April 18, 2010

Jo was in New York all week - more on that later - while I was in town still awaiting to hear about my new boss.  In the meantime, I managed to do some more garden planting and began to move that massive pile of mulch up the hill.  Given the size and the limited amount I can actually get moved up in one load, the mulch pile will be there for some time.  Fortunately, given the Icelandic volcano, Jo was in New York and not over in Europe.

We spent the weekend in New York, taking advantage of Joann having to be there all this week and into the coming week.  But also, my college room mate came in from Chicago to visit along with his two eldest daughters (That's John with his daughter Katie and Jo with Alyssa - this is a return engagement for Alyssa to our blog, check her out from last year postings).  We spent a fun filled, but exhausting weekend trying to see as many things as possible.  We met up Friday night for pizza at John's and then walked around Times Square enjoying the crowds and the lights.  We did manage to do a wee bit of shopping in the M&M and Hershey stores (keep that thought in mind as it really is the theme for our weekend) as we meandered.  As we headed up Broadway we found the theater for "Promises, Promises" which we decided would be our show for the weekend assuming tickets could be had Saturday morning.  Fortunately, right next to the theater was a cupcake shop that provided a nice cap to our some what wet Friday night.  As each cupcake comes in around 400 calories, these are not your mother's cupcakes (starting to see the theme here?).  After quenching our hunger we made our plans for Saturday and headed off for some rest.

Saturday dawned drier but cloudy and cool.  Jo and I headed out for our morning run followed by a bagel and orange juice for breakfast.  You have just got to love New York bagels with cream cheese (although Jo always opts for butter due to a college problem with cream cheese).  Then it was off to meet up with John, Katie, and Alyssa at the theater were we actually managed to score some great seats.  Next up with a visit to the "Intrepid", a WWII era aircraft carrier that now acts as a floating museum.  As you can imagine, I could have spent the day walking every inch of the ship and going over the aircraft displays.  But I needed to temper that some to meet everyone's elses needs.  Everyone did find it interesting even if it was pretty chilly and windy up on the flight deck.  After touring a submarine also on display we went to grab some lunch before walking through Central Park.  We took advantage of the Carousel which was our bargain for the day and was a lot of fun riding - although it might have been that we were all pretty tired from walking and sitting on a bobbing horse was just great for the feet.  Heading from Central Park we took in St Patrick's Cathedral and Rockefeller Center along with picking up a few items at the NBC store nearby.

By this time we needed to find dinner before our show.  After a few unsuccessful tries as many places needed reservations we found a lovely Mexican restaurant which fit the bill.  Warm, had room for 5, allowed us all to sit and rest, and was pretty fast.  A great dinner then on to the show.  As it was a Neil Simon comedy there was no way it wouldn't work, but having Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenoweth made it great.  Sean Hayes was hilarious and very much like his role in "Will and Grace" and Kristen Chenoweth can really belt out the songs.  Very enjoyable show and we were glad to have gotten the tickets.  After the show, we were beat so we trudged back to the room and promptly crashed.  For those keeping track we estimated that we walked somewhere around 7-8 miles, couple that with a 3 mile run in the morning and we put some miles on the old feet.

The sun finally was shining Sunday morning but the walking from the day before allowed us to skip running without feeling guilty.  We met up with everyone for brunch then went to the top of the Empire State building where the views were phenomenal - and the lines amazingly were non-existant.  You could see for 40-50 miles (my estimate and I'm a terrible judge of distance).  It was fun trying to pick out all the different landmarks from up high and imagining you're Cary Grant in "An Affair to Remember" (or "Sleepless in Seattle" for those to young to know).  We finished the day with catching up on some shopping and sights we didn't have enough time the day before.  This, of course, included another stop for more designer cupcakes (although we did manage to share 3 among the 5 of us) and a crepe at a street fair that we ran into (again we shared - but we wanted to keep that sugar high going).  But after all that it was time for me to hop back on the train for home, John and family to head for the airport, and Joann to go back to her hotel room for a nap.  It was a wonderful weekend to get caught up with all the happenings in the John's family and see some of the sites in New York.  Although, I dare say, we will all need some extra sleep and rest to get caught up from our weekend.