Notes from New York - SUNDAY*

*I now know what day it is. All the events in this blog entry did occur on Sunday, August 10.

We had the brilliant idea of putting G-Man's travel crib in the bathroom. It's dark in there. We could shut the door. We wouldn't have to deal with him standing up and crying all night because he could see us. The crib just fit between the toilet and the tub, so we tried it. My only concern was that I wake up numerous times during the night to use the restroom. I've been this way since before my pregnancy, so I can't even blame G-Man for this. The good news? G-Man didn't wake up once and I didn't have to ride the elevator down to the lobby to use the bathroom once. That's what you call a win-win.

Unfortunately, we woke up too late to make any of the church meetings in Manhattan. So, we called my dear friend Wade and met him for brunch. We ended up walking, because the restaurant was straight across town from our hotel. As we were walking to the restaurant, we came to 6th Avenue and saw lots of policemen and barriers. It looked like people were starting to line up for a parade. We crossed the street with no problem, met Wade, had a wonderful brunch and spent a little bit of time in Times Square.

As a general rule, we don't go to Times Square if we can help it. And Sunday afternoon right as the matinees are about to start is a horrible time to be there. It's just way too crowded. Especially with a stroller. But, G-Man was loving the people watching and I needed to go to the ATM at the Marriott Marquis while Diggity was checking out a comic book shop he's always wanted to go to, so we braved the crowds. Then we braved even more crowds and went to Toys R Us. Diggity caught up with us and we decided to head back to the hotel to put G-Man down for a nap. We thought we would be smart and walk over to 6th Avenue to get out of the Times Square crowds.

This was not smart.

It's Dominican day today.

Have you seen a Dominican parade? They look like this:

Also, everyone watching the parade is dressed in clothes that are the colors of the Dominican flag and have text that in some way declare their love for the Dominican Republic. (You can't see them in this picture because we are trapped between police barriers with all of the people who have no interest in the parade and only want to cross the street.)

I mean no disrespect. The Dominican Republic is a lovely place. It gave us David Ortiz, for goodness sake. I've just never seen (or heard) anything like this parade.

We worked our way through the huge, loud crowd until we got to 44th Street and decided we would go back down to Times Square to get to 40th Street and cross there to get to our hotel. When we arrived at 40th Street, we were told we could only cross at 44th Street. (Irony, anyone?) The nice policeman told us we might be able to cross at 39th Street, but that they had closed it earlier and it might still be closed. We decided to confirm that it was closed since we were only an block away. It was closed. So, we went back through Times Square to get to 44th Street.

Then, G-Man fell asleep in the stroller. Normally, I would be thrilled with this, but his head was hanging out the side of the stroller and I almost brained him on a taxi bumper because I didn't realize he was asleep. We made it safely to the corner of 44th and 6th Ave. and had to wait to cross the street. I've never been in a louder place in my life. The "floats" had at least 10 and often 20 speakers - blasting music as they went. It was this crazy cacophony of rappers shouting in Spanish over the top of their music, people screaming, people dancing and waving Dominican flags. And G-Man slept right through it.

We finally made it across the street and realized we needed to get food for Diggity ASAP. As we walked to the McDonald's near our hotel, it started to rain. Yup. I mean, seriously - what else could have happened?

I have to laugh at everything that happens when I'm in NY. I've had more crazy things happen to me here...thought this trip is becoming one for the record books.