You're Doing It Wrong

I’m cheating and posting this on Saturday. At first I wasn’t going to do a computer free day this weekend but I changed my mind. We don’t really celebrate Easter at our house but we decided for this year we will “celebrate” by going to see a Grindhouse matinee. Then I’m going to roast a chicken and potatoes and make some creme brulee and we’re going to watch the final season opener of The Sopranos.

Hope everyone enjoys the day.

New York City Part IV: Final Installment

Photo set is here. I added a few more photos from Bob’s roll.

On Sunday we slept in and then headed out to the Museum of Natural History. It was still cold and I needed my hat.

This is a place to bring kids and no one arrives without at least 7 of them, plus 10 strollers. Except us.

I liked the giant whale, the Indians (of course) and the dinosaurs. Especially the dinosaurs. Evolution lives here. You look at those things and you have to think about it: this was once a real thing with skin and muscles and it moved around and ate and pooped. Really cool. It was too crazy to eat here. Just a phalanx of strollers all moving towards the smell of food. We decided to try our luck elsewhere.

We walked around outside and found Calle Ocho. I didn’t think it looked promising but Bob said he had a good feeling. When we walked in it was empty and smelled like a fraternity house. Then they took us to the back to a sunny room filled with people. The gal seating us said: “You know about the free sangria with brunch?” Us: “Huh?” Her: “Yeah, free sangria with brunch. Help yourself.” A long table was filled with giant glass barrels filled with sangria. Yippee! The food was delicious and reasonably priced, too. Score 100 points for Bob.

We took a quick rest at the apartment and then met Corey for a walk around Greenwich Village and Hudson River Park. He had to man the box office for a Cabaret Show so he left us at Strand Books. One of the owners of Strand Books is married to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden(D) and he met his wife at Powell’s in Oregon. Corey had told us this whole story and warned us about the “Powell’s-ization” of Strand Books. And sure enough, the set up was mighty familiar right down to the red INFO? signs. Since we didn’t know what Strand Book was like before, we were ambivalent about the whole thing.

Turns out Senator Wyden and Senator Charles Shumer (D-NY) were doing a book reading while we were there. I got to the top of the stairs and saw Senator Wyden and thought, “Hey, I recognize that guy.” I don’t know exactly what they were doing but something with health care because there was an employee in the back of the bookstore where I was looking at science fiction going off the rails about the irony of the Senator talking about universal health care at this bookstore.

Bob and I left the bookstore and headed over to St. Clements for the cabaret show. It was a fundraiser for gay pride events for the coming year. The food was spectacular and the entertainment fun. One of Corey’s friends that owns the restaurant, Carolyn was in the show.

Later I commented to Bob that our entire day was a fundamentalist nightmare: evolution, democrats and gay cabaret.

Monday we grabbed a muffin at the Bouchon Bakery in Time Warner Center and then hit the subway to South Ferry at the tip of Manhattan. We looked at the long line stretched across the park for the Statue of Liberty (which I keep mistyping “Statute of Liberty” – I’m sure there’s a good joke in there but nothing is coming to me.) I dislike boats and didn’t feel a strong urge to see the Statue of Liberty even if it wasn’t off in the mists. I’m not sure what Bob was thinking but he knows how much I hate boats and didn’t make a big deal about it. What a prince.

We headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian. The first thing I saw was a flier about Rick Bartow. Rick Bartow is Yurok and we were first introduced years ago by a mutual friend. Since then we run into him or his work every time we do anything remotely connected to Indian Art. I loved the museum and thought it was criminally empty after the long lines and big crowds we’d seen everywhere else.

Bob got us back to Grand Central Station where we had lunch at The Oyster Bar. I think this is the equivalent to having lunch at Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco meaning sorta cheezy touristy but how can you not? I had the salad foursome with shrimp, crab, salmon and squid (Hi Lena!). Bob had Oysters rockefeller. We both had beers: Long Island Pale Ale.

I was losing steam by this time but not Bob. We were off to the Guggenheim museum which is an incredible building which I see just now on the Wikipedia entry was designed by Frank L. Wright. I should have guessed. It’s a big spiral and you start at the top and work your way down. That’s how we did it. The exhibit we saw was Spanish painters and was fabulous. But by the end I was completely dead on my feet and not the usual sparkling-fun travel companion that my husband loves.

