Bloomfield, NJ and NYC 5/1/2026 - 5/4/2026

Prologue

We realized that it had been 10 years since we last visited Jared and Dave in New Jersey. The last two times we visited, we flew. Craig was a bit apprehensive about driving down there, as he had never done it before. But he was up for it this time as air travel has become so expensive and inconvenient. We wanted to go to a Broadway show (we love musical theater, but have never seen a show in NYC before). There were many options that we considered, including Heathers, The Lion King, etc. I had also heard about The Adding Machine, a new production starring Michael Cyril Creighton. I am a huge fan of him as Howard the cat guy on "Only Murders in the Building", and we had recently seen him in a movie called American Fiction. The Adding Machine is an off-Broadway play, and Jared really didn't know much about it, except for the stellar cast.

Jared made us aware that there was also a new production of The Rocky Horror Show just opening. This seemed an ideal thing to see with Jared and Dave. Jared had gifted me a VHS copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show for my high school graduation 33 years ago. Craig and I had never seen it as a stage show. The production is directed by Sam Pinkleton, a buzzy director who had a lot of success with Oh, Mary!. We looked ito it, and it looked great. On our chosen weekend, all performances were almost sold out. I was only able to find one performance which had 4 seats together, and that was the Sunday afternoon matinee. I snatched up the tickets.

Once we had procured tickets for Rocky Horror, we asked Jared if it would be totally insane to go to The Adding Machine on Saturday. Luckily, Jared and Dave are as crazy as we are, and they agreed to it.

We also made plans to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see their Egyptian collection. And I contacted my cousin Megan whom I haven't seen in 25 years. She lives just 30 minutes from Jared, so we arranged a short visit with her and her family for Sunday morning. It would be a very busy weekend, which is sometimes hard for Craig, but we figured that he would just go into travel mode and run on adrenaline.

Friday 5/1/2026 - Arrival, Paterson Great Falls, Dinner at Lee's Hawaiian

I took the day off and we had a leisurely morning. It had been a crazy week at work for me because we had just finished quarterly planning. We left the house at 11 a.m. We listened to David Sedaris narrate his Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim audiobook on the ride. We stopped for a restroom break and I bought a muffin at Dunkin Donuts for lunch.

As we drove down Rt 15, traffic in the opposite direction was backed up quite a bit due to mowing. We wondered if we would hit similar delays when it came time to drive home.

We had fully intended to take the Mario Cuomo (Tappan Zee) Bridge and avoid the George Washington Bridge, as Jared had suggested. However, we missed bearing left on a right hand exit, and the GPS then recalculated and put us right straight onto the George Washington Bridge. Entering the Bronx. Entering Manhattan. Talk about intimidating! Luckily, the traffic wasn't too bad, and soon we saw the Welcome to New Jersey sign.

We arrived at Jared and Dave's at around 3:45, which only turned out to be about 20 minutes later than the ETA had we gone on our preferred route. We chatted with Jared and Dave, played with their dog Sylvia Pickles, and made a plan for the evening.

After getting settled in, we had a bit of time before sunset. Jared drove us to Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park. The Passaic River flows 77 feet down the Paterson Great Falls. It is said that Alexander Hamilton had a vision of an industrial city powered by the water of the falls when he and George Washington stopped there during the Revolutionary War. As far back as 1794, developers cut a series of channels above the falls. Water wheels were utilized to power industrial machines. Industries in Paterson included locomotive manufacturing, aircraft engine manufacturing, gun manufacturing, silk production, and paper manufacturing. In 1878, John Holland tested his prototype for a submarine in the Passaic River above the falls.

Hinchliffe Stadium is located here. It was the home of two Negro League baseball teams (the New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans), as well as midget car racing, boxing matches, and concerts.

We watched the falls, glowing in the light of the descending sun. Whirlpools formed and mist covered the surrounding vegetation in water droplets. It was beautiful.

Then we had a fun dinner at Lee's Hawaiian Islander in Lyndhurst. Lee's dates back to the early 1970's, and calls to mind the Volcano room at Kowloon. There is a rock wall / water feature, a boat hanging from the ceiling, and light fixtures made out of puffer fish. Chinese and Polynesian food in a tiki atmosphere! Craig and I got mai tai's in ceramic cups shaped like bamboo shoots.

Karaoke was just starting as we arrived, but we didn't participate. We had fried dumplings and pan fried wontons as appetizers. Craig had the hot and spicy beef, and I had sweet and sour chicken. They gave us fortune cookies for dessert, but none of the fortunes were really noteworthy.

