The universe has a message for me. It's been trying to convey this message to me for the last 20+ years. The message is, "Awkward Mormon Girl, stay away from sports!"
After countless sprained ankles and many collisions of volleyballs, basketballs, tether balls, and soccer balls with various parts of my body, you'd think I'd be getting the message loud and clear. But no. Noooo. Optimism prevails. Optimism, and a sufficient amount of memory loss to make me forget that I'm not very good at sports or, well, anything that requires moving of any kind...but especially sports.
Shortly before I left for my trip, I decided it would be a good idea to go to a combined ward activity which featured the sport of soccer.
Just before the activity, I was at a family dinner at Chuck-a-Rama. By the time I left for the activity, I was stuffed-a-rama. Still I went.
Best Friend Boy and many others were in the middle of a game when I arrived. At first I just watched, because I was too full to run, but I didn't want to be that person who goes to a sports activity and refuses to participate. So I joined a group of guys who were throwing around a football.
One of my very few sports skillz is that I can catch a football. I can't throw it, but I can catch it. As I don't know a lot of girls who can say the same, I'm naturally proud of this skill.
So, essentially, I was showing off. I was being a big show-off. And I guess I got what was coming to me.
One of the guys threw long to me. I scrambled to catch the ball. It bounced off my fingertips. And when it did, it bent my right ring finger in a way that a right ring finger was never meant to bend.
For some reason, instead of paying immediate medical attention to my finger, I caught a few more passes. Then, still full of food and with an aching finger, I ambled over to the soccer game. Then I joined the soccer game.
ME: Wait, why am I doing this? I am so full. I don't want to move.
ALSO ME: Plus your finger seems to be sprained.
ME: Ohhh. Is that what that is?
ALSO ME: Plus, we both know you're just going to get hit by the soccer ball.
I had a good point.
I ended up leaving the activity early and went to my parents', where I proceeded to explain my injury and seek medical aid.
My mother, who is an RN, was all, "Poor, poor baby! Ice your poor little finger, and I'll get you a splint to wear."
My father, who played college and high school sports but has terribly un-sport-y children, was all, "Did you say that you got injured playing sports? Good job!" and hugged me.
Parents are weird.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Pioneer Day 2016
With Pioneer Day aka the Twenty-Fourth of July falling on a Sunday this year, my brothers and I hit up the Hometown festivities the Friday before.
Little Brother went off to hang with his friends, while Baby Brother and I did all the things that we wanted to do.
This meant the carnival rides, but they wouldn't let me ride with Baby Brother because No Adults Allowed. Oh sure. Now somebody recognizes me as an adult. Baby Brother didn't want to ride without me, so we went in search of the climbing wall.
The climbing wall wasn't there. We went in search of the photo booth. The photo booth wasn't there, either.
In the end, we ate a little food and did the fish pond multiple times. I got a pen with a robotic boxing dog on it, which I gave to Baby Brother, and a fantastic rainbow-colored butterfly-print dodgeball, which I kept.
As we were leaving, Baby Brother made a keen observation.
"There really wasn't anything to do there if you're an adult," he said.
I felt proud of him for being so observant, but a little worried about his future. If he's disenchanted with adulthood now, I'm worried about how he'll react when he actually gets there.
Yet another reason why we shouldn't allow Baby Brother to grow up!
Little Brother went off to hang with his friends, while Baby Brother and I did all the things that we wanted to do.
This meant the carnival rides, but they wouldn't let me ride with Baby Brother because No Adults Allowed. Oh sure. Now somebody recognizes me as an adult. Baby Brother didn't want to ride without me, so we went in search of the climbing wall.
The climbing wall wasn't there. We went in search of the photo booth. The photo booth wasn't there, either.
In the end, we ate a little food and did the fish pond multiple times. I got a pen with a robotic boxing dog on it, which I gave to Baby Brother, and a fantastic rainbow-colored butterfly-print dodgeball, which I kept.
As we were leaving, Baby Brother made a keen observation.
"There really wasn't anything to do there if you're an adult," he said.
I felt proud of him for being so observant, but a little worried about his future. If he's disenchanted with adulthood now, I'm worried about how he'll react when he actually gets there.
Yet another reason why we shouldn't allow Baby Brother to grow up!
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Touched by a Dog
Context: This post is about the last day of my second New York City trip.
Sunday morning marked the last day of our trip, our farewell to 35 Fifth Avenue, and our return to Utah. As Older Sister prepared for church, we prepared for LaGuardia by rolling up the many sleeping bags and sleeping pads, reassembling our gigantic shared suitcase, and, in my case, repacking a pillow/Urban Outfitter bag combination carry-on.
There were three interesting things about the trip home.
Thing #1: We took an Uber to the airport! First time using Uber, everybody. It cost 1/5 of what the taxi had cost. Not a bad deal.
Thing #2: Our layover was in Philly! I've always wanted to go to the City of Brotherly Love. We didn't get to see anything outside of the airport, but at least I ate this Philly roll while there:
Thing #3: I almost died!!!!!1!
The little sisters and I were separated on our flight home. They had seats together; I was all alone. At least, I was all alone for a few minutes until my seatmate boarded.
When you sit next to a stranger on an airplane, you always wonder if your seatmate is going to be, like, your new best friend. It became clear within about fifteen seconds that my seatmate did not want to be my new best friend. She seemed way more interested in shoving a humongous duffel bag under the seat in front of her than in me.
I wondered why she didn't put the duffel bag in the overhead compartment, where it would fit a lot better. I was even more bewildered when she told me that she needed me to move so that she could get the bag under the seat more easily.
As soon I stood up, I got a better look at the bag. It was not a bag. It was a kennel.
All I could say was, "Uhhh..." Because I was surprised to see that a dog would be sitting next to me on an airplane. I guess I assumed that if someone brought a dog onto a plane, the airline would let the other passengers know. Or at least let the person sitting next to the dog (me) know. But this, apparently, was not the case.
"Are you allergic to dogs?" the lady asked.
I said "Yes," which was easier but less accurate than saying, "Sometimes."
As a kid, I got mildly itchy eyes around cats and dogs. Then, when I was a teenager, I stopped reacting. I would go to Etch-a-Sketch's house and be near the her family's pets, or I would go to Best Friend Boy's house and sit on furniture that had cat hair on it, and I would not react at all. I still had to change my clothes as soon as I got home—Mom and Little Brother had allergies so severe that they would get a reaction just from being near someone who'd even looked at a cat or dog recently. I, on the other hand, stayed hale and whole no matter how many canines and felines I looked at or was exposed to.
If I thought I'd outgrown my allergies, though, I assumed too much too soon. When I hit my twenties, I started to react to cats and dogs again...only the reactions were more like Mom's and Little Brother's. My throat would swell up, and I would have a hard time breathing.
The lady said, "My sister is sitting in seat __." She told me that I could trade seats with her sister.
I agreed, mainly because I couldn't see another solution. I walked up the aisle, found the sister, and explained the situation to her. She gave me her seat and with it her seatmate. Hello, possible new best friend. I sat down.
The frustrating thing about having pet allergies is that most people who own pets don't have pet allergies, and people who don't have pet allergies don't really understand the danger their pets might pose to other people. They'll tell you that their pet doesn't shed, or that they always vacuum up all the fur, or something. Unfortunately, that's not really how it works. A person who's allergic to an animal can have an allergic reaction to allergens in animal dandruff or saliva, which is regularly but not only found in fur. Pets who spend time with their owners regularly leave animal dandruff or saliva on said owners. Those owners might, blissfully ignorant, go to a movie theatre and sit in a cushy red chair. If the next person who sits in the cushy red chair has a pet allergy, that person could easily have an allergic reaction to the allergens that the pet owner left behind. And that's just one example. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a pet owner's job to strip their body of allergens whenever they leave the house, but I am saying that most pet owners seem to be totally unaware that it's that easy for their pet's allergens to spread. These owners also seem to be totally unaware that some people have severe enough allergies that they could die if they don't receive treatment quickly enough.
I remembered this too late.
Not long after I sat down, my eyes started itching. And I started thinking about how, if I were a person who had a dog, and if I had that dog with me in an airport during a layover, I would probably play with said dog during said layover. And, if my sister were on said layover at said airport, I would most likely invite said sister to play with me and said dog during said layover at said airport. And then said sister would probably have said dog's fur...and dandruff...and saliva all over her person. And then, if I were a person who owned a dog and had no allergies and therefore was not aware of how allergies work, I might send my allergic-to-dogs seatmate to trade seats with my sister, and then my allergic-to-dogs seatmate would sit right down on the seat covered with traces of dog hair and touch the armrests that bore traces of dandruff and saliva and then...and then...
And then what???
Once, Pepper and I talked about a theoretical series called Touched by a Dog, where people with dog allergies are forced to interact with dogs because the dog owners don't take others' allergies seriously. Unable to reach their medicine in time, these allergic people die tragic and untimely deaths. I felt like this could be a follow-up to Over the Garden Wall; Wirt seems like the kind of person who would be cursed with severe allergies. Each episode would be a PSA written by Wirt as an effort to alert the general public to the plight of the average person with allergies. Wirt would always play the person with the allergy who dies and his brother, Greg, would always play the dog.
We decided early on that one of the episodes would take place on a plane. Because, I theorized, what could be a more unfortunate circumstance than to be stuck on a plane with a dog but no allergy medicine?
I soon discovered just how unfortunate a circumstance it was.
Like I said, I went for years without having any allergic reactions. My mom (who is one of the people who easily could die if she sat in a cushy red seat recently used by a pet owner) carries allergy medicine, inhalers, and EpiPens with her everywhere she goes; I've never felt the need. So I was wholly unprepared for my own personal episode of Touched by a Dog.
"Your eyes aren't really itching," I told myself sternly.
"Your throat isn't really swelling up," I told myself strictly. "You have an overactive imagination."
"You're being ridiculous," I told myself firmly. "Even if you are having an allergic reaction, it's probably very mild, and you will be just fine for this five-hour flight."
At this point, we were about half an hour in. I'd never reacted so quickly after being exposed to an animal before.
I shuddered to think where I would be in five hours.
I was starting to worry.
I needed to take some kind of action.
I definitely couldn't ask my new seatmate for help. Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant had told us that since the third person in our row hadn't showed, we didn't need to sit right next to each other. Immediately, my seatmate moved to the aisle seat. "I'll make this easier on both of us," she said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. She sounded like she didn't like me, and she thought I didn't like her.
Apparently, she would not become my new best friend, either. But that was okay because come to think of it, I had Viola and wasn't really in the market for a new best friend.
I also didn't feel like I could ask the flight attendants for help. I thought that they probably had allergy medicine somewhere, but I had no idea had to handle this kind of social situation. First of all, I have issues with asking people for help because when I ask people for help, I feel like I've failed or done something wrong. Knowing that I didn't have very much experience with my own allergies, that I had no idea what might happen if I didn't get medicine, that I didn't know how severe my reaction might get or how difficult it might become for me to breathe, definitely spurred me to disregard that particular barrier. But on the other hand, I couldn't figure out how to ask the question...logistically. The flight attendants were all coming up and down the aisle with little carts. How could I possibly talk to one? Walk up behind one and say "Can you help me?" in her ear like a creeper? Wait until they came by with the carts and, when they asked me what I wanted to drink, say, "I'd like a ginger ale, and also some allergy medicine if you have it, and please hurry because I am in some kind of respiratory distress?"
No, there was no way. There was no way. I was never going to work up the courage to ask for allergy medicine. Maybe I would be fine, but maybe I wouldn't be. Maybe my throat would keep swelling. If it kept up, I might not be able to breathe. Traditionally, when you're unable to breathe, you die.
What dumb luck! What a stupid way to go.
As is my habit, I started to pray. Sometimes, in situations like this, God tells me to suck it up and get over myself and do the difficult social thing. But sometimes, He provides a path that is more aligned with my personality.
After praying, I had an instant idea. Baby Sister had a cold at the beginning of the trip, remember? My mother the RN gave her a bag of cold medicine to take on the trip. I was pretty sure that I'd seen allergy medicine in there, too. I felt like I should go ask Baby Sister if she had any allergy medicine.
It took me a while to work up the courage to ask my own sister for help. By the time I stepped past my surly seatmate as politely as I could and headed to my sisters' seats, we were an hour and a half into the flight.
I don't remember exactly what I said, but as I was distressed and on the verge of tears it was not particularly eloquent.
Baby Sister said that she didn't think she had any medicine left in her carry-on, allergy or otherwise. "I'll check," she said. She rummaged around and came up with a single adult multi-allergy symptom pill.
Hallelujah.
I took the pill back to my seat. All I needed was some liquid to wash the pill down, and everything would be fine. Luckily, the flight attendants were still (slowly) making their trips with the little carts.
A flight attendant with a cart soon came. I was all geared up to order my ginger ale, but this flight attendant only had biscotti. There was another cart still coming with the drinks.
I choked down the biscotti. Traditionally, biscotti are dry, but these ones seemed particularly hard to swallow. I hoped it was just my imagination and not a symptom of my swelling throat.
I waited for the drink cart...and waited. About half an hour had passed since I'd gotten the allergy pill from Baby Sister.
