Welcome to New York Part One

Just a short story from our New York Trip last weekend: PART ONE

I am FB friends with two young professional women (one a dancer, one a singer/dancer/actor) who live and survive in Manhattan. We enjoy the repartee FB provides us, and stay in touch over the time and distance between New York and Maryland. Evan is quite the world traveler with photos in exotic realms of the earth. SuzyMae sending shots of her in equally exotic locales in the City, the Tropics and LA. Two single ladies enjoying life to the fullest and allowing this Old Gray Mare to live vicariously through them. Not jealous, but glad to see them enjoying their lives, their youth, their time on earth.

So here we are, two old fuddy-duddys, senior citizens as it were, headin' to the big city with our 16-year-old gal Sade in tow. We gave advanced warning: SENIOR ALERT! OLD FOGIES ON PATROL WANTING TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU, STAY ALERT. Now I am not "Debbie Downer," in fact I'm told I can be a lot of fun, when I am not using up ALL the oxygen in the room, still when you compare OUR life styles (right now I am sitting in my recliner in my Happy Face flannel pajamas and plush slippers) with the fast-paced life of those Fast New Yorkers, I can understand why they might be somewhat reluctant to drag themselves out of a hot party scene to indulge the Senior Set even for a short period of time. I mean it was HALLOWEEN you know. Still, I did establish and maintain contact as the date approached and we actually made it to our hotel in NYC! How did things work out?

I will remain on the positive side of this rant, and focus on what HAPPENED rather than what did not. All I can say is that we sent texts (I may be old, but I can text with the best of them) and while we certainly weren't sitting in our cold lonely hotel room waiting for the phones to ring, we offered dinner (food at expensive restaurants) to the lucky participants, as well as the pleasure of our company. Texts being sporadic, we headed out on our own assuming TIMES SQUARE would be fun (it was) and that Carmine's Italian Restaurant would be our best bet for a meal. It was. The Maitre' De told us, "One hour and a half wait." "Durn!" I said, "What the hail are we gonna do in NYC for a whole hour and a half!?" I mean, there were no rocking chairs like they got at Cracker Barrel! But we made do and found a few things to occupy ourselves, in fact we were almost late for our text to return to the restaurant for our meal. Made it with five (5) minutes to spare. [If they call you at 9:00 you better be there by 9:15 of your reservation goes POOF!]

Anyway...the meal was great, served "Family Style" which means there was enough to feed a family of 5! Too bad those dancing gals missed our lasagna and super salad. Oh well. But then my niece SuzyMae rung in. She told us there was an "event" near our hotel room. Now, I'm just an old country boy, living in Republican Heaven on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, so I was unclear as to the meaning of "event." How much did it cost? Where was it? Was it appropriate for my wife and 16-year-old daughter? My niece assured me it was appropriate, at no cost, and just a gathering of some friends for a "table reading." I had been to a few of those before, but never one in New York City! So we agreed to take her up on her invitation. Tune in tomorrow to see how things turned out.