New York, NY

Well, I survived. I survived New York City. My niece Mandi has always wanted to go. She's 18. And since she's here for the summer it would be kind of a shame if we didn't take this opportunity to take her there. So the original intent was to bombard her trip with a family of four kids and two parents. But that sounded a little daunting to Rob and I. So we decided that I should just go with Mandi alone.

The intent was to make it as cheap as possible. Which honestly, cheap and NYC shouldn't really be mentioned in the same sentence. We decided to take the Chinatown Bus. Good deal by the way if you ever want to travel from DC to NY or back. 20 bucks gets you a smooth ride on a semi luxury bus up to NYC. Our bus departed at 6 but didn't leave until 7. The trip up was uneventful. I read, Mandi read. I listened to a guy clear his throat enough to make me think he must have a CAT stuck down there. But other than that--survived it.

I found us a luxury and palatial place to stay in Midtown NY in the heart of a family neighborhood. That part was cool. It was a hostel. I haven't EVER stayed in a hostel. But I'd like to personally thank my sister for putting ideas in my head that head lice would be something I could walk away with after my stay there. We got there at around 11:30 and were tired so I wasn't too particular. But we had to walk through all these doors and hallways and I thought there might be a rabbit having a tea party on the other end. We took the 1940's elevator up to our room and really, it was a closet with a double bed. When you're tired, you can't complain. But the room had ONE outlet. ONE. One, did I mention? So trying to charge two cell phones and a camera became a juggling act. We had to share the bathroom. Can I just say that the website for this place touted its newly remodeled facilities. My thought is they partnered with the 6th grade class of Martin Luther King Elementary. They gave them rudimentary tools and told them to go ahead and build a TV cabinet for each room and tile the bathroom. The ONE outlet in the room had an extension cord plugged into it which routed half way around the room, through a hole (likely carved with a spoon) in said 6th grade built cabinetry and the fridge, window A/C, light fixture, television were all plugged into it. So I was scared that if I turned the A/C up to high, the entire building would shut down. But we endeared ourselves to this room. It was our hole, our sanctuary from the chaos of the city. Mandi got to see a half naked foreign man shoot from his room to the bathroom--in underwear. Cool.

Saturday morning we awoke ready to take charge of the day. We can be proud that we made it to all our venues and bus rides and tours and had no issues. We took a bus tour through NYC. We saw where John Lennon got shot and the Strawberry Fields portion of Central Park--dedicated to Mr. Lennon. We caught the World Trade Center site and plenty of places along the way. They gave us a boat cruise around Ellis Island and we got to take plenty of pictures of beautiful Ms. Liberty. It was REALLY awesome.

We hopped on the subway to get to places we wanted to see. Chinatown was something we both wanted to do. Shopping is good and cheap. I'm amazed at the skill of these Asian people in luring you into their shops. Each shop was the same--purses and perfume. If you walked in to look at something, you had but to whisper "I wonder how much this is" and somewhere, a short little Asian woman came out of nowhere to tell you "This good bargain. I give special deal, for you. 20 buck for you today. You buy!". They're like the Asian mafia. You don't know when they're going to show up. You have but to ask. I bargained with one of them for a hello kitty necklace. I talked her down to 6 bucks and she started rattling off in her language to her mafia partner and Mandi told me they were talking badly about me. I said they were probably plotting my death later that day in the East River.

Saturday night we went to a Broadway show. I told Mandi not to expect the Donald Trump of tickets. Mezzanine all the way baby. But my knees were embedded in the seat in front of me and I thank Mandi's pick for a 90 minutes Broadway play because had it been say, Phantom of the Opera, I would have had to be surgically removed from the seat. I was nearly in tears by the end of the show and I didn't want to get up and make people stand to let me out right at the climax performance. But my knees were crying out in pure pain. They were begging me to do something. I was begging the show to do something...standing ovation oh please oh please. And finally it came and the show was good--music was good because I was standing and relieving the pressure. Curse be to my Father for the long legs. But I guess I shouldn't be hating on them.

After the Broadway show, we unleashed our wild selves on to the NYC streets. SO MANY PEOPLE. I have never been in a city quite like NY. The people are all over the place. I couldn't help but think that if an emergency happened again, it would be pure chaos. You hardly have room to walk. You get goosed and bumped and brushed every 5 seconds by someone. I look at New York City like one big circus act. The players aren't paid but they can entertain. And at any one time they will perform for you. I think people think they're the only people in NY and no one can hear them have an argument on the phone with their mother. One guy with no shirt got up onto a scaffolding and started doing flips around the scaffolding bar. There are so many walks of life there. It's an amazing place. But a place that I would only want to visit, never live. I think it takes a strong person to live there.

We didn't stay too long on the NY Strip. We went into Hershey World (eh...it wasn't that impressive) and into M&M world. CRAZY! People buying up M&Ms and waiting in a line as long as unemployment to purchase them. Hello people--go to the CVS pharmacy down the block and buy all ya'anto...for much less money and no waiting time. So that's what we did. We were frequent CVS shoppers. We bought blister bandaids for Mandi's feet. We bought icecream and chocolate for feeding the need. And we bought makeup and other toiletries forgotten. Thanks CVS. They were my rock.

