After Anne went home, we decided to go to New York City as another distraction and a way to pass the time until we could begin to feel better. New York in December can be a mite chilly and that year was no exception as the temperature hovered in the teens and the wind blew like mad. We took the train, parking at Union Station in DC for two nights (the car was still there when we got back). Once again, I have to admit that this trip is a bit foggy in my memory. Matthew and I did not go to the top of the Empire State Building with everyone else--he was a bit afraid of the height and I was not enthusiastic about standing outside in an Arctic wind. It is a beautiful building though. We did some shopping. We went to St. Patrick's. We had lunch in a bar that we'd read about in the paper: it was supposed to have good hamburgers. The people in the next booth were talking about the recently released news that Donald Rumsfeld had been using a signature machine to sign his condolence notes to the families of fallen servicemembers. I considered standing up and telling them that I didn't really care, but decided that would be embarrassing to my family and maybe a bit vindictive. It wasn't their fault that we found ourselves in this position.

When we came back, we had to face Christmas without Thomas. What to do with his Christmas stocking? We've been through two more Christmases since then and I still can't figure that out. Worse, we actually had a couple of presents for him which we had purchased when Richard and I visited Australia the previous June. Oh well.