I slept almost 7 hours, getting up a little before 5am. Before I had coffee made, Paul decided he needed to eat and go out. Ash of course was still asleep, so I took care of that and by 5:35am I was settled in with some coffee to finish Saturday’s blog.

Ash got up a bit before 7am just after I’d posted it. When he checked his phone, we learned that Ellen passed that night. Some of you who have been to the house we bought in October have heard the story about how much of the furniture came from Ash’s godparents, Jim & Ellen, who went to live in a skilled nursing facility after Ellen’s stroke in March. They sold their house and had to empty it. Ellen had been moved to hospice in the last week. Her death was completely expected but sad nonetheless, we talked about it a bit before Kevin arrived. Jim will come live with us for a time once he’s settled things. The friend we were going to have brunch with was Ellen’s daughter, who is now on her way to San Francisco, so that was cancelled.

We just sort of lolly-gagged, knowing our friend, Kevin, would be joining us shortly, as he was on the same flight we’d been on the night before. He showed up right on time just before 8am. With no other plans now, Ash fixed breakfast while Kevin and I took Paul out for a little walk in Central Park.

That pond is frozen. It was 12 degrees. One of my favorite things about this park is the way some of it is framed by tall buildings. An oasis in the concrete jungle.

This made me laugh harder than it should have. It’s that thing about signs telling you how stupid people are. Like the “No U Turn” sign on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Did the presence of the ducks and their activity keep this part of the pond from freezing?

We got back around 9:30 maybe and Ash made a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and mushrooms, potatoes, and toast.

Kevin kept saying “I’m surprised I’m not tired at all” and then right after breakfast he crashed. Kevin is a traveling nurse and we met him when he had a gig in San Francisco last year and stayed in one of Ash’s units for 4 months. He’s now living in my old house, having rented my unit when I moved into the new house with Ash. And he lived here in this apartment for 3 months at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. So that’s how we knew about this place.

Ash and I decided to go see about getting tickets for a matinee somewhere but stopped for coffee first. It was about 11am at this point. This was on 6th Ave as we headed towards the theater district.

Ash just had regular coffee, I had a latte and an apple turnover. It wasn’t that great, we wouldn’t return.

We went to the Winter Garden theater on Broadway between 50th and 51st to see if we could get “rush” tickets for The Music Man with Hugh Jackman. It’s still in previews, doesn’t officially open until February sometime. I hadn’t heard the term before this trip, but rush tickets are the leftovers for that particular day that you can get for pretty cheap directly from the box office. As you can see, LOTS of people had the same idea for the 3pm show, the only one happening today. We got here about 11:45, the box office opened at Noon, and by 12:45 when there was just about 10 people in front of us we were told the rush tickets were gone, but they still had tickets available for $200. We noped out of there. Ash is committed to coming early on Thursday and getting them for that night’s performance. Stay tuned.

So we went then to the 2nd show on our list, American Utopia at the St. James on 44th between 7th and 8th Aves. We got two Orchestra seats, Row H, for $40 each. Ash said the normal price for these seats was $249. Score.

There are free COVID testing places all over Midtown. Since we’ve been here, we’ve learned that 2 friends at home have tested positive, both of whom we’ve seen relatively recently. We stopped to get tested just to see. And were thankfully both negative. We will probably test again on Tuesday.

We went back to the apartment to take Paul out again and Kevin came with us. Kevin brought another headband that he let me wear which helped a lot. I don’t like things on the top of my head, but my ears get cold so it’s a good solution. We walked around a bit then Ash and I made our way to our 3pm show and Kevin took Paul back home.

This show had been recommended to us by the guy who lives in the apartment we’re staying at and has been highly acclaimed by critics. David Byrnes was the front man for Talking Heads, a new wave band who got their first record contract in 1976. He won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Score for “The Last Emperor” in 1988 and has won a Grammy and a “special Tony” for this show which opened in New York in 2018. He is 69 years old.

The folks behind us offered to take this and we were grateful for that. My glasses are still fogged up, a problem I’ve had a lot on this trip!

We never did quite figure out what the names of all the small towns represent. Your first thought is places they’ve toured but with such small towns I have a hard time imagining that. But a big part of the show’s message focused on the idea that what people enjoy most of all is observing other people. So, the images may connect to that theme. He did say they have toured the world with this show, so maybe they really did go to Frogville, OK.

