Weekend Recap ... Holiday Edition

What a great holiday weekend, and I don't even have Memorial Day off today!

Friday got things off to a nice start. Met up with some friends at 230 Fifth, a pretty cool rooftop joint in the 20s with a great city view, including the Empire State Building about 10 blocks due north.

Lots of pretty people and trendy snobbery made this place not my kind of bar if I were to return solo or with just one friend, but sitting down with a larger group as I did made the place far more tolerable. Plus, the weather was perfect as the sun was fading early Friday evening, so that was pretty nice as well.

Saturday started on the right foot. I got a big delivery of 12x18s for my art show, now just four days away in Covington, Ky.

So I spent some time with those, putting them into mats and starting to worry how I'm going to get everything to Cincinnati. Too late now to try to mail them, so I have to pack everything in a big box and check on the airplane when I fly Thursday, then cross my fingers and hope the baggage people really do handle with care if so requested.

I took a bottle of wine and some prints my cousins had ordered in March over to their place for dinner Saturday night. Kalia made gazpacho and a warm chicken salad, which was outstanding.

I was all set to go home and watch a movie -- I just signed up for NetFlix and received my first DVDs in the mail the other day -- but I called my friend Christine and she coaxed me down to her neighborhood for a rooftop beer or two. She actually lives right near that 230 Fifth joint, though her rooftop might not be as polished as the other one.

Sunday I met my friend Jennie down at the Yaffa Cafe, which I think is in the village. It's on St. Mark's between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, so maybe that's Alphabet City. I don't know. But the food was good and cheap.

Where most cities recognize that Memorial Day weekend is the official start to summer, up here it seems to signal the official start to quieter weekends. Apparently everyone goes to the Hamptons, and that's fine with me, though I wouldn't mind finding out what all the buzz out there is about one time.