To honor the mother of my kids, I invited my lovely wife out on another date.  This time to celebrate Mother’s Day, so it had to be extra special.  Imagine what would happen IF I didn’t do this?

We went to see a new Broadway show.  Not just any Broadway show, but If/Then which happens to headline a wonderful singer Mudna Pretzel … Indian Menstru … Nana Muzel …  the one and only Idina Metzel of course.  My sincere apology for my brief moment of Travolta syndrome 🙂

Babysitter was booked shortly after buying the tickets and we were looking forward to an evening with great food, NYC by night and a phenomenal musical … more importantly, no kids.  We might have encountered a few hiccups in the planning section, but it was a great evening.

We left the house with plenty of time to spare, as we intended to visit Guy Fieri’s restaurant on Times Square hoping to get a taste of the American kitchen.  After all, we live fairly close to NYC and might as well get a full night out of it.

Unfortunately we encountered something that I sorely dread – NYC traffic.  Not just any traffic, but bumper-to-bumper road rage 5 mile queueing traffic.  And, even worse, we had to queue through the Holland Tunnel, which to me is just painful.  I can’t help think what would happen if the bloody tunnel collapsed and frantically searches for escapes hatches or hoping that Sylvester Stallone is riding shotgun in the car ahead.

From Hoboken to Broadway slow-moving traffic, and there’s absolutely nothing we could do about it.  We went from being in good time to having no time for relaxation.  At every traffic light only 3-4 cars made it through and I was not planning on getting a ticket from New York finest, but suddenly they came to my rescue.  I was first in the intersection and was dreading having to navigate our tank across without bumping some silly expensive SUV.  Suddenly a patrol car pulled up next to me, the police officer nodded and smiled, then started his blinks which resulted in traffic stopping and we could drive through with no problem 🙂 and a police escort.

We managed to get parking close to Richard Rodgers Theatre, just off-Broadway, and walked slowly towards the theatre.

For dinner we were slightly screwed as we had no longer time to sit and eat in a restaurant.  In true NYC style we ended up eating a bagel across the street from the theatre and the strolled over to join the queue (again) to gain access to the theatre.

The next 2 hours were spent in the company of 1317 other ticket holders and the wonderful Idina Menzel.  The musical itself was good.  Good cast, wonderful atmosphere, catchy songs and yet modern play about a girl’s (Idina) choices she made or might have made – hence the name If/Then.

The theatre was an older style theatre with balconies, tiny seats (made for French arses) made before Americans became obese and the orchestra hidden underneath the stage.

Idina was absolutely stunning, not only with her looks, but her voice carried through the entire theatre and lifted us out of our seats.  Hairs were standing in my neck and I could detect a little tear rolling down my wife’s cheek – which she obviously denied.  We had perfect seats and could almost smell the sweat from the actors.  I can also share that we saw Idina’s butt – not kidding!

I was secretively waiting for her to burst into “Let it go” throughout the show, and so were many others I’m sure, but she didn’t.  Perhaps a little disappointed that there weren’t subtitles on the songs so the audience could sing along.

We left the theatre feeling somewhat excited and exhilarated that we had just witnessed an Oscar-winning performer sing her lungs out.  It’s a little strange then suddenly stand on Times Square smelling New York’s sewers, hearing the street merchants selling pretzels and hotdogs and the bright lights from the many screens on Times Square.  The city never sleeps and that’s a fact!

It might sound like I had planned the evening extremely well, but I had no clue that it would happen to fall on Mother’s Day and I had no idea that Idina would win the Oscar.

If I had planned it that well, would I have organised for traffic to be backed up, and would I have really have arranged for a car crash to delay us going home too?

It was a perfect evening in great company and we enjoyed it a lot.