Just dialing in my old new york lady bona fides

Incident #1:

Wednesday evening, I was sitting in a lovely venue with blond wood paneling watching this big gala presentation. They were presenting some very heartfelt awards. It really was lovely don't get me wrong but just suddenly I was like... I gotta go. 

I'm cranky and tired and surrounded by just too many part-time real estate agents and cliques of longtime friends all hugging and squealing and yeah. I was suddenly hit by a solid wave of longing to be in my own home in a pair of more comfortable pants.

But: Colossal Problem. I had seen the gift bags they were planning to hand out after the event that included a fancy little box of non pareil chocolates.

Non Pareil chocolates. You see the obvious allure.

So I sat in my seat for an extra ten minutes trying to puzzle out how to both leave immediately and also get the chocolates you were only supposed to get at the very end when all the normal polite people left en mass. They didn't even have the bags out on the table by the door yet.

Right? Just a massive conundrum which I had the fortitude but lack of grace to be racking my brain over.

Anyway, in the end, I just walked up to one of the kids working for the caterer and said I had to leave and could I get one of the bags with the chocolate. Kid didn't even blink an eye while making it happen. I love the youth of today enabling me to have my irish exit and eat non pareil chocolate too.

Oh, and then this happened:

My friend Bruce lives around the corner from the venue...
in hindsight my old lady bona fides would have been a 10x if I'd actually gotten him to bring me an umbrella.

Incident #2:

The next evening, Thursday, I attended an aggressively posh dinner on the 32nd Floor of Rockefeller Center. It's the location of this "salon dining club" with a michelin starred chef and a sommelier and if you have private equity amounts of money you can host your private five-course event there. It's an open question how I got invited but I am very good at taking advantage of all the amenities.

After the last course (Port and carrot cake with a tiny yellow flower perched on top of a swirl of cream cheese), me, my friend Lee and his friend Avi decided to go out for a cocktail nearby. There was a cocktail bar I'd had my eye on, but it was closed so we went to another place. We got nodded in by a bouncer and trudged up two flights of stairs. 

Huffing slightly, Avi said, "I didn't realize there were this many stairs." 

At the top, I took one look around and declared the place was too loud, too crowded and smelled like stale beer and I did a 180 back down the stairs. Avi gave me a look but I peered down my nose at him.

Then we tried to get into Bar65 at the Top of the Rock, but I have lived in new york way to long to pay for a TICKET AND an overpriced martini. I will never pay for an elevator ride. I also will not stand in line, and there was a line. 

After my snort of pure distain at the very prospect, we all marched back out onto the street. Which was surprisingly crowded at 11:30pm on a random Thursday --- city that never sleeps and all that. 

Then there was another place with a pretty nice outdoor area they said was closed, but we could sit inside with everyone screaming at the Knicks game on TV. 

No thank you, ma'am.

At this point, Avi says, not unkindly it was more of a factual observation, he says, well, we need to go SOMEWHERE!

Avi clearly suffered a lack of appreciation for my extensive efforts on my his behalf and also how many bars there are in new york city. 

Luckily right down the block there was another place that had a perfectly acceptable booth and decent ice cubes.