A night on Broadway

My fabulous friend M came for a visit this week and part of a newbie coming to NYC is a trip to see a Broadway production, so we saw "THE BEST MUSICAL.EVER." aka A Chorus Line (this is what the program stated). A Chorus Line is a must see partly because it's been on stage for a while...ummm well since 2006, but this is the 1975 revival, but hey 1975...it's a classic in my mind. Anyhoo we went to TKTS at South Street Sea Port and there it was for a discounted price of $61 we were set for the night (ps: original ticket price i believe was $120 plus...YEAH sweet discount!). Our seats were rockin' at the 26th row and slightly to the right, here's the problem...of course why would i bother with a story if there wasn't a problem. This show doesn't contain sexuality or inappropriate child language...not really at least, it's like a pg 13 Disney movie (unlike many plays out there now, *cough* Spring Awakening ps: AMAZING!) so there were many kids, in my opinion too many kids.

It starts with the kid in front of me who would alternate between sitting on his dads lap to his chair in front of me. anytime there was anything slightly riskay the parents would shoot looks over at him, that stuff is obvious if you're looking forward. I guess i'm just happy there was no whispering.

Next was the heavy breather next to M. He was probably 14 and didn't know the concept of silent breathing. Since i am about to work with kids with many different needs i always like to give the benefit of the doubt for things like that, maybe it's a condition he can't control...well here is something he could control, rolling up his program a million times and unrolling, yeah distracting.

AND the final interesting event of the show was the sneezing child. I know i exaggerate, it makes a story so much better (please refer to the previous sentence...a million times, how long was this freakin' play...only 2 hours i'm pretty sure a million is completely impossible). But here is a truth, a kid a few rows behind us had a major allergy or something but he kept sneezing, honestly every 2.5 minutes. It was crazy loud, big whined up, no attempt at muffling the sneezing and then a loud finish (vocal and a type of sigh). It reached a point that near the end of the show audience members couldn't contain giggles and AND after the final curtain call a cast member came on stage and told the person gazoontite...seriously crazy loud.

Moral of the story...great play, fun dancing and songs, humourous characters! If you get frustrated with children move onto something else...i'm a very tolerant and patient person when it comes to children (borderline saint) and i was getting annoyed. Your call, but given the chance to see if for free i'd go again...even if i had to sit next to sneezy, sleepy and sniffles.

Almost spring here...pictures of the park soon to come!!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Some of the joys about living in NYC is the amount of shows that get taped in this city, and the amount of free tickets given out.

For Xmas this year my dad gave me a wonderful present...4 tickets to see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The joke about his present to me was that he was reserving them at the beginning of December and he wasn't sure if the writers strike would be over. He did well choosing a date and also since it was so far in advance we were hoping i'd be able to get out of work, not have a conflict with school and that waiting in line wouldn't mean i froze my buns off. Well 2 of the 3 worked out...i did freeze my buns off!


I'm not sure if any of you have ever been to a taping of a show such as this, but it is a very interesting experience. It all starts by waiting outside on the street--arrived at 3:30 (even with reserved tickets) out in a line for 2 hours, you get the reminders, no garbage, go to the bathroom you can't once you're in, no cell phones, no cameras etc etc etc. Then you are let in 5:30-6ish (i follow rules so i had my phone off and had no clue what time it was), next you sit some more in the freezing cold studio, BUT you listen to rockin' tunes...now i understand why everyone at Ellen is dancing before she does her show, finally they bring out the "pre-show". This comic, already forgot his name, was pretty funny, but he's everything about a comic i hate...demeans people, but he got the crowd worked up....THEN the main event. Jonny S comes on does his own chatting with the audience thing (SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUNNY!!!!!!) and the show begins.
Basically we sat for 30 minutes, cheering and laughing as they filmed, waiting for commercials, special guest and guest correspondent. ps: Elliot Spitzer being the butt of all jokes was GRRRRRRRREAT!! Way to go prostitute ring scandals (ps:pretty sure the election is on the back burner for now). And that was it....we left at 7pm....what an afternoon!

