Weekend, Summer Style.

I didn't write this weekend.  :(  But, you know, that's ok, because I lived this weekend. :)  On Saturday, Handsome Hubster and I went into the city to see American Idiot on Broadway.  We love us some Green Day!

 Going to see them in concert again in August and we were really excited to catch the show on Bway (ok, we were excited for a DATE most of all, lol). To be honest, I was a little wary of how "Broadway-ized" the songs would be (this is why we haven't seen Billy Joel's musical or even Abba's... heard they're kinda show choiry... yeah... that's how I roll).  We knew that Green Day was really involved in the whole process of the show creation, though, and were pretty sure we wouldn't be seeing any Twyla Tharp or jazz hands.

Not dissin' on West Side, we are huge Broadway fans and HH was actually in West Side in college, but I am not a fan of pop music gone Broadway.  Maybe these next jazz hands are ones I could get behind:

(That one's for my lil sis, who is going to see Evil Dead the Musical.  Lucky!)

So anyway. We drove into the city early to beat the traffic.  If you have ever driven from Jersey into New York, you know that you don't want to get caught in Lincoln Tunnel traffic.  If you have not had the pleasure, the Lincoln Tunnel is a 1.5 mile tunnel... under the Hudson River. 

That's New Jersey on the left of the river and Manhattan on the right.  And when you get stuck in traffic  in there, you can sit before and in the tunnel f-o-r-e-v-e-r... pondering what might happen if a crack ever appeared and the Hudson River came gushing in, like in the Sylvester Stallone flick 'Daylight' (oh, you missed that one?  Fortunately I found a pic.)  Look at him, all wet and serious, contemplating what to do in a flooded Lincoln Tunnel.  I guess everyone else in the tunnel has already perished?  Except the cameraman, of course. :)

(Side note, Sylvester - Did you know that GPS still works?  In a 1.5 mile tunnel? Underwater?)

So since we arrived in the city plenty early, we had a few hours to kill.  We found the theater then moseyed on down 44th St.  About a block away was the National Geographic King Tut exhibit (complete with 3-D mummy movie!)

A totally cool thing to find accidentally!  I wish we had been able to spend a really long time in there.  I just wanted to stand there and stare at some of the artifacts.  They were absolutely amazing and the amount of detail in all of the hand carved items is astounding.  King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.  Some of the artifacts (like Tut's actual mummy) are considered national treasures and are not permitted to leave Egypt, but they had models that looked like the real thing.  Sadly, you can't take pictures in the exhibit, but it was breathtaking.  Did you know that they have now surmised that Tut most likely died of malaria?  They have found malarial DNA within his actual mummy.  Did you also know that he had a club foot and a bone disorder in the other foot?  They know this from analysis as well, and it makes sense that he had lots of canes in his tomb.

"A ground-breaking study of the mummy in 2005 - including the first CT scan of the body by a team of radiologists - concluded he died of gangrene after breaking his leg.  But now a team of genetists say Tut's DNA reveals he had malaria and likely died of complications of the disease brought on by the broken limb.
The team looked at 16 royal mummies, tracing Tut's lineage back five generations and linking him for the first time to several older mummies, including one that appears to be his grandmother and another that is likely his father, Akhenaten.  They found a host of congenital diseases - unsurprising in a line that encouraged siblings to marry.  An accumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident," the researchers wrote. "None alone would have caused death."  But he was so weakened by disorders and disease - including malaria - that an accidental fracture could have done him in, they speculate. He might be envisioned as a young but frail king who needed canes to walk because of the bone-necrotic and sometimes painful Koehler disease II, plus oligodactyly (hypophalangism) in the right foot and clubfoot on the left," the authors said.
Full article here

Interesting, huh?  So after the exhibit, we went to American Idiot.  Of course you can't take pics during a show either, but I did grab one of the curtain before the show opened:

Why, you ask?  Well, see that tiny white spot of light above the curtain to the left of center?  I couldn't get a good shot of it without using my flash, but here is a closer look:

There is what looks like a Renaissance-type painting above the stage, and they had focused a tiny spotlight on a bare butt in the artwork.  Lol.... oh, Green Day.  You pranksters, you. ;)

After the show, we saw Zach Braff outside.  I'm not sure what to think about that, I mean, he's famous and all, but... meh.  We see some funny people outside Bway shows.  We saw Ian Ziering from 90210 once.  And Neil Patrick Harris.  (Wait - NPH!!!!)  So here is my current "who I've seen at a show algebraic equation":   Ian Ziering < Zach Braff < NPH.  I mean, duh.  There is really no contest there.

And on Sunday, we grabbed some fried chicken and headed to the park for a family picnic!

But ok, it's Monday... so I did write again.  I only had a little over an hour but I managed to crunch in 841 words, and I have another free hour or so after the kids go to bed and before movie/snuggles with hubby.

Man, I love summer. :)