Yay!

My friend Kathleen is here! She's been filming a TV pilot ("Empire State", with David Morse, Michael Nouri and Gail O'Grady) a bit north of here (please spare a bit of mojo for it to get picked up and also filmed here in town, instead of some pathetic wannabe "city" subbing for NYC. Yeah right... Which means NYState and NYC have to continue tax credits for production: it costs them millions and brings in billions, not to mention all the local jobs...), and is going to be around for a few days.

Some East Village-y stuff tomorrow, then we'll see about the rest of the week. We've never done the Circle Line tour round Manhattan, or the Statue of Liberty, or South Street to look at the old ships...but it'll probably be shopping and eating, as usual. Not that there's anything wrong with that.



UPDATE: Monday, we went shopping at some East Village vintage stores (Gabay's and Tokyo Joe's), had hot choc and pastries at Veniero's, hung around my place. Which only the imminence of K's arrival got me to tidy up, and I must say it does look nice. It wasn't dirty, you understand; just messy. Like Aeron's chamber at Fian academy, it looked as if the goats had got in. And set up housekeeping. Shouldn't take me long to trash it up again...

Tuesday: we had lunch at Veselka, this great Ukrainian coffee shop on 2nd Avenue, with my friend Michael: pierogis (M), turkey pot pie (K), corned beef hash with 2 poached eggs (me). All the food is made fresh on premises, even the baked goods (if you're in NYC and have never been, give it a shot), and it was nummy as usual and we were there for two hours just laughing and talking.

Then we walked around a bit in a misty drizzle, and admired the Callery pear trees which are in full flower, and hit Butter Lane, a new and fabulous cupcake cafe, for customized cupcakes. You can have American or French buttercream frosting in your choice of flavors (but is there anything, really, but chocolate??) and your choice of vanilla or chocolate cake. So I went with choc American buttercream with vanilla cake, and so did Michael, and Kathleen had key lime frosting with I think chocolate cake. Dee-lish.

Bruce Abbott, Kathleen's husband, arrived last night from LA, so they're going to a Broadway matinee today, and then we'll see. He's attending Chiller Theatre, a horror con in Parsippany NJ, this weekend...he starred in the two Re-Animator movies and is a guest on the program.

So we'll have some more fun stuff before they leave.

UPDATE 2: Bruce and Kathleen and I hung out at my house, then went to have lunch at Frank, a tiny Italian restaurant on 2nd Avenue: yummo meatballs and pasta and stuff, with phenomenal bread. The restaurant has a dynamite playlist: we heard the Who, the Beatles, my favorite Tom Petty song ("Learning to Fly"), bunch more good stuff.

And then..."Ladies and gentlemen, from Los Angeles California, he Doors!" and Jim crashes the party. "Roadhouse Blues", which was fine. But geez! Can't he leave us alone half an hour to have lunch in peace??? It always happens...he's just gotta get in on the fun. And even have himself announced, just to make sure we didn't miss his presesnce...Kathleen says it happens all the time, ever since the movie. Just Jim, checkin in, keeping tabs...

Then back again to my house for a while and a visit to my jeweler friend Gregg Wolf. Kathleen had to go do some looping for an indie flick she's in with William Hurt, called "The River Why", and Bruce had to go out to Parsippany for the horror con. She's going home tomorrow and he'll leave on Saturday.

So great to see them! They both look gorgeous, and if K's pilot sells and they can shoot it here, they'll be here a lot more. Yay!