Sidewalks

The sidewalks are once again filled with strollers and dogs, everyone in the city apparently anxious to soak in the sun and sights after a winter spent trapped inside. While the Christmas season is a fun time to be in the city surrounded by the ongoing pageantry of parades and trees and decorations everywhere, the rest of the winter leaves something to be desired.

I appear to have quickly gotten over my southerners attraction to snow. I like the pattern of it falling down and the way my dog slides along snow covered sidewalks in excitement before diving into fresh piles just off the street, but weeks of 20-30 degree weather leave the city blanketed not in crisp white snow but too often a sludgy pile of mush.

For the past few weeks we've been teased with the coming change of season and I've never paid so much attention to the weather forecasts as I do now. We handle the 40 and 50 degree days quite well, snuggled into our apartment and enjoying the blast of air whenever we go outside. I've even got to like that kind of cold chill when I run or walk in that 'brisk' air. But anything below that sends me scrambling to the internet to search for our next home in a tropical paradise.

I think thats why the city seems to have unwrapped itself with the return of warm weather. My wife has taken to walking the 2-3 miles home from her Times Square job in the evenings and when we time it just right I can meet her at the Great Lawn in Central Park with our dog. The view from the north side of a walk around the Great Lawn is fantastic in the early evenings of spring. The grass, untouched all winter while the Park's department does its thing, spreads out before you and seems to melt into the trees and the skyline.

A few lucky days I've been able to ride my bike into work and the Riverside Park foliage has been just as breathtaking. The mix of parks, ships and river views are always fun and on pleasant days that crowds are lining the bike paths to share that view. The rest of the scene is distracting enough to forget for a moment that across the river lies the wasteland known as New Jersey.

I am starting to get quite eager for the summer schedule again. Last summer we only sampled the available activities here with my wife doing yoga in Times Square and both of us taking in free movies in the parks. I am ready for margaritas at the boat basin cafe overlooking the Hudson River and parts of Broadway shutting down to cars. Bring on the heat.