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Monday, March 7, 2011

Live, From the City That Never Slee-zzzzzzz

I felt a little bit bad for New York on Friday.

When I arrived for the weekend,  I was all set for a Sex in the City moment and instead got more of an NYPD Blue. Remember, those cops were in their jammies and in bed by 10.

My niece, Lauren and I met in our hotel bar, where she bought me a glass of wine (You know you're a real grownup when you pay your aunt's bar tab. Bravo, Lauren.) We were making signs of ordering another, when the barmaid suggested we check out the rooftop bar. "It's really cool up there," she said. "You can see the Empire State Building." She even took the liberty of arranging our elevator ride up there with the hotel security guy, James Bond. We were closing out our tab when he came up behind us, all black suit and hair gel. He had a curly cord behind his ear that I last saw on Michelle Obama's secret service agents. Also Clint Eastwood.

He walked us to the special elevator where Moneypenny, with her own curly ear cord, took us to the roof. Bond let Lauren leave her suitcase at the entrance. "It'll be fine," he told her. "The only people up here are our guys." Your guys? Where were we? And is it possible to die of having a night that is so drastically different from your normal life of band boosters and stain removal?

"This way, ladies."

I'll never know. The rooftop bar was all glassed in and the skyline view at night was stunning. I not only pictured Lauren and I hanging out by the window with a glass of Chardonnay, but I had written half the script and planned a costume change.

"The bar closed at 12," the bartender told us.

Lauren looked at her watch. "OK, it's 12:05."

"Yeah."

"Sorry, ladies," one of the bartender/secret agent/manager/hair product models said.

"Well, we can at least go back to the bar downstairs and get another drink down there," Lauren said.

"Mmmm," Bond looked at his secret rescue weapon, cleverly disguised as a watch. "She might have just called last call."

"Isn't this the city that never sleeps?" I asked.

"Well, some places sleep," he said.

Not when I'm visiting from suburbia, they shouldn't.  I don't think New York realizes that I'm about as lame as it gets in the nightlife department. I'm in my 50s, I'm from Ohio, and I'm working on a couple different kinds of arthritis. If I still want a drink, I think you should still be serving drinks.

Fortunately the rest of the weekend came through with more of what I expected. On Saturday, we saw a show, shopped at a vintage clothing store that had virtually nothing priced under three figures not even a puny little scarf, went to Justin Timberlake's bar with a guy who works for Def Jam Records (no, I don't know him, I was just part of a group, but still), and almost got knocked down when our cabbie backed up just as I was starting to get into the cab.

So nice to see that New York hasn't turned into anyone's hometown yet.

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