So, family and friends (and others who may wander by since my website is now live), you may have read my blog post of two years ago when my daughter surprised me with a scrapbook of the trip we didn't get to take due to the world in lockdown because of the outbreak of COVID-19.

Well, this year Jess invited me to live our scrapbooked trip in real time! We went to New York City on May 7-9, for Mother's Day 2022.

This one was pre-planned with a few revisions to the earlier trip that hadn’t happened, but we covered our two Major Events and enjoyed a whole lot of spontaneous fun in between. (Disclaimer: We do not imbibe with such gusto on ordinary weekends!!)

Also, I will say I had to overcome the programmed fear of crowds that's been fed to so many of us; I have not ventured very far from home in these two years, and certainly not to the focal center of so much TV coverage during the early days of the pandemic!

Jess and I, though, quadrupled vaxxed and armed with masks set off on a non-stop coach provided by Peter Pan Bus Lines out of Providence on Saturday morning, arriving at the massive Port Authority Midtown Bus Terminal four hours later with the afternoon ahead of us.

Weather? Haha! A chilly 56 degrees as the entire Northeast was the recipient of heavy storms moving across from the center of the nation. We stood with our small rolling suitcases under an awning on Eighth Avenue and considered our options to reach our hotel:

#1. Hail a cab. (Yeah, right. Us and about a dozen/hundred others! Uber and other ride-sharing companies have seen to the near-demise of taxis and have almost eliminated the color yellow from the streets!)

#2. Uber. Jess has the app and is pretty good with it, but again, rainy day and busy time.

#3. Walk. We were raincoated and umbrellaed, and our hotel was conveniently located only a half-block west of Seventh Avenue, north at Fifty-first Street.

"We’re at what number street, sweetie?" I asked Jess.

"Forty-second Street."

I did the math. Nine blocks! Regular blocks? Or the long ones? It didn’t matter ... Ohhh.

I had put myself into training prior to the trip knowing we would be walking a lot. Jess, of course, practices her yoga and mindfulness mediation in all facets of her life and is therefore in tip-top shape. I, on the other hand, not so much.

But I knew I could walk two miles, been doing it every day for a week. I had on my walking shoes with my orthotic inserts. So off we went!

Steady light downpour. Dodge oncoming people. Hold our umbrellas high waiting for a light to change so walkers can pass under them and not poke their eyes out. Lift suitcases to avoid rushing gutters. Watch out for slippery puddles and construction scaffolding.

We made it! Arriving at our small tourist hotel in the Times Square area we set our wet luggage on the racks, I hung my top layer of damp clothes and we planned our next adventures.

We had about five hours until our first Major Event, and hey, we're on the real version of Jess's "Fairy Tale of Pandemic Proportions!" Heaven knows, we could use a pick-me-up. Off we go in search of espresso martinis.

Now I have been to the Big Apple a number of times past, I stayed with Jess when she lived here years ago, have visited friends—and once for an elegant fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel—but I had never walked the neighborhoods. The city is a whole different critter at street level.

In Manhattan, one-point-six million people live, eat, work, shop, take their kids to and from school, play and survive. All from high in the sky to down to street level and below. In their neighborhoods is everything to sustain them.

Especially gathering places. Bars.

Slogging through the rain, we almost passed it at first. The corner barroom seemed closed, but when Jess pulled open the door to Jasper's, a blast from the roomful of party revelers and Kentucky Derby watchers greeted us.

Several seats sat vacant at the long wooden bar, and the pretty girl bartender shook us up a couple of delightful espresso martinis. We enjoyed them along with people-watching, then set out to see what we could find next.

Turning a corner in the misty drizzle, what should appear painted on the windows of an establishment? A good ol' Texas name: The Waylon!

Could it be that two Texas girls stumbled across a real country and western honkey-tonk in Hell's Kitchen? Yep. Well, Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon in Austin it wasn't, but for Neuu-Yoork-City it was okay. The beer menu even offered Shiner beer on draft!

We passed on that Texas delicacy and watered ourselves with cocktails, fueled ourselves with fried pickles and guacamole dip and home-fried tortilla chips, then set off again to see what episode in our grand pre-Mother's Day jaunt next awaited us.

Up a way on Eighth Avenue we saw not the Russian TEA Room but the Russian Vodka Room. Sounds like our kind of menu!

What should we discover but drinks with unique names and flavors of food never before tasted. Served, we learned, by handsome Ukrainians. A nice time was had by all.

Back to our hotel it was time to dress for today's Major Event!

Happy and tired, we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit on Sunday morning, but official Mother's Day beckoned with another Major Event planned for sunset.

My pedometer app on my phone showed almost four miles yesterday. Yea for me, as I wondered how far we would venture today.

First, though, we filled our tummies, then meandered north and east toward Central Park.

Reaching the park, we walked on the edge of it a bit. So pretty, the pearl left within the oyster shell of tall buildings.

Turning back into the city, we circumvented the Plaza Hotel and wove our way along Fifth Avenue, bypassing elegant stores bearing the top names in style and logos—since our quest was for a Bloody Mary at the bar purported to have invented that morning classic drink in 1934: the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel.

Alas, the bar didn't open until 4:00. We walked on to the hotel and the doorman pulled open the glass doors to that historic establishment. We stepped into the luxurious lobby.

