New York Day 2

We woke up way too early and made it to NBC studios where a long line had already formed. We  were in line behind a girl who was clearly inebriated. She had stayed out all night for fear that she would oversleep yet did not show up to stand in line until minutes before we did. We also stood in line with a goat.

Eli Manning and Riana were the hosts but when we got to the front of the line and asked the NBC reps to be straight with us, they said usually only about 30-40 people make it in to the live show and that the most they had ever seen get in were around 50. Our stand-by tickets were numbers 79-81. We promptly hailed a cab home and went back to bed. For the record, you can also get stand-by tickets for the dress rehearsal but even then they only let about 60-70 people in and we knew our chances were slim.

We didn't wake up again until around 11:30am. We had planned on going to brunch nearby but Annie and Robin decided to see if they could get tickets for The Newsies while I finished getting ready. This next part is why I love New York so much. Annie and Robin called me to tell me they had bought discount tickets from a shady guy on the side of the road near the theater. They weren't sure if the tickets were legit but the guy offered to let them take a picture of his license, gave them his card and cell number and walked them to the theater. Annie inspected the tickets and thought they looked legit though we wouldn't know if we'd been scammed until our tickets were scanned. Since the show was at 2pm I headed their direction and happened to walk into a street fair. I bought corn on the cob and a fresh fruit smoothie for my lunch and then bought a dress. I also happened to be passing Sprinkles Cupcakes and snagged a free cupcake via Twitter. I may have been momentarily distracted by Bloomingdales' floral display:

Outside Bloomingdales, Louis Vuitton had an interactive tv that took your picture and let you try on their sunglasses virtually. If I hadn't been in a hurry that might have occupied the rest of my afternoon.

In Times Square I passed the infamous Naked Cowboy:

I made it to the theater just in time to jump in line with Annie and Robin and discover that our tickets were in fact real. Not only were they real, they were incredible seats (8^th row center orchestra) and we had the entire row to ourselves (looks like not many others trusted our broker friend). We did keep his business card in the event that we needed tickets again. He said to call him two hours before any show and he'd let us know what he had left.

The show gave me chills. It was phenomenal. If you have the opportunity I 100% recommend it even if you haven't seen the movie.

  

After the show we didn't have plans but happened to see Baked by Melissa and decided to try their mini cupcakes. They were good and gone in a New York Minute!

I think I had one cupcake left by the time we took this picture hence my toothless smile.

After cupcakes we decided we'd go to a comedy club that night and headed to that area of town to hang out before the show. We went to the Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel via my friend Gwendolyn's recommendation that they have the best coffee in NYC! It was good and also very pretty, which is important in a coffee.

 Then we walked through Eataly Italian Market and happened to stumble into the Madison Square Food Festival where my hair decided to frizz and we found this vendor:

We shared Lamb shwarma and garlic fries from Ililli in the park where the Original Shake Shack is and also where the scene in my last post was filmed.

We met a guy from Denver who overheard our request for napkins and brought some to our table and then took a pic of us...

Then we went to Upright Citizen’s Brigade for an improve show which made fun of an audience members’ small hometown.

After the show we went to Argo Tea (a favorite of ours from our Chicago trip) and Fossil, and then went to dinner at the rooftop with a fantastic view and red robes to keep you warm when it’s chilly...

After that we went to back to Annie's apartment and watched the big boxing fight with her roommates for a bit before heading to bed to rest up for Day 3...

New York Day 1

A little over a month ago I realized I had two vacation days to spare and really wanted to take a trip rather than just take the days off. I didn't have a whole lot of extra cash to spend so I wanted to pick somewhere where I could stay with a friend. I messaged my best friend Annie to see what she was doing for Cinco de Mayo and since she did not have plans, I decided I was taking a trip to New York! It was such late notice that I didn't expect anyone else to be able to go with us but it turns out Robin had vacation days to spare too so all of sudden, a girls trip was born!

I flew standby on Southwest (thank you Tisha!) so I decided to try for the earliest flight out of Dallas since I assumed not many people were interested in being at airport at 5am. As a reward, I got to see the sunrise from above the clouds:

These, however, created quite a bit of turbulence. 

I met Annie at her office in Rockefeller Center to drop off my bags and have lunch. Annie writes for the Wall Street Journal and she showed me around the office which looks exactly how you would expect a bustling New York office to look like (straight out of a movie). Ironically, I thinkAnnie was most excited about showing me their coffee bar and industrial refrigerators which was about that only thing that we actually do have at my office in Dallas. We do not, however, have a live television studio at the top of the stairwell. :)

For lunch we went to Shake Shack (seen in the movie Something Borrowed which will not have a sequel according to Annie's friend who worked on the movie. I know, I'm devastated too) and I got the Shroom Burger and it was fantastic. I don't even like mushrooms but I had heard it was good so I decided to give it a try. Maybe it was the cheese stuffed inside or maybe they just fried the mushroom taste out of it but it was delish. Shake Shack is also famous for their custard. I ordered plain vanilla with macerated raspberries, which we decided upon tasting, was a good thing.

Ginnifer Goodwin (Rachel) and John Krasinski (Ethan) eating Shake Shack in the park in Something Borrowed. We did not go to this particular Shake Shack on Day 1 but we did the next day. See New York Day 2.

