OOPS!! Technical Difficulties -- Still in New York

Modern technology is SO not my thing. I accidently published my last entry instead of editing, so pardon my typos and abrupt ending!!

So where were we? Walking. Oh yes. And walking. To Times Square where we saw The Naked Cowboy (as it says on his tidy whities). From Times Square up Park Avenue, just to say we'd been there. The girls popped into the Juicy Couture store and pretended they could afford the stuff. We walked all the way to Central Park, with a quick zig that took us past The Russian Tea Room and Carnegie Hall. In Central Park we had some ice cream and tried to re-group.

My dear friend Marla has often commented that she can understand why some animals eat their young (she's recently had #6). I understood the feeling. For one, Miriam has an amazing ability to be bored. She always looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested taking photos of things like Rockefeller Center. She couldn't believe there wasn't a Hot Topic store (LIKE SHE CAN GO TO AT THE LOCAL MALL!!). Amelia has little to no capacity to handle physical discomfort. She was wearing new shoes and getting blisters. So we're sitting there in Central Park and Miriam turns to me and says "Are we just going to sit here?"

The worst moment came after we took the subway back to Penn Station. Tom had wandered off for a moment and the girls and I came dangerously close to a full melt-down, and I was feeling sorely tempted to just call the whole thing off. We were saved by Macy's and Green Day.

Macy's? It's just a little mind-blowing to be in a department store that big. The Junior's Department itself was the entire 4th floor taking up 2 city blocks. The girls could do some shopping, I had a place to sit down (the Aunt Annie's Pretzels also on the 4th floor), and Tom got the opportunity to wander around the block without any whining ball-and-chains. We were able to get (a surprisingly affordable) dinner at the restaurant in the basement and the girls were even able to get the new Ashley Tisdale CD (a pox on Disney, I say!).

Green Day also happened to be playing that night at Madison Square Garden. This perked Miriam up. We were able to get cool pictures of the tour bus and equipment trailors. Tom actually offered to get tickets for the show if they were still available, and he would take Miriam while Amelia and I would take the train back to LI, an adventure in itself. The only seats left, of course, were obstructed AND, I think, behind the stage, so Miriam passed. But it was neat hanging out by the venue with the fans waiting to go in.

In retrospect, it was a good day in the city. I don't know if it was Michael Bloomberg's efforts to clean up Manhattan or maturity on my part, possibly both, but New York was not nearly as scary as I remember. There were no Jews for Jesus passing out literature on the street corners. I only saw one person doing an anti-government, religious rant, and my kids didn't even notice. They noticed a homeless person although I did not. No drugs, no 3 Card Monty games. Surprisingly few buskers. I also couldn't find any street vendors selling italian ice which really bummed me out. Of course, when Tom was walking around while I was in Macy's he saw both a vendor AND an italian ice vendor. Figures.

Overall New York was surprisingly normal, almost bland. Of course we didn't leave midtown. And, come to think of it, we did pass a guy dressed like a monster walking down Park Avenue. And in Central Park there was a guy who did a very convincing Captain Jack Sparrow imitation. New York, New York...it's a wonderful town...

Next up - Sleeping Bear.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation - Part I

I'll try to keep this from morphing into a pathetically bad school essay. We just returned from our annual summer jaunt. Maybe I'll call this one The Alpha and Omega since it incorporated New York City and Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan.

As you, my friends know, it's been a funky summer. A get-away is usually a good tonic for this and this one did not disappoint.

As previously noted, we opted for the urban/rustic experience.

First, New York. I actually have history with the city since for some odd reason I've TWICE had boyfriends from Long Island. Not bad for a Wisconsin girl. Hayseed that I was, NYC always freaked me out. I remember learning in college about a psych experiment in which someone purposely overpopulated a colony of rats and kept them in a confined space and watched their anti-social behavior develop. I always thought that experiment was a little unnecessary since all one would really need to do is study Manhattan. I mean really.

The first time I went to the city my boyfriend's mom told me I'd see a homeless person/bag lady, a television or film crew, and we couldn't quite remember what the third thing was, either a drug deal or a 3 card monty game. The city did not disappoint on any of those. I was also offered drugs for sale (Bryant Park), and had my purse stolen at an Arby's after I set it on the floor next to me like a completely ignorant mid-westerner. Boyfriend's mom grabbed it back for me. She also took me to see The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway. She's awesome.

By the time my second New York boyfriend rolled around I had developed something of a phobia of the city. He and his sister laughed that the city must have looked like the view from a fish-eye lens to me. It was a big deal the day I actually walked from his sister's apartment in the West 40's to the McDonald's across the street ALL BY MY SELF.

So I could never say I had a particular fondness for the Big Apple, and I always argued that their pizza was too flat.

So here we were having a family adventure in the place that never sleeps, which actually led me to a cosmic realization: Tom may have been born and raised in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, but his father grew up in the Whitehall (? I think?) section of the city and his mom is from Lyndhurst, New Jersey. While he was growing up his grandparent lived in Queens and he used to hang out there some, roam the city, and go to lots of Mets games. My cosmic New York connection continues. I swear I didn't plan it this way.

We found a decent hotel for under $100/night (!) on Long Island that was not far from Islip where my friends live. Just getting there was Day 1. Having dealt with Chicago a number of times, the Cross-Bronx and Long Island Expressways weren't unbearable. Day 2, it was decided, I would visit my friends while Tom took the girls to Jones Beach. My friends in Islip are actually the parents of LI boyfriend #1, and our relationship was better and far-outlasted the one I had with their son. My daughters didn't quite get this whole concept so I thought it best that they have an adventure while I caught up on old times. I can only take so much eye-rolling, sighs, and "can we go yet?"

Day 3 was it. Our foray to The City. In typical fashion we really didn't have it planned out. Tom, as mentioned before, has a certain familiarity with the place and felt just exploring would give us the best feel for the place.

Lesson 1 - staying further out on the island may have saved us on room cost, but this was somewhat offset by the train fare. Yow. Lesson 2 - there are no Broadway matinees on Tuesday, and the Long Island Railroad doesn't make it easy to get back in the evening unless you don't mind arriving around 2am. Lesson 3 - if you have a 16 year old daughter that is really freaked out by heights that eliminates climbing the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center.

So what do you do? You walk. And walk. Up 8th Avenue to Times Square. After