Stella felt especially bold on the playground. It was about two months ago, and she was playing on the jungle gym usually reserved for the big kids. I was proud of her, as she is typically very cautious about heights. But here she was, climbing up, up, up and sliding down. "I want to do it again!" she's scream in joy at the bottom. And she would do it again, and again.
She was happy, so I was happy. It's an easy formula to remember.
I had my backpack, with all my supplies in it, the diapers, et al. I turned my back for a second to put it on a bench and this is when disaster struck.
This time, you see, she didn't try to go down the normal slide, but the corkscrew slide. And she didn't really try to slide down it at all, but for some reason, WALK down it. I saw her, it was, as the cliche goes, in slow motion. She put her foot over the edge and moved forward. She gained no footing and then fell forward, falling down the slide. Her head hit the side of the slide, toward the bottom, with a horrifying thud.
Oh no!
I ran over to her, and picked her up. She cried, and cried and cried, hysterical.
I held her, terrified, ashamed, frantic. What to do, what to do? I had to see how she was. I tried to talk to her, no real response, just more tears. I kept trying to break through, but I could not.
Since I didn't know quite what to do I decided to see what there was to see. I gave her some milk, which she eventually drank. I offered her a snack which she did not want. Then, after a while, I put her back on the ground of the playground.
She wondered around and then moved to the little kids playground. She started to climb up the stairs and then slid down the little slide. She seemed okay actually, or so I hoped. I decided to wait and see.
After about five minutes I could see that things were not quite usual. She seemed dazed. I walked to her and asked her what color my blue shirt was. She took a moment. "White." She knows her colors real well, so this worried me. Then she said it was green.
That was it. I decided we had to go to the ER.
I picked her up and gently strapped her into her seat in the back of our car and drove to the ER room at the local Baptist hospital in Louisville, which is about two blocks from our apartment.
The wait was about a half hour, and in that time Stella seemed to come to, but I still couldn't be sure. You hear stories, you know? But, by the time we saw a doctor she seemed like normal. She could count to 10, as usual, and knew her colors. The doctor reassured me that these things happen, and it is a good thing that these playgrounds are made of plastic, because it greatly reduced the possibility of any real trauma happening to the head.
Relieved I drove home, but I feared the bill to come.
You see, last Spring we went to the ER in Brooklyn. We thought she had swallowed a hair beret, and when we told her doctor she said we had to take her to the hospital, now.
At the ER in Park Slope they took some X-Rays, and the like. It was involved, yes, but we weren't there all that long, and while we saw a couple of doctors we didn't take more than an hour and a half of anyone's time.
The x-rays found nothing, and we found the missing hair beret about two weeks later, under her crib. Ah well, but better safe than sorry.
The bill made me sorry, though. It was over $700, and this was after our insurance covered whatever it is that it is supposed to cover. It was $350 or so just for the doctors and $430 for the hospital itself. I do realize we got x-rays, but sheesh.
But what can you do? We paid it.
So imagine my fear when I saw the bill in the mail from Baptist in Louisville. How much are we going to get screwed this time? I opened the letter and my eyes popped, but not in the way I expected.
$18.
It was $18 freakin' dollars! This must be a mistake, a misprint, there must be a zero missing, or two! No, this was it, this is what we owed, with the same insurance plan, same everything.
Two weeks ago I mailed in my check for $18. And that's it, it's paid for.
Stella still won't go near the big corkscrew slide, but I don't mind. Later, when she's ready.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
7 Things About Me
As noted by my friend, and fellow writer, Sarah, everyone loves a list. So I am stealing her idea and writing down 7 things about me.
1. I can twirl my eyeballs around really, really fast. It's been described as sickening and nauseating and just plain weird by most who have seen it. I have never actually seen it, although I guess Randi could record me doing it, and play it back to me.
2. I had NO idea at all what I wanted to do with my life, or even liked to do until Mrs. Summers's class in seventh grade, where I learned that I liked writing stories. Then I really got turned around by the writers Harlan Ellison (for his first person essays) and Hunter S. Thompson (for his wild, wicked sense of humor and craziness). Then I was like, yeah, I could kind of be like a mixture of THOSE guys.
3. I am the co-guardian of my older sister, Barbara, who has Down's Syndrome.
4. I say I never owned a dog, but this is not true. During middle school we got an older female Golden Retriever mix from the shelter. I named her Tory and she smelled awful, but was very friendly and sweet. Unfortunately she was sick and we had to take her back to the shelter, and she died not much later.
5. My earliest memory is of waking up on the floor in my bedroom, in our old house in O'Shaughnessy Lane in Closter, NJ. Then I wandered into my sister's room and, this is the memory though it may not be reliable, we argued and she hit me in the stomach. Sharon is not a violent person!
