My Day in NYC

I grew up here, but it has been a long time. But there is definitely some NY in my blood. Maybe that is why I am so, well, crazy. It's NYC in my blood.

My mom has a love hate relationship with NY. She has routine, she can walk everywhere, but really has never embraced all that the city has to offer in terms of culture, activities, and diversity. She just told my dad the other day she is bored. She lives in one of the most full cities in the world and is bored. Now I can understand being bored in Danville (where I live) but in NYC?
My dad, on the other hand, loves it and would wither and die if he didn't live in NY. He is an artist, he has friends, he enjoys what the city has to offer and deals with the crowds, sometime rudeness of people and other hassles of living in a big city; like riding crowded subways, for example.

Nicole takes much more after my dad. When we got off the subway at Times Square, it was as if an extra dose of energy (for someone who already has way too much!) exploded inside her. She wanted to see Times Square, she wanted to be where the New Year's Ball dropped, she wanted to see Broadway, she wanted to go to a show on Broadway. She couldn't get enough.

Our first stop was the TKTS place. The weather was absolutely awful, so there was no line. Amazing. We got half price tickets to Mary Poppins, and went on to stop number two, American Girl Doll Place.

See the slush? NYC didn't get the several inches of snow central PA got, covered with ice, but did get slush and both our feet were cold and wet. I was waiting for Children and Youth to pick me up because Nicole had crocks on and decided to take her socks OFF when they got wet, and then rolled her pants up so the bottoms wouldn't soak. Great. A kid with no socks and pants rolled up to her knees sloshing through the cold slop...and on top of everything, it was raining.

But then she got her second burst of energy when she spotted AG place, a girl's paradise, and mother's nightmare. We established the ground rules for shopping before entering (how much money she had, deferring what she couldn't afford, etc.) and got to the store which was also empty due to the weather.



I have a hard time with AG...I love the dolls and all the great clothes and accessories, but they are outrageously expensive. It just absolutely grates against my frugal self. The doll clothes cost more than I spend on my own clothes...so for every dollar that I spend there I am going to make a donation to a homeless shelter. I guess that is some kind of warped rationalization...my thoughts on this will probably appear sooner or later as a separate post.

Nicole got Chrissa, the new doll of the year. And it is a good story, and actually has mean girls, a homeless girl and bullying as part of the story line.

Next we went to what has to be the world's biggest Toys 'R Us store. It is so big it has an inside Ferris wheel, and we met Carolyn there and all went for a ride in the Nickelodeon car. It was a blast. The store is one of NY's tourist attractions. There are guys all over the store with cameras snapping away; photos of you entering the store, hanging with Geoffrey the Giraffe, riding the Ferris wheel, which I did fall for. What can I say? It was a great photo...someone help me...


After the ride we grabbed lunch at TGI Friday's and Nicole's charm somehow garnered her a free ice cream sundae...yummy!

Then it was off to Broadway...Mary Poppins was great! Just good old fun. And a great story.

More Broadway. Lights, lights, lights and ABC News. So much stimulation. Better than caffeine, but we stopped at Starbucks and got some of that too.

And then I got ready for the original reason for the trip, the evening event at the Lotus Club to honor Barbara Cook. It was a great evening, and merits its own post. Below is a picture of my dad with Adam LeGrant, Barbara's son with whom I went to elementary school, and here we are pushing 50 and our parents 80...

It was a great day, and just worked out so well because a storm blew through.