Because what is a savings account for if not doing completely impractical, spontaneous things?

Let’s face it: we’re not getting any younger. Robert Smith certainly isn’t. And the fact that we got tickets at all is pretty impressive. We’re going.

Attention, would-be robbers. Still have a roommate and a dog, so…. don’t even think about it.

It is not actually quite real yet. Kitti won’t be sure of it until we actually have the tickets in our hands. I’m fretting about the hotel. It’ll all work out. We’ve got this weird sort of luck.

Bad news: find out the show is the day before the Cherry Blossom festival starts, and essentially every hotel in your price range is utterly booked that weekend, except the ones that are in Alexandria, Virginia.

Hotel reservation: Made.

Seats secured on the Megabus: Check.

Is it November? No.

Dammit!

Watson, fetch my TimeSkip machine! And some jam.

I’d really like to reserve a hotel room sooner rather than later, because that is the week of Thanksgiving, and it is New York City we’re talking about, so rooms are going to go fast and be expensive.

I hate waiting. It makes me angsty.

Accomplished the knitting of a heel in a toe-up sock. Apparently the 37th time is the charm. Actually, it’s still not perfect. The picking-up of stitches didn’t go so well, so there are gaps. Also, maybe using size 1 needles wasn’t the best idea. The foot of the sock is fine, but it stretches pretty thin across the heel (and I didn’t do a narrow heel at all). But the important thing is that it worked, and I made it a few rounds into the start of the leg of the sock. I think I’ll get it eventually.

Killed my TomTom again. I think this time it’s because I have this habit of leaving it in the car and it’s been so insanely hot that the poor thing got overheated. I thought it was the adapter at first, because the light didn’t seem to be on (and the light for my cellphone adapter came on, proving that it wasn’t the plug that was faulty). It’s been replaced once before because it got fried (apparently if you plug the adapter into the car before you attach the adapter to the TomTom, it can short out the device). So I just bought a new one. Exact same kind (Amazon even told me so). It’s been exactly what I’ve needed, so I didn’t see a reason to consider anything else. I just have to remember to not leave it in the car all the time.

NOT having the TomTom made getting to Downs Park fun. We’ve only been there once before and I only had recall of about half the route. I got the directions from Google Maps and handed the iTouch to Kitti and let him navigate. Unfortunately the Google Maps directions didn’t give things like exit numbers, so we got lost. But I got things sorted out pretty quick and we had plenty of time to let Cardiff go mental. There are a lot of pictures over on Flickr.

We left almost in time to avoid the rain. I had to pull over at one point and wait out the worst of it because on 695, with traffic and pouring rain, the windshield wipers were essentially useless.

Cardiff got a bath at Dogma before we went home. Then Kitti and I got cleaned up and went to see Interpol. Really great show. I’m looking forward to the next CD. The new stuff they played really got my attention.

And now it’s Monday and back to work and all that jazz.

All the pictures are here.

They’re mostly just of the parade (which was shorter this year) but there are some crowd shots. I tried to get video of a guy lip synching and doing the entire dance routine from Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” but I was using Kitti’s camera, which apparently doesn’t get capture sound. Or there’s something weird with the format that’s not playing audio. Anyhow, right now the video has no sound and I don’t know if that’s permanent or not, so there are still pictures instead. The guy was just a guy in the crowd, too. Not like a scheduled performer or anything.

We were only there for about an hour and a half. It was just too damned hot — especially with the crowd. Next year we might skip the parade and go after the sun sets, when the party really gets going.

In 2008 we went late and stayed until the bars closed. Last year we didn’t go at all because they were talking about severe thunderstorms (complete with flash flood warnings). It never did rain at all that day. Kitti is still bitter about missing it.

I keep telling Kitti we should just go to The Hippo any ol’ time, but that’s mostly because they have bingo on Wednesdays and I love me some bingo.

