New York, New York

I've spent most of the last two weeks hanging out in New York City, a product of my post-trip restlessness, a desire to catch-up with long-lost friends, and a smattering of interesting job leads. As I am a lady of leisure right now, my days are mostly going to be occupied with sitting at Starbucks on my laptop anyway, so I figured I might as well change venues for a little while and keep myself entertained with an exciting new city. And I do so love New York.

Last week I caught up with my friend Justin from Dartmouth, and in between joint GMAT study sessions and gossip fests at -- you guessed it -- Starbucks, we squeezed in some fun Manhattan jaunts. First was a visit to hole-in-the-wall speakeasy, whose location and name I will not be disclosing because it's just so much cooler that way. The bar was tucked away inside a hot dog restaurant, and accessible only through an inconspicuous phone booth inside the restaurant. While we were waiting to be granted entrance to the secret bar, we sat and enjoyed some of the best hot dogs I have ever had. I highly recommend the teriyaki hot dog, topped with sauteed pineapple chunks!

We later made a pilgrimage to Serendipity, where I had been sternly instructed to eat a delicious Frozen Hot Chocolate for my sister. I did, and practically put myself into a diabetic coma, spending the rest of the night in my hotel room with a cold sweat and the shakes. But it was so delicious.

On Wednesday, as fate would have it, my aunt Genie and cousin Madelin were arriving in New York after moving Maddie out of her freshman dorm room at Bard College in Westchester. We met up in Grand Central Station and had a really nice (though noisy, of course!) lunch and coffee break, and had a chance to catch up on college stories, travel stories, family stories, and all the important updates. It was really nice to see some family for the first time since coming back into the country, and thoroughly helped on my way to restoring a sense of balance.

I spent the weekend in Boston, mostly preparing for the dinner party I hosted on Saturday night for a couple of co-workers from my last project at Oliver Wyman. In December I had donated a four-course Alaskan dinner for four to the OW charity auction, and it was the winning bidders who were coming over to cash in for a tasty feast of fresh Alaskan seafood. It took me all day to get everything set up for what was my first official dinner party, but it was well worth the effort. We started off with a wild berry salad (a recipe I stole from Simon's), and a hot appetizer of steamed Red King Crab legs with butter. My guests were already pretty impressed with the enormous crab legs, and the delicious crab meat, fresher than any they had ever had courtesy of 10th & M Seafoods and FedEx. For the main course I served a surf'n'surf entree, with halibut sauteed in white wine and salmon cooked in a brown sugar-Jack Daniels sauce, and whipped sweet potatoes on the side. The meal was rounded off with a sweet dessert of rhubarb crisp and vanilla ice cream (my personal favorite!). I think I did my part to convince my guests that Alaskan cuisine really has no equal, and hopefully they'll all be making a trip up soon.

Back in New York this week, I'm hanging out at Starbucks, working my way down the Wall Street Journal's 'Best Burger' list, and trying out some fun Midtown bars. Last night, I caught back up with my friend Justin to go to a fabulous event hosted at Radio City Music Hall: a debate between James Carville and Karl Rove, moderated by Charlie Rose. Obviously I wasn't going to pass up a chance to go to this. In case you do not share my obsession with all things political, as a debater and policy wonk this particular match up is like the All-Star Game of the Professional Debate Society, the Ali-Frazier fight of the modern political era. Even Charlie Rose was billing it as the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Justin and I grabbed our front-row balcony seats and talked excitedly about what we thought they would cover in the debate. We decided to turn it into a bet, with me predicting that the first question would be on North Korea (I mean, obviously) and him predicting that the first question would relate to Obama's selection of Sotomayor, the wager being that the loser had to buy the first round of drinks at Fireside after the debate. And, much to my disappointment, as Charlie Rose took his seat and pulled out his notecards, the first question he popped out was to Karl Rove: will Sotomayor be confirmed? Damn. Manhattan cocktails are so expensive.

I have to admit (though grudgingly) that Rove completely swept the floor with Carville. Clearly they don't call him the Ragin' Cajun for nothing: whatever you have seen of him on CNN and Meet the Press, I assure you that James Carville is ten times more out of control and unrestrained on the live stage. So much so that he often didn't make sense, shouted incoherently, was constantly interrupting Rove and Rose with inane and immature comments, and getting completely off topic. At one point, as he practically screamed about Hurricane Katrina, he somehow got shouting about Waco, Proposition 8, and Oliver North. Justin and I kept looking at each other in total disbelief, a bit disappointed that our representative on stage was not posing particularly good arguments. Karl Rove, by contrast, was incredibly poised, confident, and intelligent, backing up everything he said with quotes, statistics, references to articles, studies, and polls, taking the time to quote directly from David Brooks' latest NYT column, Bill Clinton's stump speeches, and Obama's inauguration address. Most of his arguments, though I personally believe them to be politically flawed, were rhetorically compelling and well reasoned. Moreover, he directly addressed every question asked of him by Charlie, never wavering on the topic at hand, while Carville rambled off on tangents and rarely answered direct questions. As a debater myself, I was actually really frustrated at the lack of clash in this debate, and felt that the clear win went to Rove. I'd even have given him like a 26 in speaks. Carville acted like an overzealous but lazy freshman debater, who loves to hear himself speak but refuses to take the time to do solid research. (And I would know.)

Alors, it turns out that an auditorium full of Manhattan politicos is about as rowdy and uncontrollable as a stadium full of Irish football hooligans. I was surprised to find that, upon questioning by Charlie Rose, about half the audience aligned themselves with Karl Rove politically and half the audience aligned with James Carville -- not exactly what I would expect in a part of the country that is so famously not "pro-America." When audience members heard an argument they agreed with or thought was clever, they cheered and stomped their feet. When Karl Rove started saying that the party responsible for the catastrophic hurricane damage in New Orleans was Mayor Ray Nagin, most of the audience booed and hissed. A group of students stood up in the middle of the debate and started chanting "Torture is a war crime -- arrest Karl Rove!", and several people tried to run across the stage with hand-painted signs displaying similar messages. The whole event was a chaotic display of political emotion and democratic noise, and it really did feel like some sort of sporting event. I was just waiting for someone to throw a shoe.

I'm heading to Bliss this afternoon for a spa pedicure, then planning to meet up with some more Greenies for drinks tonight. I love this travel momentum, which is causing me to do so much more than I used to, and makes for never having a dull moment. And I love New York.