Misadventures of the Village Idiot #74

New York, New York!

As part of my month long birthday celebration SF and I decided to hit up the city for a couple of shows and some shopping.  We drove up early Saturday morning and stayed in a hotel in Queens, Best Western Plaza Long Island City. I liked the hotel because it was clean and convenient.  I’ve been doing quite well with Priceline, thankfully landing decent hotels that don’t resemble the Bates Motel.

We got there too early to check in, but we parked the car in their lot and headed two blocks to the F Train. Our first stop was China Town.  I had promised my mother to get her these perfumes she wanted.  Ever since Ronnie’s space was boarded over due to construction I’ve been having trouble finding a reliable guy that I can go to every time.  I did get what I wanted but all this haggling and trying to make sure I don’t get scammed.  Ugh.

It was kinda crowded, but that’s because the weather was absolutely freakin’ perfect.  We didn’t stay too long in China Town.  I got my perfumes and a street meat, and then we headed to the TKTS booth in Times Square.  Normally, the TKTS booth can have a really long line but we seemed to arrive at a decent time that we didn’t have to wait too long.  And thank God because dirty pissy bum was fouling up the air.  We seemed to be standing right in the wind path so we could get a full nostril-full.  Yum.

Before we even got to NY, I was confused and on the fence about which show I wanted to see.  I spent half an afternoon reading reviews and story synopses.  There were many stories I was familiar with:  Chicago, Sister Act, Phantom of the Opera, among others.  But there were quite a few shows I had never heard of:  Catch Me If You Can, Book of Mormon, and so many others.  After scratching off the ones I definitely didn’t want to see I had to ask for opinions because even though I’m familiar with a story that doesn’t mean that Broadway production of it would be any good.  It was like I was researching for a Ph.D. or something.  Seriously.  And the crazy thing is that what I was aiming for we didn’t even see.  Oh, I’m not disappointed because we ended up with something good.

I think I was swayed by the guy voguing in front of the booth.  Or maybe it was the cute little sailor outfits.  Whatever.  I decided that we should see La Cage aux Folles.  I’m happy with my decision because we got half price tickets for the carbaret tables right up front of the stage.  I’ll tell you about the show in a minute.

After purchasing our tickets we headed up to 60th and Lexington for a street fair that I’d heard about. I know these street fairs can be the same everywhere: street meat and other street food, cheap trinkets and other useless junk, but I like stuff like that.  We weren’t trying to spend a whole bunch of money.  We bought some crepes from a guy from Gabon.  He seemed surprised that we know where he his country was located.  He must have had us confused with stupid Americans.  I also bought some cheap ass earrings that will probably turn my ears green.  Hey you know, it’s all in good fun.

I’ve been to NYC many times so I’ve seen my fair share of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. Now I’m into exploring other neighbourhoods. I had never been to this part of Manhattan. We just wandered around to see what could be seen and enjoyed ourselves on a very sunny and beautiful afternoon.  There was no rush to do anything.  Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the flowers.  Except for SF.  That poor thing.  Her and her allergies.  I think she set a record for number of sneezes in a weekend.  It was at least a million.  Perhaps more.

So about the show.  I had known that the show was in its closing weekend.  That’s too bad because the show was freakin’ awesome.  But we were told that since Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was also a drag show, they probably didn’t want too many drag shows going on at once.  Whatever.  La Cage is definitely something I’d see again.  Basically it was about a gay nightclub owner in France during the 70s.  He and his lover had raised a straight son who was getting married to a girl from an ultra-conservative family.  The son asked his parents if they could pretend to be straight for just one night.  Actually, the son asked his natural father to be straight and invite his drunk, absentee mother back to the house so they could pretend to be one big happy family.  The other father, the super gay father, was asked to leave altogether.  Then they get this cockamamie idea that the super gay father would go masculine.  When the drunk, absentee mother didn’t show up, super gay father decided to dress up like a mother, a la Mrs. Doubtfire.

In between the crazy antics of the family were scenes from the transvestite night club, complete with ultra masculine men dressed up in bikinis and corsets, with high kicks and acrobatics.  Include a dominatrix, some drama queens and men who can do the splits, well, you’re in for a good time.  If you’re easily offended and astonished by gay men loving life, then you should probably sit this one out.  It’s too bad because you’re missing a great show.  I’m glad we saw it before it closed.

