Mamma Mia ... We're Self Propelling Through NYC

Grandma has insisted on sleeping on the couch, despite our protests. On Friday night, exhausted from a long day in Philly and our NYC baptism, she needs help standing up. Well, okay -- she needs help standing up a lot. As I pull her up, I notice she toots a couple time. I think she may be self propelling.

Getting old is a bitch, isn't it?

I remember when I first moved to DC, I was about 30 at the time. I went to get a facial. When my esthetician was done with the service, she offered a complementary eyebrow cleanup. After she said, "Let me just get a few of these stray hairs," I felt a sharp pain nowhere near my brow line. I realized, with unrestrained horror, that she was plucking hair from my neck.   

I have hair growing out of my neck.

In the past year, I've noticed a few other issues. I can't see anything close up. I have plantar fasciistis, lower back pain, and sporadic white hairs pushing through my scalp. Getting up from the floor sucks. My joints hurt. The skin on the back of my hands looks a little less supple than it used to.

Don't get me started about my tits.

I guess, in the scheme of things, self propelling is nothing.

We sleep well, and wake early to head to Ellis Island. Something Grandma has said rather specifically she has no interest in. She's said that about seeing a Broadway show as well. Of course, we're doing both. The cab ride is a cluster-@#$% (expletive removed for my alternate-mother Leslie's benefit). We tell the driver Battery Park ferry, and though I see it through the park, he takes us past that to the Staten Island Ferry. It's just a short walk from there, but I get confused and insist he's taken us to the wrong place. We tell him, again, we want the Battery Park ferry. He drives us to another ferry that goes to Brooklyn, I think. At this point, I think steam is actually coming out of my ears. It might be red. I'm worried we will miss the ferry, and this is a timed ticket. He insists he has brought us to the right place. We get out, and, of course,  it is not. As he drives off with $50 (I'm going to be sick) ... we hop in another cab who gets us to where we need to go. This time when I see the building 're looking for, I tell the driver to stop the car. When he keeps driving, I nearly have a meltdown.

Breathe.

Adam is calm and collected, as usual, proving he's a good match for my fire. I just want everything to be perfect for today. And it all turns out in the end -- we get through security and onto the ferry in no time. I need a freaking chill pill.   

We meet a lovely girl on the ferry -- Joanne from the UK by way of Australia -- and talk to her as we make our way out to the Statue of Liberty. Grandma seems less than impressed by the famous landmark New York Harbor, and makes a remark that nearly sends hot chocolate through my nose: "It's the only nice thing the French ever did for us."

We arrive at Ellis Island and disembark. As we walk up to the building, to the door her family trudged through with everything they owned in the early 1900's, her eyes well up with tears. "I'm walking on the same ground my grandmother walked," she says. I start tearing up, too, just seeing her. She's so damn cute.

We have the most amazing tour with a volunteer named Eric. We skip the main building and opt for a tour of the Ferry & Medical Building tour. It's pertinent for Grammy because when her grandmother, Maria, landed here with three of her children -- including Emilia, her mother -- the eldest boy had chicken pox. He was quarantined, and my great grandmother had to leave him at Ellis Island for a month.

Can you imagine, landing in a new country, at a place where millions of other immigrants were passing through, and having to leave your child behind? The people who came though this place were third class passengers, meaning they had no money. They were coming to America to seek opportunity, in a land fables to have gold in the streets. The husbands came first, scraping money together to send for the wives and children. There wasn't money to stay in a hotel in NYC to wait for her son to heal. She went on to Pennsylvania. But officials couldn't afford to have disease leave the island, as many of those leaving through the Ferry Building doors went into the city's crowded tenements, where an epidemic would be disastrous.

A funny thing happens on the tour. Grandma's cell phone goes off. She's fumbling around in her purse, embarrassed, as the tour guide looks on, bemused. He says, of anyone on the tour, she's the one he least expected to have a cell phone go off. One of the other visitors says it's probably her bookie.


We wander around for nearly five hours. before boarding the ferry back to NYC, where we return to the hotel and quickly leave again for tonight's performance. We're seeing Mamma Mia at the Wintergreen Theatre. Grandma loves musicals. We stop to see Rockefeller Center, then at Ruth's Chris for apps and a drink before the show.
 
I'm tickled when I look over and she is smiling widely.  It turns out this is Adam's first Broadway show, too. They both seemed to really enjoy it. The part my the mother is played by a sub tonight (not a sub like Anastasia Steele -- for those of you into to 50 Shades of I-Shouldn't-Be-Reading-This-Book-In-Such-Close-Proximity-To-My-Grandmother) ... and it's a little obvious she's unsure of herself on stage. It's a bit off. The actresses that play the mother's friends are an absolute riot, and the lead is spectacular. That said, I admit that "Donna" finds her voice for a stellar performance of ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" near the end of the show. 

When we get back to the house, exhausted again after a long day, Grandma asks if it was just her that couldn't hear this actress during the performance. We all laugh, having thought the same thing to ourselves.

Tomorrow, Adam is going home and we begin the solo part of our adventure. We're off to Connecticut.

Don't worry -- teacup pics before we go. It's on the radar.