I Feel Like We Just Did A Complicated Math Problem

Hey, Friends.

Math was never my best subject in school, which is a big part of why I ended up majoring in English. I'm still pretty convinced I only passed Calculus in college because my professor was leaving at the end of the semester and we all reaped the benefit of a wicked curve.

Why are we discussing math?

Remember those word problems you used to get in school:

Train A, traveling 70 miles per hour (mph), leaves Westford heading toward Eastford, 260 miles away. At the same time Train B, traveling 60 mph, leaves Eastford heading toward Westford. When do the two trains meet? How far from each city do they meet? 

(You can read all about that fun problem, if you are denying for the technicalities, here.)

My friend and I are going to see a concert tomorrow night down in New York City.  I feel like we just completed the same type of math problem while trying to figure out which train to take to A) ride together if possible, and/or B) at least reach Grand Central at approximately the same time.

It really shouldn't be that hard, as it is just reading the timetable of the train, but there are a lot of factors that went into it.  

Person A has the easiest part of the schedule.  She took the whole day off from work as soon as she got the tickets.  She rarely calls in to work and has a shit-ton of benefit time to use (assuming she can get it approved in advance -- that's the tricky part), so why not?  Not knowing what the plans would be, she wanted to have the whole day available for fun time --even if that only meant being able to sleep in late.  She literally has nothing to do but drive the 5-10 minutes to the train station, pay for parking, buy the train ticket, and get on the correct train.  She is a slacker. I'm Person A so I can say this.  I wouldn't defame my friends!

Person B is a responsible adult and is going to work all day.  This is one of many reasons why she is allowed to educate your children.  She will be getting on the train at a different station, approximately half-way to the destination.  She does not have to work the next day, so no worries that young minds will be unduly impacted by the concert experience.

What train should Person A take that will work with Person B's schedule and still get them to Grand Central in time to eat before the concert?

Person B has two different times she could potentially leave work, one of which is far more likely than the other.  Person A starts checking the train schedule, and comes up with a train that looks plausible:  it leaves her station and stops at the station where Person B would be boarding the train. They agree that it might just work.

**2 hours later**

Person B reports that the plan is not going to work.  Traffic is going to majorly screw things up.  I will take poor Person B 45 minutes to get near the train station, judging from today's traffic.

Now what train shall they take to get to the concert?

Person B looks at the train schedule and comes up with two possibilities:  one where they ride together part way, and one where they meet in Grand Central.

Person A is still a slacker, and now only needs to get on the train an hour later.  She will sit by the window and save a seat in case Person B is able to catch that train and continue their journey together.

Will Person A and Person B manage to get on the same train?  

Will they end up meeting in Grand Central, taking trains that will arrive approximately 15 minutes apart?

Will there be a problem on the Hudson Line, and Metro-North will make all of their planning irrelevant?

Will they eventually get to see Of Monsters and Men in concert?  

Stay tuned!

And this time Person A is going to make sure she brings her portable charger, complete with all the necessary pieces, so that she does not end up with a dead, phone-shaped paperweight before the day's adventures are over.

The Taylor Swift Concert

**This should really be called The Taylor Swift Concert: With Several Mentions of Heffron Drive.  My niece has fallen in love with them  (particularly with Kendall Schmidt), and everything in the universe gets compared to them.**

I'm terribly overdue with this, I realize.  It's been a month since I surprised my niece by taking her to the Taylor Swift concert at MetLife Stadium, and I'm only just now getting around to discussing it here.  My niece and nephew were here for about 6 weeks visiting, and all of my time went to hanging out with them, as it should.  You, Friends, got put on hold.

First, I totally surprised her!  I did not tell her about it until the night before the concert.  For all of the elaborate plans I tried to come up with, I ended up just giving her a picture from a magazine and telling her it was a clue to her surprise.  Watch the reveal here!  (If you're wondering about the hugging comment, I had already taken her to see and meet Heffron Drive, and Kendall stole her heart.  There's a blog post.)

I had mentioned in a previous post that my friend was also coming to the concert with us.  We headed out to her house, as we had a car take us down to the concert. Honestly, that was probably the best possible way to get there.  I would, no doubt, have gotten lost trying to follow the GPS, and we didn't have to worry about parking.  We just got dropped off and picked up.  It also meant that I only had to do a short drive when we got home around 2:30 am, which was awesome.

