The Millionaire saga, Day 4

Friday, September 17:

Tim's last day in New York. We got up fairly early, and Jenny went off shopping while Mom, Tim and I took a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

OK, technically Charles Clarence went too. Charles Clarence is Julie's little monkey who accompanied us on many of our travels today.

Since Mom was still worn out from the day before and in any case has trouble standing for long periods of time, we went down to the ground floor and picked up a wheelchair for her.

Tim basically went nuts at all the awesomeness in the Met.

He especially enjoyed the medieval armor exhibits, where he probably could have worked as a docent.

He had to be dragged out of the Met so we wouldn't be late for the second taping session at ABC.

This time, when we got in line, we met Julie's roommate Andy Parker. (Again, not pictured. Sadly, I'm not always that swift when it comes to camera use.) We went in, sat down, watched Julie do her thing... and I'd like to say more, but I shan't. Suffice to say that if you can get American television and you'd like to see how she did on Millionaire, you should watch the shows airing during the last week of October.

After it was all done, Julie rented a Zipcar because she needed to pick up some film for a movie she'll be making in the near future. We dropped off Tim at the Met so he could get a bit more time in there (he crossed the street in front of us with a huge grin on his face)...

and Julie proceeded to race across town and against time, trying to avoid the Lincoln Tunnel traffic and get her film. She was successful.

Meanwhile, Charles Clarence mugged for the cameras. Silly monkey.

I needed a break, so Julie dropped me off at the hotel and went to pick up Tim from the Met to take him to the airport. At the hotel I proceeded to freshen up and lay on the bed reading the Shakespeare biography until the fam returned. We sat around gabbing for a bit -- it's something our family does ever so well -- until we decided we were hungry and needed to have a quintessential touristy New York dining experience.

So we went to the Carnegie Deli.

Charles Clarence thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Did I mention he's a dipsomaniac? Alas, monkey man has problems.

The food was good enough, but overpriced. To make up for this, portion sizes were ludicrously huge.

Jenny was overwhelmed by her chopped liver sammitch of doom. Me, I had the meatloaf...

...and in retrospect, I really should have split an entree with my mom.

Charles Clarence isn't the only one who likes to mug for the cameras.

Also, while there I had to use the restroom, which turned out to be down this long flight of stairs, deep into the bowels of the earth. While I was down there I expected to see some kind of Mafia deal going down, or at least a couple of rats fighting with switchblades.

We then flagged down a Slavic taxi driver who proceeded to give us the white-knuckle thrill ride of the year. I was sitting in the front seat, and I would have asked him to slow down, but I was too busy watching my life go streaming before my eyes. We got back to the hotel in record time and all in one piece, so on balance it was all good.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting and gabbing (it's what we do, after all), and Julie headed back to her apartment. The rest of us prepped for bed, and I packed up for an early departure the next day.