We went back to the house, enjoyed a drink, and chatted. Then we went to bed after a long but satisfying day.

Saturday 5/2/2026 - The Met's Egyptian Collection, Times Square, The Adding Machine Off-Broadway

We woke up at around 9 o'clock and had coffee and scones for breakfast. Jared had set up the coffee machine to turn on at 8:45. Craig had two big cups of coffee in preparation for the eventful day.

Today Jared and Dave took us into NYC to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had expected the weather to be rainy, but it seemed that the forecast had changed and it was a decent day after all, luckily for us! We arrived at around 1:20 p.m. We entered near the Classical exhibits, and took a few minutes to enjoy some of the highlights (including pieces of an enormous column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis, circa 300 BC). We had been to Sardis and seen the remains of the Temple of Artemis back in 2020.

But the real reason we were here was to see the Egyptian exhibit. The Met has over 30,000 objects from ancient Egypt. One of their most famous Egyptian exhibits is the Temple of Dendur, which originally stood in Nubia, 80 km south of Aswan. It was gifted to the United States by the Egyptian government in 1965 as a thank you for the USA's $16 million contribution to help relocate and preserve the monuments which would have been submerged by Lake Nasser with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. But, alas, the temple was closed today, as it is the backdrop for Monday's Met Gala.

But there was still so much to see! They had exhibits from all stages of ancient Egyptian history. There were carvings from Amarna (Akhenaten's capital city), tomb walls and faience from Saqqara, statues of Hatshepsut in female form, and many other treasures. There were items from King Tut's enbalming cache (we had been to his tomb and seen his mummy in Luxor, and we had seen funerary and personal items from his tomb in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo). In the interior of one of the anthropoid coffins that we saw, we recognized a figure as Nut (pronounced "Newt"), the sky goddess. She swallows the sun every night and gives birth to it again each morning. Usually she is depicted in profile view, overarching the sky. Here in the coffin, she is seen from below, not a perspective that we are used to. But we still recognized her right away, and the placard next to the coffin confirmed it. From the perspective of the deceased, they would be looking up at her. There is a faience figure of a hippopotamus (called "William") which is very famous and has been in the museum's collection for over 100 years. He dates back to 1900 BC! Jared made sure to point him out to us, as he is somewhat of a mascot for the museum and is featured prominently on many products in the children's section of the gift shop.

There were also "study galleries" (a.k.a. "open storage"), small rooms which were densely packed with items that might otherwise be out of public view in storage. Although these are not displayed the way museums traditionally display them (there are few informational placards), similar items are grouped together, showing just how many pottery fragments or scarab amulets or beads the museum actually acquired.

Jared had been skeptical about whether we could fill all of our time at the museum in the Egyptian collection, but we did! I think he was actually a little impressed with our singular focus, as he says that he usually shuttles people around to various highlights in the museum, never really getting to look in-depth at a full exhibit like this. We had a great time exploring the collection, and it was the perfect complement to our two recent trips to Egypt. We are sure that we will come back to the Met some day to see its other treasures (and maybe a quick visit to the Temple of Dendur as well!)

At around 4:30, it was time to go, so that we could eat dinner and make it to our evening play. We left the museum, and drove to Times Square. We got a couple of photos (a guy in a King Kong costume tried to get me to pose with him, which I politely declined). We went to dinner at Dos Caminos, a Mexican Restaurant in the heart of Times Square. We were seated down in the basement, in a festive atmosphere bedecked with papel picado.

Craig and I each had an El Camino margarita. We were all quite hungry after our day exploring the museum (and not having had lunch). We shared nachos with salsa and queso blanco with chorizo . I had enchiladas de queso with a delicious mole sauce and grilled onion. Craig had a picadillo beef burrito served with guacamole, Spanish rice, borracho beans, ranchero salsa, Mexican cheeses, pico de gallo, and queso blanco. Everything was absolutely delicious, and the service was quick so we had plenty of time to get to our evening show.

We walked over to West 46th Street to St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Hell's Kitchen, which houses a 161-seat Off-Broadway theater, where we would be seeing The Adding Machine. We arrived a few minutes before the doors opened. We went inside and stood in the small lobby, looking at historic photos of the theater (including Patti Smith and Sam Shepard, who performed their play The Cowboy Mouth here in April of 1971, when it was the home of The American Place Theatre).

We used the restrooms (which was an adventure all its own, in the basement of this 150-year old building, we really felt like we were stepping back in time in the bowels of the building), and then they opened the theater doors. We went upstairs to enter the theater. There were no concessions for sale, so they thoughtfully provided everyone with small complimentary bottles of water, which were very much appreciated.

