Girls Weekend 2026. Tuesday, October 13. New York City
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Kathi writes:
We had a full day planned today, which meant that Lori set an alarm, which is something we rarely do. Although neither of us was particularly enthusiastic about getting out of bed at 7am, we eventually managed it. The Keurig was acting crazy, but we coaxed a couple of cups of coffee out of it. Lori showered and dressed while I settled onto the living room couch to finish Sunday's journaling, then it was my turn to get ready. At about 8:45 we left to meet our friend Megan Groh for breakfast at outro NYC.
We LOVE the story of how we met Megan! During our 2022 Girls Weekend in Delaware, we were touring the Hagley Museum, where the original DuPont gunpowder mills were located. We struck up a conversation with a young woman who was also touring the museum, and after chatting for a while, invited her to join us for an escape room we had booked for that evening. She accepted, and Megan became our newest Girls Weekend friend! She was a terrific addition to our escape room team, and the next day she joined us for an excursion into Maryland to visit Ladew Topiary Gardens. We learned that Megan, like us, is on a mission to visit all 50 states, although her standards for checking a state off her list are considerably more demanding than ours. She also works as a dresser on Broadway, which gave us plenty to talk about then and now.
Oh my gosh, what a place! Anyone who loves Harry Potter would have a ball here. The store occupies two floors and is beautifully designed, with so much attention to detail that it's almost an attraction in itself. There are two circular stairways in the center of the space that spiral around one another, reminiscent of the moving staircases at Hogwarts. Lori pointed out the wonderful displays arranged high above the merchandise shelves demonstrating different themes of the book and movies, and there were also beautifully curated exhibits in display cases strewn throughout the store. We spent quite a bit of time just looking at everything. There was so much to see!
Apropos of nothing, the Wordle word a few days ago was "strew," which led to a conversation about how we so often encounter that word with an "n" attached to the end of it as a past participle, but rarely as the present tense version. This is the kind of fascinating linguistic discussion that takes place between Lori and me on Girls Weekend. I'm sure you're riveted.
Walking anywhere with Lori (or driving for that matter!) is an education for the photographic eye – something I am still working to develop. Most of the amazing architectural photos we post are hers and she sees things I usually don’t until she points them out to me (e.g., shadows made by fire escapes). We’ve thrown in some of the delights we passed on our walks today to the photo link, including skeletons depicting the NBA Champion NY Knicks on a brick wall!
We eventually made our way through the entire Harry Potter store and ended up in the café, where we each ordered a cup of Butterbeer ice cream. Neither of us had any idea how enormous these servings would be. We absolutely could have shared one! I also bought a four-pack of small bottles of Butterbeer to take home. The entire store was a delight, and I would highly recommend a visit to any Harry Potter fan.
Our next destination was the High Line, a unique public park built on a former elevated freight railroad track on Manhattan's west side. The original railway opened in 1934 and carried freight directly to warehouses and factories, but by 1980 the trains had stopped running. Rather than demolish the structure, a group of determined New Yorkers worked to preserve it and transform it into a public green space. The first section opened in 2009, and today the park stretches approximately 1.5 miles through the city, offering gardens, artwork, walking paths, and some wonderful views of the surrounding neighborhoods. What a great example of finding a creative new use for something that might otherwise have been destroyed!
On our way there, we stopped at a very interesting branch of the New York Public Library that we had noticed while walking to breakfast this morning. From the outside, the building looks for all the world like a European church, complete with pointed turrets and Gothic architectural details. It was actually built as a courthouse! We went inside hoping to find somewhere to sit and rest for a while, but the place was packed. We finally found two very hard chairs outside the children's area, where we sat while a woman chased her two young children around. Not exactly the peaceful respite we had envisioned, but at least we were off our feet for a bit.
We continued walking toward the High Line, and it turned out to be quite a trek. We were very happy when we finally reached the entrance stairway. Even better, there was a bench WITH A BACK at the top of the stairs, and we immediately claimed it. Getting older means that any type of seat without a back on it is never a first choice. Plus, Lori has been dealing with some health issues, including congestive heart failure and increasingly painful arthritis in her feet, so we are being careful to take breaks and not push too hard. We sat for quite a while, enjoying our surroundings and giving her a chance to rest before continuing.