He promised to get me to the room for a nap before our evening show and he did. For 20 minutes. I made the best of it and rallied and we went to the Iridium for a Les Paul show. Les Paul is 94 and invented the electric guitar and is a hot ticket. That little room was packed to the rafters. The first thing I did was point out all the exits to Bob.

The club had lots of rules like you can’t hang your coat on the back of your chair but you can hang all your bags of crap. Kids are allowed and Bob thought the youngsters were the luckiest people alive.

Les Paul is old and has gnarled fingers but he does awesome with what he’s got. He paces himself. There were lots of side bits with the various players and he did a long joke about his hearing aids. But he’s dirty and hilarious and the music sounded great. The show ended too quickly.

After the show Bob wanted to go to the top of Rockefeller Center. I don’t love heights. I know, I know. Who would want to travel with me and all my anxieties: heights-no, boats-no, crowds-no. He’s a prince. I reluctantly agreed and then found out it costs $17.50. $17.50 to take an elevator up 70 floors. That is free money for those people. I bet on a good day there’s a line for miles. I balked again but after some pouting and bickering agreed to do it.

It wasn’t bad. At first I had to have my back to the inside and could only move by shuffling my feet but the cold wind numbed my head and also it was dark so I couldn’t clearly see the hazardous depths where I might die if I managed to get flung over the 10 foot Plexiglas enclosure. The view was gorgeous and we ended up staying for almost a half hour.

Tuesday was our last day and we cleaned up and packed up and left our luggage in storage at the hotel and then went out for our last day. We found St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the funeral for the lateJudge Richard Casey was going on so we stayed a little while to watch and listen.

This day was sunny and warm and a perfect day for walking around. Our last agenda item was the Public Library which is old and huge and historical plus has art and exhibits and is worth a visit.

Then it was time to get the luggage and head back to the airport and head home. Great trip but so much left we didn’t see. Something to look forward to for next time. If you’re still reading, thanks for hanging in for the longest post in history.

New York City Part III

A few last photos up on Flickr.

The whole set is here.

Saturday we slept in a little and then after a series of miscues on the subway, managed to find the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we walked up the stairs to the entrance you know what I was thinking?

Damn! Why didn’t I re-read From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler before the trip. I loved that book. They should have a Claudia and Jamie Kincaid tour of the museum. Maybe they do, we were too busy with our own agenda.

As you go into the museum on a Saturday morning, about 10 trillion people are right there with you. I thought this predicted future awfulness. Thankfully, I was wrong. It’s so big that everybody is spread out. A couple of times we found ourselves all alone in a room.

The museum is gigantic and holds about 3 lifetimes worth of treasure. I was sorry I didn’t prepare better so I could make sure I saw everything I wanted. We spent a huge amount of time in the museum completely lost. (Grade for signage: C+. Lots of room for improvement.) But there’s cool stuff everywhere so even as we were wandering around to find one thing, I’d see 10 other things that we’d have to remember to go back to. That armor looked really cool.

We stopped to eat at noon and I expected to be elbow to elbow with other visitors fighting for the last soggy ham sandwich.

Wrong again. Nice, big and well run cafe. I had a yummy salad and a walnut-raisin wheat roll that I talked about for two days. I need to find a recipe. Bob had a grilled chicken sandwich. After lunch we went for the modern stuff.

Overheard one security guard to the other: “I’m a literary writer. I’m the new James Baldwin. Without the angst.”

By the end of the museum day I was majorly dragging ass. It took awhile to find the right subway. Inside some soul singers played. The next train took forever while the train platform steadily filled with people. I hopped around whining my anxiety about the crowd and Bob reminded me of something I say to him about worrying about things that aren’t happening yet. Touche.

The train finally arrived already packed. We all crammed on. I’ve never been so crowded in my life. The guy whose chest was pressed into my forehead says that this wasn’t as bad a Tokyo at rush hour. I made a mental note never to go on the subway in Tokyo.

Bob knew this was taking 10 years off my life so we got off three stations later. It was still cold but not bad and not raining. We returned to the apartment and I took an epic nap. We had a show to go to Saturday night.

