Did you ever look forward to date night with great
anticipation, maybe a mani-pedi-blowout-mimosa prep schedule with an awesome
play list rocking out in the back ground, as you pick out a new outfit/pair of
shoes/new accessories combo for a fun night out? Yeah, me neither.
Our last date night went more like this: Saturday morning Rob gets the 6:30 AM train
out of the Seventh Borough to get to the Metrotech/Barclays office (2nd
borough) for some 8AM project. I’m baby
wrangling, waiting for my mom to get to my house, after probably also taking a 6:30 AM
bus herself so I can get to work for 9AM, even though, yes, it’s Saturday. Rob picks an outfit he can both climb around
server rooms and grab cocktails in. I
pick an outfit that 1. Fits the baby bump 2. Not too fancy for a Saturday in
the office and 3. I can sit next to my husband while he grabs cocktails and I
get like 8 seltzers. Then everyone puts
in a full day of work. Rob kills time
wandering around the city, while I’m killing in effigy my ‘Singapore Problem’
at work (I’m sure that will warrant its own blog post at some later point in
time when my Singapore Problem finally and officially gets laid off). The benefit of working these occasional Saturdays
is that I get an additional vacation day in return, and the company buys lunch. The drawback of eating lunch (or
breakfast or dinner or drinking any non-clear fluids) these days, is that this
baby bump has increased the general surface area of the body where it’s very
easy to spill food on yourself. And
undoubtedly I do. So most of my outfit
was black, to avoid advertising any food stains (though I did spend a day at
work in a black outfit last week with a nice residual dollop of Greek Yogurt on
my shirt). Mmm strawberry banana!
Finally we brake out of work and head uptown on Lexington
Ave. Typically full of office-worker
buzz on the weekdays, the pedestrian flow on Lex has become a slow, disorganized
parade of tourists, more tourists, and what I’d call local tourists (Seventh,
Eighth and Ninth Borough and beyond neighbors in commutable distance who
descend upon the city with no real sense of purpose, other than for food, entertainment,
sporting events, or worse yet, pub crawls).
So we hang a left on 57th street to cut west and the tourists
haven’t really subsided but at least the sidewalk of this very wide and busy
thoroughfare are grand and can easily accommodate the masses.
I realized that I hadn’t been this far uptown (and 57th
street is really not uptown at all) in a while.
Actually I’d walk along 57th quite a bit because it was the
starting point of the express bus route back to Bay Ridge in the 2nd
Borough. A coworker friend of mine lived
on 2nd ave in the 50’s and we’d leave work in Long Island City,
cross the Queensboro Bridge (59th Street Bridge / Edward I. Koch
Bridge – he never lived in Queens??? I never got that reference) by foot for some
exercise and chit chat when the weather was pleasant, then she’d walk to her
apt and I’d walk over to the Express bus and go home. These days I do much more shopping at Babies
R Us and Stop and Shop than the luxury brand stores on 57th Street, Louis Vuitton and Dior make Coach and Ralph Lauren look rather down-market, but they
all represent. I have some Ralph Lauren
stuff myself but I bought it at Lord and Taylor with mad coupons and on savings-pass weekends. I’m not a brand-name junkie but I
do check other peoples’ stuff out here and there. Right now my job and commute are so
male-dominated I don’t get any good fashion exposure. I do not work with metrosexuals. Someone once described my job as non-sexy
finance. I’d say that’s true. Occasionally the guys in the office would get into a
pissing contest over who has more Ferragamo ties, but this was the rare
event. I’d say 99% of accountants are
frugal, financially conservative individuals and the other one percent are in
jail.
We all project an image, whether intentional or not. This is why I could never work in fashion,
probably never even hack it in retail.
