Fun With Mom

I love my mom, we always have such fun together.  We especially love to watch old movies - one of our favorites is The Shop Around the Corner (we also love the most recent variation, You've Got Mail).  When Roundabout Theatre Company announced they would be doing a revival of She Loves Me (which is based on the same play that Shop Around the Corner is based on), I told my mom she had to come visit so we could see the musical together.  It's been a long time since we've seen a show - she always comes to visit in August for a little pre-US Open tennis, but we never seem to have the time to go to the theater.  For this trip, the show was the cornerstone and I filled in an itinerary around it.  It wasn't until after I booked her trip that I realized she'd also be here for the AIDS Walk, so it was quite a busy weekend!  This will be a long post, sorry, but I will be leaving my She Loves Me review for another day.  It needs its own post.

When Mom arrived on Wednesday, I was feeling decidedly under the weather.  I'm pretty sure something I ate at work made me unwell; I was just hoping to feel better quickly. We decided to skip most of our plans except for touring the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum.  I thought the weather was too nice to stay in my apartment, but I wasn't feeling quite up to spending LOTS of time outdoors, if you know what I mean.  One museum would have to do.

I can't quite remember where I saw the listing for the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, maybe on a website about little-known Manhattan landmarks.  But I figured since this museum was close-ish to my subway line and Mom and I always enjoy touring old houses, we would have a good time here.  And I was right!  As we walked further and further east, I was nervous that the museum wasn't there anymore, but we finally reached it.  It's a lovely spot in the middle of unattractive modern buildings and construction.  Sort of under the Queensboro Bridge, the Mount Vernon is a 19th century day hotel (formerly a carriage house) and it's been lovingly preserved for years.  Everyone who enters is greeted personally and then you get a guided tour.  There aren't a ton of rooms open for viewing, but there are enough to get a nice feel of how the hotel worked and how New York has changed since it opened.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and very excited to be sharing his knowledge with other people.  His enthusiasm was quite infectious and my mom and I enjoyed ourselves greatly.  Some of the furniture there is original to the house, some is period-appropriate, and some is updated, but the way the house is decorated and laid out is terrifically presented.  The gift shop was also nice and I picked up a copy of one of the first-ever cookbooks!  Or so the cover said.  After a quick stop to a diner for a snack, we hit the hay early.  And watched old movies.  Oh, and tennis!  There was a tournament going on in Rome while Mom was here, so we enjoyed watching Tennis Channel in the mornings (and maybe a replay or two at night).  We do love watching tennis together, too...

Thursday, I prepared my mom for a two-museum day.  There were exhibits at two museums that I wanted to catch before they closed, so we managed to fit them both in.  I joined both the Museum of the City of New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a member, thanks to my new id-NYC.  Mom took the 'pay what you like' seriously and so we saw both museums for $10.  Well done, us.  We started at the Museum of the City of New York, which is in a gorgeous building on the upper east side.  I was especially keen to visit their exhibit on New York's Yiddish Theater, especially after seeing Indecent a couple of weeks ago.  There are some photos from the original production of God of Vengeance along with many photos, models, costumes, and film clips of the bustling Yiddish theater scene of the early 20th century.  It was really a terrific exhibit and I highly recommend your going to see it.  We spent quite a bit of time in there.

Other wonderful things we saw at that museum were the exhibits featuring the cartoons of New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast; Picturing Prestige: New York Portraits 1700-1860; the Timescapes film about the ever-changing landscape of New York City; Gilded New York, about the influx of personal wealth among New Yorkers in the late 19th century; and the Stettheimer Dollhouse, which is an amazing 12-room dollhouse featuring miniature works of art created by the original artists themselves, such as Marcel Duchamp.  We also had lunch in the very nice cafe, so it was a lovely few hours there.  I missed several of the exhibits so I hope to go back soon.

