Over and Out

After breakfast at 3 Guys and an hour or so at the St. Patrick's Day parade yesterday, I walked Mom, Carey and Katy up to Park Avenue to catch a taxi to Penn Station for their trip home. Boo Hoo! We were all very sad to see our NYC fun come to an end. It culminated with an outing on Thursday evening to The Nederlander Theater to see "Rent" and fortunately, Mom was finally feeling well enough to come out with us at night. Earlier, Carey, Kaye and I had gone to the Whitney for the Biennial exhibition and then Carey cabbed home, while Kaye and I decided to walk. We got waylaid by noticing the Hotel Carlyle and Bemelman's Bar, so stopped in to see the Madeleine murals and have a Cosmo, especially important since we had been shut out of the Sex and the City tour earlier that day. The bartender, Joe from Brooklyn, chatted us up extensively - we were the only ones in there at that hour of the day - and then treated us to a free "Flirtini," a concoction of vodka and pineapple juice, topped off with champagne. It wasn't as good as the Cosmos, but was certainly good enough to drink. On the walk back, we stopped and made reservations for the five of us at Pescalou, the lovely little Italian restaurant around the corner from us on Madison. So, after a rest and freshening up, the five of us had dinner there and Jim left for that evening's Allman Brothers concert and Mom, Carey, Katy and I caught a taxi to Times Square and the theater. The play was fantastic and Kaye donated $20 to their AIDS collection to get her photo taken with one of the actors afterwards. She also added to her "Moo" collection with a little stuffed Holstein cow with a "Rent" t-shirt on it. We had a little trouble catching a taxi back after the performance because it was so busy down there with all the theaters getting out, but eventually we flagged one down and got back uneventfully. Sad it was our last outing for this NY trip, but glad we were able to pack so much fun into such a short period of time. Moo called from the train last night in response to a couple of messages I left to say they had gotten to the station okay, though it had taken an hour, due to the parade, and were nearing Albany, she thought. They missed saying good bye to Jim because he was out reparking the car and he had already left for last night's ABB concert, so she said they would call this morning. We will be moving out of the apartment later today into a smaller and cheaper room for our last night here, and then I will visit a couple of the other art museums in the immediate vicinity. Jim will go to ABB again tonight, and we will head back to DC tomorrow morning. It's been quite a trip!