Told you so...

My mom, sister and I went to New York a couple of years back to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. Sis and I had both been several times but never together and my mom had never been so I knew it was going to be a great trip.

I am the official planner of the family. I plan most events and all of our trips together and they are always fabulous so everyone wants me to do so. I love to travel and spend lots of time researching and dreaming up trips that I have yet to take. It is a job I willingly and happily take on. My sister on the other hand, is not a planner...and not in the good, because she is a spontaneous type of a girl kind of way...more in the it's just too much work kind of way. Obviously, this can be a combustible combination of factors when trying to plan a trip for a group. I'm not a dictator while planning. I research, present options and try to gain a consensus as much as possible and then move on to final plans.

Here are snippets of our conversations:

Me: "So here are some great websites and lists of things to check out. Let me know what sounds interesting to you. I'm really excited about.....blah, blah, blah."
Sis: "ok....when I have time."

Several weeks later

Me: "did you get a chance to look at anything yet? We need to decide what shows we want to see and what else we want to do that might require us to buy tickets ahead of time."
Sis: "ok. I kind of want to go see a TV show being taped."
Me: "oh...which one?"
Sis: "hmm...I don't know...something."
Me: "ok...probably need to get tix ahead of time so we should decide."
Sis: "ok."
Me: on the other end of the line silently screaming inside and stabbing pen into my eye... biatch...make up your mind

And this is how it continued for several months. We finally decided that we did want to see two Broadway shows while we where there. I suggested that we buy our tickets ahead of time. Yes, I am aware that you can wait in a line and get half priced tickets on the day of a show but, from past experience, usually the shows you want to see are not available then. We both knew that we wanted to see Wicked but from there it was a stand-off. I had seen the Tony awards and read reveiws of Drowsy Chaperone and knew it would be a great show. It won the award for best Musical that year. I lobbied heavily for it. Sis did not want to see that and didn't know what she wanted to see. She thought we should "run down" the day we want to see something and pick one that looked interesting. She said "run down" so casually, like it would be a quick little 10 minute trip. Besides being the planner of the family, I am also the peacemaker, so as usual, we "compromised" (read - I caved) and we bought our tickets ahead of time for Wicked and agreed to get others while in NYC.

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. We did see Wicked and it was AMAZING! Because we already had tickets and I knew which theater it was playing at, I was able to choose a fabulous little restaruant ahead of time to have dinner and we had plenty of time to arrrive and were refreshed and realaxed when we got to the show. The next show?? Not so much. We "ran down" to pick up tickets and waited for about 2 hours only to arrive at the ticket window to not so much of a selection. I don't remember what all of the choices were but nothing too exciting. We ended up seeing The Wedding Singer, which turned out to be ok. Constantine from American Idol had just joined the show so it was mildly amusing. We didnt' have time after the wait for much of a dinner and had to run to the show. To top it all off, a few months after we got home, my sis had a friend report they had seen DC and loved it. Sis wished we had seen it when we were there. Arrrgghhhhhhh!!!!!!

This is an extremely long and round about way to tell you I'm going to see the Drowsy Chaperone tomorrow. No, it's not the bright lights of Broadway and not the same cast, but it will be good. Sis wants to come along now but doesn't work out with her schedule. sniff...sniff.. for her. Look at the picture above (and behind to my left) and notice, unknowingly to us, what is behind us in one of our pictures in Times Square.

An epilougue to this story is that sis never did decide what TV taping she wanted to see so everyone thought that option was out. Plannergirl...that would be me... had written away to several shows for tickets and the day before we were scheduled to leave was called by the Martha Stewart show and told there would be tickets waiting for us at the studio. It was a great surprise for my mom and one of the highlights from our trip. Here are a few pics from that event:



Waiting to go into the studio. Martha had great appetizers for all.



Martha seems to live-up to her rep. People were scurrying around trying to please her.

Oustside the NY Stock Exchange.


Chelsea Market where Food Network and some fabulous little shops are located.

I do adore my sister which is why, despite our differences in approaching situations, we do so much together. We are 14 months apart in age which made life interesting for our parents for sure.