With Chapel Hill visitors.

Mara, Diane, and I went to the Frick today.  Yes, I finally got to the Frick, which is five blocks down from me so I really have no excuse.  Except that I have been twice before and it is a fairly static museum but whatever.  The Frick is treasure of a collection: every work is stellar (Vermeers! Titians!  Bronzino! Rembrandt! Etc.!) and it is housed amongst the beautiful stately decorative arts furnitures owned by the Frick family.  So basically you are wandering around a dead white man’s mansion, starring at this dead white man’s treasures.  And such treasures.  Along with the aforementioned names there are also many lovely Gainsboroughs and several rooms worth of Bouchers complete with the lovely cherubic dolls faces.  Also, many Whistlers.  Oh and even a Duccio.  The mansion is structured around a beautiful interior courtyard that has a fountain decorated with little bronze frogs.  Frogs people.  Since I’d been to the Frick several times, and since the art presented at the Frick isn’t really my art of choice (beautiful art, yes, but I still prefer my 20th century and contemporary art) I spent a lovely twenty-thirty minutes in said fountained courtyard reading my book.  Very happy.

After our visit to the Frick we parted ways–Mara and Diane to the Met, and myself back home to do some domestic activities and to catch up on my blog.  The Met on weekends scares me because it is so crowded, and I plan on trying to get back there this week for one more visit before I leave New York.

Diane returned around 4:00 to collect her things and head off to catch the train to Saratoga, where her family lives.  Mara and I met up around 5:30 and headed to dinner at Zucchero e Pomodori, this Italian place adjacent to my gym that I have been dying to try.  Every time I walk by this restaurant I see really wonderful plates of pasta and bread baskets filled with delicious looking foccacia.  We timed dinner perfectly: right when we got inside it began to pour and storm torrentially, and the rain let up as soon as we were leaving.  Perfect.

I ordered eggplant parmigan, and Mara ordered a seafood studded pasta.  We were both pleased with our dishes, and I was especially pleased by how light and sweet my eggplant were.  I could’ve used a bit more of the mozzarella with which they’d studded the eggplant, however.

After dinner Mara headed to Lincoln Center to see one of the films being shown by the Film Society and I headed to the gym for some much needed cardio.  Sometimes you just need to zone out.  I then ran errands, came home, prepped for the week, etc.  Last week people!  I can hardly believe it.  And I am most ready to get back to the Whitney tomorrow and resume my work.