The only thing I could think of that would be sadder than dying of allergies on a plane because I wouldn't ask for allergy medicine would be dying of allergies on a plane while holding an allergy pill in my hand.
I swallowed, checking the tightness of my throat. Should I try to take the pill without liquid? Plot twist: I choke to death on the pill. Maybe that was a bad plan.
Just as I was about to panic, the drink cart finally showed up. I finally got my ginger ale. I stuffed the pill in my mouth and washed it down into my esophagus. Within five minutes, my throat had loosened, and my eyes were no longer itching. The rest of the flight passed without event.
And so I returned to Utah safe and sound.
Thus ended my second New York City trip. Like I said in the post before this one, I don't know if I should hope I'll have time for more travel or if I should hope to have other preoccupations. But either way, Older Sister has made an executive decision that she's not coming home to Utah at the end of the summer; she's going to stay in New York if she can find a job. So even if I find myself with other life commitments, I may still have to go back if I want to see my sister. We'll see what happens.
Sunday morning marked the last day of our trip, our farewell to 35 Fifth Avenue, and our return to Utah. As Older Sister prepared for church, we prepared for LaGuardia by rolling up the many sleeping bags and sleeping pads, reassembling our gigantic shared suitcase, and, in my case, repacking a pillow/Urban Outfitter bag combination carry-on.
There were three interesting things about the trip home.
Thing #1: We took an Uber to the airport! First time using Uber, everybody. It cost 1/5 of what the taxi had cost. Not a bad deal.
Thing #2: Our layover was in Philly! I've always wanted to go to the City of Brotherly Love. We didn't get to see anything outside of the airport, but at least I ate this Philly roll while there:
Thing #3: I almost died!!!!!1!
The little sisters and I were separated on our flight home. They had seats together; I was all alone. At least, I was all alone for a few minutes until my seatmate boarded.
When you sit next to a stranger on an airplane, you always wonder if your seatmate is going to be, like, your new best friend. It became clear within about fifteen seconds that my seatmate did not want to be my new best friend. She seemed way more interested in shoving a humongous duffel bag under the seat in front of her than in me.
I wondered why she didn't put the duffel bag in the overhead compartment, where it would fit a lot better. I was even more bewildered when she told me that she needed me to move so that she could get the bag under the seat more easily.
As soon I stood up, I got a better look at the bag. It was not a bag. It was a kennel.
All I could say was, "Uhhh..." Because I was surprised to see that a dog would be sitting next to me on an airplane. I guess I assumed that if someone brought a dog onto a plane, the airline would let the other passengers know. Or at least let the person sitting next to the dog (me) know. But this, apparently, was not the case.
"Are you allergic to dogs?" the lady asked.
I said "Yes," which was easier but less accurate than saying, "Sometimes."
As a kid, I got mildly itchy eyes around cats and dogs. Then, when I was a teenager, I stopped reacting. I would go to Etch-a-Sketch's house and be near the her family's pets, or I would go to Best Friend Boy's house and sit on furniture that had cat hair on it, and I would not react at all. I still had to change my clothes as soon as I got home—Mom and Little Brother had allergies so severe that they would get a reaction just from being near someone who'd even looked at a cat or dog recently. I, on the other hand, stayed hale and whole no matter how many canines and felines I looked at or was exposed to.
If I thought I'd outgrown my allergies, though, I assumed too much too soon. When I hit my twenties, I started to react to cats and dogs again...only the reactions were more like Mom's and Little Brother's. My throat would swell up, and I would have a hard time breathing.
The lady said, "My sister is sitting in seat __." She told me that I could trade seats with her sister.
I agreed, mainly because I couldn't see another solution. I walked up the aisle, found the sister, and explained the situation to her. She gave me her seat and with it her seatmate. Hello, possible new best friend. I sat down.
The frustrating thing about having pet allergies is that most people who own pets don't have pet allergies, and people who don't have pet allergies don't really understand the danger their pets might pose to other people. They'll tell you that their pet doesn't shed, or that they always vacuum up all the fur, or something. Unfortunately, that's not really how it works. A person who's allergic to an animal can have an allergic reaction to allergens in animal dandruff or saliva, which is regularly but not only found in fur. Pets who spend time with their owners regularly leave animal dandruff or saliva on said owners. Those owners might, blissfully ignorant, go to a movie theatre and sit in a cushy red chair. If the next person who sits in the cushy red chair has a pet allergy, that person could easily have an allergic reaction to the allergens that the pet owner left behind. And that's just one example. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a pet owner's job to strip their body of allergens whenever they leave the house, but I am saying that most pet owners seem to be totally unaware that it's that easy for their pet's allergens to spread. These owners also seem to be totally unaware that some people have severe enough allergies that they could die if they don't receive treatment quickly enough.
I remembered this too late.
Not long after I sat down, my eyes started itching. And I started thinking about how, if I were a person who had a dog, and if I had that dog with me in an airport during a layover, I would probably play with said dog during said layover. And, if my sister were on said layover at said airport, I would most likely invite said sister to play with me and said dog during said layover at said airport. And then said sister would probably have said dog's fur...and dandruff...and saliva all over her person. And then, if I were a person who owned a dog and had no allergies and therefore was not aware of how allergies work, I might send my allergic-to-dogs seatmate to trade seats with my sister, and then my allergic-to-dogs seatmate would sit right down on the seat covered with traces of dog hair and touch the armrests that bore traces of dandruff and saliva and then...and then...
And then what???
Once, Pepper and I talked about a theoretical series called Touched by a Dog, where people with dog allergies are forced to interact with dogs because the dog owners don't take others' allergies seriously. Unable to reach their medicine in time, these allergic people die tragic and untimely deaths. I felt like this could be a follow-up to Over the Garden Wall; Wirt seems like the kind of person who would be cursed with severe allergies. Each episode would be a PSA written by Wirt as an effort to alert the general public to the plight of the average person with allergies. Wirt would always play the person with the allergy who dies and his brother, Greg, would always play the dog.
We decided early on that one of the episodes would take place on a plane. Because, I theorized, what could be a more unfortunate circumstance than to be stuck on a plane with a dog but no allergy medicine?
I soon discovered just how unfortunate a circumstance it was.
Like I said, I went for years without having any allergic reactions. My mom (who is one of the people who easily could die if she sat in a cushy red seat recently used by a pet owner) carries allergy medicine, inhalers, and EpiPens with her everywhere she goes; I've never felt the need. So I was wholly unprepared for my own personal episode of Touched by a Dog.
"Your eyes aren't really itching," I told myself sternly.
"Your throat isn't really swelling up," I told myself strictly. "You have an overactive imagination."
"You're being ridiculous," I told myself firmly. "Even if you are having an allergic reaction, it's probably very mild, and you will be just fine for this five-hour flight."
At this point, we were about half an hour in. I'd never reacted so quickly after being exposed to an animal before.
I shuddered to think where I would be in five hours.
I was starting to worry.
I needed to take some kind of action.
I definitely couldn't ask my new seatmate for help. Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant had told us that since the third person in our row hadn't showed, we didn't need to sit right next to each other. Immediately, my seatmate moved to the aisle seat. "I'll make this easier on both of us," she said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. She sounded like she didn't like me, and she thought I didn't like her.
Apparently, she would not become my new best friend, either. But that was okay because come to think of it, I had Viola and wasn't really in the market for a new best friend.
I also didn't feel like I could ask the flight attendants for help. I thought that they probably had allergy medicine somewhere, but I had no idea had to handle this kind of social situation. First of all, I have issues with asking people for help because when I ask people for help, I feel like I've failed or done something wrong. Knowing that I didn't have very much experience with my own allergies, that I had no idea what might happen if I didn't get medicine, that I didn't know how severe my reaction might get or how difficult it might become for me to breathe, definitely spurred me to disregard that particular barrier. But on the other hand, I couldn't figure out how to ask the question...logistically. The flight attendants were all coming up and down the aisle with little carts. How could I possibly talk to one? Walk up behind one and say "Can you help me?" in her ear like a creeper? Wait until they came by with the carts and, when they asked me what I wanted to drink, say, "I'd like a ginger ale, and also some allergy medicine if you have it, and please hurry because I am in some kind of respiratory distress?"
No, there was no way. There was no way. I was never going to work up the courage to ask for allergy medicine. Maybe I would be fine, but maybe I wouldn't be. Maybe my throat would keep swelling. If it kept up, I might not be able to breathe. Traditionally, when you're unable to breathe, you die.
What dumb luck! What a stupid way to go.
As is my habit, I started to pray. Sometimes, in situations like this, God tells me to suck it up and get over myself and do the difficult social thing. But sometimes, He provides a path that is more aligned with my personality.
After praying, I had an instant idea. Baby Sister had a cold at the beginning of the trip, remember? My mother the RN gave her a bag of cold medicine to take on the trip. I was pretty sure that I'd seen allergy medicine in there, too. I felt like I should go ask Baby Sister if she had any allergy medicine.
It took me a while to work up the courage to ask my own sister for help. By the time I stepped past my surly seatmate as politely as I could and headed to my sisters' seats, we were an hour and a half into the flight.
I don't remember exactly what I said, but as I was distressed and on the verge of tears it was not particularly eloquent.
Baby Sister said that she didn't think she had any medicine left in her carry-on, allergy or otherwise. "I'll check," she said. She rummaged around and came up with a single adult multi-allergy symptom pill.
Hallelujah.
I took the pill back to my seat. All I needed was some liquid to wash the pill down, and everything would be fine. Luckily, the flight attendants were still (slowly) making their trips with the little carts.
A flight attendant with a cart soon came. I was all geared up to order my ginger ale, but this flight attendant only had biscotti. There was another cart still coming with the drinks.
I choked down the biscotti. Traditionally, biscotti are dry, but these ones seemed particularly hard to swallow. I hoped it was just my imagination and not a symptom of my swelling throat.
I waited for the drink cart...and waited. About half an hour had passed since I'd gotten the allergy pill from Baby Sister.
The only thing I could think of that would be sadder than dying of allergies on a plane because I wouldn't ask for allergy medicine would be dying of allergies on a plane while holding an allergy pill in my hand.
I swallowed, checking the tightness of my throat. Should I try to take the pill without liquid? Plot twist: I choke to death on the pill. Maybe that was a bad plan.
Just as I was about to panic, the drink cart finally showed up. I finally got my ginger ale. I stuffed the pill in my mouth and washed it down into my esophagus. Within five minutes, my throat had loosened, and my eyes were no longer itching. The rest of the flight passed without event.
And so I returned to Utah safe and sound.
Thus ended my second New York City trip. Like I said in the post before this one, I don't know if I should hope I'll have time for more travel or if I should hope to have other preoccupations. But either way, Older Sister has made an executive decision that she's not coming home to Utah at the end of the summer; she's going to stay in New York if she can find a job. So even if I find myself with other life commitments, I may still have to go back if I want to see my sister. We'll see what happens.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Nothing's as Amazing as a Musical
Context: This post is about the fifth day (and fourth day in the city) of my second New York City trip.
When we got back to Older Sister's dorm after School of Rock, all of her roommate's stuff was gone.
Goodbye, Older Sister's roommate. That we never saw. I don't know how that girl was getting in and out of 35 Fifth Avenue so sneakily. Probably it helped that she actually lived there. My younger sisters and I, as guests, had to produce our guest passes and photo IDs to the security guard every time we came through the door. These security guard changed every few hours, and they came in a wide variety. Some of them were friendly and polite. Some of them were totally indifferent. Some seemed almost antagonistic.
Anyways, I'm sure Older Sister's roommate wasn't thinking of our convenience, but her abrupt departure was a blessing nonetheless. We immediately strewed our stuff around the room, and Little Sister claimed the now-empty bed for her own. Older Sister didn't have work in the morning, so we could all sleep in if we wanted to. Now we were really living in style!
But we didn't want to sleep in. At the last minute, we decided that, since we'd hauled our American Girl dolls across the country, we were definitely going back to the American Girl Place to try our luck with the hair appointments.
The lady had said that we needed to be there as soon after 9:00 as possible. We got there around 9:20. Would there even be any appointments left at a time that we could go? We weren't sure. It was a Saturday, and there would be a lot of parents off work bringing their daughters, and a lot of tourists, and—and—and—
—and we rushed in, rushed up the stairs, and rushed to the pink-floored area where hair appointments could be made. And got appointments for all three of our dolls within the hour!
Watching our dolls get their hair done was so cute! They had miniature hairstyling chairs with miniature aprons to protect the dolls' clothes, just like in real life. The hairstyles we chose came with complimentary hair ribbons in the colors of our choices.
As she worked, the hairstylist told us that she had Molly when she was a little girl. She'd actually invented a hairstyle for Molly (pictured below). That was gratifying because growing up, it always seemed like Samantha was the most popular doll. It was nice for Molly girl to get some love.
