Just Like Heaven (part II: New York, New York--it's a helluva wonderful town)

We reached New York at one in the morning. The hotel was in midtown Manhattan, right next to Grand Central Station (in fact the view from the room was an extreme close up of the building and its signature columns). Days earlier, my husband secured the reservation through Priceline.

From my interaction with the Ticketmaster website, you probably realized that I don’t have the internal fortitude to deal with the likes of Priceline. There’s too much chance involved, too much of a risk of getting stuck with a bill for something you specifically did not want. It’s gambling, and I don’t like playing the odds if the outcome affects where I’m going to lay my head at night.

To my husband, though, Priceline presents a welcome challenge: find the best hotel room for your lowest bid. This is where his competitive side comes out. We’ve gotten great deals through Priceline when he’s at the helm, and this time was no different. In fact, after he reserved the room, he continued to scour the internet, searching to see if anyone else had done better. It was validation of his victory, I guess.

We got there late and went to bed with the idea that we’d get up three hours later to stake out our spots in Rockefeller Plaza. Yes, I’m talking about the Today Show. Yes, I know, those people are dorks, tourists with fanny packs from B-F-nowhere with their obnoxious homemade signs and stupid hats, teeming for Al Roker’s attention. And yes, it was my birthday, but I was not carrying a sign with the hope of luring Al to my side. No, we were there to see Rihanna in concert. The deal went something like this: my husband wanted to see her and I was supposed to go too, since payback was coming later that night when he had to sit through 3 hours of Cure concert.

“Oh, I see,” I told him, “A little trade off so you have your fill of eye candy.”

“No, no,” he said, “she’s just a kid. Besides, she has a porpoise head.”

“Ha-ha. Porpoise head.” I replied, while giving him the side-eye and thinking: You’re just saying that.

Needless to say, the alarm went off, but we watched the show (and the Rihanna concert) from our room.

After showering, we went to breakfast and then did what we usually do in the city: we walked around.

“Ooo, whoopee, walking around,” you’re saying, but if you’ve been to New York, you know it’s the type of place that entertains whether you plan for it or not. The action takes off as soon as you set foot on the pavement.

We went to Rockefeller Center and watched stagehands packing up Rihanna’s set. We took pictures of each other and our surroundings. Then we moved on.

I noticed my husband typed something into his iphone but didn’t realize what was up until we arrived at the Apple store. Sneaky, sneaky, I thought. He’s becoming an Apple Store aficionado. I have a love/hate relationship with the Apple Store. It’s mostly hate, though. (I promise you, in the near future I will devote a separate entry to a thorough explanation of said hatred.)

Strangely enough, the Apple store is planted outside of CBS’s studio, on the corner of 6th Avenue and 52nd street. In that same location, outside, was a stage and a gathering crowd.

Like any other nosy curious human beings, we joined the crowd. The signs surrounding the stage displayed Rihanna’s name. It turned out that we stumbled upon CBS's secondhand version of the very concert we had missed.

See? Whether you plan for it or not...entertainment!

After an hour of standing there and enduring the comments of others who grew impatient and left (“Did she go to da baffroom?” said one), Rihanna appeared on stage. My husband clicked away with his camera while I stood on my tiptoes to watch.

Hm. I thought. She really does have a porpoise head.

Okay, she doesn't really, but her forehead is rival to Tyra's in square footage. She is pretty, though.

Then it was on to the Apple Store. And after that, back to the hotel to sleep. The show started at 8.