If Love Is In The Air, Shouldn't It Be Warmer Outside?

It wasn't the best night's sleep in the world. In addition to my cold symptoms, it would appear that the huge party of kids that had descended on the hotel the previous day was in fact a huge party of noisy kids. I'm thinking either Junior High or High School ages, I didn't see enough of them to come to a definite decision. But anyway, yeah, noisy American kids for most of the night. Nice.

But it was Valentine's Day, and ignoring the state of my cold (which was still icky, just not quite as bad as the previous day) I got up at the same time as Alison and joined her for breakfast. Like I said, I'm a romantic, lol. I didn't even go back to bed afterwards. I headed out when she did, but I made for Times Square. Why? Me. Internet. Me. Internet. You work it out. I also had to arrange to meet up with Ex-Pat Andy.

Next was a return trip to Macy's. I probably forgot to mention in my write-up of our journey out to New York that on leaving JFK airport, as we went to get on the bus, my suitcase handle decided to fly apart. We had therefore been looking for new luggage, with a two-fold aim. Firstly, obviously, we needed to replace the suitcase that was starting to fall into pieces (not tiny tiny pieces, but pieces all the same). Secondly, at the rate we were going we'd need a much bigger suitcase by the time we left. We were amassing crap at a frightening rate.

In the luggage department at Macy's, Samsonite was on special offer, and 50% off at that. I checked out the various options that were available, looking at the different sizes and ranges, making careful mental notes so I could explain the options to Alison when I met her for lunch.

Somewhere along the line I had an amusing Starbucks encounter. The chronology of my notes on what happened and the chronology of my memory of what happened don't quite tie in, and I'm not sure which would be more accurate. So I'll just say that it happened somewhere along the line. I was served by this large loud black guy. He was loud in the cheerfully outgoing attitude kinda way. Only his cheerfully outgoing attitude was starting to deteriorate into just attitude. It was deteriorating cheerfully, but deteriorating all the same. He was trying desperately to get on his break. And pesky customers like me kept queueing up to be served. While he was serving me he said to his colleagues (and the people behind me if there were any, I guess) "I am serving this gentleman and then I am out of here." I pointed out that "out of here" would mean going from a nice warm place to a fairly cold place. He pointed out that he was going just across the street and then coming right back to the warm. I shrugged and said that was fair enough, taking my tea and pastry and then wishing him a good break - no sense in being impolite, particularly to someone who was putting in a bid for being the coolest Starbucks barista I'd met...

Over lunch I got myself into a bit of trouble for staring at the young choral females a little too much (which means I must've been being really bad, Alison is fairly lenient about my leching), but we also dealt with the more important issue of what luggage to buy. Since the difference between a 26" suitcase and a 30" suitcase was only $20, we came to the unanimous decision that bigger was better, even if it is normally maintained that size isn't important.

Now, while it didn't necessarily look it on the display, a 30" suitcase is fucking huge. Obviously the easiest way to carry it out of the shop is to wheel it along, but you trying wheeling one of those huge fuckers through a crowded department store. It also takes up far more of a lift/elevator than you would imagine. From Macy's I headed back to Times Square, firstly to feed my internet dependency, and secondly to finalise arrangements with Ex-Pat Andy (who for the sake of lazy typing I will henceforth refer to as EPA).

Then, it was time to have some fun. I was dragging a 30" suitcase around, remember? I wanted to do some shopping in Toys R Us. I expected it to be awkward persuading the guard on the door of the Toys R Us to let me in with the suitcase. It wasn't. The suitcase was, boringly, paid no heed. First stop was the Star Wars display. They had Mace Windu purple lightsabres complete with sound effects that I'd being eyeing all week, and that finally I'd decided I would buy. Of course, now I'd decided to buy one, they also had none left. The other thing I'd been wanting to buy all week was The Simpsons Clue(do). Or should that be Clue-doh! (ha ha, I'm funny me). So I bought it. Then I wheeled the suitcase up Broadway to our hotel and crashed out on the bed for a bit.

I was half asleep when Alison got back from the conference. I heard the door close behind her, and then there was near complete silence for a while. Finally, she said (refering to the suitcase, obviously) "that's fucking huge". It's possibly a sign of how well we know each other that this was exactly what I expected her to say, and she said it in the exact way I expected too. Cool. That's my baby ;-)

I'd totally blown it with regards to organising a romantic meal for Valentine's night. It's a close run thing but as far as I can tell Valentine's Day is a bigger thing in the US than it is over here. So obviously all the nicest restaurants were completely booked out. We went to Applejacks, a place you could describe as an "All American Diner". And it was a nice meal. Not amazing, but I think we were both a little bit too worn out to appreciate an amazing meal properly.

I'd been given another challenge the day before. Since by then it had become apparent that we weren't going to find a really nice place to eat on the Friday, Alison challenged me to find the most romantically positioned Starbucks in Manhattan, so that we could go there for desert and a bedtime drink. This is exactly the sort of crazy concept that appeals to both of us, and I came up with a crazy kinda answer to the challenge in a similar vein.

In celebration of Valentine's Day, the top of the ESB was lit up by red floodlights tonight instead of the usual white. Hence, by association, the Starbucks right next to the ESB was the most romantically positioned one in Manhattan. With some persuading this choice was accepted by Alison, and we headed there for pudding. Well, I had pudding. Alison was still feeling pretty full from the meal, so she just had a peppermint tea. Unfortunately, she managed to spill some of this over her hand. She also managed to do this while I was away from the table, leaving me feeling guilty for not being there to provide instant comfort, or having a chance to stop it from happening. Luckily she wasn't badly scalded, but it did put a damper on an otherwise nice interlude.

Next door to the Starbucks, as we found while heading back to the subway station, was a comics shop. It was a damn good comics shop too. It contained the Star Wars one-shot that the cute helpful redhead had been unable to find for me. It also contained numerous cool t-shirts, including some Green Lantern ones that caught my eye. And it contained the latest edition of The Onion. One of the lead headlines was "N. Korea Wondering What It Has To Do To Attract U.S. Military Attention". How very very apt. The shop was far to much of a trove for me to be able to get round it all that evening, so I just bought the one-shot and picked up The Onion and we headed off.

We walked back, owing to an unfortunate incident at the subway station. Nothing you need details of. And when we got back we talked and talked, until we realised it would probably be a good idea to get some sleep. Particularly with the prospect of the lovely high-school guests keeping us awake again all night.