The surprise twist to our concert adventure was that my friend was now on crutches.  She was such a freaking trooper through the whole thing!  The staff at the stadium could not have been nicer from the moment we arrived -- they got us a shuttle to the stadium from the drop off so she didn't have to walk, we got an elevator up to our floor in the stadium, they kept offering her a wheelchair -- they really tried to make it as easy on her as possible.

Remember how I was worried that we would be in the nose-bleed section and Lili (my niece) would be disappointed?  We so totally were, but she was too happy to care.  I actually think it was pretty cool.  Granted the stage looked tiny from where we were seated, but they have the big screens to watch.  However, we could pretty much see the entire stadium.  It really gave you the feeling of just how enormous the place is, and how many people were there.  Also, no obstructed views from that height.  We were literally 7 rows from the top of the stadium.

That's right, folks -- seven rows between us and the top!

Beautiful day with a nice view.

I will say this:  I don't know that anyone with a fear of heights would be remotely comfortable sitting up there.  You can kind of tell from the picture of the seats, but it has a pretty steep pitch.  I can see it freaking people out, thinking they would fall over the edge.  The stairs also made things interesting for my friend and her crutches.  She actually had to go back down to the floor before the concert ended as she was worried about negotiating the stairs in the dark with people crowding to get out when the concert ended.  I think that was a wise decision.  

And then the concert finally started!  

First up: 

I tried to get a picture of the stage, but we were way too far away for that to come out clearly.

Lili freaked out, and immediately started messaging her friends.  Apparently one of them loves Shawn Mendes a lot.  He was really good, and Lili was singing along with the songs she knew.  

Next up:

Vance Joy

Lili:  Aunt Tammy, is he going to play Riptide?

Me: I'm sure he will, Lil.  It's a big hit.

......

Lili:  Okay, when is he going to play it?  It's been like 2 songs now!

Me:  Calm yourself.  You should know this song, it's on the radio too.  I'm sure he'll play Riptide at some point.

......

Lili:  *practically spazzing at this point*  What if he doesn't play it?  I love that song!  When is he going to play it?!

Me:  I'm not psychic, Lil.  Just chill out.  He's probably saving it for the last song -- go out with a big finish.

.....

Lili:  Riptide!!  YES!!!!!

At this point, I was kind of floored by the number of seats that were still empty.  

Those are a lot of empty seats, and they weren't cheap.  The whole floor area looked like that, even while Vance Joy was performing.  

Maybe all of those people were coming from work, stuck in traffic or something.  Maybe they were off getting food or souvenirs.  

I don't get it.  To me, if you are going to a concert, you go to the concert.  The whole thing.  It's fun! You get to hear the music, see all of the performances.  Why the hell would you spend the money and not be there to experience it?  These are pretty big name musicians who get played on the radio all of the time!  Why would you miss out on the opportunity to see them live?

Maybe they only wanted to see Taylor Swift and didn't care about the opening acts.  If that's the case, we obviously do not dwell in the same financial bracket.  My tickets were not cheap -- I can only imagine how much it cost to sit that close to the stage.  If you are willing to drop that much cash and then only show for one act?  I can't relate.  

Also, I think it is kind of rude to the musicians who are performing.  The stadium is huge, and even with all of the visibly empty seats, there were probably hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people there at that point.  (I think the news said later that it sold out to 60,000 people.)  I just think it must be a bit disheartening to go out on stage and see all of those empty chairs.  

Not that it is a remotely comparable situation, but I can remember playing a marching band competition in high school at Giants Stadium.  It was so exciting to know that I was on the same field that I saw on television during football games.  We were always in the last group to go, late at night, as we were one of the biggest (size-wise) bands.  I can remember looking at the stands thinking there was really no one there, and it was disappointing.  I found out later there were a few thousand people there, but it looked like nothing compared to the number of empty seats.  Yeah.  So, not at all the same thing, but it made me feel bad that there were so many empty seats during the first two performances.  I hope they didn't feel that way when they were on stage. It was probably a much different perspective from their point of view.

But I digress.  End of rant.

Next to take the stage:

Haim.

I enjoyed their performance.  I had never heard any of their music before, but they were good.  That didn't seem to be the feeling shared by most of the people in my section.

Lili:  They said it was going to be a jam session.  What's a jam session?

Me:  It's when musicians get together and just rock out, just see where the music takes them.  It's not necessarily individual songs.  

......

After about 10 minutes....