While we were there, we saw The Addams Family Musical which was better than I expected but not as good as I had hoped. The songs aren’t particularly memorable and I have to admit that I wasn’t impressed by Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday). She’s a good singer, but she sounds like everybody else. You could pick her up and drop her into any show and she’d be just as good – competent, but no real personality. Wednesday was less Wednesday and more “cute girl in romantic lead role”.

I was impressed by Nathan Lane. I can’t really remember seeing him in anything where it wasn’t OMG THAT’S NATHAN LANE, but this time I actually forgot several times that it was him.

Fester has a cute little ukulele love song to the moon that just made me realize that the show could’ve been a lot better if someone like Stephin Merritt had written them. He’s very good at creepy-but-oddly-sweet (or sweet-but-oddly-creepy) songs.

The set is fantastic though. Some really nice stuff goes on with it, and there are a few times when the set is essentially another character in the show. Grandma is also pretty awesome — her idea of pretending to be “normal” is to burst in through the main doors and declare loudly “BOY IS IT NORMAL OUT THERE.” (That made me think of you, m9m.)

So that was the show. Worth the ticket? Yeah, I think so. Kitti can now say he’s seen a show on Broadway. He’s also smitten with NYC and wants to live there. I’ll miss him. Probably.

It’s a whole lot quieter in Penn Station these days – no whirring sounds, no clickety-clack of an old-fashioned, mechanical signboard bringing the news that your train is 20 minutes late.

In place of the iconic board above the main desk at Baltimore’s Amtrak station, there now hangs a large digital board that works intermittently as it undergoes testing. For live information, passengers depend on two small temporary digital screens – miniature versions of what travelers might see listing arrivals and departures at an airport.

That sign was one of my favorite things about the train station.

But seriously. Monday Kitti and I hit the road and drove up route 40 into Delaware. We went through Wilmington, and eventually found ourselves in Pennsylvania. Made our way to Philadelphia, and found the hotel with no problem. We checked in, then headed out for the Mütter Museum. Photography isn’t allowed in there, which is just as well. Some of you might have nightmares. I’m going to put one picture that I found online of probably the coolest, creepiest, Tim Burtonyest thing there. It’s beautiful, in a way.

After that, we had dinner at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant. VEGETARIAN! NO meat at all. Not even fish. You have no idea how exciting it was to eat in a restaurant where I didn’t have to worry about cross contamination. Everything on the menu was safe for me, and almost everything was okay for Kitti (there were things that contained egg noodles, but they were clearly marked). They also kept the hot tea and ice water coming.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at a little dive across from the hotel. Fantastic! Coffee was only a dollar and it was unlimited refills. We walked to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, wandered around in there, and I got completely pissed off at the modern art. I’m sorry. Writing down the names of Greek gods and drawing juvenile phallic symbols on a canvas and calling it art does NOT fly in my book. A 4×4 square of white stucco is not art. Grabbing a fistful of crayons and making a great big scribbled circle is not art once you’re older than 2. Even if you call it “Shield of Agamemnon”.

After that, back to the hotel. I dozed a little and Kitti kept exploring. He went to “Love” Park.

We caught a cab to the show, had dinner at the venue, and we were right up against the stage, just to the right of Nicky Wire, the bass player. Cameras were supposedly not allowed, but lots of people brought them. Did we? No. Do I regret this? Deeply. The show was incredible. Loud and fun and absolutely the best show I’ve ever been to.

We were back at the hotel by 10. The Manics don’t play around, man. Watched some tv until our brains stopped going WHRRRRRRRR.

This morning we checked out and hit the road. The Tomtom for some reason kept giving us directions that included highways, which I didn’t want — especially because it’s insanely windy out there today. The route it planned took us into New Jersey (!?). We got breakfast at a Wawa there, recalculated our trip, and then headed back out again. This time instead of going through Wilmington we skirted around it (still on highways) but after that we were back on Route 40 and just cruised on home.

A++ Would do it all again (although next time I think I’d take a camera to the show, and not wait until New Jersey to have breakfast).