Annie had plans that night already so I decided to see a show and catch up with her later. On our way back to Annie's office we happened to pass the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where "How to Succeed" was playing and staring Nick Jonas (and Beau Bridges but I am pretty sure the teeny-boppers screaming outside the theater were not there for him). We popped in to see if they had any tickets available and I ended up with a partial view ticket for only $30! Not five minutes later we were walking through Times Square and I asked Annie what was going on (there were hundreds of people in line) and she said that was TKTS line where you buy discount tickets for Broadway! Listen here friends, go to the theater first before wasting two hours of your vacation standing in line for a ticket because I could see the sweat on Nick Jonas' face with my "partial view" ticket.

 My view.

We met Annie's friend Mike at House of Brews for a bit before I needed to head to my show. I made a slight detour to Amy's Bread for a cupcake to eat during the show because I had heard they were the best. I got a red velvet and though it was good, it wasn't the best I've ever had. I'm a sucker for cream cheese icing and this icing was buttercream which is not really my fave. Regardless, it was a cupcake and I ate it before I even made it to the show. The show was hilarious. I had seen it before (not on Broadway) so I was familiar with the story. Nick Jonas was great (though the poor guy couldn't show up on stage without half the audience screaming) but Michael Urie who plays Bud Frump was my favorite. He stole the show.

 I waited in line after the show to try to get Nick Jonas' autograph for my sister but apparently he's a pretty big deal. He ended up standing so close to me I could have reached out and hugged him but his back was to me so he did not snag my program. Sorry Mo, I tried.

Robin arrived later on that night and we went to bed at 1am with plans to wake up at 5am to stand in line for SNL stand-by tickets. More on that in New York Day 2 post to come!

Puppy Post

Selma FINALLY got her cast off! In November we were told she would only need her cast for six weeks. Five months later we were finally able to take it off and "see how it goes". It's actually been about two weeks since she had it taken off but as we all know, blogging gets put on the back burner around here more than it should. When she first got her cast off her paw was swollen and her leg was thin and covered in sores...

 Eww.

We decided to send Patti to my parents' house for the weekend so that should couldn't encourage Selma to participate in unruly activities. As a reminder, my parents have a new puppy named Ranger and let's just say the tables have turned on our pups.

 

 Patti spent the entire weekend hopping from chair to couch to chair to avoid Ranger.

Selma had to wear a cone to prevent her "licking a hole in her leg" according to the doc. She refused to walk while wearing the cone which we discovered after she wouldn't follow us to our bedroom despite our calls and bribery. She also refused to lay down which posed a problem when it was time for bed. We ended up taking the cone off (bad idea) and wrapping her leg in gauze (which fell off by morning). I woke up and Selma was licking her leg raw. So then we decided to look for a cone at the store like the one Patti had when she ran into a golf club (we would have used Patti's but it was destroyed by Selma overnight when we caged them together). All the store had was this inflatable ring which semi-worked. Selma could still reach her paw though so we tried wrapping her leg in gauze again, but tighter this time. Then Preston thought I wrapped it too tight and that her leg was going to fall off from poor circulation so we took it off. I ended up tying a bandanna around her neck that covered her leg and that lasted until about 3am when I heard Selma wheezing and took it off for fear that she would choke (we are going to be GREAT parents).

When we picked up Patti at the end of the weekend she wouldn't "speak" to us and it took her a little bit to warm up to Selma again. It was like she had forgotten who Selma was. She didn't forget who we were, she just gave us the cold shoulder for forcing her to spend all weekend with Ranger. When we got into bed that night, Selma jumped off the bed with Patti and immediately started crying. Preston leapt out of bed to investigate and I went into a state of shock. We both just knew she had broken her leg again and I literally couldn't move at the thought of having to pay for surgery AGAIN. For about five minutes we couldn't tell if she had broken again or not. Praise the Lord (no seriously, PRAISE the LORD) she did not. Preston gently squeezed her leg to find the point of pain and it wasn't until he got to her paw that she began to whimper again. We think it was just still very sore from being swollen. Either way, we decided that this was our one warning and we were not about to risk it happening again. We decided to cage Selma (doctor's orders) and let Patti sleep with us. Well Patti wanted nothing to do with us and staked out on a pillow next to Selma's cage instead. We had put the cone back on Selma because, despite all our efforts, she was still able to reach her leg but again she would not lay down so we left the lights on and I watched her to see what she would do. She would not lay down and started to whimper so we finally devised a plan put the inflatable ring back on and then put Selma on her on a leash and attach it to the bed. We made the leash short enough so that she could not reach the sides of the bed and put her on a pillow in between us. She seemed content with this arrangement and so that is how we've slept for the past two weeks.

Selma met Ranger the next week and was not a fan either. Ranger is particularly fond of Selma and since she had a bad leg to defend Selma was not particular fond of Ranger but learned to ignore him...

The pups stayed at my parents' house over the weekend while we were at a wedding in Austin. After Preston had picked them up he sent me this picture:

Ranger wore them out! They hate the car and never sleep on the way home. Maybe we'll have to take them to see Ranger before road trips from now on.

I went to New York a couple weekends ago and am working on posting about that trip. Until then, I'm sure you've all already seen this but if you haven't...