Monday, November 24, 2008

A New York Kind of Day

Yesterday was a good day.

After closing down the show with the kiddos on Saturday, I made my way home and got a loooong (and much needed) night's sleep, awaking early on Sunday to head into Manhattan and get a student rush ticket to see August: Osage County--partly because I've been wanting to see it, and partly because I have a response paper due tomorrow the subject of which is a play written in the past 25 years.

The thing with student rush tickets is that you have to show up and get them right when the box office opens, which is at noon, and the show doesn't start until 3:00. So, after procuring my ticket (for the amazingly affordable price of $29.50), I decided to head uptown and spend a few hours in the Natural History Museum.

In retrospect, I think I chose that museum (as opposed to, say, the Guggenheim) because it's the one that my uncle would have enjoyed most.

I spent a few happy hours wandering around the fourth floor, oooh-ing and aaaah-ing over dinosaur bones like a little kid (though to be honest, most of the little kids I encountered were more of the shrieking variety than the oooh-and-aaah variety). I also checked out a temporary exhibit on horses that, geek that I am, I found totally fascinating. I need to go back for the live reptile exhibit before it closes!

There were no photos allowed in the Horses exhibit, but here are some dino bones for you to enjoy:

 
My favourite dinosaur!!
 
 
Hello!
 
 
Not as scary as the one in Toys R Us

Note to Winter visitors:  The coat check at the Natural History Museum may only cost $2, but the line takes forever on Sundays!  I thought I was going to be late for the show!

Fortunately I made it back to Times Square with a few minutes to spare and was able to grab a mediocre slice at a pizza place around the corner from the theatre (I hadn't eaten all day) and still make it to my seat with enough time to browse the bios in the Playbill before the show started.

The show itself was FANTASTIC. Excellent script, excellent cast--Estelle Parsons (Roseanne's mom on "Roseanne"), who recently took over the lead, is freaking AMAZING--and the set design, a whole three story house on stage!, is also brilliant. The whole thing, in fact, is brilliant. I highly recommend anyone who is in the New York area and has a chance to see it do so immediately.

And of course, nothing would top off a quintessential day in New York without some craziness on the subway--this one in the form of some random guy chatting a stranger's ear off about real Jamaican jerk seasoning (the guy was white as snow) and how there was a massive UFO sighting in Staten Island two weeks before 9/11, so the two are obviously related... he was still talking when he got off the train three stops later. Alone.

All in all, it was a good day. And just what I needed after the lunacy of last week, and before diving into the lunacy that the rest of the semester holds in store.


On a completely different note, thank you, everyone, for your kind words and thoughts regarding my uncle. I've heard from both of my cousins and they seem to be coping as well as can be expected. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, I certainly am. As for me, I'm still trying to figure out how to grieve, but I think the museum was a start.

1 comment:

erin - heart in ireland said...

YAY! for the Museum of Natural History! The dinosaur exhibit is my favorite.