This is not LIVE but from the home office of the Catman in Jerrsey City with Yaz refusing to get off his daddy's office chair.
SIT DOWN, GRAB A PEPSI OR FAVORITE BEVERAGE AND READ... THIS IS A LONG STORY!
It's so nice first of all not having to go to work on a weekend. The day starts with me meeting up with NJDavid at the Pierre for breakfast. Rudi and his lovely wife Gisela arrived with their friends Enid and Marty a little while later (NYC traffic is horrid.) We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast where we all talked about our FlyerTalk adventures and how everyone was doing.
Rudi then passed on to me some nice gifts from Old Gold: A FLyertalk luggage tag with my name on it and a sheriff's badge since I am also COMMANDER CATCOP!!! I was stunned, and thank you Old Gold for thinking for me!
Hope to meet you soon to personally thank you.
The bad news is the rain went down like cats and lions. We treked in the monsoon for a quick tour of where NJDavid works. (thanks for taking the time Dave!) When we got out, the rain was worse so Gisela and Enid went one way and the guys went to do a little walk in the rain.
We all got relatively drenched but Rudi has the best attitude of it: you must make the most of it so having my Brooks Brothers white linen pants and shoes soaked because irrlevent to the fun time we were having.
A stop at 21 Club where Mr. Stuck up Nose raised a fuss because Rudi and his friend has no jackets *required. Rudi has a nice Swiss vest on, I saw no problem with it but the men put on jackets and we had sidecars which were good. Mr. Stuck up Nose was going into hysterics because people were walking in with no suit jackets.
After I showed them my shortcut through Rockefeller Center and teh rain eased a bit we decided to go to the U-S Open and see if tennis would resume. Luckily we did.
It was the women's semifinals and it was my first visit to the OPEN. Yes, the prices of everything are astronomical. But the real treat was seeing two awesome tennis matches which could have gone either way:
Lindsay Davenport Versus Serena Williams: Lindsay was the crowd favorite but Serena held her one. Some lucky shots and Serena edged out Lindsay for the finals.
the second match was tennis history in the making: the very beautiful and talented top seed Martina Hingis versus Venus williams. crowd split on both but both women showed why they're among the best in the world. Martina moves like a cat prouncing across the court and quickly took the first set but Venus rallied in the second and her serve moves like a 7-47. The third set could have gone either way, it was Martina leading, then Venus build up a great lead and then ran into some problems (including corn rolls falling off) Martina ended up staying the course and winning.
Saturday's final: Serena takes first set but Martina rallies for the win.
After the OPEN off to Smith and Wollensky for their excellent steaks and some more talk. I was sorry to see evening end but as Rudi said we would see each other again in Hawaii.
And it was great meeting the Martel's friends Marty and Enid. very friendly and I suggested they too join Flyertalk.
So thanks everyone for a wonderful Friday and many great memories!