This past week was just great. Wonderful. It was exactly what Spring Break should be -- relaxing, spent with friends, and a time to try something new and different to remind me that the outside world exists.

K and I went to the City (as Andrew pointed out today, shaking his head "New York City is so conceded, like they're the ONLY city out there. Sheesh!") on Monday to be part of The View's audience. We got lucky because we went on a day that Barbara Walters was there, too. The set was so much smaller in person than it looked on TV. I guess that follows what people say about stars being shorter in person than they look on the big (or little) screen. Shannon Doherty, ways to fix your house up to sell it for more money, and the latest in home exercise video were the featured segments; all were entertaining, but the neatest part was, of course, actually being there and seeing the camaras work, figure out their best angles, seeing the stars do their thing and engage the viewer. The ladies were all really nice, down to earth people who wanted to connect with the audience. They all seemed so appreciative that each person had decided to show up for the show, they came into the stands and talked to everyone, answering questions, joking around. One of the best parts, though, was before the show even started, when the crowd-pumper-upper tried to get the audience excited about the show and teach us when to clap and stand, etc. She brought down a couple middle-aged women from the audience and 2 of the 7 men who were there to the center aisle, had the sound man put on some thumping, bass-filled music and had these ladies shake and saunter down the aisle. It was hilarious. K, her sister, and I were probably some of the youngest people there by far.

After our early morning Viewing (hahaha), we went to the South St. Seaport for some shopping (check out that alliteration. Booya. Haahaha...oh DX) and eating and massive sugar rushes, and then onto every girl's favorite, Bloomingdales. It amazes me to watch people go through the process of figuring out which $600 shirt to buy. IT'S A SHIRT. TO WEAR. Even if I were (Smelly, is that the right tense?) disgustingly, $600-shirt rich, I would still choose to shop at Express and Target, thank you very much. Insanity! No wonder the gap between the rich and poor in the world is ever widening, what with snooty rich white people buying $600 shirts that were made by people in Indonesia being paid 5 cents a day. Oye.

Anyway, after that we went to Serendipity, this really good cafe that is famous for their "Frozen Chocolate," which was essentially a frozen hot chocolate. The three of us just about OD'd on chocolate, by getting one frozen chocolate, one hot, a mousse, and a "Forbidden Broadway" sundae. Man oh man. It was pretty close to heaven.

Speaking of heaven, I read The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown) Sunday and Monday last week (K and I decided to just go to Monkey Joe's, one of her local Kingston coffee shops -- that sells fair trade coffee! wuhoo! -- to finish reading our books, instead of doing something much less dorky). The book was so very good. I recommend it to everyone. It wasn't as thought-provoking to me as Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, or Death Be Not Proud (John Gunther), or The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), but it was still thoughtful, just in a different way. I didn't feel as if the book was challenging to my beliefs or faith. If anything, I was caught up in the fearful emotions mysteries set fire in me (I once was afraid that Hercule Poirot, or however his name is spelled, of Agatha Christie's masterful mystery work, was hiding under my bed. I don't have nightmares about the boogie man under my bed, no sir, I worry about the protagonist-gone-bad hiding there) and my desire to find out what happened next in the plot. I found the ideas presented utterly fascinating. K and I even rented Indiana Jones and the Search for the Last Crusade to get more grail-legend stories. As I explore what I think about all the religious implications of the novel, maybe I'll share here :) Hey, and if it's slightly controversal, maybe someone will comment with their thoughts on it too!

In the rockin' town of Kingston (90 miles north of "the City"), K and visited her high school, the FDR house and Vanderbilt house in Hyde Park (across the river), went on lots of tours of the town (which I thoroughly enjoyed :) ), went to the mall (anchor stores: Fillene's, Sears, JC Penney, and Target. How cool is that?! AND, there's a CVS in the mall!), played poker, and went skiing on Friday. Skiing was very cool, and since I've only ever been skiing in North Carolina, I was amazed at the length of the trails, the sheer number of trails, the abundance of ski lifts, the quality of the snow (prolly cause it was realy snow; it even flurried while we were skiing!); I only fell once, and it was a grand fall -- I grabbed onto a tree to prevent from sliding further down the mountain uncontrolled. As K and I concurred, I don't think I could go skiing for more than 2-3 days in a row, it seems like it would get boring. Hmm.

Saturday was interesting because of interesting conversation, but oh-so-sad too. My beloved Yellow Jackets lost to Duke and made me want to cry. Why?! Why?! I might be going this weekend to Milwakee (or however that's spelled) to see Tech in the first round of the NCAA tourney. Wuhoo!

I have to go do real work now, and end this enthralling day-to-day account of my last week. Happy Tuesday, World!

I'm not sure I'm totally happy about not really being at home for more than a week or so this summer...sigh. We shall see, no?

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot: yesterday in the car on the way home from church, the Nine Days song that is the inspiration for the line in my heading, next to my picture (not the Counting Crows line, the one under that), came on the radio! I was stoked, I hadn't heard it in so long. Ah...