6. This is pretty well known, but it's still cool. In 1996 I was a driver in Bill Clinton's motorcade when he came to Denver. My car was a copper Ford Taurus, and my Secret Service name was Straggler Two. (Straggler One was, of course, right in front of me.) I was the very last car in the motorcade. Little known fact, there are two motorcades. The first five cars or so, actually have dignitaries in them. Then there is a gap and there are all the other cars, who have press or whomever. I had no one, both days! I shook hands briefly with the POTUS and got my picture taken with him. They never sent me the picture though.
7. As a freshman in high school I was an indifferent athlete, but somehow during winter track I managed to be in part of a four man relay team that actually won the blue ribbon for first place at a track meet. I think my time was a touch over 64 seconds for my quarter mile. Not bad! To this day I have no idea how I did it, as I hadn't trained all that well, and my prior time was something like 80 seconds.
1. I can twirl my eyeballs around really, really fast. It's been described as sickening and nauseating and just plain weird by most who have seen it. I have never actually seen it, although I guess Randi could record me doing it, and play it back to me.
2. I had NO idea at all what I wanted to do with my life, or even liked to do until Mrs. Summers's class in seventh grade, where I learned that I liked writing stories. Then I really got turned around by the writers Harlan Ellison (for his first person essays) and Hunter S. Thompson (for his wild, wicked sense of humor and craziness). Then I was like, yeah, I could kind of be like a mixture of THOSE guys.
3. I am the co-guardian of my older sister, Barbara, who has Down's Syndrome.
4. I say I never owned a dog, but this is not true. During middle school we got an older female Golden Retriever mix from the shelter. I named her Tory and she smelled awful, but was very friendly and sweet. Unfortunately she was sick and we had to take her back to the shelter, and she died not much later.
5. My earliest memory is of waking up on the floor in my bedroom, in our old house in O'Shaughnessy Lane in Closter, NJ. Then I wandered into my sister's room and, this is the memory though it may not be reliable, we argued and she hit me in the stomach. Sharon is not a violent person!
6. This is pretty well known, but it's still cool. In 1996 I was a driver in Bill Clinton's motorcade when he came to Denver. My car was a copper Ford Taurus, and my Secret Service name was Straggler Two. (Straggler One was, of course, right in front of me.) I was the very last car in the motorcade. Little known fact, there are two motorcades. The first five cars or so, actually have dignitaries in them. Then there is a gap and there are all the other cars, who have press or whomever. I had no one, both days! I shook hands briefly with the POTUS and got my picture taken with him. They never sent me the picture though.
7. As a freshman in high school I was an indifferent athlete, but somehow during winter track I managed to be in part of a four man relay team that actually won the blue ribbon for first place at a track meet. I think my time was a touch over 64 seconds for my quarter mile. Not bad! To this day I have no idea how I did it, as I hadn't trained all that well, and my prior time was something like 80 seconds.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thoughts On A Wednesday Morning In September
Stella is still asleep, and will be for probably the next half hour or so. Randi is awake and getting ready for work. I am here, of course. It is 6:40 a.m. If you had told me back in high school that I would ever be able to get up this early I would have laughed in your face, if I wasn't already asleep that is. I was always up late, reading, I guess. And I found it extremely difficult to get up before 10:00 a.m. I always attribute that to laziness, but I think that there is a biological reason for it as well. I had read somewhere that teenagers' brains are wired to sleep in late. I am not sure what the genetic advantage could be of this. Maybe it was so the rest of the tribe could have some peace and quiet back in the stone age and this kept them from literally murdering the teens in their midst. I am certain that if I did some research into this I could find out more, but I don't feel like it right now.
************************************************************************
Trying to slowly gather some momentum in the Louisville area, mainly with writing. I am working on a freelance piece right now, although I won't discuss it for superstitious reasons. I am also working to meet with other editors and the like. Beyond that I have a meeting within the next two week at a local university to get oriented for their grad programs for education. I have had a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to do, should I move in this direction.
Classroom teaching seems like it would be very satisfying in many ways, but also a total frenzied, burnout-producing grind. I love kids, and love to instruct, but I think I would have a hard time trying to keep a room of uninterested high school or middle-schoolers engaged and interested. The thought of having to be a disciplinarian for so many kids seems wholly uninviting to me. Look at this, I am already assuming they would not like my class.
I have thought about guidance counseloring, which I do realize is not a verb. It would offer the opportunity to help a kid one on one, which could be very rewarding. And I would get an office, and wouldn't have to be "on" the entire time in front of a class. I would get to help kids find what they want to do with their lives, which I think I would enjoy. But it might not be as directly rewarding as teaching.
I guess I can't know, as I really haven't done either job.
