Wednesday I went to the DMV to exchange my Jersey driver’s license for one from New York state, which was a good idea since my license was expiring in a few days.  The main DMV office is in Herald Square at the Manhattan Mall; how suburban.  Typical DMV:  long lines, attitude, ugly interior, some people who care, others who don’t.

What fascinated me was how strict they are in identifying one’s self post 9/11.  I had to provide my active New Jersey license, my original social security card, my original birth certificate with its seal, a bank statement and a utility bill.  My social security card was so old I had to get two supervisors’ approval.  It seems they haven’t made that card in decades; it makes me feel so young. 

I still have to register my car.

About six weeks ago I changed my eating habits.  Instead of wheat, potatoes, corn and sugar, I’m subsituting yogurt, green vegetables, fruit and honey.  Basically it is complex carbs out and simple carbs in.  Why?  Well I am over weight, but the driving emphasis is excess gas.  Maybe that is why I am single.  And I might add that the new diet has done wonders with the gas issue, so in my own way I am helping to prevent the warming of our planet.  Too bad I’ve only lost 8 pounds.  How I suffer for the betterment of mankind.

Anyway this post is not about my diet or at least mostly not.   Lela, my maid (acually she is an apartment cleaner, but for some pretentious reason I love calling her my maid), was cleaning on Tuesday as usual and I didn’t have an appointment till 11am, so I decided to get out of her hair, have breakfast at a diner and read the Times.  Since I had just cancelled my subscription to the Times which I had since the 80’s to save some trees I had to pay retail and was shocked to find the Tuesday edition cost two dollars.  How did that happen?  Last time I bought the Times it was 50 cents.  I felt like George Bush bumbling with the price of milk.  How out of date am I?  Clearly this paradigm shift did not bode well for the day.

So I took my $2.00 paper to that very trendy, post-retro diner at the corner of 11th Avenue and 43rd Street.  Sat down, asked for an omlette without the potatoes and toast and could I please substitute a small green salad in their stead.  No Substitutions!  I must pay extra for that small green salad.  Doesn’t a green salad cost less than potatoes and toast?  Aren’t I saving them money?  Has the value of lettuce increased while potato futures have fallen?  Does this have something to do with the Times costing $2.00?  What about costumer service?  God knows I obsess about making my clients happy.  Shouldn’t they be grateful I am eating there in these challenging times?  Don’t they want me to be a satisfied customer and tell all of my friends how fabulous they are?  Clearly I’m not in my happy place.  Despite my inner rantings, I calmly informed the waitress that their policy was absurd and I’d eat elsewhere.

Off I went to the neighborhood standard at 9th and 44th; they will understand.  I was told that a small salad was not available, but for a fee of 60 cents I could substitute sliced tomatoes for the potatoes and toast.  You mean I get the pleasure of eating out of season tomatoes for 60 cents more instead of consuming your bread and home fries?  I think not.  And while it was not a scene out of the titled movie, I did manage a huff or two upon leaving.

A third diner had the same results.

I skipped breakfast that morning, indignant and hungry.  If  only I had a Vespa to ride off on.

The 2009 New York City Halloween Parade was a rainy spectacle with substantial participation despite the weather.  Pictured are two members of the Patrick Lilly Group:  Indiana Soto and Flapper Kriegstein. 

Maybe I’m getting old, but I truly prefer the old parade when it lumbered through the side streets of the West Village.  Gone were the drunks and the massive crowds.  It felt like a small town parade, albeit a town that is hyper liberal.  Instead of one large parade, I suggest we hold many smaller parades for each of our communities where intimacy and ownership reigns.  I like my ‘Boos’ without the Booze.

My nephew turned thirty this month and is a food nut.  He loves eating well and is skinny as a rail; a very thin rail.  This is one of the things I dislike about him.  When we travel together he loves to plan the trip around his meals.  This is a trait I can easily love.  He’d never been to Le Bernardin, so I took him and his boyfriend.

If you are not familiar with the restaurant, you are not a foodie.  Owned by chef Eric Ripert, this temple to seafood, particularly fish, has received top ratings by Michelin and the New York Times for many years.  Located at 155 West 51st Street in a modernist skyscraper, the interior is a warmed-up version of international style which feels appropriate for its location and building type.  It’s not the most beautiful space, but I suspect the intention was to focus on the food and service, which is excellent.