See, Ellen's wait staff is a bunch of actors and actresses who are either trying to get into a Broadway show, are between Broadway shows, or were on Broadway once but haven't been able to break back in. So while you eat your over-priced food, they sing and dance to karaoke tracks. Or rather, they belt and dance, because every wait staff personnel who sang that night seemed to have a Broadway-style belt. They belted songs from the radio and from Oklahoma. A guy and a girl belted "Suddenly Seymour." Five or six of them did "One Day More" from different parts of the restaurant: upstairs, downstairs, wherever, until they met at the front for the grand finale.
I also enjoyed the general atmosphere of Ellen's. The building style and the interior decor reminded me of a restaurant called Galaxy that I loved as a kid. Also, the chicken pot pie, though definitely overpriced, was the best chicken pot pie I've ever had.
Towards the end of our meal, the manager guy, who had the voice of Fred Figglehorn, gave a speech about how, if we'd enjoyed our entertainment, we should put some money into the bucket they were passing around. The bucket money went towards paying for singing, dancing, and acting lessons for the wait staff.
I put a dollar in. When I graduated from college, I had two things: an arts degree and no real hope that I'd ever earn a steady paycheck. I've been fortunate to be as successful as I have. I could spare a dollar to help other creative-type people hone their skills and, hopefully, find work in their chosen field just as I've been able to find work in mine.
And what about the show itself? Delightful! Sara Bareilles wrote the music and lyrics, which were fun. The performances were top-notch, particularly Jessie Mueller and Kimiko Glenn. There was one song that got really inappropriate, and a few instances of abstract dance-exposition that got a little weird. Still, though, it was entertaining and engrossing and emotional.
Some food for thought: Waitress is a musical about difficult, serious things; so is Fiddler on the Roof. Even though the subject matter is painful, the musicals themselves are fun. I think that's what people love about musicals...good ones usually don't take themselves too seriously, because it's hard to be serious when somebody is liable to burst into song and dance at any minute. Yet in spite of, or maybe because of, the levity, musicals often convey touching and life-changing messages. There isn't another art form quite like it.
After the show ended, we raced to the Rockefeller Center, where we boarded an elevator headed for the Top of the Rock. It was almost closing time, so the observation decks weren't too crowded. We got lots of pictures as we gazed out over the city.
I'm a night person; I think most clearly at night. And there's something about an inspiring landscape that makes the human soul ponder its utmost desires. I looked out at New York City and its skyscrapers and its parks and its patriotic red, white, and blue 4th of July lights, and I thought about what I wanted. I'd seen so little of the vast city, and I wanted to see more, someday, if I had the opportunity to return. Yet part of me wasn't sure that I wanted the opportunity to return. That part of me hoped that I would find myself doing more important stuff in the near future and that I would have neither the time nor the money to come back, simply because I would be spending that time and money on other, dearer things.
When we got back to Older Sister's dorm after School of Rock, all of her roommate's stuff was gone.
Goodbye, Older Sister's roommate. That we never saw. I don't know how that girl was getting in and out of 35 Fifth Avenue so sneakily. Probably it helped that she actually lived there. My younger sisters and I, as guests, had to produce our guest passes and photo IDs to the security guard every time we came through the door. These security guard changed every few hours, and they came in a wide variety. Some of them were friendly and polite. Some of them were totally indifferent. Some seemed almost antagonistic.
Anyways, I'm sure Older Sister's roommate wasn't thinking of our convenience, but her abrupt departure was a blessing nonetheless. We immediately strewed our stuff around the room, and Little Sister claimed the now-empty bed for her own. Older Sister didn't have work in the morning, so we could all sleep in if we wanted to. Now we were really living in style!
But we didn't want to sleep in. At the last minute, we decided that, since we'd hauled our American Girl dolls across the country, we were definitely going back to the American Girl Place to try our luck with the hair appointments.
The lady had said that we needed to be there as soon after 9:00 as possible. We got there around 9:20. Would there even be any appointments left at a time that we could go? We weren't sure. It was a Saturday, and there would be a lot of parents off work bringing their daughters, and a lot of tourists, and—and—and—
—and we rushed in, rushed up the stairs, and rushed to the pink-floored area where hair appointments could be made. And got appointments for all three of our dolls within the hour!
Watching our dolls get their hair done was so cute! They had miniature hairstyling chairs with miniature aprons to protect the dolls' clothes, just like in real life. The hairstyles we chose came with complimentary hair ribbons in the colors of our choices.
As she worked, the hairstylist told us that she had Molly when she was a little girl. She'd actually invented a hairstyle for Molly (pictured below). That was gratifying because growing up, it always seemed like Samantha was the most popular doll. It was nice for Molly girl to get some love.
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| A flipped ponytail with a braid for Molly! |
Once our dolls' hairs had been brushed, sprayed, styled, and trimmed (we learned that, as the doll hair loosens over the years, it actually grows a little), they looked almost new. Little Sister and Baby Sister chose to also get Samantha and Kit's ears pierced. So many childhood dreams come true!
While we were in the neighborhood, we grabbed tickets for the top of the Rockefeller Center for 11:00 p.m. Little Sister and I had decided that, of all the cliché tourist-y things we could have taken Baby Sister to do during the trip, this was the one that we were willing to spend money on. We'd have just enough time to make it after our show ended that night.
We proudly escorted our dolls and their beautiful hair back to Older Sister's place. Older Sister accompanied us during a quiet lunch of meat pies and lemonade at the Union Square farmer's market, then to the matinee of Something Rotten!
The rest of the day was devoted to musical theatre.
First, Something Rotten! We saw this show last year, just weeks after it opened. I didn't like the moments of crude humor, but I loved the cleverness and the well-delivered performances.
By this point, July 2016, the show has been running for some fifteen, sixteen months. The leading man, Brian D'arcy James, left the show just a few months ago. So there was a new (but very excellent) leading man. The rest of the cast—John Cariani, Christian Borle, et al—was still there. And they did a good job, no question. But I could tell that they'd been doing this show for a long time and that they had gotten slightly bored with it. How could I tell that? Because every single main performer, except the girl playing Portia, was doing everything they'd done the last time I saw the show plus 200% more. They were hamming it up, over-exaggerating their character's quirks, delivering their lines new ways. Some of what they did was quite funny. Still, I felt like the original interpretations of the characters were much better and that the performance this time was a little jarring. To be fair, it may also have been the matinee slump; I feel like matinees never have the same energy as a nighttime performance.
So Something Rotten! is still great, but I didn't like it as much this time around.
Afterward, it was time to get dinner, but said dinner was essentially another musical theatre performance because we went to Ellen's Stardust Diner!
As soon as they let us into Ellen's (there was a line coming out of the building and wrapping around the corner), it was easy to see that the place was a classic tourist trap. In other words, everything was unjustifiably expensive. We were aware beforehand of the tourist trappiness yet chose to eat dinner there anyways. Why? Because singing waiters, that's why!
 |
| View from the balcony. |
I also enjoyed the general atmosphere of Ellen's. The building style and the interior decor reminded me of a restaurant called Galaxy that I loved as a kid. Also, the chicken pot pie, though definitely overpriced, was the best chicken pot pie I've ever had.
 |
| The chicken pot pie: basically chicken stew (with mushrooms) that was topped with a square phyllo dough. |
I put a dollar in. When I graduated from college, I had two things: an arts degree and no real hope that I'd ever earn a steady paycheck. I've been fortunate to be as successful as I have. I could spare a dollar to help other creative-type people hone their skills and, hopefully, find work in their chosen field just as I've been able to find work in mine.
After Ellen's, we said good-bye to Older Sister, who was not going with us to the final musical of the trip, Waitress.
Waitress deserves praise for its clever use of theming alone. Based on a movie I've never seen, the musical is about a waitress who bakes pies to express her feelings about life events. The moment we entered the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, we were hit with the scent of fresh-baked pie. I don't know how they bottled that scent, but it was there, and it was amazing.
Then, before the show and during intermission, the theatre had people walking up and down the aisles selling tiny pies in jars. I wasn't super hungry after my delicious pot pie, but I decided that the experience of eating a tiny pie in a Broadway theatre while watching a show about pie was not to be missed.
 |
| This cute jar held one tiny, chocolate-Oreo pie! |
Some food for thought: Waitress is a musical about difficult, serious things; so is Fiddler on the Roof. Even though the subject matter is painful, the musicals themselves are fun. I think that's what people love about musicals...good ones usually don't take themselves too seriously, because it's hard to be serious when somebody is liable to burst into song and dance at any minute. Yet in spite of, or maybe because of, the levity, musicals often convey touching and life-changing messages. There isn't another art form quite like it.
After the show ended, we raced to the Rockefeller Center, where we boarded an elevator headed for the Top of the Rock. It was almost closing time, so the observation decks weren't too crowded. We got lots of pictures as we gazed out over the city.
I'm a night person; I think most clearly at night. And there's something about an inspiring landscape that makes the human soul ponder its utmost desires. I looked out at New York City and its skyscrapers and its parks and its patriotic red, white, and blue 4th of July lights, and I thought about what I wanted. I'd seen so little of the vast city, and I wanted to see more, someday, if I had the opportunity to return. Yet part of me wasn't sure that I wanted the opportunity to return. That part of me hoped that I would find myself doing more important stuff in the near future and that I would have neither the time nor the money to come back, simply because I would be spending that time and money on other, dearer things.
I looked, and I thought, but there was nothing on the horizon to indicate what the future might hold.
And that was my last night in New York City. I'd been planning blog posts in my head all week, and I wondered if I would even write about our trip home the next day. It seemed like I might not have anything to say about that.
I was wrong.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
A Map in Central Park
Context: This post is about the fourth day (and third day in the city) of my second New York City trip.
It seems like a disproportionate of my blog posts about New York talk about how we couldn't find one place or another.
Well, let me tell you. Finding addresses in that town can be a little difficult sometime. The problem is that while the street-and-avenue grid system is not so hard, the numbers on the actual buildings don't work the way they do in Utah. Here, the buildings between, say, 6th and 7th West are labeled as such: 602 West, 628 West, 656 West, etcetera, with the lower numbers being closer to 6th West and the higher numbers being closer to 7th West. But in New York City, if you were looking for 250 43rd Street, 250 wouldn't necessarily indicate that the building was between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. The building numbers are essentially useless.
...or are they? I actually researched the NYC numbering system for this blog post, just to be sure that I wasn't missing something. It turns out, according to multiple websites, that if you take a New York City building number, drop the last digit, divide the remainder by 2, and add or subtract a number from a special chart that some genius developed, you will get the number of the nearest cross street.
So, yeah, essentially useless.
On Friday morning, Little Sister, Baby Sister, and I set out for Chinatown. Well, actually, that wasn't the first thing we did. First we went to the Barnes and Noble on Union Square.
I think I know what you're thinking: You spent your vacation at Barnes and Noble, a place that you can visit not only at home but at literally almost any halfway decent town in the country?
I stand by my decision because a) books and b) you ain't never seen a Barnes and Noble like this before. There are rolling ladders attached to the shelves everywhere. Sadly, customers aren't supposed to climb on them, but I swear that one of these times that I'm in New York I'm going to get my sisters to distract the employees so that I can sail around on the ladder like Belle does in the bookshop in Beauty and the Beast.
After our Barnes and Noble break, we took the subway, got off on Canal Street, and began to roam the nearby area in our search for Chinatown.
Not even dropping digits and dividing by two would save us, because we weren't trying to get to any particular building. Where were we going? We didn't know. Just to some of the open-air shops for souvenirs and then to a restaurant for lunch. As neither "open-air shops" nor "restaurant for lunch" are viable locations for iPhones, we sort of wandered helplessly as we tried to figure out the best way to find this particular section of the city.
Finally, we found it. We almost got run over by a truck (okay, not exactly, but I tell you that this truck looked like it was going to hit us and my life flashed before my very eyes and it was okay but I've seen better movies), but we found it. We did a little shopping, and then we got dim sum: shrimp dumplings, sweet pork buns, potstickers, and crispy, juicy roasted duck! Delicious.
But the very worst place to navigate in New York City is Central Park.
Some of you may remember the day we spent in Central Park last year. Little Sister and I really, really, really wanted to see the carousel. I don't know why, but we did. We spent an hour or more trying to find it. Spoiler alert: we did not find it. And, to paraphrase the words of Anne Shirley, it was one of the most tragical disappointments of my life.
I wrote this:
First of all, apparently Central Park heard the words that my fingers typed (mixed metaphor, whatever, go with it), because they had a few banners with maps hanging around the park. And there were people who were selling expensive, unofficial paper maps at the entrance. But we didn't buy them because we felt like we could probably manage with our secret weapons: the smartphone!
Last May, Older Sister was afraid to leave her data on when we were roaming Central Park, so it was difficult to know if we were staying on course. This year, we all had smartphones, and we'd anticipated using a goodly portion of our data on the trip.
So this time, we left the smartphones on as we walked. Smartphone maps are easily confused, so it was still a little difficult, but within half an hour or so we found...
Central Park!!! Good job. You have surpassed all of my wildest map dreams.
At the Alice in Wonderland statue we met up with Older Sister. Then, alas, it started to rain.
