Night Out

As I was getting ready to go out last night to have dinner at the nArchitects, for Eric's birthday, what sounded like several choppers thudded low and vibratingly over the roof. Bloody pilots, I muttered.

As I emerged from the 23rd F subway station in Manhattan, about two hours later later, loaded with the weight of a cooler bag over my shoulder filled with pink champagne, Meerlust Grappa chocolates, apricot jam and Patrick Leigh Fermor's Between the Woods and the Water, wrapped in African embroidery, I saw crowds lining the twilit Avenue of the Americas, a.k.a. 6th Avenue. Police cars blocked off 23rd Street. Cops cluttered the corners.

Ha. Either Prince Harry or Obama. I knew the Obamas were going to a Broadway show. Sure enough, a phalanx of motorcyles passed. Then some support vehicles. Then a flurry of dark- windowed limousines. My heart leaped, tears pricked, and I waved! More black SUV's, something like an armoured truck, an ambulance, and more motorbikes. Good grief. Nothing like a quiet, inconspicuous night on the town for our president.

But I walked to East 22nd Street smiling. It had been them thudding low, shaking our foundations, from JFK to downtown Manhattan, on their way to dinner at Blue Hill. Local has never had it better.

At dinner (the non-presidential one) it was good to meet up again with Elaine and Craig, whose Norwegian National Opera House has just been awarded the Mies van der Rohe prize for architecture. They also designed the library at Alexandria. Dinner parties with stories like this are wonderful. They plug one's small life into a big one. We planned a Communist Party for my eventual citizen-becoming. One of the things I have to do, again, when I am sworn in, is reiterate the fact that I have not joined the Communist Party since my last interview.

So what does one eat at a Communist Party? Cold borscht (better than it sounds, I assure you: picture ruby-coloured consomme), iced vodka, blinis...and...roast sturgeon?

N0t bad, Comrade Capitalyist.