I’d never noticed this before today:

It’s the ceiling in the public section of the main terminal at National Airport.

The weekend before last, Rudi and I I caught a bus up to New York City for the weekend. We arrived with just enough time to get down to our hotel, drop off our bags, and get back up to Broadway for a play.

The Lifespan of a Fact was in its second night of previews. Featuring only three actors — two-time Tony winner Cherry Jones, two-time Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale, and Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe — the show takes centers around, respectively, a magazine editor who assigns a star essayist’s piece on a Las Vegas suicide to a twenty-something intern for fact-checking. Armed with only the single sheet of notes that the writer has provided, the intern starts to discover the writer has “massaged” some of his facts in pursuit of a larger truth. It was well-acted and well-staged and if I did not love the ending, I did at least understand why it was what it was.

The show was put on at Studio 54, the famous nightclub turned Broadway theater, which was beautiful if slightly incongruous with its decor. The theater space itself is elegant, with ornate carvings on the walls and ceiling, but the stairwells and hallways have leopard-print carpeting. It boasted both a disco ball and a Tony in its entrance hall.

The next day, Rudi went off with some friends to celebrate the reason we’d all come to New York — Paul Simon’s final tour date. They had brunch and then went and got space right next to the stage, giving them a front row view of the show.

I do not love crowds, so I took a more leisurely approach to the day, taking in a street festival (way more cell phone accessories for sale than at D.C.’s street fairs) and then heading to the Green Market at Union Square, where I procured some snacks and bought some yarn from a wool vendor, Catskill Merino Sheep Farm. This is Saxon Merino Wool (175 yards of what they call sport weight and that I’d probably say is closer to DK) in the Blue Boy colorway.

After that, I headed out to Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens known for being the home of the Mets’ ballpark, the U.S. Open tennis facilities, and Corona Park, where both the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs were held. The show was good, but mostly the same as the other two we saw on the tour. He did bring a baseball glove and ball with him, since he grew up playing baseball nearby, and played catch with the audience. (On the third try, an audience member finally got the ball back to him.) His only special guest was singer Edie Brickell, his wife (wearing the red hat), who did the whistling for “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.” He gave shout-outs to his high school and other landmarks. And he definitely got a little choked up toward the end of the show, as he realized he was ending an era.

On Sunday afternoon, my college roommate, Eri, came into the city, and we spent several hours hanging around the Financial District, where our hotel was. We checked out a merry-go-round on the riverfront and then ate some tasty bagels from a nearby shop for a late lunch, before Rudi and I had to catch our bus homeward.

Speaking of hotels, should you ever be looking for one in Manhattan, we definitely recommend the Wall Street Inn. The lobby was classic, the room spacious (even when not considered by NYC standards) and comfortable, and breakfast was included. While the front faces out on one of the city’s older winding streets, the back opens up onto a cobbled alleyway, which was filled with picnic tables from the local bars and restaurants, including a French bakery with award-winning croissants and delectable hot chocolates.

This is the Unisphere at Corona Park in New York City, erected in 1964 for the World’s Fair. This photo does not do it justice for just how big and impressive the statue is.

This morning, I sat along the river and watched helicopters take off and land.

Our Friday night activity gave us a good view of this ceiling…

While I have a traditional weekday work schedule, Rudi’s current job has him working Tuesday-Saturday, which means we don’t get much of a chance to hang out. So we decided late in the week to see if I could get today off in order for us to head to the beach.

Friday night we went to one of the nearby parks for their final Friday night outside movie — Black Panther.

Saturday was filled with my normal weekend activities — pool, garden, laundry, cleaning. After a trip out to catch the last of the sun, we came home to have tacos for supper and watch a film on Netflix. I offered Rudi the choice of two literary adaptations — The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. He picked the latter and we agreed that it was absolutely adorable.

Sunday morning, Rudi went for a bike ride and I went to the farmers market. Then we headed to Delaware to catch Mamma Mia 2 at the old single screen movie house near our favorite beach town, stopping for ice cream at a farm stand along the way. We concluded the evening at a brew house in Rehoboth, where we ate fish tacos, drank beer (mine was of the root variety), and played a game of giant Connect Four.

This morning, we headed to the beach, expecting the low clouds to burn off by noon as the forecast had promised. Apparently Mother Nature doesn’t pay attention to the weather forecast, because the clouds hung around until nearly 5, even occasionally dripping slightly on us. The water was rough and with most of us who were without boogie boards opting to splash, rather than swim. We saw two swimmers need to be rescued from the rip tides by lifeguards, after being unable to explain that you need to swim parallel to the shore, rather than trying to swim toward it in that situation. (I imagine even if you knew that information, your panicking brain could chase it from your memory as you realize you aren’t making progress, but are getting more and more tired trying.)

The sun emerged briefly just before 5, but was chased back behind clouds for another hour or so, by which time I’d given up on being chilly and damp and had changed out of my bathing suit. We ate the drippiest ice cream cones ever and did a little shopping and then headed home, tired but happy.