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The Party That Nearly Wasn't

Mom decided a couple of months ago to throw herself a birthday party. She wanted to take a bunch of people up to the city to see a Broadway musical - Mamma Mia - since it was a reliving her youth sort of thing. Apparently she could only buy 8 tickets in one week or 20. Eight tickets was really a little short so she ended up ordering another one a week later. I ended up in that seat sitting nearly in front of them.

Despite kidney stones and another family crisis to boot (long story, don't ask), all 9 us made it by 2 cars into the city. Everyone had a great time. The musical itself was different from the kind I had seen in the past (Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, etc.) It was definitely fun. I was eyeing up the other signboards on Broadway as we walked passed. Who can say no to Monty Python?

We had dinner at a very nice little Italian-Spanish restaurant, which was in the basement of a brownstone. I think the area was called "restaurant alley" or something because all the little basement restaurants. You really had your pick of cuisine-style.

And to make the day more interesting, we saw: the Naked Cowboy (no we didn't stop for a picture. Mom wasn't game), the Church of Scientology (no we didn't stop in for literature, just talked about a few of their famous members), and Hell's Kitchen (had no clue where that was until we were in it stuck in traffic trying to get to the tunnel).

Oh and we did stop at the Hershey store. Where else would nine women stop at but a chocolate store? I didn't know they made that many varieties of kisses and nuggets.

So a good time was has by all and I think that had been the first time that I'd been in the city since before 2001, or 1998 maybe. I was trying to think back to the last time I was up there. That skyline threw me for a loop.

Posted: August 28, 2005

Updates

Mom popped in yesterday to take a look around and said I forgot to mention the worm. There are Broadway shows that are meant for children and others that are not. Who in their right would take a 6 year old to Mama Mia? I'm sure there are some very well behaved children for that age and could attend a performance but that misses the point. Unfortunately this particular girl drove one of my Mom's guests crazy. The little girl elbowed our friend every time she switched armrests. Her constant movement ended her up with the nickname of the worm. She drove me crazy because she kept singing along with the music – loudly. In performances where you know the music, you may lip-synch, but I'm sorry, we paid to hear the performers not you sing. Concerts are different, lol. You only hear the performer no matter how loud the person next to you belts out the song. And then you don't hear anything else for the rest of the week, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, just as the official part of the performance finished, the Mother (sorry, but I also found her to be a bit on the loud and annoying side) hit me in the back of the head with who knows what as they scrambled the crawl over half the people in the row to make a beeline out of the theater. Hello, there was still the whole encore ensemble piece!!! Call me a cranky theater-goer if you must but I was happy they left, even if I had to get a bump on the back of the head for it. I already had a stiff neck from the guy sitting in front me with the big head. It was conveniently in my line of sight and every time they were on the right-hand side of the stage, I had to look around the guy. Apparently, it was fairly funny to watch. I guess I'm too used to stadium seating in the movie theaters these days.

September 6, 2005

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