Last Friday was my birthday and I celebrated by playing hooky from work and having some fun in the city.

The Ballet
I started off the day by going to ballet class with Lyla and Tracy. Lyla is too damn cute in her little tutu. Unfortunately, the battery in the video camera died on me, but stayed tuned for some clips in the near future.

Life Insurance
I thought there was something ironic about having to go in for tests for a life insurance application on my birthday. Just a little checkup, so nothing too painful other than when he ripped the EKG pads off of my chest.

Lunch
Having fasted all morning for the afformentioned checkup, I was starving and figured I'd get my cholesterol back up with a nice juicy burger. I had done my research ahead of time and headed for what was supposed to be one of the best burgers in the city at the "Burger Joint" at Le Parker Meridien hotel. Unfortunately, this place is so tucked away in the back of the hotel that I accidentally went to the wrong place. I ended up at the restaurant that's connected to the hotel, which apparently isn't the burger joint. Oh well. I had a good (but not great) burger nonetheless.

Museum
In a move that will surely make my Dad proud, I went to see an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. It was called New York Changing and featured a series of photographs taken by Berenice Abbott throughout the city in the 1930s. Next to each one was a photograph taken by Douglas Levere in recent years. Each of Levere's photos was taken with the exact same camera, in the exact same spot and at the same time of the day/year as the original. It made for a really interesting comparison. Sadly, between the misguided ubran planning of Robert Moses and the lousy architecture of the second half of the last century, the "after" shots almost never seemed like an improvement.

Shopping
I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket so I headed over to Bloomingdale's. Unfortunately I didn't find anything I liked to spend it on.

Drinks
I was rescued from my failed shopping by a call from my friends John and Ziad who just happened to be in town and having drinks a few blocks away. I met them over at the W Hotel for a very tasty Manhattan...my new favorite drink.

Cake
Since we didn't want to leave Lyla out of the birthday cake action, we had cake before going out to dinner. Tracy baked it herself and it was quite tasty. I'm not sure that Lyla understood that it was Daddy's birthday and not hers. We decided to share the occassion. :-)

Dinner
Tracy took me out to dinner at Tabla, one of our favorite restaurants at 25h & Madison. It's not really an Indian restaurant. They just sprinkle in some Indian influences here and there.

All in all it was a great day. Of course, the highlight of the day was walking 5 blocks down Lexington Ave behind a lady with toilet paper hanging out of her pants. Ahhh, the simple pleasures in life. ;-)