The New York Post

I had such a wonderful trip to New York with my two girls and the mother of my beloved. As much as we adore the men and boys in our lives, there really is something to be said for going on an all-girl getaway that involves browsing makeup counters, ordering hot chocolate from room service, trying on eighty-four different colors of street pashminas, and taking leisurely rickshaw tours through Central Park.

I have no idea why those activities are necessarily specific to the female gender.

Or even if they are.

Never mind; don’t listen to me. I was just trying to find legitimacy in our leaving the boys at home.

 

There’s something about New York at Christmastime. That’s so cliché, I know. Everyone knows New York City is magical around the holidays.

 

I knew. I’d been to New York at Christmastime before.

But still, the whole time I just walked around in a state of bliss.

The buildings sparkle, and so do the faces of people walking down the street.

 

This is my favorite kind of New York street cart, because no matter what time of day it is, the hot dogs always smell good. But at this time of year, the smell of hot dogs competes with the smell of roasted chestnuts.

I bought a little bag of them.

They smell a little different.

They’re very, very soft and sweet.

I like them.

My mother-in-law said she’d rather have a cashew.

The end.

 

The last night we were in New York, I had to race to the Palace Theater, where my mother-in-law and girls were waiting out front for me.

 

I’m coming! Hold the curtain!

If I had to guess, I’d say this photo was taken at 7:58 pm.

I’d abandoned the cab two blocks earlier and was sprinting.

 

We were just sitting down as the lights dimmed. Fortunately, we were on the aisle and I didn’t have to do that awkward thing where you can’t decide whether to inch by people with your front facing them (in which case you’re sort of like, “Well, HELLO!”) or your back facing them (in which case you just hope your bottom doesn’t hit their knee or—even worse—their face.)

And then the show began.

And I was completely transported.

I need to explain that I have seen the movie version of West Side Story approximately four million times. I know every movement…every breath…every choreographed dance step and facial expression. So the thought of seeing it on stage for the first time ever, while exciting, was a little scary for me. What if they pull something off-the-wall and decide to make Tony Puerto Rican and Maria American? What if they turn the highly energetic dance numbers into interpretive pieces or put some other funky spin on things? I was prepared to become hostile and leave in a huff.

I don’t like change.

Instead, I fought back tears the whole time, often unsuccessfully. The stage production of West Side Story was beautiful and perfect, and the traditionalist in me sang for joy (figuratively) when I saw that much of the original choreography remained intact. With the exception of a couple of re-ordered songs (“I Feel Pretty” and “Gee, Officer Krupke” actually appear after Riff and Bernardo are killed in the rumble; strange, but it actually works) and an interesting dream-like sequence during “There’s a Place for Us,” I felt like I was sitting in the presence of an old friend.

My younger daughter got wind of my gasps and hoots and hollers during the various periods of applause, and started looking at me occasionally. Then she got wind of the fact that I was crying—not necessarily because of the sadness of the plot, but because of the talent of the actors and the nostalgia I felt listening to them belt out the songs that have been a part of my soul for so long.

Then, if we ever met eyes, my daughter would do that gesture one makes when making fun of someone who’s a crybaby—the one where you take your fist and rub it on one of your eyes and stick out your bottom lip.

Then I mouthed the words You’re grounded and she and I held hands the rest of the show.

When we left the theater, I looked up and took a deep breath. I love Broadway musicals more than anything in the world except Marlboro Man, my children, and coffee ice cream.

This was one of my favorite experiences.

 

Since we’d darted out of the theater through the side exits, the four of us grabbed two available rickshaws and went for the ride of our lives through the streets of New York.

The good news is, it was faster than a cab.

The bad news is, it was faster than a cab.

 

This photo was taken after we darted in between a traffic jam of cars, scraped an Escalade or two, and almost tipped over because the driver was trying to avoid hitting a German Shepherd.

 

This is me right afterward. Shaky and nervous from the ride, I wanted to show you the fuzzy vest I purchased in New York…but didn’t have the presence of mind to get close enough to the mirror for you to actually see it.

So let me describe it for you:

It’s fuzzy.

The end.

 

We began our last day in New York at Bloomingdales, where we decided to go to try to get my older daughter a coat.

But we didn’t make it too far past the makeup counter.

 

My gosh. Corridors…

 

And corridors…

Of makeup.

See, this is why my girls and I aren’t very productive shoppers. We find things like fish tanks and sit and look at them and take photos for twenty minutes.

 

Then we found this little area, where you put on some kind of sensor ring and hold it in front of a camera. Then you can select different styles of rings on the touch screen and the ring on your finger magically changes on screen.

It was an efficient use of our time, considering our plane left in three hours.

We left Bloomingdales without buying any “Bloomies” underwear (my mother will be so disappointed) and headed over to the general area of the Apple Store that’s open 24 hours.

 

It wasn’t the Apple Store we wanted, but FAO Schwarz. We’d visited the store on Wednesday night after we’d first arrived in the city, but had decided to wait until Saturday to run in and get a little something to take home to the boys.

We’d found the perfect thing. Little action figurines that perfectly reflected their individual personalities.

 

Unfortunately, we forgot to take into account the whole New York-is-Nuts-on-Saturdays-Around-Christmastime thing. There was a line to get into the store that stretched over a city block.

Look at the forlorn expression on my girl’s face. “But whatever shall we do, Mother? The boys will be disappointed if we go home emptyhanded.”

To which I retorted, “Ah, but we shall not go home emptyhanded, my child. We shall go home…”

“…With sock monkey hats!”

And that’s exactly what we did.

The boys were thrilled.

As we walked back to the hotel, we took in all the Christmas windows.

 

Here’s a coffee table book idea: Christmas windows in New York City over the past fifty years.

 

Let me know when it’s on shelves, okay?

 

As we headed for the Lincoln Tunnel on our way to Newark Airport that afternoon, I saw this Christmas tree stand, which reminded me so much of Love Story and When Harry Met Sally.

To paraphrase Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail:

When I see things in real life, it reminds me of something I’ve seen in a movie. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Never mind. Don’t answer that.

Goodbye, New York at Christmastime.

I hope to see you again someday.

(Look! The Empire State Building! Reminds me of An Affair to Remember...)

(There I go again.)

 

Goodbye, Eastern Seaboard. I’m headed back for the Great Plains.

Back to the land of Basset Hounds.

And feeding cattle.

And my three boys.

I missed them.

Here’s the great thing about traveling with kids: their vacation isn’t over until they walk into the house. This is a corridor at Chicago O’Hare, and it was one of the highlights of my girls’ trip.

Chicago O’Hare was not, however the highlight of mine. We had weather delays.

Questions as to whether we’d make it out that night.

Worries about a winter storm that was moving into the area.

Then, on takeoff, we had this.

I didn’t like it one bit.

So I reached in my purse and ate one of my chestnuts.

Which reminded me of New York.

Which reminded me of this.

And then I was fine.