Tuesday night we went to our first show on Broadway! I met a woman in West Elm who told me she’d just seen Annie and loved it, so we went with that. The lobby was quite small, but your could take food and drinks into the theater (much different than the 5th Ave back home) and with each beverage purchase you got an Annie tumbler with lid – and discounts on refills. I was tempted to get one to and then reality set in – my cabinet space is at a premium – so Munchkin got a beer in an Annie cup (hilarious) and I got some peanutless peanut m&m and we settled into the most amazing seats! I have to pat myself on the back and say I’m two-for-two with the unknown venue seat selection. The show was great! Everyone was über talented and the orphan girls were spectacular! I have to say that I don’t think anyone could ever nail Miss Hannigan like Carol Burnett did in the film so I didn’t even try to compare; it’s simply not fair.
Wednesday was Munchkin’s real taste of the craziness that is Manhattan. Not the normal crush of humanity, but the Times-Square-Rockefeller-Center-during-the-holidays-touristy-madness that is Manhattan. Mwahaha. She asked for it.
We took the subway to around 72nd St and got off on the west side of Central Park. We had a leisurely southeasterly stroll through the park to come out on the corner of 59th St & 5th Avenue. The shops had already put out their full holiday regalia so we were treated to a visual feast of golds, reds, greens and silvers. We saw lots of high-end shops and a couple of low-end. I had to take a picture of Bergdorf Goodman because well, it’s Bergdorf Goodman and the whole Scatter My Ashes deal.
We made our way down 5th Ave, stopping to peruse the Nike store. I found the wall art to be quite inspiring, especially given that I had just found out that Nike slowly shifted their advertising away from focusing on the elite athlete to the everyday athlete – they believe that everyone is an athlete so their advertising has shifted to reflect such. I thought about it and it’s true! Unless it’s for an athlete branded product, Nike ads – via print or digital – show real people doing their thing. Love it. It’s even on their wall.
We eventually made it back down to Times Square – a place we’d glimpsed the night before in the dark so it was fun to see it during the day. We went inside Grand Central Station where it was extra crowded with folks leaving for the extended holiday weekend. It was also pretty cool to see that they had about six different bakeries set up outside one of the entrances so people could grab a cake or pie to take home for Thanksgiving. When we walked through Grand Central Terminal Market (love that place) I took the opportunity to grab an apple pie from Zaro’s Bakery that we could bring to Thanksgiving dinner the next day. We hit up Rockefeller Center, checked out the library (amazing! Thanks to whomever recommended that to me), Bryant Park and I had to take to her Macy’s. We did not hit all 11 floors (thank goodness) but I think she got an idea of how enormous it is!
Stepping out of Macy’s we were treated to a view of the Empire State Building, so we snapped a few quick photos and headed home to relax and prep for Thanksgiving.
Which was the easiest prep I had done in YEARS. Shoot, I bought the darn pie and the only other thing we had to bring was a vegetable dish for which I was at the mercy of whatever they had available at the corner bodega. Which was Brussels sprouts. Sliced in half season and roasted, the hardest thing was finding leftover aluminum pans (from previous takeout or delivery orders) that I could use as roasting pans. Worked like a charm.
We went to a friend of a friend’s for dinner and she cooked enough for about 20 people when we actually had five adults, one child, and one toddler. All that extra food reminded me of home but that’s where the similarities ended! All of the adults were native PNW ladies, so that was fun, and the meal was almost entirely gluten and dairy free to accommodate the second youngest of our group. Her mom (who was the hostess) did an amazing job with all of the things she prepared. Was a ton of hard work, but that’s what you do when you don’t want your kid to feel left out. Aw. It was a lazy, long and leisurely night with fantastic company. Munchkin and I were incredibly thankful to be not only welcomed, but embraced by these new friends.
