Here come the waterworks.

It's starting, you guys. Every year, Asics does a great ad campaign in the weeks leading up to the New York Marathon, and banners and posters have been popping up all over the city. Every time I see one, I get a little choked up. Totally normal to get emotional over an ad on the side of a bus, right?



Am I going to weep through this entire marathon? It's a distinct possibility.

Two weeks to go.

Parental advisory.

When my parents come to visit, it always means delicious food and Broadway shows. (And hugs. Lots of hugs.) They rolled into town this past weekend after an East Coast extravaganza of visiting Allison in North Carolina followed by a cruise to New England and Canada. My aunt Nancy met up with us as well and even though they were here less than three full days, we packed it in.


On Saturday, after wandering midtown for a while, we caught a matinee showing of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The show was delightful, and (mostly) independent of my love for Harry Potter, I have to say that Daniel Radcliffe does a fantastic job. His voice is decent, but I was most impressed with his dancing and his general commitment--you could tell he was just going for it the whole time and having fun. And he and John Larroquette were fantastic together. Of course, the whole time I was wishing that Becca and Krissy could have been there. (And of course, my mom texted Becca during intermission to tell her how cute Daniel Radcliffe was. Ha ha THANKS MOM.) If you haven't seen the performance of "Brotherhood of Man" from the Tony Awards, it's worth a watch:


After the show we had a fancy-pants dinner at L'Ecole, the restaurant for the French Culinary Institute (though I did, in actual fact, wear normal pants). And for good measure, we rounded out the night by seeing Ides of March. (I had referred it as "The Ryan Gosling Movie" in conversation with my dad and he pretended to be confused--"Oh, you mean the George Clooney movie?") It was really good. And I probably would have thought so even if it wasn't full of eye candy! Maybe.

On Sunday after church we had a delicious outdoor lunch at the Harlem Tavern down the street from my apartment, followed by an unsuccessful attempt to catch even a glimpse of the 9/11 memorial downtown. Then we headed back up to midtown for our extremely appropriate Sunday evening activity: The Book of Mormon musical. Currently, the only way to get tickets is to pay triple the face value or to attempt the ticket lottery with hundreds of other hopefuls (something my friend Jenny has tried 16 times, to no avail). Thankfully, my dad had the foresight to get our tickets months ago, before Tony mania set in.


I have to admit that my feelings about this show had gone from outrage to morbid curiosity to cautious interest, and when my dad asked if I would want to see it, I wasn't sure. Based on early reviews, though (including a couple from friends), I was intrigued enough to go and I'm glad I did. Fair warning: this show is not for everyone. It has strong language and some very offensive and shocking things in it (there was a Parental Advisory warning, so I guess it's good I went with my parents?). It is also clever and hilarious and quite touching at times. I will say, though, that what did offend me didn't do so because I'm Mormon, but because it was offensive in general. I realize that's a lot of rationalization, so to each his own. Obviously it's not exactly an credible source for information about the Church (it is satire, after all), but I didn't feel it was malicious toward my religion in any way. In fact, I found the Church-related humor to be pretty hilarious and they really nailed some of the missionary jokes in particular. The music itself is fantastic. Aside from a couple songs I could do without, I've listened to the soundtrack a few times this week alone. I dare you to listen to this song and not have it stuck in your head for the next week. It's the opening number and it's great--I swear the missionary actors looked exactly like some of the dudes I knew at BYU.

On Monday we had brunch at Sarabeth's and went to the Tenement Museum down on the Lower East Side. I'd never been there, but it's pretty great--you choose from a few different tours about different immigrants/families and spend an hour going through the preserved tenement housing and listening to their stories. I've been to Ellis Island, so it was sort of a cool follow-up to see how the immigrants lived after making it to New York and some of the conditions they were subjected to.

After our tour, we had time for a quick stop at the Doughnut Plant and a walk through Chinatown and Little Italy before it was time to say goodbye. It's pretty exhausting to be a tourist, but worth it when you've got good company, conversation, food, and entertainment to keep you going.

Also, do I win for most parentheses used in a blog post ever?

Back.

So, Peru was incredible. I have approximately 700 pictures to post (roughly 65% of which are of beautiful valleys, so get excited for that), but that will happen later. For now it feels great to be back in my bed with indoor plumbing. We flew into JFK after midnight and I got to see the always beautiful New York skyline with the Freedom Tower lit up in red, white and blue.

