Saturday, September 20, 2008

Good thing there was only one photo yesterday...you won't believe how many I am going to inundate you with today.

Sam and I went to NYC and had a most wonderful time together. Really, this was the first time we've ever done anything like this *alone*...just the two of us...and while it took some time at first to align our energies, once we did, the laughter never stopped (unless we were too tired to laugh).

Here is a mixture of my city images and our adventures...




This next one's for my Jakey...


This is Sam in his new hoodie that he got at our shopping spree at H&M. Yes! We finally went to where Stacy, Clinton and Ashlan shop (and it ROCKED!)!


Sam got a little motion sickness from the subway (our hotel is close to Grand Central...and that put him over the edge...)...so the minute we stumbled upon this Rickshaw Dumpling Bar in Greenwich Village, we knew it would be the perfect comfort food for his belly. MAN, it was DEEEE-lish!

(The view from the street...)


(The view from our dumplings...)


Blue Man Group was really wonderful...thank goodness I had earplugs! Sam and I laughed so hard sometimes, especially when we thought we were going to drown in the sea of rolled paper!!

(This is not my photo...it was in the NY magazine that was in our hotel)...



Wow. We did so much already! After traveling, walking, shopping, walking, subway riding, walking, lunching, and seeing The BlueMan Group, we finally got checked into our hotel and we both spent some time *chillin'* on the way-comfy bed...


When we were feeling rejuvenated, we walked downstairs to the hotel's restaurant, Rare Bar and Grill (reviewed to have the best burgers in the city...and that includes vegetarian burgers!) and had a wonderful dinner...

This is Sam behind my pile of sweet potato fries...of which I ate about six...


And then we headed out to Caroline's Comedy Club. We really did not want to get on the subway again, so we decided to walk the 1 1/2 miles there. And it was a great walk...beautiful night...

We were early and got tickets to be seated early...and we had really WONDERFUL seats...


(This was on the screen before the show...and we were just so excited...)


This dude, Julian McCullough, opened the show. He was good. We laughed a LOT!

Colin Kane was on next, and we didn't like him as much so I don't want to post his photo...

And THEN...(drumroll, please!!)...THERE HE WAS!! MURRAY from Flight of the Conchords!!

RHYS DARBY!!!!

He's so sweet and funny. I know there are a lot of photos of him, but his act is pure physical comedy and amazing sound effects that add to his hilarious and endearing storytelling...

I wanted to post a wide sampling of his many faces during his wonderful stories...

This first photo was his robot...and immediately you fall in love with him, in the way that he explains what he's doing!...


I think this was Sam's favorite story...he was talking about playing with guns when he was little, and how everyone else made a typical little gun sound. Being amazing at sound effects his whole life, his was no ordinary gun sound!! So he told his friends with their *little* gun noises to, "Get down...I'll cover you..."














And this next one is for our friends in England, Julia, Tim, Owen, Nell and Joey. They are the ones that sent us the Flight of the Conchords dvd...and thus began this really cool new path for us, this path that is just filled with wonderful, joyful, swirling connections...once again (as always happens in our lives), the Universe provided (and I'm sure is *still* providing) amazing things, as it does when you follow your heart and your Joy...

This was a story Rhys told of when he was in Brighton, England...what a coincidence...that's where our friends live! He was telling a story of meeting a mermaid...and this is his mermaid impression below...


The walk home was a bit more challenging, as this is how PACKED Times Square was!!



We quickly took a left and got off of this crazy path, and had a wonderful walk back to Lexington Ave, where our hotel, the Shelburne Murray Hill Hotel, awaited with our peaceful, cozy bed.

I took lots of photos on our walk home, but these are my favorites...







Sam said it was the best time he'd ever had in the city...and that is by far the best thing for me to hear about our time together there...

All is well.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ah, yes...

Here is the sweet reason why I drove back to Vermont yesterday...



My boy...looking much happier today than he did yesterday (and SO grateful for the comforts and glory and love and safety of HOME that he keeps saying so at least every five minutes!...OhMyGod...you cannot BELIEVE how RUSTIC that camp is!!!...Sam was cold and wet and miserable and it was too much work for him to merely SURVIVE, let alone have fun!)...

OK...REALLY cool story...

So, thinking we had the weekend to survive alone, without our wonderful kids, Dave and I had made reservations to spend the night in NYC. So when I picked up Sam, all those plans changed (and happy to do so to ensure my family's well-being and Peace!). The new plan is that Sam and I will be going to NYC, and Dave will be going to the river cabin to do pre-hunting season stuff and help out his Dad and Mom.

SO...(yes, there's more...)...while Sam was sleeping yesterday, I was thinking of what we could do in NY. I browsed all of the shows, and came to Blue Man Group. Yes! This would be COOL! So I bought tickets for the 2:00 matinee on Saturday (yes, I'll bring earplugs, Kelly!).

THEN...(more still...)...later in the day, I, for some reason, checked in on my MySpace (Oh, I remember why...I got a message that Mary Gold had written to me via MySpace).

I noticed that *Flight of the Conchords* had a new blog post (see past posts about how crazy Sam is about that show and, in fact, he has not listened to much else these past few weeks on his iPod except for the soundtrack...also learning some FoC songs on the guitar w/Jake...AND, in fact [again], on the drive to Vermont, we ALL listened to the soundtrack...and there we were ~ Jake, Sam, Quinn, Logan and I ~ singing along so loudly and joyfully to all of the *FOC* music!!).

So I read it.

OH.MY.GOD!! It said this:

Hello Dearest Friends,

A mutual friend of ours and yours, Rhys Darby (our manager Murray on the tv show) will be playing some stand up shows in New York this weekend at Caroline's Comedy Club on Broadway. So, that's exciting. For all of the details refer to his myspace page.

www.myspace.com/rhysdarby

He'd love to see you there, he misses you so much.

OH.MY.GOD!! SO COOL!!

So, I went to see if Sam could attend (being 14), and YES! Under 18 can attend when accompanied by an adult!! So I scored us two tickets!!! Sam is SOOOO excited!!!

After hearing that I got us tickets, he immediately and excitedly put in the dvd and watched the Leggy Blonde episode, with Murray (I mean Rhys).


While we do feel sad that Jakey won't be with us (WAHHH!!!! He would LOVE THIS!!!), this will be a good way for us to be distracted for the weekend while he is doing huge and wonderful things, way outside of his comfort zone, and growing and evolving and learning and connecting (and freezing!) and living fully every day at Not Back to School Camp...and then it's not long after that when I get to make the drive to Vermont for the third time to pick up my boy (and the other boys,too!)!!

All is well.