Lawyerish: Partying the Old Dude Way

Allison, David and Maggie left a few hours ago, and the apartment seems extremely empty already. We had a very fun time welcoming 2009 and celebrating the Old Dudes' 40th birthdays with them!

They arrived Monday night, and on Tuesday morning we braved the crowds to check out some of the holiday highlights of Midtown. Below are Allison and Maggie checking out the windows of Saks after we plowed through about fifty million tourists at Rockefeller Center. The windows were cute but frankly a bit un-Christmasy -- they were wintry, I suppose, as they were based on a children's book about why every snowflake is unique (blah, blah, life lesson about being yourself, blah), but there was not a lot of holiday paraphernalia involved. Also, there were weird plastic cavemen in some of the scenes. I give it a C for holiday relevance. But it was enjoyable nonetheless:

We also checked out Lord & Taylor's windows -- much more Christmasy and traditional, with the Boston Pops Christmas album piped in for added festiveness. Thumbs up. Then we rode the Bryant Park carousel, which was frankly a little terrifying. It went a lot faster than I expected and played very loud Edith Piaf music. I was mildly concerned that if it went on too long, I might experience some carousel-induced motion sickness. Fortunately, we all survived:

Afterward, we had to replenish our bodies' deficit of butter, pasta and cheese, so we loaded up on three different varieties of mac'n'cheese at Pinch and Smac. Mmmm. Slab bacon.

Later that afternoon, Birgit and Olivia came over for a play date. Since Maggie's nap had been delayed and then abbreviated by our possibly poor planning skillz, Mags was not as social as she could have been, although Olivia was just as charming and spritely as she could possibly be (the girl has some kind of future in the performing arts, we're all certain). There was some reluctance to share and some stony silence on Maggie's part, but by the end of the visit she started to warm up a bit:

Or...maybe not.

The next morning, Kathy and Adam came for a social call, and since Maggie was well rested and adequately fed, she was much more receptive to her visitor. Toward the end, as both of their lunch- and nap-times approached, conditions began to deteriorate, however, and at least once there was an incident of physical assault involving a blow to the head. But for the most part they got along well:

(That last one is Adam doing a face known as "The Eyes." Hee! He also imitates my smile in a way that is beyond hilarious, but somehow I did not capture it with my camera. Grr.)

That evening, Allison and I made a four-stage dinner of hors d'ouvres for New Year's Eve/The Old Dudes' Bash. We had a veggie platter with homemade ranch dip, pumpernickel bites with avocado-pea hummus, baked brie en croute (OMG OMG OMG, SO GOOD), gougeres (Joe asked, "Why does it smell like horse manure in here?" while they were cooking, thanks to the fragrant powers of Gruyere, but they tasted really good), pigs in a blanket and buffalo chicken meatballs, followed by Carvel cake. We were all about to BUST by the end of the night, and there may have been some dozing off on the couch before the ball finally dropped. I think we were all in bed by 12:10.

We did have special party outfits for the occasion, though:

Finally, this morning, we went out into the face-shattering cold to visit Cathy, Kevin and the twins for some fun in their well-stocked playroom. The kids mostly eyed each other suspiciously (I guess at age three they're still mostly into "parallel play", which as far as I can tell is just another name for "eyeing each other suspiciously") until Cathy busted out the pop-up fire truck, which they all piled into and, uh, fought fires. Everyone also did well with snack time and juice, except for a small spill, which prompted Owen to yell, "Oh, NO! The apple juice spilled on my SOCK!" You probably had to be there, but it was ridiculously cute.

Then conditions deteriorated again when Maggie felt slighted out of a turn driving the fire truck and began to wail dramatically that she couldn't SEEEEEEE out of the truck (mostly because she was sitting down as the boys kept moving the truck around; also, she was wearing sunglasses). She then declared that she wanted to go bye-bye. Somehow, I managed to forget to get out my camera, so I missed the adorable group hug that the kiddos gave each other before we left.

So that was our visit in a nutshell. It was the best way I can think of to wrap up 2008 and ring in 2009, which I just know is going to be a good year.

Comments

day-um, you're quick on the posting front. i haven't even posted about christmas, let alone our sunglass-sporting firefighter threesome!

Posted by: kcw | January 01, 2009 at 07:31 PM

totally love the shirts. love gruyere too. Hi Kathy!
Maggie is just adorable.

p.s. I thought of you when I heard a new word for sofa--chesterfield. Didn't you post about that once?

Posted by: Shannon | January 02, 2009 at 02:06 PM

I LOVED the shirts and I'm praying hard for a most WONDERFUL 2009 for you and Joe. Hang in there...oh, and I think Divan is a old Penn. term...my father in law is 90 and that is the term he has always used and he said that is what they were called when he was a boy. He said he heard "Sofa" for the first time when he was in the army in 1942 from a southerner.

Posted by: Roz | January 02, 2009 at 07:14 PM

I've totally been waiting on this report....and pics!! Great pics. It sounds like a fun visit! Love the shirts!

Posted by: glenna | January 03, 2009 at 07:12 AM