So I’m starting to recover from my trip to NYC with the Sassy Fam. It was great to get to see NYC Bro and spend the holiday and his birthday with him. Gator Mom and Gator Dad stayed at the East Side Marriott whilst I crashed with NYC Bro at his place in Brooklyn. His neighborhood was great…highlights included, "Thats the corner I was mugged on." and "Thats the corner store I never go to." I am not so sure he likes his neighborhood all that much? Then I skated my way across the giant ice patch on the way to the subway and we were off to Manhattan.

So we arrived on NYC Bro’s birthday and he requested sushi. We got to the sushi place and it was a very interesting mix of sushi, Japanese, and Korean. Which is ironic because most Japanese folks we know and have known aren’t exactly fans of Korea in general. Gator Mom told a cute story of one of her friends referring to them at "garlic eaters". This comment is highly topical for a moment we had later in the trip, so just take note of this :::insert giant red sign that says CLUE here::: So I convinced Gator Dad to order bulgogi (essentially the Korean version of Mongolian Beef) and we all got sushi, Gator Mom had noodles. NYC Bro’s lady friend is a real cutie (oh, did I mention he has a lady friend? She’s a real cutie. We like her. So am I dooming this relationship by liking her? Ok fine, we hate her! Hates her, precious!). Gator Dad liked the bulgogi :::high five myself::: and even ate sushi. So around 7:30 p.m. on Monday the 22nd, if you felt the earth shudder a little bit on its axis it was when it stopped turning for a brief second as Gator Dad stepped entirely outside of his comfort zone…and LIKED it. After that it was crash time.

Met Miss YankeeSouth at the Met and had a wonderful time wandering through the Egyptian exhibit and not really noticing anything because we were catching up. I think there were mummies? A sarcophagus? And a temple. There was definitely a temple. Then we took a wrong turn and ended up in the Met’s equivalent of "The Random Room" (for my peeps, its their version of the "Random Bathroom" – just rows and rows of displays of crockery, china, random art, frames?, and such). After getting severely creeped out (comments included, "This is like the room in the movie where the victim runs to hide from the serial killer.") we fumbled our way over to the modern art wing. NYC Bro and I were in heaven in the modern art section, a particular favorite was the completely RANDOM Shark in formaldehyde solution. If they hadn’t posted a "no pictures" sign RIGHT next to the damn thing you know we would have been posing like crazy people. After oohing at the other artists we liked and trying to avoid cherubs and such, we had a lovely lunch with Miss YankeeSouth.

Then it was off to get ready for the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. We wandered down to Rockafeller Center to see the tree and the rink and all the lights. Saks 5th Avenue had a great lights display and their windows were all glam and sparkly, very on theme since Swarovski Crystal was sponsoring the Rockafeller tree. "Lets hear it for the rich people!" I shouted after the musical review and light up snowflakes montage ended (it was like the laser light show at Stone Mountain, minus the lasers and rednecks). The Christmas Spectacular was great. A MOUNTAIN of a man sat down in front of Gator Dad, which sent Gator Mom and I into literal fits of laughter. Did I mention there was a portion of the show in 3-D? Yeah, pretty awesome for us gentiles. I guess the jewish folks in NYC content themselves with the fact that they have the monopoly on the funny people (along with the Canadians). Because I kept waiting for at least one mention of Hannukah, Kwanzaa, anything…nada. Not even a dradle as a prop.

