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Unforgettable Harmony - And Then Some! Part One

In October 2023, we went to New York to celebrate our 30th anniversary by seeing the long-awaited Harmony: A New Musical on Broadway. You can read about that here.

We had a wonderful anniversary dinner, then walked next door to the Ethel Barrymore theater to see the play. It was amazing. The rest of the trip, however, was less so.

First, our return flight was canceled for the season, and rescheduled to a much earlier flight in the day, cutting our trip short by six hours (this turned out to be a blessing, but we’ll get to that).

When we arrived in New York on the night of the 18th - the first night of previews for the show - the first item of business was to find bottled water. I‘m not a water snob, but when we were there 18 months before, the tap water didn’t agree with me. I was thirsty and tired, and not in the mood to spend the night in the bathroom.

We went to a 7-eleven across the street from our hotel, and entered to a man throwing things across the store at the cashiers behind the counter. I was so tired, I didn’t even realize that it could have been a dangerous situation. I just said, out loud, “Welcome to New York! Nothing like walking right in to the stereotype”, grabbed the two-for-one bottles off of the display, and rolled up to the register. They rang us up, and off we went.

Editor’s note: I am in a wheelchair when we go on vacation, because I am unable to walk for long.

Then on to our little shoebox room at the Doubletree Hotel in Times Square. It was $700.00 for two nights (which is why we didn’t book a third when the flight changed (again a good thing)), and worth every penny. We booked a king bed, and the room barely had walkable space on the inside wall. But I don’t even care, because their beds are so comfortable, and our stay was so short, we literally only needed a bed and a shower. Good thing, because that’s what we got! And this view:

Totally worth it.

Dinner reservations Thursday at 5:30, show at 7:00. We decided to do some sight-seeing in the morning. In my experience, NYC isn’t very ADA friendly. We had to walk around the block to find an Accessible entrance to Grand Central Station. Once inside, though, it was everything we expected. Beautiful architecture, people all over, seemingly knowing where they were going…As a people-watcher, I enjoyed the experience very much. I was waiting for the romantic “Meet me at the clock” moment, but we must not have stayed long enough for that. :)

Then on to Central Park. Hubby seemed a bit out of breath as we walked. It was foggy and humid, which he usually likes, but the air was a bit “thick’, so when I asked if he was okay, we chalked it up to that.

Walking through the park was beautiful. We’re not used to humidity, so it was a bit chilly, but fun to be part of the Touristy part of New York. But the second time Hubby said he needed to sit, I was concerned. He was breathing heavily; more than usual for the humidity. As usual, I began to feel guilty that he had to push me in the wheelchair, even as he assured me that wasn’t the reason, and that he was fine.

The walk back for dinner seemed okay, and the meal was one of the best we’ve had. Then on to the most important and timely play/musical/story I have ever seen on a stage (see link above). It was all beautiful. Maybe even perfect.

Walking back to the hotel, we stopped at a pastry shop for a treat. As you may or may not know, sometimes it’s easier to back a wheelchair over a threshold than to go forward, so as we were leaving… Hubby walked to the door, turned my wheelchair around, and started to back out. Apparently, despite looking both ways first, the door bumped a young lady walking (obviously too close) past. She turned around, grabbed the door, and THREW IT closed, directly into Hubby. Her friend apologized, then went after the lady, shouting “It was obviously an accident, why did you do that?!”. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but he was hurt.

Back to the hotel to sleep before our earlier-than-we-wanted flight Friday morning.

Car arrived at 9 to get us to the airport by 10 (hopefully) for our 11:30 flight. On the way to the airport, Hubby had the window rolled halfway down, even though it was raining and cold. I asked what was up, and he said “It’s stuffy. I need to be able to breathe”.

Once at the airport, it was chaos. I’m not even going to talk about the fiasco with my wheelchair, and the fight we had about who got to push it. Over a year later, I’m still angry about that. First, we had to change aircraft, after we were already onboard. Then the second aircraft was delayed. But at least we were in the right place. The minute we found our seats, Hubby turned on the little air button above the seats. Yes, the same one he gets mad at me for turning on because it “makes me cold!”. Both the one above his seat, and the one above mine, were faced toward him. I asked again if he was okay, and he said yes.

I told him that when we get home, we’re going to the hospital. Instead, when we got home, we realized that we hadn’t eaten in about 15 hours, and that we didn’t sleep much at all on the trip (WORTH it!). So we stopped for hoagies, ate and went to sleep.

At 7:00 the next morning, he woke me, saying “I think I need to go to the hospital…

<TO BE CONTINUED>