Family Visit

My mom, dad, and lil sis are in town for a visit. E has the week off too, so they have all been gadding about town, doing various things like touring Central Park, shopping on Canal Street, and looking at apartments for me (might as well put them to use, right?) After work I meet up with them and we all go eat somewhere delicious. For example, last night we went down to Mulberry Street and ate at this place called Grotta Azzurra, in Little Italy, which was amazing! It has been kind of cool weather-wise, but it was warm enough that the restaurant had all its walls open, with tables spilling out onto the sidewalk, and we enjoyed the cool breeze and people-watching. The food was so good!!! And the service terrific. In fact, they actually moved us to another table because of some online radio show that needed to set up in our corner, so they treated us to an enormous dessert platter at the end of our already-enormous meal. Molto bene!

Tonight my mom was craving comfort food, so we convinced her that instead of baking a potato in the microwave it would be more fun to go to S'Mac, this place that serves gourmet macaroni and cheese. And since they opened one on the west side, we didn't even have to go to 12th Street. It was so fun! And so very very delicious. We all ordered different flavors and shared, and I've got tons of leftovers for tomorrow. Afterwards we went home and watched Pinnocchio for some reason, and snacked on hermit cookies that my mom brought from home.

It's funny because my family isn't really very touristy when they come here. They don't really want to do stuff like go see Good Morning America being filmed or try to get into all the Broadway shows. They are perfectly content to just sit in my living room and visit. My mom brought her knitting, my dad brought his bassoon so he can practice. K talks on her phone to her friends, and we all just talk. It's nice.