One of my favorite parts of my past few editing jobs was my ability to work with other folks and help them get better at what they did. Mentoring, I guess, although I hate that word, as it's become such a trite, lame cliche. I thought of it as simply helping them, not being their mentor, so to speak. But it seems the young adults I worked with closely have thrived and continue to do well. Some of them even learned a few things from me, I believe. Of course their success is the result of their own hard work and brains, but I like to think I helped them learn a few things for the limited time they spent with me.
That I liked. I liked working with smart people, and helping to make them smarter, on a one to one basis.
I have been told that I would make a good college instructor, but I don't know where I would begin to get such a job, or what the job would even be. Writing instructor, I guess? Journalism professor? I am not sure what the qualifications needed for such a job would be, or even, for sure, what the job is. I guess there are always ways to find out, such as reaching out to people who already do this job and talking to them. Usually people are pretty good about spending 10 minutes, or so, with folks who have a genuine interest in learning more about what they do for a career. So, maybe I should do that!
In other news, I am still getting used to Louisville. I don't feel like I really know the heart of the city just yet. In NYC you could tell, from the moment you came in, that this town has a strong identity, one impossible to ignore, in fact. It is THE CITY. We even called it The City growing up in NJ. There are a million different scenes in this world, some easier to learn about, some took more time, but they were all there.
But I don't have that feeling about Louisville. There doesn't seem to be a real city vibe here, or at least one I've seen yet. It's a cityburb, or at least that's what I've started to think of it as. It's not quite what I consider a city, yet it is not really a suburb either, it's kind of both at the same time. There doesn't seem to be a real logic to the layout, either. Everywhere I go there are just these cool little spots, and out of the way stores, and the like. It is definitely funky.
One cool thing: barbecue smokers. This is something I never saw in NYC. As I drive around town I see, again and again, that many businesses have barbecue smokers parked in their parking lots, actively smoking up meat every day. I have seen this in at least a half a dozen places. It just seems so southern to me. And I'm not really even a big BBQ guy, but this is just cool. Of course you vegetarians out there will not agree.
One thing I miss is the feeling of a large, humming downtown. In NYC I could take or leave Midtown (though I liked Times Square, most hate it). But I always loved downtown, and could spend hours walking around there, looking at the shops. Brooklyn too had whole neighborhoods chockablock with dense, urban things going on. Concerts, stores, boutiques, guitar shops, next to delis. You know, urban living.
Downtown here is very, very mellow. You can get a parking spot right in the middle of town during the work day for god's sake! On Sundays the place is practically deserted.
Not that this is bad, but it's an adjustment. I do realize NYC was not, and is not all that perfect. But I miss walking through dense, urban areas. It's the only place Spider-Man could ever have been a superhero, know what I mean?
*********************************************************************
I am reading "The Snowball" a biography of Warren Buffett. He tries so hard to come across as a folksy, lovable guy who just happened to get lucky. But he is a complete and total genius, with an ungodly ability to analyze stocks and invest. Right now in the book he is 25 years old, and will sit all day, every day, analyzing stocks and companies, and really breaking down what they do. At this point he had been doing this for at least 10 years, all day, every day. It's astonishing. If you met him when he was 15 you would have remembered him; he would have been the smartest, most socially awkward 15 year old who ever shook your hand. He was always, always obsessed with numbers, probabilities and took an active interest in calculating longevity. He had a near photographic memory, and later on knew his finance textbooks better than the people who wrote them. In short, he was born a numerical genius, with an almost unheard of amount of brain power, but had to learn how to interact socially to charm people and succeed. But his brain was akin to a cannon, where most people have a pea shooter, and the smart among us have a handgun. The dude was and is gifted, but not in the usual ways. To his advantage. Replicating such genius, of course, is all but impossible.
But I am also inspired. I know I will never, and can never, be a math genius like him, but his ideas can be applied to other folks. The book is called The Snowball because that's the central metaphor for how he sees life: you start small with a good idea, or money, or an area of expertise and just keep adding to it until it compounds. That I can relate to.
And I do know something about investing, as I wrote about it for years. I am not going to be a genius stock investor like him, no one is, but I can apply myself to examine what would be better for me, and us, than keeping the money in the bank, doing nothing. I have some ideas and look forward to putting them into play.
Mainly I am inspired by Buffett's ability to plan and think long term. I am often reactive, not proactive. Things either happen to me, or they don't. But it doesn't have to be that way. One way we, as humans, can shape our world, is to make plans. Map things out. Set reachable deadlines, use the skills we have to achieve things that will improve our quality of life.
Money is important. I never wanted to really admit that before, it made me uncomfortable, but it's a self-defeating attitude to believe otherwise. It should not be why you do what you do, or else you will be not fully engaged in your own life. But it is important, and there are ways where you can plan and likely find ways to get more of it. And why not have more if you can have more?
