One For the Books

Saturday I went up to New York City with my mother-in-law (MIL) and my two sisters-in-law (SIL) for my MIL's 60th birthday. My father-in-law (FIL) sent us up there on the bus. He originally told us that he was going to book a show for us to see, but that never happened. So the three daughters-in-law (DIL) had to come up with a plan.

The plan was a good one. We started by going down to Ground Zero, at MIL's request. It was a laugh a minute down there. After about ten minutes we'd had enough, and we made our way to Chinatown for some serious knockoff shopping. As MIL would cleverly say, we "shopped till we dropped."

We each got purses in the shady back rooms of the stalls; some of us left with more purses than others. I got three. And a pair of knockoff Tiffany earrings. Sweet!

After that we were starving, but we had reservations for tea at 2 p.m. Unfortunately for us, it was only about noon. So off we went in search for food, and ended up taking a cab to the area where we were having tea - Gramercy Park. We found a sushi place and decided that was a good bet since we could just get some rolls to tide us over. Good plan. Two minutes after we left the sushi joint, we had to be at tea. The tea place, Lady Mendl's, was so cute! I would definitely recommend it.

We left tea and headed toward Union Sqaure. As we passed a bistro , I thought I saw a celebrity sitting on the end of the bench where people were waiting for their tables. It was Tom Everett Scott!! Nice. He's hot.

The rest of the day was spent putzing around downtown. Let's fast forward to the bus ride home. We're watching the horribly depressing movie (all charter bus rides to and from New York include a movie on the ride home) "Away From Her," which is about Alzheimer's. MIL's phone rings. It's FIL. He asks her how her day was, and then proceeds to tell her that an 80-year-old woman lost control of her car in the parking lot where we were keeping our cars for the day...she plowed into my one SIL's car twice, then hit my mother-in-law's car, and then hit another car (not mine). My MIL's car had to be towed away!! Long story short, FIL had MIL's mother's car waiting for her so she could drive home.

Next thing, MIL calls her parents to thank them for letting her use their car. Her father answers and says, "Oh so you heard," to which MIL replies, "Yeah, my car." He then tells her that her mother is in the hospital...she had been having chest pains! Don't worry - she's got a hernia and it was acting up, but she's still in the hospital for more tests.

So, MIL was all in a tizzy by the time we got back to our cars. I hightailed it back to my own car and got out of there right quick. All's well that ends well, and we all had a rockin' good time. Maybe next time we go to New York in OCTOBER the weather won't be 90 freaking degrees!