Monthly Archives: April 2007

More photos up on Flickr. Still a few more to come.

We spent about 5 minutes in the city before I said to Bob: “Let’s never drive here.”

It’s hard to believe I grew up in Los Angeles and got my driver’s license about 3 seconds after I turned 16 yet, I’m a high strung driver. Sad, but true.

Based on my observation from a total of 6 days, I would describe the NYC driving system as complicit anarchy. The first 15 seconds of a red light is a suggestion only. Gridlock abounds. Pedestrians go whenever they can. If a car/cab/truck is coming through they’ll blast a warning honk. Pedestrians pause in the street to let the car/cab/truck pass through. If a car/cab/truck blocks the crosswalk, people go around. If a car/cab/truck blocks the intersection, everyone deals. The horn is used like a turn signal or brakes. No one seems mad.

I blocked the crosswalk near the office one morning and you’d think the fat man who had to walk around my car had had his birthday stolen what with the waving arms and histrionics.

Day 2 we took the D Train to Brooklyn to visit Corey at John Dewey High School where he teaches. We got on the train in Midtown at morning rush hour when 10 gajillion people were getting off and the entry and exit are the same thing so it was like swimming upstream. We had to throw ourselves into it.

John Dewey is a huge high school with 3000 students and a chain link fence surrounding it. Corey told us that they have 11 security guards onsite.

My high school was about 1200 and we had a lunch lady with a clipboard for “security.”

Corey told us we needed to be expected and we were met at the security shack by the ultimate Sopranos thug reject. We told him we were on the list and the name of the person we were meeting. “I don’t tink we have anybuddy by dat name,” he said doubtfully. Because you know what? It makes perfect sense that two completely square old farts would be trying to sneak into a Brooklyn High School. He was disappointed that we were legit.

He waved us into the office and then started a mini-brawl with a young lady who was sassing him. I could hardly contain my giggles.

Inside we met Mrs. Scapetti, an older lady who hasn’t taken any shit in the past 100 years. She issued us our passes and found someone to show us upstairs. The wide hallways had a line down the middle and all the lockers were roped off. Corey told us that their locker privileges had been revoked due to misuse and they had to carry all their books and junk.

We took a tour and met Corey’s colleagues and Bob was able to talk to the technology guy about their program. Every single person we met said we had to go to Coney Island for a Nathan’s hotdog.

So that’s what we did. As soon as the train doors opened, it smelled like fried food.

I don’t eat hot dogs. I can’t remember the last hot dog I ate. But for breakfast, I ate a hot dog, fries and a Coke. And I liked it.

We walked around Coney Island which was pretty much deserted. There were still dirty piles of snow here and there. Everything was closed. Very few people. Mostly bums and what my dad would refer to as “scum bags.” Everything looked run down. Lots of huge brick apartment buildings.

We had to use the public restrooms on the beach. I’ve seen worse but it was pretty gross. Bob’s had no TP. He had to use the guide book. He showed me where the pages were missing.

Next stop: Prospect Park and the Botanic Garden. When we got off the train, it was raining.

We’re from the PacNW. Rain doesn’t scare us.

We found the gate and paid a the combo-price for the Botanic garden and the Brooklyn Museum. The rain grew more steady. We wandered the garden alone. NY was at least two weeks behind the PAC NW in terms of blooming foliage. Nothing but sticks. The rain progressed from delightful to discouraging. We took refuge in a pagoda with 6 other visitors. We all watched a soggy heron.

Next stop: Brooklyn Museum. The Judy Chicago Dinner Party just opened and was completely fantastic. We walked through it twice. We took a good rest in the cafe and did some much needed vegetable and beer intake then headed back into town.

For dinner we found the Delta Grill – Louisiana food. The beer tasted great after a long day and our food was wonderful. This was our only night without an evening show. We walked around town and met Corey for some tea and a snack. We were still fighting West Coast time so we hit the sack early. Big day on Saturday.

I did get the taxes done. I ran the numbers in February and when I saw that we owed, I put it away.

Since I came home from the trip with money it seemed a good time to square that away. The tax bill was less than I remember so that was nice. I guess.

I also finally cleaned the oven. Inhaling oven cleaner must have taken 10 years off my life. I had a terrible headache. But the oven looks great and as soon as I finished I went straight into the backyard since it wasn’t raining and puttered around the weeds.