I first went to Le Bernardin a decade ago with a friend.  I remember enjoying the food, it’s updated classic French cooking, but mostly I remember falling in love with Billecarte Salmon Rose Champagne.  It is heaven:  not too sweet, not to dry, with subtle fruit flavors and endless tiny bubbles.  Few restaurants stock it in North America and when they do I always order it.  My association with Billecarte and Le Bernardin is beneficial for both, in my mind.

Upon greeting my guests in the restaurant’s lobby, a young woman quickly came up and assisted dressing me in a well-fitting sports coat to meet the dining room’s dress policy.  It was all done quite elegantly, without attitude or reprimand, which is a sign of the superb service.  I immediately ordered a bottle of Billecarte for our group while we waited for our table.  It pleased me that I was introducing them to my favorite champagne as I was a decade ago.

The meal and service was excellent across the board with a few highlights:  a sublime sea urchin risotto, the perfect cheese plate, and an extraordinary port.  That being said, I left a bit disappointed.  At $1,000 for three and the world’s top ratings, I want to be transformed; I want each course to move me.  That was not the case.  It must be tough to manage the guests’ expectations when they are so high.

I have had a dream for years, actually a fantasy, that I could reduce my personal belongings down to 4 or 5 suitcases. 

August of 2008, Lehman Brothers fell, the Manhattan real estate market skidded to a stop, and I had a team of five whose incomes depended on my production.  Preparing for the worst, I thought this would be a great time to downsize, reducing my living expenses by 50%.  So I packed up my two bedroom, 2 bath loft (1200 square feet), put the majority of my belongings into my brother’s basement in Pennsylvania and moved to a 330 square foot  condo in Hell’s Kitchen.

Well, we are coming up on one year in my studio and I thought you might like to know how the fantasy is doing.

Getting rid of my stuff was the easy part.  I actually didn’t get rid of it, since I could travel to PA. and visit my belongings.  But it is amazing how little I need around me.  I donated 60% of my clothes that I never wear, gave tons of my good stuff out to family and friends for Christmas last year, increased the size of the Staten Island landfill, and kept at my brother’s what I might want to use in a future country home.

Since the space was so small, I furnished the studio with items that could do double duty:  the sofa opens into a bed; the long parsons table functions as a desk, dining table, and altar; the Georgian influenced cabinet holds an assundry of items including the TV, travel supplies, books and photos; and the the coffee table/bench serves both purposes.  I kept some of my favorite art, those pieces that would fit, and had the apartment painted in a soothing taupe/grey.  The place looks pretty good I think and feels like home.

It will be a year this December in my tiny studio and overall it has been a success.  It has been an easy process, mostly due to my house cleaner, Lela, who is a saint and comes once a week to clean, iron, and dump out kitty litter.  Jeep, my cat, never has a room to get away from me which may explain why he likes to spend so much time drinking water out of the toilet.

So where do you put the kitty litter box in such a small space when the bathroom and kitchen have no floor space to spare?  In a side table, of course.  I had two Ikea tables that are square boxes on wheels that are without fronts and backs.  I then bought a 4″ deep tray that fits the space.  To hide the offending sight, I placed an easel that a deceased client left to me with a very old photograph on cardboard of a young child in an elaborate wood frame I found at a flea market.  Jeep has plenty of room to enter and do his stuff and the back of the photograph acts as a barrier to flying kitty litter.

I thought I could be the type of person who puts his bed away in the morning and sets it up every night.  I’m not.  The only time the bed gets put up is when Lela comes on Tuesdays to clean or by some uncommon circumstance I have a guest over.  Frankly, two people in the apartment feels crowded.

So, if you like living alone, studio living is not that bad.  Next time, I’ll get an alcove so I won’t feel bad about not making my bed.

I just saw the movie ‘Julie and Julia’.  It was great and Streep was amazing as usual.  One thing that interested me was how much fun Julie’s blog was.  It was so very personal with her daily struggles and victories.  Then it hit me, yes, my blog is very, very boring which is one reason why it takes me  forever to get a new entry posted.

So that is changing today.  From now on this blog will be about my life in New York City real estate.  If you like the factual data, sign up for my Newsletter:  http://www.patricklillygroup.com/Newsletter and click on ’subscribe to this newsletter’.

Things are going to get personal around here.