Corey’s friends had a restaurant not far from our apartment so we met him there and had a yummy dinner. Corey ran into another friend on the way to dinner and brought her along so it was a nice little group of people for our meal.

Corey wanted to check out the scene at the Beacon Theatre so he took the subway with us and taught us a bunch of subway tricks that would have been useful earlier. Sadly, there was no “scene” like you’d have at a Portland show so Corey left and we hung out in the lobby and had some adult beverages.

The crowd was mostly Bob-like people (gray haired and not spring chicken-ish). Also a lot of what I am going to call hip NY young people with hair and products. Not like the happy hippy crowd making grilled cheese in the parking lot that you’d find in say, Eugene. I found them a bit squirrely. The people in front of us had at least 6 rounds of $9 beers which meant a lot of back and forth. During the set break I caught up on notes in my little notebook and they told me I was making them nervous writing all those notes.

Bob wrote the second set list in my notebook: Come into my Kitchen Dreams, Elizabeth Reed, All kinds of jammy stuff (my characterization of the entire show), Mountain Jam, Dazed and Confused, Mountain Jam. Encore: Whipping Post.

They had three drummers and at one point Bob said that the drummer was so-and-so’s son and I said, “Which one?” He laughed until tears came out of his eyes.

After the show the people in charge opened these side doors and we all headed down an endless ramp (our seats were in the upper balcony) where all the paint was peeling and after a minute of this, a bunch of guys headed back toward us and said we couldn’t go that way. Most people keep going forward and we stuck with them. At the bottom a security guy held the door open and complained no one else could come out that way. Like it was our idea. Also, a number of the Beacon security people thanked us for coming and told us to have a safe journey home.

We found the correct subway right away thanks to Corey and headed back.

I want to explain why we were confused. All the trains said Brooklyn-Downtown. In the places I’ve always lived downtown was the city center so I thought Brooklyn and Downtown were two different things and couldn’t understand what train to take. I’ve never lived anywhere that had an uptown. Priscilla tells me that Vancouver has an uptown but I’ve lived here 10+ years and I’ve never heard anyone refer to uptown. Also, it would take about 10 minutes to walk through the entire up/downtown so in my mind, it doesn’t count. In NYC uptown and downtown is like uptown towards Central Park or downtown is like lower Manhattan. Maybe this sounds stupid but you ride around on the subway in NYC for the first time and tell me how you do.

After the show we were all keyed up and decided to have a drink and something to eat. We found a funny restaurant on 9th near our hotel and I had a piece of pie and a glass of wine and Bob had a giant plate of noodles with crabcakes and “healthshake” with cow milk instead of soy. Great day.

(That last photo is The Dakota if you didn’t recognize it. We ran into a John Lennon love-fest in Central Park and had to pause for the cause.)

Thursday morning when I tried to check my email I got an error that said I had the wrong password. I tried logging into my domain controls and got the same message.

Normally when there are outages I don’t worry about it because (a) I don’t do business with my personal email or website and (b) it’s technology, not magic so there are bound to be times when it doesn’t work right.

The “wrong password” error worried me a great deal because I imagined Eastern European hackers had taken over my site and were using my bandwith to broadcast porn and now I was going to have yet another problem to unravel that would waste tons of my time and possibly cost me money.

I called support immediately and was assured that yes, there did seem to be a problem. (“That’s funny, I can’t log in, either.”) And that they would open a ticket and send it to support. 36 hours later I finally logged into email and received 1 message for me and 4 spam. That leads me to believe that a day and a half worth of email is gone. I don’t receive oodles of life changing email regularly but if you sent me something important on Thursday or Friday, perhaps you can resend.

Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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.

Super Fun
We’re back and a fabulous 10-star trip.

And look what was waiting for us when we got home. I noticed them in the dark when we were pulling our luggage out of Priscilla’s trunk at midnight last night. Lots of daffodils in the backyard as well.

When I told my college roommate, Trish, that we were going to make our first trip to New York City, she said: You are going to love it and hate it. That sums it up perfectly.

I thought I’d get around to it today, but turns out, I’m dead tired. The trip was fantastic but not relaxing. My husband is quite the task master. I’d be nudged awake in the morning: “I brought you a bagel. We need to be on the subway in 20 minutes.” When it was my turn to pick something to do it was usually a nap or some sort of nap variation. You know, sitting down to eat, rest or partake of an adult beverage.