So far that's my take away. Planning is okay. In fact it's a good idea. Set deadlines, goals and learn to think beyond today, or even this week. It's not illegal, you know?
Anyway, that's it for now. My hands are starting to cramp, which sucks. Maybe I need a new keyboard.
************************************************************************
Trying to slowly gather some momentum in the Louisville area, mainly with writing. I am working on a freelance piece right now, although I won't discuss it for superstitious reasons. I am also working to meet with other editors and the like. Beyond that I have a meeting within the next two week at a local university to get oriented for their grad programs for education. I have had a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to do, should I move in this direction.
Classroom teaching seems like it would be very satisfying in many ways, but also a total frenzied, burnout-producing grind. I love kids, and love to instruct, but I think I would have a hard time trying to keep a room of uninterested high school or middle-schoolers engaged and interested. The thought of having to be a disciplinarian for so many kids seems wholly uninviting to me. Look at this, I am already assuming they would not like my class.
I have thought about guidance counseloring, which I do realize is not a verb. It would offer the opportunity to help a kid one on one, which could be very rewarding. And I would get an office, and wouldn't have to be "on" the entire time in front of a class. I would get to help kids find what they want to do with their lives, which I think I would enjoy. But it might not be as directly rewarding as teaching.
I guess I can't know, as I really haven't done either job.
One of my favorite parts of my past few editing jobs was my ability to work with other folks and help them get better at what they did. Mentoring, I guess, although I hate that word, as it's become such a trite, lame cliche. I thought of it as simply helping them, not being their mentor, so to speak. But it seems the young adults I worked with closely have thrived and continue to do well. Some of them even learned a few things from me, I believe. Of course their success is the result of their own hard work and brains, but I like to think I helped them learn a few things for the limited time they spent with me.
That I liked. I liked working with smart people, and helping to make them smarter, on a one to one basis.
I have been told that I would make a good college instructor, but I don't know where I would begin to get such a job, or what the job would even be. Writing instructor, I guess? Journalism professor? I am not sure what the qualifications needed for such a job would be, or even, for sure, what the job is. I guess there are always ways to find out, such as reaching out to people who already do this job and talking to them. Usually people are pretty good about spending 10 minutes, or so, with folks who have a genuine interest in learning more about what they do for a career. So, maybe I should do that!
In other news, I am still getting used to Louisville. I don't feel like I really know the heart of the city just yet. In NYC you could tell, from the moment you came in, that this town has a strong identity, one impossible to ignore, in fact. It is THE CITY. We even called it The City growing up in NJ. There are a million different scenes in this world, some easier to learn about, some took more time, but they were all there.
But I don't have that feeling about Louisville. There doesn't seem to be a real city vibe here, or at least one I've seen yet. It's a cityburb, or at least that's what I've started to think of it as. It's not quite what I consider a city, yet it is not really a suburb either, it's kind of both at the same time. There doesn't seem to be a real logic to the layout, either. Everywhere I go there are just these cool little spots, and out of the way stores, and the like. It is definitely funky.
One cool thing: barbecue smokers. This is something I never saw in NYC. As I drive around town I see, again and again, that many businesses have barbecue smokers parked in their parking lots, actively smoking up meat every day. I have seen this in at least a half a dozen places. It just seems so southern to me. And I'm not really even a big BBQ guy, but this is just cool. Of course you vegetarians out there will not agree.
One thing I miss is the feeling of a large, humming downtown. In NYC I could take or leave Midtown (though I liked Times Square, most hate it). But I always loved downtown, and could spend hours walking around there, looking at the shops. Brooklyn too had whole neighborhoods chockablock with dense, urban things going on. Concerts, stores, boutiques, guitar shops, next to delis. You know, urban living.
Downtown here is very, very mellow. You can get a parking spot right in the middle of town during the work day for god's sake! On Sundays the place is practically deserted.
Not that this is bad, but it's an adjustment. I do realize NYC was not, and is not all that perfect. But I miss walking through dense, urban areas. It's the only place Spider-Man could ever have been a superhero, know what I mean?
*********************************************************************
I am reading "The Snowball" a biography of Warren Buffett. He tries so hard to come across as a folksy, lovable guy who just happened to get lucky. But he is a complete and total genius, with an ungodly ability to analyze stocks and invest. Right now in the book he is 25 years old, and will sit all day, every day, analyzing stocks and companies, and really breaking down what they do. At this point he had been doing this for at least 10 years, all day, every day. It's astonishing. If you met him when he was 15 you would have remembered him; he would have been the smartest, most socially awkward 15 year old who ever shook your hand. He was always, always obsessed with numbers, probabilities and took an active interest in calculating longevity. He had a near photographic memory, and later on knew his finance textbooks better than the people who wrote them. In short, he was born a numerical genius, with an almost unheard of amount of brain power, but had to learn how to interact socially to charm people and succeed. But his brain was akin to a cannon, where most people have a pea shooter, and the smart among us have a handgun. The dude was and is gifted, but not in the usual ways. To his advantage. Replicating such genius, of course, is all but impossible.