:::Side note: It was Hannukah while we were there and it was hilarious that we kept getting asked at almost every subway stop in Manhattan if we were jewish by the poor guys freezing their butts off. NYC Bro got asked, I got asked, Gator Mom got asked…but Gator Dad? CLEARLY a gentile. I kept joking to Gator Mom that I was going to tell one of the Hannukah Harry’s that I was a Shixa the next time I was asked…:::

Christmas Eve involved lots of rain and cold weather slogging through Manhattan looking for last minute gifts because we’d sworn we weren’t giving gifts since this trip WAS our gift to each other but then miraculously we all seemed to have gifts for some people. I still haven’t found a gift for Gator Dad so seriously, any suggestions?? We had dinner in Little Italy at Umberto’s Clam House which was straight out of a scene from The Sopranos. There was a guy next to us who was such a stereotype I could imagine Alex P. Cheatin literally CRINGING with Italian dismay at the sight of him (gold chain, leather jacket, gelled hair, NEW YAWK accent). Gator Mom and Dad had to fight to keep straight faces as they overheard his conversation with his date, "I got the DUI after I had only 2 glasses of wine!" "When I was incarcerated…" and his date just patted his hand and said, "I totally undah-staaind." Moment. Of. Awesome. Then we walked over to Washington Park where I decided I should go off the path in my smooth bottomed boots and promptly fell. I then scoot/skated the rest of the way with Gator Dad holding me up, literally hooting with laughter.

Christmas Day we did presents (Gator Mom got me my first Swarovski Crystal star like I’ve been wanting to get for years…so ever year I can get one and eventually have a tree covered in crystal!) and then it was off to Christmas Dim Sum in China Town! The Golden Unicorn gets 4 stars from the Sassy Family. 4 stories of dumpling heaven. The wait was worth it. A little chinese girl turned to her Mom, clearly confused at the wait to get into a place she was used to walking into and her Mom said, "Its Christmas, all the white people come here because everything else is closed." :::Points to the CLUE sign::: We then went to see "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which was so incredibly awful I will just note that Gator Dad picked the movie. He actually LIKES Keanu Reeves. We spent the rest of the trip coming up with alternative endings for the movie. One of the suggestions Gator Dad had was that all the evil people on earth were suddenly trapped wearing 3 inch heels for the rest of their lives. LOL He’d seen a woman on the subway in some KILLER heels and decided she was being punished.

Our last full day in Manhattan we decided we wanted to go see a Broadway Musical so after a slice of New Yawk pizza, we headed down to Times Square (after a brief pit stop to see the Macy’s windows – which although crowded, were fun to see and I had more fun looking at the people’s faces around us – pure delight!). I then braced myself for the sea of stupidity humanity on Times Square, firmly keeping an eye on Gator Mom who is so petite you can easily lose her in a crowd. We head down the street and suddenly NYC Bro points and

I shit you not. Back story: A few weeks ago, I called NYC Bro on a Sunday morning to chat. He answered from a rooftop in NYC where he was participating in a photo shoot with his lady friend and a few of his friends from NY. They told them they would let them know if they were going to be on the billboard and uhhh, sounds like the communication sucks. SURPRISE! Its your face on a billboard that covers the ENTIRE SIDE OF A BUILDING. On Times Freaking Square. It was a Kodak shoot, so lots of pics of them all having fun and then there was video of he and his lady friend getting into a photo booth looking all cute. His mug was ALL over the dang billboard (yes my brother is handsome and has an amazing smile so of course Kodak loves him and no, you can’t have his number). So we took lots of pictures, text messaged friends, and got to ooh and ahh over NYC Bro’s moment o’ fame.

We ended up with Avenue Q tickets and then Gator Dad got all in a huff because we’d failed to mention that the stars of Avenue Q are, uhhh, muppets. So yeah, there were muppets. Gator Dad then declared he’d leave if there were puppets. Oops. So we end up in these incredibly cramped seats but we were on the first row of a section so we had a great view. And then we watched muppets sing and dance and have SEX (OMG) and sing about being racist :::all the signs point here::: So I end my blog with some video from Avenue Q… "Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist"

Oh yeah…and the internet is a great place…for PORN.

OMG I saw this with my parents, y’all! I think I died a little bit that night…

We met with a friend of mine from Atlanta who I hadn’t seen in a few years for drinks after the show, it was great to catch up!  So it was a great trip.  I’m glad to be home and sleeping in my own bed.  Great week!