Sunday
The next morning, we decided to skip out on the free hotel breakfast. Fake, sliced egg and cold cereal is not my idea of a hearty start, so we asked the front desk guy if there was a diner or something nearby. He pointed us to a bodega. Enter your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer. Look, I don’t want to be stereotypical, but a black guy hanging out on the corner with a bank roll the size of my head is probably up to no good.

I was confused by the bodega.  All of them are so different, and this one didn’t take credit cards.  Strangely, they did allow you to smoke.  You might have missed the sarcasm on that one but there were two people smoking inside the store and a third guy came in to buy a single and he also lit up.  Calvin, the drug dealer, immediately introduced himself to us and offered to buy us anything we wanted.  It was really quite bizarre.  He was like, “Anything you ladies want.” We weren’t at Ruth’s Chris but I still felt odd asking some strange man to buy me a egg biscuit so I declined, but SF was in desperate need of a hot chocolate.  Something that costs a dollar is probably harmless.  That’s when he flashed his bank wad.  100s, 50s, 20s.  I was like… uhm.  Well, thank you for your time.  He was harmless and a little bit funny.  He asked us if we wanted him to show us around the city.  Then when we found out we were from DC, he wanted us to invite him down there for the weekend.  Yeah, we’ll get right on that.  I ended up giving him my phone (thank you, Google Voice) because I always manage to get sucked into such things.  Since he was not creepy or stalkerish I didn’t see any problem in being nice to him for a few minutes.  Sometimes it’s more of a hassle to be a bitch to someone because then they really don’t leave you alone.

Since we still had not eaten, we just decided to go back into Manhattan and find something there. We got sucked into an expensive mediocre breakfast at TQS (or something like that) somewhere in the vicinity of Broadway and 50th. We were trying to stay close to the TKTS booth to get tickets to a matinee show.

The line for matinee tickets wasn’t long at all. It took us about 20 minutes to get through it and get tickets for Avenue Q. Again they were half off and we got seats in the fourth row from the stage. While waiting for the show, we walked down to Herald Square for some shopping. Good thing we decided to walk because we discovered Melissa Cupcakes. They sell these teeny tiny little cupcakes. Mmmm. So delicious. We shopped and loitered on the street for awhile, then walked over to the theatre.

Avenue Q was HILARIOUS!!! I wasn’t sure what to expect because it’s a puppet show, but forget about all that. It was just so funny. I don’t know which I liked better: La Cage or Avenue Q. I think I like them equally just in different ways. I warn you though: Avenue Q is not recommended for kids under 14. Full puppet nudity and such hits as “Everybody’s a Little Bit Racist,” “The Internet Is For Porn,” and “It’s Okay To Be Loud When You’re Making Love.”  The story is about a kid who just graduates college and moves to a slum in Queens.  He meets a girl down the block and falls in love with her, but fucks it up because she wants to get married and he’s looking for purpose.  Enter a one night stand, a puppet who loves porn, a gay couple, and a Jewish-Japanese couple.  It was basically about trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and what happens to you while you’re busy making plans.

After the show we did some more wandering around and ended up walking a huge circle looking for something decent to eat. I am not into chain restaurants like TGIFridays and Red Lobster. We had eaten more than our fair share of street meat. I was desperate for some pad thai, and thanks to my Trip Advisor app, we did find a place: Bangkok House on 8th (or was it 9th?) between … oh, I don’t know anymore, maybe 47th and 48th. It was some street where there were plenty of restaurants: Spanish tapas, Turkish, an Irish pub and a whole gamut of others.

At any rate, the food was excellent, the perfect way to end our trip. We got back on the train after being chased by a guy desperate to give us comedy show tickets. He said, “Do you like to laugh? I’ve got comedy show tickets. Eddie Murphy’s brother.” I replied, “No, I don’t have a sense of humour.” Then he said, “It’s like Schindler’s List.” Uh. Okay. Not sure how that is supposed to be funny.  And how come all the comedy shows in NYC feature a relative of some major comedian? Eddie Murphy’s brother. Tina Fey’s second cousin.

SF and I are headed back later in June to see the Cirque du Soleil show Zarkana.  Then I’m going to bring the kid to see Lion King.