After we finished lunch, we hopped on the Fifth Avenue bus and rode down to the Met.  I was dying to see the Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun exhibit and it was closing that weekend.  We went straight to that gallery and spent a lot of time there - her work was simply exquisite, with beautiful color detail, empathy for her subjects and a clarity of vision. Ever since I performed in Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, I've been painfully aware of the lack of female artists shown in major museums.  It was really important to me to support this exhibit, to show there's an audience out there.  The galleries were packed, which was great to see.  We were having a grand time, though my mom did almost came to blows with one gentleman who kept taking pictures of the paintings (it was a 'no photographs allowed' exhibit).  Not only was he selfishly breaking the rules, but he kept coming right up to people and taking pictures over their shoulders.  He was a bit strange.  My mom told him he wasn't supposed to take photos (he practically shot some photos right on top of her) and he said he had permission. Well, my mom didn't buy that, so she went over to a guard and asked if one could get permission to take photos.  Of course, the answer was no, so my mom pointed the guard in that rule-breaker's direction.  He knew he was doing wrong, because he kept looking around to make sure no guards were around before taking more photos, then he tried to get away from the guard. Finally, justice was done and the gent stopped with the photos.  It was kinda crazy.  But I LOVED the exhibit all the same.

We then went through the European decorative arts section where they have replicas of rooms from old French hotels, which was glorious to look at, and I wanted to get a peek at some medieval art (I love tapestries and stained glass).  Obviously, we could've stayed at the Met for a week and not see everything, but I did want to get Mom back out into the sunshine for a bit.  So we left after I enjoyed some religious art, hopped onto a crosstown bus and went to the Boat Basin Cafe on the west side.  We enjoyed a basket of fries and a margarita (well, I had a margarita, Mom just had water).  It was nice to sit, enjoy the view of the Hudson, and people-watch (another favorite pastime); after our snack, we walked along the river for a bit and caught the crosstown bus back to the subway back to my house.  I told my mom I should've counted how many buses and subways we took while she was here, it seemed like a lot.

Friday, rain was in the forecast, so we decided to see a movie, Love & Friendship, at the Paris Theatre.  Mom had never been to the Paris, so it was fun to see a movie there with her.  Love & Friendship is based on a little-known Jane Austen novel, Lady Susan. It stars Kate Beckinsale and was a ton of fun.  It got a little slow towards the end, but the wit and intelligence was always there, and the set/costumes/scenery/acting was first-rate.  After the movie, we went over to the Plaza Hotel Food Hall for a little lunch and shopping.  I had never been to that food court before - it was great!  So many selections - Mom and I went with a sandwich and soup from Epicerie Boulud, but I definitely have to go back and try other things.  I also got my sister's birthday present, so huge thumbs up from me.  After lunch, it was pouring, so Mom and I took the subway over to Macy's, where I got my dad's Father's Day present (woo hoo!), then we went over to GMHC to do early-sign for for the AIDS Walk.  I love early sign-in.  I get my lovely swag beforehand so I can use it the day of the Walk, plus I don't have to carry it around all day. The lovely volunteers also gave me an extra pass for my mom to be able to partake of the pre-Walk breakfast; that was greatly appreciated.  I was afraid I'd have to make Mom wait outside the breakfast area while I grabbed us some food.  After the early sign-in, it was still pouring the rain, so we got on yet-another crosstown bus to head home for the day. We did have the finale of The Amazing Race to watch, you know!

I'll save Saturday's fun for a separate post, so I'll finish with Sunday's AIDS Walk.  The weather was lovely - a little crisp, but blue skies and clear.  At least at the beginning.  It did start to sprinkle before Mom and I left, which was a tad annoying.  I figured she and I wouldn't be able to do the entire 10K - her plane was leaving earlier than I had originally thought, plus she has never walked that far at one time ever.  So we did about two and a half miles, which I thought was really good for her first time.  Since the rain started at about the same time as her needing to finish, it seemed a good time to hop on yet one more bus.  The Walk took a different route this year, mainly staying along Fifth Avenue on the east side, which was a nice different scene route for me (it was all new to Mom!), plus that made it easy for us to sneak out and get on a downtown bus.  It was a good day, all in all - walking with Mom was fun and I'm glad she got to see what the AIDS Walk is like, in person.  Plus, we got to hear La Chanze sing "You'll Never Walk Alone"! That alone made the day a success!  I'm exhausted now, of course, but the whole weekend with my mom was a lot of fun, seeing old favorites and enjoying new experiences.  Hurray!