We had great seats, several rows from the stage. The theater is very intimate. The stage was set up with a backdrop of cubbies each containing a vintage desk lamp or the kind of antique fan that could easily take your fingers off. Center stage was an old-fashioned adding machine in a spotlight. The lever engaged at regular intervals, and a paper tape receipt got longer and longer.

Michael Cyril Creighton welcomed the audience, and pushed the adding machine off stage, replacing it with old-fashioned filing cabinets. One of the filing cabinets opened to expose a murphy bed. Craig was fascinated by the simple yet versatile stage design. When he was in 5th and 6th grade, he had been involved in scenery for school plays, and he thought that the way that the furniture here did double and even triple duty was very clever.

There were only four people in the cast: Daphne Rubin-Vega who played Mr. Zero, Jennifer Tilly who played Mrs. Zero, Sarita Choudhury who played Daisy, and Creighton (who hilariously played "everyone else"). The cast was fantastic.

As the play opens, Mr. And Mrs. Zero lay together in bed. Jennifer Tilly has a wonderful monologue where she rants about going to the movies alone and wanting to go downtown to see movies as they are released, rather than a month later when they reach her local theater. She complains that Mr. Zero never takes her anywhere, and laments the state of their marriage. She goes on for at least 10 minutes while Mr. Zero lies sheepishly awake, trying to disappear into the bedclothes, not saying a word or acknowledging her at all.

The next day, Mr. Zero goes to work at a department store where he is a bookkeeper, alongside his "work-wife" Daisy. It is his 25th anniversary at the store, and he expects a pay raise. At the end of the day, the boss (Creighton) comes up to him, but instead of a raise, he is laid off because of the acquisition of the titular adding machine, which can be run by unskilled workers.

Cut to Mrs. Zero waiting for him at home at the dinner table. The Zeros are having a dinner party, and Mr. Zero is an hour late getting home from work. The guests start to arrive, and Michael Cyril Creighton expertly plays at least a dozen dinner guests. His mannerisms turn on a dime.

There's a knock at the door and Mr. Zero calmly states that it is for him. It is the police; he has killed his boss. Mr. Zero is arrested and goes through a trial. He is put on death row. Mrs. Zero visits during his last meal (9 plates of ham and eggs) and they start to reminisce about their happier days together. But then, Mr. Zero asks about a book of press clippings that his wife has been keeping since his arrest. Despite his notoriety, he is proud of this book of clippings; he never thought that there would be enough content about him to fill a scrapbook. There are only a couple of blank pages left, and Mrs. Zero intends to fill them with clippings from tomorrow's newspapers. If something happens to Mrs. Zero, Mr. Zero wants the book of clippings to go to Daisy. This causes a fight, and Mrs. Zero walks out to a blaze of paparazzi flashbulbs.

In a scene with very dramatic lighting and sound design, Mr. Zero gets the electric chair. He is reduced to a pile of ashes which Michael Cyril Creighton hilariously sweeps from the chair into the trash. Cue intermission.

Act two starts with Mr. Zero in a coffin. His former neighbor (whom the Zeros reported to the police for being scantily clad and tempting Mr. Zero) is fresh out of jail and bringing a john to the cemetery. She chooses Mr. Zero's grave for their tryst, as the Zeros were responsible for her incarceration. The couple is played by Michael Cyril Creighton, one half of his face made up like a woman, and the other like a man.

Mr. Zero awakes in the Fields of Elysium and meets a man (Creighton) who was executed for killing his mother. He shows Mr. Zero the lay of the land, and tells him that if he wants, he can stay here forever. Daisy comes onto the scene...it turns out that she committed suicide when Mr. Zero was executed. They reminisce about a company picnic where they sat under a tree together and Daisy wanted Mr. Zero to kiss her. They dance to Radiohead's "Creep", and Daisy wants to spend eternity here with Mr. Zero.

Mr. Zero seems overwhelmed by this offer. And in fact it seems to be too happy an ending for a character as miserable and unlikeable as him. He chickens out and is instead destined for an eternity of number crunching, operating the adding machine in the great hereafter. He is told that he has been a worker for thousands of years, over dozens of lifetimes. He cannot escape his fate. He will always be a worker. And he is now going to be sent back to earth, his soul recycled and reborn to be a worker once again. He follows an unseen beautiful woman offstage. Cue curtain call and a cover of "Creep".