But I am also inspired. I know I will never, and can never, be a math genius like him, but his ideas can be applied to other folks. The book is called The Snowball because that's the central metaphor for how he sees life: you start small with a good idea, or money, or an area of expertise and just keep adding to it until it compounds. That I can relate to.
And I do know something about investing, as I wrote about it for years. I am not going to be a genius stock investor like him, no one is, but I can apply myself to examine what would be better for me, and us, than keeping the money in the bank, doing nothing. I have some ideas and look forward to putting them into play.
Mainly I am inspired by Buffett's ability to plan and think long term. I am often reactive, not proactive. Things either happen to me, or they don't. But it doesn't have to be that way. One way we, as humans, can shape our world, is to make plans. Map things out. Set reachable deadlines, use the skills we have to achieve things that will improve our quality of life.
Money is important. I never wanted to really admit that before, it made me uncomfortable, but it's a self-defeating attitude to believe otherwise. It should not be why you do what you do, or else you will be not fully engaged in your own life. But it is important, and there are ways where you can plan and likely find ways to get more of it. And why not have more if you can have more?
So far that's my take away. Planning is okay. In fact it's a good idea. Set deadlines, goals and learn to think beyond today, or even this week. It's not illegal, you know?
Anyway, that's it for now. My hands are starting to cramp, which sucks. Maybe I need a new keyboard.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Toy Chest Child Bed
Randi woke up late today, my fault. I had reset her alarm to remind me to do an interview yesterday. Now she is rushing. Yay me. :-(
*************************************************************************************
So a little progress report on the Brooklyn Baby Baby. (Which no longer applies. Now I have to find her another nickname.)
We went to the doctor's office two days ago. She is 30 and a half pounds, and I am not exactly sure about her height. But she is just about average as far as that stuff goes. The doctor was impressed by how affectionate and vocal she is.
She sings all the time, and makes up songs too. Her newest one is called "Ballerina Cat," which is just as lovely as the image it conjures. She also made up one called "Baby In The Water," which goes something like this. "Baby in the water, baby in the water, baby in the water, octopus." Sometimes she substitutes "baby octopus" for octopus. I should video tape this stuff, because it's so precious. There I go again, it's not video taping old man, it's recording.
A relatively recent passion is her stuffed animals and toys. As in having virtually all of them on her bed at all times. (She moved from a crib to a toddler bed when we moved to Kentucky about two months ago, she loves it.) Right now she is asleep, it's morning, and she has at the head of her bed probably 15-20 stuffed animals, a stuffed pie toy and, a book and yes, a tea set. She refuses to go to bed if all these things are not right where they should be, i.e. taking up 40% of the available space on her already not too big bed.
Last night before bath time she and Randi had a tea party. She took all her toys off the bed and put them down on the carpet in her room so that they too could get some tea. Then she completely ignored Randi and spoke almost entirely just to the animals. Of course the moment Randi left the room she cried and cried until she came back. Even if mom is only watching she still needs to be there for the party, I guess.
I should take a picture of this phenomenon and put it on this blog. I have been bad about posting pics recently. I know that for some of you this is a vital and important part of the blog "experience."
Stella has a very good vocabulary and can say words like "stupendous," and talks nonstop virtually all day.
She loves her preschool, Adath Jeshurun. (You know, the Jewish preschool that is 25% Jewish.) When I drop her off in the morning she walks with me, hand in hand, through the halls of the school until we get to her class room. Then she abandons me, immediately starts to play, and has to be reminded to say goodbye and give me a hug goodbye. She even did this the first day, except on that day the hallways were simply filled with screaming children. Not Stella, she looked totally at ease, and ready to go.
When I pick her up, though, she typically runs over to me. By the time we get in the car, though, she typically wants something that I had forgotten to bring. Either a book left at home or something like that.
We have discovered some nice local playgrounds. Louisville has a really, really great parks system. The majority of the marquee parks were designed by the Olmstead and Law firm, who also designed Central Park in Manhattan and my beloved Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The neat thing about these parks is that the major ones are all linked, they even have a bicycle race that traverses all of them.
We are still getting to know some local parents. I miss the playgroup support we had back in NYC, but I am hopeful that we will have some nice playgroups in the fall.