By the time I came back in it was close to dinner time and I attempted to rally and get a bunch more photos prepared but I lost interest quickly and decided to watch that last episode of Lost waiting for me on the DVR.

I don’t know how anyone gets anything done. I crossed two things off the list (taxes, oven) but have added at least 10.

More trip tales to come. When? Who knows.

New York City Part I

Geez. Everything takes longer than you think. I’ve been working on this forever and this is only part 1 of who knows how many installments.

I’ve got the first round of photos up on Flickr. More to come.

Bob and I have a long list of places we’d like to visit and New York City comes up in every conversation. I can’t believe it took us this long to make it there.

For his 50th birthday he wanted to see the Allman Brothers at the Beacon theater and their NYC run happens during Spring Break so we had the perfect excuse to make the trip.

On Wednesday (3/21) we hopped on a jetBlue red eye at midnight and tumbled off the plane at JFK a few hours later at 8:00am NYC time. The airfare was cheap and it sounds dreamy but I don’t sleep well on planes so this isn’t my favorite way to travel. But hey, it’s vacation.

We took the Airtrain to Jamaica Station and then bought our $24 for the week Metrocards and headed into Manhattan.

We had no problem finding our hotel but our apartment wasn’t ready yet so we dropped off our luggage and headed out into the NYC morning.

We found bagels and tea and fortified and then headed to Times Square. It was cold. Cold enough for coats which I didn’t have. I was primed from our winter but my head and ears felt like they were going to fall off. There were still muddy piles of snow on the ground from the week before. We stopped at a souvenir shop and I picked out a hat. The guy knew what I wanted and cut the tag off for me. He said he had other customers doing the same thing. This is the best hat to cover my ears that I’ve ever had.

We got turned around several times. How can you not? What are the landmarks, tall buildings? I’m sure you get used to it but we weren’t there long enough to do it without a lot of head scratching.

We headed to our first exhibit at the International Center of Photography. It’s Martin Munkasci who more or less pioneered the idea of action in fashion photography. The photography center also featured a Henir Cartier Bresson exhibit.

Bob grew up with a professional photographer in the house and has a much better knowledge of photography than I do. I first learned of Bresson at an exhibit on one of our Europe trips and I got him right away and it was love at first sight. There is always something going on in his photos. I described it as movement. In the exhibit he says he learned from Munkasci that a photo could tell a story.

This particular exhibit came about because he was captured during WWII and presumed dead. A museum in NY prepared a memorial exhibit and when Bresson escaped and found out, he wanted to contribute to his retrospective. An amazing collection of photos.

At this point we could get into our room so we went back to get settled and I took an epic and completely life altering nap which made me feel 110% more human. When we left to go out again, it was at least 15 degrees warmer. It was crazy but we didn’t complain.

We found a Japanese restaurant and ordered big. A family friend of Bob’s lives in NYC and he met us for dinner. After dinner, we took a little walk in the theater district and found the Lyceum theater where we had tickets to see Inherit the Wind. I know squat about how theater works but apparently our show was a preview. It was fantastic. Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer. And it’s a really great play.

After our show we walked around the theater district. It rained a bit but the city was more active than earlier. Lots of people. High energy. Cars. Cabs. People. Pedicabs. Horse carriages. Police on horseback.

Portland has police on horseback and I always thought it was a bit ridiculous but here I can almost see where it makes sense. A horse might get around where a car cannot. There was a big truck charging down the street honking. He pulled up right behind a woman police officer on horseback. She hollered at him to get the fuk off her ass.

I Love This Town!

Then she “pulled him over.” I asked Bob to stop so I could watch. I asked him if it would be rude for me to walk over so I could watch more closely. I doubt anyone would care but I didn’t do it. We ended up at the House of Brews where earlier we’d had a dispute because I wouldn’t eat a hamburger and drink a beer before going to a play. The place was near our apartment. It was crowded and smelled like stale beer but we found a seat and our server was an adorable young woman. It was the kind of place I would have loved in my 20’s. I still liked it on vacation. While we were in there I realized that at my current age, I’ve been legal to drink longer than I was not.

There’s loud music and basketball on the TV. Cute boys. Good people watching. We try the Brooklyn Lager.