To get out of the rain, we hastened to The Plaza. Little Sister and I, when planning the trip, had decided it would be fun to take Baby Sister to eat there...in the food court below the hotel. So it sounds a lot fancier than it was. It was still good, though. I had a delicious smoked salmon-cream cheese-caper crepe and a classic Nutella crepe for dessert. (Yes, I had three desserts that day! We had multiple desserts every day, actually, but you can't blame us. New York City is the Land of Many Desserts.)
After the rain, we wondered the streets of the city. We went into several fancy stores, such as Tiffany's. The employees there were very nice and called us "ladies." At Tiffany's, we were told we could take pictures of whatever we wanted...since I guess it was obvious that we weren't there to shop.
Finally, it was time for us to go to School of Rock.
The ladders at Barnes and Noble were a high point of the day.
So was dim sum, cannolis, and gelato.
So was the carousel.
But School of Rock was the best.
I have to say, I had my doubts going into it. First of all, it's Andrew Lloyd Webber. My perception is that Andrew Lloyd Webber is Broadway's M. Night Shyamalan. Everyone used to love everything he did, but then he made something so terrible (coughTheLastAirbendercoughLoveNeverDiescough) that now he's kind of a joke. Second of all, after seeing Finding Neverland, I was worried that this musical would have the same problem. I was worried it would lose what was great about the movie while simultaneously not bringing anything new to the table. Still, the Tony performance of "You're in the Band" was good; Alex Brightman looked like he was matching Jack Black's energy, so maybe there was hope.
So on Friday night we got to the Winter Garden Theatre, took our seats, opened our programs, and looked at the list of replacements.
And Alex Brightman was not there.
His understudy was playing that night.
Another of life's tragical disappointments!
Also, Luca Padovan, who played Les in Newsies, has a leading role in School of Rock, and I was looking forward to seeing him because I've only heard good things about him. But his understudy was playing that night, too.
So it was with considerable reluctance that we waited for the show to begin.
Then the lights dimmed, and they played a recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I know it was Andrew Lloyd Webber, because he said, "This is Andrew Lloyd Webber," in his prissy accent. He then informed us that people always asked whether the kids were, in fact, really playing their instruments live. The answer to that question was yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber said.
Thanks, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Thanks for sharing.
Then the show began. And...oh my goodness...it was awesome. It hit all the right notes. It kept almost every line from the movie, verbatim, which you'd think would be boring but totally wasn't. The kid actors? So good! And the understudy, Will Klum? A-freaking-mazing! I forgot he was the understudy!
During the Battle of the Bands, we, the audience, became the Battle of the Bands audience, so suddenly we were basically at a rock concert and an important part of the show. That was fun, but awkward, because we were chanting the "School of Rock! School of Rock!" before Dewey and company were supposed to hear the audience calling them for an encore. They basically had to wait for us to stop chanting so that they could deliver their lines.
All around, a perfect adaptation and a super fun musical. We loved it so much that we stage doored afterward.
Stage dooring, for you non-theatre people, is when you wait by theatre's exit for the cast members to come out. We'd already been planning to stage door, but if we hadn't loved the show so much we probably would have just gone back to the dorm. It was still raining hard. Like, parts of the sidewalk were actually flooded with a few inches of water. In spite of that, Little Sister and I shoved my crumpled, wet playbill into the actors' faces so that they could sign it with silver marker. I later posted some of the signatures on Instagram and tagged the actors. Other actors in the show liked the photo, and the official School of Rock Instagram actually commented on it! *swoons*
On the way home, we grabbed a bite (Wendy's for my sisters, Halal for me) and headed home, full of excitement and hopped up on a show well done. It was a long time before I got to bed.
It seems like a disproportionate of my blog posts about New York talk about how we couldn't find one place or another.
Well, let me tell you. Finding addresses in that town can be a little difficult sometime. The problem is that while the street-and-avenue grid system is not so hard, the numbers on the actual buildings don't work the way they do in Utah. Here, the buildings between, say, 6th and 7th West are labeled as such: 602 West, 628 West, 656 West, etcetera, with the lower numbers being closer to 6th West and the higher numbers being closer to 7th West. But in New York City, if you were looking for 250 43rd Street, 250 wouldn't necessarily indicate that the building was between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. The building numbers are essentially useless.
...or are they? I actually researched the NYC numbering system for this blog post, just to be sure that I wasn't missing something. It turns out, according to multiple websites, that if you take a New York City building number, drop the last digit, divide the remainder by 2, and add or subtract a number from a special chart that some genius developed, you will get the number of the nearest cross street.
So, yeah, essentially useless.
On Friday morning, Little Sister, Baby Sister, and I set out for Chinatown. Well, actually, that wasn't the first thing we did. First we went to the Barnes and Noble on Union Square.
I think I know what you're thinking: You spent your vacation at Barnes and Noble, a place that you can visit not only at home but at literally almost any halfway decent town in the country?
I stand by my decision because a) books and b) you ain't never seen a Barnes and Noble like this before. There are rolling ladders attached to the shelves everywhere. Sadly, customers aren't supposed to climb on them, but I swear that one of these times that I'm in New York I'm going to get my sisters to distract the employees so that I can sail around on the ladder like Belle does in the bookshop in Beauty and the Beast.
After our Barnes and Noble break, we took the subway, got off on Canal Street, and began to roam the nearby area in our search for Chinatown.
Not even dropping digits and dividing by two would save us, because we weren't trying to get to any particular building. Where were we going? We didn't know. Just to some of the open-air shops for souvenirs and then to a restaurant for lunch. As neither "open-air shops" nor "restaurant for lunch" are viable locations for iPhones, we sort of wandered helplessly as we tried to figure out the best way to find this particular section of the city.
Finally, we found it. We almost got run over by a truck (okay, not exactly, but I tell you that this truck looked like it was going to hit us and my life flashed before my very eyes and it was okay but I've seen better movies), but we found it. We did a little shopping, and then we got dim sum: shrimp dumplings, sweet pork buns, potstickers, and crispy, juicy roasted duck! Delicious.
 |
| These are shrimp dumplings. My favorite dim sum dishes are these dumplings, sweet pork buns, and egg custard tarts. So if you ever have a hankering to bring me dim sum, you know what I like. |
Then we faced the uncertainty of New York City navigation again so that we could go to Little Italy so that we could buy cannolis and gelato. Baby Sister tried a cannoli for the first time. I had my first cannoli in Italy, but if you can't have your first cannoli in Italy, have it in Little Italy in NYC.
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| Chocolate-covered cannoli! |
Some of you may remember the day we spent in Central Park last year. Little Sister and I really, really, really wanted to see the carousel. I don't know why, but we did. We spent an hour or more trying to find it. Spoiler alert: we did not find it. And, to paraphrase the words of Anne Shirley, it was one of the most tragical disappointments of my life.
I wrote this:
I'm going to make a quick observation, which is that Central Park needs some map kiosks with paper maps, like they have at Disneyland or the zoo. And if Central Park already has maps somewhere within its expansive borders, then there needs to be some other maps leading to those maps.This time, things went considerably better.
First of all, apparently Central Park heard the words that my fingers typed (mixed metaphor, whatever, go with it), because they had a few banners with maps hanging around the park. And there were people who were selling expensive, unofficial paper maps at the entrance. But we didn't buy them because we felt like we could probably manage with our secret weapons: the smartphone!
Last May, Older Sister was afraid to leave her data on when we were roaming Central Park, so it was difficult to know if we were staying on course. This year, we all had smartphones, and we'd anticipated using a goodly portion of our data on the trip.
So this time, we left the smartphones on as we walked. Smartphone maps are easily confused, so it was still a little difficult, but within half an hour or so we found...
 |
| Ta-da! |
...THE CAROUSEL!
They charged $3 a ride, which was not asking too much for a ride on a MAGICAL CAROUSEL OF JOY AND GLADNESS. I'm serious. It was wonderful. Don't ask me why. It just was.
We also hit the Chess & Checkers House and Strawberry Fields. Then, as we were heading towards the Alice in Wonderland statue, something wonderful happened.
A Central Park Conservancy ranger stopped us.
"Do you want a map?" he asked.
We said no thanks.
"It's free."
We changed our minds.
He asked us where we were going. He drew a route for us on a paper map and then gave the map into our keeping.
Central Park!!! Good job. You have surpassed all of my wildest map dreams.
At the Alice in Wonderland statue we met up with Older Sister. Then, alas, it started to rain.
To get out of the rain, we hastened to The Plaza. Little Sister and I, when planning the trip, had decided it would be fun to take Baby Sister to eat there...in the food court below the hotel. So it sounds a lot fancier than it was. It was still good, though. I had a delicious smoked salmon-cream cheese-caper crepe and a classic Nutella crepe for dessert. (Yes, I had three desserts that day! We had multiple desserts every day, actually, but you can't blame us. New York City is the Land of Many Desserts.)
After the rain, we wondered the streets of the city. We went into several fancy stores, such as Tiffany's. The employees there were very nice and called us "ladies." At Tiffany's, we were told we could take pictures of whatever we wanted...since I guess it was obvious that we weren't there to shop.
Finally, it was time for us to go to School of Rock.
The ladders at Barnes and Noble were a high point of the day.
So was dim sum, cannolis, and gelato.
So was the carousel.
But School of Rock was the best.
I have to say, I had my doubts going into it. First of all, it's Andrew Lloyd Webber. My perception is that Andrew Lloyd Webber is Broadway's M. Night Shyamalan. Everyone used to love everything he did, but then he made something so terrible (coughTheLastAirbendercoughLoveNeverDiescough) that now he's kind of a joke. Second of all, after seeing Finding Neverland, I was worried that this musical would have the same problem. I was worried it would lose what was great about the movie while simultaneously not bringing anything new to the table. Still, the Tony performance of "You're in the Band" was good; Alex Brightman looked like he was matching Jack Black's energy, so maybe there was hope.
So on Friday night we got to the Winter Garden Theatre, took our seats, opened our programs, and looked at the list of replacements.
And Alex Brightman was not there.
His understudy was playing that night.
Another of life's tragical disappointments!
Also, Luca Padovan, who played Les in Newsies, has a leading role in School of Rock, and I was looking forward to seeing him because I've only heard good things about him. But his understudy was playing that night, too.
So it was with considerable reluctance that we waited for the show to begin.
Then the lights dimmed, and they played a recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I know it was Andrew Lloyd Webber, because he said, "This is Andrew Lloyd Webber," in his prissy accent. He then informed us that people always asked whether the kids were, in fact, really playing their instruments live. The answer to that question was yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber said.
Thanks, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Thanks for sharing.
Then the show began. And...oh my goodness...it was awesome. It hit all the right notes. It kept almost every line from the movie, verbatim, which you'd think would be boring but totally wasn't. The kid actors? So good! And the understudy, Will Klum? A-freaking-mazing! I forgot he was the understudy!
During the Battle of the Bands, we, the audience, became the Battle of the Bands audience, so suddenly we were basically at a rock concert and an important part of the show. That was fun, but awkward, because we were chanting the "School of Rock! School of Rock!" before Dewey and company were supposed to hear the audience calling them for an encore. They basically had to wait for us to stop chanting so that they could deliver their lines.
All around, a perfect adaptation and a super fun musical. We loved it so much that we stage doored afterward.
Stage dooring, for you non-theatre people, is when you wait by theatre's exit for the cast members to come out. We'd already been planning to stage door, but if we hadn't loved the show so much we probably would have just gone back to the dorm. It was still raining hard. Like, parts of the sidewalk were actually flooded with a few inches of water. In spite of that, Little Sister and I shoved my crumpled, wet playbill into the actors' faces so that they could sign it with silver marker. I later posted some of the signatures on Instagram and tagged the actors. Other actors in the show liked the photo, and the official School of Rock Instagram actually commented on it! *swoons*
On the way home, we grabbed a bite (Wendy's for my sisters, Halal for me) and headed home, full of excitement and hopped up on a show well done. It was a long time before I got to bed.
Saturday, July 16, 2016
My Love Life
Now that we're halfway through my second New York trip, I'm going to take a little break and talk about something else. Buuut we'll get back to your regularly scheduled programming next week.
So yesterday, I was on Facebook and I saw that someone had shared this meme:
I decided to try, for kicks and giggles. I grabbed Alphabet of Dreams from my windowsill and turned to page 206. The first sentence was as follows:
So yesterday, I was on Facebook and I saw that someone had shared this meme:
Accompanying the meme was somebody's results:
...I'm just going to leave that here.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Sleeping on the Subway and Other Inexpensive Things to Do in NYC
Context: This post is about the third day (and second day in the city) of my second New York City trip.
"Listen to this address," Older Sister said to us when we were discussing our plans for moving our luggage from our hotel to her dorm room. "You'll never have another like it."
The address? 35 Fifth Avenue. That's where Older Sister's dorm is. Fifth Avenue in NYC has a certain prestige, so she was right. I'll never have another address like the one I had for the three days that I spent living with Older Sister.
35 Fifth Avenue, though, was more easily bragged of than reached. My younger sisters and I awoke fairly early on Thursday morning, despite having stayed up to eat dinner at Carmine's. We packed up everything we had and ventured down into the subway system of New York City.