[source]

One of the best things about this trip was experiencing such a different culture, being reminded of how different my lifestyle is from so many others, and of how much I have to be thankful for. And as much as I absolutely love traveling, there's still something wonderfully comforting about coming back to the States and having the customs agent smile and say, "Welcome home."

Emergency preparedness.

[source]

Things I'm doing to get ready for Irene:

- Having a Provo-style girls' night tonight (California Pizza Kitchen and going to the movies).

- Hopefully fitting in a long run tomorrow morning before the rain starts in earnest.

- Went to the grocery store this morning to stock up on essentials like string cheese and Lucky Charms (don't worry, Mom, I also have crackers, fruit, Luna bars, bread, peanut butter, canned black bean soup, and plenty of water). I also bought a pint of ice cream instead of a big carton so that, should the power go out and I have to eat everything in the freezer, I won't get sick. Foresight!

- Charging up my laptop and phone and putting the batteries in the head lamp I bought for Peru.

- Reviewing highlights from The Day After Tomorrow for good measure.

Melissa and I are planning to spend the weekend watching movies and eating in our pajamas. Our neighborhood is relatively high elevation and outside of even the most extreme flood-watch zones. We have guy friends down the street who have volunteered to come defend us from the zombie apocalypse, should it come to that. If we can somehow get work canceled on Monday I'd say we're all set.

I don't think you're ready.

A couple of weeks ago we had an email go around at work about some upcoming shows that Beyonce was doing at Roseland Ballroom for which we could request tickets. The shows were billed as An Intimate Night with Beyonce, and given that B is used to selling out arenas like Madison Square Garden, this would be a pretty unique opportunity.

I immediately texted Karrie, knowing that she had been planning to take the bus home to Virginia that weekend but also convinced that she was the perfect guest for this event.

L: So you are like definitely definitely going to VA next week right? Because I just got Beyonce tickets from work for Thursday.
K: Omg. Wait. This changes everything.


Soon after that, her original plans were canceled and we were composing outfit ideas. Karrie's main strategy was to "sparkle like a sexy baby on Toddlers & Tiaras" which, I think, was both wise and appropriate. I briefly considered wearing a sequined vest that I had borrowed from a friend at work, but in the end I just couldn't pull it off.


We got to the venue around the time the doors opened to see a line snaking around the entire city block. Eventually we made it inside, got our VIP wristbands for the mezzanine (perks!), and staked out a pretty great spot with a nice view of the stage. A few minutes before showtime, the peasants down on the floor started making excited noises and pointing their cameras toward the part of the mezzanine near the side of the stage. We squinted through the darkness and Karrie nearly hyperventilated, pointing out the be-headdressed figure of Lady Gaga being escorted to her seat.


Beyonce herself came out around 10pm and did her thing for a solid hour and a half in a sparkly gold minidress (proving that Karrie had the right idea all along). She did little snippets of all the old favorites from Destiny's Child (which took me back to memories of junior high and high school) and then moved on to some of the solo hits before focusing on stuff from her new album.




We sang along and pondered the meaning of "Bootylicious" and danced until our little high-heeled feet felt like they would fall off. And for the record, Gaga was dancing and fist-pumping with the best of them.

In case you didn't know.

I wore pants today for the first time in over a month. Like so many ingenious ideas, I didn't really set out to do it on purpose at first, but eventually the idea of No-Pants July took shape. It was especially handy around the time a massive heatwave made even a breeze feel like someone was pointing a giant hair dryer in your face. Things got a little dicey last week when we had a random evening of 70-degree rain and wind, but I powered through. Today I wore jeans just because I could, and when I got to work the air conditioning was broken. Bummer.

Ice cream for dinner at Serendipity during the heat wave. The only choice.
Marathon training also started about 5 weeks ago and is going well so far. There are definitely still mornings when I wimp out (those mornings usually involve something higher than 85% humidity) and I don't love having to wake up at 6:30 on Saturday mornings to get a long run in before it's blazing hot, but I've surprised myself with how diligent I've been. Also surprising is how I manage to get choked up every time I read someone's account of running a marathon or see pictures from a marathon or think about running the final stretch down 5th Avenue (seriously! It's happening right now, you guys!). I guess I'm looking forward to it.