You know those types of funny where you smile so hard your cheeks hurt, or your front teeth dry out....maybe it's just me, but i was loooosing it. I had such a great time and now i'm trying to plot a trip to chicago to see oprah or any other live show in the city here....great fun!

Updated: Adventures at W110th St.

The construction has begun and pretty soon will be done. They built a crane on top of the scaffolding that protects the pedestrians and sidewalk ....seriously!!??
They built it up and it's attached to the side of the building (does that seem safe after the roof fell off due to wind, i think not)
I missed the removal of the roof molding as i was at work, i couldn't exactly skip work for days on end hoping something would happen, but it happened successfully.

Now i want you all to know that although this is a very big crane i do not live too close to it. I'm sure many of you have heard about the tragic crane collapse on the upper east side...really sad and scary since this city is full of huge cranes. I feel safe with this crane, and don't worry, since the instillation of the crane on the roof of the scaffolding i have def. not walked underneath and now i have zero intention of walking anywhere near that crane....super creepy that it's attached to the side of the building!!

ps: the size of the crane is hard to see...it's probably 40 feet long, the metal structure it stands on is at least 10-12 stories tall, the metal cubes that are stacked are 3 feet by 3 feet. I don't get the physics of this thing. Those window cleaning platforms seem safer than this!



orange=crane platform

Adventures at W110th!

I may not be leaving my apartment doing cool New York things, but not leaving my apartment yesterday had me seeing an architectural miracle/nightmare. While all you Torontonian's were drowning in snow we were drowning in rain and CRAZY winds....well if you ask my friends on the east side it was only windy on the west side so i'll rephrase that, the west side of New York had CRAZY winds. I'm not good at giving measurements to things like wind so i'll just show you in pictures.

This was taken last night (Saturday) at 8:15... notice anything different? look at the top of the building...no it's not a jumper...although it kind of is.



A daytime picture may help

What you see here is the top of the buildings fancy roof molding which has blown off, or is hanging on by a thread....and thread is not an exaggeration...this thing was flaaaaaping in the wind....creepy stuff!

My friends were waiting for me to meet them at a bar at 9 and at one point i called and said i may not come because there was potentially a really crazy thing to see happen...how would they pull up 20 feet of roof molding? But then i thought about how i had been home writing for most of the day and i was a real dork if i spent the rest of my night not writing, and not out with my friends, but standing at my window watching cops, firemen and a few other of NYC's finest do their handy work. Well after talking to my doorman on the way out he promised to give me the low down when i returned. His comment "You're leaving? But look at this...your friends should be coming here and they'd better appreciate what you're leaving for them". I told him they would appreciate it, but i also knew they were probably placing bets on whether i would show after calling so excited that a huge chunk of my sidewalk may be demolished by a falling piece of roof molding.

When i returned home nothing had changed, a few less cops, it seemed like they had some how tied down the roof to the side of the building. I asked L. my doorman what happened and he said, because you know how doormen know all, they were going to bring in a crane to fix it. Who knew when that would happen, but how else would it get done. I went to bed knowing that by not holding a window side vigil i may miss something, but i also had faith in the fire department that they knew how to tie a piece of roof to the side a building well enough that i wouldn't miss a thing. I was right.



This was taken at 12:30 pm Sunday...it's hard to see the scaffolding on the sidewalk, but that's what's happening so far.


They aren't any closer to removing the piece of roof, but now it's so much clearer as to how scary this really is!! Thank goddess they put up the scaffolding to protect the pedestrians below...ps: i have no intention of ever walking underneath that scaffolding, i saw how it was built...pieces of metal siding and plywood....oh yeah that's safe and will protect me from the gravity force of a huge piece of roof.


I'm assuming more work will come to remove this slab of roof/molding whatever you call it so this blog will be updated when the whip out the big guns. Tomorrow could be interesting...should i skip work for this?

answer: what is a lot . Thanks for reminding me!