The marble, the brass, the sparkling chandeliers: the hotel was the 1904 creation of one of the richest men in the world, John Jacob Astor IV. At that time, the Beaux-Arts-style building was the tallest in the city.

A uniformed bellman visited with us about the spectacular surroundings while I looked across at the elevator lobby and was taken back in time. I pulled Jess aside and replayed for her the story of my memorable evening that began while waiting for an elevator to take me to the Roof Ballroom on the 20th floor:

It was the mid-eighties. My writing had previously won me a month-long residency at Edna St. Vincent Millay's farm in the New York Berkshires. Past recipients of awards were invited to the Millay Colony's annual fundraising gala, A Night of Broadway Stars.

I was dressed to the nines as I stood waiting for an elevator car to come when a lovely white-haired lady, herself dressed to the nines, walked over to me. She asked me if I was going the Roof.

"Yes," I answered.

"May I please ride with you? I'm terrified of elevators," she said.

 "Of course," I said.

I introduced myself as a writing recipient and she introduced herself as Maureen Stapleton. I recognized her from a favorite film, Woody Allen's Interiors, where her role as the "second wife," Pearl, won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

As we entered the elevator, I put my arm around her and we clung to each other until the doors set us out in the Roof Ballroom.

I was pleased when Maureen continued to include me during the early part of the lavish reception as she was greeted by friends: Bernadette Peters, Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine, Mandy Patinkin, Bruce McGill, Tom Hulce (fresh from not winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Amadeus), and others whose names fail me now. We parted later and I resumed my invisible role as observer of those who were living their dreams.  

I concluded my trip down memory lane to Jess with the term I remember describing that magic evening: Little Nancy Stanfield from Big Wells, Texas, rubbing shoulders with the Stars of Broadway!

So much of life is being in the right place at the right time.

Back on the streets in the chilly but clearing drizzle, Jess and I wandered through areas that brought back to her memories of her time as an editor for Television Broadcast Magazine.

It was time to reconnoiter. We spied The Elgin restaurant on 48th Street and stopped in for a glass of bubbly.

Rain ending, our plan now was to head for the southern tip of the island on a red Hop-On Hop-Off open-air tour bus. As Super-Tourists we could view the sights above us, with our eventual destination of a six-o'clock arrival at our second Major Event.

We left Midtown, saw Downtown, Soho, Tribeca. We hopped off at the amazing Woolworth Building, found a coffee shop, then walked to see the Brooklyn Bridge. Coming back, we hopped on another bus and continued our sightseeing.

Riding back on the Westside Highway, we hopped off and walked to the Javits Center where Jess, wisely, used her Uber app to secure us a ride to the Empire State Building. We had reserved tickets to watch the sunset from the top of the famous landmark and arrived in time.

Security was like boarding an airplane, then we were wound through historic photo displays and finally whisked to the 86th Floor observation deck level.

Wow! A big wow! All around and below, as far as my eyes could see, stood buildings jutting up from the land; the only clear space was water.

A cold wind whipped around us and I thought about how on similar windy days during the Depression era of 1930-31, construction workers hugged exposed beams and tossed glowing rivets to be pounded into the 102-story living obelisk, a monument to man and money. The workers built the world's tallest building in a record-breaking one year and forty-five days! In 1950, it grew 222 feet when a 60-ton antenna pushed the spire height to 1,472 feet.

We were surprised to see that one corner was dedicated to romance! Before Covid times, a contest was held for a small number of Valentine’s Day weddings, and people take engagement photos here.

Our overcast day accommodated these two Mother's Day pilgrims with a western slit in the clouds where we got to experience if not a true sun-sinking beneath the horizon, at least an unforgettable streak at day's end. We hugged. Success!

With evening closing in, we Uber-ed back to our hotel tired, hungry, and you guessed it, thirsty! Miraculously, the tiny Italian restaurant directly across from where we staying was serving.

Full and happy, we walked the few steps back to our hotel. Boy, was I glad it was nearby. My pedometer had clocked five-point-six miles on my special day!

Morning found us with time to re-visit Times Square in the daylight, buy souvenirs and enjoy Krispy-Kreme doughnuts before we checked out.

Our hotel staff called us a real yellow taxi and we arrived at the Port Authority with more than enough time to make our bus.

Across one street we saw a hotel so we stopped in the bar for a parting drink of bubbly, raising our glasses to say good-bye to our forty-eight hours of fun. Jess's 2020 Fairy Tale of Pandemic Proportions had come to life.

Hurrying back to the terminal which, by the way, bills itself as “the busiest bus terminal in the world”, we were suddenly met with a maze of signs. One tiny sign told us that the little-known Peter Pan Bus Lines depot was on the lowest level and a long way off. Oh, dear! Our time of departure loomed near.

We headed down a while, then Jess parked me and my bag while she found a friendly bus man who kindly took us by way of a shortcut through the bowels of the cavernous station. Full speed ahead, inhaling waves of exhaust fumes, we made it to our bus just in time to stash our luggage and find seats.

An exciting ending to an exciting adventure! We napped on our way home, her husband picked us up in Providence and we parted from their house with grateful hugs and kisses.

Big Smiley-Face emoji here.

Thank you, Jess!