Amy J. Bennett

Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life

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#HBC Howard Stern

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We took the subway to dinner at Angelo & Maxie’s (more on that later!) Sunday evening.  We sat in a row about two benches down from the end of the car and a tall, skinny man with very bushy, curly hair got on with a skinny blonde lady towards the end of our car.  They stood close for the ride and were obviously together but didn’t stand out too much.  The guy wore glasses and jeans.  The girl was pretty casual.  I think she had some type of hat on (Dani/Heather..?  my brain is already failing from 3 days ago).  I think we commented that the guy looked like Howard Stern.

We all got off at Park & 22nd with them in front of us.  As we walked onto the sidewalk, the guy kind of turned around and looked us but then continued across the street.  Later on, we determined that was most definitely Howard Stern and his brand new wife and I think he might have been disappointed we didn’t say anything to him when he turned around.

I’m not a huge Howard Stern fan so I’m not too disappointed but it would have been cool to meet a “star” and get pictures either way.  Especially the day after they got married.

#HBC Family Circus

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OK before I write this post you have to know I’m usually GREAT at maps and directions in general.  I’m usually NOT the one to freak out when there is somewhere new to go.  Just a little Google Maps and I’m ready to head out.  In fact, I’m usually the one with the map in hand telling people where to turn.  But something happened this weekend.  I think the subway baffled me to the point I could not think straight.  And also the idea of “ish”.  Like it’s on 47th and 8th – ish.  I knew we’d be close but just one or two blocks away seemed to add another 15 minutes backtracking and getting on course.

Take Dani and I’s trip from the hotel to Junior’s.  It SHOULD have only been a cut-through a parking lot from 46th to 47th and down one building.  But I got confused on my little map I had printed and marked the restaurants we were going to with “R”s.  The green in the picture is what we should have done and the red is what we really did.

Basically what happened is I was headed from the hotel (A) to 51st and 9th (C) where dinner was Saturday night instead of heading towards Junior’s (B).  Whoops.  Should have paid attention to my map a little more.  That one wasn’t so bad.  I WAS going the right way IF we were going to dinner.

Our troubles continued though.  We tried the subway on Saturday but the subway map I had just wasn’t clear enough on where you got on the thing and where the thing stopped.  So while I could tell what line to get on, I wasn’t sure how close it would get us.  I was so scared it would land us in Queens or Brooklyn (and getting us lost and wasting time, I presumed) that we just avoided it altogether.  In fact, we actually bought tickets, walked down into the the place, asked a guy and he was like “why are you here?  you guys aren’t lazy, you could just walk that.”  So out we went, wasting our $2.  We didn’t attempt it the rest of the day.

So Sunday we FINALLY got the hang of it but I had a really bad headache and we needed to carry two bags to the photo shoot so we decided to take a cab.  Door-to-door service right?  The green is what we SHOULD have done on the subway.  The red is our cab ride (straight line) and walk (dotted line ).

I don’t know if that cab ride is exactly right  but it is REALLY close.  What happened is the polish-slavic parade was going down Park (I think) and the guy kept going around the block trying to get through but couldn’t.  He finally dropped us off somewhere around 34th, said we needed to walk a block and pick up another cab, even waiving our $5 tip and apologizing profusely.  But by that time we decided to hike it the rest of the way.  But then I got confused because I thought Park Ave was the same thing as 5th and I didn’t realize 7th and Broadway weren’t the same thing anymore.  Needless to say, we did some backtracking on 28th.

After this, we DID manage to do well on a few trips on the subway. We took the subway back to the hotel from the shoot, made it to China Town and also to dinner near Union Square and then back home.  We were doing SO well and getting things accomplished so much faster.

Until.

The wretched Apple Store trip.  I didn’t know where to get on the subway except for Times Square at 42nd, not realizing I could get on at 49th and taking the subway almost directly to the store so I decided hey, let’s take the fancy little Shuttle to Grand Central Station and head UP Lexington and then just walk a few blocks to Apple.  This is how our trip went.  Green is what we should have done, Red solid line where we took the subway and red dotted line where we walked.

