An akika, Hannah, and a sunset.

So, it's Sept. 3rd and guess what?

I didn't find an apartment! Sad!!! I was the one left standing when the music stopped. Needless to say, I do have a rather high bar set in terms of what I need. Wood floors. Sunlight. My cats. Easy N/W train access. A stove for cryin' out loud. Can you believe that people these days can live in an apartment without a stove? I may not cook that often, but I'd like the option to break out the Dutch Oven once in a while. (At least until NASA invents some version of the replicator.)

I took Labor Day weekend off to lackadaisically lament my circumstances, escaping into several movies and a Sci-Fi miniseries called The Lost Room. I loved the first 4 episodes of this bizarre little piece of television. The bus-ticket segment made every molecule in my body happy. I think I would have been happier with the rest of it if, rather than a miniseries, they had completed an entire season. The writers certainly left enough of an open ending to suggest they may turn it into one. If so, I may have to break down and get cable. (At the moment I make do with basic television and Netflix for the must-sees.)

Fortunately, all I need is a little mind-expanding sci-fi to help get my bark-chewing perspective zoomed out to standard cosmic focus. With that one vision-blocking Redwood back to normal toothpick height, I released all the expectations I had around moving and decided to have a labor-free Labor Day.

Lucky for me, Ahmed's friend Hani invited us to an akika for his newborn son, Adam, in Astoria Park. An akika is a celebratory gathering of friends and family of a newborn. I have been to several and they are truly festive occasions: tables laden with Egyptian cuisine, mounds of presents and cards packed with money, scores of beaming adults and five times as many kids barreling around the park. Here is Hani, his wife, and their son:
And here's a better view of Adam.

He's only 9 days old! Oh, I could hardly stand the cuteness. I cooched and cooed and took scads of pictures, packing in the cute fix, and then, just as I was coming off the high, look who popped up!
That's Jen and her daughter Hannah, who, coincidentally, were also attending a little gathering in the park less than 2 yards away! Weirdly enough, I had run into her husband, Hiro, on the train a few days before and had been meaning to call and touch base. How do you like that for universal synchronicity?

I ended up having a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and took this picture of Ahmed as we were leaving the park:
and found this quote to accompany it, being so fitting for who he works to be:

"We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe. The way is through daily ritual, and is an affair of the individual and the household, a ritual of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of the kindling fire and pouring water, the ritual of the first breath, and the last." -D.H. Lawrence