Excess

Just back from a few days in NYC where we stayed in mid-town (not a great location unless you want Broadway theatres), and visited my daughter who works at the Tenement House Museum. It was so freezing those few days; we mostly huddled around mid-town and ate a few bad meals. Here are some impressions I have from that visit:

* one Scottish bar near the theatre district that carried 250 single malts.

* Delmonico's Gourmet Grocery where the display and variety of prepared foods was almost embarrassing: eggs cooked every way imaginable; oatmeal with whole milk, skim milk, soy milk, no milk; a dozen kinds of cut-up fruit; sushi; Korean; 1/2 dozen kinds of soups--all served 24/7. Guess New Yorkers demand this.

* lots of tourists from Spain

* frenetic energy level on stage in "In The Heights;" but a boring story line

* pizza no better than Pizza Hut

* friendly wait-staff at Nonna

* seeing a movie on the 5th floor of a megaplex

* noticing the impossibly high heels of some passersby (how do they walk in those things!)

* having the worst pasta ever at Fagiolini, disproving the old adage that you can't get a bad meal in NYC

* finding quality, value and good service at Lower East Side restaurants, La Barra Cevecheria and Bruschetteria

* paying $17 for a Diamond Cosmo that tasted like soda pop, and packed no alcohol punch

* leaving NYC in a sloppy snowstorm and returning to Boston where no snow had fallen.

That's excess for you...