little lady, big apple: I'm Back in the Big Apple!

{...well, for like 36 hours before I leave town to ring in 2012.}

Hooray! I miraculously made it back in one piece sans drama of the 2010 blizzard.

But it wouldn't be a little-lady-trip without some sort of nonsense. My mother, the most on-top-of-things-person-on-the-planet, set two alarms this morning, neither of which ever went off...

I have never been more thankful of my paranoia that causes me to do things like set a third back-up alarm.

iPhone, what did I do before there was you?

The train ride back to NYC was actually fine. It was packed out the wazoo, though, and I tried to not let the other panicking passengers increase my blood pressure. Every stop, people entered with a mad dash to find the optimum seating arrangement, which doesn't exist on a sold-out train. I sat in front of a blind woman who mistook my suitcase at the end of the car for hers before we got off at Penn Station. I hobbled towards her, insisting she had the wrong one, and helped find hers. And then I watched as she exited the train, 40 times more gracefully than I. I must have appeared completely incapacitated trying to maneuver my heavy bags since a man approached me and asked if he could help me with my suitcase. "Oh, thank you, THANK YOU! I really appreciate it!" As we inched up the way-too-skinny escalator, the man looked at my large white box, smiled, and asked me what kind of dog I have.

...

"That's a sewing machine."

...

I made it to the street and was so very thankful it wasn't snowing or raining or freezing cold. Despite not being able to physically lift my bags in unison, I still had that going for me. I pushed my suitcase along the sidewalk and stood there for 15 minutes unable to get a cab. A black limo pulled up and asked if I needed a lift. It wasn't white, it wasn't a party stretch size, and it cost only $30 instead of last year's $50. But I did it!

After making friends with the Haitian driver, who asked if he could take me to Haiti in February {"How about I just take your word for it that it's a lovely place and I'll go with my buddies sometime?"}, I was at my apartment. And after heaving my bags one by one up the stairs,

home!

For only enough time to unpack and repack! :)

Here are some images from the past few days: