The BIG City

We were strolling through Times Square on Saturday night, looking for a place to eat dinner. We wanted something distinctively New York, but we didn’t want to pay a fortune or have the kids embarrass us. That cut out a lot of options. When we finally saw a Mexican chain restaurant “Chevy’s,” I said, “Let’s do it!”

Tom rolled his eyes, thinking it a bit pedestrian, especially since we have one in our very own town, but I was just excited to find something we would all like. When we walked in, another party followed us.

With a quick glance back, I saw the most bodacious pair of breasts imaginable. These things were enormous. They were only minimally covered. They appeared to be “working breasts.” I don’t mean that in the same way that my own, marble in a tube-sock, saggy from breastfeeding, breasts once gave my little ones sustenance. These appeared to have been purchased for a specific mission or purpose. I was so busy glancing while not appearing to glance, that I barely noticed the woman’s 3 male companions.

We walked up the large staircase together and waited to be seated. As we walked to our table, I recognized the distinctive voice of one of the men. It was rapper Ice-T, one of my favorite actors from Law & Order! The breasts belonged to his Playboy model wife Coco! I was so glad that they were seated two booths away. This provided us the perfect buffer to tell the kids who he was, and to shield the kids from a view of the boobs.

We had a fantastic dinner, and enjoyed giggling about our small brush with fame. I felt vindicated when we had the best guacamole of our lives and because if a famous rapper and tv star would eat at Chevy’s, perhaps it wasn’t such an odd choice while out in the big city.

The kids wanted me to ask him for a picture, but I didn’t have the nerve, so here is a pic of me with my real iced tea, with Ice-T’s head in the background. Can you see it?

If it's too blurry, and I think it is, I will provide you with a shot of Tom and the kids in their best rapper poses. I guess now you can see why it's good there was a buffer zone between the See family and Ice-T.

The Yanks are Coming

Shortly after arriving in the city, Tom and Jake went to the Museum of Modern Art and Molly and I entered the red awning Mecca of The American Girl Store. I had been planning this for months, and had even bought tickets to the American Girl play. As soon as we walked in, we knew we had a problem. Hordes of girls, moms, and a few bored-looking dads crowded the store’s four levels and all (okay most) of the girls clutched an American Girl doll.

Molly didn’t. I hate to admit it, but she has THREE of these dolls. They are $100 a pop. One we bought, one was a gift, and Molly won the other at a local toy store. You would think we could have remembered to take one of these dolls to New York with us, but with the packing, and the dog kennel, and the train, and everything else, neither “Nikki,” “Emily,” nor “Samantha” made it to the big city.

Molly went into shutdown mode. We had an hour and fifteen minutes before the play started. She wanted her dolls. I wanted chocolate and a diet Pepsi. Girls flitted about, taking their dolls to the hair salon, the doll hospital, getting their photos taken with their dolls, and buying matching outfits. Mothers sagged under the weight of multiple packages, containing doll clothes and accessories that cost more than my entire wardrobe. The bathroom stalls even had special hooks inside-- for your doll.

Molly stood in the corner saying quietly what a stupid store it was and how she wanted to go home. She wouldn’t look at the clothes, wouldn’t marvel at the tiny accessories, and wouldn’t budge. I tried to help her out a little bit by saying things, in a too-loud voice like, “Wouldn’t this pair of glasses look great on your Samantha doll?” and “Your Nikki doll looks a little different than this one, doesn’t she?” or “Can you believe that out of all the entries at the toy store raffle, you won the only Emily doll?”

Her ears perked up a little with my showboating, but it wasn’t enough to encourage her to get out of her funk and start enjoying our big date in the big city. She knew her dolls were at home, she knew there was no way I’d buy her another one just to appease her, and she knew we were stuck there for several hours.

After about 45 minutes of her silent dejection, I pointed out a tiny stuffed dog, retail $18. “This is Emily’s dog, Yank! Would you like me to buy it for you?” Molly responded with, “Are you buying it for me just because I’ve been pouting since we got here?”

“Absolutely not” came my measured response. “I’ve been planning to buy you a special late birthday present here at the store, but I couldn’t offer it to you because you were pouting so much. It wasn’t until you stopped pouting and feeling sorry for yourself that I could buy it for you.” Believable? I’m not sure. But Molly wasn’t the only one trying to save face and make it through this experience.

We ended up buying the dog, one of the cheapest things in the store, and enjoying our front row seats in the corny by inspiring American Girl Musical. We waltzed out of the building hand and hand swinging our tiny red bag between us.

Back at the hotel, the boys, who had spent an educational and edifying afternoon at the MoMA, looked at the tiny dog with suspicion.

Tom rolled his eyes and asked if I had bought it as a reward for bad behavior. Well no, I mean maybe. You see, I remember what it was like to be seven and to have a much-awaited and anticipated event quickly turn to crap. Heck, I know what it’s like to be 38 and have the same thing happen. So, if Yank the dog took the edge off for all of us, so be it.

On ZipLocs and Freedom

We spent the last week in Connecticut and New York City. There was a lot of blog material, including a celebrity sighting that I’ll fill you in on later. Today, however, I’d like to give you a little glimpse of the beginning of our trip.

Since we were already in CT, we decided to take a train from New Haven to New York City for the weekend. This was pretty big stuff for suburbanites like ourselves. We pulled our minivan into a parking lot clearly marked “Train Station Parking.” It wasn’t until we paid our $18 that we realized that this was overflow parking, the station was several blocks away, and we were in a particularly seedy looking part of town.

The four of us unloaded our stuff, and started walking to the station, the kids dragging their little pink and blue duffle bags behind them. We walked past a lot of trash, chain link fences and under a pretty scary bridge. The eeriest part was the streets were almost completely deserted.

A big building loomed ahead with a few people smiling, smoking and laughing on the front steps. It was a police barracks, and although I saw no law enforcement officers, I instantly felt safer.

Then I saw the people were holding clear plastic ziploc bags. I saw why they were smiling. They opened their bags and put their belts back on and re-laced their boots. High fives all around. I’d be smiling, too, if I were experiencing my first taste of freedom in a while. Instead, I shot Tom a look and encouraged the kids to pick up the pace a little.

I'm not sure what this says about our assumptions. We were probably perfectly safe, but I wondered-- would this trip prove too much for these nervous nellies from suburbia?