Little Sister was pulling her suitcase and Baby Sister's. Baby Sister was carrying her pillow and pulling my suitcase. I was carrying my pillow and pulling the humongous, unwieldy suitcase. Getting that suitcase down the stairs into the subway station is an experience I'd rather not repeat. At least Little Sister and I were experienced in getting luggage into the subway station proper. After purchasing subway passes, we sent Little Sister through the turnstile first. Then we passed the suitcases to Little Sister before Baby Sister and I joined her on the other side.
The subway system was as grimy as last time but considerably more warm. Someone had warned me that July in New York City is blazing, so on a whim I'd put one of the fans that Porch had given me in my purse. Whenever we had to wait for a subway in the oppressive heat, I'd whip that puppy out and fan my sisters and myself.
After this particular subway trip, we emerged near Washington Square Park. (Getting that suitcase up the stairs and out of the subway station is another experience that I'd rather not repeat.) Then we essentially wandered around in search of 35 Fifth Avenue. I say "wandered" because Little Sister's iPhone suddenly became very confused.
Things Little Sister Said While Looking for Older Sister's Dorm:
"We need to turn around."
"I think we need to go the other way."
"What does that sign say?" (Little Sister has bad vision, but she doesn't wear contacts and she only wears glasses when driving and at movies/musicals.)
"What does that sign say?"
"Maybe we should call Older Sister."
I didn't mind any of this in the least, because we'd wandered into Greenwich Village Historic District. Or so I gathered from all the signs that read, "Greenwich Village Historic District." Every time Little Sister asked me what a sign said, I took great relish in responding by pronouncing "Greenwich" as "Grenwich." Also, the buildings were beautiful.
"I like this part of New York City a lot better," Baby Sister said as we hauled our luggage through the peaceful streets.
In the end, we found our way to 35 Fifth Avenue. Older Sister was waiting for us; she helped us get our guest passes at the front desk.
Older Sister's dorm room was tiny and cramped and had no air conditioning, and the elevator was tiny and cramped and slow, but the lobby was to die for. I began to wonder if it was a hotel right away because the architectural style of the lobby was just like the architectural style of the lobby in the hotel in the Tower of Terror ride in Disneyland's sister park, California Adventure. Sure enough, Older Sister confirmed that the building had once been a hotel. Research showed that this hotel (the Grosvenor Hotel) was built around the same time when the Tower of Terror hotel was supposed to have been built, thus the similar styles. Disney always does their research.
After dropping off our luggage at Older Sister's place, it was time for Older Sister to go to work and for my sisters and me to go to Brooklyn!
That's right, we were taking Baby Sister to Brooklyn. We would have loved to do the Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour again, but we were on a tight budget. Most of what we did had to be dirt cheap. That meant no tours, no museums, not even the Statue of Liberty. Instead, we were going to spend a quiet, inexpensive morning playing on the beach at Coney Island.
Here, I'll break down some of the ways we cut costs that day.
Don't:
Buy a townhouse on Fifth Avenue: $$$
Instead:
Stay on the floor of a Fifth Avenue dorm: Free!
Don't:
Sleep on a tour bus going to Coney Island: $$
Instead:
Sleep on the N Train going to Coney Island: $
(Don't worry, Mom, I made sure that the three of us were never all asleep at the same time. I dozed only when Little Sister was awake.)
Don't:
Ride rides or play games at Coney Island: $$
Instead:
Play on the beach at Coney Island: Free!
We jumped in and out of the waves and took pictures of ourselves with a selfie stick that Older Sister lent us. We also held a funeral for a dead crab that we found. I'd never been in the Atlantic Ocean before. It was considerably more tired-seeming than the Pacific Ocean, like maybe the Atlantic had seen too many tragedies and had grown weary of life. And I kept thinking about how maybe some of the water that was touching us had also touched the ruins of the Titanic.
Don't:
Eat an expensive lunch: $$ to $$$
Instead:
Split a $14 margherita pizza at the Coney Island location of Grimaldi's: $14
Although Little Sister and I also bought root beer. When we were sitting down, Baby Sister was all, "Wait, shouldn't we get something else on this pizza besides cheese?" and Little Sister and I were all, "No! This is the way that pizza was meant to be eaten." I like to think that we convinced Baby Sister to see it our way. She seemed to enjoy the pizza, at any rate.
Don't:
Sit down in a restaurant on Wall Street and order something so that you can use the "paying customers only" bathroom: $$
Instead:
Use the bathroom at Wall Street's Variety Cafe: Free!
On our way back from Coney Island, we suddenly decided that it might be a good use of our time to take Baby Sister to Wall Street. The only problem was that I needed to use a bathroom. Little Sister was all, "I'm sure we'll be able to find a bathroom!" However, there aren't a lot of public-type bathrooms around the city. Last year, Little Sister and Glory went to the courthouse in hopes that they would be able to use their bathrooms. In order to enter said courthouse, they had to relinquish their phones, and even after that it took them a considerable while to find the bathrooms.
I wracked my brain to think of a place on Wall Street that might have accessible bathrooms. Then I remembered the Variety Cafe, where we ate lunch last year! Because of the way it was set up, there was no way the cafeteria-style restaurant could have a "paying customers only" rule. And sure enough, I was able to use the bathroom there, no problem.
Don't:
Completely trash your family's fortune and reputation in a wild goose chase of historical clues that eventually lead you to some crypts beneath Trinity Church: Family fortune; family reputation; $$$ for gas, money, food, and gear to steal the Declaration of Independence.
Instead:
Visit Trinity Church as a tourist: Free!
There are lots of fun things to do at Trinity Church! You can stand where Queen Elizabeth II once stood.
I find this plaque to be hilarious, first of all because the Trinity Church people marked the exact spot where the queen stood but apparently didn't care where Prince Philip was standing. Secondly, I'm amused because Trinity Church is a historical landmark of the United States of America, and the United States of America is supposed to collectively be over the whole royalty thing...at least over it enough to not devote plaques to royalty on our historical sites.
I also mentioned last year that Trinity Church has a graveyard with some very, very old graves. Apparently, when they started the graveyard they did not foresee the possibility of tourists over the next 300+ years, because the layout does not seem to have been planned accordingly. The stepping stones leading around to the other side of the graveyard included an actual horizontal gravestone. I guess that this guy was the only person buried where they wanted to put the stepping stones for tourists, so they decided to just encourage people to walk on his grave instead of finding another place for a path.
Oh, and last time we didn't get a chance to see Alexander Hamilton's grave, remember? Well now, thanks to those crazy Hamilton kids, we couldn't miss it. There were tons of flowers and wreaths and things all over it, and a big tour group was standing right near it. And part of me was all, "Hello? Did any of you even know Alexander Hamilton existed a year ago?" Because I knew all about A-Ham before it was cool. Because I'm a history hipster. (Hipstory?)
Don't:
Visit the 9/11 museum: $$ and a couple hours of your time. (At least, don't visit it if you're trying to save money. It's definitely worth visiting if you have the time and are able to spring the cash.)
Instead:
Visit the 9/11 memorials: Fifteen minutes of your time.
It was just as heartbreaking but a lot more crowded this time around. Lots of tourists were setting their bags and things on the memorial, which I was not okay with.
After our jaunt to Wall Street, it was time to get ready for Fiddler on the Roof and, after, Umami Burger. Neither of those things was exactly cheap. Umami Burger was not worth the price, but Fiddler definitely was. I love that show; it was the first musical I was ever in. Also, some of my Jewish family members lived in Russia around that time, and the musical gives me an idea of what their lives would have been like. The way they staged this production of the show made thinking about my family history easy; they had the actor playing Tevye start and end the show in modern clothes, reading from what appeared to be an ancestor's journal. Also, Older Sister kept praising the performance of Adam Kantor as Motel. He did do a really good job; when Tevye yelled at him he actually crawled under the milk cart to get away. It was glorious.
One last thing about living large in NYC on a modest budget...if you opt to sleep on the floor of someone's dorm, the dorm resident you are staying with may have a roommate. Older Sister had a roommate. At least, she said she did, but we never actually saw this roommate of hers. The roommate was supposed to be moving out over the weekend, and when we came home on Thursday night some of her stuff was gone and a half-drunk latte (at least I think it was a latte; I'm not really familiar with the coffees) was sitting on her desk. I guess she only occasionally dropped by the dorm but actually lived with her significant other.
We rolled out our pads and sleeping bags, plumped up our pillows, and settled down for a long night's sleep on a wooden floor.
It was not very comfortable, but it was very cost-efficient.
"Listen to this address," Older Sister said to us when we were discussing our plans for moving our luggage from our hotel to her dorm room. "You'll never have another like it."
The address? 35 Fifth Avenue. That's where Older Sister's dorm is. Fifth Avenue in NYC has a certain prestige, so she was right. I'll never have another address like the one I had for the three days that I spent living with Older Sister.
35 Fifth Avenue, though, was more easily bragged of than reached. My younger sisters and I awoke fairly early on Thursday morning, despite having stayed up to eat dinner at Carmine's. We packed up everything we had and ventured down into the subway system of New York City.
Little Sister was pulling her suitcase and Baby Sister's. Baby Sister was carrying her pillow and pulling my suitcase. I was carrying my pillow and pulling the humongous, unwieldy suitcase. Getting that suitcase down the stairs into the subway station is an experience I'd rather not repeat. At least Little Sister and I were experienced in getting luggage into the subway station proper. After purchasing subway passes, we sent Little Sister through the turnstile first. Then we passed the suitcases to Little Sister before Baby Sister and I joined her on the other side.
The subway system was as grimy as last time but considerably more warm. Someone had warned me that July in New York City is blazing, so on a whim I'd put one of the fans that Porch had given me in my purse. Whenever we had to wait for a subway in the oppressive heat, I'd whip that puppy out and fan my sisters and myself.
After this particular subway trip, we emerged near Washington Square Park. (Getting that suitcase up the stairs and out of the subway station is another experience that I'd rather not repeat.) Then we essentially wandered around in search of 35 Fifth Avenue. I say "wandered" because Little Sister's iPhone suddenly became very confused.
Things Little Sister Said While Looking for Older Sister's Dorm:
"We need to turn around."
"I think we need to go the other way."
"What does that sign say?" (Little Sister has bad vision, but she doesn't wear contacts and she only wears glasses when driving and at movies/musicals.)
"What does that sign say?"
"Maybe we should call Older Sister."
I didn't mind any of this in the least, because we'd wandered into Greenwich Village Historic District. Or so I gathered from all the signs that read, "Greenwich Village Historic District." Every time Little Sister asked me what a sign said, I took great relish in responding by pronouncing "Greenwich" as "Grenwich." Also, the buildings were beautiful.
"I like this part of New York City a lot better," Baby Sister said as we hauled our luggage through the peaceful streets.
In the end, we found our way to 35 Fifth Avenue. Older Sister was waiting for us; she helped us get our guest passes at the front desk.
Older Sister's dorm room was tiny and cramped and had no air conditioning, and the elevator was tiny and cramped and slow, but the lobby was to die for. I began to wonder if it was a hotel right away because the architectural style of the lobby was just like the architectural style of the lobby in the hotel in the Tower of Terror ride in Disneyland's sister park, California Adventure. Sure enough, Older Sister confirmed that the building had once been a hotel. Research showed that this hotel (the Grosvenor Hotel) was built around the same time when the Tower of Terror hotel was supposed to have been built, thus the similar styles. Disney always does their research.
After dropping off our luggage at Older Sister's place, it was time for Older Sister to go to work and for my sisters and me to go to Brooklyn!
That's right, we were taking Baby Sister to Brooklyn. We would have loved to do the Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour again, but we were on a tight budget. Most of what we did had to be dirt cheap. That meant no tours, no museums, not even the Statue of Liberty. Instead, we were going to spend a quiet, inexpensive morning playing on the beach at Coney Island.
Here, I'll break down some of the ways we cut costs that day.
Don't:
Buy a townhouse on Fifth Avenue: $$$
Instead:
Stay on the floor of a Fifth Avenue dorm: Free!
Don't:
Sleep on a tour bus going to Coney Island: $$
Instead:
Sleep on the N Train going to Coney Island: $
(Don't worry, Mom, I made sure that the three of us were never all asleep at the same time. I dozed only when Little Sister was awake.)
Don't:
Ride rides or play games at Coney Island: $$
Instead:
Play on the beach at Coney Island: Free!
We jumped in and out of the waves and took pictures of ourselves with a selfie stick that Older Sister lent us. We also held a funeral for a dead crab that we found. I'd never been in the Atlantic Ocean before. It was considerably more tired-seeming than the Pacific Ocean, like maybe the Atlantic had seen too many tragedies and had grown weary of life. And I kept thinking about how maybe some of the water that was touching us had also touched the ruins of the Titanic.
Don't:
Eat an expensive lunch: $$ to $$$
Instead:
Split a $14 margherita pizza at the Coney Island location of Grimaldi's: $14
Although Little Sister and I also bought root beer. When we were sitting down, Baby Sister was all, "Wait, shouldn't we get something else on this pizza besides cheese?" and Little Sister and I were all, "No! This is the way that pizza was meant to be eaten." I like to think that we convinced Baby Sister to see it our way. She seemed to enjoy the pizza, at any rate.
 |
| Grimaldi's margherita pizza and fine Olde Brooklyn root beer. |
Sit down in a restaurant on Wall Street and order something so that you can use the "paying customers only" bathroom: $$
Instead:
Use the bathroom at Wall Street's Variety Cafe: Free!
