In the movie of our life, this would be a flashback scene

Slightly out of chronological order, here's the comedy of errors tale of our departure for the Big Apple.

Thursday morning comes and in spite of our copious planning, John and I were still scrambling to get everything done in time to leave at noon.
As John was heading out the door to go pick up HT for housesitting duty, I started to slice myself some bread for toast -- and tore deep into my thumb with the serated bread knife. I applied direct pressure, I held it over my head, and yet it was still bleeding when John and HT got back.
All of this wasted time I needed to spend getting ready, and soon it was well past 11 a.m., when I'd wanted to give Haley her kitty tranqs for the flight. I tried to catch her just before 11:30, and she lost her marbles. I trapped her in our basement bathroom and she screamed and yowled and bit my shoe when I tried to get near her. Giving a cat a pill is no treat normally but I couldn't imagine how I was going to hold her long enough to jam the thing down her gullet.
About 20 minutes into the cat debacle, Matt showed up to give us a ride to the airport. The brave soul came downstairs with oven mitts on and volunteered that he's pretty good with angry cats. Much against her will, he got her into her cat carrier and I whisked her off to the vet to let someone there help with the pill problem.
She must have worn herself out, because once she was in the carrier, she was mute -- and stayed that way for the rest of the day. The receptionist at the vet was able to grab her by the scruff and give her the pill with zero effort. They must have thought I was the biggest loser not to be able to do that.
Matt got us to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and the Spirit Airlines woman kindly put us in a three-seat row to ourselves, so I could have Haley under the seat in front of me but still have room for my computer bag and such.
I cringed when a woman sat down directly in front of John with a baby who began caterwauling before the plane even took off, but soon that baby and he one behind us mellowed out.
The flight was uneventful, our taxi ride in a breeze, and the doorman at our high rise loaded all our bags onto a cart to help us make it up in one trip.
We opened the door and I was assaulted by the smell of urine. Yikes, I thought, can I live for a month in a place that smells like this?
The baby across the hall wails that full-throated raspy scream that almost sounds like an angry cat ... and I should know.
But as we stepped out onto our balcony, nothing, not my thumb wrapped in blood-soaked gauze, not my bitchy cat still hiding in her carrier, could take away from how amazing it was to be here.

Now we've aired the place out and it smells better.
We can't hear the baby at all in the bedroom, so even if it's yowling time, we can escape it.
My thumb still bleeds a little if I catch it on something, but it's doing better.
Haley's even adjusted to the new place enough to hang out in bed with us -- something she won't even do at home.

Some of the cool stuff we've already done:
* First Friday at the Guggenheim -- imagine a dance club blended with a high class cocktail party in the lobby of one of the world's best known museums. People of all ages drank and shouted over the DJed music, and many even looked at centuries-old Russian art.
* Saturday morning at Greenmarket in Union Square -- so this is what farmer's market is like when you live in a huge city. Great selection, even better people watching. Just be judicious in your purchases since you'll have to schlep it all home on the subway.
* We popped in to literary hangout Elaine's (on Woody Allen's birthday, but we didn't see him there)

I've also worked out in our building's gym, we cooked a spaghetti dinner, and we slept in -- generally trying to live a normal life in our home away from home.

I'd give you some photos, but as seems to be the way for us, we're suffering technical difficulties. We don't have the cord that connects our camera to the computer. Maybe it's in one of the boxes we UPSed to ourselves? We'll find out Monday.