The Best Ending

Today’s step count was a surprising 17,463 steps or 7.07 miles.

Today is our last full day. It was a simpler day, but still packed. One very simple rule is we don’t repeat restaurants so our coffee was courtesy of Ground Central. I had a peanut butter latte with a white chocolate and blueberry scone while Jaime had a lavender latte and a turkey and cheese croissant. We then had an errand to run. One of the clasps Jaime bought at Mood was broken, so we did a quick exchange. It was tempting to look around again, but we only have so much room in our carry-ons.

Our next destination was the New York Public Library. Now many of you are probably assuming this was my pick since I was a school librarian for over 15 years, but this was Jaime’s idea, although I fully support this choice. We walked to the library via Bryant Park which is on the side of the library. We enjoyed some park time and sound checks for live Broadway music in the park. They only seemed to be doing songs from Disney based musicals, but we really did not hang around to find out.

The New York Public Library is huge and very ornate. We started in a special exhibit of various treasures the library owns. It was a pretty eclectic set of treasures. There was everything from a tutu to a set of original Winnie-the Pooh stuffed animals to a Bible with a gold cover to a model of the stage for Cabaret. It was basically a mini museum with the theme of miscellaneous

This exhibit led into the gift shop. I had to get my only real souvenir, a t-shirt with their famous lion on it. There was a mini exhibit on Darwin outside of the shop. It was interesting, but seeing the Beagle made me miss mine.

Next we headed to the second and third floors. This is where all the research areas are and most were not open for tourists to go in so that people actually doing research could work. We did, however, go into a large reading room filled with tables for people to work at, so I had to sit a bit and work on yesterday’s post. Now I am a real writer because I worked on my memoir at the New York Public Library.

We had been told that we needed to see Grand Central Station, so that was our next stop. Jaime walks much faster than I do, so when we reached the station she headed across the street to get a better picture. I assumed she would come right back over and she assumed I was still trailing behind her. After several light cycles, I texted her. It’s kind of surprising it took me this long to get separated from her.

We made a reservation at a touristy place called Serendipity. Someone had mentioned it to me and when I told Jaime, she was all in because part of a movie called Serendipity starring John Cusack was filmed there. This place is all pastel and there food is standard American fare and they are famous for their frozen hot chocolates. They also have an $18.95 per person order minimum, which is crazy because ordering only pop was about the only way you would not hit that minimum. I had bacon mac & cheese and a blackberry Dole Whip drink. Jaimie had a chicken sandwich and a cinnamon frozen hot chocolate. Our bill was over $100.

We had a complicated three train subway ride back to the hotel. We had to find the station in a Bloomingdale’s and head deep underground. One of our switches involved going up the equivalent of what looked like two or three stories worth of stairs. I was so glad to see the escalator, but it turned out to be broken. The lady in front of me had to stop and be dragged the last bit by her adult son. My Fitbit also records how many flights of stairs you do in a day and we had 28. My thighs feel like I have been doing all the squats.

We headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up for the cherry on top of this fantastic trip. We had tickets to see Sean Hayes in the play Good Night, Oscar which is the story of one night on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show when Oscar Levant is booked to appear. The only thing is his wife had him committed a month before, but she lies to the hospital to get him a four hour pass to appear on the show.

We walked to Times Square since the Belasco Theatre is located right off the main drag. We had balcony seats in the first row of the small, intimate theatre. I was a bit worried about picking a play instead of a musical. Musicals are a pretty safe bet, but I have been listening to Sean Hayes talk about this play on his podcast Smartless. I felt much safer about my pick after he won the Tony for Best Leading Actor in a Play.

Sean is unrecognizable in this role. If I did not know it was him, I would have had no clue. He speaks like Oscar Levant the whole time and is believably stemming (fidgeting in a repetitive manor) the whole time. The play was funny and touching, then Sean plays a difficult piano solo that brings the house down. He is a classically trained pianist, so it was all him, not a recording. It was funny and moving and just great.

When we came out, we noticed a crowd and realized people were waiting on autographs. We figured why not? We waited and got pictures and autographs from four of the six cast members when a security guard announced that no one else would be coming for autographs. I don’t begrudge Sean Hayes this, if you would have seen his performance you would understand how much it had to have drained him.

We headed back down Times Square and it was much busier than Sunday. For one it was later and not rainy, so the lights seemed twice as bright and this time all the costumed characters were out and about. These guys were in the cheap suits and I don’t see how so many of them make a living. There were enough Mickey and Minnies to give the rat population a run for its money.

We got back to the hotel and reflected on the week while we packed for the trip home tomorrow that required us to get up at 5:30am. Unless something spectacular happens, this will be the last post on this trip. It’s just not fun to write about a vacation ending.