friday to sunday
dinners and drinks with a side of credit card fraud
Happy Sunday to all. For those of you in the Northeast reading this today, I hope you’re having a peaceful day marinating in the moody weather we’ve been handed. We’ve just emerged from a tantalizing streak of sunshine and warmth: a proper tease of what spring, and perhaps a full-blown summer, might hold. However, there’s something restorative about this cooler, greyer reprieve, especially after one hell of a busy weekend. Let’s debrief.
My Friday evening opened at Obvio, the giraffe-printed cocktail lounge in NoMad. My girlfriend Paige and I indulged in Caesar salad cups, tuna tartare tacos, and peanut chicken satay that had a kick of spice. While Paige and I are roomies, the relentless reality of corporate hours have made one-on-ones frustratingly rare, so an unhurried catch-up over cold martinis felt long overdue. Mine arrived with a glass refill bottle nestled in an ice tub; two drinks for the price of one – I’ll take it!
Our mellow evening took a jarring turn when I was bombarded with a rapid succession of verification codes, followed by purchase confirmations confirming that my credit card had been used to buy ~$20k worth of third-row tickets for the Knicks vs. Mavericks game at MSG. In a mildly cosmos-addled haze, Paige and I strategized between sips (one proposal being to sweep my entire checking account into a new one, which, thank God, we had the wherewithal not to action.) Paige quietly settled our bill while I stood outside locked in a standoff with an automated phone system. Eventually, I made the executive decision to turn my card off and leave that particular crisis for future Alex.
We hailed a yellow cab to a friend’s apartment, arriving with what turned out to be the evening’s best icebreaker. The party was a wonderful mix of old friends, a bartender with three specialty cocktails on offer (my allegiance immediately pledged to the peach margarita) and a magician! I spent a solid thirty minutes attempting to deconstruct his tricks and, having failed spectacularly, requested his business card as consolation.
From there, we migrated to Club 205: an unpretentious dive on the LES that runs exclusively on throwback sing-alongs, stocks its women’s bathroom with lollipops, and dispenses complimentary Jell-O shots upon request. I think that paints the portrait. After a great deal of dancing and karaoke-adjacent behavior, we meandered through a few bars in Tribeca, one of which was allegedly a regular spot in JFK Jr.’s social rotation. I ended up in a gifted Cîroc bucket hat, double-fisted with margaritas courtesy of friends who’d generously absorbed my card-less situation. The late night crew rounded things out with spicy chicken nuggets as the birds began their morning song. I Ubered uptown as dawn crept in.
The next morning arrived with an urgent to-do list and a surprisingly effective hangover remedy: necessity. Resolving the fraud situation forced me to be focused and functional. In the process, I performed the long-overdue ritual of updating every password I’d been lazily recycling since middle school. With the crisis managed and the sun making a valiant appearance, I slipped on my Carel ballet flats and walked downtown.
I first stopped to visit my sweet friend Ava in her new apartment, where she whipped me up an iced, foamy peppermint coffee…WIFEY. I then joined Cecily and Coco for brunch at the newly opened Lily Pond Club. It’s a tiny, intimate space, the food is solid, and while it would absolutely do the job for a casual bite, I wouldn’t sell my first-born for a reservation. We spilled out into the West Village afterward, with New Yorkers queued at every conceivable spot, and outdoor tables cluttered with spritzes. We joined friends at a table by the water and lingered until the restaurant, quite reasonably, needed us to vacate for dinner service. I trekked back uptown in the last gasp of golden hour and closed out my day at a very satisfying 20,000 steps.
A quick turnaround – snakeskin trousers stolen from my mother’s wardrobe and a black chiffon top – and I was back in a cab headed to the West Village for dinner at Umeko with Cecily, Nadya, and Bella. The four of us felt transported to a quick Japan vacay; seated cross-legged on mats (rotating which foot was asleep), working through chirashi bowls and splitting bottles of sake. It was so zen; the antithesis of our usual loud, dim, pulse-heavy haunts.
We continued to Casa Cip for pisco sours on the terrace, then drifted to the jazz lounge to join friends and catch the live music. Cars were called by 1am, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
This morning I woke up rested, grateful for a full weekend, and equally grateful for the grey skies that have absolved me of any guilt for staying in today. Today’s agenda is a gentle one: finishing The Untethered Soul, tending to some life admin, a treadmill walk soundtracked by Eva Meloche’s new vlog, and reading Paloma Meehan’s new Substack article.
I feel lucky: for the friends, for the city and all its wildly different frequencies, for spring edging its way in, and for whatever the next few months have in store. I hope your Sunday is restorative, your to-do list manageable, and your Sunday Scaries entirely absent.
Love the debrief
cutie