Not even a week after JL left, who should arrive but the biggest possible test of my hospitality, graciousness, and overall sanity: my mother and sister. I love them both, truly I'm sure that deep down I even like them a little bit, but when my mother has always told me to whisper little prayers under my breath when I'm stressed out, I'm not sure that she was envisioning me sitting on the bus on my way to pick them up airport doing deep yoga breathing and muttering "Please, God, don't let me commit any homicides this week."
And I didn't! It wasn't the easiest or greatest five days of my life, but I've had harder and worse (yes, yes, that's what she said!) My sister has never been to the city and my mom only once, so we did a lot of the same tourist-y things that JL and I did the weekend before. We even went to the same restaurant (what can I say? I'm a total sucker for Lombardi's! Delish!) We rode the ferry again, and I was once again struck by my ingrained desire to take pictures of the Statue of Liberty every time, no matter how many times I've ridden the ferry by now. Someday I want to take the ferry and just be one of those bored-looking people who sits inside reading a newspaper and sighing at tourists. I love sighing at tourists. And muttering "damn tourists" under my breath while elbowing past them on the sidewalk. Actually, now that I think about it, am I becoming one of those crazy city folk who mumble to themselves all the time? Do people think I'm a crazy schizophrenic homeless lady, because they're the ones that you always used to see talking to themselves. Thank goodness for all those new-fangled inventions like Bluetooth, so now you can never tell who's actually crazy and who's just on the phone.
We saw two Broadway shows while they were here, which was nice because I never do things like that on my own or with my friends who live here. Every time I have a visitor and we go see a show, I say to myself, "I've got to do this more often" but I never do. I really love musicals and plays, but to be honest, I'm not too impressed with Broadway these days. There's just nothing that really interests me. Does everything either have to be positively depraved or written for the intelligence, attention span, and sense of humor of a special-needs eight year old? I do not need to see people brutally murdered and raped on stage, I don't care how "edgy" some critic says it is. I do not need to watch Harry Potter struggle with sexual attraction to a horse. I do not want to see anything that is supposed to show me the human side of freaking pedophiles, people! There are things in this world that are just flat out perverted, and they are not okay, and I will not, cannot, as a decent human being, support them, even in the name of art, expression, or free speech. If that makes me intolerant or conservative or fundamentalist, then fine, I will wear those labels proudly. Are there no standards of decency these days? I know that it is politically incorrect to raise issues about decency and standards but come on! All my life my dad has been quoting the Bible to me and one of his favorites is "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes." He usually brings this one out whenever I am visiting him and invite him to join me in watching a Trading Spaces marathon or something. I disagree with his take on interior decorating shows, but good lord if the man's point of view doesn't make sense in light of some of the "critically acclaimed" shows playing in theatres around the city. Okay, that was kind of a long tangent there, but let me also just briefly decry the other side of the coin and beg that the next generation of Rodgers and Hammerstein, or a Cole Porter for the new millenium, or heck, even a new Andrew Lloyd Webber rise up on Broadway and save us all from anything else ven resembling "Shrek: the Musical." Have we come so far from Anything Goes, or the Sound of Music, or West Side Story that we are doomed to watch musical adaptations of entertaining yet not spectacular movies for the rest of our days? I don't go to the theatre for fart jokes any more than I go for torture and terror. Sheesh, people.
So we saw Phantom and Legally Blonde, which for all my ranting about movie-based musicals in the preceding paragraph, was actually pretty cute and entertaining, which I suppose totally undermines my previous diatribe by proving that I'm really not the most cerebral or discerning of theatre-goers. We also went to a taping of a morning show (we couldn't get Regis and Kelly tickets, and so were forced to attend the poor man's version at Fox studios, but it was still fun. And there was free breakfast.) I took them to my favorite bagel shop around the corner from my apartment (well, I consider it around the corner. It's actually about 1/2 km, which to those who aren't used to city measurements ("oh, it's just a short walk!" from a city dweller means "we should be there in about 45 minutes if we power-walk") is not quite what they're expecting. But seriously, 1/2 km? I can cover that distance in 3 minutes while wearing 3 inch stilettos. No big.)
And my favorite of all, we went skating at Rockefeller Center! I love the rink there. I know it's touristy, and Rockefeller often makes me want to stab myself in the eye, but it was early in the season (the rink had just opened that week), it was warm outside, and there were hardly any people for the lunchtime skate. It was probably the best skating I've ever done in the city. For what it's worth, it should be noted that I am also quite possibly the world's most heinously awful ice skater. I have no sense of balance, I can't master any sort of turning maneuver, and I generally find myself unable to stop without running into the wall at least once every five minutes (this is made even better by the fact that at Rock Center, there is a restaurant with big glass windows facing the skating rink where business people go to wine and dine, and I'm pretty sure I entertained a large crowd by repeatedly running into their window at various intervals. They even started waving at me. It was hot.) But how can you not have fun while ice-skating? It's like Phoebe Buffay running in Central Park (Didn't you ever run so hard you thought your legs would fall off? Like when you were running toward the swings or running away from Satan?... the neighbor's dog! Bwah! Pheebs is HI-larious!) It's so child-like and freeing... as long as you can laugh at yourself.
So, I had fun, I think they had fun, there weren't (too many) tears or fights, no one died, no one threatened to kill each other, so all in all, I'm calling it a success. At least, close enough.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment