Musings From New York

Curtains!

Yesterday, the Lady & I stepped out for an evening to ourselves, planning a dinner & a show ... well, she planned, I ate.

We started the evening at Maze, a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. The reasons are obvious - we're big fans of his shows, like Kitchen Nightmares, and Hell's Kitchen. On the whole, I'd have to admit I wasn't particularly impressed with Maze - perhaps I built it up too much in my head. The food was certainly delicious, but the menu was rather odd - 50% seafood, and 50% all other meats ... and no chicken! But the unforgivable sin was the portion size - at that price point, they were tiny! Well, perhaps I'm too used to "American" portions of food. I was just about satisfied at the end of the meal (perhaps the dessert provided requisite stomach ballast?), but I was left craving more food - I mean, what's the point of offering 3 bite size portions of delicious food? It just leaves you unhappy, and wanting more!

Anyway, onto the show ...

The Lady had booked us front-row tickets to Curtains!, a murder mystery musical (ooh, nice bit of alliteration there!) starring David Hyde-Pierce (we're both huge fans of Frasier, and I personally think Niles was always the funnier brother). It ends today, and so we jumped on the chance to see it before it closed down for good. The show was a lot of fun ... lots of laughs, nice tunes, and dances ... although seeing our idol so close up was a bit of a shock. Well, yes, he's not a young man anymore, but I think seeing him in person, without the TV makeup and lighting, was a bit of a reality check.

 Anyway, at the end of the show, we waited for the cast to exit the stage entrance, and sign the playbill. DHP was the last to leave (intentionally?), and we got to take a photo with him, and have the following witty exchange:

Lady: We're huge fans! We watch Frasier every night!
DHP: Thank you.
Me: You were great in The Amazing Screw-On Head!
DHP: Aha! (relieved that someone remembers his non-Frasier work)

Moving On ...

The last month or so has been pretty hectic over at Chez Axe. Several days after the Lady & I returned to US shores was spent pounding the pavements looking at apartments. For some weird reason, we couldn't find any 2-bedroom apartments in our price range ... well, that's not strictly true. We found a "2-bedroom" (i.e.: 1-1/2 bedroom) 2nd floor walkup in an really old brownstone). We had a lot of criteria, which I suppose contributed to the narrow range of apartments we had to work with.

Ultimately. we ended up taking a 1-bedroom apartment in the upper 90's, pretty close to the subway. A 19th-floor, south-facing apartment in a luxury building (totally swanky lobby, gym & swimming pool, and so on).

The weeks since signing the paperwork have been spent packing and throwing out a ton of stuff ... mostly old clothes that I don't wear much anymore (hopefully someone finds it purchase-worthy at the Salvation Army store), old notes & case studies from my MBA, and such like. I'm selling all my old JLA trade paperbacks, but refuse to give up my Hellboys, Sandmans, and such. I even bough a little binder and pouch set to store all the comic books I'm currently reading.

The discussion is slowly turning to what purchases we need to buy after moving in ... We've gotten a ton of gift cards and other presents for the new home (thanks, guys!) so we're slowly compiling a list ... coffee table, side tables, flatscreen TV, an espresso machine, a blender, and so on. I need to get a good NAS to combine the Lady's photos & music, and mine.

Of course there have been some items that have been approved that I've insisted upon.

Going Into Labor* (Day Weekend)

Got a long weekend coming up now, with The Lady spending all of it here in the City. So far, I've got a couple of things planned (that I'm willing to reveal at this time):

1. A chocolate tasting at MarieBelle Chocolates ... sounds interesting; I've been to a wine-and-cheese class, but never a chocolate-and-X (where X = {Coffee,Tea,Wine}) class. And I love dark chocolate ... the darker, the better in my book.
2. The US Open ... Picked up a couple of tickets to the top-most tier of seats for Sunday night at Arthur Ashe stadium, and will be facing down the court rather than across. Sunday evening will have Men's Third Round & Women's Quarterfinals matches, so this should be a lot of fun.

* Hey Ruchi :-)

Summer Song

As has been reported in other esteemed publications, the Lady & I went karaoke-ing ... er, we karaoke-d ... er, we went to a karaoke bar last weekend. Although it was a double-date - which is to say there was another couple there, not that we were there with our dates - it was a blast.

We'd booked a booth in anticipation of a larger group, so it was the 4 of us singing the songs we wanted to sing, without having to wait through other, interminable songs sung off key by complete strangers. We sang songs spanning decades, and genres, and here is my list of favorite songs to ... umm, "sing" (in no particular order):

1. Anything by Elvis
2. Anything by The Beatles
3. Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi
4. Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond
5. Jeremy by Pearl Jam
6. The Look by Roxette
7. (Dude) Looks Like A Lady by Aerosmith

If you have any suggestions of good songs to sing, post a comment below.

