Clareified

“If you had sent a limousine to pick me up, I’d have come to your apartment a lot sooner.” – Ari

When Jake emailed to say that he and Mrs. Jake would be visiting in October, to celebrate my birthday, I was psyched. I’ve never tried a fall birthday season…but I was game.
While he wouldn’t allow me to ban my evil nemesis from the festivities, he did King Solomon proud, and divided their visit into the Dawn day (YAY! The crowd goes wild!) and the Karol day (boooo. hissss).
Dawn day started with cocktails at the Lowell.
It was my first time inside an 18 star hotel, and I walked into the lobby and did the classic tourist neck crane.
“Wooooowwwww.”
“May I help you, miss?” said the lady behind the counter.
The other lady behind the counter was asking a patron what she would like for her “welcome drink.”
Welcome drink?! At the Hilton, we’re lucky if we get our room key in less than an hour.
And we’re never lucky.
I told the nice lady who did not ma’am me, that I was here to see Jake.
“Yes, they’re expecting you.”
I am expected! Who’s expected? Me.
I took the elevator up to a much higher floor than you’d think the Lowell has by looking at the exterior.
The Jakes were taking us to see the Drowsy Chaperone in Times Square and then we were having dinner at the best steakhouse in NYC.
When I walked in the suite, the rest of the girls were already there – the ever dashing Pretty Numbers and the sophisticated Ari, and Diane Sawyer – I mean Karol.
“Wow, I didn’t recognize you in a turtle neck and an skirt of appropriate length. That’s an outfit even I would wear!”
“That.Is.Not.A.Compliment.”
The suite was huge. There was a library along the side wall —uhmmm…the books were real, in case you wondering. Cause I wasn’t. I knew that already.
“You know, there are places where you can buy used books by the length!” Jake said after I finished verifying the realness of the books.
By the time I started touching the paperweights to see if I could find the lever that opened the wall to a secret room, the elegant Mrs. Jake wisely suggested a toast.
We drank champagne…some faster than others did.
“Dawn!? Wow! Rough day at the office?” PN asked.
What? Three glasses in four minutes…that’s totally normal. Lightweight.
Mrs. Jake gave us beautiful boxes of chocolate, at which point Ari specifically let it be known that Dawn would not be getting any of hers this year.
“Well, I got enough for each of you!” Mrs. Jake said.
Ari still took protective measures.
Selfish bastard.
A limo picked us up in front of the hotel.
“Man…New York just looks that much better through the window of a limousine,” I said as the rest of the car chatted about some alien scientific concept of…sib-lings.
“Yeah, I used to put my younger brother on top of the fridge,” Ari said.
“What? I didn’t know you could put them there,” Mrs. Jake said, “I so would have put my brother up there,” she said jealously.
“Karol used to beat her brother about the head on subway platforms!” I said, you know, trying to fit in.
“Yeah…serves them right…lousy B-O-Y-S,” Mrs. Jake spelled out.
The car got quiet and I looked at Ari.
“Umm…ok…I didn’t get it. Bring Your Own Sibling…Stick…Sauce?”
“Yeah…I didn’t get it, either” Ari confessed.
Mrs. Jake looked at us with polite silence.
“Boys. Doofuses. Boys. B-o-y-s,” Karol said with not so polite silence.
Ohhhh…yes, boys. Makes sense. We went to college. I swear it.
We got the theater with fifteen minutes to spare before show time.
Ari and I slipped out to go to the bathroom…she wisely picked the handicapped one. I stood on line for like 700 hours, barely making it back to my seat in time for the opening.
I didn’t really know much about the show. Except that it won awards and a woman I interviewed for my firm loved it.
And so the show’s clever start pleased me to no end.
As we sat in the darkened theater, a voice came over the speaker.
“God, I hate waiting for a show to start. You just want to say a little prayer…dear God please don’t let the show suck too much. Don’t let it go on for too long and, oh and this most important, dear god don’t let the actors come out into the audience, sending that horrible fourth wall collapsing around you. Amen.”
I laughed and laughed and laughed. I love musicals so very very much, but I totally think stuff like that before every one starts.
“Dear God, don’t let it suck!” HAHHAHAHAHA
That prayer was answered in spades. Jake and I always have a deal about the shows that we see.
