Famiglia

Context: This post is about the last day of our New York City trip.

A word before we begin.

I like to travel. I want to see the world. But I will never be one of those true adventurers who can leave home for weeks at a time or who can go away to someplace where you can't call or email or write.

I discovered this when I left home all by myself, no family or friends, for the first time. I took my life savings and went to Europe for two and a half weeks. I loved it; oh, how I loved it. But the whole time, with each experience that I had, I couldn't help but think things like, "Little Sister would love this," and "I wish Mom were here," and "I want to show this to Baby Brother." I became my family's eyes; I wrote them long, detailed emails about Europe so that they could experience it, too. I got souvenirs and chocolate for everybody. When I bought a scarf in Italy, one of the other girls on the trip asked me whom it was for. "It's for me," I said.

"Good," she said, "because I don't think you've bought anything for yourself this entire trip. It seems like everything you've bought is for someone else."

The point is, I've discovered that I like my family too much to ever leave them for long or go too far away. And while New York City was different--part of my family was there, and I called and FaceTimed the rest of them often--I still thought of my siblings and parents often and saw so much of the city through their eyes. And as our trip drew to a close, I found that I was ready to go home.

So. Our last 24 hours in New York City started with a Broadway tour. We saw a ton of theaters. We learned about the history of West Side Story, one of my favorite musicals. Apparently, when it first opened, the kind of gangsters on which the characters were based came to the show. They were offended by the rhythmic, imitation gang speak that the creators of the show developed in lieu of using curses and real slang. "We don't talk like that!" they said. "We don't dance!" And to prove that they were tough, they broke into a costume shop and killed some people. These murders were then also turned into a musical, according to our tour guide. Pretty interesting stuff. My only question is how poor, first- and second-generation immigrant teenagers could afford tickets to a Broadway show in the first place.

We also learned about the brewing possibility of Wicked someday being turned into an animated film, an idea that I strongly approve of. Of course, on modern Broadway, you can't avoid talking about the musical The Book of Mormon. And of course, once our tour guide started, it came up that the four of us were Mormons. Surprise, fellow tour group people! Our tour guide gave us one of the more unusual compliments I've ever received, which is that the people of Broadway really respect the LDS Church because of the way we've handled the existence of a musical that is pretty offensive. The Church has taken advantage of the negative publicity and found ways to make it positive publicity, including taking out an ad in the program and sending missionaries to the theatre with copies of the actual Book of Mormon.

After the tour, dinner at Carmine's. Dr. Godfather recommended this place to us. They serve Italian food there, family-style. So for the second night in a row, we sat down to delicious Italian food: a big plate of angel hair pasta in oil and garlic and a platter of chicken piccata.

Our servers were friendly and funny. One of them, when we told him we were from Utah, made a joke that he could marry all four of us. He told us when we ordered the garlic pasta that it would discourage us from kissing, but made an additional joke that he would give each of us a kiss before we left. If he was our age, this would have been creepy, but he was more of a grandfather age and delivered these jokes in a way that just made us laugh.

As we got ready to leave, he said, "I told you I'd give you each a kiss!" and handed us some Hershey kisses.

What was there to do after dinner? Why, a show, of course.

We'd originally planned to go to only three shows. But as we narrowed down our choices, Older Sister cried, "I just want to see more!"

So we chose four shows. Then we bumped that number up to five. But after the tickets were bought, Older Sister said, "I really wish we could see another one."

That was one of the reasons why she was so loathe to go to Queens; she wanted enough time on Wednesday to stand in line at TKTS to get discount tickets. But on Tuesday, at the end of our SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy tour, our tour guide mentioned that she knew an app called TodayTix that lets you purchase discounted tickets without waiting in line.

Older Sister fell in love. Madly, deeply in love. And so it was that her new love, the TodayTix app, got us rather inexpensive tickets to Something Rotten! As in, in the state of Denmark.

Something Rotten! is a brand-new musical, and it's great. Great actors, including Christian Borle and Brian D'arcy James. Great costumes, great set, great music. Great concept. And it was wildly, incredibly, almost unbearably clever. My one complaint is that the show goes out of its way to make inappropriate jokes. What I mean by that is that if I go see a show about, say, two people having an affair, then that show is obviously going to be inappropriate. I should know what I'm getting myself into, and vulgarity is to be expected. It's another thing entirely when I go see a show about subject matter that isn't necessarily inappropriate and the writers feel the need to riddle it with dirty jokes. Does vulgarity have to be introduced into everything?

Either way, Something Rotten! was our last big hurrah in New York. The next morning, we packed up, checked out, and did one last round of leisurely sightseeing.

Our last real stop was Carlo's Bakery. Carlo's Bakery is run by a man named Buddy Valastro and his family. You may otherwise recognize him as the star of Cake Boss. His original bakery is in New Jersey, but they have a second location on Times Square.

We'd passed the bakery a million times over the week we were in New York. "Stop in," the sign read. "You're famiglia!"

