We spent my 34th birthday in Central Park.

It was hot, crazy hot. The kind of hot only New York City gets, where walking just melts you and the soot from the streets rises up and lands on your skin. I remember when I lived there feeling the need to shower twice a day.

We got a pushcart hot dog lunch and made a picnic of it on the lawn. Mara was already starting to get flush but she loved the hot dog. Interesting addition…NYC Pushcarts now have caloric values beside their prices for all the food. Really?

We then headed over to the zoo, after Thane had a large animal balloon made that he promptly had to give up because balloons were not allowed in the zoo. He was a trooper and we were allowed to put it in the “waiting” area while we toured the zoo in hopes (or not) that it would be there when we were done. It was not. $3 for 5 minutes and we did not have to take it through all of Manhattan? I am ok with that.

We saw everything at the zoo this trip….The kids loved it. I was not a fan of the rain forest and promptly went back into the NYC hot day to escape the heat and humidity.

The Central Park polar bear is always a good conversation piece. One of them once underwent therapy for boredom….he swam back and forth, back and forth all day. Today we got to see him have a mighty good back scratch on the rocks.

There were these art structures outside the park. Thane, after coaxing from mom and dad, did some performance art for us.

After the park we met up with Nouna and Daniel. It was Memorial Day, so finding a late lunch spot became a round about all around midtown and included me wlaking into a dumpster, causing a bruise that stayed on my arm for 2 weeks and got quite a few comments. We eventually settled on sitting outside at Rue57. Mara quickly passed out in Nouna’s arms.