We didn’t get home until almost midnight and then I found out Osama bin Laden was dead.  But that is for another post.

Misadventures of the Village Idiot #65

What a thoroughly enjoyable weekend doing what I do best:  eating and sleeping my life away.

Friday
As usual, I got off work very early so that I could go home and sleep, sleep, sleep.  For some reason the whole week I had been dragging, but I immediately recharged with a four hour nap after I got off work.  Later that evening, I went to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse with Debonair.  It was restaurant week in DC, so it was time to try out some new restaurants.  Even though I have been Ruth’s Chris a few times, he had never been.  I don’t mind taking one for the team.

So, I mentioned Debonair in a previous post.  This was the guy I was unsure of.  Well, a lot more has developed since then but that is going to have to be for another post.  First, I do want to say that he cleans up very nice.  I was so surprised when he came around the corner looking like dapper Dan.  I mean, I liked the way he looked before, but now… wow.

We sat in Ruth’s Chris almost all night long.  It was funny because we had reservations for nine, but there was some mixup and we had to wait for a little bit.  We sat down and I had lamb chops while he had petite filet.  For a minute, we weren’t talking and I remembered something he once said to me, but after we finished eating we just started talking about everything under the sun.  It is absolutely bizarre everything that we have in common, and when I say everything, I do mean everything:  from music to philosophy of life to the children neither one of us wants to have.  The only thing we didn’t have in common was the fact that he doesn’t like ice cream–no, he hates ice cream.  That’s a black mark, but I think I’ll get over it.

Anyway, I happened to look at my cell phone to discover that it was 1215.  Hahaha.  Too bad the restaurant closed at 1030.  I noticed that the place was getting emptier and emptier and that they weren’t re-seating, plus the servers were shining glasses and redoing the table cloths.  We weren’t the last people in there, but I would say that we shut it down.

If it hadn’t been 15 degrees outside I would have suggested we walk around a little bit.  I didn’t want to end the evening, but they do say that all good things come to an end.

Saturday
Saturday I got up very early to hit the Amish market and I was back in bed by 815.  I laid in bed almost all day long, alternately sleeping and watching Star Trek reruns.  It seems like lately I don’t get a chance to sleep like that anymore.  I felt so refreshed and energized by the time I got up to do a good workout.  Then I got ready for evening out number 2 with Debonair.  This time a friend came along with us to a Thai restaurant.  Debonair had never had Thai food before and it seemed like a good time to remedy that.

The food was good and our friend decided to part ways with us when we finished dinner because I wanted to go downstairs for crepes.  I am in love with the crepes Suzette and I had this powerful craving for one.  Once again, Debonair and I shut down the restaurant.  We sat in there until well after closing.  We were really the last people in the place this time.  I guess because we have so much in common we have a lot to talk about.

When it is 8 degrees outside that is not the best time to be having a lover’s stroll so I got in my car and went home.  He told me to text him to let him know if I was home, but I emailed him instead (since I know he checks his email on his phone), and this started up an all night long email conversation with me briefly falling asleep and then waking back up at 6AM to finish the conversation at 4PM.  I am dead serious.  I sent him an email after midnight and we emailed until around 3AM when I fell asleep.  Then I woke up at 630 and emailed him back and then he wrote me and we stayed emailing until about 5PM on Sunday.

Sunday
Yes, I did spend the entire day emailing and cleaning the house and and emailing and working out and emailing and sleeping and emailing and getting ready to go to dinner number three.  No, I wasn’t going with him this time, though we both did want to see each other again.  This time I had a “date” with Ceecee.  We have not seen each other in so long and it was just high time to catch up.

We met up in Georgetown at this place called Mie N Yu.  Someone once suggested it to me and I really kept meaning to go but for some reason I could just never get there.  Finally, and I’m glad that I went.  The place is really beautifully decorated inside.  I do feel like I’m in some kind of middle eastern bazaar somewhere.  The food was good.  I think my dish could have been better if they hadn’t done my lamb chops all the way but I had some tofu fried rice and some scallops in their actual shells.

Ceecee and I really, really caught up.  So much has happened in the last six months since we saw each other last.  We used to go on all day shopping trips, spend, spend, spending and then dining out at our spot PF Chang’s in Tysons Corner.  Now that we are actually adults we don’t seem to have time for that anymore.  I hope we don’t let our lives get in the way.  That sometimes happens and that’s why it’s important to me to cultivate real friendships.  It takes work to keep those friendships alive while the lame friendships seem to flourish quite fine in the bacteria.

