Memorial Day Weekend

I spent a lot of Memorial Day weekend in Central Park on the Great Lawn, eating too many popsicles and getting really sweaty. I also found time to visit the Alexander McQueen exhibit at The Met for a second time (we got to cut the one-hour wait because I went with my fake boyfriend who has a membership—booya!); to watch Terrence Malick’s totally pretentious movie about the meaning of life, “Tree of Life”; and to visit Ryoji Ikeda’s “The Transfinite,” a sound/light installation at The Armory (which redefines the whole meaning of “trippy”—please, please go if you live here!). Rounding it off with Japanese barbeque ribs at Ippudo and dessert at Veneiro’s, all I can say is: I love you, New York.

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Remember my uncle in Iran who has cancer, the one who loves Celine Dion? I had bought him a DVD of Celine Dion’s music videos and I was going to gift it to him when I went to Iran to stay with his family while I research my grandmother’s death, except now my trip has been delayed because of dumb paperwork. Since we’re not sure if he’ll live long enough, my mom has been scrounging to find a way to get him the DVD (since media would be confiscated in the mail, and the best way to get a singing, non-veiled woman’s DVD into the country would be via suitcase, since they’ve grown lenient at the airport).

Anyway, good news: My mom found a woman who is going to Iran to visit her sister for a month. I FedEx’ed the DVD to my mom who invited this woman over for tea and sweets before guilt-tripping her into taking the DVD to my uncle. Score! She left for Iran on Friday.

Asking others to take gifts to Iran for you is a very common (and highly annoying) practice. Every time we’ve ever gone to Iran, the week before we leave, we suddenly get all these last-minute requests to take things with us to give to others. You just have to expect that you will be taking an extra suitcase for other people’s junk. But this is the one time I understand: All that crap we had to haul around before is worth this one time someone else is taking this thing for us. At least a DVD doesn’t take up that much room.