Things I like about NYC:

1. It's amazingly beautiful--all those lights.
2. The plethora of different walks of life.
3. CVS Pharmacy
4. Taxi cab drivers--they can really rocketship into traffic when you need to get somewhere.
5. Gay men who argue with their mothers on the phone--very entertaining
6. Shopping
7. Little Hasidic Jew boys with their sweet faces and wispy hair, and beautifully decorated yarmulkes.
8. Subway all day fun pass (as if sitting in a 110 degree furnace waiting for a train is fun). They should call them all day sweat passes.

Things I did not like about NYC:

1. Overuse of the F word
2. Too many people
3. Subway stations with no air conditioning
4. Sweaty Russian men who hold on to the upper bar of the subway rail car and put their pit into your face and rub their sweaty belly up against your hand as you hold on for dear life.
5. Hostel bathrooms with no outlets.

We went to church on Sunday. The only church option was the Young Single Adult Ward. I thought I would be carded. But Mandi was my ticket in. The church is in the same building as the temple. That was cool.

We packed up and dragged our sore feet down to catch a cab to the bus depot. We BARELY made it. I mean by the skin of our teeth. We got the last two seats on that bus. I sat by a sweet woman who spoke only Spanish and her little 3 year old daughter. Seriously that was the best little girl I've ever seen. She sat with her Mom for over 4 hours and never once fussed, never ran around. She was this beautiful little girl with a happy disposition and I bought her a bag of Teddy Grahams because she was so good. If I could have spoken Spanish, I would have asked her mother how she pulled it off.

Our only hiccup this entire trip was our trusty Asian bus driver. He stopped in Baltimore to drop off passengers and pick up passengers. And some doofus thought it was a get-up-and-stretch-your-legs break. So he got off. Then the bus drove away. And the people in the back of the bus saw this guy trying to run to catch the bus and they all yelled in unison for the bus driver to stop. Apparently this offended his ego. And so he stopped the bus, got out, went over to where we ALL COULD SEE HIM and threw a temper tantrum, throwing rocks and his hat and having a conversation with air. I was ready to send my Spanish Momma out to calm him down. I thought about giving him the Teddy Grahams but thought better of it. One kind fella from our bus got out there and put his arm around tantrum boy and then we all quieted down when he got back on the bus and he drove in silence the rest of the way to DC. I seriously thought he was going to drive us off the closest overpass. We shamed his honor he was taking us all down with him. But THANKFULLY we made it back in to DC.

Thanks Mandi for the good companionship. It was a great getaway.

This And That

So me again. I haven't blogged in ages. It's something I want to do more of. But sometimes I realize I only have an audience of maybe 5 so really I could just cinch this up in an email to each of you. But I'll humor myself and continue with the blog.

We went hiking on Saturday. We went up to Great Falls, Virginia which is a place we try and get to at least once every summer. It's really pretty up there. I think I'm starting to take Virginia for granted. It's just such a beautiful state and I love it and I've been in love with it since I moved here. I always discover something new and I think it's the most awesome state. But now I'm like "meh....trees...so what". I don't want to feel that way. I love Virginia. I know the kids love it. But when you live in a place for so long...you start to take everything for granted. You stop noticing the beauty and the amazing features that God has put here for our enjoyment.

Laura got her first tooth this weekend. Well, it's been there but it hasn't grown in. And so she asked me if I could get something out of her teeth that she couldn't get out and it was driving her bonkers. I asked her to go get a dental floss stick and she did. She showed me where the lodged item was and it's a tooth. Only...her baby tooth isn't loose. It's coming in behind it for some odd reason, which means she freaked out and I told her we were going to have to take her to see the dentist. She said she would be brave. I know she'll try. Cute thing. Her baby bottom front teeth are so tightly packed in already. I know without a doubt she'll need braces and I already told her she would. So I don't know how these adult teeth are going to fare down there in tightsville. But I guess that is something to wait and see on.

And lastly, I'm hoofing it this week. Well okay I just said that to garner sympathy. Our van needed its yearly plastic surgery and adjusting. With that, we have rented a van. It happens to have 2 DVD screens in it. Rob was like a kid at Christmas. He popped in a DVD and away we went on the road. The kids were like total zombies. I half expected drool to run in pools as they all sat transfixed to the screens. I have to admit it's kind of nice. There's not "she's putting her foot one inch into my foot space" or "he's trying to beat me with the ice scraper". Now it's just pure silence and I keep having to check back to make sure they're still thriving. They want to trade our van in. I told them maybe once a year we'll get it out of our system and rent a van with a DVD player in it so Mom can have a break. But you miss a lot when you have a DVD player. No imaginations at work. No funny commentary or crazy fighting over who is breathing who's air space. It's not as much fun but in its own right, a blissful change.

Happy August everyone (all 5 of you).