Craig and I really enjoyed the show. The play was written over 100 years ago, but is equally relevant today. With all of the current fears of AI taking over our jobs, it is oddly prescient. As someone who was laid off several years ago, it hit close to home. Bravo to this new production!

We went back to the car, walking through the brightly illuminated Times Square. It was our first time being here at night, and it was amazing how lit up the place is...it almost seems like daylight due to the light from the ubiquitous LED billboards. The people watching was fascinating. Just so many people on the go. I had never really realized just how expansive the Broadway and Off-Broadway landscape here is. There are so many theaters and so many shows! Oh Mary!, &Juliet, Six, Death Becomes Her, Hadestown, Stranger Things, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Titanique, Heathers, Death of a Salesman, Wicked, the list goes on and on! And the difference between Broadway and Off-Broadway, Jared taught us, really just has to do with the size of the theater.

We drove out of the city, stopping at Dave's favorite bakery (Billy's Bakery) for a snack. Craig got a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with butter cream inside, and I got a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I was really thirsty, so I got a lemonade too.

We went back to the house and chatted, ate our delicious baked goods, and had some drinks. We watched some YouTube clips: Jennifer Tilly on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" (since we had just seen her wonderful performance in The Adding Machine and hadn't ever seen "Real Housewives") and Jack Whitehall's "Travels with my Father", which we had never heard of, but Jared thought would be right up our alley.

Craig was exhausted, and I had to post about our day's adventures, so we went to bed. We would have another busy day tomorrow.

Sunday 5/3/2026 - Visiting Megan and Family, The Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54, Soul Food in Harlem

We woke up at around 8:45 this morning and had coffee and scones for breakfast. A little before 10:30, we hit the road to drive around 30 minutes to Kinnelon, NJ. We haven't seen my Auntie Joyce or cousin Megan for around 25 years. The last time was when they came up to Massachusetts for my maternal grandmother's funeral. It was sio great to reconnect with them! As she has grown older, I can really see tehe resemblance between my mom and Auntie Joyce (though she wouldn't let me get a photo of her). We got to meet Megan's husband Michael for the first time, as well as their twins Mikey and Johnny, who will be high school seniors this fall.They are successful students and play many sports. They are highly ranked bowlers within the state of New Jersey. We had a great visit, but were only able to stay an hour as we had tickets to the The Rocky Horror Show matinee this afternoon.

At noon, we headed back to Jared and Dave's. They had ordered a pizza for lunch and we had a couple of slices. As Jared said. the pizza was reminiscent of Espresso's in Fitchburg, my favorite pizza ever due to its sweet sauce.

At exactly 1:30, Jared and Dave drove us back into NYC. We hit some traffic and arrived at the garage shortly after 2:30. We drove in to a very small area where the attendant took their keys and put the car onto an elevator to park it on another level. It was only $15 to park here (as opposed to $50 at last night's garage).

We walked a couple of blocks to Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street), arriving at around 2:40. The doors hadn't opened yet, so our timing was perfect. We joined a giant line on the sidewalk. When they did open the doors, the line dissipated quickly. In the lobby, green lighting made the crystal chandeliers seem spooky. Skeletons were dressed as ticket takers and concession sellers. We made our way up to the mezzanine. The walls were decorated like a laboratory, with silver mylar tubing and green rope lights, and some cobwebs thrown in for good measure. There was a huge disco ball hanging overhead (what else do you expect from Studio 54?). Our seats were great; the mezzanine had a steep slope so we had views unobstructed by people in front of us. Jared and Dave got signature cocktails in Rocky Horror plastic cups, and they got us each a water.

The cast:

Rachel Dratch - Narrator
Andrew Durand - Brad
Luke Evans - Frank-N-Furter
Amber Gray - Riff Raff
Harvey Guillén - Eddie / Dr. Scott
Stephanie Hsu - Janet
Juliette Lewis - Magenta
Josh Rivera - Rocky
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez - Columbia

Juliette Lewis takes the stage dressed as a theater usher and sings "Science Fiction Double Feature". Silver mannequins sing along on the doo-wop parts. Stephanie Hsu and Andrew Durand are perfect as the naive Janet and Brad, and there is a unique staging of their car as it drives through the rainstorm...the car is actually actors holding flashlights as headlights.

Rachel Dratch is the narrator, and she handles a few well-timed audience callbacks well. During "Over at the Frankenstein Place", various miniature model castles nestled around the theater are highlighted, glowing green. It's funny that they were hiding in plain sight the whole time and I didn't notice them until now.

When they arrive at the castle, the staging is very cool, with a grand staircase and lots of candles. During "the Time Warp", the cast dances joyously, and calls two audience members onstage to join in.