I see Lili getting out her headphones.

Me:  What's up, Lil?  

Lili:  Yeah, I'm not feeling this.  I've got my headphones.  I'm just going to watch and listen to Heffron Drive until Taylor Swift comes out.

Me:  Okay, honey.  Do what you have to do.

There was a little girl with her mother and grandmother sitting in the row in front of us.  She was there as a surprise for her birthday.  (We'd been chatting earlier.)  The girl was sitting on her mother's lap with her hands over her ears.  Many other people were just sitting and talking, taking selfies -- not a lot of people were paying attention to the band.

They were good.  I don't mean to sound like I am bashing Haim at all.  I really enjoyed their performance.  I don't think they were successful with the younger part of the audience.  Their sound is very different from the previous artists.  

On to the main event:

First song of the evening

When we entered the stadium we were given these white bracelets.  We had no idea what they were for, and were joking about them tracking us so no one got lost, and generally wondering what purpose they served.  Turned out to be a really cool purpose.  As you can see in the video, at times the whole audience seems to flash white.  They bracelets were synced up to the concert, and would flash different colors during Taylor Swift's entire performance.  

That's Lili, rocking out with her bracelet all aglow.

Our view of the stage.

She brought out a surprise guest in the middle of her set!  I was excited, and Lili about lost her damn mind.

Yeah, that's right.  Awesome!

Taylor Swift was incredible!  She was on stage for at least 3 hours.  She brought out the Women's National Soccer team, fresh from their parade in NYC that morning!  She had some of her friends from her Bad Blood video on stage during the song -- in the costumes they wore in the video!  Part of the freaking stage spun around at one point.  

Pretty impressive view from our seats!

There was one point in the evening where I got worried for a moment.  When she started to sing Blank Space, people lost their damn minds!  They were jumping around and dancing so much that the entire freaking section we were sitting in was vibrating and shaking -- more so than at any previous point.  I remember thinking, "We are seven rows from the top of this fucking stadium.  This is not going to end well if the damn thing collapses."  I had to remind myself that many other events had taken place here, and everything was fine.  That the stadium was designed and built to handle this kind of thing.   And then my brain, being the slightly warped creature that it is, felt the need to point out that we were only seven rows from the top, and we would be a lot better off than the people below us who would be getting flattened like pancakes.  I'm just a ray of freaking sunshine sometimes.  Obviously, since I am here writing this and there were no reports on the news of a tragedy occurring at the concert, everything was fine.  If you had felt that thing shaking and vibrating like that?  You might have had a moment of doubt, too.

And then it was over.  It was a fantastic experience!  Taylor Swift puts on one hell of a show.  As we made our way back home I tried to get a picture of the NY skyline.  Our driver was so nice, he even pulled over so I could get a better shot.

The view was much better in person.

It was the perfect end to a great night!

We got home around 3am.  Everyone had a good time.  

Lili was thrilled.  She even made a playlist of all the songs from all of the performers at the concert.

I have to say though, as much as she loved it, Heffron Drive was still her favorite concert.  I had bought her an autographed cd at the concert, which she made us listen to any time we rode in the car. She also has it on her iPod.   My nephew, who is 8, now knows the words to all of their songs.  He even has opinions on them, although he is far too smart to say anything that will piss his sister off too badly.  It leads to moments like, "I like Passing Time.  Logan sings it better though, no offense."  Of course Lili got all offended, and I had to point out that Austin (my nephew) was entitled to his opinion too.

The tl;dr version:  Taylor Swift is a hell of a performer.  My niece had a good time.  Did it make me the coolest Aunt ever?  No.  I already managed to do that when I took her to see and meet Heffron Drive.

But I got to have two wonderful experiences with my niece, and that is priceless.

In Which We Go To See Heffron Drive

(aka I May Be the Most Awesome Aunt Ever!)

**This is going to be kind of long, and there are pictures.  You've been warned.**

Hey Friends.

So I took my niece to see Heffron Drive at the Studio at Webster Hall last night.  If you need a recap on things leading up to the grand event, see the previous post.  I'm not linking you to it -- you can get your scroll on and find it yourselves, I have faith in you.

The plan for the day -- and I did have one -- was simple:  I go to work for half the day, pick up my niece and hop on the train, walk to the concert, do the Meet & Greet and enjoy the concert, walk back to Grand Central, catch the train home and we are done.  Easy peasy, right?  I thought so, until reality kicked in and all of my planning was for naught.