I pick it and he’ll buy the tickets. If it’s good, I get all the credit because I picked it. If it’s bad, it’s not my fault cause he bought the tickets.
The Drowsy Chaperone has appropriately been called a love letter to musicals.
Basically, the narrator is listening to an album of the musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” that his mother left him.
The musical then comes to life and we watch it alongside him.
He says things like “I love this number…but you can’t listen to the lyrics…seriously, the lyrics are absurd, just block them out.”
And then the leading lady will start singing a song about her “little monkey” and then he’ll say “oy…I need a brandy.”
Everyone laughed and laughed. Except Karol. Because she has no soul.
And is dead inside.
Our driver picked us up for dinner and we headed to the east aide.
“Dawn…I was reading reviews about this place and they all said it has a strong mob connection,” Jake said cautiously as we pulled up out front, “have you officially gone over to the dark side?”
I laughed.
Nah…that’s just color. There was only one mob killing out front…and that was years ago.
I didn’t mention that it was three guys though…
The Jakes chose a Californian wine and told us about the weekend that they spent with the bottler. We also discussed that my room in the house that they are building, will be needing a larger television. And that I will not be sharing with Pretty Numbers.
Stupid Ari then mentioned the Mets game and I managed to catch the snippets of their loss through the night.
Nothing like fine steak and red wine to wash away your sorrows.
We took pictures against the manly Sparks backdrop and called it a night after midnight.
I was the last one to be dropped off, and I was very excited for my doorman to see me coming home in a limo.
Yes, I am a geek.
Mrs. Jake invited us to visit museums with her the following afternoon. She invited Jake too, but I think he quickly looked away, stuck his fingers in his ears and said “la la la la la, I can’t hear you.”
I had to go to a baby shower with Kaz on the Upper East, so I declined, but I invited everyone over to have drinks at my place the next day.
The next day, Kaz woke me up at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m.
“Dawn?”
“Mmmm.”
“Are you up?”
“MMMMM”
“ok, cause the shower starts at noon and I’m co-hosting, so I have to be there a little early.”
I had volunteered to drive us in a fit a gratitude after Kaz wrote the text for the card that I was attaching to my gift.
“Ok, ok, ok, I’m up!”
I picked her up in the streets of Brooklyn Heights where she was doing last minute gift shopping for the shower.
As we crawled across the Brooklyn Bridge in horrendous Saturday afternoon traffic, she licked and snipped her gift bag into shape. As she started to write her own card, it sounded all too familiar.
“Heeey! That’s what you gave me for my card! No fair”
“Ooops…ok..I’ll change it up –which did you use “so excited or so happy”?”
I laughed.
Kaz funny.
She called Dawn 2 when it became quite clear that we were not going to make it before noon.
“I bet Dawn 2 is already there. And that her gift was bought and wrapped weeks ago,” I said.
“Yeah..she’s so much better than I am.”
“Yup, she sure is.”
Of course, when we got to the shower and Dawn 2 was all “hey, Kaz do you have a pen, I gotta finish signing my gift,” Kaz and I both burst out laughing.
Nope.
Dawn 2 is just as good as the rest of us. That is to say. Bad. Very, very bad.
The brunch was at Greek restaurant, which I have never had before.
I was seated next to a very funny Greek woman who was constantly encouraging me to get me to “try it.”
“Don’t you want to be able to say you’ve tasted hummus?”
“Nope. I’m not that kind of girl…I would prefer to go to my deathbed saying I have never had a falafel!”
Wait..is that Greek?
She was very engaging though, and finally hooked me with fried cheese.
“You like cheese? And you like fried?”
‘Umm…yeah..”
“OK then! Fried cheese!”
I totally liked the fried cheese too.
My mom periodically called with computer woes and I hatched a fool proof plan to get Kaz all liquored up so that I could trick her into coming back to my place to…fix the computer. Fix. The. Computer.
Geez, people. Minds out of the gutter. Out.
Of course, Dawn 2 swept right in there with talks of Bloomingdale’s and fancy yogurt and it was vaffles for my computer fixing plan.
Although this baby shower didn’t have any contests, all the guests were still given presents.
Huzzah!
Presents!
I would tell you what the presents were, but I don’t want the poor bastard sitting next door to Dawn 2 to spend the rest of his day hearing “rubber ducky, you’re the one,” sang through his office door.
