The Units

So my folks came in last weekend. Originally, my Dad was supposed to attend some conference for law-talkin' gavel-wielders here in NYC. But that got canceled thanks to the suckwad economy. Lucky for us, they told the economy to eat it and came anyway.

Which was awesome, because A. It was great to show them around and show off, B. Bean got to learn her roots, and C. it turned out to be one of those freakishly summery 85-90 degree weekends at the end of April. Nothing makes a weekend like freakishly beautiful weather.

They got in around 5:30 on Friday, and the plan was to meet at a restaurant called Crispo at 7:30. Thanks to my less than awesome work schedule lately, that was cutting it really, really close.

So I sulked my way through my 5 o’clock meeting, scowled my way through my 6:30 meeting, and hauled ass out of there around 7:15.

When I got there, my parents were at the bar with a fried calamari appetizer. My mom, a notorious lightweight, was hammered. I think she was in vacation mode thanks to the toasty weather. It took her about a glass and a half of wine to start tellin' it like it is.

Dinner was excellent, the highlights being a drunkenly frank baby-making discussion with my parents, and my drunken dissertation on the book I stopped reading almost a month ago.

After dinner my Dad took us to all of his old haunts as a young lawyer. The first place was a beautiful, 19th century cardinal's mansion turned-bar/hotel. My Dad fired a lot of questions at the staff, mostly about the bar that used to be in the dining room. "What the hell'd you do with the old bar that used to be there?" my Dad shot at the manager. "Sir, I was born in 1986." We all chuckled three times and sighed.

Saturday morning Lou and I got up early to go for a run with the Bean, her third family run, in a desperate attempt to tire her out. As usual, it failed. My folks came by around 10:30 to shower her with gifts and affection.

After lunch at Jane, we decided to check out the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side.

The problem with going to these boutiquey museums is that you HAVE TO go in a tour group. It's the only way they sell tickets. So you have to deal with the nervous, awkward tourguide and the bovine tourgroup you're stuck with. Which is just no match for my father's attention deficit disorder.

Our tour guide, a tiny Asian nerd, made me feel like we were the final exam in a conquering your fear of public speaking class. While searching for words like "good" and "open," her brain would freeze and her eyes would bug out and she'd struggle to swallow her gluey spit. During the tour, she taught us two things.
1. Spoiled milk was a big problem in the late 19th century in New York.
2. Computers have officially made human tour guides obsolete. Nice work, humans.

Saturday night we met up at the Ritz in Battery Park City, hoping to have drinks on the top floor, only to find out that they, uh, don't do that anymore. So we had a couple drinks at the lobby bar and headed to dinner.

Dinner was at City Hall in Tribeca. Super cool place, meh food. We grabbed the check and hit the 'hood.

After dinner, we ended up stumbling into some Argentinian place Crissy and I hadn't been to before, and grabbed an outdoor table for a nightcap. About 10 minutes into our second nightcap, Shannon Doherty walked in. Nobody flinched except my Dad, who was apparently a big 90210 fan back in the day. "I loved that show. What was it called? I loved that show." It was time to go home.

Since my folks weren't leaving until late in the day on Sunday, we met them for an early dinner near the Union League Club. We had a quick, simple Italian meal, said our goodbyes, and hailed a cab for them. It was still so warm out that we decided to walk home from Midtown by the beautiful Sunday afternoon dusklight.

And when we stopped into a Starbucks to pee, the dude banging a hooker in the bathroom in front of us only took like 15 minutes.

That's what I call a good weekend.