So once again I was confused on this 5th street and Park Ave thing.  The whole “ish” thing came into play again.  We got confused on what direction we were going after getting off the stop at Lexington and 60th causing us to “wiki-wiki-wiki” right in front of some car holding a couple that seemed to be in the throws of a break-up.  Sorry about your break-up AND the disturbance, couple on 60th.  Anyway, it was a DISASTER.  We spent almost THREE HOURS going to and from the Apple Store.

Please, those familiar with New York and its public transportation, don’t laugh too long at us.

#HBC Grease

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Another thing that confused me a little is where all these Broadway theaters were.  Were they big and protruding on the street..mixed together like a movie theater…how does all this look?  Well, if you look at this picture of 47th street, you can barely tell that the sign for the theater where Grease is playing is mid-left in the picture.  It looks pretty much like any other sign.  Now, saying that….some of the theaters are insanely gorgeous on the outside.  It amazes me how old and still how beautiful they are.  Just look at this picture I snapped inside.  You can see how intricate and amazing they are.   And the thing is I know some are even better than the one we were in.

Anyway, on to the show.  Laura and Max that won Grease:  You’re the One that I Want were not there. But that’s ok.  Ace Young (former American Idol contestant) WAS there, playing the part of Kenickie.  He entirely stole the show for us.  I’m not sure if they changed the show just for him or not but it was definitely changed from the movie.  For example…Kenickie is the one that sings Greased Lightning.  And Ace did it with a wife beater and tight little jeans on in a fancy little red car and may I say Ace must have been working out lately??  He even had backup dancers and yes, they may all have been gay but that little number was my favorite from the whole thing.

They also did not have the whole race car scene at the end so that other group of guys they raced were never around.  They had one scene where Kenickie and another T-bird were outside waiting on them with sticks and such but they never showed and made it a funny scene about one of them showing up with an antenna as a weapon.

They also changed the drive-in scene where Rizzo talks about being pregnant to being at someone’s house playing music with Sandy’s record player.  Rizzo sings There are Worst Things I Could Do here.

Everything moved well and it was over before we knew it.  They had all the popular songs in there and for the most part, the singing was great.  We enjoyed ourselves a lot but I really think a lot had to do with us being familiar with Ace and enjoying his, um, performance.  Heather was a rebel and snuck a picture at the end.  Ace is fourth from the right.

#HBC TKTS Discount Booths

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OK, this was going to be a review of Grease but apparently I felt a need to do a whole post worth of info on the ticket booth.

The plan was to go see a Broadway show Sunday night but Saturday when we got there it was drizzling a bit and we were right across the street from the ticket booth so we decided to go ahead and do the whole ticket booth thing and do a matinee.

This whole ticket booth thing seemed a bit confusing and a painful process before I left last week.  I had many questions…where exactly was it? What time did it open?  What shows would we get to see?  Their site was/is very helpful but I’m too
much of a visual person and want to know what to expect.

The first picture shows that you can see all the show times.  You pick two or three you’d like to see and stand in line.  I’ve heard of one hour wait times but we waited no more than 15 minutes.  The first picture was taken from the line and the booths are right around the corner from there.  You can see in the second picture we were on the other side standing out on the sidewalk and it gets a bit crowded near the booths but it was very quick once you got up there.  Our first pick was Wicked but they weren’t selling tickets to that so we went with Grease.  I was a bit hesitant to pick that but you’ll see in my next post that it was a great pick.

#HBC – My “Deal”

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I have no idea where to start on telling the stories from this weekend so let’s just start with something fun.

Dani and I had headed out to shop while Heather napped Saturday evening.  We stopped by one of many street vendors who were selling a multitude of things.  This one table had a bunch of pictures from the city and these two pictures caught my eye.  I started staring intently at the guy’s stuff and of course he started making deals for me.

His sign said a 5×7 was $10 and the larger size (pictured above) was $20.  I was flipping through the smaller size and he says “Right now, $7!”  I continued to look, not sure which print I was interested in and he throws out, “For you right now, $6”.  Hmm, you guys know I love a deal!  “What about the larger print?” I ask.  He says $15.  I start looking at the two prints above trying to decide which to take.  The fall one would be nice.  I have a lot of red in my house and I LOVE trees.  But the other shows more of the city and I also have those blue and brown tones in my living room.

