But the $15 Croque Monsieur tastes so good!

Spring arrived today in New York, unofficially.

To celebrate, we shut down the computers early and rode down the Hudson, watching the half-naked joggers jog along. Then, a left on Clarkson, a right on Greenwich and another left onto Spring, coasting through a buzzing Soho and beyond, as we’ve done a thousand times before.

It was especially glassy on the streets today (post-weekend) and by Clinton we had a flat. Getting a flat is always a deflating experience (it happens every month or so), at least initially. But a flat in the LES in NYC on the first unofficial day of spring is something to savor, let us tell you that with authority!

After asking a few locals for the nearest bike shop (too far from home for a D-I-Y fix), we stumbled on Bike Works NYC (106 Ridge Street) & this little hive of a bike shop put us back in business in no time…

Well, enough time for a tea and a think at Felai. And what a think it was, readers, what a think it was:

We feel (as countless others have no doubt felt before us), that something very significant is happening far out there on the woolly frontiers, many miles from NYC, and that we have a responsibility to get out there and check it out for ourselves, reporting back with our findings.

Couple this sensation of powerful forces gathering, far far away, with the disturbing realization that on any given day we seem to be applying only a small portion of our critical faculties…

Well, you see where this is going (maybe this David Whyte stuff is sinking in). Buying yet another bike, another pair of sunglasses, another goddamn $15 croque monsieur, or signing up another well-meaning client just doesn’t seem like the answer.

Oh, come on, let us vent, let us vent! This is our goddamn blog after all.

(We almost forgot about the bike ride in all this excitement. Tea drunk, furious notes taken and tire duly fixed, we turned back around, past the basketball courts, all flirting and muscle, into the commercial morass that is Soho. And then, the cool River beyond, which we photographed, up above.)

Let’s see where this one takes us…