A Christmas Visit from Mom and Dad

My parents arrived in New York the day after Christmas with a suitcase full of gifts, but perhaps the best present they gave me was the gift of sleep.

Edith is usually a good sleeper at night, but on Saturday night -- the last night my parents were here -- she wasn't having any of it. She wasn't hungry, but she wouldn't go to sleep. Mom heard the fussing from the spare room and offered to rock Edith to sleep. They were in the recliner from about 4 to 8:30 a.m., and I got a glorious four and a half hours of sleep without worries.

That probably wasn't the highlight of their visit, but it was a nice bonus for me! Either way, having my parents visit during the same days that Paul and I would normally be staying with them almost made it feel like we were home for Christmas after all.

In addition to spending plenty of quality time with Edith, my parents did me two huge favors. The first was pretty conventional: they babysat Edith while Paul was at work and I had a doctor's appointment. The second was just as helpful: They got me out of the house.

Paul watched Edith on Friday night while I went to Manhattan (for the first time since her birth), both to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and to eat at Junior's with my parents. The next day, Paul and Edith stayed home again while Mom, Dad and I made a quick trip to Century 21.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree 2012

Mom and Dad brought plenty of clothes, toys and books for Edith, and, of course, Paul and I got some nice presents, too. But I'd take a few hours of sleep, a few hours out of the house and the visit from my parents themselves over and above them all.

By Plane, Train and Automobile

After my parents' four-day visit last week, I can now say I've met friends and family in New York through all means of travel: plane, train and automobile.

This year, my parents decided to forgo the annual car trip and travel by Amtrak instead. The train leaves just 15 minutes or so from their home, but it's still a 17-hour trip once you're on the tracks. Sure, they were tired when they arrived, although you'd think it was me who made the trip instead. Maybe that's why I took a nap when they left Sunday afternoon instead of writing a blog post for Monday.

(Speaking of which, expect periodic blog post delays in the near future as I catch up from the illness that threw me under a bus a few weeks ago. I generally have posts written in reserve, but I'm pretty much day-to-day right now.)

Paul and I have picked up and/or dropped off friends and relatives at all three of the metropolitan area's major airports -- LaGuardia, JFK and Newark -- and met several by car. I've even been to the PATH station both to catch my own Greyhound to Ohio and meet friends on their own buses. But this was my first time at Penn Station.

I was a little disappointed. I was hoping to at least see the tracks, scanning the train windows until I saw a face I recognized. Or have a train-side goodbye, with final hugs as the whistle blows in the background, like in old World War II flicks. Instead, I met my parents in the middle of a huge waiting room crowded with strangers, and their departure was even more of a let-down. Their ticket was taken at a door leading immediately to an escalator, so my last glimpse was of their heads, going down.

Still, it was an interesting experience. And still, I'm glad I was on the receiving end instead of being the one on the train for nearly a full day.

Six Year Anniversary

Paul and I were married six years ago today. Sometimes it feels much, much longer.

Just kidding! But not really.

In any case, this means that six years ago tomorrow was the start of my first vacation to New York City.

In high school, I'd been to New York for just a few hours as a day trip from Philadelphia -- enough time to visit the Statue of Liberty and take a quick bus tour through Manhattan. But I'd never stepped foot on Broadway until our honeymoon.

The city didn't greet me with its best foot forward. It was pouring rain every day but the last. Our tiny hotel room was something like 20 stories up, but the traffic sounded like it was 20 feet away. At the end of the week I specifically remember thinking that New York was a nice place to visit, but I didn't think I'd ever want to live here.

That feeling obviously went away.

Whenever there's a big airplane crash, for a few days I always think that I'm never going to fly again. But then it gradually fades from memory and I start planning my next vacation.

That's New York to me. The highs are so high, it's not long before you forget about the few-and-far-between lows. It wasn't long before I forgot about the rain and traffic and remembered only the lights, the museums, the bustle. And besides, how many people can say they live in the city where they honeymooned?

(As an aside, there's still hope for my parents, who visited the brand-new Walt Disney World after their wedding 31 years ago. The family joke is that Dad's going to become a Disney bus driver after he retires. And they'd probably get at least a few more visits from me each year if he could score me free tickets to the Magic Kingdom.)

I hadn't returned to New York until Paul interviewed for his current job, and we found our apartment in a whirlwind 10 hours just about two years ago exactly.

