The Family Loves Billy Joel

A family outing -- mom and dad's gift to us for no apparent reason other than my mom and dad wanted to see Billy Joel and Eddie's always wanted to see Billy Joel and my brother and I are our parents other children.  So off we went!

Before getting on the train to the city, I remembered the rule I'd made quite a few years ago that my mom and I cannot go to concerts together.  Why not?  Why are we waiting inside?  Should we go outside now?  The train is coming. It's coming.  We should go outside. Mom, it's cold, and the train has to pull in and stop before we get on it. We should go outside and wait.  This from the woman who has spent half her life on trains and also ran up and down stairs to catch a train from a different station to get to see the Janis musical.   Meanwhile, my dad and Eddie are laughing at us.  Nice.

When we got to Penn, we headed up the escalator and climbed some stairs and then faced the chaos of security for which we all got on separate lines.  From three rows over, I hear my mom shouting my name.  I turn and see not my mom but T and N!  T and I had spoken earlier in the week and found out that we were going to the same show, but there was no plan to meet up.  If there'd been a plan, we wouldn't have met so easily.  Instead, after the security guy accidentally got his wand stuck in my hair (for which he apologized profusely), we all met up inside under the ceiling that Eddie likes so much because it shows hockey games on it.  We split up so my parents could find an elevator and then wound up on the escalators behind T and N anyway. 

Finally, we got to the seats where my brother was waiting and found that the seats had tvs.  Why did the seats have tvs?  We turned them on and watched some sports channels while we were waiting, but why were they there in the first place?  Eddie and my brother thought that maybe it was because the press people sit near there, but they can have their own tvs in the pressbox, so again, why are there tvs?  This was my second trip to the new Garden, and yet again, I was finding surprises left and right. 

After settling in with snacks (I was between Eddie and my dad so I was passing Peanut M&Ms back and forth), 8 PM rolled around, the lights went down a little, and then the crowd went wild!  For Gavin DeGraw!!

Now none of us knew there was an opening act, but when Gavin DeGraw came out, my parents had no clue what was happening.  All they knew was that the man at the piano was NOT Billy Joel.  My brother knows of Gavin DeGraw, but he's not a fan.

Me and Eddie on the other hand?  Well, let me just say what Eddie said to me in that moment: "I've seen Gavin DeGraw in concert more than any other singer I've seen live." And that is so true.  Gavin DeGraw has opened for pretty much any concert we've been to.  And so while the family sat stunned and confused, Eddie and I sang really loud and obnoxiously, swaying and clapping, rooting on our now favorite musician of all time.  I kept saying to them, You might know this song!  They were like, no we don't.  They recognized one song he sang (you know, the one from that awful OTH show, the one everyone knows).






The lights came up, and then the lights went down.  Then there was a man at the piano.  And it was, finally, THE Pianoman. And it was magnificent. We all sang. We all clapped. We all swayed. We cried in different capacities when he sang Goodnight Saigon and had the FDNY on stage. He played "When I'm 64" and some other non-Billy-Joel tunes. He played some songs I've never heard of. Then he played more stuff we knew and we sang some more and then some more again.





It was a long concert that went quickly. We were beat by the end. We said goodbye to my brother and then hopped on the next train home from Penn. It was the longest train in the history of trains. Even my dad said, That train ride was so slow!, and my dad usually doesn't mind anything. Still, a long train ride home is worth every second of a Billy Joel concert. And that's why I have awesome parents.

What A Wedding

Getting ready for a winter wedding....

Hmm, what's this in the dress I borrowed from S?

Ooh, two bucks!

I love a dress with pockets.  I love a friend who lends.

My man, tying his tie.

My man, fixing his shirt.

My man, putting on his jacket.  Snazzy!

After getting all pretty and handsome, we winterized to face the falling snow.

Then there was dancing and drinking and eating and laughing.

We stopped at Panera for a snack before the reception.

And a hot chocolate with chocolate chip cookie marshmallows. 

Standing on the dance floor

Taking a picture of ourselves in the mirror.  Because we are children.

Pretty centerpieces

The wedding was post-collision caused by Speedy Baddriverson, so I was looped up.

Even so, it was a fun time. 

The guys

The gals

When we got home, my feet were still nice and cozy.

And my husband was still lookin all GQ:

And we also saw the rise of the Wedding Olive.

I don't quite remember why, but this olive was important enough to be featured in its own photo.  Like I said, I was looped up and it was a fun time.

Congrats to D and F.

Best Birthday This Year

It was my birthday.  It was the best.

To kick things off, Eddie and I went to Sip This for a reading to support one of the poets in the group I run.  The reading was a lot of fun.  Eddie actually took pictures.  It started late, and we were both wondering, What's Dd waiting for? (She's the host).  I was nibbling on Eddie's crescent when Dd started talking about my birthday being the next day.  Then everyone sang happy birthday.  Unexpected, but fun!  Then out from the kitchen came a guy with a waffle.  Oh my.  Really unexpected, but yum!  Later on, Dd told me she'd looked at my blog to see if I'd mentioned what kind of waffles I like, but then simply picked one she thought I'd like after not getting any info.

