Belly and Marley

What a beautiful day. We took a 10 minute ferry ride (after a 45 minute wait to get into the Quik Park), with Belly's friend Marley and her family,  to Governor's Island on the opening day of the Brooklyn Ferry. It's a surprisingly beautiful place, once a colonial navy base, then a Coast Guard base, and now full of open spaces and open to the public. 

In a large open field the New York Gothams baseball club came out to play a team from Elizabeth, New Jersey. They use rules from 1864 -- no gloves, balls that you catch on one bounce are outs, and the pitcher pitches underhand. And yet, with all this -- look in the background and you see the rising new World Trade Center with its glass skin two-thirds in place.

And then, from the blanket next to Plot and Duck, Belly and Marley's family, came a voice that said: 

"Isn't that Isabella?" 

Indeed it was -- The Great PD's old old friend Eli, who Plot and Duck hadn't seen since he was a teenager. He and The Great PD have connected again so they know each other's kids. Eli was a great kid and he's a great young man now. He's the piano player in the Saturday Night Live band so he and his family are living the good New York life.

Then last night Plot, Duck and B-Bone walked through a thunderstorm the few blocks to Lulu and Po, which is the brand new restaurant run by Matt, Po and their daughter Lucy. It's Matt's dream to have his own place, and now he has it. Food's delicious, prices are right. During dinner, Isabella and Lucy played out on the street and in the fire station next door. The weather could not have been more beautiful -- that rare sweetness you get right after a huge storm.

You can't escape it. You just can't. Life is better here. Not more comfortable, not more sensible, and certainly not forever, and definitely not for everyone. But Plot thinks everyone should live in New York at least once in their lives. If you don't, you miss something you can't get anywhere else.