NC to NY ... and Back Again

The big (sad) day finally arrived. On Tuesday, June 2, Katie was ready to make her move to New York. In order to delay the sad part for a few days, I drove with Katie to Brooklyn to help her get settled. Heading-out day was plenty busy. First, there were lots of kitties to say goodbye to. Katie had just found and rescued these little babies just 2 days previously while we were at church. Since she found them, she had to name them: Ike and Ray. (Turns out Ray is a female, so now it's Ike and Raye.)

The "boys" were finally able to start getting in the wheat. What a relief!
Tim Lawson: Papa John:
and Mr. Farmer himself, Weldon:

While I did evening chores, Katie loaded the car. When we were ready to go (close to 11pm), we had a good strong cup of coffee, kissed Weldon goodbye, and headed out. Katie drove and it was my job to keep her awake. Personally, my eyelids never felt heavy, but we were both plenty exhausted. We stopped often to pee and stretch our legs, but what a l -- o -- n -- g drive. The sun was coming up while we were going through PA, so I enjoyed seeing a little of that beautiful countryside. The GPS didn't give us too many problems. It finally had to admit that we were right :-)

We arrived at the apartment a little before noon, a few hours longer than the maps predicted, but we did make a lot of stops. Sebastien had flown up from Miami to help with the move, and he had just exited the subway when we pulled in. Talk about timing! We unloaded the car and then found some lunch. Jamaican goodies, just around the corner from Katie's apartment. mmmmm
I hadn't had a Ting in years!
Then a quick stop at the local hardware (?) store for a broom. We didn't need any Tide, but one can always use more Time, right?!
We returned the rental car to Manhattan and stopped at a few shops before taking the subway "home."

The next morning, Thursday, all of Katie's earthly belongings were delivered by truck from Miami. The shrink-wrapped pallets were set on the sidewalk in front of the apartment and the 3 of us got everything inside the lobby and then up the elevator to the apartment. I think it went extremely well. Sebastien's body-building buddy was supposed to be there to assist us, but we got along just fine without him, thank you very much. We were pretty hard on Sebastien, but we finally convinced him that jumping wouldn't solve anything. That night we had supper in a cute little Mexican restaurant right across the street from the apartment. I had a hamburger - go figure. Sure was tasty :-)
Sebastien spent Friday with a friend and Katie and I went into the city for some r&r. We spent a couple of fun hours at MOMA and had lunch there.

After the museum, we dashed through the rain drops to visit a few shops, including a fabulous chocolate shop, a Japanese sweets shop, and maybe another Japanese grocery or two. Then it was back to the subway and back to Brooklyn.

Saturday morning we were up before 5 to make the trip to JFK. I had a good flight home, through DC, and Pat picked me up at the airport. Weldon always asks, "Did you see anyone you know?" This time I really surprised him by saying, "Yes! I saw Eddie McGee." He was flabbergasted. "You DID??" (Eddie used to go to the same church as we go to.) "Yup. He was in the movie we watched last night - Junebug. :-)" It's true and made us all laugh.... And then it was time for chores.