The last time I flew through JFK I was with my 80-year old Dad, not Padre, returning from Landstuhl, Germany, where we visited my brother, who’d been called up for National Guard duty during the Iraq War after 9/11.
Dad’s long gone but I chuckled when JFK’s luggage carousel sparked a memory of me snapping at the old guy to ‘leave the bags alone and let the girl do it’ due to his bad back. He was a young 80, always up for an adventure, and didn’t let the inevitable creep of medical infirmities slow him down for a few more years yet. He did relent, though, and let the girl wrangle the bags.
Not easy for Dad, a Greatest Generation veteran, but he just kept going, and tried his best. Heck, he was still at it shortly before he died at almost 90 years of age. We found out later that he was busy hatching a plot with his good buddy for one more sailing adventure. Those two were browsing new boat listings as Dad lay in his nursing home bed, a few days before he died.
Well, why the heck not? Other parts of our lives (anyone’s lives, I’d reckon) are less than ideal and out of our control on certain days, but you know what? We just keep going and trying our best, too. During the pandemic, I found comfort in this quote I’ve had tucked in my wallet: “Here are the hardest lessons I have learned: We can’t always protect the people we love, no matter how much we know; our plans – and our lives – can unravel in an instant; make plans anyway.”
Again, why not? The kids are grown, we worked hard at hard work for years; we’re still young enough to wrangle bags as well as hike New York’s cement canyons for several miles each day. And we’re not too old to get called up onstage during The Late Show with Stephen Colbert warmup show – how cool is that?
I’ll tell our fun Colbert story later, and also how to see a Late Show taping if you are so inclined. And I’ll share what Lada Gaga told us – inspiring words for travelers, writers, teachers, citizens, anyone really, who still has something to say. (And yes, that’s the real Lady Gaga I’m talking about, up-close live, clad in a clingy-black slit dress and killer stilettos! ….and there were tequila shots.)
I’m writing this during our overnight flight to Cairo, which means we made it through check-in without PCR tests. The agent asked if we had tests, and when we said ‘no’ we showed him our CLEAR digital vaccine certificates with QR codes and that worked. Yay obsessive research. Hope it works when we get to Cairo, since that would make for a long sad flight back.
At the gate, we also met some of our Gate1 Egypt Tour travel companions. Many retired AARP members (probably) just like us, and teachers (those teachers! Still learning, always). Some millennial types glued to games mixed in as well, so we hope it’s a congenial group.
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL AND ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL
So the rest of New York:
During our last few international trips we’ve joined several ‘free’ city tours (pay what you want) and we’re big fans. We’ve participated in free tours in Sydney, Auckland, Copenhagen, Japan, and joined several riveting tours with London Walks, the original ‘free tour’ company (all I can say is if you go to London, you absolutely must do at least one of these gems. And only $15!).
Here in New York we toured Grand Central Terminal with our guide John from Free Tours By Foot, with tours such as Lower East Side Food (bagels, knish, and dumplings); Soho, Little Italy, and Chinatown (fashionistas, famous pizza, and mafia locations); and Harlem (Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, other Harlem Renaissance cool cats).
John’s company almost closed for good during the pandemic, which would have been a tragedy since his tour was of the same caliber as London Walks. John did a smash-up job detailing the history of New York’s Midtown district and of course Grand Central Terminal (NOT Grand Central Station…that’s the post office, next door).
He told of how the Wall Street ‘pencil suits’ demolished the even more stunning Penn Station to build condos, and how Jacqueline Kennedy saved Grand Central from the pencil suits in a years-long court battle to designate the Terminal a national historical treasure.
John also reminded us of that dark spring in 2020, when 3000 people per DAY were dying of Covid in New York. I remember how when I heard that boggling number on the news, I could not grasp it. How did such a thing happen, here in the United States, and how did New Yorkers manage to go on? 3000 people a DAY?
As we stood in Grand Central’s capacious grand hall, we watched as hundreds of people milled about and scurried for trains. Then I tried again to imagine 3000 per DAY and still couldn’t. On 9/11, 3000 people died, period, not 3000 people per DAY.
The lingering grief from all that death must run deep in New York right now, although you wouldn’t know it from walking the streets. The temporary outdoor eating structures on sidewalks make for a stark visual reminder, but such massive losses must be hidden away for now, in the hearts of New Yorkers who lived through those grievous times.
BROADWAY IS BACK!
At the Gershwin Theater’s Wicked matinee later that afternoon, I was reminded of other pandemic losses – of livelihoods, leisure activities, familiar routines – since we hadn’t seen a live show since before the pandemic started. I was caught off guard by the crowd, clapping together as the curtain went up, and then being spirited off to the Land of Oz. Got a lump in my throat, at that. Broadway is back, baby! (fyi the human/flying monkeys are totally creepy, completely cool, and I love them).
We’ve been theater buffs forever, and I’ve attended shows with good girlfriends for years and years. Since the pandemic began the girlfriends have only gathered one time, and not in a theater. I have missed my friends and that live theater experience where magic happens (or it doesn’t, and we leave at intermission to go shop at Nordstrom Rack.)
At the end of Wicked (spoiler: true love triumphs), Padre and I floated down the Gershwin Theater’s historic staircase in a crush of other theatergoers and flowed out into the New York streets, great joy and chatter all around. I promised myself in that moment to do my best not to take live theater, or life, for granted ever again.
