conflict. In this case a band from Egypt heading to Israel to perform and ends up, through a mistaken pronunciation of the town name, in a small isolated desert town. It was performed in one act and was sprinkled with the humor of humanity and the loss and longing of the heart. Katrina Lenka, in the lead role of Dina, won a Tony in 2017 for best actress.

Among our new food discoveries were Rosemary's in the West Village (a second visit for Kathryn), Tim Ho Wan, a dim sum restaurant in the East Village (the same restaurant Kathryn and Pat found in Hong Kong), Patavini gnocchi bar at Columbus Circle (sadly the Grom line was so long, but happily the end of the line put us in front of this new gnocchi bar and City Winery Barrel Room Wine Bar (flights at $5 a pour for wines on tap).

We stopped at two old favorites to have pre-theater cocktails at the revolving bar atop the Marriott in Times Square and dessert after theater at Cafe Lalo on 83rd Street. 

 

On Sunday we had brunch at Liebman's Deli, one of the last NY kosher delis, with Rosaleen, Dan and Ansel. Monday morning, we walked to Buunni for coffee and an almond coissant before Kathyrn left to drive back to Rochester. So many tasties and our own food tour of NYC. I think this is the first of a new annual tradition along with the Book Crawl.

Times Square, Cofradia des devotes