One day in Harlem

I woke up this morning and read my friend Donna's blog and thought to myself, "Self, you need a blog!" I had one once but I didn't use it and promptly forgot the username and password. That digital field lies fallow, so, I sow another. Grow! Grow my little blog, grow!

I'm in NYC with Nicole and Kai until Wednesday. I just put the little bit down for a nap and Nicole agrees, I'm quite good at it. Maybe it's the zen of Nifa, or maybe it's my tig bitties, but 17 trips up and down the hallway of Nicole's brownstone and Kai Aubrey was down for some well deserved REM.

My Kai-care instincts have not always been this sharp. On Saturday Nicole left me on 125th Street with Kai and the stroller. My mission was to walk one and a half blocks down to the health food store to pick up vittles for the picnic. I managed to get down the street ok, weaving Kai past mangoes on a stick and bootleg dvds, but the tiny store was a bit of a problem. There were no less than four people standing in the doorway swilling ice cold shots of miracle tonic (not Noni, but something equally useful.) I'm pretty sure I took some skin off the vendor's ankles. Kai burbled with glee as we pushed past the crowd, but I was mortified. I was tasked with chips, tofu, and any generally portable potables I could round up for $20, but the stress of stroller navigation was too much for me. I grabbed two bean pies ("Bean Pie, my brother?") and made for the check out counter, knocking packages of Spiruteen to the floor as I gracelessly steered my young charge into one wall and then the other. I paid for the pies and made for the door--leaving the pies on the counter. I didn't get far of course, what with the walls being 3 feet apart and the stroller being 4 feet wide. The teenager girling the counter just followed me to the the door with a bag o' pies and a pitying grin. I grabbed the bag and a shot of tonic as I squeezed out the door. I felt a bit better--maybe there were a few miracles in the bottle.

The picnic in Central Park went well, despite my stroller steering inability. Tyrus, Douglas, Turtle, Donna, Jes, Nicole, Ebony, Yasmina, Marlowe and many lovely others joined us on the Great Lawn for assorted treats including cookies, cheese, wine, watermelon, bean pie, and ginger candy. Richard and Raul brought chicken wings and Ebony and Needra showed up with ice cream. It was quite the blanket-oriented soire. LaVonda, we missed you and I'm sorry that I left the directions on some other phone!

After the picnic, we three traversed the subway back up to Harlem and called it a night. On Sunday we walked to Yonkers (I swear we were walking for 18 hours). Ok, so we walked just to the other side of Harlem for the beginning of the Harlem Week festivities. We bought a bottle of wine from Harlem Vintage. I think Jai Jai, the owner, should open a West Coast outlet in Oakland. Nicole went home for shiraz and Six Feet Under and I went to Brooklyn for an adventure with Donna and Jes...

More to come from the 4-5-6 line....