This week i attended my daughter's graduation from NYU ... and let me tell you, i'm exhausted.
It was 2 days of non-stop ... starting before we even left the house (3 hours away from Manhattan), and my car sprung a problem, for which the prescription was "get it towed in". So instead of the Element, we took the Mini (very funny, because we had to pick up our son from JFK right after daughter's graduation, so picture 3 people, 4 bags, and a pair of skis in a Mini Cooper ... )
Arrived in NYC just in time to get our hotel room, get washed & changed, and get to the Iridium to see the wonderful Les Paul play his late night weekly show ... at 93 going on 94, he's still got the ability to wow an audience with his delicious sounds, as well as make us laugh ... and the later show is always an open-mike affair too, which adds into the mix some amazing lesser-known talents (and sometimes well-known).
So that was the later show, the one that started at 10 pm ... but no matter, the night was still young. Enter, Hopscotch.
Hopscotch on the Brooklyn Bridge, that is. IT WAS RUMORED that there was an art project happening there, namely an effort of some young artists to bring a smile to peoples' faces, and draw with chalk a non-stop succession of hopscotch courses from one end of the bridge to the other. I've never been one of those people who can look but not touch, so yes, i have now drawn on the Brooklyn Bridge with chalk too. And hopped many of the courses. At 3 a.m. i decided i was pretty tired!
Cut to next day, graduation day one, at Madison Square Gardens. My first time there ... and i have to say i was quite disappointed ... there were no gardens! All these years, i envisioned this gorgeous concert venue amidst hanging indoor gardens and other plantings. If i look up the history, i'm sure i'll find out the origin of it's name. And, not only but also ... there we sat through 2 hours or more of speeches, only to find that there would be no individual presentation of degrees by the Dean ... my daughter's graduating class was TOO BIG. I almost felt taken ... i mean, is this not what every parent wants to see? Oh well, so she graduated anyway, that's the important detail here. Oh, and we had a great guest speaker ... Whoopi Goldberg, who bought down the house when she had the interpreter come up on stage where she could see her ... and then proceeded to tell a story that involved "kahunas", for which we all know the sign now!
Next a celebratory dinner up at the Boathouse in Central Park. But wait ... before that ...
The post-graduation street fair! We hotfooted it (actually, we subwayed it) down to the streets around Washington Square, to enjoy some time on the midway, amongst street performers, jazz bands, non-jazz bands ... sampling all sorts of freebie foods ... to the accompaniment of 50 mph winds that dropped the temps below acceptable, making that cozy restaurant seem more appealing by the minute.
So back up ... all the way to 72nd ... then a brisk walk into the park towards our dinner. On the way in, we came across a curious thing, a man with a huge camera and lens on a tripod, trained at the top of one of the buildings on Fifth. My curiosity got the better of me, and i had to ask ... WHAT is he photographing? "Hawk", he said. So i took a look through the viewfinder, and there, perched quite happily on about a 15th floor balcony, was a Red-Tailed Hawk, a beautiful magnificent bird, who looked for all the world, as if he was sitting on his own balcony. The guy evidently does this for a living, and produced many photos for us of the hawks of the city, from some amazing vantage points too. And a website address. We were really getting cold by this time.
Since we couldn't actually see where the restaurant was while we were walking to it, i got out my new toy (my iPhone!), activated the self-locator in Google maps, and got us to the restaurant. At last, the temps were now well below 50 degrees (and yet it was mid-May). But believe it or not, the restaurant had their entire front side open, and no heat umbrellas. Gorgeous view 'n' all, but ... once those doors are open, they apparently stay open. So after dreaming of this nice warm restaurant with the beautiful view, for hours, we "endured" our dinner instead. The waiter was a fine waiter, though.
Bed was the warmest place after that, but alas, with an early start the next day, and utter exhaustion after the previous night on the Brooklyn Bridge, we never even got to enjoy the warmth. Didn't know a thing until the alarm went off the next morning.
Another very important date ... graduation of the whole entire school, up at the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. So back to the subway, only this time, a nice long ride, WITH A SEAT. We were earlier than our daughter told us to be, and felt quite proud of ourselves ... until we got out at 166th, and virtually fell into a sea of about 5,000 other people who got there "early" too! It was sheer chaos, until we heard someone telling everyone the line starts "down there" ... ha ha, which turned out to be about half a mile down the street under the El. However many people we passed on the way down there, we knew we must be doing somewhat well, because even more people passed us once we were in the line!
And once into the stadium, we surprisingly got ourselves a front row seat right above the spot where our daughter's faculty was scheduled to be ... although it meant we wouldn't be able to see right into the official tent ... instead it would be the big screen for us. It was a toss-up ... our daughter, or the tent. No big deal ... we still had a front row seat!
What a huge stadium. With over 5,000 students, and many more than 20,000 parents and friends there, this was an appropriate venue for the all-NYU graduation, and it was indeed the first year they've had it there. Hillary was the guest speaker that day, but also she was the recipient of an honorary degree, her doctorate of law, i believe ... as were many others. And of course, there was no procession of students ... if 1,000 students were too many at Madison Square Gardens yesterday, then 5,000 would be ridiculously impossible here!
And if i thought our entry was chaos, then you should have seen the schlmozzl when it was over! (i love that word!) Words can't even describe it, so i wont try ... but if you can imagine that most of that 25,000 people had to take the subway back into town. I felt quite sorry for those commuters who were blindsided by us upon disembarking their train, it was like a stray salmon or two trying to swim upstream in a class 4 rapids!
There were no seats on this train of course, but we took it all the way down to the Village, where our kids had collectively booked an entire floor of "Jane" for a post grad lunch ... a close-knit group of friends and their families all in the one location ... over good food and good booze (cosmo's for me and one of Alex's grandmothers ... we went right for the hard stuff!)(well, she did first ...).
Great fun afternoon ... but the Agora gallery has to wait now till another visit, and the girls never got their little spree in Macy's (do "spree" and "little" go in the same sentence?) Instead, we stopped in at our daughter's apartment, and fell asleep. Except for getting a taxi back up to 31st and our hotel, that was where our day ended.
Only one more big commitment ... our son from JFK ... great parents we are, we realized that while we had his arrival time, we had no idea what airline he was coming in on! Duh ... but a little calling around gave us what would be the wrong answer ... and then a text, "on the ground!", to which i re-texted "what airline???". You see, there are 9 terminals to choose from at JFK airport!
So, to bring this little story full circle ... fitting everything into the Mini. No problem ... stuff all the bags in, up to the ceiling, and the skis too ... and send the boy into Manhattan on the train. He wanted to go see his sister anyway. It worked great ... perfect example of "where there's a will there's a way".
Now we're back home in Pa., and he's having his own New York Minute.
But it wont be the last time, for any of us. Not the first or the last. Our life is a succession of NY Minutes ... it might be 3 hours away, but in our hearts it is 'our city', and i think it always will be ... it's just a different experience every time we go. ... so, till the next time ... cheers! (said with Cosmo in hand).
