As the sun faded from the sky, I found a big rock in a closed campground area and sat to meditate for a while, saw a family of deer grazing while I walked along the road, and took a short hike on one of the circular trails that lead from the summit at Perkins Tower down to where it joins the Appalachian Trail down to Georgia. It was a wonderfully peaceful, refreshing visit, and a proper antidote from shopping at the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall earlier in the day.
Sunday I had a visit with Agnieszka and we visited a couple of parks in New Jersey, including one with an arts and crafts fair. Then we walked around my old haunts in Montclair for a bit before heading to Eagle Rock Reservation, where you can see the New York skyline on a clear day.
We had dinner at Uno's and I rushed back to my yoga class (just 5 minutes late, miraculously) where Kacey joined us for the first time. It will be nice to see her more often if she joins our practice on a regular basis.
Last week we had Poly Cocktails at the DL which was fine, but of course it's not as much fun without Puck there. I had a talk with Marton, who is joining the Open Love NY leadership team, and hung out with some of the Pinjas. On Wednesday we had our women's group, where we met a new member, Natalie. She's only 20 and moved here a month ago for graduate school. She's a big fan of Sherlock too, so I invited her to tomorrow night's Elementary viewing party, the American version that premieres on CBS.
Last Tuesday I had dinner with Jen, the woman I played with at the last Myth party. She's moving to Australia for an indeterminate period of time, so I wanted to spend a little time with her. She's a rarity in my life, someone my own age who I feel a connection with. But there's a reason why we haven't done anything except play once this year - we don't have that spark, that chemistry, the NRE that gets the rocket off the launching pad. Nevertheless, I went to her farewell party on Friday before MMMM to say goodbye one last time.
Beth came over on Saturday and we watched a bunch of the Sherlocks together so she could finally finish Season 2. She's also coming tomorrow night, along with Kacey and Becker. It will be Becker's and Natalie's (obviously) first visit here, and the first time I've ever had more than three people here for an evening, a product of having conventional seating instead of the old playpen. I'm looking forward to playing hostess for the first time in a long while.
