Turning 33 in the Big Apple

Monday I turned 33 and what better way to celebrate than with a trip to New York City!  Erica's friend, Jessica, is a traveling nurse and invited us to stay at her place in the Upper East side of Manhattan.  With the city only six hours away, we jumped at the chance!

Of course right before the trip, all of us got sick...and Erica and Emerson ended up in the emergency room (two different occasions on two different days...).

Fortunately we all recovered and had a great time in the Big Apple.


Here's some highlights:

- Erica dropping me off at Dr. Oz and then driving through the streets of Manhattan during morning rush hour to find where we were staying.  No GPS.  No maps.  Just a tough mama and little lady in the back seat!  

- Erica finding on-street parking directly in front of the place where we were staying...then getting a $65 parking ticket 10 minutes later.  It ended up being much cheaper than a parking garage!


- Seeing a taping of Dr. Oz with my cousin Allison.  We learned how to lose 10 pounds, why we can't stop farting, and how to get rid of chronic pain.  Our free giveaway was a probiotic that's guaranteed to reduce gas!




- A two hour behind-the-scenes tour of Fox News.  A few weeks ago, one of their meteorologists started following me on Twitter.  I randomly decided to reach out and ask for a tour of FNC...and she said yes!  She was out of town but arranged to have one of her colleagues show us around.  He was awesome, answered all our questions, and everyone LOVED Emerson.

- Spending hours in Central Park on a beautiful Saturday.  So many interesting things to do...so many cool things to see!

- Resting at the LDS Church building/temple in Manhattan.  In the middle of one of the world's busiest city's, we stopped at a quiet church and took a nap.  While there, we ran into a family whose son served his mission for a few days in Richmond while waiting for his VISA to Sweden.  Small, small world.

- Getting an hour reflexology foot massage in Chinatown.


- Eating delicious pasta in Little Italy.  We sat next to two ladies who adored Emerson...and several people stopped to squeeze her little cheeks!  

- Eating yummy $1 slices of pizza almost every day...and devouring incredible waffles from a food cart in Times Square.  We've been craving them ever since we got home!

- Hanging out with cousins Peter and Allison and celebrating our birthday's with 16 bean soup and a Kit-Kat ice cream sandwich cake.  So fun to see them again!

- Delicious breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day...and tasty snacks everywhere we went.  We are seriously having food withdrawals...big time.

- Spending my birthday morning with VIP passes to Good Morning America. We watched the entire show from inside the Times Square studio and then were part of "GMA LIVE" afterwards. Robin Roberts is so incredibly nice and spent time talking with us (she liked my spiky haircut). Even after she took a picture with us that didn't turn out, she came back over and posed for another one. She is as genuine in person as she is on TV. Zooey Deschanal was a guest and threw a mini-tantrum before air. She loudly told a producer she would NOT answer a particular question and warned that they better not ask it! 

- Exploring all the fun stores in Times Square.

- Not having to pay money for an expensive hotel because a kind friend let us crash at her place (even with a crying baby waking up every few hours). -  Having an incredibly patient, loving, and terrific wife and daughter endure hours of walking to create lifelong memories!  

A Millionaire's Table

Last week I was assigned to cover an estate sale.

The man died and his family was selling everything.

My photographer and I showed up at the house, walked in, and quickly realized this was no ordinary sale.

No...the owner of this home had been a senior VP of Sony Music...and you could tell!

Andrew Piretti lived in New York but kept a house in Richmond and after he retired, he moved here for good.

He never married, lived alone, and enjoyed collecting unique and expensive stuff.  He owned well over 5000 CD's and most were still in brand new packaging.

Most of his third floor was filled with musical memorabilia.  He had met every artist that ever worked with Sony and had an autographed photo or poster to prove it.

Among personalized notes from U.S. Presidents, photos with Pope's, a $50,000 piece of artwork, and $700 shower curtains, the most sought-after items were in Piretti's Michael Jackson collection.

An original Michael Jackson jacket from his "BAD" tour.

The auction company told me that a woman from Paris wanted the Jackson stuff so bad she called 18 times to make sure it would be hers!

A few days later, Erica and I went back to see what was left in the house.

We were surprised that the dining room table and chairs were still there.  The owner probably paid at least $10,000 and you could tell.  The table had drawers under each place setting for silverware and each wooden chair was uniquely carved with a hand-stitched seat cushion.

This photo doesn't do the table justice...but it's the only photo we have.

The auctioner was asking $2400 for the table and chairs (not bad) but told us he'd sell it to us for $1000.  WOW!

As tempting as the offer was, we don't really need a new table right now so we said no. 

On the way out, Erica dropped a silent bid of $500 into the bucket.  We knew we it didn't stand a chance but we figured we'd give it a shot.

A few hours later, out of the blue, the auctioner called and said our bid had been accepted!

WHAT?  Seriously?  A fancy table with 8 chairs for $500?  

Wow.

The auctioner told us we had to pick up the table the next day (Sunday) so we frantically called around to find a truck.

Our good buddy Daniel came to the rescue and we agreed to meet up the next day.

That night we cleaned the house, moved our old table into another room, and started making plans to sell it on Craigslist.

The next day, as we were getting ready for church, the auctioner called Erica.  

"Your offer was for the table upstairs on the third floor, right?"

Uh...no.  That table - the white plastic set - was not worth anywhere near $500.

The auctioner responded, "We're asking $2400 for the dining room set.  $500 is not an acceptable offer.  Have a good day."

Gee...thanks.

Our dreams of getting a fancy dining room table and chairs from the former VP of Sony Music were dashed. 

Ah well.  We did end up with about 30 of his CD's.  They're for sale on Amazon right now.  Wanna buy one?

WRIC Richmond News and Weather -