FFR: I like all waffles.

Open mic

Multitasking...and look at that waffle!

Oreos, vanilla ice cream, Belgian waffle, birthday candle

On the 7th, I awoke at 6 AM.  Eddie moved, which meant he was up (right?), so I pounced: It's my birthday!  He said, Yeay it's your birthday I'm asleep sleeping time now.  So I went to shower while he slept.  When I was out of the shower, I tidied up the kitchen while softly singing about how it was my birthday.   Eddie appeared at 6:57. I asked, Why are you awake so early?  He answered, It's your birthday!  Then he surprised me with these:

At 8 AM, we were in the car, on the road to the city.  I wanted to see Lightness Of Being, the Public Art Fund exhibit in City Hall Park.  The only trepidation arose from the knowledge that there might be a clown on a bench sleeping.  It's one of those out-there human art pieces, you know, like Tilda Swinton in a box or something.

FYI: Brooklyn Bridge is closed.  Take the Williamsburg.

A wide variety of aesthetic:

Now that's a pretty big banana

And then we did some experimenting with Eddie's camera functions:

Then we grew up and took some more pictures like this:

In our defense, he could be art. Maybe he was subbing for the scary clown.

This was the coolest by far:

And now, a montage:



After coming home from seeing all the art, we headed to the mall to collect two of my birthday freebies.  I got mascara from Sephora (the cashier's mom's birthday was the same as mine!) and a sample fragrance from Bath & Body, though that was a Facebook freebie that happened to fall on my birthday and not an actual birthday freebie, but it was free so who cares.

We came home and I began my MOOC on Coursera about Modern Poetry.  In my introduction, I told everyone it was my birthday because I'm a 12 year old.  The instructor wrote back, welcoming me to the course and wishing me a happy birthday.

Then it was time for dinner!  Eddie and I grabbed my brother and headed to Lumix to meet SMM, AF, AK, and J.  We were seated at a hibachi table.  I haven't had hibachi since I was in like 7th grade.  The chef was the most entertaining guy around. Fire in the hole--BAM--he set the grill on fire.  Then he made a volcano out of onions, made the onions steam and move while blowing a train whistle, had a doll of a boy squirt water at us, and then he flipped zucchini at us so we could catch it in our mouths.  Eddie was first up and missed every time, but that was good because he doesn't like anything green and would have spit it out.  I missed every time and one got caught in my hair.  My brother missed and one landed on AK's plate.  She missed every time and they were all over the floor.  J? Caught one!  AF caught one!  SMM caught one on the first try.  They had the advantage of seeing all of us go first, I'm pretty sure.

The food?  Delish.  I ate the soup and the salad and the two shrimp that come with the meal and Eddie's two shrimp that comes with his, and then my rice and my veggies and some of Eddie's veggies and one of my brother's shrimp and my chicken.  Ummm, the plate was a square foot jammed with food, and I ate almost all of it.  My brother even said, I don't think I've ever seen you eat that much.

Then some sort of odd hip hop techno music started booming through the restaurant.  I thought to myself, that doesn't go with their decor....but then I saw the train of servers heading to our table and a candle and then we all realized the odd hip hop techno music was a birthday song.  Eddie had mentioned briefly to the chef that it was my birthday, and from that came a free fried iced cream.  It was the size of a softball, had two blueberries next to it, a side of finely sliced apple, whipped cream, and then underneath, some orange something or other.  Omigod, I was in heaven and somehow made some room to eat half.

I rolled myself out of the restaurant and we headed to the house where T, N, AEF, C, D, and F met up with us.  We told them about our feast.  I offered them to try their hips at hula hooping because Eddie got me a set of three for my birthday.

FYI: Hula hoops come in different sizes.  Eddie and I were using one from the set, and I was really upset because I couldn't do it.  Then I realized that they were different sizes.  I picked up the small one and I went for a minute straight and he was crying from laughing because I kept screaming the whole time LOOOOK I'M DOING IT I'M DOING IT I CAN STILL DO IT OMIGOD LOOOK AT MEEEEEEEE!

No one tried to hula hoop.

Then my parents appeared.  They always make an appearance at a party.  Eddie brought out a cake with candles and people sang and I blew out the candles and cut the cake awkwardly because the cake cutter I have has the serrated edge on the wrong side.  The candles were crammed into the cake and some wax had spilled over but everyone said it was edible still, so I stopped picking it out.  Some of the spillage was due to the candles breaking when Eddie put them in the cake.  He admitted, I just shoved them down in it.  It was still pretty.

 

I didn't have any cake because I was still rolling around from dinner.  Everyone said it was yummy.  I'll take their word for it.

As far as birthdays go, this one was pretty much fantastic.  In fact, I feel younger.  Yup, that's right.  Younger.  Except for feeling like I weight 478 pounds from all the food I ate in the past few days.  Aside from that, I'm like, what 22, 23ish?  Sounds about right.

A big thank you to everyone who made my day wonderful.