thursday night on the town

8/365
Today Stephen had a hankering for an evening trip into the city and decided that I would be the official event planner for the activity. Recently we found that we absolutely love going to see random movies at small theaters and when browsing through those possibilities I found wayyy too many that I was interested in seeing. However, because of Stephen's late arrival from a double-shift workday, we decided to go low key and visit the Strand Bookstore where I've always been interested in going.

We took one of the small, rickety, white buses into New York, which is always an adventure. There was a frantic woman who came on with a man carrying an animal carrier that said "Tony". They sat behind us and we witnessed a frantic, tear-stained conversation with her pregnant neighboor about how she "feels so so bad" and she "never leaves the window open", but today she was "cleaning her kitchen with bleach" and she's "so happy he's alive!" From what I gathered, her affectionately named "Tony Balls" was her cat who had jumped (or fallen?) out the window and was being brought promptly to the Animal Hospital in New York. God speed, Tony Balls.

Anyway, from there we took the train to the Strand which was relatively easy to find. It was a beautiful and organized mess which appeared as though we'd never be able to find anything we were ever looking for, but upon digging deeper into the store, we found the method to the madness and I found a book for which I was searching way up (naturally) on the top shelf of the fiction section. Stephen, shedding his apprehension, got a ladder and rescued the book, instantly transforming himself into my knight in shining armor. Doesn't take much. We would have loved to browse some more, like even go upstairs for instance, but we had gotten there only an hour before closing time and the employees seemed frantic and in need of everyone scattering back to their homes. With a store that swallows you whole like that, I can see why they have to start their evacuation process early.

After that we took a small chance on a sandwich shop nearby, and it ended up being quite the adventure. Stephen and I ordered and picked a spot in the corner, as is usual, and the server brought us our food, while Stephen went to get forks and our lemonade, I realized they had switched my sandwich with his. He had ordered a chicken pesto melt and I had ordered some lame turkey club with bacon. I found this out by taking two bites out of it and falling in love and hoped that maybe Stephen wouldn't notice the switch.

While he was choosing a lemonade, he was frantically waving me up to come help him choose, but all I did was motion that we needed a fork (which frustrated the daylights out of him) so he came back with a freaking Mojito lemonade. So flustered about his lemonade choice, he bit into his (my) turkey club and didn't even seem to notice until the second bite when he exclaimed, "Bacon? What the heck did I order?" I literally started choking on the Mojito lemonade upon which he started apologizing profusely for making a poor choice. I assured him it was fine and that it had just gone down the wrong pipe. I waited for him to finish his entire sandwich to unveil the truth about the switch and he was stunned, taking a huge bite out of mine, eventually saying, to my relief that he was glad about the mix-up because he liked his (mine) better!

Hooray for love and many laughs.

I am so thankful for the memories he and I share. You don't need to go on an extravagant vacation with kayaking and berry picking and boat rides to produce a memorable experience.