On our way back from Coney Island, we suddenly decided that it might be a good use of our time to take Baby Sister to Wall Street. The only problem was that I needed to use a bathroom. Little Sister was all, "I'm sure we'll be able to find a bathroom!" However, there aren't a lot of public-type bathrooms around the city. Last year, Little Sister and Glory went to the courthouse in hopes that they would be able to use their bathrooms. In order to enter said courthouse, they had to relinquish their phones, and even after that it took them a considerable while to find the bathrooms.
I wracked my brain to think of a place on Wall Street that might have accessible bathrooms. Then I remembered the Variety Cafe, where we ate lunch last year! Because of the way it was set up, there was no way the cafeteria-style restaurant could have a "paying customers only" rule. And sure enough, I was able to use the bathroom there, no problem.
Don't:
Completely trash your family's fortune and reputation in a wild goose chase of historical clues that eventually lead you to some crypts beneath Trinity Church: Family fortune; family reputation; $$$ for gas, money, food, and gear to steal the Declaration of Independence.
Instead:
Visit Trinity Church as a tourist: Free!
There are lots of fun things to do at Trinity Church! You can stand where Queen Elizabeth II once stood.
 |
| "In this spot stood Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her gracious visit. 9 July 1976. His Royal Highness the Prince Philip stood nearby." |
I also mentioned last year that Trinity Church has a graveyard with some very, very old graves. Apparently, when they started the graveyard they did not foresee the possibility of tourists over the next 300+ years, because the layout does not seem to have been planned accordingly. The stepping stones leading around to the other side of the graveyard included an actual horizontal gravestone. I guess that this guy was the only person buried where they wanted to put the stepping stones for tourists, so they decided to just encourage people to walk on his grave instead of finding another place for a path.
Oh, and last time we didn't get a chance to see Alexander Hamilton's grave, remember? Well now, thanks to those crazy Hamilton kids, we couldn't miss it. There were tons of flowers and wreaths and things all over it, and a big tour group was standing right near it. And part of me was all, "Hello? Did any of you even know Alexander Hamilton existed a year ago?" Because I knew all about A-Ham before it was cool. Because I'm a history hipster. (Hipstory?)
Don't:
Visit the 9/11 museum: $$ and a couple hours of your time. (At least, don't visit it if you're trying to save money. It's definitely worth visiting if you have the time and are able to spring the cash.)
Instead:
Visit the 9/11 memorials: Fifteen minutes of your time.
It was just as heartbreaking but a lot more crowded this time around. Lots of tourists were setting their bags and things on the memorial, which I was not okay with.
After our jaunt to Wall Street, it was time to get ready for Fiddler on the Roof and, after, Umami Burger. Neither of those things was exactly cheap. Umami Burger was not worth the price, but Fiddler definitely was. I love that show; it was the first musical I was ever in. Also, some of my Jewish family members lived in Russia around that time, and the musical gives me an idea of what their lives would have been like. The way they staged this production of the show made thinking about my family history easy; they had the actor playing Tevye start and end the show in modern clothes, reading from what appeared to be an ancestor's journal. Also, Older Sister kept praising the performance of Adam Kantor as Motel. He did do a really good job; when Tevye yelled at him he actually crawled under the milk cart to get away. It was glorious.
One last thing about living large in NYC on a modest budget...if you opt to sleep on the floor of someone's dorm, the dorm resident you are staying with may have a roommate. Older Sister had a roommate. At least, she said she did, but we never actually saw this roommate of hers. The roommate was supposed to be moving out over the weekend, and when we came home on Thursday night some of her stuff was gone and a half-drunk latte (at least I think it was a latte; I'm not really familiar with the coffees) was sitting on her desk. I guess she only occasionally dropped by the dorm but actually lived with her significant other.
We rolled out our pads and sleeping bags, plumped up our pillows, and settled down for a long night's sleep on a wooden floor.
It was not very comfortable, but it was very cost-efficient.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
In Which Nothing Goes as Planned
Context: This post is about the second day (and first day in the city) of my second New York City trip.
According to Wikipedia, Joe Biden likes to refer to LaGuardia Airport as a “third world country.” Also, apparently the airport is ranked as the worst in the nation.
I don't know that I could confidently say that LaGuardia is either comparable to a third-world country or the worst airport in the nation. I can say for sure that it was a little crowded. I can also say for sure that, unlike at JFK, there was no convenient airtrain that would get us to the subway system. There was only a rather expensive bus. Little Sister researched our options and determined that taking a taxi from LaGuardia to the Times Square area would likely be less expensive per capita than it would be to pay for the bus.
The plan for the day went as such:
1. Freshen up in the airport bathrooms.
2. Take a taxi to our hotel. Because Older Sister would be at work when we arrived, there was nobody to let us into her internship dormitory, not even for a hot second so we could drop off our luggage. We'd therefore had to engage a hotel room for the first night.
3. Leave our luggage with the concierge/bellhops/whoever while we went out into the city.
4. Race to Ham4Ham in front of the Richard Rodgers Theatre. During the afternoon, cast members from Hamilton stand outside the theatre and did short performances. Little Sister really wanted to go, and Older Sister really wanted us to go. If we hurried, we'd make it.
5. Have lunch at the Shake Shack.
6. Go to the American Girl Place. Get our dolls' hair done.
7. Take a nap (because red eye flights).
8. Meet up with Older Sister in Times Square for cheesecake at Junior's.
9. Go to The Color Purple.
10. Have dinner after the show at Carmine's. Little Sister had made us a reservation.
'Twas a fairly simple, ten-step plan. But it did not come together as we'd thought it would.
First, the bathroom lines at LaGuardia were quite long. Baby Sister sallied forth to change, brush her teeth and hair, and put on makeup. Because the lines were so long, and because someone had to stay behind to watch the carry-ons, we decided that we'd make better time if Little Sister and I freshened up after we claimed our luggage.
I should explain the luggage situation to you. American Airlines, unlike every other airline I've ever traveled with, does not allow you to have a complimentary checked bag. You can have one carry-on, one personal item, and that's it. If you want to check a bag, you have to pay $25.
Since we had a hard financial limit for this trip, we'd bought American Airlines tickets because they were cheaper. Then, we decided, we would check only one large suitcase containing only toiletries.
"Only toiletries" somehow turned into toiletries and three American Girl dolls and some jelly shoes for Older Sister and granola bars and fruit to eat for breakfast. And then, since we were going to be sleeping on the floor in Older Sister's place, we had to add some sleeping pads and sleeping bags and some other things. And then, since our individual suitcases could only be carry-on size, each of us ended up shifting a certain amount of personal luggage into the big suitcase.
Getting that thing zipped up was a miracle. That they didn't charge us extra for it was another miracle. As it was, my carry-on ended up being slightly too fat so they checked that one, too, as a courtesy.
So, in short, we had four suitcases: three smaller but very packed ones and one ginormous and even more packed one. We also had Little Sister's backpack, Baby Sister's pillow, and my pillow-stuffed-into-an-Urban Outfitters-bag creation that held my journal, electronics, scriptures, and other necessities for flying overnight.
We hauled our carry-ons down to the baggage claim, where we picked up the large suitcase and my intended carry-on. Because there were no nearby bathrooms, Little Sister and I once again delayed our freshening up. We supposed we'd take care of that when we reached the hotel. So we went to get a taxi.
Yes, a taxi! I was very excited to ride in a taxi for the first time. Maybe it was the exhaustion from the flight or maybe it was the unpleasantness of being icky from 36 hours of no bathing, but the taxi ride turned out to not be that exciting. My sisters and I all sat in a stilted and tired silence while the driver expertly guided the cab around the outskirts of the city. There was a little TV that played the same six minutes of programming on an endless loop, which was annoying, but the real nemesis of Fun Times in a Taxi turned out to be the taxi's meter.
My understanding of the taxi was that we were charged, not by distance, but by time spent in the taxi and by tolls on the road. All that was well and good, but traffic was such that we ended up taking 50% longer than Little Sister's estimates had suggested. That meant paying 50% more, which meant staring at the meter in horror as the price climbed and climbed and climbed. By the time we reached our hotel near Times Square, we'd reached what seemed practically the Everest of taxi fares!
As we prepared to exit the taxi, Little Sister tried to pay using the little card machine in the back seat. Notice the operative word tried...because this was how we discovered that Little Sister's credit card was not working.
In the end, I paid for the taxi, and our driver helped us get our oodles of luggage out of his taxi. He probably drove away wondering how we would manage in this city, since I think we appeared to be a lot more incompetent than we liked to think that we were.
Gathering together our luggage, we entered the doors of the Manhattan at Times Square hotel.
The lobby of this hotel was nice. It smelled similarly to the hotel we'd stayed in last time (cigarette smoke covered by the scent of cleaners) except the cigarette smoke undertones were much, much stronger. And the line of people waiting in the lobby was much, much longer. Everyone was trying to check in, even thought check-in time wasn't for several hours.
Little Sister asked the concierge where we could leave our luggage. She pointed us to some bellhop-type workers who were loading luggage onto carts and taking the carts away. We approached one of these workers, a man whose nametag read Hector. Hector had a thick Brooklyn accent.
Little Sister said that we wanted to leave our luggage. Hector asked us what room we were in, and Little Sister said that we hadn't checked in.
"Oh, no," Hector said. "I'm not putting your luggage in storage if you haven't tried to check in yet. If they have a room ready, I'll have to get your luggage out again and take it to your room. That's double the work. And I refuse to do double the work."
"The lady over there told us we could leave our luggage here," Little Sister said. Little Sister tends to be all giggly and sweet with strangers; this was the first time I'd seen her visibly annoyed with someone she didn't know.
But Hector refused to listen to us. Giving up on explaining that we had no intention of checking in right now, that we only wanted to drop our luggage off and rush to Ham4Ham, Little Sister got into the very long line for check in while Baby Sister and I extricated our American Girl dolls from the big suitcase. I also looked for a bathroom in the lobby where we could freshen up. I found one but, unfortunately, it could only be entered by using a room key.
After some twenty minutes or so of waiting, Little Sister returned to us with the news that there were no rooms available for checking in. We'd suspected as much, which was one of the reasons we had decided it would be best to merely drop the luggage off. So we went back to the bellhop area.
Hector was no longer there; it was another fellow now. We asked if we could put our luggage in storage. He said yes, then asked if there was anything else we needed.
"No, we're fine," we said.
The bellhop looked at us with pursed lips and raised eyebrow. His expression seemed to say, "I don't buy that for an instant."
After a moment of hesitation, I ventured, "Well, we wanted to change, but it looks like the bathroom needs a room key to get into it, so..."
"I can get you a bathroom key," he said.
Quickly, and at long last, Little Sister and I were able to brush our teeth, change our clothes, and put on our sunscreen. We left our luggage to be put into storage. Then, with Samantha, Kit, and Molly in tow, we headed to Ham4Ham.
How was New York City? About the same as it was the last time I saw it. Loud, crowded, too many people surging across the street at green lights. Part of me was all, "Oh, hello, I've been here before, and I sort of belong, and I'm not fazed by any of this." Part of me was all, "Ahhh! I'm back! I can't believe I'm back!"
We'd planned to be at Ham4Ham at least half an hour early, but the delayed taxi and the checking in and all had conspired against us. We got there right before the show began, and the place was packed. Barriers had been set up in the street. Cops were yelling and herding people off the sidewalks, but a lot of the people they were herding weren't moving simply because there was nowhere to go. We ended up pressed into a mass of strangers.
Behind us, I could hear passersby struggling to get through. I heard some people say things like, "Oh, it looks like we've gone the wrong way! We'd better turn around." I think those people were tourists. I also heard somebody yell as they passed, "Get used to it! It only gets worse!" I think that was a local.
Then Lin-Manuel Miranda came out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and the crowd went nuts.
I find the Hamilton craze both bewildering and amusing. Last year, on our tour of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy, the tour guide mentioned how during the first recorded murder trial in U.S. history, both Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were present. I said, "Oooh," but no one else in the group seemed to understand the soap opera melodrama of this circumstance. Yet now, some people would probably consider that tidbit one of the most interesting parts of the tour—but only because of Hamilton, not because they've suddenly gained more interest in important U.S. historical figures in general. As for me, I wouldn't call myself a Hamilton fan; I know some things about Hamilton that make me want to see it and some things that make me not want to see it. We'll see. And although I like some of the songs from other musicals Lin-Manuel Miranda has done, I wouldn't consider myself a particular fan of his, either.
The point is, the crowd went nuts, but I didn't. Even so, I jumped up and down a little so that I was able to see the famed composer and Broadway star. Yes, I got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own two eyes! How many people get that opportunity? I wasn't so apathetic that I didn't realize that this was a rare chance. I know a lot of people who would have loved to be in my place.
Anyways, Ham4Ham lasted around twenty minutes. We could see and hear almost nothing, but Little Sister seemed happy just to be there. Afterward, we briefly met up with Older Sister, who was on her lunch break. Then we ventured off to Shake Shack.
