Mare and Ren both went to school, booked into the extended care option.  In a complex maneuver requiring split-second timing, we pulled out of the drop-off line to pass Baby Sissy to a friend who was bringing her to her house for the day.  (The Maneuver worked because it had been expertly-planned:  I had delivered the pack and play, high chair and bags of food to her house the afternoon before.  Schmoopy, being third, just wanted to be sure her new overlord intended to feed her.  At first view of the chair and pile of hulled strawberries, she instantly transferred all allegiance.) 

By nine, we were on the Mass Pike, bombing toward New York and glory. 

We parked on the Upper West side because that is the area we know.  New Yorkers will find this absurd because they know fifteen ways in and out of the Colbert location that don’t involve parking 25 blocks away.  Non-New Yorkers will find this absurd because … seriously?  Is it that hard?

The answer is that it IS just that freaking hard to find your way around New York if you don’t know what you’re doing.  

I don't know why I photographed the exterior when it is the interior that houses the racks of flavors like Caramel Apple and Fluffernutter.

On the Upper West Side we do know what we’re doing, less room for catastrophic error or accidental trips to Jersey.  So we parked at our old familiar spot and made the walk toward Time Square.

 Besides, it was a gorgeous blue-sky New York day and that is a perfect New York walk.

 The first thing we saw was Crumbs, the most awesome cupcake bakery in the whole world.  Or, well, I think so.  It had racks upon racks of large, frosting-heavy confections in the most staggering array of flavors.

I didn’t want to eat one before lunch, so we agreed we would come back on our way home and pick up a bunch to share with the kids.

Seriously! Look at that! Who hot-glued the Mah Jong tiles?

We stopped at Fusha West for a sushi lunch.  They sat us at a little table streetside overlooking the bustle of Amsterdam Avenue.  (Outside!  Yay outside! — New England winter is a little annual PTSD and for the first weeks of spring I can’t get past the fact it’s really over.) 

I loved the outdoor seating, and was also completely enchanted by Fusha’s perfect little New York sushi restaurant bathroom. 

I had asked Cute Husband to order for us — some fresh dumplings, a pile of sushi, and fun drinks. 

Apparently, the bar tender was out, so my “Coconut Lime Saketini” came out as a martini glass full of hard liquor with cucumber floating on top. 

I totally drank it. The dumplings arrived, hot and slippery with sesame oil, in a little tilted plate with a pool of ginger dipping sauce.

 Fresh dumplings are crisp-bottomed, with silky skins (never doughy) and the filling juicy.

For lunch, a pile of sushi. 

It was good sushi.  Not blow-your-hair-back, like the dumplings were.  But it was good. 

After we ate it, we started walking. 

There was a farmer’s market.  We bought cider and cider doughnuts.  

No little iPhone could convey the staggering height of this building — the Trump tower — shooting glass and steel up into the sky. 

We made it to the 54th street studio of the Colbert Report.  Our intent had been to get eyes on the location, go out to eat, and then come back and get on line.  But there were already people lined up.  We had reservations, but all that does is give you a spot ahead of someone who doesn’t have a ticket.  They over book every taping, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing our chance, or coming all this way for crappy seats. 

So we parked it on the pavement in front of the studio.  We tried to play cards, but the wind blew them all over the place.  I ran out for snacks and brought back Turkish food — Cute Husband’s favorite.   Grape leaves and calamari and some kind of salad — but it was terrible.  I love Turkish food, too, but this was sour and stale and soggy and I spit out the only bite I toook, and he didn’t fare much better.  I bought cookies and magazines and we shared with the people next to us — two chicks from Philly. 

We read the grafetti, and we waited. 

About two hours in, my ass was stiff and I was getting grumpy.  That was when they took our names, checked our driver’s licenses against the ticket reservations, and gave us the pass to get into the studio. 

I was number 5. 

We went through security and were herded into a tiny room where “best of” segments of the Report were running on a flat screen.  I am so glad I did not know we had two hours to go. 

They did show the Eleanor Holmes Norton interview, though, and that’s one of my all-time favorites and had me howling again. 

Our tickets got us seated first, but didn’t guarantee great seats.  We did okay anyway, third or so row back, on the right.  A warm up comedian came out, but by then I was so tired I almost couldn’t stand it. We had been waiting four hours. 

