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I am finally doing it, I have been talking about it since last year and on Friday I took the plunge. I booked myself and myself alone onto a flight to New York in February! Jeane has been very encouraging, she even bought a sleeper couch to entice me, lucky me to have such fantastic friends. The girls are already doing some serious online shopping and wishing that they had stuck to their chores during December so that they could have earned their full quota of pocket money. I am going to do my own bit of retail therapy online, no point in wasting a week in the shops when I can spend it with friends! Of course I am not totally INSANE, I will definitely pop into the mall and probably go to the outlet stores for a look...but this trip is all about catching up with people I care about and have not seen for SIX years. I am also really nervous, my best memories happen to be in Rye, I will see my old house, it is around the corner from Jeane so no avoiding it and I am sure there will be a lot of changes around town, some of which I may not like. I really did have a sense of belonging when I lived there and now I am going to be a VISITOR, a tourist and I am not sure that the thought sits too well with me. I guess it may actually be good for closure, that chapter of my life has always felt incomplete, the rug got pulled from under my feet and i was not ready to leave. But George W has been around and from what I have heard it is not the rosy USA it was when last we were there. ANYWAY... I am more thrilled than not, and I cannot wait for that walk through Manhattan to Grand Central and the train trip out to Harrison, then the walk to Jeane in Rye. No way am I getting a cab, I need to experience it all the way it used to be, the walk is still so familiar in my head. I am going to be a part of it....all over again for a week!