TWO DAYS, TWO PLAYS

Well, technically one was a musical, but hey, headlines are exhausting work.  Cut some slack.  

I think yesterday must have been one of Verna's worst ever.  

Due to the fact that I have been treating our daily routine as a warm up in case we are ever forced to go on something like the Bataan Death March, she woke up feeling pretty awful yesterday.  

We had tickets to go to the Cyndi Lauper musical Kinky Boots, but it seemed touch and go most of the day whether that would really happen.  It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to expect someone to be on a plane all night, get off it and run all over town in unfamiliar conditions and temperatures in the 80s with high humidity which we westerners know nothing about the next day, and follow it with a similar pattern the following day except that the first night involved cats jumping on you and demanding to be petted all night, and then the second day you don't get to have any actual meals, if you don't consider cookies, or chocolate drinks or roasted nuts a meal, but then you finally do get a meal at 9 pm.  But apparently some people react badly to that.  Who knew?

Anyway, yesterday we just crept from one spot of air conditioning to another, took a taxi ride that proceeded by harrowing crawl from 59th St. to 45th in 25 minutes.  

I think Kinky Boots was probably a good musical, but after I put on my two sweaters in the freezing theater, I was quite comfy  and might have dozed off just a little, like for about two hours or so.  For the price we paid for the tickets, I could have had a quiet room without all that damn music keeping me sort of awake.  But Verna said it was good.  I think I just don't have the gene to like musicals. 

After the show we went to one of my favorite UWS (Upper West Side for those who aren't such insiders as I am)  restaurant, Celeste's.  I had a delicious pasta dish with halibut that I couldn't even finish.  

We had the AC turned on in our room overnight, and I was stunned when I opened the door this morning to find that the rest of the apartment was cooler than our room!  Today's weather was by Verna's standards, refreshingly cool.  I put a pullover sweater on over my shirt and took another cardigan with me, which I did wear during the day.  

We decided to take a challenging trip to Little Italy and go to Lombardi's for a pizza.  I'd never been there, but Verna knew it from cooking shows onTV.  I've never met a pizza I didn't like, but this one was absolutely super.  

Nice thin crust, just the right amount of topping, especially the tomato sauce which had just a hint of sweetness and a nice thick texture.  

We decided not to go to Chinatown, even though it's close, because it was maybe too much walking. Instead we went back to the subway, dtopping twice, once for macarons, once for rice pudding, and rode to Union Square, got out and looked around, got back on, rode to Grand Central Station,

went in and looked around, especially in the food hall, and then came home.

Played with the cats, fed them, and turned around and went by bus to see the play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.  Loved it!  stayed awake all the way through.  Sigourney Weaver was Masha, and David Hyde Pierce was Vanya, which was a wonderful role and fit him like a glove.  He has such wonderful comedy timing.  

Apparently the heat will be returning tomorrow, and the plan is that we might go to Zabar's, the Museum of Art and Design and then Verna might go to MOMA while I go bead shopping.   I think this can all be accomplished by using the M104 and our metro cards as a hop on hop off tourist bus.  

 I don't have to go bead shopping, but I just can't stand the thought of being in NY and not going to see what's new.