The morning was the usual.  Had my coffee, work was hectic, but everyone showed up and I got to leave on time.  I was a little worried someone would call in or be late and screw things up, but fortunately that didn't happen.

However, my awesome plan did not really account for all that much time between leaving work and catching the train, and that would be the moment when the flaws in my plan started to arise.

Stupid traffic!  It took me longer than anticipated to get home.  Literally had enough time to feed the cats (because they are the most important -- just ask them), freshen up, grab the tickets and head out.  In my haste, I grabbed my portable charger but neglected to grab the connector to actually hook it up to my phone, which I did not realize at the time.  This will become relevant later on.

We made the train with literally 5 minutes to spare.  I was starving, since I hadn't eaten and my super planning skills had neglected time for that, but whatever.  We should get to Grand Central around 3:45-ish and I can grab something there before we head out.  I'd like to give a big thank you to Metro-North and the Hudson Line for running on time with no delays.  I hate being late, and was still freaking over my poor planning thus far, so that would not have been good.

Lili (my niece) was all kinds of excited about going to New York City and seeing the concert, but was doing her best to reign it in.  Even though we were on an "Express" train, she didn't seem to realize that it was going to take quite so long to get there.  You're going from one end of the commuter line to the other, kid.  That's going to take a while.  She did enjoy the decor of our car.

Apparently it is very important -- to someone -- that no one put their feet on the seats.  Many people ignored that.  Lili also wanted to know why they needed a sign to tell people that they should not assault the train staff.  Good question, Lil.

We got to Grand Central, grabbed some food and headed out, as I figured we could eat while we walked.  I had Google-mapped it (Is that a word?  It is now.) before and it should be about 1.5 miles.  Totally doable.  Me being me, however, I decided that I should pull up Google Maps on my phone and have it going as we walked, just in case.  No way was I going to get us lost and/or axe-murdered as my mother thought.  That would a) suck, and b) lead to the biggest "I Told You So" of all time.

Now, I don't want to blame Google Maps, as the walking directions are in beta, but they failed.  They failed hard.  Maybe it was my phone, I don't know.  I was pretty convinced prior to yesterday that Apple and Sprint are in cahoots to get me to upgrade my phone, but I wasn't expecting this nonsense.  The map on my phone kind of went berserk.  It could not keep up with where we were walking, and kept telling me to turn onto streets we had already passed.  The Meet & Greet started at 5pm, so at 4:20 I declared the walking portion of our adventure over and we took a cab. 

We got to the venue and got in line.  It wasn't that hot out even though we were standing in the sun, but you would think we were on the surface of the sun from the amount of bitching about it being too hot and people's hair getting ruined that was going on around us.  Unfortunately, it must also have been garbage day in the near future, as there were many bags lining the sidewalk.  Let's just say Lili got to experience the smell of New York on a summer's day.  It also killed any thought I had of eating my sandwich, so that just went into the garbage.  I'll eat after the concert, eventually.

We were between two groups of young ladies.  The girls in front of us had apparently been to many, many Meet & Greets, and to listen to them talk they were the experts on such things.  The longer we waited in line past 5pm, the more they hypothesized how it was all going to play out.  They compared it to having met Big Time Rush, One Direction, and a couple of other groups -- one of which had something to do with people arriving on a fire truck?  I don't know.  They were friendly though, and one of them complimented Lili on the James Maslow "Save The Music" t-shirt she was wearing.

Some ladies somewhere behind us in line had apparently met Kendall and Dustin (Heffron Drive, for those who were too lazy to click the link at the beginning of this post) several times before, as we overheard their conversation, and they were analyzing every previous meeting.  I mean, it was an in-depth discussion about where Kendall had put his arm around the one girl each time they had previously met.  The first couple times it was apparently around her waist, but the last time it was around her shoulders.  Did that mean he thought they were friends?  Oh!  Maybe it meant he remembered her and liked her as more than a friend! Same discussion for Dustin's arm placement. We didn't turn around to look and see who was talking, but I raised an eyebrow at that discussion, and Lili just gave me a look.  I'm going to hazard a guess that the gentlemen in question have no freaking clue they are in such an involved relationship with these ladies.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Finally, blessedly, we got our tickets checked and were given wristbands.  By the time we made it inside it was a little after 6pm.  People were getting antsy since they had been waiting.  Lili was super about the whole thing and never complained once.  My coffee had long since worn off, and I was starting to get a bit tired having been on my feet for the majority of the last 10 hours.  However, inside was fantastic!  Even if we ended up in the back, there was literally not a bad place to be.  No matter where you ended up standing you were going to have an awesome view of the stage.  Lili and I are both relatively tall, and there were a lot of shorter ladies there, so as long as we stood behind some short people we should be golden.