There are times when New York City still seems romantic: in the summer, late at night, when you least expect it. But now it's mostly just a place to live. And I'm fine with that.

Vacation in the city

Memorial Day weekend felt like a vacation, and I don't think I was ever further than 15 miles from our apartment.

My friend Sam and her boyfriend, Don, came to the city to visit us and Sam's college friend Jannette and her husband. I worked with Sam in Springfield, and Sam, Don, Paul and I would go out nearly every Friday night for the best pizza in Columbus.

We started the weekend right- the six of us went to happy hour at Southern Hospitality, a bar on the Upper East Side (one of the owners happens to be Justin Timberlake).

That was followed by a meal at the nearby Vietnamese restaurant Vermicelli. The excellent weather was surpassed only by the delicious food, and we sat at one of the many tables on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

I think I look slightly scared in this photo because I was seriously learning to use chopsticks. Usually I give up and go for the fork. But I managed the whole meal this time.

Paul and I skipped the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island the following day, but we met up with everyone at Bohemian Hall, an outdoor biergarten in Astoria that we had been meaning to try. The weather was lovely and the beer was cheap- who could ask for more? Ah, yes, and there was some sort of Czech festival, so there was polka music for a time as well.

And that was only the first part of the weekend! More about Spamalot, Coney Island and some of the best cheesecake in the city next post.

April odds and ends

#1: Paul signed up for his first half-marathon! He'll be running a bit more than 13 miles throughout Brooklyn this Saturday. No worries- he's been known to run a treadmill 15 miles at the gym. (How boring does that have to be? I don't care what's in your iPod or what's on TV.) Of course, he wants to run a real marathon, but the chances of him getting in to the NYC one are pretty slim. To have anything like a near-guaranteed spot, you have to run something like 14 half-marathons sponsored by a specific organization, I believe. So he may run the marathon in Columbus or one of the other cities here in the northeast.

#2: When I was in Ohio last weekend, I did get to spend a very short amount of time with Paul's family. I was there about 16 hours, and about half of that I was sleeping! In any case, my sister-in-law, Becky, did manage to sneak in a few pictures. She has them posted on her blog.

#3: We're now trying to rent our house. It was listed just this week, and we've already had three people interested in taking a look. Paul and I probably are more excited than we should be. That's already three times as many people who have looked at our house to buy it!

Miscellaneous with Mom and Dad

Despite the day-long Saturday rain that visited at the same time as Mom and Dad, we did a lot last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

In addition to the TV shows, we saw "Chicago" on Broadway, walked around Times Square, visited Rockefeller Center, took the Staten Island Ferry and did probably half a dozen other things I've already forgotten. And of course, we visited Little Cupcake! Here's a few of the best pics:

Jolly holiday

Paul's mom and sister visited us last Thursday through Sunday, so that meant more exploration. This time, however, we stuck mostly to our neighborhood.

Paul and I had never walked to the shore since we moved here, so that was the first order of business. It's an easy 20-minute stroll, and the views are lovely. Across the bay is Staten Island. Look south and you see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Look north and you see lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. A nice hiking/jogging/walking trail hugs the bay, and I'm sure I'll be using it more next spring.

The shore is also lined with beautiful multi-million dollar homes with garages (sigh), along with more modest (but still outrageously expensive, I'm sure) houses on the side streets. We also walked down Third Avenue, which has a long stretch of restaurants and stores.

On Friday we rode the Staten Island Ferry and visited Chinatown and Little Italy. But I was most looking forward to seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway that night. For a little under $40 a pop, we got the second to last row in the balcony. No matter. I love the movie, and I found the show surprisingly different but still fun. The show has a few different songs (but "Jolly Holiday" was still included, hence the title of this post. I hope someone got that reference!), but the spirit is still the same. The backgrounds were beautiful and ornate, as was the theater itself.

Paul, Sherry and Becky went to the botanic gardens on Saturday morning, while I headed to the main Brooklyn Public Library. Another thing to add to my list of annoyances: I can only reserve five books at a time. In Columbus, I would reserve 10 or so books and just make a visit every month or so. In any case, I had to print out a few pages from the computer there, so I took the time to pick out a handful of books. The branch closest to our apartment is small and doesn't have much of a collection, so it was nice to actually be able to browse.