Once we got moving again, we were delighted by the High Line. The architects and landscape designers have done an amazing job creating this beautiful park in the middle of the city. There are several distinct garden areas, interesting plantings, and pieces of public art scattered along the walkway. The combination of greenery, old railroad tracks, modern buildings, and views of the city makes for a really unique experience. There was, however, one art installation that we thought must surely have been a mistake. It consisted of several enormous, hideously ugly, marshmallow-looking structures wrapped in what appeared to be dirty fabric. The figures were wrapped in rope – they looked like giant, filthy, lumbering, terrifying killer zombie snowmen. They apparently represented people in bondage or something along those lines, but we couldn't make much sense of them. Now, Lori and I certainly appreciate that art is subjective, and we have seen and enjoyed some pretty unusual installations over the years, but these things were just plain UGLY. We couldn't imagine why anyone would want them displayed in the middle of such beautiful surroundings. Ah well. To each his own.
I was enjoying our stroll so much that I completely lost track of the time. When I finally checked, I realized we had only about half an hour to get uptown to Lincoln Center for our evening's entertainment! We quickly found the next exit, descended the stairs, and hurried to the subway. We were making pretty good time until we managed to go one stop too far and had to trudge back. Despite our best efforts to sabotage ourselves, we arrived at the theater only about five minutes late.
Tonight's performance was the opening evening of the 37th annual New York Cabaret Convention, presented by the Mabel Mercer Foundation at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The three-day event features some of the finest cabaret performers in the country, along with established stars and emerging talent. Tonight's program, Once in a Blue Moon, was a tribute to the legendary cabaret singer Mabel Mercer (1900–1984), an English-born cabaret singer who became a legendary figure in New York’s sophisticated nightclub scene, celebrated for her intimate, conversational approach to interpreting songs. Her distinctive phrasing and storytelling influenced generations of singers, including Frank Sinatra, and her legacy is preserved by the Mabel Mercer Foundation and its annual New York Cabaret Convention.
The reason we were attending was that an old friend of mine, Jeff Harnar, was co-hosting the evening. Jeff and I performed together at Marriott's Great America in Gurnee, IL during the summer of 1982, and although we had sporadically kept in touch over the years, we had not seen each other since! Every four or five years, whenever I was planning a trip to New York, I would reach out to see if we might be able to get together. Our schedules had never worked out until now. This time Jeff was actually going to be in town when I was, and he very generously left two complimentary tickets for Lori and me. Because we arrived late, we had to wait until we could be seated, but we were able to watch the end of the opening number on monitors outside the theater. Once inside, we settled in to enjoy the show.
Poor Lori was absolutely exhausted by this point and had been worried that she might fall asleep during the performance. Fortunately, she rallied, and we both enjoyed ourselves. The first act was a bit uneven, with a couple of performers who were mediocre and one who was, frankly, pretty bad. Fortunately, things improved considerably as the evening went on. The first act closed with a performance by Clint Holmes, whose name and face seemed familiar to me. He was FABULOUS! What a terrific performer. The second act was much stronger overall, and by the time the evening ended, we were very glad we had made the effort to attend. It was a wonderful opportunity to enjoy some excellent live entertainment, something we always appreciate, especially given our shared theatrical backgrounds. After the show we found Jeff in the lobby and had a chance to chat for a while. It was so lovely to see him after all these years! We made plans to meet for lunch tomorrow, when we'll have more time to catch up.
We left the theater at about 9:35 and, thankfully, had a much smoother trip back to Brooklyn than we'd had getting to Lincoln Center. We walked into our Airbnb at 10:05, having been gone for more than THIRTEEN HOURS. There was a time when Lori and I could spend thirteen or fourteen hours running around a city, walking for miles, seeing everything we could possibly squeeze into a day, and still have the energy to stay up half the night talking. Those days, it seems, are behind us. We were EXHAUSTED. We've had to acknowledge that while our enthusiasm for adventure hasn't diminished one bit, our physical stamina definitely has.
We each spent some time catching up with family—I talked with Eric while Lori chatted with her daughter Meg—and then we finally sat down to eat a VERY late dinner. By the time we finished, the clock was racing toward midnight, and we were more than ready for bed.
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