I've not yet talked about our trip to New York, which was almost three weeks ago, mostly because of Bandit's problems and the now-finished bathroom occupying most of our time.

It was sheer folly to go to New York for a weekend on our budget, but we did so anyway. What is it Mrs. Brown says in National Velvet?--just once everyone should have a breathless chance at folly? Besides, Delta made us an offer we couldn't refuse: $115 for round trip tickets.

This was the first time we'd flown since September 11; James said he wasn't nervous, but we ended up being like kids on Christmas Eve and only getting about one or two hours of sleep the night before departure. Our airline experience was in general, good. The one tiresome thing was that James got caught in the "take your shoes off" line in Newark on the return trip, which wouldn't have been that bad had he not been proceeded by three Indian ladies, one with a baby. They were wearing their traditional jewelry and of course set off the sensors repeatedly. I was also wanded in Newark, which was painless.

My sum total of knowledge of Nyack, New York, consisted of the old song "Let's Get Away from It All," with its line "let's take a kayak to Quincy and Nyack." (James wasn't even familiar with the song!) To our delight it was a lovely small town, truly directly on the banks of the Hudson River (Main Street ends at the marina), and, to my own happy surprise, the houses were of the vintage of those in my dad's old neighborhood, so I felt right at home, especially after we eschewed the usual fast food places and ate at one of the little restaurants, an Italian bakery and deli, that dot the main street. Long ago, I could tell, these stores had been shoe shops and pharmacies and small groceries and dress shops and five-and-tens; now antique shops are sprinkled liberally in the old storefronts.

(Funnies: we saw two amusing restaurant names: a delicatessen called the "Hello Delly!" and a sandwich shop called "The Kayak in Nyack.")

For supper, we chose a Japanese place, Ichi Riki. It was truly outstanding: the beef teriyaki was tender and sweet and James had a surfeit of delicious sukiyaki.

Across from Ichi Riki was the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center, our goal for the evening. Rupert Holmes' new comedy-thriller, Thumbs was appearing there from March 9 to 24, starring Kathie Lee Gifford and Diana Canova. While we were intrigued by the stars, the real draw for us, aside from its authorship, was that a prominent supporting role was played by Tom Beckett, the delightful actor who played Mr. Foley, the sound effects man, on Rupert' series Remember WENN for four seasons.

I must aside that I heard several snide remarks and nasty comments about the star of Thumbs from the moment she was announced. My sum knowledge of Kathie Lee Gifford was watching an episode of Regis and Kathie Lee (Sam Neill was on). Oh, and I bought a couple of "her clothes" from WalMart for a job interview. I had heard many jibes about her, but I was certain if she was chosen for the role of Marta Dunhill she was capable of playing it. Frankly, the snide remarks annoyed me. How can you judge a person having not seen them perform?

An extra perk on this trip was that we were meeting a fellow Remember WENN fan and attending the performance with him. Rodney Walker has been a regular in WENN fandom for many years now and has a great website with media clips and episode analyses. He lived only a 4 hour drive away and had indeed arrived the night before.

As the song goes, it was truly "one enchanted evening" (despite the gloomy weather; James and I rather reveled in the chill, as it was 70 nasty degrees back in Atlanta). Dinner, as I mentioned, was superb, and we had a surprise guest during the meal--Rupert himself, who hadn't been able to join us due to being backstage before the performance, but who stopped to say hello for a few minutes.

The play itself was funny and suspenseful. Kathy Lee Gifford did a superb job in the role of Marta and Diana Canova was hilarious as the folksy yet shrewd Sheriff Jane Morton. Tom Beckett was priceless in the role of Deputy Wilton Dekes, "a few fries short of a Happy Meal," and supporting actors Brad Bellamy and Brian Letscher fit their roles to a T. There was also a gorgeous set to accompany the production.

After the performance we were meeting Rupert and his production assistant Teressa Esposito at a bar across the street (yes, we went into an Irish bar on the eve of St. Patrick's Day; they even had bagpipes!), but first we had to fetch our car: the complimentary valet parking closed directly after the show. It was quite nippy outside waiting "on line" for our keys, but Teressa, suffering from a bad cold, was sweet enough to ask Tom Beckett to come outside to say hello to us. We were so overwhelmed we even forgot to ask for a photo (but all of us probably would have been blurred from shivering so hard).

The next two hours were marvelous; our only wish was it could have lasted longer! We sat at the back of Walsh's munching on finger food and talking with Rupert and Teressa about the show, Remember WENN, and anything else we could think of. Alas, midnight struck and the ball was over.

On the way out we had a surprise: Rupert walked up to a three-story building next to the Italian place James and I had eaten at earlier in the day. It turned out this building, which now houses a wraps place, was the place his immigrant grandfather had started his dry-goods business, and the family had lived in the rooms above! Across the street, in what was now the parking lot of the theatre, had once stood the school Rupert had gone to, and which he had written a song about, "The Old School" (a piece I still can't get through without tears in my eyes).

Sunday I think we all felt a little like Cinderella after the ball. The three of us had breakfast at the hotel, did some photos downtown, and then Rodney was off to home. James and I walked around a little downtown, visiting a music store and a bookstore, then went to the huge local Palisades Place mall (I've never seen a mall with a Home Depot and a Target in it before!) for a Chinese buffet lunch, which, after the fine food the day before, was a bit of a letdown. In retrospect, we should have eaten in Nyack again--there was a Chinese place just off the square.

Here's hoping someone finds that glass slipper soon...

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:29:00 AM

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