That sign had two effects on me. First, I was obviously thrilled that Buddy Valastro would consider me to be part of his family, because the Valastro family seems to be even more obnoxiously wonderful than the Obnoxiouses. The second effect was to make me think about mia famiglia and how much they love Cake Boss and how they would all give, like, their left hands and probably their earlobes or something to join us eating cannoli in Carlo's Bakery.

After Carlo's, it was time to bid farewell to New York City. We reversed our trip from our first day in the city: took our luggage to the subway, selected the train that would take us to Jamaica Station, took an air train to the airport, and boarded our flight back to Salt Lake City. By this time, we were experts in the public transportation system, and nothing untoward happened except that one of security people at the airport grew suspicious of my ankle and pulled me out of line so that she could pat it down. All she found was my polka dot sock.

And so we said goodbye to New York City. There's nothing like it. But then we headed home, and there's nothing like home, either.

We arrived before midnight. Glory left with her boyfriend; our dad picked us and our suitcases up in the family Mormon Assault Vehicle. We burst into the house. Mom was waiting up; so were the children. There were souvenirs all around, almost a hundred dollars' worth of birthday presents for Baby Sister, and a box of cookies from Carlo's bakery for everyone. There were hugs. There was excited chatter. There was laughter.

And so ends our trip to New York. P.S. Older Sister is already talking about when she's going back.

Like Riding a Bike

Today Baby Brother and I went on a bike ride.

Every time someone says, "It's like riding a bike," about something that once learned I should remember the rest of my life, I always think, "Then it's hopeless!"

See, I had quite a bit of trouble learning to ride a bike. I didn't learn until I was eleven years old, and only then after much trouble and toil. I then used those skills for just a short time. The other day when I pulled out Little Brother's bike, it was my first time riding since I was thirteen, tops.

But Baby Brother wanted me to ride with him. When Baby Brother wants me to do something with him, I find it very hard to refuse. He's cute and little and has big eyes, like a puppy. Or an anime character. Or a hobbit.

My first time on a bike in years and years went okay. Baby Brother seemed to have way more confidence in my biking skillz than I did. When we passed some hardcore bikers wearing hardcore biking clothes, he commented, "We are not as good as them." I found it very gratifying that Baby Brother put me in the same class as himself, because in all honesty he bikes much better than I do.

There were some boons, though. When I found I wanted to move to the side, my bike moved to the side like magic. I didn't fall over. Eventually I even remembered to use the hand brake instead of stopping with my feet.

Close to the end of our ride, I heard this weird whump-whump sound.

"Probably that's a normal bike sound," I said to myself. Yet the farther I went, the worse it got, until it was like a pestle in a mortar: WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! At least, that's how I imagine a pestle in a mortar sounds. Haven't ground much corn or herbs lately, myself.

Eventually I got off and looked at the tires. The back one had completely separated from the frame.

Aside from that incident and also aside from Little Brother's bike being uncomfortable (girl bikes seats are way more comfortable than boy bike seats, which makes no sense if you think about it), Baby Brother and I had a lovely time, such a lovely time that we've done it twice more since then.

The second time Baby Brother suggested I take Little Brother's old bike, which is a child-size bike instead of full-size. I clambered on it. Lo and behold, I fit. My knees felt like they were up to my ears, but I could pedal. Also lo and behold, the bike handled really well. I took it for a spin on the driveway.

MOM: (looks out the door) What are you doing?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Little Brother's other bike is broken, so I thought maybe-

MOM: No.

I took a razor scooter. Let me tell you, that was a mistake. The scooters nowadays are nothing like the scooters back in my day. Man, the scooter I owned had hand brakes and a board big enough to put both feet on and glide. This razor scooter was tiny, and flimsy, and it had no power. Every time we reached a crack in the sidewalk, the wheels would slam against it instead of going over, nearly bucking me off.

Today's ride went much more smoothly. I took Older Sister's bike. Baby Brother had a successful run around the neighborhood and then went on the bike trail near our house.

One problem, though--the bike trail runs through a swamp. We were biking along, minding our own business, when suddenly we were passing through these swarms of mosquitos. Hordes of mosquitoes. Gangs of mosquitoes. It was like we were Jets and they were Sharks and we'd come into their territory and now we were having a rumble.

These mosquitoes, somehow they managed to attach onto my skin as I sped through them. Immediately I began to itch. And itch. And itch. These literal suckers were driving me crazy. So of course I began to blow on them. Which meant that I wasn't paying attention to where I was biking.

Terrible things happened in that moment. Terrible things like the mosquito didn't seemed fazed at all. And I just itched more. And I almost rode off the trail into the underbrush. And had I actually done that terrible thing, Baby Brother would have laughed.

He didn't get to laugh, though. Though he did get to when I rode into a heap of pinecones on the way home. So I laughed when he rode into a clump of vines. And then I ran into that same clump. And then he ran into some rocks. And a fence.

Let's just say Baby Brother and I are still learning.