Question: How pathetic am I?

So I was reading through my favorite blogs and was thinking about how much work it is to post everyday. How do those bloggers do it?! Keep us entertained and make us keep on clickin' back to them. Anyways this led me to see when i last posted, Feb 22....holy crap what the hey have i been doing that i haven't posted since Feb 22?!!! Do i not do anything fun any more? Do i sit at home in my apartment silently clicking away at my computer not exploring the great city of new york? The answer would be yes alec that would be right. What am i doing? The answer would be the reason i'm living in NYC....flippin' school!!

Here is my day

8am(i will not tolerate ANY comments on how i get to sleep in, i'm a princess!)-wake up to a really lame radio station which on multiple occasions makes me laugh because it is soooo lame and therefore so am I

8:30- get out of bed, watch today show, check email (do not respond because i'm a terrible person), make a breakfast i don't find filling (can anyone recommend a good breakie that doesn't involve nut products and has enough protein to last the morning? please no meat and eggs are tiring)

9:30-get ready for work. really this isn't too hard but i have to decide which outfit or pair of jeans i don't mind getting completely yucky. The right shoulder of all my shirts is always spit stained and most of my jeans have food stuck to them...goooo dark pants!
The other part of getting ready is estimating how much school work i'll get done at nap time. If i'm lucky it's 30 minutes of me time, time to make lunch and time to get some reading in. So do i lug the 10lb text to work assuming i may not get lucky that day and i'm just carrying around weight, or should i be optimistic and bring it...who knows, maybe the kids will sleep at the same time (fat chance) and they will both sleep for 2 hours and not just 30 minutes (fatter chance). I always vote lug the text because i am an optimist and i'm the queen at convincing E. we should sit and read our own books together and N. gets a bottle feeding on one leg and "Meeting Children's Psychosocial Needs" gets the other. I swear i'm a good nanny, but some days i'm a bit selfish....really they don't care and E. will always tell me if she isn't having fun "E. no like this, let's play".

10:30-board train to work trying not to touch any dirty poles (ie: all surfaces in the train are dirty) and also trying not to be touched inappropriately by someone taking advantage of the over crowdedness which is NYC's trains.

11-arrive at work. Along with removing my shoes i remove my normal tone of voice because it appears babies are like dogs, they respond to high pitched sounds. They laugh and smile and make the funniest noises which my voice just doesn't do unless annoyingly squeaky.

3:30 or 6-leave work, exhausted, dirty, smelling of a combo of poop and formula oh and all to frequent aquafore in my hair (the kids have killer excema, that stuff works miracles so i deal). Also if you're thinking, how does it get in your hair? You've clearly never been with a 2 year old or baby. No body control and they touch EVERYTHING!!!
Riding the train to school I escaping into my Ipod listening to Ira Glass' "This American Life"...often i end up laughing out loud making me look like the crazy one to avoid on the train...i play that well

4:45 or 7- start class. Either start time i'm in class until 9 pm. Thankfully i'm in class with my fabulous friends so it's like social hour x2 or x4. My saving graces of the day!

9:15-head home, eat dinner, read emails, attempt at responding, do dishes (realistically i look at them hoping they will get done on their own), do homework ...time really flies by before bed

12:30-1am- go to sleep knowing i get to do it all over again tomorrow!

That my friends is what i do, day in and out. You are right technically i shouldn't be sleep deprived, but i loooove my bed and i love my sleep so i'm usually completely exhausted at the end of the day. I also don't want you to think i'm actually in my apartment all the time, but who wants to hear about a movie I saw, or going out for drinks at the dive down the street. We can take a vote i'll write about it, but it won't be pretty.

I promise i'll do something fun soon so you can hear about my adventures, but for now it's just paper writing and reading. Here is hoping "reading week" as we canadian's call it will be a blast...read: not having to go to school in the afternoon, hangin' with friends and catching up on my DVR'ed shows!