Good dinner, great show

We concluded our long NY weekend with a festive family dinner. Bill's grandsons, Sam and Andrew, came, as did Ben and Meg along with the usuals, Marge, Bill, Jeanne, Bruce, Amanda, Katie and me.

We got a long table in a quiet corner of a favorite restaurant, Destino's, so you could easily hear everyone talk.

On the way back to the apartment, Bruce took these photos of Katie and her cousin, Amanda, having fun running for the bus.

And then, on Sunday, the piece de resistance: Joe, Katie and I saw "The Book of Mormon," the Tony-Award-winning show that is so popular, nobody can get tickets to see it.

Well, obviously you can get a ticket...after months and months of waiting...but it's the theater version of one of Yogi Bera's sayings, about a restaurant that's so crowded nobody goes there.

I got our tickets in June, knowing we'd be in New York for Rosh Hashanah. Even then, I could only get single seats.

Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the people behind "South Park," and by Robert Lopez, who conceived and directed "Avenue Q," the show is absolutely amazing, pushing irreverence to the point that it sometimes makes you wince while also adding an unexpected dose of sweetness.

Pairing the reverence of Rosh Hashanah with the irreverence of "Mormon" might seem like an odd choice, but one thing really had nothing to do with the other, and it was just the way it worked out, so what can you say.

Someone had said that actor Jack Black was in the audience. During intermission, Katie, Joe and I were standing in the back when Katie looked up and said, "There he is." He was standing practically in front of us.

Joe shook his hand and said he was a big fan, and Black thanked him. It was the icing on the cake.

On the way home, we sang some crazy songs.