New York, New York

I'm going on vacation, I'm going on vacation, and you-ou-ou're no-ot! Okay, so that was snotty, but I'm very excited. Tomorrow night we take our dumb dog, Orion, to the kennel, and Wednesday morning we're hitching a ride on the new Independence Air up to JFK for five fun-filled days in the Big Apple. Whoo hoo!

I actually didn't particularly want to go to New York. I spent a month there as a kid and didn't have any interest in returning, but the King has never been, and since we're leaving the East Coast in six months, never to return, he insisted that we go before we move away. So off we go. We'll be staying at a charming-looking Midtown hotel near Times Square.

I have two main goals. The first is to go see Rent on Broadway. And joy of joys, we are GOING! Whoo hoo! I insisted that if he was going to make me go to New York, then we were going to see a show while we were there, and acquiesced. I have been dying to see Rent for approximately five thousand years, ever since it came out. I missed it in LA, I missed it in DC, but now I'm finally, finally going to get to see it.

My second goal is to find the best delicatessen in New York City and eat a hot pastrami sandwich with provolone cheese and mustard there. I just don't know which is the best. Any ideas, folks? I figure, if we eat at twenty or thirty delis, we've got a good chance of finding a pretty fabulous one. We're also planning on having dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, just to say we did. I'll be having the filet mignon.

After New York, we're coming home for two days, and then we're flying south to Georgia, this time to spend a week with the King's family. He wants to go home for a visit before he ships out to the Middle East for three months. His family is very southern, and they can be funny sometimes, but they're generally very sweet people. His grandfather is in a nursing home, which means spending long hours there sitting by his bedside, which I find pretty boring, but only because I don't really know the guy. But it's important that the King spend time with him; they were more like father and son than grandfather and grandson when the King was little. And in the best tradition of fathers and sons, the first time the King took me home to meet his family, we borrowed his grandfather's pickup truck, snuck out to river and parked under the old bridge trestle, and did it in the front seat. Mmmhmm, yes we did.

When we're not enjoying the nursing home air, we'll probably be sitting in his grandmother's living room, talking about flowers (they're big flower people) and admiring her quilts, which are stunning. I make quilts, too--it generally takes me about six months to make one. His grandmother did her latest one in three days, over a holiday weekend. And it is far more beautiful than anything I could ever make. She's just got the touch. When she was younger, she and her husband both worked in a textile mill running factory machines and making men's shirts. They worked opposite hours--she was on the day shift and he was on the night shift, for nearly 30 years. No one knows how they managed to have three children with that schedule. When she wasn't working or raising the kids, she made money by making custom-made lingerie for the ladies in town. She would take a lady's measurements, then let her pick out whatever silk, satin, or lacy fabrics she preferred, and whatever style of bras and panties she liked, and would whip up hand-stitched, custom-designed lingerie to order. If she had grown up in the Internet era and gotten herself a website, she would have been a millionaire. It's too bad she never met a movie star--that's just the kind of thing that could become "the next big thing" in Hollywood. I can see Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz wrestling each other over who gets to be next on the King's grandmother's waiting list.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I'm going on vacation, so although I'll probably post again tomorrow, I'll be away after that until September 29th-ish. Please don't forget about me! I'll tell you all about Rent when I get back, if you ask nicely.