This was taken from the line for the Meet & Greet.  The stage is right there.  Impossible not to have a great view.

Neither of us had ever been to a Meet & Greet before, so we had no clue what to expect. We had already bought autographed copies of the cd at the merchandise table while in line.  I had a copy of Happy Mistakes Unplugged already, and had brought it with me just in case.  Lili realized people were getting autographs as well as pictures, so I gave her the poster from my cd to  get signed.  I opted not to get anything signed.  Yeah.  I get super-awkward and shy at the least opportune moments, a point which will come up again!  This would also be the time when I realized my phone was at about 20% of its battery, went to use my handy charger and realized that I forgot the connector.  Shit.

Lili went first when it was our turn to meet them.  The kid is made of awesome, and she just bounded on up there -- even kicking her foot up in the air when she hugged them..  She got the poster autographed, and her picture?  Totally precious!

I know I'm biased, but she's freaking adorable!  Kendall and Dustin are pretty darn adorable as well.

And then it was my turn.  I had hoped to be charming, witty, humorous, or at least calm and normal about it all.  Remember how I said I get awkward at inopportune moments?  Yeah, that happened.  I introduced myself to each of them when I got a hug, cause it seemed kind of weird (at least in my head) not to do so.  And then, because it is me, the woman taking the pictures said my picture came out orange. Say what?  It totally did.  I think she was willing to try again, and the guys seemed like they were willing to pose for another photo....and instead I said something about it being okay and I could fix it with a filter on Instagram. Yeah.  That happened.  Kendall was really sweet and said it looked like it had a Soap Opera filter, and I mumbled something about having to find my niece.  Told you the awkwardness would be back.  I really didn't want to impose and take up too much of their time.  I knew there was still a long line of people waiting, some of them being really excited about it, and I didn't want to lose my niece in the crowd.

Here's my picture,  Not quite as adorable as my niece, and this is after trying to remove the orangeness.  Soap Opera filter it is.

Lili, and several other people,  sat on the floor while we waited for the concert to begin, after we picked out our spots.  I didn't.  I just wanted to make sure no one stepped on her.

The concert was fantastic!  I only wanted a few pictures, and luckily managed to get them in before my phone died completely.

Janet Devlin, the opening act.  She was really good.

Heffron Drive

Lili took more pictures and a few videos during her favorite songs. Nothing crazy.

Some of the other people?  Never put their freaking phones down.  At all.  I don't get this particular phenomenon.  I kept glancing at one of the girls in front of me a bit, as she seemed to be watching the majority of the concert through the view of her phone.  I understand you want to record your memory of the concert, document it for all posterity, but I really don't get it.  The view is much better if you actually look away from your phone and look at the stage.  Maybe she was just really into filming it and making sure things stayed focused properly -- I don't know. You are at the concert.  They are mere feet away from you.  Why watch it on a tiny screen rather than raise your eyes?  

After the concert we took a cab back to Grand Central.  My phone was dead.  As we had failed to navigate our way there in the daylight I did not even want to attempt it in the dark. I had also lost part of the ability to hear in my right ear, as the chick next me was screaming the entire concert at some inhuman frequency. We arrived to discover that we had missed one train by about 2 minutes.  Now we had about an hour to kill.

I decided that it was time to finally get something to eat.  Not a lot of options left at 10pm, at least that weren't super busy with long lines.  We could not risk missing our train, as it was literally going to be the last one going back to Poughkeepsie that night.  Camping out in Grand Central was not going to happen.  We had pretzels.  That was my awesome, and only, meal of the day.  I got a coffee around 10:30, and Lili wanted a cannoli.  Sure thing, kid!  We've got about an hour and a half train ride ahead of us, so getting wired on sugar isn't going to be a problem. 

Sitting on the floor, waiting for our train.  I was so done with the day by this point.