We talked about family, friends, our jobs, potential lovers, ex-lovers, and everything in between including our bitterness over the cancellation of Law and Order and how we both could not get into Law and Order:  Los Angeles. Apparently there is a L&O UK on BBC so I’m going to try to find that and check that out.  It was a nice time but that cold ass wind!!!  No time for chit chat afterward, but get in the car and hot foot it home.

I was dead ass tired by the time I got back home and I tried to watch a bit of Star Trek but I fell asleep on it.  Monday morning I was dragging but I made it through the day.

This coming up week is restaurant week in Baltimore so I’m going up there.  I didn’t get to see Maq this weekend even though I planned to go over to see the boys.  I just got side-tracked but the boys will be back.

 

Misadventures of the Village Idiot #49

I decided to kick the weekend off a little early in honour of the Kid’s birthday.

Thursday
With Maq’s help, I put together a very small birthday party for him.  When I saw small, I mean, it was just me, him, Maq and her two kids.  I ordered a couple of pizzas and got some cupcakes from Cakes Plus.  Surprisingly, he enjoyed it and that is because he got presents to unwrap.  I didn’t go all out on him but he was very pleased with what he received, and you know that humbles me just a little bit.  I was such a spoiled brat when I was his age.  I didn’t have very many birthday parties, but if I had and my parents had thrown me a party like that, I would have been like, “What the fuck is this?”  These cheap ass presents?

But he is a kid amused by dollar store toys and odds’n'ends.  I gave him my old iPod and some brand new speakers.  He was begging for sunglasses, so I got him a cheap pair I found at the dollar store.  I bought him a watch, some accessories (because he wears rubber bands for bracelets), a model car and some mini cars.  I also let him have a soda.  I gave him a wallet with some money in it too.  He was very excited about that.

We were going to watch a movie but Thursday I was exhausted from working ten hour days so we decided to call it quits.

Friday
Friday, I promised to take him to dinner for his birthday.  He wanted sushi but sushi don’t fill you up.  You pay a whole lot of money for some snacks and then you end up having to eat again.  I wanted to take him to Fogo de Chao but I wasn’t hungry enough for that.  I decided on Thai food.  He doesn’t understand that there are different cuisines in the world.  He just thinks everything is pizza, Chinese food or food from home.  We had ourselves quite a Thai feast with fried tofu, fried calamari, gyoza dumplings, lamb and pineapple fried rice.  Yeah, we were quite stuffed when we finished that.  Once again, we tried to watch a movie but we had to be up early for Saturday’s race.

Saturday
We got up with the Lunkheads to go running in Baltimore.  Why I agreed to do this, I have no idea.  Lunkhead #1 insisted that we race in Baltimore and when I looked at the address I didn’t really know what part of town we’d be in.  When we got up there, I saw that we were in Park Heights.  The straight-up ghetto!  Yeah. The race was for the newly built community center, but I could have done without the junkies trying to run in the race with us.  Well, they weren’t exactly running, more like twitching on the sidelines, yelling weird things out at us.

It is one thing to run a race in front of cheering spectators, but it’s something else entirely when you run past a bus stop full of gawkers who are screaming stuff at you like, “Yeah, you go ‘head girl,” in this nasty tone of voice, like they just undressed you mentally while you ran under the hot ass sun.  I put everything out of my mind when I run.  There is no one in the world but me and my goal time.  But it’s distracting.  They tried to break my concentration but I persevered.

Lunkhead #1 had to set up himself up with his excuses as to why he would probably not be able to beat me.  He said he hadn’t worked out in a week and a half, and I was like, okay I have been eating cake and ice cream every night and the only good run I put in was earlier on Monday.  Then he was like something with his foot and his back and his neck, his coochie and his crack.  Whateves.

I passed him easily somewhere at the end of the first mile and I was doing pretty good.  It was hot as a bitch though.  I can’t wait until the weather breaks.  I warned him that no amount of working out would help him once the weather turns cooler.  I can run like the wind when I’m not boiling inside.  I almost caught up with Lunkhead #2, but he turned on the after burners.  If I had not stopped for water, he might not have ever seen me.  I would have slipped past him, but I needed that water because my tongue was dry as the damn Gobi.

