We’ll be on the 8:35 train to New York tomorrow morning, arriving at 11:45 to begin our quarterly three-day weekend in the city. In the past we’ve travelled up on Saturday morning, returning Monday evening, which has usually meant cramming in two shows on Saturday and one on Sunday. This time we’ll be able to spread the shows out a little, seeing one each day: 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (at Circle in the Square, a Squared Circle dream come true) tomorrow night, Spamalot (the show I most want to see) Saturday night, and The Light in the Piazza (at Lincoln Center’s Beaumont Theater) Sunday afternoon before returning by train Sunday night. That should make the weekend a little more relaxing.

Rather than staying at a hotel, this time around we’re subletting from this guy, which also will make the weekend a little less stressful, since we don’t have to worry about whether our room is ready when we arrive several hours before check-in, or if our luggage will be safe in storage at the hotel between check-out Sunday morning and departure eight hours later. Plus, we’ll have access to a real kitchen, where we can keep soda and munchies, and high-speed internet access (though it’s a shame we will have missed meeting him in person, yet again).

We’re planning to do MoMA again (we have a family membership [Ed. Jeff reminds me that it’s actually a “dual” membership.]) on Saturday, and we also hope to see some Flickr and blog friends, possibly over post-theater drinks tomorrow night at the regular Friday night “Mostly Sondheim” event at the Duplex in the Village. The rest of the weekend we’ll make up as we go along.

Of course, we’ll hit some nice restaurants, as usual. All in all, it should be a fabulous birthday weekend.