In non-sexy finance, you just have to look professional. And as the weather warms up and the baby bump
grows, I’m interpreting that definition more and more loosely. But that’s short term. In non-sexy finance you do cross paths with
those in Sexy Finance and those with good fashion sense, and those who are
bling-y and name-brand junkies. People
may say I have no fashion sense and I wouldn’t argue. I am by no means a luxury brand junkie. I don’t believe in high-end cars because cars
are just depreciable assets. Besides, a
Lexus is just a Toyota engine with nicer interior appointments. Though one time a (real) Rolex-sporting,
Upper East Side co-worker once said to me, “But Liz, you live in Scarsdale”,
and I say, bitch please, I live in Eastchester (but not according to my zip
code), and she’d say, “But Liz you grew up on Shore Road”, and I say, bitch
please, we rented a rent-stabilized apartment 30 years ago (but zip codes don’t
lie). Maybe I’m a bit of an address snob, but you know what they say, location,
location, location. What it all comes
down to is that really I’m just a cheap, clueless, fashion-less preggo who gets
all her ideas from two stylish co-workers and two buddies on Pinterest. I’m just waiting for Target to get its credit
card security back in place so I can go back to shopping there.
We turned up Madison Avenue and passed more and more boutiques
and high-end small shops, no Target, no TJ Maxx, just the name brands you see
in fashion and beauty magazines, or names that pop up during Fashion week (Armani, Hermes, Helmut Lang, Valentino, Carolina Herrera), that I recognize only because I read a lot and get into watching the red carpet on Oscar night, and
nothing to do with my shopping prowess (which is nil). Fashion, shoes, accessories and hand
bag/luggage shops started to phase out, while shee-shee bakeries, coffee houses
and salons became more prominent, as we got deeper into the East 60’s and then
low 70’s and the area became more residential over all. I was jealous of this area not for its
zip code or fancy bakery bags chock-filled with a spring rainbow of macaroons, but just for its
simple pedestrian nature. I miss rolling
out of one’s apartment and grabbing a coffee along with completing a morning’s
worth of errands fully accomplished on two feet. No cars, no parking lots, no meters, just
fresh spring air and the adventures you can find with two feet and endless
miles of paved sidewalks. Of course my early evening daydream was helped by not having the little man in tow, because when you are two everything is
a fascinating distraction.
Forget you! You macaroons and blingy peep-toe shoes worth more
than one month’s mortgage payment, this was date night, and not just like Liz
and Rob get a meal without needing a highchair or a drop cloth for our third
wheel, we were off to the Carlyle Hotel to see Alexa Ray Joel!
The Carlyle would totally blend into its UES neighborhood as
any other pre-war apartment building, if not for its modest, art-decoish marquee
on Madison Avenue. We entered on Madison
and got lost in the corridors for a bit.
Where were the doormen, this is a hotel, no? So we left
and went in the 76th street entrance where we found a proper front
desk attendant and asked for Café Carlyle, which of course was past some uniformed
elevator operators and some bar-like seating.
It was not a grand hotel with a cavernous lobby, it was a building with
proportions of another time, elegant, by no means disability-compliant, and
buzzing with early Saturday night diners.
The Café Carlyle was a tiny room, with tables on top of tables, a small
stage with mics, a piano, keyboard and cello, and in the back a small bar that
fit six, tops. We had a small square
table, three rows in, though basically we were the last row before the
bar. We sat side by side and next to our
table was a support beam covered in black fabric. It was tight seating. Tight.
But the people came and the café filled up. Rob had some wine and I ordered a champagne
that I nursed all night, long after it lost its fizziness. I
ordered a salad of sliced heirloom tomatoes, followed by sea scallops with asparagus
and risotto, chased down by a lemon tart.
Rob had steak and mashed potatoes and cheese cake. The food was definitely overpriced but then
so was the neighborhood, but it was good food.
Sometimes you go to a hotel for the bar, but never for the restaurant. My compliments were to the chef.
Seats kept filling up, and as it turned out, all of Alexa's shows were sold out for her two-week run. We wondered if Alexa’s very
famous dad was going to show up. Pay for
Alexa, get Billy, two Joels for the price of one Joel (well when a tomato salad costs $20,
for four slices of tomato, not four tomatoes), say hey, throw the frugal
accountant a bone, no?
We were literally on top of the table in front of us, and I
hoped some really short people would sit there, but no, it was reserved for
supermodels. Especially one tall,
fashionable, beautiful supermodel named Christie Brinkley.
We didn’t get dad, we got mom, Alexa’s mom, and her
entourage of some very metrosexual guys, and Minnie Driver, and a music critic
guy who kept talking about Marisa Tomei's current stint on Broadway, and Alexa’s publicist, in addition to
Christie’s son who may as well be a model, and another woman who was apparently
a big artist and/or interior designer who recently did Christie’s (new?) UES
apartment/townhouse(?) and of course all her Long Island properties.