As for me, I am gradually getting into the swing, I hope. I have founded a rock band, again, I hope! We have two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. I found the members via Craigslist, and wrote a fairly long and heartfelt ad about the kind of bad I wanted to start. I listed bands I liked (Beatles, of course, 'Stones, Velvet Underground, Ween, REM, The Dead), and said what I do and would like to do. I wanted to play mostly originals with some tasteful covers thrown in. But I wanted it to be an originals band.
I do realize this is an uphill climb. People want to hear what they already like. But I wanted the chance to see if some of the songs I wrote hold up.
Well, here's what happened. I had one drummer fire us before he ever even played with us. He wanted to play covers. A second guy showed up in a Skynryd T-shirt, played some songs with us, and then quit without another word. (Both of these guys were recovering alcohol or drug abusers. I think I met the only sober drummers in North America. Just kidding drummers!) Another bassist played with us a couple of times, and was good, but quit because he wanted to develop more time to his Stevie Ray Vaughan-ish power trio, and a keyboardist couldn't keep up with it because he wanted to devote more time to his other projects.
All this I understood and expected. I recruited based on a few criterion. Did they like the songs? (Most important one.) Would they be easy to deal with and work with? Do I like them as people? Do they understand that I am a married guy and dad? (Meaning I can commit for what I can commit to, but not hang out all night and party.)
I am happy to say, touch wood, that so far the four guys we have match the criterion above. The other guitarist, Scott, writes and sings, which I love. I also write and sing but I definitely have a soft spot for just being the guitarist in the band. Stepping out of the spotlight and just playing. I loved this role in my former band, Connecticut, but grew frustrated over time because I couldn't bring any of my songs to the band, it was not allowed. Eventually, not surprisingly, this helped contribute to the breakup of the band.
This is a shame, because had I been able to contribute we could have made a lethal combination. Now the remainders of that band are still playing some of the same dives we played, more or less, eight years ago.
The bands I always wanted to be in as a kid typically functioned as collectives of some sort. The Beatles, everyone sang, three of the four guys wrote. The Dead were a collective in many literal ways, with multiple singers and writers. Squeeze was based on a partnership of two guys, REM and U2 are total partnerships in all ways. This always appealed to me, I have never been too comfortable with it being The Dave Show. (Maybe this is why I gravitated to improv comedy in NYC, not standup.)
Of course I also love solo performers like Bruce, but the guys in his band seem to accept that his band is a benevolent dictatorship, and they don't seem to mind. But Bruce is also a genius and perhaps the world's greatest performer so I guess it's cool. Nirvana was also the intellectual work of one guy, as a songwriter, although the band's sounds was indelible and as important as his writing.
Anyway, I don't want to jinx us too much here, so I will drop it for now.
Fall has fallen, summer is over. Shed a tear for its memory and move into the new.
*************************************************************************************
So a little progress report on the Brooklyn Baby Baby. (Which no longer applies. Now I have to find her another nickname.)
We went to the doctor's office two days ago. She is 30 and a half pounds, and I am not exactly sure about her height. But she is just about average as far as that stuff goes. The doctor was impressed by how affectionate and vocal she is.
She sings all the time, and makes up songs too. Her newest one is called "Ballerina Cat," which is just as lovely as the image it conjures. She also made up one called "Baby In The Water," which goes something like this. "Baby in the water, baby in the water, baby in the water, octopus." Sometimes she substitutes "baby octopus" for octopus. I should video tape this stuff, because it's so precious. There I go again, it's not video taping old man, it's recording.
A relatively recent passion is her stuffed animals and toys. As in having virtually all of them on her bed at all times. (She moved from a crib to a toddler bed when we moved to Kentucky about two months ago, she loves it.) Right now she is asleep, it's morning, and she has at the head of her bed probably 15-20 stuffed animals, a stuffed pie toy and, a book and yes, a tea set. She refuses to go to bed if all these things are not right where they should be, i.e. taking up 40% of the available space on her already not too big bed.
Last night before bath time she and Randi had a tea party. She took all her toys off the bed and put them down on the carpet in her room so that they too could get some tea. Then she completely ignored Randi and spoke almost entirely just to the animals. Of course the moment Randi left the room she cried and cried until she came back. Even if mom is only watching she still needs to be there for the party, I guess.
I should take a picture of this phenomenon and put it on this blog. I have been bad about posting pics recently. I know that for some of you this is a vital and important part of the blog "experience."
Stella has a very good vocabulary and can say words like "stupendous," and talks nonstop virtually all day.
She loves her preschool, Adath Jeshurun. (You know, the Jewish preschool that is 25% Jewish.) When I drop her off in the morning she walks with me, hand in hand, through the halls of the school until we get to her class room. Then she abandons me, immediately starts to play, and has to be reminded to say goodbye and give me a hug goodbye. She even did this the first day, except on that day the hallways were simply filled with screaming children. Not Stella, she looked totally at ease, and ready to go.
