How to spend a weekend without cracking a book

Surprisingly, I'm able to get by an entire weekend without studying. Most recently this consisted of...

• Home fellowship group at Andy & Anna's on Friday night. Andy was back in town from Abu Dhabi.
• Running with Ezer in the park Saturday morning. We waited for Andy to join us for about ten minutes at the 72nd Street entrance, but unfortunately he was kept up at night by Montezuma's Revenge.
• Visiting the small but quaint Inwood Farmer's Market with Adrian and Wendy. We let Max play in the nearby dog run in Inwood Hill Park afterward.


• Visiting the new Greek and Roman exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum with my mistress home fellowship group--Dustin, Mavis, Mauricio, Carrie, and Cindy.
• My first trip to the Metropolitan Opera to see Puccini's Turandot with Hansen and his friend Bori. I've seen a number of operas, but have never seen so many "stops" pulled out for a finale! (I suppose when The Met wants to wow its guests, it has the ability and the know-how to do so!) The highlight of the opera was the haunting voice of Liping Zhang, singing the part of Liu. Her arias, though not as intrinsically magical as Nessun Dorma, were exquisitely sung. So much so, that when I considered buying one or two on iTunes, I was disappointed by the recorded arias themselves. I think it was simply her voice that infused the music with energy and crystalline beauty.

• Church and nursery duty on Sunday.
• Blind date Sunday afternoon. I thought meeting for lunch would be a casual first date, but unfortunately that didn't work out because of our schedules. So we met at 5:00 at Columbus Circle. I'd brought some things for a picnic in the park, and was later told by some of my lady friends that a picnic in the park is not a casual, low-pressure first date. Oops.

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This post is sponsored by the words Montezuma and crystalline, and the number 72.