The table was set for 10, and Minnie was very tactical in
picking her seat so that she would not be hugging the support beam like we
were. Everyone respectfully saved the
best seat for Christie. At first I
thought I was so close to these people I could hit them with a dinner role if I
tried (which I didn’t) but really, we were so close, I could eat off their
plate if I wanted to. Minnie got the $20
tomato salad and had rose champagne.
Christie was drinking something that looked like a margarita and had the
oysters. Supermodels eat food! The metrosexuals had hard liquor on the
rocks. The party seemed big on ordering
the salmon. I wanted to tell them the
scallops were really good but I wasn’t at their table. I was on top of their table, but technically
not at their table. The publicist ordered
a cheeseburger and slipped the Matri D no less than $20 even though the whole
table was comped. My husband was jealous
of the cheeseburger, despite having a steak, this is how he rolls. It’s date night at the Carlyle and not McDonald’s
drive through!!!!!
I totally eavesdropped on their conversations. Everyone talks about Billy. Billy.
Billy. Billy. Like he’s the absent friend, and not the vile
ex-husband. That was nice. We’re seeing Billy in 6 months at the Garden,
but I kept that to myself. There was
much talk about the Hamptons, Christie’s son’s experience in college, a prior
performance of Alexa’s which involved the Carlyle evicting a very, very drunk
patron, and whether Minnie should spend less time in the UK and more time in NY
(everyone though so, but Minnie seemed undecided). Minnie looked very much like herself on TV or
in movies, but she was very tall and seemed to look very dramatic with very
little makeup. She had a bright red
Channel bag but the rest of her outfit was simple, elegant New York Evening
Black. That’s totally what I was going
for, but in my round state and penchant for yogurt stains, I was just happy I
slapped on some eye shadow and mascara that night. Christie looked fabulous for being 60, and had a black dress with a black and white polka dot scarf. She looked like she was always smiling, her
face and eyes were really bright, she was upbeat, friendly and pleasant, she
was the proud and beaming momma.
I was totally ecstatic that I was sitting in such proximity to beautiful, fashionable and famous people. And the show hadn't even begun. When Alexa graced the stage, in her pale pink sparkly gown and matching boa, she came out belting her own version of Ray Charles' "I've Got a Woman". Undeniably, she looks more like her dad than her mom, and she's got the musical chops of her dad too. Maybe she won't gain residency at Madison Square Garden, but the clubby, cabaret venue of Cafe Carlyle was definitely her forte. In between each song, she'd offer some background, some jokes, loungy chit chat and kept good command of the room. She sang some original songs, which I though seemed laden with some residual teen angst or unrequited love, they were not melodic nor happy. When she was belting out songs, she sounded like an old soul, rich and weathered, and when she sang more higher-pitched songs, she had like a squeaky, Carol Channing-type of quality to her voice. She probably has had the best musical education genetics can provide. Her exposure and repertoire spanned the gamut. She covered Ray and Stevie Wonder, she covered Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale", she dedicated "On the Sunny Side of the Street" to her mom, she sang her own music, she played her own keyboard, she was quite versatile. She even talked about her dad's love of hymns, the influence that has had on her, and that he has an organ in his house (I'm picturing like a massive church organ in the middle of a living room). When it comes to hymns, I'm thinking of "Ode To Joy" or the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". She was thinking "Loch Lomond", and then sang it with a bit of a Scottish brogue (you know this one, "You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you"). I never thought of this as a hymn, but rather a drinking song reserved for the inebriated portion of a funeral. But what do I know, my dad is not Billy Joel.
Alexa closed out the show without her pianist nor her cellist on stage, just her and her keyboard, and a very natural "Just The Way You Are" by papa Joel. It was an interesting show, because I could sing the Billy Joel set list blindfolded and backwards, but you never knew what Alexa was going to throw out there, or how she was going to arrange it. And going to a concert in such a small venue felt unique, and special, like I was invited to a private party, with celebrities and overpriced tomatoes and possibly a (tiny) Greek yogurt stain on my shirt. Did I enjoy it, definitely. Did I fit in, hey, I live in Scarsdale, the evening was totally in my price range.
Bitch please, it's Eastchester.
