Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Goin' to New York, meetin' Matthew Crawley...

So, last weekend Alexa, Eric, and I headed to the Big Apple to see some shows and meet Alexa's future husband, Dan Stevens. (Or, as I will always call him, Cousin Matthew.) Oh, what would Max Talbot* say? Oh no!

*In case you didn't know, the celebrity object of Alexa's affections has heretofore been one Maxime Talbot, former Pittsburgh Penguin and current French Canadian. Her love for him even led her to traitorously root for the Canadian hockey team over the US at the Vancouver Olympics. It was an infamous spectacle, and a more revolting exhibition I cannot recall. He has since been traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, which I suspect took some of the shine off that diamond. 

We started our morning at the Gibsons', who generously hosted us for our whirlwind trip. After rising unbearably early and stopping for egg sandwiches at Starbucks, we were off. Eric and I argued and snarked the whole way to Manhattan while Alexa slept like a lazy lump in the back seat. Surprisingly there was almost no traffic on the way in and we were not greeted by hoards of desperate hurricane survivors barely clinging to life as many people who tried to talk us out of this trip predicted we would.

We soon met up with Taylor and her two friends Josh and Ty. We decided to go to Junior's for an early lunch and here's where we discovered an awesome scam. Did you know that if you go to Junior's before 11 AM they will be serving breakfast and thus instead of the traditional pickles, slaw, and beets, you get a plate of rugelach for the table? Yeah, neither did I. And Junior's rugelach is just as awesome as you would expect baked goods from Junior's to be. So, here's what you do. You go at 10:45, you scarf down the rugelach that they set before you, you ask for lunch menus and wait until 11:00 to order from them, and then you scarf down the pickles, slaw, and beets they bring out next.

Photo credit: Taylor

After lunch, we headed to the Christmas shops in Bryant Park before our shows. Taylor bought the cutest knitted ear band to keep her warm in winter. I lamented that I most likely won't need such finery because I live in a swamp town.

Lex and I headed to The Heiress to swoon over Matthew Crawley enjoy a brilliant play based on a wonderful Henry James novel, while the others saw Annie and Mary Poppins. Ty's cousin is in Annie, so he and Josh got a backstage tour. One of them tripped and nearly crushed the child who plays Annie, so you can imagine how awkward that would have been.

After our show, we went to the stage door. Jessica Chastain came out and was lovely and gracious and spent lots of time with the fans gathered there. (She was off-the-hook amazing in this play, BTW.) David Strathairn snuck out a side door and stood across the street chatting with, I think, his driver. Then Dan Stevens came out and Alexa, after having threatened to throw down the ladies in front of her with her ninja skills, instead waited politely to see the man of her dreams. He was adorable and so very British and he happily took photos with everyone, including our girl:

She came away squealing, "He put his arm around me! We look like a couple!" Our day in New York was clearly a success.

That evening, we couldn't get into John's because the city was packed, so we stopped at the 42nd Street McDonald's for dinner. Yeah, that's right. It was pretty sad. We couldn't even find a table so we ate our fries standing at a counter. I promised myself to never repeat that experience. Then the boys all went to see shows while Taylor, Lex, and I walked around and drank the most amazing hot apple cider you will ever have. We got pretty chilly, so we thought we'd pop into the Library, but we couldn't get in because it was hosting the swankiest wedding in New York City that night.

This is so brilliant because I often get bored at weddings, but if your wedding was in a library, I could just sneak off and spend some time with Miss Austen or Mr. Dickens. Classic literature and cake? Yes, please.  Seriously people, have your wedding in a library and invite me.

After warming up at a gelato/salad bar place with decor straight out of the tackiest restaurant in Miami, we headed to John's to meet the boys for some late night pizza, because there was no way I was leaving Manhattan without some John's pepperoni. Then we said goodbye to Taylor, Josh, and Ty, and headed back to Philly. This is the part of the trip where we almost died. Eric was so tired and I was nodding off, but I kept snapping myself awake, saying "Talk to Eric. Talk to him now or we're all gonna die." Alexa, heedless of our safety, was spread out like a hot breakfast in the back seat, dreaming of Matthew Crawley's** arm around her. How we made it home, alive and awake, I will never know.

**Sorry if this has been confusing, but Matthew Crawley and Dan Stevens are the same person.

The next morning, Lex and Eric headed west and Kris put me back on the train to Swamp Town our nation's capital. The views out the window were quite lovely.

Can't wait to do it again, guys.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Stoker.

In honor of Bram Stoker’s 165^th birthday today (thank you, Google) I am going to tell you about the ballet of Dracula that I recently saw at the Kennedy Center. It was melodramatic, tremendously creepy, and full of fake blood. Blood!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say the scariest things in the ballet were Van Helsing’s eyebrows. I was convinced they were going to crawl off the stage and come for me, just before exiting the Kennedy Center and going on to wreak havoc in the Capital. They pulled focus, is what I’m saying. I wish I could find a photo because they were truly something to behold.

This ballet was danced by the Washington Ballet. About a week before that I saw a Russian company dance Cinderella and they used minimal sets and simple costumes, probably to set off the exquisite dancing. Dracula was the complete opposite for sets and costumes. The dancing was wonderful, but it was accompanied by crumbling castles, dank crypts, and dry ice fog rolling across the stage. It’s Dracula; it has to be at least a little campy.

Dracula catches his first glimpse of Mina in Jonathan Harker's photo.

Jonathan and the three vampires who try to devour him. Gah!

Jonathan's nightmare about his wedding to Mina.

Dracula turns Lucy into a creature of the night.

Renfield is sacrificed as vampire Lucy and Mina look on.

It was supremely creepy. There were wolves lurking in the shadows, bloody corpses crawling out of coffins (which gave me fear flashbacks to when I first watched the Thriller video at age 6), and people were getting bitten all over the place. The neck biting really creeps me out.

Tell me this does not creep you out!

In one scene, when Dracula is trying to turn Mina into a vampire, he takes his fingernail and slices open his bare chest so she can drink his blood. It looked incredibly real from the first row and I concentrated on breathing deeply and not vomiting. Vomiting at the Kennedy Center is just not the thing.

Super creepy, super fun. I like to think Mr. Stoker would have been pleased.