We Take Ourselves With Us

Well, today got off to an exciting start. Halfway through my shower, the fire alarm went off.  Of course, I was the only one awake, and I have two kids who would rather toast in a fire than spring out of bed. In the midst of trying to save them from death by roasting from laziness, I shouted to Ned to call the front desk to check that we were really in Towering Inferno mode.  Funny story ... it seems that the smoke detector can be set off by shower steam.  And, it seems this happens frequently in our particular room.  By which I mean, our former room.  Sigh.  At least we were spared the indignity of rushing into the lobby in our jammies screaming "this building's going to explode."  And, on the plus side, everyone was up in time for breakfast.  Check out the cool elevator we would have avoided by running down 14 flights of stairs to flee a nonexistent fire. Ned took it all in stride, saying it was a classic, charming NY hotel story:...

This break we're heading back to NYC to binge on culture and food in our home away from home.  Of course, we need to get there first.  So when our flight was delayed by 90 minutes before we even left our home not away from home, we decided to grab an early dinner at our kitchen away from kitchen: the Charbroil .  And, given that it was the Charbroil, at 4:30 pm, on a Friday, it was already pretty full.  Oh, Charbroil, how we love thee :) Then, on to the airport, to wait. Unlike most folks at our gate (inc one woman happily headed to the Villages ... the Villages!), we had no connecting flights to freak out about, so we were mellow.  Ever better! (that's a URochester joke) Finally, about 2 hours after we should have landed, the bright lights of New York (insert Alicia Keys's voice here) came into view. This time around, we booked a package through Expedia and wound up staying at the uberhip remodeled Lexington Hotel since our no...