November 23, 2012
Despite my best intentions not to overdo it at the Waldorf Astoria yesterday, I ate too much. I haven’t had indigestion like this for ages. I’m blaming the Mexican hot chocolate for most of it, though to be honest, the blueberry muffin I had at 8 last night couldn’t have helped the way I feel this morning. I ate a bagel so I could take my vitamins and then went to Eddie’s deli next door to get a roll of Tums. I’m telling myself that I’ll feel better by the time I meet Jenny for lunch.
Mark and I met Sue for breakfast at the cafe this morning. Our waitress, with her “Cafe Edison” baseball cap [available for $8 each at the register] perched high atop her bun, in the best Russian [?] accent, punctuated each of our orders with “Thank you, baby.” Today will be a good day.
More chat and bad camera-phone pics to come. (I should explain; my good camera was stolen from my car about a month ago, so I’m having to make due with my iPhone 4 camera.)
…
Jenny and I ended up having burgers and fries at the Brindle Room, a nice little place in the East Village/Alphabet City area. I haven’t seen her since the last time I was in the city, so it was really good to catch up. I’m glad to hear that she’s doing well, moving closer to tenure, and finishing a book and that she and her partner, Bill survived hurricane Sandy relatively intact. When I was here last, they were living in Brooklyn, but they have since moved into Manhattan, and their apartment building is adjacent to the mandatory evacuation zone. The basement and first floor flooded during the storm, and they lost power for a week or two, but they’re mostly back to normal now with only spotty outages to their Internet and phone and hot water.
After lunch, we walked around the East Village for a bit, then stopped for ice cream at Big Gay Ice Cream. We both got a cone called “The Salty Pimp,” which is soft-served vanilla ice cream injected—literally injected—with salty caramel and then dipped into chocolate, which hardens into a shell. It was really really good.
While Jenny and I were visiting, Mark picked up a ticket to Grace, a play starring Paul Rudd and with Ed Asner in a small but important role. We both got back to the room around 3:30 or 4:00 and ended up napping until it was time to gather in Diane and Sue’s room for cocktails.
Diane had suggested going to a nearby Italian place called Pietrasanta, but having had Italian two nights before, I wanted to do something else. I was planning to just meet them after dinner, but because they weren’t married to the idea of Italian, they decided to do something else, too. We schlepped over to a steak house called Broadway Joe’s, but they couldn’t accommodate a party of seven without a reservation. Instead, we went to B. Smith’s across the street. B. Smith’s serves what I would describe as nuovo Southern cuisine. There wasn’t much for me to choose from, but I was thinking it was about time I had a salad, anyway.
Unfortunately, this restaurant turned out to be our “story” restaurant for the trip. The waiter was very nice, and everyone else’s food was excellent (mine was fine, but what can you say about a grilled chicken Caesar’s salad with no dressing from which the kitchen accidentally omitted the croutons and cheese?), but for whatever reason, it came very late. We had arrived at 6:10, and we did tell the waiter that we had an 8 o’clock show, but we didn’t’ receive our entrees until 7:25. Those of us that ordered prix fixe dinners had to forego their desserts entirely. At least the manager gave us our drinks gratis. We all wolfed down our meals and were out the door by 7:45 and hustling to the theatre.
Our show last night was The Heiress, a play based on the Henry James novel, Washington Square. I had selected it to balance out the musical that everyone had already agreed to see. As I expected, I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed the experience of seeing a drama with no musical numbers. Diane and Tom really liked it, as, I think, did Mark and Tony, so it was a success, and I’m pleased by that.
After the show, we walked to the Carnegie Deli for dessert, and then Mark and I—our dogs barking—called it a night.