I’m going to write an epic or a couple of epic posts this weekend. Also, photo stream.

On the plus side, and I hate to even mention it lest I jinx myself, I’ve been sleeping like the dead. Nothing like marching all over New York City from 9am to midnight to get a body in the mood for sleep.

Since we got home so late I took off work today. We unpacked and worked on the laundry pile. Sorted out mail. I tricked my husband into going to Target with me. Since we’ve met I’ve never asked him to go on stupid shopping expeditions and I noticed he had plenty of things for the basket but he still couldn’t resist the urge to complain. Then we bought a carload of food. Then I dealt with the car shop on getting my bumper repaired. Then I did a bunch of yard work because it was sunny and a perfect day for it.

By 4pm I was exhausted again and braindead and could only prop myself in front of the TV and catch up on a few shows.

More coming up soon. But first: Cadbury eggs have gotten smaller! They should be smaller because geez, that was a huge load of sugar intake but what a world. All the candy is getting smaller.

[Can you believe it? It’s even in Wikipedia.]

Our parking garage at the office has tandem parking. The person who arrives 2nd must leave his keys with the parking attendant who will move the car as needed. I arrive early in the morning so I’m always in the first spot. I’ve made friends with the parking attendant and if the garage isn’t too busy at the end of the day, he has my car clear by the time I leave. Today was a busy day and several people were waiting with blocked cars, including me, so I thought I’d take a few photos of the cars while I waited. They didn’t turn out as groovy as I’d hoped.

My sweetheart and I are about to go on an adventure and I’ll be offline for a week. I might check in tomorrow before we take off if time permits and if I come up with anything interesting to say.

I looked at my vacation time today and realized I haven’t taken off any significant time since August. No wonder I’m so cranky about work.

I’m really looking forward to real vacation time in a brand new environment and no work or commute or housework or Internet to distract me from having real world adventures.

I bought another camera card. Probably way bigger than I’d possibly need but I didn’t want to have to delete photos mid-trip or feel like I have to hold back. I’ve also got my usual pile of mini-notebooks to carry with me to take notes and draw goofy little pictures.

These are brand new socks. I’ve only put them in the wash 4 times. Shouldn’t socks hold together longer than that? And that big hole popped out magically in my shoe between the time I left for work and arrived at the office. I shook my shoes off at the office so I could fold my feet under me on my chair and was a bit horrified to see my big fat toe, which in this photo looks like a lightbulb, poked out. Buying cheap stuff is hardly ever worth it.

We’ve had a series of crises as we’re trying to get ready to be away. Well, crises is a bit dramatic. We’ve had a pile of chores that needed to be tended to. Bob fixed our fence which disintegrated in December during a wind storm and we never got around to doing much about it.

If you check that post from December it also mentions this fender bender where this lady destroyed my front bumper. Long story short: we’ve made no progress on the matter. I admit I sort of dropped the ball in terms of following up but her insurance was hard to deal with and apparently she was uncooperative with them and meanwhile I have a big fat cracked bumper. I finally called my insurance company and got the ball rolling on that.

We have a carpenter ant infestation. I opened the blinds in my room and the troops were bursting out of a crack in the window sill. Crap. This is exactly the sort of home owner problem that we both are terrible at dealing with. I’m omitting lots of details but I have multiple follow ups to do on this item.

Sears still hasn’t finished with my vacuum. I was given a bag of plants identified as Lilies but looking like Iris to me (like I’m such a plant expert) that I threw into the ground tonight in a chilly wind. I’m still waking at 3:30am. I need to clean out the stuff that will go ooky from the fridge. Water the plants. Make sure I have weather appropriate clothes. Technology charged and updated. Current reading materials.

Ah, but vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

I need to clean my oven and every week I write myself a note about this with other things I want to remember on the weekend and every weekend I can’t find my note until Sunday night when I don’t have time. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

We’re traveling for the first time since the whole liquid ban whatever on planes. I just checked the TSA website to see what the current restrictions are and I can’t even fathom how stupid this is. It’s hard to believe there is anyone with a brain cell working on security in this country.