New digs and a dog too!

Moved from our hotel to the upper west side apartment of our good friend’s Justin & Nadine on Wednesday night. Their place is very cute and super small, but it has tons of windows, is one block away from a major subway line and Central Park, and best if all, they have a sweet, gigantic dog named Kismet.

I’m not sure what breed Kismet is, but, Greta is already wildly in love with her. The only problem is that she thinks poor old Kismet (she’s nine human years old) is a boy. Greta keeps saying: “Good boy, Kismet! Good boy!” Our friend Justin tried correcting her a few times, but then totally gave up. Boy, girl, who cares…as long as the kid ain’t crying everyone’s happy.

And speaking of Greta being happy…she’s still getting wiggy around the dinner hour, but she has been going to bed much earlier since we moved and it seems to be helping her tantrums. A little. I wouldn’t say she’s been the best toddler in the city this trip, but, she’s trying.

Amazingly, we’ve also all been sleeping way better sleep since we left the hotel. I don’t know if it’s the quieter neighborhood — the upper west side is like the country compared to Times Square — or what, but the three of us are sleeping way better on a shared Aerobed than we ever did in a fancy, King-sized bed at The Paramount. Go figure…

Oh, and one more thing that makes us all sleep way better are our nightly walks in Central Park with Justin and Kismet. Dogs can go leash-less after dark in the park, so Kismet just takes off running with a barefoot Greta in hot pursuit. It’s the cutest thing ever, but more importantly, it puts both of them, baby and dog, right to sleep when we come home. Yay!

Dinner at 3:00AM?

Continuing where we left off last time, we were finally on the ground at JFK, three hours later than expected, but we were there and Greta was awesome on the plane, so, yay! We pick up our dripping wet luggage — must have really been coming down when they unloaded it, but, blech! — roll on out to the curb to get in line for a taxi into the city and BLAM…we run straight into the longest line of people I’ve ever seen outside of a prime summer day at Disneyland.

It was hot, humid, late as fuck (excuse my French, but, it was like, 12:30AM when we got in line!) and this line was just not moving. Everyone was tired and ready to just call it a day and sleep at the airport when the most amazing thing happened. This young kid and his parents totally cut in line!

I’m not talking like, cutting off two or three people either, he literally pushed his way into the line at the halfway point while his parents hurried to the curb to catch the cab he was sure to score any minute. It was total insanity! And, lemme tell ya, it charged up that crowd like nobody’s business.

The crazy-tan Jersey Grandma with the cigarette noticed them first: “Oh…no, what is he do-win?” Then the young-hippies-in-love in front of us chimed in: “That…that’s so not cool…look at him!” Then, the spirit of New Yawk lept into me and I yelled out at the kid across the sweaty masses: “COME ON!!” It was hilarious, and a total New York moment and the next thing you know, everyone is line is cracking up at the balls this kid must have to do such a thing. “No shame, I tell you, that kid has no shame!” “Yeah, but, you gotta give him credit, I mean, hello, it worked!” “Urgh, if I had the balls to do that I’d be home by now…”

OMG, it was hysterical and in that instant, Mrs. Yeti and I remembered why we love this place so damn much. The people. We’ve traveled a lot and nobody can keep it as hilariously real as a fucking New Yorker. Seriously, they are the best!

So, an hour later (yep, we waited in that line for an hour!) we get in our cab and head on into the city. By the time we checked in at our hotel and unloaded our crap, it was almost 3:00AM. Mommy was too tired to eat, but, Greta and I were starving, so, she hopped into her stroller and we walked two blocks down to 9th and 46th street to eat at the 24-hour Galaxy Diner.

Every door and window of this joint — located at the edge of the Theatre District in Hell’s Kitchen — was opened, people and traffic were moving by in the rain outside like it was midday, and Greta and were eating a bagel with cream cheese and a Corned Beef Ruben at 3:00AM. Perfection!

I’m sorry, but, you just gotta love a city where no one even looks up when a sweaty fat man pushes a stroller, with a wide-awake toddler in it, past them at that hour. Record rainfall and epic flight delays or not, it really is good to be back in good, old NYC…