Nick and Tim arrived at the Restaurant a bit after noon. I sat right across the table from Nick during our meal. We ate; we talked; and Nick signed autographs. He revealed that he remembered the WNC Fanatics and my writing to him! (These EE people have some REALLY great memories, don't they?!)
(Debbie and Mel pose with the very handsome Nick!)
(Nick charms Doris and Sophia!)
(Doris and Sophia at Utsav's.)
We ate some more; we talked some more. Eventually, Nick had to leave as he was going to the theater to see "Gypsy" that night.
Okay. No biggie. I had met him. He was a great guy. I had some really good stories. And I had THREE autographs, including one he signed on one of my WNC EE Fanatics Prez business cards!
Much later that evening, NYC fan, Lizzie, and I headed back to my hotel to freshen up before checking out the sites of the City. Tim joined us and the three of us decided to go to Ellen's Starsdusk Diner for a quick bite to eat. Tim made a quick telephone call to Nick and invited him to join us. And, lo and behold, he did!
The four of us headed to the Village to investigate the nightlife! Before long we were all "old friends." --- Nick and I drank like we were long lost drinking buddies who had a lot of catching up to do! --- What a great guy: friendly, VERY funny, and full of stories! Before the night was through I was "rubbing his shiny noggin" as we joked with each other! I later had to sneak off to the loo to call Jennifer in Maggie Valley to tell her that I was in a pub with Nick --- and he was at THAT VERY MOMENT buying me a pint of STELLA.
Nick joked around all night that he was going to get me a walk-on part on EastEnders. It's a good thing that dreams are still free!
TIM'S TAKE on the evening's festivities:
Well, here's the poop on what transpired Saturday night.
I joined Lizzie and Mo in Mo's hotel room (at the sumptuous Beekman Towers) at around 7 PM and we got to have a slo mo (get it?) look at Mo's fabulous EastEnders autograph albums. We were feeling peckish so we went out to Ellen's Stardust Diner, a recommendation of Lizzie's.
Ellen's is a GREAT place --- with good food too! (I loved my 3 hamburger sliders and fries!). There are fun videos on display, a train track with a toy train running above the diners, and the wait staff sings to the customers at regular intervals!
At one point our very own Mo got up and proved to one of them that she knew how to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY backwards. This is done, of course, literally with one facing the other way! Funny. They serenaded an Irish girl that way. It almost looked like a set up because Mo was as cool as a cucumber. I can see why she and Jen were on the Graham Norton Show for about a half hour! I must attend a Karaoke night with Melissa someday.
Anyway, I phoned Nick while we were waiting to be seated and asked him to join us. Doubting Mo said he probably wouldn't want to come since he was a young guy about town and probably wanted to go off clubbing on his own. But Nick DID show up. (I had faith in the guy.) He ridiculed my pink lemonade, though, for which I will never forgive him.
Nick suggested we go somewhere where we could get something a bit stronger and Lizzie piped in with another recommendation: a bar on Bleecker Street down in the Village. So off we went in a taxi to Bleecker.
We walked for a bit (well, more than a bit --- it felt like a friggin' lifetime!) in the rain. We went into the bar (sorry, Lizzie, I can't remember the name of it!) and drank up. We hung out there for around three hours (I think) and had a great time laughing and talking about everything under the sun. It was a really loud bar but we all seemed to get our points across!
Mo met a lovely Irish girl (another Irish girl --- what were the chances of that?) in the loo (now THAT's a great story --- perhaps you can elaborate on that, Mo?) and brought her over to meet Nick. The lass was THRILLED to get a chance to meet one of her EE favorites. She even got her picture taken with Nick.
Once we were finally able to get a booth we had our picture taken with Nick by the waitress. (I hope I don't look too plastered in it.) And, finally, we staggered about ten blocks uptown before Mo, Nick, and Lizzie got into a cab and I staggered a few more blocks home.
MO'S parting comments:
It was about 3:30 AM before we finally decided to call it a night. (I had to get up to catch my plane at 6 AM!) So we walked a few blocks SINGING the opening words to "Enough is Enough" (by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer ) in the New York rain before we caught a cab back to our respective hotels!
Hugs and kisses all around, we parted after exchanging email and snail mail addresses. It was a wonderful ending to a great weekend in beautiful New York City!!!