Lesson 278: In the midst of a disappointment, know that later you may value the experience. In other words, "Relax darlin'. " Tom's Restaurant, NYC

I don't have to tell Seinfeld fans what the above photo is. It's the Restaurant used in all the Seinfeld episodes. In earlier episodes, you can see the Tom's. In later ones, they just used the Restaurant side.

I visited here in November 2011 with my son Heath. We were so excited to go to the restaurant we had seen in all the shows. We left the Metropolitan Museum of Art at closing time and walked out front to catch a cab. It was cold and windy and there was quite a crowd at the cab stop. "Let's walk up the street and try to catch it before the stop," I suggested after we'd waiting, freezing, for 10 minutes in line with nary a cab stopping.

We walked and hailed, walked and hailed and were ignored. They were all full. It was getting darker by the moment. No luck. Giving up, I searched for the closest sub station (Thank you I-phone App) and we began to walk to it. Several blocks later, NY blocks are huge you know, we gave up and finally caught a cab's attention. It was still quite a long ride to Tom's, over by Columbia University. We wanted to go so bad even though it was cold and the restaurant was very far away, we were headed away from our hotel, and we were racking up quite a cab bill, we still wanted to go sit in Jerry's booth. It felt very adventurous. I was very proud of us. We had limited time and money but we were putting both toward this experience. 

We opened the door expecting to see Jerry's booth and our hopes were smashed. It looked nothing like Monk's! We figured out this is the restaurant they use, for the outside. The inside, "Monks," is a stage.  We stayed and ate a great diner meal. It was fun to see the people eating there because we were the only tourists. There were lots of college students. I love diners and it was a great diner. But not Jerry's booth. I kicked myself for being dumb and not realizing. I wondered if we should have spent the time since there were so many other things we could have done. I got pretty down about it for a little while. However, now I treasure this photo. Below is the photo with me in it. Every time we watch Seinfeld now, almost nightly, it makes me happy inside to see the RESTAURANT sign. We were there.

I learned to make the best of things and push past the disappointment. Nothing and no one is perfect. Relax darlin' .

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