He gets them off the board and says “Both of them $20!”  Oh, half price!  I can’t make a decision on one and it sounds like a deal!  I’m in!  I hand him a $20 bill and I was off.  Dani and I continue across Broadway down 46th and head towards Park Ave to shop and wouldn’t you know the next block we pass has the same dern pictures and a sign for $1.99?

#HBC The Day After

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Wow.  I am so overwhelmed from the weekend.  It was probably the most jam packed, satisfying, fun, dizzying, exhausting, wonderfully wonderful 48 hours of my life.  I have a mile long list of things to blog about but I know everyone wants to see pictures.  So here is where they are hiding on the Internet…

Here is every single picture we took in New York.  Some very boring.  Some taken just for Emma and Lexi.  Many fuzzy and dark ones.  But a few good ones.

Here are just the photo shoot ones I took.

A few other bloggers are adding their photos from the shoot to Flickr and tagging them with hotbloggercalendar09.

Katja took a great one of me and a chocolate doughnut 🙂  She’s supposed to be uploading more.

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And just for the record, here are the wonderful people that were there this weekend.  I was able to meet most of them.  For those I didn’t (including the HBs that weren’t able to make it to NY), I truly regret our paths didn’t cross and hoping for it in the future!

Sarah and  Jane (The ones who started all this!) Wonderfully wonderful people.  Really.  So sweet, down to earth and REAL!  They make meeting people from the Internet not-so-scary 🙂

Peter Shankman (HARO) Full of energy guy I’m grateful to for picking up the tab Saturday night 🙂

Miss Britt Full of energy and smiles

Poppy and NYCWatchDog We sat across from these two at dinner and had a great conversation…even when he did start talking about Dragonland and our eyes went all glassy 🙂

Jill Notkin, from Alex Casey Baby and The Daily Grind Unfortunately didn’t get to spend too much time with 🙁

Erika, from Chick Shopper Chick So sweet and bright.  She was like sunshine walking around.

Katja, from Skimbaco A talented lady with a big heart.  Very warm and inviting.

Shawn, from Backpacking Dad So in love with his wife it’s almost too much to handle.

Jim, from Busy Dad Mr. GQ. And my new blog crush.

These last three I was not able to meet 🙁

Josh, from The Comic’s Curmudgeon

Riese, from This Girl Called Automatic Win

Francesco, from Francesco Explains It All

Bill Wadman TALENTED photographer and his assistant Meg Wachter

Jillian Villafane, our AWESOME makeup artist. Can I please have her at my house every morning??

And I can’t forget about Jane’s Mom Sharon and her husband Barry

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You are going to be sick of hearing about this New York weekend…this is just the start!

#HBC – 7 Hours and Counting

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In seven hours I will be waking up WAY before I want to to get ready to make an early flight out of Charlotte.  Getting ready this week has been absolutely insane.  Work was crazy for me this week (and not just all the public stuff going on…my actual work), I had too many appointments to keep this week, too many clothes to wash and all smack dab in the height of PMS.  I haven’t been on my best behavior and I’m very sure the minute I’m in the air I’ll be feeling guilty for the many times I’ve raised my voice this week but such is life, right?

So the kids are tucked away at my MILs and my bags are packed.  Heather is coming over soon to spend the night.  Dani is supposed to be here at 5:30am and Scott will have been up all night working and plans to take us to the airport.  Maybe I should first of all be praying he doesn’t fall asleep driving!  I’ve got a list of last minute things I need to make sure I take.  (Note to self: change purses before you go to bed!)  I’ve showered.  I’m going to finish typing this and head to bed.

My prayer/hopes for this weekend are that we stay safe in New York, we don’t get lost, we all get along well, we have FUN, we get lots of good shopping deals, we eat a lot of good food, my family stays safe back home, they don’t miss me too much and of course that I pick the right outfit and take a great picture on Sunday :).  Not too much to ask, right?

Oh and of course, my period..just in time for vacation.  Likely story.