Our fin de siecle New York vacation

my Jersey Girl

New York is freezing and full of Europeans and young women wearing their hair in very high topknots like this. I've been spending money like a drunken sailor while wondering how I'm going to earn any ever again. This was the first place I ever held a full-time job and also the last. I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

Worries can wait until next week. Because Isabel loves theater, we've seen Fried Chicken and Latkes and Old Jews Telling Jokes and they were both pretty good, but Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was better and you should see this production if you have the chance. It was funny and dark and I am in awe of Tracy Letts.

We've been to Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken (the Cake Boss's place) and Isabel explained to me who Joey and Madeline were and it was a delightful expedition even though we had to wait for an hour to buy our cupcakes and I would never, ever go back in a million years if you paid me and twisted my arm and it was the last bakery on earth.

fans, Joey, Madeline

We've eaten pizza at Eataly and it is good, but the pizza at Roberta's in Brooklyn is better. I like Brooklyn and at 16 would have aspired to live there, but as a mother and viewer of Girls, I hope Isabel does not.

my Girl? 

We've eaten a handful of non-pizza meals, but the best by far was at Ssam Bar. The pork buns. The toasted bulgur. The hanger steak. The crispy rice cakes. The service. Everything.

But even better than the dinner at Ssam Bar was when I bought Isabel a dress, a cheap dress on lower Broadway, and we were walking out of the store and she said, "Mom, you're the best."

I don't care if it's just because I bought her a dress. I'm buying happiness this week and that made me profoundly happy.