So the next morning, St. Patrick’s Cathedral (we used a self-guided tour app) was the perfect place to say a few prayers of gratitude. Problem, though: Which chapel to choose? We learned about the various chapels lining both sides of the cathedral, and stopped to pray in front of the Pieta, where Mary’s sad face perfectly expresses the grief of multitudes.
THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT
We watch The Late Show most nights (or I should say the next night, on tape), partly because we enjoy Colbert’s take on things but mostly because I can’t wait to see what Colbert’s bandleader, Jon Batiste, is wearing. His suits are works of art! (It’s not just the suits; it’s Jon’s band, Stay Human, and their stellar New Orleans second-line blues and jazz compilations).
So I set out a couple months before our trip to snag tickets to a live taping.
Here are the steps I followed:
I set up an account at the website 1Iota a couple months out from our visit dates. The show opens signups about three or four weeks out (for us, it was four weeks). If the date you want doesn’t say ‘sold out’ you can click to fill out the form to request tickets. It will say ‘wait listed’ and then you wait.
I checked my email daily, then a few times a day, once we signed up. You want to be fast, I’ve heard, and I must have been fast because about a week later an email arrived with our invitation for priority tickets. Priority tickets mean you are guaranteed a seat as long as you arrive at the theater by 4:00 pm at the latest. Click here for more particulars.
That bit about getting to the theater soon enough? They don’t start priority check-in until 3:00 pm, but I’d read that if you got in line by 1:00 pm you might be seated in the front row. So not only did we arrive by 1:00 pm, we were the first in line. You don’t need to be there that early, but we bonded with other early birds (Sarah with an ‘H’! Such a great name!). I did my teacher thing and taught others how to airdrop pics back and forth, and it was a happy party. And being first came with a huge plus: the gold pipe seats (see pic). Lifesavers.
Speaking of sitting: You just don’t, unless you get one of the gold pipes. It’s a long wait, since once they let you into the theater, you stay in your red-roped pen for another hour at least, until the show starts taping around 5:30 pm.
So we did everything right, but we didn’t end up in the first row, or even the second.
Bummer.
Actually, not a bummer. We did even BETTER than the first row. Here’s what happened.
When they let us in (the very first!) we were put in the second row, center. Awesome!
But not. An usher then moved us to taped-off seats on the aisle, seven rows back.
Bummer.
But not bummer this time either.
When the warmup comedian, Paul Mecurio came out to rev the audience up, he looked right at us and called us up to the stage. (Padre thinks they chose us. Don’t know/don’t care. It was fun). So we stood where Stephen and David Letterman did monologues, where the Beatles performed, and where I could tilt my head back and look up at the dazzling kaleidoscope ceiling. Worth it to be made fun of, although Paul was pretty nice to us, for a New York comic.
Asked us how long we’d been married (32 years). The audience applauded and said awwwwwwww….(I suppose we’re cute old people. Guess that’s ok). Then when Padre told him he was a retired chaplain, Paul asked with a skeptical look on his face, “So who do you think you are, GOD or something?”
Padre just gave him a knowing smile, replied noooooo….and Paul said, “You’re a f*#%g ah@!*e!” in a way that let us all know he thought Padre was a pretty cool dude. I missed out on being made fun of due to time constraints (oh darn). After what I heard him say about the German tourist, I was fine with that, though.
And then the show! Paul Rudd, just named Sexiest Man of the Year, arrived decked out in a beauty pageant winner sash and glittering tiara. Paul gave Stephen a massage. Sting was interviewed next. Sting is absolutely ripped, and he’s 70 years old.
And then, as we waited for Sting to come back out to play a new tune, a delay. Stephen finally told us that a guest who couldn’t come on their scheduled day was going to be here tonight instead, and….ladies and gentleman, here’s Lady Gaga!
Oh wow. Stephen started out by asking her if she still relaxed at the end of the day with a glass of wine and a cry. ‘Tequila’ she replied, and he promptly produced a bottle from under his desk with that smirky smile of his. They shared a couple shots together (Lady Gaga downed her first shot in one gulp), as she answered questions about her friendship with Tony Bennett, and her work with marginalized communities.
The last album Tony and Lady (which is what Tony calls her, she told us) was a compilation of Cole Porter songs. He was slipping into Alzheimer’s but remembered the music perfectly, she said. She almost choked up a couple times talking about their friendship and his gradual decline.
She told us why she feels it’s important to reach out and help others, and told us to remember that we all have a voice; we all have something to say. We should share what’s on our hearts, and use our voices to spread kindness to a hurting world, with whatever talents we have. (that was the jist of it, anyway.)
Amen to that.
Next up: Pyramids! We stood right in front of them! We climbed right inside the Great One! They’re awesome!
It might be a few days or more before I can post and tell you about the latest, because of:
1) wifi/lack of
2) let’s see, what’s another word for it?
It’s when the government closes down internet things it doesn’t want you to read. It’s a thing here, in Egypt. You know the term. (I did it to myself today, just to make sure this post made it through).
And yes, I’ll definitely be writing about that later. Lady Gaga herself told me to speak up and use my voice, so I’ll make sure to tell you all about it.
So now, on to the Valley of the Kings……and Queens!
I’ll leave you with some treasures from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where we ogled the masterpieces the morning before the flight.
Thanks as always, everyone, for following along!
