holiday crush

made it into the city yesterday to get a bit of shopping done. new york was pretty crazy, like it always is this time of year, but you could still walk in the street around the rockefeller center tree. remember last year? oh i do. i was busy showing off all the holiday trees i had shot in tokyo on our 10 day trip in late november/early december. that was a blast. i am so in love with japan. but anyway i got what i needed yesterday. i did not get trampled or pickpocketed. i came home happy and energized. i can't believe i am saying this but i heart metro north. fast nyc trains so close to my house. today i am wrapping. listening to music, wrapping and more wrapping.

which of course reminds me, when i first moved to nyc so many years ago, right after university, i worked as a personal assistant (one of 4 personal assistants, and the lowest on the totem pole i might add) to a famous and successful fashion designer who ran a rather large fortune 500 company. we were busy as elves this time of year, buying gifts and wrapping them for all her work and business associates. being a fashion designer, she liked to wrap (or rather, have us wrap) all the gifts in fabric. i had to learn how to wrap gifts in fabric quickly. of course she had special fabric for this. it was really cool, great looking. made quite an impression. except i can't even remember how to do it now, it involved elaborate twists and a knot of fabric, you see. ever since, at this time of year, i always remember being sent all over new york city in a town car for days on end picking up gifts that were already being held for me to buy on her behalf. quite a production. it was dizzying. but good fun. oh yes, here we are, the holiday crush. always different and yet the same. i love it.