The Sun and Me Had a Date

...and it worked out well that it was just us. He's an easy kid to get along with. He doesn't whine too much, isn't constantly hungry or thirsty or tired, and he loves Times Square as much as I do.

Back in the day, when I was first let loose on the City, we would go down to Times Square and take flix. How much were they, back then? Like $5.00 or something? And they'd have these big elaborate backdrops, or those bamboo chairs, and some dude with a Polaroid Camera shouting "Flix! Flix!" And Times Square was SO seedy back then. Plenty of neon, like there is now, but seedy, and dirty, and lots of hookers. Peep Shows. Scary people. Loads of fun and oodles of entertainment. The picture on the right was taken when I was about 18... ah...."Could it be that it was all so simple then..."

Today, it's super-slick. Still lots of neon. And "mad crowded, yo." The Sun and I started off at McDonalds, which was wall-to-wall people. Then we went to Toys R Us. The Naruto stuff was WELL picked over, so all the Sun scored was some trading cards. But he got two little Transformers figures and a hand-held Sudoku game. I have to brag here; the kid loves stuff like Chess and Sudoku, and can actually play them. For considerable amounts of time. Whereas me, the "smart one" growing up, took one look at the Sudoku game and my eyes glazed over. Down in the basement, he wanted a Naruto game for his PS2, but it was rated "T"... which normally I won't allow. He was begging, and I was relenting, until I went to get on the checkout line. Uh, NO! It was LONG.... lots and lots of people buying lots and lots of Wii accessories and games.

So, we left. We crossed over the Marriott Marquis, and "snuck" in so we could ride the elevators. I felt like I was doing something by sneaking in, till I realized that everyone in the elevators was there for the same reason. There was a big sign out that said that after 4P, hotel key card were required to get into the hotel, but until then (it was quarter-to) hey, ride to your heart's content. So we rode up and down twice:

It kind of sucked that we didn't get a "clean" ride straight from 45 down to 1, but from 45 to 8 was close enough.

Then we walked up to Rockefeller Center, to see the penny field from the Penny Harvest. It was so very cool to see about a million dollars in pennies all laid out, all collected from kids around the city. It meant a lot to the Sun to see his school's name along the side, and to see all the pennies that had been donated. He took handfuls of "his" pennies and threw them back in.

We blew off karate. It's vacation. And I needed my hair did, so we stopped off at Gourmet Garage for sushi (my kid LOVES sushi... maybe he was Japanese in his previous life) and then he sat and played Sudoku while I got my hair done. The Diva and Slugboy met us.

The Diva's court date--mediation--had gone exceedingly well. (Nene got his agreement done in a day, and the Diva's is taking slightly more time but only slightly.... so how come mine is STILL not done???? Fuck. But I'm happy for her; she did really well and I told her so.) She had to make concessions she wasn't thrilled about, but she was smart enough to know it wasn't worth prolonging the misery over.

We walked over to Nana's to get the TinyOne and it was nice to see Poppy, in particular. Then the Diva had a hard time leaving; she's not overly thrilled about being with me, but I think that her discomfort will encourage her to keep it moving and get herself ready for her own place. Of course, the Professor feels terribly guilty, which amuses the hell out of me.

And then the Professor brought us home. Everyone got to bed in good order, but I'm up cuz I needed my quiet time...