By the way, one month from tomorrow I leave for Peru.

Potterpalooza: A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Alternate titles:

Things Fall Apart
How to Fail at Most Things Despite Trying Really Hard
We'll Laugh About This Later
So here's how the rest of the weekend was supposed to go: on Saturday morning, get day-of rush tickets to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, spend the day shopping, hanging out in the park, and eating before going to the show that night. The next day, maybe a repeat viewing of HP (naturally), do anything else we felt like, and then send the girls off home again. Sounds great, right? Well, it would have been. Now, I should mention that the things I'm going to whine about are all very First World Problems that I realize don't matter at all. But being the way that I am, I don't like it when my grand plans go awry, especially when I'm responsible for other people.

The box office for the show opened at 10am so we showed up around 9:45 thinking we'd be fine, since there were two shows that day. What I failed to consider was that 1) when I've gotten rush tickets before it was usually limited to students so there weren't as many eligible for tickets, 2) Daniel Radcliffe is in the show and is kind of popular, and 3) it was HARRY POTTER WEEKEND. The line was about a mile long, but the girl working there said they often get through the whole line. So we stuck it out. By 10:45 we'd made it up to the front and the only available tickets were a few singles or standing room only. A miscommunication between myself and the ticket lady meant that the girls behind us bought their tickets before we could, and we came up short. Disappointed, we went over to the TKTS booth in Times Square to see about tickets for the matinee, but they had just run out as well.

I was frustrated, but decided that after lunch I'd come straight back to TKTS to wait for when the evening tickets went on sale at 3. We trekked across to the wasteland of East Midtown to eat at this really delicious place Becca and I had found on her first visit to the city a couple years ago. It was a nice little grilled cheese stand that had awesome sandwiches and milkshakes, and I had checked their website that morning to confirm its location. We walked into the little building and the decor looked different, and they just had pre-packaged sandwiches and other random things. "Oh, no," the guy behind the counter said, "the grilled cheese place closed like a year ago." Great. We raced back across town (missing a bus in the process) to eat at Shake Shack which, while crowded with tourists, was delicious as always. Krissy bit into her portobello burger and exclaimed in wonder, "What IS this???" Fried awesome, that's what.

Armed with sunscreen and an umbrella to protect me from the blazing hot sun, I got back in line and the girls went off to shop for a bit. About an hour later, the ticket availability went up on the marquis. Guess what show wasn't on there? Feeling defeated and tired, we headed back uptown to shower off the sweaty day and the stench of failure.

I was frustrated at having wasted pretty much an entire day for nothing, but we still had a really nice dinner with a couple of my friends and some of Krissy's friends who live here. We split off afterwards and Becca and I stopped off to get some cheesecake at Junior's. We decided to go over to the theater, which would just be letting out, to witness the crowd mayhem waiting for DanRad to exit the stage door. It was pretty nuts, although I did manage to get a glimpse of his back as he climbed into a car. Becca was distracted because at that moment a middle-aged guy had tried to run up to Dan and the cops had pushed him on the ground. Yikes.


The crowd.
The next morning, Becca and I had talked about going for a run in the park, but ultimately decided that we'd give rush tickets one last shot (despite the fact that we had maxed out my Times Square tolerance long before). We got there earlier and the line wasn't too long yet, so we figured we had a chance. Around 10:15 they hadn't opened the doors, so I went up front to investigate. FUN FACT: apparently on Sundays, the box office doesn't open til 12. At that point we knew it was time to give up. We had brunch plans for 11 and anyway, I wasn't about to wait another 2 hours in line just to risk being disappointed yet again.

Thankfully we had yet another delicious meal to drown our sorrows in, followed by some street shopping in SoHo. Then it was back to my place for some leftover cheesecake and putting Krissy on the train to the airport. Of course, things couldn't go off without a hitch at that point and Krissy missed her flight by a matter of minutes. I was pretty sure we were being Punk'd. Luckily, she was able to get on another leaving shortly after, and Becca got home without any trouble (or at least she had the decency not to tell me about it).


All in all we really did have a ton of fun during the weekend; I just wish the last two days had worked out like I'd planned. But anytime I get to see these girls is a win in my book, and we've already decided that our next trip will be a beach paradise where we don't have to schedule a single activity. And thankfully it will be nowhere near Times Square.