Monday, July 13, 2009

Our Weekend in Manhattan

Mrs Vache Folle and I spent the weekend in Manhattan. We stayed at the Hilton on 54th and 6th (I got a good rate because I agreed to sit through a time share pitch). We ate at Sinegual in midtown on Friday. It was great high end Mexican cuisine. I had a lobster enchilada and a couple of killer margaritas. And a chile relleno. Then we went to Campbell's apartment( some guy named Campbell used to have this kick ass apartment in Grand Central Station and now it's a bar). I had the gayest drink ever made.

On Saturday, we ate at a deli (pastrami hash and eggs for me) and visited the Folk Art Museum. This featured a visiting collection of wood carvings by Savannah barber Ulysses Davis. Also, there was a remarkable display of "kaleidoscope quilts" comprised of thousands of tiny slivers of fabric in intricate symmetrical patterns.

We also visited the Central Park zoo where my occasional contempt for parents of small children was validated. Note to said parents: If you have a stroller the size of a Buick, don't bring it inside the freaking penguin house or other small spaces full of people. Your kid can't see anything from the stroller anyway and you're going to have to take her/him/them out. Meanwhile, you are inconveniencing everyone else and creating a hazard. And if your child's intellectual capacity is not as well developed as the penguins', why are you bringing them to the penguin house in the first place? The zoo was exhausting, so we rode a pedal cab back to Central Park South.

After a nap, we ate at Maison, a so so Frenchie kind of place on 7th. Then we went to see Round and Round the Garden, one of the plays in The Norman Conquests trilogy. It was hilarious with great perfomances by Jessica Hynes, Amanda Root and the rest of the cast whom I had not heard of before. Celebrities Tyne Daily and the guy who plays Ben Lyons on Lost were in the audience. I stood behind "Ben" as he ordered a bourbon and ginger ale during intermission. I tried this drink later at the hotel so I could be more like my hero, guy who plays Ben.

The NAACP convention was starting at our hotel, so it was a hopping place. It's the 100th anniversary, and President Obama is slated to appear on Thursday.

The time share pitch was masterful and almost a joy to sit through. That's how good these guys were. I could tell they knew Mrs Vache Folle was the decisionmaker because everything was not too subtly pitched to her. We managed to get out without a time share.

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