We awoke early on Thursday morning. Lorei went to her meeting, and I got to spend some time getting ready for my day. I walked down 5th Avenue (this time in the opposite direction) and soon found myself at St. Patrick's Cathedral. I love churches, so this was a treat for me. As is usually the case when I visit a historic church, the front of the building was under scaffolding. The inside of the church was beautiful, though smaller than I expected. I took some pictures and lit some candles. The gift shop was somewhat of an ideal. Shaped somewhat like an aisle in a grocery store and not anywhere near as wide, the gift shop is not built to handle shoppers. Nevertheless, I was able to buy some postcards, a CD of organ music, and a few other things.

I left the cathedral and continued down 5th Avenue toward the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The museum doesn't open until 10:30, and I arrived just after 10. So I was surprised to find a very long line that filled up the entire lobby and extended outside. The wait outside was a little long, but once they opened up the cashiers, the lines moved rather quickly. I paid my $20 and checked out the map. I then headed to the 5th floor, which has some of the more famous works of art (and a cafe). The cafe was closed, and the galleries were packed. I walked into the first room and came face to face with a collection of Impressionist paintings. Impressionism??? I was very confused and decided to try another floor. I took the escalator to the 6th floor, where I found a very strange exhibition called "Design and the Elastic Mind." I'm still not really sure what the point was. But hey, I did want to see modern art. Across the way I found "Color Chart," which was slightly more interesting but also weird. Some of the paintings were enormous copies of pages from a Pantone paint fan book. But some of them were nicer than that. I also saw Warhol's famous Marilyn paintings. I decided to give the 5th floor another try and headed back there. I was happy to find that the room of Impressionism (as much as I like the Impressionists, it WAS MoMA, after all), there was a very nice collection of well-known modern works. But by then I was really hungry, so I went to check out the cafe. I must admit that this was my favorite part of my visit. I had a lovely view and had a delicious lunch of a turkey sandwich, tomato soup, fresh berries, and hot tea. I could have lingered in that cafe all day, but it was time to explore some more of the museum. The 4th floor was a lot like the 5th--a lot of well-known works. The museum was getting a little more crowded, so it was hard to get just the right view of most of the art. But I was thrilled to see a lot of things I'd only seen in books. Warhol, Picasso, Rothko, Kahlo, Pollock, . . . and more! It was pretty cool. My next stop was the sculpture garden. The garden was smaller than I had expected, but it was still beautiful. As much as I loved the garden, it was time for me to visit the bookstore. And what a bookstore it is! There were so many things that it was really, really, really hard for me to decide what to buy. But I tried to practice restraint and didn't break the bank--though I easily could have.

It was time for me to head back to the hotel, so I walked back down 5th Avenue, stopping by Rockefeller Center on the way. It was packed, as I expected, so I just snapped a few pictures and continued along.

I met my sister back at the hotel (after a short rest), and we decided to brave the subway. I've ridden the subways in London, Paris, and Washington, DC, but never in New York City. We found the subway to be a little less user-friendly than others we've ridden, but we finally figured out what we were doing. We found ourselves at Kiana's office to visit and check out her surroundings. I even got to have a session, which was pretty cool for both of us.

Soon we had to leave, but not without making plans to see her again on Saturday. We took the subway back to our hotel, got freshened up, and took a taxi to our next destination. The taxi ride was funny. Because it was rush hour, it was actually very difficult to find an unoccupied taxi. Finally, one stopped, and the driver motioned that his passenger was about to get out. Then we waited for a LOOONNG time while she dug around in her belongings, I guess to look for money to pay the guy. She finally got out of the taxi, and we were on our way. We were entertained by the driver who criticized the afore-mentioned passenger for not being ready. This became a diatribe on how White people aren't as smart as Asian people and how the government is out to get Asian people. We did a lot of noncommital nodding. Too funny.

And then we reached our destination. Les Halles, a wonderful restaurant owned by the one and only Anthony Bourdain. It was small, crowded, and noisy. But the food was absolutely delicious! I had a warm potato salad with goat cheese and olives for a starter. I could have eaten a gallon of it. My entree was lamb chops. They were so tasty and perfectly cooked. For dessert we shared a "fallen chocolate souffle." It was as wonderful as you might think it would be.

It was raining as we caught another cab back to our hotel. It had been a good day.

I left home at 5:30am to catch my Jet Blue flight from Burbank airport to JFK. I was surprised at how awake I was, but I was also glad. Pop drove to the airport much too fast, but otherwise everything was pretty uneventful. I didn't have any luggage, so I checked in pretty quickly and was through security relatively quickly as well.

The guy sitting in the window seat and I were hoping that the person sitting between us wouldn't show up, but we had no such luck. She showed up almost last, holding her coffee cup and whining about how she was just getting something to eat and didn't hear the announcement--as if that were somehow the airlines' fault. Then she proceeded to tell us that she "hates" sitting in the middle seat and "was so pissed" to find out where she had to sit. I'm not sure of her reason for doing this. Maybe she thought that if she pouted a lot, one of us would, out of the kindness of our hearts, offer to switch with her. Sorry, chica. You were sitting between a straight woman and a gay man, batting your eyes and pouting isn't going to get you squat. Once she saw I wasn't impressed, she pretty much ignored me for the rest of the flight, and I ignored her.

So we arrived in New York without any incident, and even earlier than scheduled. I had scheduled my car to pick me up almost an hour after my flight was supposed to land, so I had some time to kill. I found a place to get some lunch and even got to use Jet Blue's free wireless access in the terminal. I called my car service to pick me up and also had a chance to talk with my cousin Kiana on the phone. We planned to meet up later that day.

