Fifteen years ago today I started my first ever New York job, temping at a temp agency, while Troy and my Aunt Dottie (whose New Jersey home we had been staying in for a few weeks) packed up our dogs and belongings and moved us into our three month Inwood sublet.  I remember excitedly getting on the D train followed by the A train for my first ever commute home as a New Yorker, and when I walked into our hot little one bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive, Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” was playing on the old fashioned CD player.  That apartment, which fell into our laps thanks to a friend of a friend, would be the reason we’d fall in love with Fort Tryon Park and the neighborhood right below it that would become our home sweet home for so many happy years.

Now here we are preparing to leave this city in about ten months, making today an extra special August 26th.  We celebrate with a relaxing Sunday afternoon at home as we rest our tired bodies from yesterday’s very fun end-of-the-summer beach day with good friends.  (So what if Troy’s tan Crocs disappeared and he had to walk barefoot the rest of the day? That’s New York!)  The relatively easy access to the Atlantic Ocean will be among the list of THINGS WE’LL MISS, but the many dear friends who make everything more fun will be at the very top.

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