When I pick her up, though, she typically runs over to me. By the time we get in the car, though, she typically wants something that I had forgotten to bring. Either a book left at home or something like that.
We have discovered some nice local playgrounds. Louisville has a really, really great parks system. The majority of the marquee parks were designed by the Olmstead and Law firm, who also designed Central Park in Manhattan and my beloved Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The neat thing about these parks is that the major ones are all linked, they even have a bicycle race that traverses all of them.
We are still getting to know some local parents. I miss the playgroup support we had back in NYC, but I am hopeful that we will have some nice playgroups in the fall.
As for me, I am gradually getting into the swing, I hope. I have founded a rock band, again, I hope! We have two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. I found the members via Craigslist, and wrote a fairly long and heartfelt ad about the kind of bad I wanted to start. I listed bands I liked (Beatles, of course, 'Stones, Velvet Underground, Ween, REM, The Dead), and said what I do and would like to do. I wanted to play mostly originals with some tasteful covers thrown in. But I wanted it to be an originals band.
I do realize this is an uphill climb. People want to hear what they already like. But I wanted the chance to see if some of the songs I wrote hold up.
Well, here's what happened. I had one drummer fire us before he ever even played with us. He wanted to play covers. A second guy showed up in a Skynryd T-shirt, played some songs with us, and then quit without another word. (Both of these guys were recovering alcohol or drug abusers. I think I met the only sober drummers in North America. Just kidding drummers!) Another bassist played with us a couple of times, and was good, but quit because he wanted to develop more time to his Stevie Ray Vaughan-ish power trio, and a keyboardist couldn't keep up with it because he wanted to devote more time to his other projects.
All this I understood and expected. I recruited based on a few criterion. Did they like the songs? (Most important one.) Would they be easy to deal with and work with? Do I like them as people? Do they understand that I am a married guy and dad? (Meaning I can commit for what I can commit to, but not hang out all night and party.)
I am happy to say, touch wood, that so far the four guys we have match the criterion above. The other guitarist, Scott, writes and sings, which I love. I also write and sing but I definitely have a soft spot for just being the guitarist in the band. Stepping out of the spotlight and just playing. I loved this role in my former band, Connecticut, but grew frustrated over time because I couldn't bring any of my songs to the band, it was not allowed. Eventually, not surprisingly, this helped contribute to the breakup of the band.
This is a shame, because had I been able to contribute we could have made a lethal combination. Now the remainders of that band are still playing some of the same dives we played, more or less, eight years ago.
The bands I always wanted to be in as a kid typically functioned as collectives of some sort. The Beatles, everyone sang, three of the four guys wrote. The Dead were a collective in many literal ways, with multiple singers and writers. Squeeze was based on a partnership of two guys, REM and U2 are total partnerships in all ways. This always appealed to me, I have never been too comfortable with it being The Dave Show. (Maybe this is why I gravitated to improv comedy in NYC, not standup.)
Of course I also love solo performers like Bruce, but the guys in his band seem to accept that his band is a benevolent dictatorship, and they don't seem to mind. But Bruce is also a genius and perhaps the world's greatest performer so I guess it's cool. Nirvana was also the intellectual work of one guy, as a songwriter, although the band's sounds was indelible and as important as his writing.
Anyway, I don't want to jinx us too much here, so I will drop it for now.
Fall has fallen, summer is over. Shed a tear for its memory and move into the new.
Monday, September 20, 2010
My High School Reunion
This is lifted from my journal from September 12, meaning that my reunion was, yes, on September 11. It was held at the Old '76 House, in Tappan, N.Y., which is fairly close to where I grew up in Bergen County, N.J. In fact we went to the '76 House a few times when I was a child. It dates back to the Colonial Era, and once was used as a jail to hold a co-conspirator of Benedict Arnold's!
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I had an absolutely awesome time as my 20th High School Reunion. Everyone was friendly, there were good vibes all around, all day.
When I first came into the parking lot of the '76 House I saw my old friends and colleagues from the student newspaper in school, Amie Ravitz and Elana Haviv, who were parking. I wasn't sure whether I should go up to Amie, as we hadn't spoken in more than a little while. (Elana and I had kept touch over the ensuing years.) But Amie was thoroughly warm and welcoming. It felt good to have people who were happy to see me.
That was the pattern. Everyone was open, surprisingly happy to see one another. I think even we were surprised by how nice it was to simply be in one another's presence once more. I was in high spirits all night. I had been worried that people would look down on me because I am still unemployed and not all the way there yet, but no one cared. Nor did I look down on them if they were not where they thought they wanted to be.