It was a typically sized theater for these parts and pretty packed. As always, vax proof and masks required.

We didn’t get a program so took a photo of the couple’s sitting next to us.

We talked about the show a lot when it was over. Ash proclaimed it to be the best concert he’s ever attended. He recognized several songs in the first half of the show, then the tone changed and what came after was new and more thought provoking. David would narrate in between to explain the connections from one song to the next. I’d been really paying attention to the simplicity of it all. The stage looked exactly the same the entire time with the exception of some lighting changes, and rarely too dramatic until the end. No other images or props of any kind. It was him, 2 backup singers/dancers, and 9 musicians – 3 playing electronic instruments and the rest various kinds of percussion. The sound that came from this group was amazing. There were times I would have sworn there were horns but that was coming from the electronic instruments. Everything was wireless; they were all able to move around the stage freely, so the musicians were part of the dancing as well. And they were all wearing exactly the same thing: a gray shirt under a gray suit, and barefoot.

Just about the time I was realizing that all there was to focus on was the people – the words, the vocals, the music, the dancing – David explained that was the point. That connection is what matters and they’d very consciously stripped everything else away to help get that point across.

He’d said at the beginning you could take photos at any time, and at the same time discouraged it by saying “we think it’s better not to live life through your camera lens.” This was towards the end and was the only number where color lighting had been used.

That’s David on the far left with the red guitar. He wasn’t playing an instrument for most of the show. This was during “Burning Down the House”, the only song I recognized. It was the Talking Heads biggest hit in North America, 1983, and he saved it to almost the very end.

A short video clip of that song.

The final number they did was a cappella and was my favorite of the whole show. It really helped drive home the point that it really is just all about the people.

We went in search of dinner after. Ash had remembered passing this on 46th on the way to Becco the day before so we decided to try it. Notice the “soft opening” sign.

The first thing we noticed was that all of the staff and most of the customers – it was actually pretty full – were all Chinese. Which is typically a good sign. The wait staff was super green and either didn’t know the menu very well or didn’t know English very well, or both. Above is shrimp dumplings. They were decent but could’ve used a dipping sauce.

This was a mushroom soup which also had some shrimp in it. It was nicely done and went down well on a cold night.

See, it’s pretty crowded. That’s Ash at the second table up on the left.

I’m a big fan of clean, simple flavors and thought this was really well done. Chicken, shrimp, cucumber – had never had it served warm before – and garlic in a simple white sauce.

This was our least favorite thing and too bad since it was the most expensive! Whole fish cooked in brown sauce with potato pancakes. We could never quite understand what the fish was – couldn’t understand what the waiter said when he told us (and he had to ask someone else) and couldn’t identify it when we ate it. Without going into a lot of detail, we’ll just say this dish had tons of potential but just didn’t work.

Braised bok choy with mushrooms, garlic and ginger. It was just OK.

Shortly after we left the restaurant it started snowing!

We just wanted to capture a few seconds of it snowing at Times Square. It picked up the pace as we made our way home and there was quite a bit of snow on the ground by the time we got back.

Oddly, this was the warmest it had been all day.

I don’t remember this from when I was here in 2019, but we noticed it the night before. We decided to stop here for dessert. Krispy Kreme is the only donut I consider a worthy dessert choice! It was packed and they were, thankfully, monitoring the number of people inside at one time so didn’t let us right in. But it wasn’t too long of a wait as the line moved pretty quickly.

Notice “hot” in the neon sign. If you’ve never had a fresh Krispy Kreme donut served still warm, I’d recommend it. We both have before and asked specifically that they pull the warm ones for our order, as opposed to the ones that had been sitting in the case.

Like in most stores, you can watch them being made.

A classic memory of the trip for us will be walking up 7th Ave eating warm donuts in the snow.

We made it back to the apartment about 7:30pm. Kevin had a friend, Sarah, over before they went out for a late dinner. There is never a situation Kevin has met that doesn’t warrant a selfie. You can sort of see that it’s still snowing out.

After Kevin and Sarah left, I got the photos uploaded for this and started writing. We were in bed before 10pm. Today the temperature will be the warmest we’ve had yet with a high of 46 predicted, with rain in the morning but then windy after that. We have no real plans other than we’d hoped for a long walk in Central Park, so will see how all that goes.