Ho Ho Ho, To NY We'll Try And Go

Made it to and from New York without incident, and we timed our stay to enjoy the entire MTA transit strike, no more, no less. I got in five hours after it was declared and left as the buses and subways were slowly starting to roll with passengers. The subways were seen slowly rolling along during the strike sans passengers, to keep them healthy I suppose.

Lots of exercise and some blisters. My shoes weren't as good for walking as I thought. It was cold, but not terribly so. Twenties in New York is much colder than twenties in Seattle. I noticed two things about traffic. The whole time I was there I only saw two hummers, which told the bigoted side of me they don't have nearly the proportion of upwardly mobile white trash as we do here. The second thing is that New York drivers are wretched. Poor control, both of the car and impulses. If they had full control of their vehicles while cutting each other off it wouldn't have been so leery. The next time someone tells me we don't know how to drive in Seattle, I'll have to slap them into reality. Same thing the next time someone tells me people are nicer in Seattle. Two myths shot down in one trip. Crappy driving, dirty streets, transit strike. I loved it.

We got to see one show, The Blue Man Group. It was a great show, though I understand from Paula it is very, very similar to when she saw them fifteen years ago. About 50% of the skits were the same. Of course, when it comes to theatre I'm more of a half full sort of person so I'd happily see it again. One of the people we were hanging out with works for them, so we got some comps. They were papering the house a bit, because attendance dropped off so much due to the strike. All the other shows we were really interested in were sold out, and spending hours getting there hoping to get a rush ticket did not enthrall any of us. I'll have to go back when the subways are running, and getting from borough to borough is a not measured in hours.

After Blue Man we went to the Wooster Group's Christmas party. Much of this was driven by Steve's childhood friends. Geoff, Kristen, and their two year old son Ben hosted us in their wonderful row house in Brooklyn. Geoff is the Wooster Group's sound designer, and Kristen works in the business office, and Ben spends a lot of time there. It was a pleasure to join their holiday party. Met several people, including one of Gregory's classmates from University of Washington. So, two of our group had connections with the Wooster Group.

A pretty great household to stay with. Jared, another of the group of friends with Steve and Geoff rented the basement, and it was his fiance Kristy who got us the Blue Man tickets. Geoff and Jared, as well as a several others came out to Seattle this Summer for Steve and Paula's wedding. It was great for Steve to see them again, and terrific for the rest of us to enjoy the benefits of generous people working in the New York theatre scene.

I had a terrific time, and am nearly rested up. Some winemaking chores today, then off to my brother's house for the Christmas celebration. Got in Friday evening, and slept, roused slowly, and headed over to Richard and Shawn's for a great Christmas Eve party. We played Ticket To Ride, which I thought was quite fun, probably because I was pretty lucky and ended up winning. It could have been cutthroaty, but we were more into socializing, and making clever lewd puns and references, so it was a relaxing game, and my moment in the spotlight for winning less than three seconds.

I hope you all have a terrific Christmas. I'll probably leave my laptop at home for my next short visit, tomorrow to Thursday in Duncan, BC. I had it with me in New York, but didn't use it because it didn't recognize the wan where we were staying, and I had a couple good books for reading on the airplane.