Wherefore art thou cartilage?

Whoa, I'm tired. And my knees hurt. Thank goodness Mandy is lazier than I am cheap, because we ended up taking cabs (and pedicabs, holy crap are they scary!) everywhere in New York. I would have much rather walked and soaked everything up but sitting here with swollen knees and a sore back I guess I'm glad. No, wait, really I'm not. I would rather have seen the Statue of Liberty and have swollen knees. Oh well, sixteen year olds have different priorities.

New York was a blast, even though there were more "wish-we-had-done's" than there were "glad-we-did's" and I ended up spending way more than I had planned. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post soon. The photos Mandy didn't delete that is. Pimple evidence.

Thought of your mama everyday KK, especially at Central Park. But it's so not as cool in the dark.

We only saw Matt Lauer, and I don't think he really qualifies as a celebrity. (He was however with his pregnant wife, so now I'm the gossip queen! Take that Us Weekly.) We saw two "shoots/production sites" but alas, no Ewan. One in Grand Central Station and one right in the middle of Times Square. I did take photos at both just in case it was Ewan's movie and he just wasn't on the set at the time. We also went to Bryant Park (where Ewan and Hugh Jackman were shooting two weeks ago) and took some photos. I resisted the urge to lick all the tables and chairs, only because there were some pretty "interesting" people around and unless I knew Ewan's ass had been in that exact chair why risk the infection, right?

What else? We saw The Lion King and Wicked. Loved them both, Wicked a little bit more even though the vocal performances weren't quite as powerful as the cast we saw in Minneapolis. We ate at Tao and sat right next to the 20 foot Buddha, watching the koi fish try to jump out of the water. I would kill for a cute boy who could make me those dumplings everyday. (Tao in Las Vegas is much cooler, which seems assbackwards as New York is so much cooler than Vegas.)

We didn't get to the Statue, TeaNY or Tiffany's. Ditto for Serendipity and Magnolia Bakery. No Rockefeller Center or ice skating. And no Brooklyn Bridge. There were times I felt like we weren't even in NYC. Mandy refused to ride a train (although I did get her to walk down to the platform) and insisted on taking a carriage ride through the park after dinner, so we didn't see shite. I did make her walk to Strawberry Fields on Sunday to get photos of the John Lennon memorial.

I am so glad I have sons. Mandy is way too cute and mature looking. Lots of dirty old men making comments and staring at her. Especially the gross guy in the Porche who followed us for ten blocks or so. He was too old for me, let alone a teenager! Yuck! We did breeze right through security at the airport though, thanks to her skin tight outfit and the cute hat she haggled for in Chinatown. Several people called her Brittany, which she thought was really insulting and I thought was pretty hilarious.

I bought a few cute things, mostly gifts, and an umbrella that we could have done without. Mandy bought lots of clothes and two pairs of Puma's (even though she brought/packed about 30 tees, 6-7 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of Uggs...all for four days!) and a new Coach purse.

Speaking of purses, in Chinatown everyone on the street says: "handbag? Louis Vuitton, Coach, Gucci". Seriously, everyone. You can't go five feet without someone approaching you. Mandy didn't get it, since there were bags right there on the street. So I explained to Mandy that there were "backrooms" where they had the really good knockoffs, or as I'm told now, the stolen bags. So she talked me into saying yes and we rushed across the street after a shady looking Asian man, into a much shadier looking building...straight into a sweatshop. It was horrible. All of these women at sewing machines in a crappy building. If a fire had started we all would have died. So anyway, we follow him through this dirty room into a small corridor, around the corner into a smaller little secret room filled with designer handbags, and thankfully, two other women shopping for bags.
We looked around, the whole while I'm trying to send Mandy psychic signals that this is not where we should be, thinking what a horrible role model I am. "I boycott companies for labor practices like this!" After looking around and asking the price of several bags we finally go to leave when the woman running the show says "How much? $35?". The bag Mandy was looking at is a $400 Coach tote and the price she had quoted us was $65, so Mandy turned around pretty fast and went right to that bag. Obviously the woman meant a different bag because she got really angry, as if we insulted her, when she's the one who made the offer. Needless to say we hightailed it out of there. Very creepy experience. I think I'd much rather buy a stolen bag than one those poor women were slaving over.

So that was our trip. Fun, but not as cool as the first time. Oh yeah, we also went on a Outlet Shopping trip our last day there. We got to smell the Port Authority bus terminal, and yes, I do mean smell not see. Lots of places in NYC smell like urine, but the bus station definitely smells more like poo. And not pleasant baby diaper poo either.

My favorites: Tao, Wicked, Mandy's face when we walked into the four story Abercrombie & Fitch store (her Mecca) and she saw the half naked boy standing at the entrance (apparently they don't do that at the Mall of America store). Ooh, our first pedicab driver. He had a very nice backside and rock hard calves, which I tried to stare at rather than paying attention to the traffic we were weaving in and out of. Roasted cashews and the kids lightsaber fighting in Central Park.
Just being in New York again. I could live there.

My least favorites: paying for six block cab rides, dodging puke on Broadway's sidewalk Sunday morning, the crazy shower curtain in our hotel that attacked me everyday. The lack of a cash machine in our hotel. Not finding Ewan. Thinking about the credit card statement that will be coming. Did I mention all the effing cab rides?

Netflix review: Okay, not really Netflix since I own it. Moulin Rouge
All of the talk about Ewan McGregor got Mandy in the mood for one of the best musicals ever. I could listen to Ewan sing all day. And have, more times than I'll admit to. Moulin Rouge gets an infinite number of stars. Okay, not much of a review but Ewan's hot, Nicole Kidman is fabulous, and Richard Roxburgh is so deliciously creepy as The Duke. If you haven't seen Moulin Rouge, hang your head in shame all the way to Target or Best Buy or wherever you buy DVD's from. Don't rent it, it's that good. It's like crack for the ears, meth for the eyeballs.
Easter Egg: On the first menu, highlight "The Cutting Room" and press Enter. Press the down arrow three times to highlight "Main Menu." Then press the left arrow button, and a red windmill will appear. Press Enter to see what appears to be an outtake of the scene where Ewan McGregor sings "Your Song" to Nicole Kidman.