Blog Catch Up -

Thanks to my husband, I had the best birthday Saturday. I think all my bitching and complaining about wanting to actually do something this year paid off. Either that, or 7 people just decided it was the perfect time to spend a hell of a lot of money for no reason.

Saturday afternoon at 4:30pm, Earl and I were picked up in a beautiful white limo lined with cool fiber optic lights inside the walls and ceiling, and taken to the 10:30pm show at Caroline’s Comedy Club in Manhattan. Accompanying us were 6 friends, a lot of beer, and an ample supply of Smirnoff Ice. Very, very nice!

Aside from attending a burlesque show in Manhattan last spring for a bachelor/bachelorette party, I hadn’t been to NYC in over 10 years. I’m not fond of the city (a little too dingy, smelly, and concrete for me), but I was excited to be out and about for a night with all the crazies and freaks.

The limo was instructed to pick each person up in front of their house, as part of the fun of renting a limo is having people see you get in it. So off we went, picking our people up... and it went pretty smoothly until a wrong turn landed us stuck in some guy's long, windy, Rhododendron-covered, narrow driveway. Three failed attempts to turn around eventually resulted in having to back out - has anyone ever tried to back a limo out of a long, windy, Rhododendron-covered, narrow driveway? Thankfully, no one was home to laugh at us.

We made one more stop at a pizza place for some quick food. Sure, we got some strange looks. Perhaps some may have thought it was a bit excessive to take a limo to get pizza, but what the hell, right?

We ate, we drank, and soon enough we were on our way.

We had a 1 1/2 hour ride ahead of us, and I guess I should have used the bathroom before we left because 30 minutes before we got to the city, I was full.

I tried to keep my mind on other things by looking at the pretty fiber optic lights and counting the stitching in the lovely leather seats, but eventually even that great fun was not enough of a distraction. Finally, we entered the city and I thanked the good Lord for not throwing any traffic into the picture. But shake my leg as I may, we were still 10 minutes from our destination. I ended up playing a new game of trying to guess if anyone else had to go as bad as me just by the look on their faces, but they all seemed to be preoccupied with laughing and trying to talk over the music. I'm not sure why I felt the need to inform everyone; I guess misery loves company. I announced my urgency to burst, and was comforted by 5 others agreeing that finding a rest room would be a lovely idea. However, our limo driver who was from Bethlehem and did not know NYC very well at all, decided that there was no good place to pull over and we should probably just wait until we got to the club.

By the time the driver sorted out the various directions being yelled from the back seat, I thought I was going to die. It hurt to even sit forward enough to put my jacket on, so the idea of having to actually stand up and walk was torture. We made it to Broadway and pulled in front of Caroline's. I took a big breath in and made my way across the seats, slipped my feet down to the sidewalk, and walked as hunched over as possible to the rest rooms inside, for fear that I would rip open if I stood up straight.

I think I heard angels singing as I relieved the pain.

It took me another 20 minutes to be able to stand up straight, but soon I felt like a new woman.

We had some time before the show started so we stood outside the doors taking in the sites. A funny looking gentleman with fuzzy hair and a nose that had been busted several times, came to stand with us. We recognized him as one of the comedians scheduled for our 10:30 show. Apparently he had been a boxer before he was a comedian, and after viewing his performance, he should go back to boxing. He was terrible. I enjoyed the 3 other comedians however, so the show was not a total loss.

By the way, for those of you who haven’t experienced NYC prices yet, let me just tell you - not including the cover charge to get in the door - one plate of nachos and drinks for 8 people for one show in a comedy club will cost you about $500.00...

The night didn’t stop there. As I exited Caroline’s, Earl handed me 4 long stem red roses, introduced me to a bunch of sailors with foreign accents upon which had pleasant conversation, and then continued along our merry way for some bar hopping. I think we made it to three, none of which had sanitary rest rooms facilities or clean glasses, but all were packed with bizarre and entertaining individuals. Made the bartender with the funny purple hair in Bethlehem seem kinda plain.

As I looked around me at all the people huddled in little social groups around their wobbly sticky tables, with pictures of beer and fancy mixed drinks, yelling in to one another’s ears in attempt to be louder than the music, I tried to imagine what it would be like if this was were I lived and this is what I did every weekend. One thing for sure, I would need a really good paying job. A bottle of beer was a mere $8, and mixed drinks were about $15 a glass. Earl and I are used to the prices at our club in Bethlehem... $.75 cent drafts. So I was treating my $8 beer like bottled gold and held on to it for dear life. God forbid I dropped it.

Eventually, the night had to come to an end. We piled back into the limo for the long ride home. I made sure I was very, very empty before getting in. The limo dropped everyone off, and of course, Earl and I were last. Why we're always last, I don't know. We pulled up to our house at 6:00 am. It's been quite some time since I stayed out all night, in the city, with a limo...

A nightmare about piles of dog pooh taking over my yard in combination with a desire to shower woke me up around 1:30pm. I carefully slipped my shoes on trying hard not to get dizzy looking towards my feet. It was evident that H2O isn't always enough to prevent a hangover. Earl rolled out of bed in time for the big game (around 6pm) and we spent our first Super Bowl ever with glasses of water in our hands instead of a cans of beer.

It was a good, good birthday.