Random moments in Manhattan

We love going into the City, yeah that is what we cool, hip New Yorkers call it, the City. No need to explain what city,there is no other, just the City.

Any time we have the opportunity to go in, we do and try to see a show or whatever. I love to be there and hope to retire there someday. Like when someone drops 4 million dollars in my lap so I can buy the brownstone I want near my favorite place, Milk and Cookies.

Or the cardboard box I have subletted in Alphabet city. My tenant the Homeless guy with the dog said I can have it back anytime I need as long as I call first so he can go back to his estate in West Palm Beach.

So everytime we go in there is always a story of some sort and some of them are kind of funny.

I think I may have told some of them already, but you know the Mad Cow... I am sorry if this is repetitive....

Walking from Grand Central Station to our hotel on Thanksgiving weekend, people are honking at each other as we walk down the street, D3 turns around and says, Hey do I have a sign on my back that says Honk If I'm Pretty. funny kid huh?

D1 and I go in for something, maybe when we went to see Wicked before she left for college or maybe a doctors appointment, not sure which, we are on the subway heading somewhere where we arent sure where to get off when we get to a stop and D1 says I think this is it... I am not sure... wait let me check she says and before I can stop her she jumps off the subway, I hesitate for just a second and the door closes and she is on the platform and I am on the train and I am laughing and freaking out at the same time.

The train pulls away and I get off at the next stop but cell phones dont work in the subway so I have to leave the station to call, I dont know should i go back, should i wait for her there, will she know to get on the next car or will it even be going this way. Surprisingly I was not as panicked as I should have been but she did get on the next subway, and in the millions of people getting on and off the subway she saw my ridiculous curly hair and we met up laughing the whole way. Thank god this was only like 2 years ago and not when she was 6.

Not funny story, we go into the city for the Parade, yeah we call the Thanksgiving Parade, the parade because there is no other. So we go in and we are heading toward the hotel and there are a million people and we have 4 kids and at least 4 bags because we are staying over. We buy metrocards to get through the subway... we start going through and D3 pushes the bar but doesnt go through so now we cant use the metrocard again and we are stuck in a million people and we cant get the bags through the turnstile and Hubby decides to push D3 through with him.. Needless to say there is no cop around when we needed help with the four kids, bags, crazy new yorkers pushing... but as soon as they committed a CRIME....they swarmed. So they pull him over like a criminal and here is the catch... He doesnt have a wallet because he had lost it the week before picking D1 up at a conference in DC. So he has no ID and the cops are not happy and we are standing there among the millions of tourists like criminals with the cops trying to explain and they are being cop assholes and I walk over to show my ID and start to reach into my pocketbook and you know this is not long after September 11th and I do look a lot like a terrorist so they scream in my face, step back and take your hand out of your bag. And I am like, no no no I am trying to....Mam, step back this is not your concern... um wait did you just call me mam because those are fighting words... call me princess... so in any case, they actually held him there and humiliated him, the girls were crying, and they wrote him a ticket for fare jumping and i dont know walking around without ID. It almost killed the day.. but lucky for us I am so on when these things happen and my stream of anti cop, pig jokes lasted for days.

Another time we were in for the parade and we decided to go see Rent, the movie. We go to Starbucks and get coffee and cookies and since Hubby NEVER checks to see if things are made with nuts although he frequently has to go to the hospital when he eats them...he eats a cookie that apparently had nuts. So we head to the movies and his throat is closing up and he says I will be right back after we are seated in the movies. what? where the heck are you going? just down to the rite aid for benedryl.. I know why dont I carry it with me since he or D4 is forever sneezing or having their throat close up.

So he leaves and comes back eventually and says he is feeling a little better. Then he falls fast asleep in the movie, the result of taking mass doses of benedryl. At the end of the movie I wake him up but I cant really fully wake him and he is walking with his eyes closed. here is the problem.... I have no idea where we are, it is 2 in the morning and it is snowing. I am asking him Hubby, where do we go to get back to the hotel and he is in a stupor, barely walking, dragging himself down the street. I am sure that is when we first learned of D4's mad direction skills and I think at 9 years old she got us back to the hotel.

One day we were accidentally in the city on the day of the St. Patricks Day parade. It was the 16th of March not the 17th but apparently if the 17th is on a Sunday, it is too holy a day to drink until you fall down so you celebrate the day before. We went in to see Les Miserables just me and hubby. We took the train and no joke people were so drunk at 11am they couldnt walk. People were so drunk they were sitting on the steps to the library to watch the parade. yeah the parade doesnt even go that way... we laughed pretty hard about that one.. anyway... we get out of the show and we walk down 8th Ave to get back to Penn Station. dont ever do that, by the way. And people are asking us if we want crack and we are politely refusing... no thanks I say often until hubby is looking at me like just be quiet and ignore them but of course that would be rude... so no thank you i would not like to buy half a kilo of cocaine but thanks for asking... so we get home and on the news is breaking news story... shooting at the Academy bar on 8th ave.... um what... Yeah we apparently walked right by while the shooting of the Black 47 guitarist was taking place. Oh St. Patricks Day in the city... we never did that again.

Unfortunately I have to go now and I have some more stories about the city, like when D4 got us seats on the subway by sneezing and coughing on all the people or the best alien birthday D2 ever had at Mars... I will be back to blog about this stuff probably tomorrow when I should be listening to my audio files from my cheyenne class.

Tata for now. yeah that is what we cool new yorkers say when we leave. Tata...