My driver took my into Manhattan. It was kind-of cool and funny. I actually recognized the names of things from watching "Law & Order" for all of these years. We arrived at The Roosevelt Hotel, and I set about finding my sister. She got out of her meeting and met me in the lobby. We went up to the room and soon after left to visit some shops around our hotel. We looked at some shoes and some very nice leather jackets (on clearance!).

Kiana texted that she was at our hotel, and we met her outside. Then we walked over to Cosi, a little salad/sandwich/coffee place, and had some dinner. It was really nice to catch up with her, since we haven't seen her in at least 5 years. (She looks great, by the way!)

After our short visit, Kiana went home. Lorei and I decided to walk around and explore our surroundings. We went to the Fossil store and then kept walking down 5th Avenue. We really had no specific destination in mind, so we were very happy when we arrived at the New York Public Library. I've always wanted to see those big lions in person. We took some pictures and experimented with being artistic. Then we continued our journey down 5th Avenue.

We soon arrived at Lord & Taylor, which is, I believe, owned by Macy's now. The store is something like 9 stories tall and is HUGE. We looked at shoes and random things, and then I realized that I didn't have a wrap for Friday night. So we decided to take advantage of the major sale that L&T was having and look for something to wear with my nice dress. Score! I found a jacket that was marked down to $140, but when the salesperson scanned it, it came up at $40! :)

We decided to head back to our hotel. After a short stop at the drug store for snacks, we went to The Roosevelt and settled in for the night. I tried to log onto the internet and ran into some issues. After a call to the service desk, I decided to give up for the night. So we were very surprised when someone from the hotel knocked on the door to help us out with the connection. And I was in my pajamas! Good thing I had my flannel pj's on. He never did manage to get it fixed, but he did try for quite a while. "It's OK," I told him. "It's almost time for Top Chef anyway."

(Hope it doesn't take me too long to get to part 2, but don't hold your breath waiting.)

On Saturday, May 10th, over 50,000 people participated in the Los Angeles EIF Revlon Run/Walk for Women's Cancers. It was an amazing experience that I'm happy to tell you about.

I arrived at Joy's house at 6:45, and she, Katherine, and I were off to the L.A. Coliseum. Over 2 hours later, we were finally parking. Yes, it took us that long to get there. The traffic coming off of the freeway was a mess. And the organizers' attempts to make things easier seemed to make the traffic even worse. We were annoyed but still optimistic.

I was off to the volunteer tent to figure out what to do. I received my volunteer t-shirt and was told to wait "over there." A guy came by and said it was too late for me to do my appointed job (water stop #1), but I could help him out by handing out medals. Soon a group of us had assembled, and we headed over to the floor of the Coliseum to line up and hand out medals.

Soon after we'd lined up, the first runner entered the stadium. He had run the 5K in less than 15 minutes. More runners came into the stadium. Unfortunately, I was too far away from the entrance lane for anyone to take medals from me. My arms got more and more tired from holding those medals without my load getting any lighter. I was trying not to get frustrated, but I found myself getting really annoyed.

So I took matters into my own hands and walked over to the medal table. "My arms are about to fall off," I said. "Do you need help over here?" They did, and I found a new job. And could a job be any better suited for me? I untangled ribbons and organized the medal table. I also got to talk to people and watch the people coming into the stadium. I even got to see Susan, Doreen, Joy, and Katherine come across the finish line.

We had gotten there too late to see the opening activities, so we didn't get to see Tom Selleck or Carrie Ann Inaba. But I was in the Coliseum for the entire concert by the Go-Gos. It was a nice blast from the past. Plus, those women look GOOD! I was acually surprised at how good they look.

After a while, all of the medals were gone, but people were still coming into the Coliseum. I really hoped that the line of medal-hander-outers still had enough for them, 'cause we sure didn't. I was a little miffed because I know that some people had taken more than one. I even saw some volunteers wearing them. It's really sad that someone didn't get a medal because of someone else's greed.

Ah well. Enough negative talk.

We all (Joy, Katherine, Susan, Doreen, Robin, Jennifer, and I) piled into Joy's minivan and drove to the Staples Center. Why is there so much traffic on the 110 on a Saturday? Anyway, we dropped them off at their car and headed home. First we had to stop by Jack in the Box to pick up lunch.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at Joy's place with Liza. She had chemo on Thursday, so she wasn't able to come to the walk with us. But we're already making plans for next year. It was a great time. We overate, talked, laughed, were entertained by Brian, played games on the Wii, and ate some more.

It was interesting, too, to spend time with Liza. It really drove the whole point of the walk home. One day we won't need this walk anymore, because someone will find a cure some day.

Until then, we're making plans to do this again next year. Maybe you'll join us?

San Diego State University has a reputation of being one of the biggest party schools in California, if not the country. So this story should come as no surprise to anyone. Still, it's kind-of sad.

I have to admit, I don't remember ever hearing of Mildred Loving before today. But when I read of her death in this article, I found myself sad that I had never heard her story until now. In 1958 Mildred Loving married the love of her life, completely unaware of the fact that their marriage was illegal. You see, Mildred was black, and her husband Richard was white. Their interracial marriage was against the law in 17 states. This led to an arrest, a trial, and, eventually, the driving out of the couple from their home state. The story of Mildred and Richard is inspiring and gives me hope that true love does exist in the world.

she never wanted to be a hero — just a bride