Highlights Through 6/24
I was in California 6/9-6/21 and it was a very nice trip. Saw the graduation ceremony at Davis, caught up with lots of close friends (though sadly only a small fraction of those I would have liked to see), went to my cousins house warming party etc...Had to also do about 20 hours of work while I was home because I volunteered to do a pro bono research project. I only expected it to be 5 hours. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again.
On 6/23 I went to a summer associates reception at the New York City Bar Association in midtown. There were a lot of people there and it was open bar with Dewars and Grey Goose so it was a lot of fun. No one from my office wanted to go with me so I brought a friend from the US Attorney's Office Civil Division. I had actually applied to work there too but never heard back. After seeing what she works on I'm glad I didn't end up there though. Doesn't sound as fun as my Brooklyn job.
6/24
Busy day. Had breakfast with Senator John Kerry at the office of Paul Weiss in midtown. He had a really nice suit but lacked the sort of charisma Bill Clinton had when I met him. Makes me wonder why he got the nomination in the first place. He gave a lot of excuses about not having enough money to win and encouraged us all to keep fighting the good fight. Then I went to a book publishing party at my supervising attorney's daughter's elementary school. Fun to hang out with little 2nd and 4th graders for a change. Time to go to work finally after that. Took off early though to go to Temple Emanuel for shabbat services. Beautiful building. I hear it may be the largest synagogue in the world. They get 10,000 for high holidays I think. It takes up an entire city block. Sadly the sanctuary was largely empty, the cantors and rabbis were the most unenthusiastic I've ever met and the whole place completely lacked ruach. Reform Judaism doesn't have to be that way. Too bad. I wouldn't go back there for services but I'll try to go see the museum and the rest of the building there sometime. After services I cruised around the upper East Side for a while with a friend including going to FAO Shwartz, the famous toy store. They had stuffed animals that were life sized. Including elephants and giraffes. I met some other friends for dinner at Django in midtown for restaurant week. I had a salmon appetizer, then lamb, then a baked nectarine dessert I think. The food and atmosphere were both very good and we had a lot of fun. After dinner we cruised over to The Monkey Bar, which is in back of some hotel. The made a pretty good martini. And they had a piano player. He was kind of loud but one of us who shall remain nameless and was rather sloshed after 3 glasses of champaign had a very good time singing along.
