The Team dines on soup dumplings in Chinatown

Look how happy we are. If you can find me, you get a gold star. (Hint: I'm the guy with spilt hot sauce on his jeans for whom red-eye reduction apparently does not work.)

Amy, my authority figure, wasn't there, but her compatriot, Kyle, was. So I was second in command for the day. And I decreed that we all feast, shop, and/or go home. Everyone hit West Broadway and bought shopping bags full of fine cashmere and linens.

Heather bought a commie hat made out of 100% pure casting couch.

Julie and I took the long way back to work, bargained for her perfume on Canal St., walked past the SoHo Grand, answered emails for an hour or so, ate pie (Key Lime, lusciously made by Margaret,) then went home to celebrate Christmas with our families/circus freak huge cat.

All in all, a fine day. Like Forrest says, soup is like a lake in your belly.

Add dumplings to that and make your own inference.

For that one gray day, we were all bright smiles.