We finally got on the train and headed for home.  I feel the need to specify that we were not in a quiet car.  Everyone was just relaxing and chatting amongst themselves.  There was a family with a bunch of kids/teenagers sitting in the front of our car.  They weren't being loud, just talking and being excited.  This woman on the other side of the car yells at them to shut the f@*k up.  One of the teens yells back to watch her language, and that they weren't being loud.  The woman yelled back, other passengers yelled at her to shut up.  I really thought Lili was going to get a first-hand demo of why there were signs up about not assaulting the staff.  Luckily the woman shut up.

We chatted the whole way back, while Lili posted to Instagram and texted her friends.  She had a fantastic time!  It came up that I had never seen Big Time Rush on television, and had only heard of them because of her.  She informed me that it was, "really funny, and we can probably find it On Demand, or Netflix, or Hulu.  You'll like it!"  So I have a feeling that a viewing is in my near future.

But the best part?  She told me, complete with a little smile, that Kendall had always been her favorite, and she can't believe she got to meet him and hear him sing.

And that moment?  That made the whole thing -- complete with all of my awkwardness -- worth it.  I'm relatively sure Heffron Drive is now her favorite band in the universe, and Kendall has stolen her heart.  

My mother informed me (my niece and nephew are staying at my parents' house, not at my place since I have to work) that any time they were in the car today Lili played her new Heffron Drive cd for them.   I was just happy to wake up with my hearing back in my right ear before dragging myself off to work.  

I still haven't told Lili that she gets to go see Taylor Swift in concert.  No offense to T-Swift, but I don't think it is going to be nearly as memorable as Heffron Drive.  

**Edited to add:  Video Lili shot of the concert, which she allowed me to post on Twitter since she doesn't have an account.**

@HeffronDrive From Webster Hall 7/1/15 pic.twitter.com/0BwsWkbbE9

— Tammy Myers (@tammyshampoo) July 6, 2015

In Which We Go to the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon!

I was incredibly lucky and was able to go see the taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 11th (the 17th episode!).  I have to thank my big boss, the Library Director, for indirectly having made this possible.  The only reason I was able to get tickets when they were released for March was because we were having a massive snow storm here and the library was closed.  Had it not been for that snow day I would not have seen the announcement, and the entire month of tickets was gone in less than half an hour, I think.  So thanks, Boss Man!

I scored a reservation for 3 people, so my friends Chris and Kate came with me.  We took the fabulous Hudson line down, just before noon.  Since I thought we might not have a chance to eat lunch before the taping, and one person was coming directly from work, I decided to pack a lunch for us to eat on the train.

I was a little overzealous in my lunch preparations.  I wanted to make sure there was something that everyone would eat.  So along with the water and Yodels (because who doesn't love a Yodel?  No one, that's who.) I made sandwiches....a lot of sandwiches.  I made bologna & cheese with mayo and one with mustard, turkey & cheese with mayo and one with mustard, peanut butter & grape jelly and also peanut butter & strawberry-rhubarb jelly.  I was making options, people.  I also cut them each into four quarters.  I thought it would make them easier to eat, but it kind of looked like I thought we were on a kindergarten field trip or something.

The trip was off to an auspicious start when I scored a close parking spot at the train station, and I did a kick-ass job parallel parking.  I hate parallel parking and never do it if I can possibly avoid it.  Driveways and parking lots are how I roll.  To commemorate my awesome parking job and because we took it as a good sign for the way the day would go, we took a picture.

The giant bag in my hand?  Yeah, that's our lunch.

We got our tickets and the train was on time.  I normally have the worst luck with the train and end up sitting somewhere stuck for an hour with "equipment on the line".  We are super lucky that we went on Tuesday, as we would not have been able to make it on Wednesday.  There was a horrible explosion in Harlem in which people died, and it shut down train service for several hours.

We got to Grand Central with plenty of time to spare.  Since I packed enough food for a small army, we had some leftovers.  We knew we could not take it into the studio for the taping, so Chris gave it to a homeless woman we saw begging for money.  She seemed really appreciative, and it was just the right thing to do.

Since the main branch of the New York Public Library was pretty much on the way to claim the tickets we decided to go visit.  

Hi there!  Also, my hair is a hot mess (I'm in the center.)

They have an exhibition on children's books at the moment.  It is really cool, and you should check it out if you get a chance.  They have very cool things like this:

Those are the original toys that inspired A. A. Milne to write Winnie the Pooh

After checking out the exhibition it was time to go claim our tickets.  I had a confirmation for three, but you have to get there to claim them and that part is on a first-come, first-served basis.  We got to the assigned pick-up point in the NBC Experience Store at the earliest time you could start claiming tickets.  Other people got there earlier.

