Our anniversary day in New York City started well, but then the Mexicans got their revenge on me: we ate at a great Thai place for lunch (Pam Real Thai on 9th Ave) and saw Avenue Q (which was pretty funny, but, like British writer Geoff Dyer, nothing makes me happier than having no interest in the theater-- I don't have to read reviews, sit in cramped seats, buy tickets, ask people what shows are good, etc.-- so though I laughed, this will be my last play for a long long long time, and even though the songs were funny and satirical, they sounded too much like what they were satirizing, that slick forgettable Broadway sound . . . but the Bad Idea Bears made me laugh) and then the rest of our day was full of lessons; we walked fifty blocks up to the Guggenheim to see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, but we wanted to wait until 5:45 because then it's "pay what you want" so we had a few minutes to kill, but up by the Guggenheim there are no bars just very fancy restaurants, very fancy children's clothing stores, and apartments . . . then we learned that a LOT of people want to cheap out and pay four dollars to get in the Guggenheim, so we abandoned the gigantic line to catch the train to Newark to eat at what was supposed to be a great authentic Mexican page and we got off the express train home to walk to it in Newark and though I had read recent reviews and the place has a web page, it was boarded up and CLOSED--el restaurante está cerrado-- and I am sure that this is now a Mexican curse and conspiracy (avid readers will remember a similar dilemma several weeks ago) and so for our anniversary dinner we got take-out from "Hansel and Griddle" in New Brunswick, took it home, and watched The Shield . . . but we didn't feel so bad about our foiled plans because we got to listen to a great cell phone conversation between a bitter middle aged balding dude and his mother: one son just got arrested on five counts of burgarly and he was mad because his ex-wife was "protecting the kid with a lawyer when he needed to be punished, to be sent to boot camp, mom" and his other son just got his second violation for underage drinking and now his ex-wife wanted him back in the picture to control his sons, who he feared might hurt the wife and had "lunged at her" but he had to move to Houston to a radio station there, because his time at CBS was coming to a close and he couldn't handle the four hour commute-- so like we learned from Avenue Q, sometimes a little shadenfreude is a good thing.
It reminds me of the conversation between two ragged womenI heard outside the car at the convenience store yesterday. Speaking of her father, one woman to the other: "I mean it was hard to believe. A month ago he was living like a wild man, drinking and smoking like crazy, and then to see him dead..."
ReplyDeletethat's a good one-- on the other side of the coin, when we were walking on park avenue we heard a woman say into her cell-phone, "i was just talking to my new broker, he's like, my best friend now."
ReplyDeleteHappy Anniversary you two crazy kids. It seems like just yesterday Dave was clamoring up the banks of the lake in his tux and covered with mud.
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't find a good Mexican place in New Brunswick?
ReplyDeletewe like a couple places in new brunswick, but oddly, considering the large mexican population-- there's no one place that is awesome, but the taqueria by the train trestle has some good authentic stuff and i love the mole sauce at the george st. place (fiesta?) i think there are some other good ones bu t i need to experiment before i drag catherien along for our anniversary dinner.
ReplyDeleteWalking fifty blocks in Manhattan . . . reminds me of that pub crawl you suckered me into. (Pub hike.)
ReplyDeleteis it a bad sign when a husband misspells his wife's name in a blog comment?
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you recall, Dave didn't know for sure if her name was Catherine or Kathleen for the first 3 or 4 weeks of their relationship. He was desperately trying to accelerate things to where they called each other "honey" or "sweetie" so he wouldn't get found out.
ReplyDeleteCut him a break. Obviously, the mere thought of his consort causes him to get flustered. How quaint.
ReplyDeletecatherein is the pseudonym i now have to use for my wife, because she refues to appear in this blog any longer (and is suing for defamation of character).
ReplyDelete