I like that New Yorkers don’t expect you to make over their dogs.  How refreshingly normal.

I like that they are amazingly polite considering how many people they rub against, until they are not and then they will scrap to the death over who is rushing who off the bus.  One woman admonished another for hurrying a disabled man, but then lost the moral high ground entirely when she refused to let it go. She got caught up in her own righteous indignation, forgot the disabled man, and attacked the character and worth of the rusher.  Alleged rusher – I don’t know that she was really rushing.

I like that they are not afraid to sweat. A third floor walk-up means sweat. Learn to love it.

I like that they know instinctively when to obey the orange hand forbidding you to cross a street and when you can ignore it; and it isn’t as simple as ‘are there any cars actually coming?’.  There’s more to it than that, I just don’t know what.

I love pondering the difficulty of “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted in the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10.  Drinking morning coffee to the sound of the rush and attempting to be still and pray must be the challenge of living here.

I love the crammed subway cars.  When despairing over the divisive nature of our country, one just needs to go ride the subway and be jammed up against a polite Sikh, two Romanians, a shy Asian student, Irving who just got off work at the garage, and sexy Sandra whose skin is dark but her hair is not.

Tile mosaic at our 110th St. sub stop.  People are amazing.  Art with tile.  The chains on the hanging weight scale and the color variations in the avocado were cause for pause and admiration.

World Trade Center One – look how it reflects the clouds and almost disappears.  The sculptured building beneath it by Santiago Calatrava evokes a bird’s wings taking flight.  It is designed so that on September 11 sunlight floods the interior.  Again, people are amazing.

Memorial pool in the footprint of the tower.  Andrew and I had interesting conversation about the nature of memorials, what they intend, what they achieve.  The names were sobering.

Cracking the code.  How to find the uptown 6 train?? Well, let’s just walk to Chinatown.

And on the way we saw a little city drama.  Mayor Bill de Blasio leaving City Hall after announcing the ‘resignation’ or ‘stepping down’ or something of the police commissioner. . . .

. . .to the heckling of a pitiful little group of protesters singing ‘nah, nah, nah, nah, goodbye’, exercising their first amendment rights and being protected by New York City’s finest.  I love America!

Lychees.  Peeled they look like eyeballs, smell like perfume, and Andrew likes to eat them.

Queens! First time to be in that borough.

Oh my, the food.  Eliot, this is for you. Yes, we had one of those pork sandwiches.  I thought I understood barbecue being from Alabama and all.

Waxing eloquent.

This is Ben smiling. Wonderful evening doing Queens.

The hipster and the hillbilly.

Love from New York and blessings on your day!