Then Luke Evans takes the stage, and from that point on I cannot take my eyes off of him. He is captivating as Frank-N-Furter, in his boots with 8 inch heels, with a shiny fringed black cape which he tosses back to reveal his black corset and fishnet stockings as he launches into "Sweet Transvestite". (This song would be performed on Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night.) He leans in to the callback culture by gesturing for the crowd to yell "Say it!" during the pause in "Antici.....pation".

Frank introduces Rocky (Josh Rivera) to Janet, Brad, and the Transylvanians. Rocky is dressed in a singlet and sings "The Sword of Damocles". Harvey Guillén pulls double duty as Eddie and Dr. Scott.

At the beginning of the second act, Brad and Janet's loss of innocence is quite amusing (especially when Janet catches Brad and Frank in a particularly compromising position via the surveillance system).

Andrew Durand performs Brad's solo ballad "Once in a While" (which was unfamiliar to us because we hadn't seen the deleted scene from the movie).

The cast is transformed for the floorshow, with Janet looking especially sexy in a black corset and yellow feather boa, and Brad on a leash. Dr. Scott wears garters and stockings. Frank descends from the rafters sitting on a prop shaped like the moon. (The moon being an homage to Studio 54's golden era decor). Luke Evans shows his vulnerable side as Frank sings "I'm Going Home." Riff Raff and Magenta take control and kill Frank before blasting the castle back to Transylvania.

During the curtain call, they did a mini-reprise of "The Time Warp". The show did not disappoint! It was amazing...campy, edgy, funny...the cast was superb. The energy of the performers was infectious, and the audience was so into it! It was just so much fun! I can't recommend it enough!

After the show we waited by the stage door and got autographs from Josh Rivera (Rocky) and Harvey Guillén (Eddie / Dr. Scott). When security dispersed the crowd, they said that the show had been extended until November. Plenty of time to see this show. "Don't Dream It, Be It!"

We headed back to the parking garage, picked up the car, and then Dave drove us to Harlem. We stopped at Sylvia's Restaurant for some soul food. This gem of a restaurant has been around since 1962. After about a ten minute wait (we had no reservation), we were seated on the glassed in porch. There was a heating lamp above the table but it was way too hot, so we asked them to turn it off. Although it was a slightly cool day, the heat from surrounding lamps meant that the temperature at out table was now comfortable. I had a red sangria and Craig had a Long Island iced tea (since you can't get an authentic one in Massachusetts...so many different alcohols in a single drink are illegal in MA). As an appetizer there was a basket of fresh, delicious cornbread. I had fried chicken, candied yams, and mac and cheese. Craig had bbq salmon, mac and cheese, and "sassy rice". Yum! Food for the soul indeed; it was incredible. They offered us dessert but we were all stuffed from our delicious meals.

Dave drove us by the original Apollo Theater on the way out of Harlem.

On the ride home, Jared called his dad on speaker phone and we all wished him a happy birthday. When we got back to the house, we watched Shock Treatment on YouTube. It is a kinda-sorta sequel to Rocky Horror also made by Richard O'Brien. Though he and Patricia Quinn and a few others from the original movie cast are in it, they play different characters. Brad, Janet, Betty, and Ralph are in the movie, but played by different actors. Though the premise is a bit prescient (a 1982 movie predicting the rise of reality TV), the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It was not enjoyable. As Jared said, "Well, it was a thing, and we watched it." That about sums it up.

Monday 5/4/2026 - Departure

We woke up this morning and Jared had gone to get fresh bagels, which we enjoyed with our coffee. We said goodbye and thank you to Jared, Dave, and Sylvia, and left the house at 11 a.m. We stopped at the Larry Doby service plaza to get gas. Service plazas in NJ are named after famous Nw Jersey residents (there is a Connie Chung Service Plaza, for example). Though we hadn't heard of Larry Doby before this trip, we had learned about him at Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park: he was a Negro League baseball star. We had passed this gas station yesterday, and the price had gone up 25 cents in the interim! If we had the time, we should have stopped for gas on the way back from Megan's.

On the ride, we listened to the rest of our David Sedaris book, followed by Patti Smith interviews.

We correctly went over the Mario Cuomo (Tappan Zee) Bridge this time. We missed a turn at one point and had to compensate by getting on 95 for a while, but it probably saved us from mowing traffic on 15 that we had seen when driving down on Friday. We stopped once for a bathroom break. We didn't really hit traffic until we got to Rt 128. We arrived home at 4:00 after a wonderful weekend getaway.