Call up the mother of a friend (too much history with your own mother, this needs to be a new experience for both of you) and invite her to NY for a day trip. I just took a friend's mother to NY to shop for fabric.
Now this does happen to be for a gown I'm making for her to wear to the coronation ball of the Imperial Court of NY but think about the fact that this little lady school teacher (I exaggerate, I suspect a bit of the "flower child" in her past) who was last in NY 46 years ago and has avoided the place because it makes her nervous, is shopping there, with a big ol' drag queen, for fabric for a gown for her to wear to the most lavish, over the top drag event in the country which she will attend with her butch gay son and his husband.
The poor thing was scared shitless. Originally we planned to meet after work and take the bus. As the date approached she started taking more and more Valium...it wasn't working. She didn't have to meet me until 5:30 but, just in case, she took an extra day off work and went to the meeting place at 3:00 to make sure she made it on time. Well we made the bus and NY and got off the bus on the busiest corner of Chinatown at 11:30pm. Chinatown is pretty much always busy, crowded and noisy even at 11:30pm when nervous little old lady schoolteachers are arriving in NY for the first time in 46 yrs.
No cabs around so we walk to an uptown avenue to get a cab to the hotel. The streets outside of Chinatown were desolate. It's like that scene in SO many movies where the clueless innocents get lost in the darkest most desolate part of the city...it was 11:30pm, dark, desolate and we were exactly what the casting director ordered. I was terrified that I'd look over and see her melt into a shaking puddle of terror. We got a cab quickly though and got to the hotel.
We were hungry because we were both too nervous to eat after work so we tried room service; kitchen was closed for remodeling but surprisingly she was up for walking to a restaurant because we were close to Times Square; or she was about to collapse from hunger, I don't know which.
We finally found a place that was open and sat down. Waiter asks if we want a drink. "Do you have Glenlivet?” this little old lady schoolteacher asks the bartender. It's an Irish place, they had plenty, and she ordered plenty, "I'll have that and make it a double." Lady Prisspott, the haggard old, hard drinking drag queen orders a chardonnay. We had a nice chat on the trip up about sewing and what the ball is like and were chatting again when the band starts their set. Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, the Beatles, she loved it and is getting into it, singing along waving a chicken wing around to the music. Half way through her SECOND double scotch she's dancing in the booth singing "Pretty Woman". I thought sure they were going to call her up to sing with the band.
So are you seeing this? Bitter old hard-ass drag queen nervously nursing her chardonnay (warm, domestic and not a good year) while this crazy wild woman is tossing down 15yr old scotch 2 fists at a time and is about to jump up and grab the mic from the band and sing along. What a hoot.
"Well we're just a block from Times Square, you want to go see it at night?” I ask her at 12:30am. I'm thinking may be I should take her for a stroll in the cold air to walk it off a little. Her eyes light up, "yeah, I'd love it".
"You sure you're not too tired?"
"No, I'm fine. I usually get up at 5:00am we can sleep in tomorrow till at least 7:00." Off we go up Broadway. She's standing in the middle of Times Square looking at the lights twirling around like Mary Tyler Moore. Thank God she didn't wear a hat.
We caught a cab back to the hotel and slept like babies until 8:30am. We leave the hotel for our day of shopping and low and behold all the shuttered store fronts from the night before are the costume jewelry shops where I buy the 5lb rhinestone necklaces that her Ladyship seems to favor. We're having a blast window-shopping along Broadway checking out the jewelry that she says, "we'll come back and shop for after the dress is done."
We get to Mood (you have seen Project Runway haven't you) and immediately find just the right fabric but it's our first stop and we walked right to it so "let's look more and we can come back." So we go on. We find a shop a few blocks away and find the same fabric but better quality. I like this broad, she knows the difference. So the shop owner says he'll get the fabric sent down in 10 minutes, "how many yards?"
While we're waiting (sometimes I just don't think) I'm looking around. "Ooh this is nice. Oooh, look at this velvet; don't you love the drape? Oh, look at this, it's like what we were looking at but isn't it iridescent?"
"Oh, I like that. Oh, I really like that. Excuse me sir, we want this." Kitty says. Fearing the worst from a shop owner in the garment district in NY I try to explain that he's already cut the $150 worth of orange silk crepe (ORANGE! sheeesh, he'll never sell orange silk crepe). "No, I want this;" turning to a red faced, we'll call it grinning, shop owner, "We don't want the other one."
She charms the pants off this guy. Have you ever shopped in NY and told a shop owner you changed your mind? I mean even maybe after he's only put an item it in a bag, he hasn't even rung it up; he hasn't already called his wholesaler and had it sent right over, he just took it off the shelf and put it in the bag. He'll curse you out and kick your ass. I've seen it happen. "I want this one,” she says. The guy sells her the new fabric, gives her a bottle of water cause she's a little thirsty and brought her a chair to sit in while she waits AND, she didn't want the fabric he already cut for her that is God-awful orange and that he can never resell...and all but kissed her hand as we left.
We go to lunch. Midtown Manhattan 12:30pm the place is packed. Picture John Waters as your maitre d'. I'm serious; the guy is rail thin. Hair dyed that totally unnatural color of tar black with a pencil thin moustache. He hasn't been laid since 1969, and he's just a wee bit bitter about it. The man was attitude, refined and distilled into a potent liquor and served chilled. "Could we have that table (a four top) over there with a little more elbow room?" I turned to stone. There are two burned holes in the wall behind her head and every wall after that that you can see all the way to Trenton through. "Please, I'm just a little tired from running around and I need a little more room." The cramped people at the tables on either side of our intended table look up and suck in what they hope won't be their last breath. WHACK! He slams the menus down on a four top, in midtown at the height of the lunch hour. The waiter, grinning a little, asks if we want a drink. She orders a beer and he brings a mug nearly the size of a keg. I don't think the maitre d' has a lot of friends on the wait staff.
We finished shopping back at Mood where she picks out this crazy printed ultrasuede for gloves but it matches perfectly and looks like something Galliano would put together. I swear this girl's got balls and she's not afraid to be daring. The clerks at Mood were loving the selections. I was too. I can never get anyone to take a risk but this was daring for me! Oh, and on the way we stopped in at the place where the guy has a roll of ghastly orange fabric laying on the counter to get some fabric for my gown and she talks him down $20 on the price.