By this point, Baby Sister had been becoming acquainted with the city for a few hours. I felt bad that she'd only seen the bad parts of the city, like driving in the the traffic and being squished in the massive crowd outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre. She also seemed pretty horrified by the way none of the New York pedestrians actually seemed to pay attention to the lights at the crosswalks. Now that we'd gotten the uncertainty of the first few hours behind us, however, Little Sister and I were determined that she should enjoy herself. After all, we had really good plans for the rest of the day!
Having lunch at Shake Shack would be a good pick-me-up, I thought. I admit, I'm not the most ardent of Shake Shack fans. I like their concretes far more than I like their burgers. Still, it's not half bad.
This time, the line outside was not as long. We ordered, waited for our food, and found a place to sit. Last time we were there, it was crowded inside. This time...it was just as crowded inside. Maybe more so. We struggled to find a way to eat while keeping our American Girl dolls safe. We ended up eating while standing. At one point, I noticed a sign that said that if the building exceeded more than 100 people, it was violating the NYC fire code. Shake Shack must violate the fire code routinely. Both times I've visited there had to be 100 people in there and, probably, more.
Instead of getting a burger, I got the Chicken Shack, which was delicious, and a chocolate concrete with chocolate truffle cookie dough, which defied description (in a good way). Unfortunately, Baby Sister had some complications in ordering her burger, so it turned up without basic things like lettuce and mayonnaise. She was visibly disappointed.
Not even Shake Shack was showing itself to Baby Sister at its best advantage. I began to wonder if Baby Sister was even going to like her graduation trip or if we would have been better off going to, say, Disneyland.
With lunch out of the way, we proceeded to the American Girl Place.
Please remember that we'd been carrying our dolls around all day. We took them with us to Ham4Ham and Shake Shack. A lady squished against us at Ham4Ham had commented on them, joking that if we lifted our dolls up high enough, they, at least, would be able to see what was going on. Other than that, though, people had mostly just ignored them. There are way more interesting things to see in New York City than three grown women carrying around 18-inch dolls.
But when we arrived at the American Girl place, we pretty much became an instant attraction. Little girls who were carrying their own dolls seemed fascinated by ours.
"Is that your baby?" one little girl in the bathroom asked me. I introduced Molly to her. She and her friends seemed really excited and told me about their own dolls. One of their mothers said that she remembered Molly, Kit, and Samantha from when she was a little girl.
Baby Sister was finally starting to get excited. The doll holders in the bathroom, the displays of the dolls and their accessories, the station for doll ear piercing—it was her inner child's dream come true!
We went to the hair station to make hair appointments for our dolls.
"Our next appointment is at 7:30," the lady said. Which was in the middle of The Color Purple.
We were dismayed, because we weren't sure if we'd have time to come back on another day. The only time we could maybe come back was on Saturday morning. We asked if we could make appointments for then.
"You have to be here the day of to make appointments," the lady said. "We open at nine at Saturday. The sooner you can get here, the better."
Our dreams of getting our dolls' hair done crushed, we left the American Girl Place in lowish spirits. We were able to pick them up slightly by picking up chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery, but just slightly.
Little Sister seemed bent on reassuring Baby Sister that the day's experiences didn't necessarily represent what the rest of the trip would be like. "When we were here last year," she said, "the first day was the worst day." Implicit in her statement was a promise: it will get better.We went back to the hotel, claimed our luggage, napped, and then changed for Baby Sister's first Broadway musical.
We met Older Sister at Times Square, had cheesecake at Junior's, showed Baby Sister our favorite Broadway souvenir shops, took some photos, and went to The Color Purple.
We were divided in our opinions about The Color Purple. I hadn't actually wanted to see it; Viola had read the book in high school and found it to be really disturbing. "I mean, there are some beautiful parts," she said, "but-" But the sexual and physical abuse was too graphic and too prevalent for the beautiful parts to really shine through, she seemed to imply.
Older Sister, though, saw it a few weeks before we came to visit. She assured me that the musical version was very appropriate, that we wouldn't have to witness any of that stuff. Thus we bought tickets.
Well. In a way, Older Sister was right. Not much disturbing stuff happened onstage. At the same time, though, the entire musical was about the main character having unhealthy relationships with everyone she met. Almost every song, every line, seemed to be sexual in one way or another. Now, maybe that's an accurate representation of how it is for someone who's been sexually abused. Maybe the point is that, until the redemption at the end, all that Celie was capable of knowing was unhealthy relationships. Fine. But in my opinion, it didn't make for a very good musical. I wasn't uplifted. I didn't enjoy myself. I was just depressed.
So although the actors were amazing (Heather Headley, the original Aida, was costarring), I just didn't like it. Baby Sister didn't like it much, either. Older Sister and Little Sister really liked it, though; I guess they look for different things in their entertainment than I do.
In any case, it was a good thing we ate at Carmine's afterwards, because that totally made up for the stress and disappointments of the day. Carmine's is probably my favorite restaurant in New York City. It's like Buca di Beppo, but better. Older Sister actually got me a Carmine's cookbook for Christmas (and a pasta strainer, because how can you make Italian food without a pasta strainer?).
This time, we got to sit on one of the upper floors. We feasted on cheesy garlic bread, angel hair pasta with garlic and oil, and chicken scallopine with lemon and butter. Deeelicious. I soon became a lot happier and quite content. And score! Baby Sister was enjoying herself, too, if the fact that she was taking second helpings of everything was any indication.
Filled to the brim with good food and very sleepy, we said good-bye to Older Sister and walked back to the Manhattan at Times Square. We needed to get a good night's rest so that we could get up early the next morning to get to Older Sister's dorm before she left for work.
According to Wikipedia, Joe Biden likes to refer to LaGuardia Airport as a “third world country.” Also, apparently the airport is ranked as the worst in the nation.
I don't know that I could confidently say that LaGuardia is either comparable to a third-world country or the worst airport in the nation. I can say for sure that it was a little crowded. I can also say for sure that, unlike at JFK, there was no convenient airtrain that would get us to the subway system. There was only a rather expensive bus. Little Sister researched our options and determined that taking a taxi from LaGuardia to the Times Square area would likely be less expensive per capita than it would be to pay for the bus.
The plan for the day went as such:
1. Freshen up in the airport bathrooms.
2. Take a taxi to our hotel. Because Older Sister would be at work when we arrived, there was nobody to let us into her internship dormitory, not even for a hot second so we could drop off our luggage. We'd therefore had to engage a hotel room for the first night.
3. Leave our luggage with the concierge/bellhops/whoever while we went out into the city.
4. Race to Ham4Ham in front of the Richard Rodgers Theatre. During the afternoon, cast members from Hamilton stand outside the theatre and did short performances. Little Sister really wanted to go, and Older Sister really wanted us to go. If we hurried, we'd make it.
5. Have lunch at the Shake Shack.
6. Go to the American Girl Place. Get our dolls' hair done.
7. Take a nap (because red eye flights).
8. Meet up with Older Sister in Times Square for cheesecake at Junior's.
9. Go to The Color Purple.
10. Have dinner after the show at Carmine's. Little Sister had made us a reservation.
'Twas a fairly simple, ten-step plan. But it did not come together as we'd thought it would.
First, the bathroom lines at LaGuardia were quite long. Baby Sister sallied forth to change, brush her teeth and hair, and put on makeup. Because the lines were so long, and because someone had to stay behind to watch the carry-ons, we decided that we'd make better time if Little Sister and I freshened up after we claimed our luggage.
I should explain the luggage situation to you. American Airlines, unlike every other airline I've ever traveled with, does not allow you to have a complimentary checked bag. You can have one carry-on, one personal item, and that's it. If you want to check a bag, you have to pay $25.
Since we had a hard financial limit for this trip, we'd bought American Airlines tickets because they were cheaper. Then, we decided, we would check only one large suitcase containing only toiletries.
"Only toiletries" somehow turned into toiletries and three American Girl dolls and some jelly shoes for Older Sister and granola bars and fruit to eat for breakfast. And then, since we were going to be sleeping on the floor in Older Sister's place, we had to add some sleeping pads and sleeping bags and some other things. And then, since our individual suitcases could only be carry-on size, each of us ended up shifting a certain amount of personal luggage into the big suitcase.
Getting that thing zipped up was a miracle. That they didn't charge us extra for it was another miracle. As it was, my carry-on ended up being slightly too fat so they checked that one, too, as a courtesy.
So, in short, we had four suitcases: three smaller but very packed ones and one ginormous and even more packed one. We also had Little Sister's backpack, Baby Sister's pillow, and my pillow-stuffed-into-an-Urban Outfitters-bag creation that held my journal, electronics, scriptures, and other necessities for flying overnight.
We hauled our carry-ons down to the baggage claim, where we picked up the large suitcase and my intended carry-on. Because there were no nearby bathrooms, Little Sister and I once again delayed our freshening up. We supposed we'd take care of that when we reached the hotel. So we went to get a taxi.
Yes, a taxi! I was very excited to ride in a taxi for the first time. Maybe it was the exhaustion from the flight or maybe it was the unpleasantness of being icky from 36 hours of no bathing, but the taxi ride turned out to not be that exciting. My sisters and I all sat in a stilted and tired silence while the driver expertly guided the cab around the outskirts of the city. There was a little TV that played the same six minutes of programming on an endless loop, which was annoying, but the real nemesis of Fun Times in a Taxi turned out to be the taxi's meter.
My understanding of the taxi was that we were charged, not by distance, but by time spent in the taxi and by tolls on the road. All that was well and good, but traffic was such that we ended up taking 50% longer than Little Sister's estimates had suggested. That meant paying 50% more, which meant staring at the meter in horror as the price climbed and climbed and climbed. By the time we reached our hotel near Times Square, we'd reached what seemed practically the Everest of taxi fares!
As we prepared to exit the taxi, Little Sister tried to pay using the little card machine in the back seat. Notice the operative word tried...because this was how we discovered that Little Sister's credit card was not working.
In the end, I paid for the taxi, and our driver helped us get our oodles of luggage out of his taxi. He probably drove away wondering how we would manage in this city, since I think we appeared to be a lot more incompetent than we liked to think that we were.
Gathering together our luggage, we entered the doors of the Manhattan at Times Square hotel.
The lobby of this hotel was nice. It smelled similarly to the hotel we'd stayed in last time (cigarette smoke covered by the scent of cleaners) except the cigarette smoke undertones were much, much stronger. And the line of people waiting in the lobby was much, much longer. Everyone was trying to check in, even thought check-in time wasn't for several hours.
Little Sister asked the concierge where we could leave our luggage. She pointed us to some bellhop-type workers who were loading luggage onto carts and taking the carts away. We approached one of these workers, a man whose nametag read Hector. Hector had a thick Brooklyn accent.
Little Sister said that we wanted to leave our luggage. Hector asked us what room we were in, and Little Sister said that we hadn't checked in.
"Oh, no," Hector said. "I'm not putting your luggage in storage if you haven't tried to check in yet. If they have a room ready, I'll have to get your luggage out again and take it to your room. That's double the work. And I refuse to do double the work."
"The lady over there told us we could leave our luggage here," Little Sister said. Little Sister tends to be all giggly and sweet with strangers; this was the first time I'd seen her visibly annoyed with someone she didn't know.
But Hector refused to listen to us. Giving up on explaining that we had no intention of checking in right now, that we only wanted to drop our luggage off and rush to Ham4Ham, Little Sister got into the very long line for check in while Baby Sister and I extricated our American Girl dolls from the big suitcase. I also looked for a bathroom in the lobby where we could freshen up. I found one but, unfortunately, it could only be entered by using a room key.
After some twenty minutes or so of waiting, Little Sister returned to us with the news that there were no rooms available for checking in. We'd suspected as much, which was one of the reasons we had decided it would be best to merely drop the luggage off. So we went back to the bellhop area.
Hector was no longer there; it was another fellow now. We asked if we could put our luggage in storage. He said yes, then asked if there was anything else we needed.
"No, we're fine," we said.
The bellhop looked at us with pursed lips and raised eyebrow. His expression seemed to say, "I don't buy that for an instant."
After a moment of hesitation, I ventured, "Well, we wanted to change, but it looks like the bathroom needs a room key to get into it, so..."
"I can get you a bathroom key," he said.
Quickly, and at long last, Little Sister and I were able to brush our teeth, change our clothes, and put on our sunscreen. We left our luggage to be put into storage. Then, with Samantha, Kit, and Molly in tow, we headed to Ham4Ham.
How was New York City? About the same as it was the last time I saw it. Loud, crowded, too many people surging across the street at green lights. Part of me was all, "Oh, hello, I've been here before, and I sort of belong, and I'm not fazed by any of this." Part of me was all, "Ahhh! I'm back! I can't believe I'm back!"
We'd planned to be at Ham4Ham at least half an hour early, but the delayed taxi and the checking in and all had conspired against us. We got there right before the show began, and the place was packed. Barriers had been set up in the street. Cops were yelling and herding people off the sidewalks, but a lot of the people they were herding weren't moving simply because there was nowhere to go. We ended up pressed into a mass of strangers.
