A Nibble of the Big Apple

We got up at oh-dark thirty. Exercises, clothing laid out the night before, teeth brushed, breakfast, out the door into the pre-dawn chorus. Ah, the first robins seem to have an early start on the war with the boat-tailed grackles.

I am not a morning person. I have gotten enough pleasing pics of rosy-fingered Dawn blah blah poetic blargh. I will get awesome sunset pics from here on in, thanks all the same, and I never have to see another “first crepuscular” time. Really.

So why am I up?

I’m going to see Chess the musical on Broadway!

Because I’m eager, excited, and not stupid.

Because when I travel to the Big Apple, I do not drive myself.

This country mouse has driven cross country, visited most states, even touched some overseas shores. But when it comes to the big cities, known for their inability to use turn signals, this cowardly chiquita nopes out.

A thirty-five minute drive gets me to the nearest depot for the commuter bus lines going into NYC or Philly, and you can bet your bippy it’s worth the money to keep my sanity. Sure, I don’t have much sanity left, but I’d like to keep what’s left for a little bit longer.

The buses run on time, so we were seated at around 7:15 for a 7:25 departure. We were the beginning of the run, which gave us a nice choice of seats near the front. Three hours where I can watch the flocks of grackles along the road, or the red-tailed hawks on the hunt, or the massive fog banks that slipped in and out of the valleys on either side of I-78, with two more pickup stops. Or, hey, I’m not driving, I can nap! This may be a commuter route, but today the part of two commuters will be played by two tourists in disguise. (Not really. Tourist versus commuter, we know. We all know.)

Zzzzzz….

Buses have dedicated entrances into the Lincoln Tunnel, and from there it’s a short jaunt, slipping easily into Berth #2 in the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Yes, Trans-Bridge Bus Line is that old. They have the first fourteen (I think) of the berths at the PABT. I was impressed.

Even though we were the last incoming bus on our particular line, the PABT was strangely silent and empty. Liminal spaces don’t bother me much, but as a country mouse in the Big Apple, it was more than a bit unnerving.

Up to street level, where the city was still groggy. The real commuters, used to where they needed to go, turned left or right and bustled off. We turned left, and walked towards Times Square. We had three hours to kill, and me with a bum knee, and a crutch to help.

And a date with a squishie machine that wasn’t there last time.

Squishies? Souvenir elongated coins, those shiny ovals of pure happiness that I crave. If I plot a trip, I will cross-reference my list and app (I’ve got both!) to ensure no new designs elude my grasping grasp. Why yes, I am obsessed, why do you ask? I have thousands. I need them all.

Squishies, by very nature of the squishie machine, are ephemeral. Machines break easily, are removed, and never replaced. Others appear, likely the same machine, but with a new drum roll of designs. Ya takes your chances and you turn the crank.

And there’s the Hard Rock Cafe, the only squishie in the general vicinity that I don’t have. With a quick nod to Times Square, we went inside.

We met with our friend J, who offered to hold my country handy-pandy while in the Big Scary City. Have I done this before? Yes, many, many, times. And likely will again. But I still feel better with a seeing eye guide, and J grew up on Long Island. She cut her teeth on the Goth club scene in the long agos.

(Yes, I took a dyed-in-the-wool Goth to an ABBA musical. I’m still alive, if that means anything. At least I didn’t take her to see Mamma Mia, because I would have deserved whatever nasty death that she cooked up for me. One of her good friends is a dom, I’m certain it would be an…. interesting death. Epic, even. I would likely help, knowing I deserved every second.)

At the Hard Rock, I got three of the four pennies. The mechanism would jam when the money was pressed into the machine, then pop out while you were making the coin, creating a noise like a gunshot in the airlock. Unnerving, considering the state of the world today. Until the mechanism wouldn’t return so I could get the fourth penny design. Well, we need to eat, and I need a place to sit, so in the words of the only song that most people know from Chess, “or, or THIS place!”

So we descended to sit, and eat.

Now, here’s where I have to eat crow, sorry my corvid friends. When visiting cool locales, I prefer to dine local. Chain locations don’t thrill me, and even the ones I used to frequent pre-diagnosis (Cracker Barrel holds fond memories) are now dangerous. I have to keep the sugar low, and the salt even lower. Good luck with that, right?

Never again will I say a bad word about the Hard Rock Cafe.

They treated me so amazingly well! First thing they asked about were allergies and interfering medical issues. Hello, I’m Meredith, your snowflake du jour, I’m so sorry (I tip well, really!)

The chicken sandwich was quite nice, with fresh lettuce and tomato. I had some of the fries, before handing the rest off to the hubster, who can eat that much salt and still survive (the weasel). Um, they had food, I’m sure of it. Yeah, food. (I just asked him, and he had the glazed salmon. J also had food, I think.)