I did a pretty good time but I still did not meet my goal of 30 minutes or less.  I came in at 30:02.  Isn’t that fucking irritating.  If I had just stretched out a little bit more.  If I had skipped the water.  If I had actually looked at my watch to see what pace I was at, I would seen that I needed to kick it up a notch, but that’s cool.  There’s always next time.

After the race, we had breakfast Bob Evans, then we all parted company to go back to our regular lives.  Me and the Kid went to run our errands, then we went home and crashed out in front of the TV for a few hours.  The weather has just been brutal and I am not in the mood to be languishing like a forgotten fudgesicle in the hot sun.  We have just made it a habit that we are not really doing anything between the hours of 11-5.  The brutal heat doesn’t actually even let up until almost sunset and then the cloying humidity lingers on making you feel like you need a bath two seconds after leaving the house.

Saturday night, Maq and I went out with the Semi-Geeky meetup to go duckpin bowling. Okay, so I organised this meetup with knowing really duckpin bowling is.  Apparently it is entirely different than regular bowling.  The ball is much smaller, the pins are smaller.  It’s just different.  We ended up having a really great time despite the fact that only two people showed up.  A girl from Benin and this weird guy who kept trying to hit on me.  We went for Cosmic Bowling, so they cut the lights low, turn on some neon flashing lights and some loud music.  The music was really good and dancy so I could not help myself.  Since I suck at bowling, I spent more time dancing up and down the alley like an idiot.  Everyone was staring at me but you know what, I’m sorry that your life sucks you can’t enjoy a good song every now and again. It’s not like I’m dancing in the middle of my work place or at church or some other inappropriate venue.  it’s a bowling alley.  Calm down.

Anyway, my dancing must have really turned on this guy because he was just enthralled in a weird manner.  Not that I can’t handle myself but I’m glad Maq was with me because the girl from Benin had to leave early and I would not have wanted to be out with that guy by myself.  We bowled three games and at the end of the game he tried to hug me.

Whoa.

No touchy.

He kept saying, “You’re a really great dancer.”  When we were all walking out of the bowling alley, he was like, “Yeah, you’re great,” and he caressed my shoulder and I was thinking to myself if I had one of those duckpins I would smash him in the head with it.  It’s all good though.  Maq let me drive her car.  She hate the way I drive, but she’ll get over it.  If she had been driving, we would still be on our way home.

Sunday
I got up to go running but for some strange reason I was actually sore from Saturday’s race and I don’t know why.  I’ve been running consistently for about two months now, a 5K race shouldn’t make me sore.  Instead of running I just walked around the neighbourhood.  I came back in the house around 730am, made some pancakes and went back to sleep.

Sunday was dedicated to laziness.  I did absolutely nothing of any significant value.  I did clean up around the house and we barbecued, and that was an interesting thing because I started grilling much earlier than I normally do.  I must have subconsciously known that something was about to happen.

So I’m outside on the back deck grilling and in the back yard everything is all sunny.  I just happen to go in front and I saw some mean storm clouds.  I get on weather.com and see that there is a tornado WARNING for my area.  A tornado warning means that a tornado has already been spotted, get under cover and kiss your ass good-bye.  I had just lit up the grill, the food was already on it, cooking and I’m like shit… what do we do?

So we did what any normal person would do.  We brought the grill in the house.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

It is extremely dangerous to grill indoors.  You can die of carbon monoxide poisoning.  You could set your house on fire.  It’s just not a good look at all.  I brought the grill in but I left the door open because the basement is already windowless as it is.  I don’t want us all to die.  But the storm outside was SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERIOUS.  Trees were uprooted.  Parts of roofs flying all around.  Crap flying through the air.  The power went out for a few minutes but was restored.  I learned from my roommate that the block up the street and everything down by the stores were still out of power and remained without power for quite some time.

An honest to goodness tornado did touch down but just not in my neighbourhood, somewhere near Silver Spring.  I went walking on the trail on Monday morning and the big ass tree that sits up there was completely uprooted.  It blocked the entire trail.

Yeah.

But it’s better than the shitty ass heat.  I’ll take a storm front any day.