Subway Shuffle

I took the subway on the way back from work last night. I was standing next to a Latino woman and her children, including a 2 or 3 month baby* in a pram**. I was, as always, listening to my iPod, which at this point happened to be playing Slow It Down (Mathilda Mix)

The baby was starting to wake up, and was starting to stretch and yawn, and wave it's arms and legs about ,,, weirdly enough, in time with the song in my head. From my perspective, it looked like the baby was dancing, and I gotta say, he had some mad skillz!

Yeah ... that baby danced like me. But he was definitely cuter. And better.

* What's the difference between baby, infant, toddler, and child? I know it has something to do with the age of the person, but I can't remember what the distinction is.
** What's the difference between a pram and a stroller?

An Inadvertant Pun

For those of you who might not have heard, the City was subjected to torrential overnight rains with the effect that a every subway line is running erratically.

Said an MTA spokesman on NY1 this morning:

"The situation is fluid."

Hah!

Transformers!

The Lady embarked on a near-impossible quest this weekend - dressing me up to her level of fashion. This, of course, means I have to abandon my well-honed "I'm A Slob" wardrobe line that's been in use for the last 4 or 5 years.

Yesterday afternoon was an instructive 2 hours at Macy's, learning how to dress "sexy". I got to say, at the end of it all, I do look a whole lot better (ignore the bad angles and the weird looks on my face ... I always tend to blink when the flash goes off ... does anyone have any tips on how to avoid that??)

I spent a good hour this afternoon tossing out a lot of old clothes that I never wear anymore. I can't wait for the next lesson in fashion sense.

And yes Vee, I know ... "frou frou" :-)

By the way, those photos were taken at the Amsterdam Theater on 42nd and Broadway. The Lady and I went to see Mary Poppins. Excellent show - good production, FX, lively and funny cast members ... good family fun all round. If you're in New York, you must put this on the list of things to do. I didn't think I'd remember quite so many songs, but such iconic songs tend to bubble up from the buried depths of one's soul.

YAGW

Yup, it was Yet Another Great Weekend.

Friday: I cooked a meal! Yes! Me! Cooking! And buying wine glasses and wine! And cheese and crackers! The frou-frou-ification of the Axeman has begun! But it was a great time with The Lady, so it's all good.

Saturday: The Lady treated me to brunch at the B B King Blues Bar & Grill, specifically to a Beatles Brunch. The brunch itself was very so-so, but the music really did make up for it. Four Americans - apparently stars of the "hit" Broadway musical Beatlemania - dress up like the Fab Four and sing their songs, with a few non-Beatles songs thrown in. The only one I could recognize was Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven, and if I'm not mistaken The Beatles did a cover (either sung live, or recorded, I'm not sure). The show was split into two acts - representing the pre-Revolver   and post-Revolver   days.

Now, the Gods know how much I love The Beatles. But I have two dirty little secrets muddying those clear waters ... one I'd admitted to earlier. The other is ... (drum roll) ... I don't like most of the stuff that came out post-Rubber Soul. I like the raw energy of the rock 'n' roll days ... the psychedelic stuff is all well and good, but it's waaay too mellow.

After the brunch, we headed over to Union Square, for what appears to be an annual bizarre funfest, the Pillow Fight. Essentially a bunch of people (mostly NYU students, I'll warrant) hitting each other with pillows until they burst ... at which point, everyone's covered gentle, feathery snowflakes that get everywhere. Honestly, I'm still picking out little bits of down out of my scarf & jacket!

Sunday: Not so great. I was working for half the day ... watched the Oscars at night. A quiet day.

But all-in-all another great weekend of new experiences in this crazy city. :-)

Mother (Nature) has a bad temper

So the temperature is expected to plunge about 20 F today. That's right - today. For those of you in Celcius mode, that's a drop of nearly 10 C in about a 12 hour period. This morning at 8:30am, it was about 58 F (13 C) when I left home. According to weather.com, at 3:30pm EST, it's 35F (2 C). And this isn't counting any of that wind chill factor crap, either.

I just hope I get to fly out on Thursday night.

At least it's not raining.

Shameful confession

I can't distinguish between John Lennon & Paul McCartney when I listen to the Beatles. I've tried to listen to the pitch of their voice ... their accents ... but I'm stumped.

Speaking of McCartney, there was a line of dirty hippy squatters outside Virgin Megastore on Sunday afternoon. I asked a nearby policeman what that was all about and he told me that Paul McCartney was due to visit the store the next day.

...

Well ... at least it wasn't a line for the PS3 which was released today.