Friday we… I don’t know what we did in the morning but I know we made it to Chinatown by 1p for our NYC Gangster Tour on Chinatown and Little Italy. We were the only two folks in the tour and our guide Jose was great. We started off learning about the gangs that formed early on in NY where you had Irish fighting Irish (now you know that’s bad news) because of differences in religious beliefs and carrying over the bad blood from their native country. We moved into Chinese Tongs and how they would battle it out in a typically bloody and sometimes mysterious fashion, then ended with the mafia… here was heard some more familiar names and found out that Coppola and Scorsese grew up in Little Italy when all of the big time mafia stuff was going down. It was full of great facts, so many that I cannot remember all but I do know that my next visitor will have to come with me so I can find out about the Rise and Fall of the American Gangster.
We had pizza in Little Italy, not because we thought it would be great, but because we could eat at Mulberry St Bar, where a bunch of scenes from movies have been shot. Notably one from the Godfather (3 maybe?) and Donnie Brasco. It was one of those places with famous people all over the walls – including Marilyn which Munchkin thought was cool. We were invited back for Karaoke later that night, but had plans to attend a poetry slam so I told them I’d come back at a later date and would sing on the condition that the guys we met there would sing with me.
After dinner we got a free look at the Statue of Liberty via the Staten Island ferry. Very cool but unfortunately we were on a ferry that did not have an observation deck. Lesson learned for next time to check that part of the ferry schedule! After we returned to Manhattan from Staten Island, we walked though the Financial District and saw the New York Stock Exchange building on Wall Street and Munchkin was stocked to see the building that, if I remember correctly, Batman came out of in one of the Christian Bale movies. After seeing City Hall and the courthouses we decided to hop on the subway toward the East Village for our evening activity.
Where we entered the most run down subway station I’ve been in yet. Under the beautifully architected courthouses.
Once we got off in the East Village we had some time to kill so stopped at a bar to watch basketball and grab a drink. It was a cool place, but really empty. One of the former regulars came up to us and said that they changed ownership and took out the shuffleboard and skee-ball machines and put in more seats and a projector screen… and lost all of the regulars. Apparently it used to be packed. Sad, but on the bright side at least we were able to find a seat.
We left around 9:30p for the poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a place recommended to me by a former New Yorker who now works at a restaurant near my old job in Seattle. Because I’m old and didn’t want to deal with the hassle, I paid double the price ($20 instead of $10) for a reservation. SO WORTH IT. Dudes, the majority of attendees were either sitting on the floor or standing. The place was packed! Our reservation got us in before general admission so were able to grab two of the 50 or so seats. I have to say it was a fantastic show! The poets were simply amazing. They had a featured artist who is a former champ start of the show and she completely blew it up. She moved me, she made me laugh, she made me think. Munchkin already knew of her from YouTube and sacrificed beer #2 to get an advance, signed copy of her CD (Mom you’d love this chick).
After the featured poet did about five poems, they brought up five poets who were trying to make the Nuyorican team for the national championship in San Francisco next year. The winner was a girl who was able to mix something deep and emotional with comedic relief and made her poems very relatable. She talked of love, family, growing up, happiness and hopefulness while using her voice as a tool, weapon or a song. All it all a great way to spend Friday night.
Saturday we spent most of the day on the sofa watching football, including the Alabama-Auburn games which ended with us both yelling at the tv in disbelief! That was such a crazy end to a rivalry game! If you don’t know what I’m talking about you really should google it. We did leave the house long enough for Munchkin to get her hair cut and get a nice steak dinner at Peter Luger’s.
With full bellies we watched Rugrat’s basketball game (yay for streaming video!) and relaxed the night away. I used an Uber car for the first time since Munchkin had to be in Hoboken at 5am (aack!) so she got there quickly and safely; her driver was Omar and she said he was awesome – even carried her bags up to the door when he dropped her off so go Uber! Glad we met.
And there you have it. I feel like I should have broken it into chapters!
Until next time…
Fox on the Run 
Great words and great pictures! Thank you for giving all of us this pocket of time. Love you! Mom