We were under strict instructions from Kaz, who introduced the parents to be, that if we were asked for baby name suggestions we had to give only names that rhymed with Kaz.
“Chaz” “Daz” “Az” “Maz” “Boaz” and so on.
I went with my usual ‘Dawn’ pitch…but faced with the prospect of a baby boy, I had to relent.
And Don…well that’s just gay.
NTTAWWT.
I dropped Kaz and D2 off at Bloomies and rushed back to Brooklyn to get my apartment all ready for the Jakes’ visit.
It was the Karol day and I’m sure they were sad and dreading the prospect.
As was I.
Karol had planned a night of vodka drinking and dancing at a Brighton beach Russian night club.
The invitation said “dress to the nines. Dawn, that means no sneakers.”
She then got my FYMF response. (PG-13 blog.)
The Jakes arrived around 7 and I gave them the patented Dawn Summers’ apartment tour. This is the kitchen, which cost me ten months of aggravation, this is my dining room (“and by dining room, she means poker playing room” –Karol)
“Wow, Dawn. If you had sent a limousine to pick me up, I’d have come to your apartment a lot sooner,” Ari said looking out over the terrace.
Shut it.
We went back inside for champagne, despite Karol’s warnings that we’d be hooked up to a vodka IV in a few minutes.
After champagne, Jake produced a gift bag and said “well, I went by the Apple store this morning, and I just couldn’t resist!”
He then gave each of us matching ipod Nanos in Mrs. Jake’s favorite color, hot pink.
The stunned silence was followed my suffocating hugs!
“Jake, seriously. You can’t spoil us like this. When you guys leave, we have to go back to our real parents, you know. And they don’t give us anything!!!”
Everyone laughed. (Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve made this post long enough so far that my mom will never get down this far! –ed.)
We hung out at Casa de Summers for a while longer, taking what Mrs. Jake aptly described as a series of prom pictures.
I am making rabbit ears behind anyone standing to my left in every picture. Ummm..yeah..probably why I didn’t go to prom.
In the limo on the way to Little Odessa, we discussed the Madonna African baby adoption and I professed that while I wasn’t ready for marriage, I was totally ready for parenthood.
“Yeah, me too. I expect someone to leave me a baby in a will though,” Ari offered.
“Not me, I expect to find my kid in a car seat on the side of the road!” I countered.
The modern American woman, ladies and gentlemen.
Karol scoffed at the whole plan.
“HA! You’re not ready for a kid. Are you crazy? When you’re playing poker till 5 in the morning, where is that kid? On your lap? Helping you to decide how much to bet?”
“Well, it’s gonna have to learn someday…”
Killjoy.
My kid is so gonna poop on you.
We wound our way through the Brooklyn streets and stopped at storefront with lettered writing out front.
Tatayana.
Oh, here we go.
We were escorted up and down two flights of stairs and taken to a table for four in the back.
The MC made an announcement that Karol translated as “Since there are people here who do not speak Russian, tonight we will make an effort to speak English.”
That this was said in Russian, amuses me still.
I went to get a menu, but it was taken from my hand and replaced with a glass of vodka. I went to pick up a napkin, but it was taken from my hand and replaced with a glass of vodka. Mrs. Jake ordered a bottle wine. It was brought. Along with a bottle of vodka.
Before we came, Karol said “don’t worry about your BS ‘I’m not drunk, ask me anything’ cause you’re not going to be able to do any of that.”
She was wrong. I was “I’m not drunk, ask me anything,” ing within minutes.
Then PN would pour another glass of vodka.
Of course, I think she just wanted to quickly finish our bottle so her hot Mongolian vodka bringing boyfriend would come back.
After he had brought like the fifth bottle he looks at the table and says ”you guys like vodka!” And PN points at me and says “especially her!”
“WHA—I’m not drunk! Ask me anything!”
Ari then says “I bet the Mets get shut out tonight.”
I flip her the bird and run off to see if I could find out the score.
I ask a waiter.
“Do you know the score of the Mets game?”
Blank stare.
“Um…(insert swinging bat gesture) Mets …(hold up fingers) score?”
Blank stare.
Uhh…ok…thanks.
Repeat three times, till I decide to just try to find a signal on my Treo.
Sure enough, the Mets were blanked 5-0.