Yes, I am fully aware they have a dish called One Night in Bangkok. I was considering it, buy wary, specifically considering the likely salt content. But I was sorely tempted, oh yes indeed.

I wanted to try their strawberry basil lemonade, but special li’l ol’ me is diabetic. Not a problem, just use fake sugars, right? I am deathly allergic to all fake sugars, because I’m deathly allergic to alcohol – and the fake sugars are made from alcohol. Well, our waitress took our conundrum to the bartender, look, a challenge! And I got my lemonade with the simple syrup on the side, in a shot glass! I was so happy, because two little splashes into the glass were all I needed, and for me, it was perfect. The attention to the details made us feel welcome, and for me, from the back of nowhere, in NYC, was a strange but welcome feeling.

(The fact that most of the wait staff were People of Color, and our lovely waitress clocked my stealthy Fuck Trump necklace almost immediately, I’m sure had nothing to do with it. But it sure didn’t hurt! Heh heh. I like this necklace…)

Dessert, of course, was a necessity. A huge fruit bowl that J couldn’t finish, New York cheesecake for me, and oh dear sweet Jeebus on my crutch did you finish that brownie ice cream bowl all by yourself?? Oy. Well, at least hubster can, that would put a hurting on me something fierce. But not even a bite to share?? Sheesh. Weasel.

We were talking, catching up, watching the music videos playing on every screen, and checking out the memorabilia. No, really, lots of memorabilia. One of Elton John’s stage outfits, another of Beyonce’s. Bill Clinton’s sax. Scribblings and song notes from Jim Morrison and John Lennon.

It was seriously impressive.

And the staff was so darn friendly! They were happy to be there! Sure, they could have been faking, but it didn’t feel that way. That’s unusual in the NYC I knew in the past, it was a totally different vibe. Well, the world has changed, but it really felt like an oasis from the world outside.

We parked there for three hours. You’d better believe we tipped our waitress for parking there, but she was fine with it, her section wasn’t filled by the time we left.

And the squishie machine was reset by the time I got back, and I got the fourth design!

Getting to the Imperial Theater wasn’t too bad, but navigating through the lines of people waiting to get into their own Wednesday matinees was interesting. We passed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (yes, Tom Felton was in there somewhere), Operation Mincemeat, Moulin Rouge!, and The Outsiders.

But there’s the Imperial, and I need to see Chess!

Now, I’ve already written up my own feelings on the show; I’ve been a fan since soon after the London Variation premiered. If you’re interested, here’s the link to my thoughts on the subject: https://survey-promotion.today/geeks/chess-the-musical-back-on-broadway%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

Getting up to the tippy top of the theater (no elevator, it’s an old building) was a challenge, but I got to my seat. I was wobbly again, which was concerning – I ate, I had enough sugar, what gives? But a bit of a flop sweat isn’t enough to upset me, and soon my discomfort was lost in the magic of a theater in NYC, and one of my favorite musicals.

Getting down was easier than getting up, and soon we were out on the street and heading for the PABT. Three blocks, the short way? Should be no problem. Except that by the time we got to Platform 6, I was again in a flop sweat, and really really needed to sit down.

Okay, I’m a bit out of shape, but I’d been walking regularly to prevent this, what gives?

We get on the bus, and inched our way out of the city in rush hour.

You can imagine what that was like.

Honestly? It didn’t matter to me. What did matter was that my bladder decided the vibrational coefficient of the bus was juuuust enough to sing the song of its people. Yes, there was a chemical toilet in the back, and I thought about limping myself back there. Till someone joined the chorus with a persistent cough. Um, no thanks, I can wait till we get home. We were wearing masks throughout the day, and this is exactly why. The only things I wanted to bring back were squishies and playbills.

The flop sweats? Well, interestingly enough, J called me then next day to see how I was doing. We chatted, and when I set the phone down, my arm cramped. Hard.

My arm. Not the legs that had walked a few NYC blocks, my arm.

I jammed a double handful of raisins into my mouth.

Diabetics have this lovely catch-22 situation. They need to exercise, but because all the processes are now wonky, too much exercise – or exercising at the wrong time – will freak out the muscles, plus strip available sugar from the bloodstream. We think I dumped all the potassium in my system into my bloodstream during the day, and that’s what turned me into a wobbly wreck that proceeded to cramp for the next three days. I hobbled around, hunched over, leaning on my crutch, for three straight days. Then my lower half evacuated everything, my headache sweats went away, and I felt almost instantly better.

Ahhh. Vagus nerve issues. And my sciatica. And lack of potassium. Hunh. Interesting.

It’s good to know for next time, and I will adjust my schedule accordingly (and pack raisins), because Six is playing in NYC, one block up from the Imperial...