So, this was all last week.
I'm hibernating again. The temp outside is technically 20 right now, but with the wind gusting anywhere from 20-50, it feels like -5 to 0 degrees. That means my trip to the store has been postponed. I have no desire to bundle the girls up and fight that. Instead, I have to survive the day with my stir crazy kids inside. They are suffering from attention with drawl since B's parents left on Saturday. This too shall pass.
We had a great week. On Tuesday, B and I took the 5:45am ferry out of Atlantic Highlands to NYC. We beat the morning rush, and the 30 minute ride in was nice. The weather was great too. It wasn't windy, so when we docked at the pier, just east of Wall Street, B and I decided to walk for a while. It's been a while since we could just go and not worry about dragging kids or finding kid friendly potties. To say the least, we enjoyed ourselves. We made it all the way up to Greenwich and decided we'd best take the subway to make it to the live taping of Martha on time. Just as before, when mom and I went, we waited in line and were called into the waiting room where you sign your image away and feast on tasty muffins and water. We were sitting in the 2nd row from the front, so when Joey came in, we were much closer this time. Here's the picture to prove it.
B and I had card number 12 and 13, so we knew we'd have great seats. We even wore bright colors, which the audience coordinators really like. When called to the studio, we sat in the very first row (not on the floor-I heard you don't want those seats b/c you can't see anything). The camera practically stayed in B's lap the entire first segment, so he got lots of airtime. The show was enjoyable, and our gifts for the show were craft boxes in the shape of hearts from the MS line at Michaels and a box of chocolates from Charles Chocolates. Let me just say, I'm not what I would call a chocoholic. I enjoy chocolate, but I don't go out of my way to buy the expensive stuff. I've never understood why anyone would pay $4 for a single piece of chocolate when you could buy an entire bag of M&Ms for 79 cents. Anyway, you're handed the gifts when you leave, and we didn't even open it up until we got home. Boy oh boy! I have never tasted anything so good. I especially enjoyed the chocolate mojito hearts. We ate the whole box, including the actual box teh chocolates were in. It was all divine. Valentines is another holiday B and I don't really carry out. We don't mind it, but we don't expect things either. It's as simple as that. At least, it was....from now on, I may use it as an excuse to order more chocolates!
The other thing we came home with was a bottle of Lorraine Bracco's of the famed Soprano's olive oil. B won it for being an enthusiastic audience member. Joey tends to hand out leftover giveaways to those exuding happiness throughout the show. Thank goodness I talked him into bringing a backpack to the city. I'm not sure where we would have put it all.
After leaving Martha, we hiked a few more miles through Manhatten, and found ourselves at Madison Square Park. Apparently it has some amazing history, including, but not limited to being the birthplace of baseball and where P.T Barnum started the circus empire. It's also the site of one of NYC's lastest "attractions." For only a quarter, you can try out the new self-cleaning coin-operated public toilet on Madison Avenue between 23rd and 24th streets. Could we possibly pass up the opportunity? It's even staffed 24 hours. (That's the man in the picture with B). Just be careful, after 15 minutes, the door open automatically, and you are exposed to the world. Once that was out of the way, we decided lunch was in order, and ended up at Momofuku for lunch. After watching travel shows and reading "my fav in the city lists", I added it to my list of to dos. It's definitely not a restaurant I would have taken the kids to either. The menu is very different, but everything we had was unbelievably layered in its flavors. The best thing we had was the rice cakes with oxtail Ragu. It was B's choice, and man it was good! I had the steamed pork buns, which is a favorite of many NYC chefs. It was a meal I was glad we saved for just ourselves.
Once we had successfully stuffed ourselves, we had to decide what to do. Where do you start in NYC? I originally thought we would head home b/c we had tickets to the NJ Nets that night, so I made no plan. By lunch, we decided we'd be too tired to do it all, so why not hang out in the city a little longer. The NY Giants ticker tape parade was going on, so we had to stay away from downtown. For a few minutes, we considered going down there to fight the crowds, but then thought again. Have you seen the fans? They're crazy! We had walked the parade route at 6am, and they were lining the roads like Mardi Gras fans. Finally, we decided to go to the MET. Neither of us had been, and knew we'd never begin to see all it had to offer, but we had no idea!
The first thing you should know when going to the Met is that you should leave your olive oil at home. They don't smile kindly at you carrying it in your backpack, and they won't check it at the coat check. Lucky for B, the security guards agreed to hold it for him, something they don't usually do. Some of you might say, it's olive oil, chunck it. But, to us, it was "Martha" olive oil. How could you just throw it away? Good thing we didn't. It's darn good for bread dipping!
So, we had about two hours before we wanted to catch the ferry back home. We didn't want to be in the 6pm rush, and my shins were starting to ache, so we chose to hit the American Wing. It proved to be less than exciting, so we ditched that idea and headed to the art wing. The idea was that since we didn't have time to read everything on the wall, we should at least see something we recognize. We found that in Picasso, Monet, and the like. It was fun. We were amazed at how close you are allowed to get to the actual paintings. You could breathe on them for goodness sakes, and there was no protective covering to keep you from stabbing it or lets say, throwing olive oil all over it. Impressive. We'll be back, but I think we'll save it for another trip when we have babysitters. I could just see myself yelling, "No, Lise', you can't climb the ancient temple." over, and over and over again!
So, after a day of joy, peace and exhaustion, we hiked on over to the pier on 35 street. It was an overcast, rainy day, and it was getting cold as the sun went down, but B and I decided to sit on the upper deck in the back of the boat anyway. You don't get a view like that everyday. We sailed under numberous bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge. I can't wait to do it on a clear (and warm) day.
Just as a reminder, click on a photo to stop the slideshow.
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