This would be the time I began to worry we might not get in.

The couple in line in front of us were very nice and friendly, which was great because we were going to be spending some quality time standing in line with them over the course of the afternoon.  They were visiting from San Antonio, as it turns out.

We presented the confirmation and our photo identification, and we got our tickets and wrist bracelets.  Now it's real!!

They give you chocolate, too!  Thanks, Tonight Show!

That was all done pretty quickly, considering the line they had to work through.  You then get instructions to meet by the Golden Escalator by a specific entrance at a specific time.  Um, okay.  We had some time to kill before we had to do that.  It was like an adventure in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: "Find the XX entrance and then wait by the magical Golden Escalator!"

We wandered around a bit, as we also got insanely lucky with the weather that day.  It was in the 60s outside.  I know that doesn't sound fabulous to a lot of people, but considering that today was back to being 18 with a "feels like" temperature of 2 in the middle of the afternoon, this was awesome!  (And I had to get an iced coffee as I had not had nearly enough that morning.)

We find the Golden Escalator, and now we get to line up against the wall in order of the numbers on our tickets.  Sounds simple, right?  Nope.  People were all just trying to jam up near the front of the line.  It got to the point where Chris was just holding up his ticket with the number so people could figure out whether to get in front of us or behind us.

Once that mess got as organized as it was going to be, we got to go upstairs to....wait in line some more!  But now we were in a special roped off area.  We were getting closer.  So exciting!  One of the NBC gentlemen (I'm not sure if he was security or a page) checked to see if we were in order, and then told us we did a much better job than the folks in the front.  

The upstairs line, it turned out, is where we had to queue for the metal detectors.  They gave us all the instructions on how to proceed when they called each group.  It really was very well organized.  They also told everyone to take a picture of their ticket at that point, as they will be taking the ticket shortly.   :(  The woman in front of us was really kind of bummed she didn't get to keep it.  They also instructed everyone to turn off their phones -- not just silence it, or put it away -- turn it off.  If they so much as see your phone out during the taping they will kick your ass out.

Once we got through the metal detectors we went up an elevator, and then we stood in line again.  This was actually super-fast as they told you where to sit.  I'm not sure how they determined the seating, as we did not end up remotely near the couple from San Antonio.

And then it was awesome!  The Studio!  The Roots!  Jimmy Fallon!  The guests!  We were there for the episode with Tyler Perry, Billy Eichner, and Juanes!

Best part?  We totally got to be on television!  Billy Eichner and Jimmy Fallon went into the audience.  We weren't directly involved in the game, but we got a lot of screen time by being behind people that they spoke to. 

In the clip above, when they circle around and start talking to this woman in the black shirt?  We are sitting right behind her!  You can easily spot my friend Chris in the white shirt sitting on the end.  I'm next to him, and Kate is next to me.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, Chris is now totally in a BuzzFeed gif set!  BuzzFeed

The part that surprised me the most out of the whole process was how little time the guests were actually there.  I know they edit the show before it airs.  I thought Jimmy would talk to Tyler Perry for a long time, and then that would get edited down to what you see on the show: highlight certain parts, or edit stuff out if the guest didn't like how they looked, etc.  Nope.  He was not there that long at all.

Also, we were there for the 17th show in a brand new studio.  They had to tell people during the warm-up that they were not to stick gum under the chairs!  Yeah.  Brand-new studio, barely 3 weeks in use, and some assholes had already stuck gum under the seats.  This is why we can't have nice things, people!  I'm disgusted, but not surprised.  I work in a public library.  You would not believe the shit (sometimes literally) that people will do.

After the show we wandered, ate dinner, got dessert from Magnolia Bakery, and caught the train home.  We even made it home with enough time to watch ourselves on the show that night.  I can't speak for Chris or Kate, but I know I totally freaked and shot video of my television on my phone when I realized we were going to be visible.

All in all it was a fantastic day!  Next time I am going to try for tickets to Late Night With Seth Meyers!

**Edit:  I almost forgot: I had my very first celebrity sighting!  No, not Jimmy Fallon or the guests on the show.  When we were out walking after the taping I saw Ted Allen also walking down the street.  I did my very, very best not to spaz out and to act like it wasn't the first time I had actually seen a celebrity just out in the wild, so to speak.**