Finally, Stephen Colbert came out.  He was not in character, and it was fun to watch him just chat and take questions. He told us Glen Beck said that someone within the Vatican was a fan of Beck’s show, but he wasn’t naming names.  Colbert found that hilarious.   In fact, he thinks it must have been Father Guido Sarducci and is planning to bring him on  the show to tell us what he told Beck.  OhMAGAWD how funny would that be?  

In answer to the question of who his comedic inspirations were, he said Steve Martin and George Carlin. 

A woman asked him if he had a bucket list and he said no, with this awesome shrug.  “I have a great life, I’m very satisfied.”

Then my favorite question:  “Are you ever afraid?” someone asked.  

“Afraid?  –Yes.  People ask me how I can keep a straight face in the Congressional interviews, but it’s because I’m afraid they’re going to poke me.”  (Colbert interviews Members of Congress — like Holmes Norton — and tortures them with deadpan offensive questions.) 

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. 

He was in South Carolina (his native state) filming the Ku Kux Klan in the early days of Comedy Central, before anyone had heard of him.  

“I was out there marching along at a rally,” he said, ” and then we got invited to this big special thing that night, well, of course it was a cross-burning.” 

So he gets out in front of the cross burning and at that time Comedy Central was doing station identifications, so he thought it would be great to film one right there. 

“I am Stephen Colbert and this is Comedy Central,” he said.  When he turned around he was face to face with a drunk, angry Klansman. 

“Comedy? — Are you making fun of us??”  the Klansman asked. 

Colbert was saved by his producer, a tall blonde woman they called “Chewbacca.” 

“Hey, your boss, that guy over there,” she pointed to where the head Oompah Loompa was standing, some 500 yards away — “he knows all about it, you better ask him.” 

At that point, a swarm of angry Klansman stomped away and she turned to Colbert and said, “Haul.  ASS!” — And they split. 

Then he started the show. 

It was awesome.  Definitely go do this if you have the chance.  But don’t wait in line that long, the seats in the theater are all good and you’d have more fun getting something to eat and coming back at about 5:00 so you only have to wait two hours. 

We walked home the way we came, through Times Square in the emerging warmth of spring.  Of course, we totally forgot to go to Crumbs.    We got take out Chinese food — ginger chicken and cashew chicken.  They forgot to give us forks or napkins, so we ate with our fingers, making a huge mess, trying to stay awake along the long dark stretches of I95.  By midnight, I was all done, Cute Husband took the wheel, listening to Elton John while I nodded and struggled next to him, desperate to be home. 

We rolled in at 2:15.  Mama Sunshine laughed at our stupidity, at our resilient youth despite it all, kissed us, drove off toward her own bed.  The Tilty Floored Farmhouse was as we left it, our three babies sleeping in their beds.  

“Haul.  ASS!” we giggled to each other in the darkness, like girls at a slumber party, before we fell to our few hours’ rest before we had to get up and head to work and children and the life of keeping it all afloat.

“Guess what?” Ren says to the couple– as she will to anyone who will listen these days — “Momma has a baby in her tummy! A girl!!”

We grin and rub my belly.

“Is it really three girls?” the man asks Cute Husband.

“Yep,” Cute Husband laughs.

“Poor guy,” the man says. “Are you going to try again? For a son?”

At this point, I consider asking this man about his prostate, his investment portfolio, the status of his marriage to the dour looking woman to his right.

“Just wait until they get married,” the man continues, “and you have to pay for three weddings. Tell them they have to elope.” The door opens, and the couple starts to leave.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cute Husband nods enthusiastically as they step off the elevator. “Go fuck yourself.”

He whispers it under his breath.

At least, I think that was his plan. But he has said the loud part quiet, and the quiet part loud, and in that split second before the elevator door closes, I am pretty sure they heard him.

The F-bomb. It lingers in the air.

We are silent, Mare and Ren blinking at him for a few long seconds.

“I think he heard you,” I say finally.

“Teach him to shut his damn mouth,” Cute Husband replies. “Spouting off that kind of ignorance in front of my girls. Being the Dad of girls is the best thing anybody could ever ask for.”

The girls nod their agreement, the door opens, and they step out.

I kiss their father. The way you kiss a man when someone asks you if you’d marry him all over again, and that’s your answer.