Fender Guitars, Piano Lessons and More

We slept in again today because we stayed up so late.  The first words out of Linda's mouth this morning were, "Do you think I can safely climb up onto the table?"  We are staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and one of their amenities is the delivery of a Fender guitar and headset to your room.  We reserved one for this morning.  I had to put down a deposit for the entire cost of the guitar. I got up, showered and dressed.  Linda decided that her bedhead hairdo was perfect for her Fender guitar photoshoot.  I called down to the front desk and asked for our guitar to be delivered.  Once we finally figured out how to make the headset work we were in rock heaven.  Let's just say, we had a couple hours of fun!

My son and his husband own and operate their own cottage industry bakery in Vegas.  I asked my son where I should get pastries in New York City.  Without hesitation he said, "Supermoon Bakehouse".  So yesterday I ordered a small box of pastries to be delivered to our hotel this morning.  The window for delivery was anytime between 9:30 and 1:30.  At 1:30 Linda and I gave up waiting.  I had the hangries by then.  We walked around the corner to a little hole in the wall place and got sandwiches.  We sat at the window counter and watched two guys haul trash to the curb while we ate.  It felt very New York City.

We decided to head out for another stroll through New York.  We started at Rockefeller Center.  We walked through some of the shops, watched the ice skaters and enjoyed the tree.

We decided to go inside St. Patrick's Cathedral.  

Linda lit candles in memory of her parents.

We made our way down Fifth Ave, past Tiffany's and The Plaza Hotel.  We dodged the multiple attempts to get us onto a carriage ride before we finally made it to Central Park.  Such an incredible park.

We found the ice skating opportunity there but decided to pass.  

We had a destination....Strawberry fields.  Linda was hoping we would find it free of all people so we could have our moment.  Two busloads of high school kids greeted us.  But they have shorter attention spans than we do.  

Then we sat for a few minutes to enjoy the guy playing his guitar and singing "Strawberry Fields Forever."  We gave him a few dollars and headed for the subway.  

We managed the subway like the two intelligent, well-planned women that we are.  We made it back to our hotel quickly where a delivery from Supermoon Bakehouse awaited us at the Front Desk.  

I called Brett to get his opinion on their lamination skills, etc.  Then we changed clothes and headed down to our hotel restaurant for dinner.  It is a holiday weekend and we found restaurant reservations to be full here in midtown.  Luckily we knew our hotel restaurant would no disappoint.  With Caesar Salads in front of us we listened to a live band sing CeeLo Green's song "Fuck You".  There is just something very special about NYC.

After dinner we walked over to Times Square.  We are right here but we hadn't yet fully enjoyed its chaos.  We climbed the steps for our photo opps.  

Then we walked past the horrible street preacher who didn't seem to understand that God is love.  We walked past his speaker system and realized how easy it would be to unplug one cord and shut him down.  But both of us being the rule following people that we are we decided against doing it.  We stood and watched some street acrobats get volunteers to join their show....and open up their wallets and give them large amounts of money. 

By then it was time to find our theater and the bathroom before our first Broadway play, The Piano Lesson.  We chose it because it had excellent reviews; the play is by August Wilson; and the cast includes Samuel Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Brooks.  We got an email this week that Samuel Jackson would not be performing this week and would be replaced by Peter Jay Fernandez.  We were disappointed but still excited to see the play.  It was three hours long, the set was amazing, the actors were excellent and it left us with chills.  We gave it a combined rating of 90.

I had read that one of the best bars in Midtown Manhattan is The Rum House, directly across the street from the Barrymore Theater where we saw The Piano Lesson.  We crossed the street, entered the bar and found ourselves in the middle of a chaotic crowd.  We turned right around and headed back for our hotel.  

Our hotel has a rooftop bar and the front desk had given us two free drinks for the bar because of traveling to NYC on the day of an FAA shut down.  We grabbed our vouchers and headed for the bar.  We learned that without reservations we could not sit down.  So we ordered our drinks and headed outside to stand on the terrace overlooking Times Square.  Those who had reservations were sitting on the terrace under lush blankets.  We stood and enjoyed the view and the feel of alcohol warming our throats.

We decided to see what we could see from the terrace on the other side of the bar.  

We had that side completely to ourselves.  We sat down in the freezing cold.  Linda enjoyed seeing what one drink does to the lightweight Susan.

Back in our room we decided we needed to make a reservation for tomorrow's dinner.  Once that was done and the lights were out, I fell asleep immediately.