Evil Corporations

We awoke none too early and made our way to the subway to get our MTA passes (7 days, $27, great bargain). From there we took the B train to Columbus circle at the SW corner of Central Park, where we knew a large Whole Foods was located, and bought supplies for our room. We needed containers to cook our morning oatmeal, so of course, ignoring the damp weather, we bought ice cream!

Coming back to Herald Square, we put away our stuff and had lunch at the Hale and Hearty on Broadway and 38th I had spied the previous night. For those not in the know about this NYC chain, this is the Soup Nazi's business without the attitude. Well, in NYC you always get a little attitude, especially when you hold up a long line to sample about 4 soups. Not that we did that, but others did... I had the potato-leek soup and a half of a turkey sandwich, and Margie had Tortilla soup. As usual, the soup was awesome.

After lunch, Margie did a little shopping and I tagged along. She bought a dress she had seen someone at Michael and Kristen's wedding wear, and bought a copy for herself. That perked her up, even though she was tired. I tried not to look like I was with her, sitting down like I needed to rest while she shopped around me.

After lunch, we headed back to our room to get some needed rest. The 7 hour drive from Ashland to the Bay Area, 7 hours of air travel, and general lack of sleep was catching up to us!

The pics are more views from our room, which are really quite spectacular.

For dinner, we headed to Times Square on the R train, and went to Osteria al Doge, an old favorite. Since it was Monday night, and most theaters are dark, the place wasn't as packed as usual. We were seated on the balcony overlooking the entire restaurant, although I had pleaded to the hostess that we weren't nearly fashionable enough for so prominent a post. I use the "royal we" here, as Margie always looks great. I guess she thought I was joking. At any rate, I noted that none of the tables overlooking the main dining room got candles or bottles of olive oil unlike all of the other tables. There was also a big plastic sheet covering the railing. I imagined all of the past accidents that occurred before this thought sheet was applied. Knives knocked through the railing which impaled some previously blissful diner below, Flaming olive oil bottles engulfing entire tables, and so forth. It made me want to set my umbrella on the top of the railing, just to live dangerously...

Anyway, Margie started with a lovely Tuna Carpaccio, and she spooned every last bit on pieces from the bread basket. I had a Caesar salad, which came in a Parmesan bowl with more Parmigiana on top. They wanted to make sure I got my dairy allowance for the day. It was tasty, though... For our main courses, Margie opted for the Linguine al Fruitti Di Mare, and some the very good east coast seafood (it really is better than the west coast version) delighted her, while I went for the Risotto Milanese. Usually this is just saffron rice with maybe some oxtail. But this dish had as its center some diced Italian sausage. I ate every bite. For dessert we shared a lemon tart, which was actually tart, just the way I like my desserts and my women. I confess, I ate most of it...

Our show for the evening was "Enron". It was a play, not a musical, but it had a lot of music and production numbers, including one with light sabres! The guy who played Jeff Skilling, the president of Enron, was Leo Norbert Butz, and he was really good. The NY Times panned him, but liked the guy who played Fastow, the CFO with the financial schemes. The Times didn't really like the show at all, probably because it was a hit in London. We prefer to lampoon our own corporations, thank-you-very-much! Anyway, we liked it a lot. And our row 2 seats didn't detract from the action.

1 down, 13 to go!