I was ill.
I went to the bathroom, where I saw this scene play out.
“Debbie?? Are you in there?”
“Debbie???”
“DEBBIE?? We have water for you. You need to drink some water.”
I peer out of my stall to see a wispy blond girl, wearing just one shoe, holding a drinking glass full of water. The hand towel lady nods her head and says:
“Da. She eez in there.”
The wispy girl calls out to her friend in the hallway.
“She’s in here, but she’s not answering.”
I exit the stall and go to the sink to wash my hands.
A tall, chubbier brunette walks in, opens the door to my newly vacated stall, stands on the toilet.
“Gimmee the glass,” she calls to One Shoe.
One Shoe hands her the water and she dangles over the wall to Debbie’s stall.
“Debbie. Here. Take this. You need water or you’ll be sick.”
Debbie moaned and the glass disappeared behind the partition.
And then clattered to the floor in a smashing explosion of water and glass.
I dried my hands.
Gulp.
Water…yeah…I’d better get some water in me…
Karol refused to steal a separate drinking glass for me, and I hate to mix water with the remnants of soda in my soda drinking glass, so I’d drink the vodka and then use that as my drinking glass.
Leading Ari to say I was drinking water every single time for the rest of the night.
Ha!
The appetizer course consisted of nineteen different dishes ranging from caviar to pickles and potatoes. With everything you could imagine jammed in the middle.
Mrs. Jake kept trying to get me to try to squid or escargot or the sushi. But I firmly clamped my hands to my mouth and shook my head, the universal sign for heeeeeellll, nooooo.
I ate potatoes. And lobster.
“You are going to be so bleeped up, by the end of the night, if you don’t eat,” Karol said evilly.
Before I could respond, the lights went down and the TV monitor next to our table turned on to static.
“Oooh…the show is starting,” Karol squealed.
A woman in a one piece legging thing, pretty much painted on her body, came out on a trapeze, with a similarly dressed male counterpart contorting his body alongside her.
There was singing. I think.
Then there was flame throwing.
Then a lady on a swing with not one, but two suitors! Two!
And then, as is the tradition for all Russian women with two suitors, there came a dozen dancing teacups to help her make her choice.
All of which prepares us for the rousing finale of an ode to Moscow which pretty much goes-in your deepest gravelly voice—“Mos-cow, Mos-cow, Mos-cow, Mos-cow, Mos-cow followed by the sexy whisper “Moscow!”
I leaped to my feet in a standing ovation! Dear lord, how did they lose the cold war? HOW???!!!
Their teacups DANCE!!
The restaurant has a professional photographer and we had our pictures taken by him on the dance floor, but they had to be retaken because doofus and the Halliburton Girl both had their eyes closed in it.
We took four more shots, three of which I did straight, and then on the fourth, I was goofing around and making a face.
Guess which one the photographer chose, made six copies of and charged us a million dollars for?
Just. Guess.
Arrrghhh.
Afterwards…or um..during dinner there was dancing. We had the band dedicate New York, New York to the Jakes and we attempted to do the Rockette kick line…Mission: Impossible!
The Jakes, however, very gracefully waltzed around the floor as the lead singer did his best Sinatra, finishing with “welcome to New York to the Jakes!”
At the table they raised a toast to their New York girls.
Which must have spooked Ari.
“Hold up! Do you have other girls, like in San Francisco or something???!”
They laughed at her. I mean with.
With.
I can’t say I was keeping count, but Karol thinks we must have had something like fifteen shots of vodka by night’s end. And although I did do the robot and the running man…and was walking around bare feet for most of the night…and went up to some strange Russian guy and told him I knew his younger sister..I was so not drunk.
PN, on the other hand…
We all climbed into the limo and Ari and Karol started freaking the poor Jakes out by telling them what a testimony to marriage they were.
“Yeah, you guys make it seem not like death,” said the girl who always refers to weddings as “funerals” by accident.
Since we were in Brooklyn, for the first time, I got dropped off first.
“Do you need me to walk you to the door, “ Jake asked.
“Nah. I’m not drunk! If I fall, it’s cause I would have fallen anyway. I checked my feet. Two shoes! Hooray..way ahead of wispy girl.
I stepped out into the night and waved goodbye to the car as pulled away.
Goodbye, Jakes! See ya next year!

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.