Behind us, I could hear passersby struggling to get through. I heard some people say things like, "Oh, it looks like we've gone the wrong way! We'd better turn around." I think those people were tourists. I also heard somebody yell as they passed, "Get used to it! It only gets worse!" I think that was a local.
Then Lin-Manuel Miranda came out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and the crowd went nuts.
I find the Hamilton craze both bewildering and amusing. Last year, on our tour of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy, the tour guide mentioned how during the first recorded murder trial in U.S. history, both Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were present. I said, "Oooh," but no one else in the group seemed to understand the soap opera melodrama of this circumstance. Yet now, some people would probably consider that tidbit one of the most interesting parts of the tour—but only because of Hamilton, not because they've suddenly gained more interest in important U.S. historical figures in general. As for me, I wouldn't call myself a Hamilton fan; I know some things about Hamilton that make me want to see it and some things that make me not want to see it. We'll see. And although I like some of the songs from other musicals Lin-Manuel Miranda has done, I wouldn't consider myself a particular fan of his, either.
The point is, the crowd went nuts, but I didn't. Even so, I jumped up and down a little so that I was able to see the famed composer and Broadway star. Yes, I got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own two eyes! How many people get that opportunity? I wasn't so apathetic that I didn't realize that this was a rare chance. I know a lot of people who would have loved to be in my place.
Anyways, Ham4Ham lasted around twenty minutes. We could see and hear almost nothing, but Little Sister seemed happy just to be there. Afterward, we briefly met up with Older Sister, who was on her lunch break. Then we ventured off to Shake Shack.
By this point, Baby Sister had been becoming acquainted with the city for a few hours. I felt bad that she'd only seen the bad parts of the city, like driving in the the traffic and being squished in the massive crowd outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre. She also seemed pretty horrified by the way none of the New York pedestrians actually seemed to pay attention to the lights at the crosswalks. Now that we'd gotten the uncertainty of the first few hours behind us, however, Little Sister and I were determined that she should enjoy herself. After all, we had really good plans for the rest of the day!
Having lunch at Shake Shack would be a good pick-me-up, I thought. I admit, I'm not the most ardent of Shake Shack fans. I like their concretes far more than I like their burgers. Still, it's not half bad.
This time, the line outside was not as long. We ordered, waited for our food, and found a place to sit. Last time we were there, it was crowded inside. This time...it was just as crowded inside. Maybe more so. We struggled to find a way to eat while keeping our American Girl dolls safe. We ended up eating while standing. At one point, I noticed a sign that said that if the building exceeded more than 100 people, it was violating the NYC fire code. Shake Shack must violate the fire code routinely. Both times I've visited there had to be 100 people in there and, probably, more.
Instead of getting a burger, I got the Chicken Shack, which was delicious, and a chocolate concrete with chocolate truffle cookie dough, which defied description (in a good way). Unfortunately, Baby Sister had some complications in ordering her burger, so it turned up without basic things like lettuce and mayonnaise. She was visibly disappointed.
Not even Shake Shack was showing itself to Baby Sister at its best advantage. I began to wonder if Baby Sister was even going to like her graduation trip or if we would have been better off going to, say, Disneyland.
With lunch out of the way, we proceeded to the American Girl Place.
Please remember that we'd been carrying our dolls around all day. We took them with us to Ham4Ham and Shake Shack. A lady squished against us at Ham4Ham had commented on them, joking that if we lifted our dolls up high enough, they, at least, would be able to see what was going on. Other than that, though, people had mostly just ignored them. There are way more interesting things to see in New York City than three grown women carrying around 18-inch dolls.
But when we arrived at the American Girl place, we pretty much became an instant attraction. Little girls who were carrying their own dolls seemed fascinated by ours.
"Is that your baby?" one little girl in the bathroom asked me. I introduced Molly to her. She and her friends seemed really excited and told me about their own dolls. One of their mothers said that she remembered Molly, Kit, and Samantha from when she was a little girl.
Baby Sister was finally starting to get excited. The doll holders in the bathroom, the displays of the dolls and their accessories, the station for doll ear piercing—it was her inner child's dream come true!
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| Miss Molly McIntire in the American Girl Place bathroom. |
"Our next appointment is at 7:30," the lady said. Which was in the middle of The Color Purple.
We were dismayed, because we weren't sure if we'd have time to come back on another day. The only time we could maybe come back was on Saturday morning. We asked if we could make appointments for then.
"You have to be here the day of to make appointments," the lady said. "We open at nine at Saturday. The sooner you can get here, the better."
Our dreams of getting our dolls' hair done crushed, we left the American Girl Place in lowish spirits. We were able to pick them up slightly by picking up chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery, but just slightly.
Little Sister seemed bent on reassuring Baby Sister that the day's experiences didn't necessarily represent what the rest of the trip would be like. "When we were here last year," she said, "the first day was the worst day." Implicit in her statement was a promise: it will get better.We went back to the hotel, claimed our luggage, napped, and then changed for Baby Sister's first Broadway musical.
We met Older Sister at Times Square, had cheesecake at Junior's, showed Baby Sister our favorite Broadway souvenir shops, took some photos, and went to The Color Purple.
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| Chocolate mousse cheesecake at Junior's! |
Older Sister, though, saw it a few weeks before we came to visit. She assured me that the musical version was very appropriate, that we wouldn't have to witness any of that stuff. Thus we bought tickets.
Well. In a way, Older Sister was right. Not much disturbing stuff happened onstage. At the same time, though, the entire musical was about the main character having unhealthy relationships with everyone she met. Almost every song, every line, seemed to be sexual in one way or another. Now, maybe that's an accurate representation of how it is for someone who's been sexually abused. Maybe the point is that, until the redemption at the end, all that Celie was capable of knowing was unhealthy relationships. Fine. But in my opinion, it didn't make for a very good musical. I wasn't uplifted. I didn't enjoy myself. I was just depressed.
So although the actors were amazing (Heather Headley, the original Aida, was costarring), I just didn't like it. Baby Sister didn't like it much, either. Older Sister and Little Sister really liked it, though; I guess they look for different things in their entertainment than I do.
In any case, it was a good thing we ate at Carmine's afterwards, because that totally made up for the stress and disappointments of the day. Carmine's is probably my favorite restaurant in New York City. It's like Buca di Beppo, but better. Older Sister actually got me a Carmine's cookbook for Christmas (and a pasta strainer, because how can you make Italian food without a pasta strainer?).
This time, we got to sit on one of the upper floors. We feasted on cheesy garlic bread, angel hair pasta with garlic and oil, and chicken scallopine with lemon and butter. Deeelicious. I soon became a lot happier and quite content. And score! Baby Sister was enjoying herself, too, if the fact that she was taking second helpings of everything was any indication.
Filled to the brim with good food and very sleepy, we said good-bye to Older Sister and walked back to the Manhattan at Times Square. We needed to get a good night's rest so that we could get up early the next morning to get to Older Sister's dorm before she left for work.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Red Eye
I think you’ll all be pleased to know that when we flew out of Utah, I did not have a cold.
You’ll also probably be sympathetic to know that Baby Sister did have a cold. Poor baby! Apparently the Obnoxious sisters can’t go to NYC together unless one of them has a cold.
Anyways, just like last time, we flew out on a Tuesday night. Unlike last time, we had a layover in Charlotte. I’d never been to North Carolina before, and I was excited to go. It’s fun to go new places, even if it’s just for a brief layover where I never leave the airport. Over the years, such layovers have allowed me to drop by Atlanta and Chicago.
Because we were planning to stay with Older Sister, I had my pillow in my carry-on bag. Not being sick and having a cushy pillow to rest my head on meant that I was way more comfortable than I was last time I flew East. Last year, I couldn’t sleep a wink on the flight. This year, I slept about three out of the three and a half hours of the first flight. That was good, because my body really needed it, but sad, because there’s something really pleasant about flying at night. I didn’t get to witness that pleasure.
When I woke up, I for some reason had a bloody nose. I was also super disoriented. I was momentarily convinced that I was Little Sister and Baby Sisters’ chaperone and that I was accompanying them to London so that they could “come out” into society. It seems I’d been reading too much Georgette Heyer.
The disorientation remained. I kept being weirdly elated that I’d slept for three hours. I started composing a blog post about the flight in my head, but I only came up with this single sentence:
"I had to keep reminding myself that sleeping three hours on a three and a half hour flight is a) no great accomplishment nor b) a sufficient amount of rest."
Disoriented Awkward Mormon Girl thought this sentence was the height of good writing and hilarity. Oriented Awkward Mormon Girl is not so sure.
We disembarked and briefly experienced the experience of Charlotte.
A few things about Charlotte:
1) The water in the drinking fountains was, well, not-so-good. This is something that Charlotte has in common with Atlanta. (What’s up, the South? I think you need some new drinking water. Or at least Southern airports do.)
2) I was sooooo hungry so I made my first purchase of the trip! I bought a chicken sandwich at an airport restaurant called Bojangles. (No relation to the tap dancer...that I know of.) Sadly,, even though I said I would like mayonnaise, there was no mayonnaise on my sandwich. It’s a testament to the quality of the Bojangles’ sandwich that the chicken turned out to be moist enough to eat without mayo.
It wasn’t long before our second flight arrived. We hauled our luggage on board and took our respective seats. The three of us got to sit together on both flights, three seats in a row, so that was cute. On this particular flight, I had the middle seat. The middle seat is awkward because, like the aisle seat, there’s nowhere to rest your head, but unlike the aisle seat there isn’t at least the benefit of not having to step over anyone to use the restroom. But the middle seat is nice in that, if people you know are sitting on either side, you’re basically sitting in a sandwich of social comfort. You don’t have to interact with strangers or nothin’. If the person on the aisle is accommodating enough to order your complimentary in-flight drink for you, then you don’t even have to talk to the stewardess. Or steward, as the case may be.
Baby Sister was not accommodating enough to order my in-flight drink for me, but otherwise the flight passed in an ordinary fashion. At around 10:00 am, we landed in LaGuardia. It was time to show New York City to Baby Sister!
You’ll also probably be sympathetic to know that Baby Sister did have a cold. Poor baby! Apparently the Obnoxious sisters can’t go to NYC together unless one of them has a cold.
Anyways, just like last time, we flew out on a Tuesday night. Unlike last time, we had a layover in Charlotte. I’d never been to North Carolina before, and I was excited to go. It’s fun to go new places, even if it’s just for a brief layover where I never leave the airport. Over the years, such layovers have allowed me to drop by Atlanta and Chicago.
Because we were planning to stay with Older Sister, I had my pillow in my carry-on bag. Not being sick and having a cushy pillow to rest my head on meant that I was way more comfortable than I was last time I flew East. Last year, I couldn’t sleep a wink on the flight. This year, I slept about three out of the three and a half hours of the first flight. That was good, because my body really needed it, but sad, because there’s something really pleasant about flying at night. I didn’t get to witness that pleasure.
When I woke up, I for some reason had a bloody nose. I was also super disoriented. I was momentarily convinced that I was Little Sister and Baby Sisters’ chaperone and that I was accompanying them to London so that they could “come out” into society. It seems I’d been reading too much Georgette Heyer.
The disorientation remained. I kept being weirdly elated that I’d slept for three hours. I started composing a blog post about the flight in my head, but I only came up with this single sentence:
"I had to keep reminding myself that sleeping three hours on a three and a half hour flight is a) no great accomplishment nor b) a sufficient amount of rest."
Disoriented Awkward Mormon Girl thought this sentence was the height of good writing and hilarity. Oriented Awkward Mormon Girl is not so sure.
We disembarked and briefly experienced the experience of Charlotte.
A few things about Charlotte:
1) The water in the drinking fountains was, well, not-so-good. This is something that Charlotte has in common with Atlanta. (What’s up, the South? I think you need some new drinking water. Or at least Southern airports do.)
2) I was sooooo hungry so I made my first purchase of the trip! I bought a chicken sandwich at an airport restaurant called Bojangles. (No relation to the tap dancer...that I know of.) Sadly,, even though I said I would like mayonnaise, there was no mayonnaise on my sandwich. It’s a testament to the quality of the Bojangles’ sandwich that the chicken turned out to be moist enough to eat without mayo.
It wasn’t long before our second flight arrived. We hauled our luggage on board and took our respective seats. The three of us got to sit together on both flights, three seats in a row, so that was cute. On this particular flight, I had the middle seat. The middle seat is awkward because, like the aisle seat, there’s nowhere to rest your head, but unlike the aisle seat there isn’t at least the benefit of not having to step over anyone to use the restroom. But the middle seat is nice in that, if people you know are sitting on either side, you’re basically sitting in a sandwich of social comfort. You don’t have to interact with strangers or nothin’. If the person on the aisle is accommodating enough to order your complimentary in-flight drink for you, then you don’t even have to talk to the stewardess. Or steward, as the case may be.
Baby Sister was not accommodating enough to order my in-flight drink for me, but otherwise the flight passed in an ordinary fashion. At around 10:00 am, we landed in LaGuardia. It was time to show New York City to Baby Sister!