Monday, April 21, 2014

Nancy says.....

Nancy says that it is just one year from today that we will be leaving Ft. Lauderdale to begin our Atlantic Coast tour.  Nancy also says that she has lost 5 pounds and did 90 nminutes of cardio this morning.

I think I need to get busy.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Words. Where are the words?

I've always thought I had a more than adequate vocabulary, but in describing my recent trip to Boston and New York City, I am at a loss.

To begin at the beginning, the trip came about because my friends Nancy and Emilie arranged to cat-sit for some friends of theirs that were going on vacation.  They graciously invited me to share in this rent-free bounty and I very eagerly (VERY eagerly) said yes.  So the three of us made plans to explore all that NYC had to offer while becoming the temporary caretakers of a lovely kitty named Alonzo (Lonny).

I hadn't been to NYC since I was four years old - I remember sitting on a pile of luggage in Grand Central Station but not much else. It's always been a dream to go back and this was a chance not only to go there, but experience it with two of my favorite people in the world.

So I flew to Boston and a couple of days later we took the Bolt Bus to NYC.  We started exploring that very afternoon and never really stopped.  We did so much and had so much fun, it's beyond one blog post to describe.

We went to Mood, the fabric shop they use on Project Runway.   We road the Staten Island Ferry. We had REAL pastrami sandwiches, we rode the subways, we shopped at lovely little neighborhood stores.  We took Grayline tours, we walked, we saw and we enjoyed.

We saw two Broadway shows - Kinky Boots and Beautiful.  I hadn't really expected to be thrilled because the only theater I have ever seen was high school or local amateur productions.  But thrilled I was!  Kinky Boots has you wanting to stand on your feet and cheer (or dance, that's good too).  Beautiful introduced us to Jesse Mueller playing Carole King. I had no idea she had written Motown songs.  Jesse's voice is a dead ringer for Carole's but has it's own beautiful quality too - she will be a HUGE star, like Bette Midler huge.

Annnnnd I have tried every. single. way. I can think of to get pictures from my phone to this blog and it just ain't happening.  You will just have to imagine pictures of tall buildings, parks, people, trains, boats, churches, hotels, Statue of Liberty, World Trade Center and a spectacular view of Central Park from a $9.5 MILLION apartment on the 63rd floor of a building very close to Radio City.

Several things surprised me about NYC.  The first was how clean the air was - I expected gas fumes and smelly buses, but not so.  The second was how few fat people there were - all the walking is good for you.  The third was how polite people were - we asked absolute strangers for directions, we got in the way on the subway platforms and NO ONE was rude.  The fourth was how readily available fresh food and produce were in local neighborhood markets. The prices weren't as high as I expected either, except in a few very nice restaurants.

I wanna go back.