I was happy to see old, old friends, who were almost uniformly sweet and easy to speak to. We laughed at each others jokes, reminisced about things long forgotten or suppressed in some cases. There were people there who were thriving that I had been quite worried about twenty years ago. There were people who had turned their lives and attitudes around. There were people there I had long conversations with that I had almost never actually spoken to at school. There were no cliques, there was no posturing, none of that stuff. It was like the open, happy, carefree party that we rarely actually had at my school.
(What can I say, the 1990 class at Northern Valley Regional High Demarest lacked a certain school spirit. I mentioned this to Jessica Patton, who organized the entire reunion. She said, something back that I loved: "I was a cheerleader and I didn't have any school spirit.")
I spoke with almost everyone, laughed a lot, make people laugh, enjoyed everyone's company. High school is so strange. You have nothing in common, on the face of it, with many of these folks, and yet you DO have something in common. Something very key, four of the most crucial years of your life.
Everyone should go to their high school reunion if they can. It makes you realize that people love you and miss you, even if they didn't know it. Even if you didn't know it. Milestones are real and important. As are roots. We should honor them and use them to stay both grounded and reminded of the good people we were and the good people we may yet want to become. And even if we don't, people will still like us and be happy to see us for who we are today.
***********************************************************************************
I had an absolutely awesome time as my 20th High School Reunion. Everyone was friendly, there were good vibes all around, all day.
When I first came into the parking lot of the '76 House I saw my old friends and colleagues from the student newspaper in school, Amie Ravitz and Elana Haviv, who were parking. I wasn't sure whether I should go up to Amie, as we hadn't spoken in more than a little while. (Elana and I had kept touch over the ensuing years.) But Amie was thoroughly warm and welcoming. It felt good to have people who were happy to see me.
That was the pattern. Everyone was open, surprisingly happy to see one another. I think even we were surprised by how nice it was to simply be in one another's presence once more. I was in high spirits all night. I had been worried that people would look down on me because I am still unemployed and not all the way there yet, but no one cared. Nor did I look down on them if they were not where they thought they wanted to be.
I was happy to see old, old friends, who were almost uniformly sweet and easy to speak to. We laughed at each others jokes, reminisced about things long forgotten or suppressed in some cases. There were people there who were thriving that I had been quite worried about twenty years ago. There were people who had turned their lives and attitudes around. There were people there I had long conversations with that I had almost never actually spoken to at school. There were no cliques, there was no posturing, none of that stuff. It was like the open, happy, carefree party that we rarely actually had at my school.
(What can I say, the 1990 class at Northern Valley Regional High Demarest lacked a certain school spirit. I mentioned this to Jessica Patton, who organized the entire reunion. She said, something back that I loved: "I was a cheerleader and I didn't have any school spirit.")
I spoke with almost everyone, laughed a lot, make people laugh, enjoyed everyone's company. High school is so strange. You have nothing in common, on the face of it, with many of these folks, and yet you DO have something in common. Something very key, four of the most crucial years of your life.
Everyone should go to their high school reunion if they can. It makes you realize that people love you and miss you, even if they didn't know it. Even if you didn't know it. Milestones are real and important. As are roots. We should honor them and use them to stay both grounded and reminded of the good people we were and the good people we may yet want to become. And even if we don't, people will still like us and be happy to see us for who we are today.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Everyone is sleeping, except me, and the cats. Cromwell is being very affectionate right now, which means he's hungry.
Have a lot to catch up on. Fasted yesterday, which is always interesting and strange. Honestly, it is not that hard, for the most part. I remember the first time I fasted. It was August, I was 11 years old and in Camp Ceder Lake, a New Jersey Young Men's Hebrew Association camp. They told us there was some fairly obscure Jewish holiday on the horizon and if we wished to fast we could. I had never done it before, so I thought it would be a novel challenge. Also, and to my shame, more importantly, it would get me out of activities that day, and I could just kind of laze around. This really attracted me. Camp was so busy, I felt that at 11 years old I needed a break!
So I fasted, and don't really remember anything about it, other than, yes, I did make the entire 24 hours and breaking the fast was really cool. Me and the other campers and staffers who fasted went down to the dining hall at Camp Nah-Je-Wah (which I am sure I just misspelled) and after some prayers were set we dug into a kosher dairy style meal. Tuna salad, bagels and the like. It was celebratory and festive and I felt proud that I accomplished my goal.
Yesterday, though, was a little different. I didn't fast to get out of anything, I did it because I felt like it would be, by now, very strange not to. I have been fasting on Yom Kippur since I was 12 or 13. (Although one year I caved and bought a Whopper Junior. That was the last time I did that, though. I think I was 14.)
First, in the morning we fed Stella -- she doesn't fast, of course -- and then went to temple. We went to a temple near us called Adath Jeshurun, which is also where Stella goes to pre-school. (It's a Jewish pre-school, but even so it's student population is only 25% Jewish. I believe I already talked about this in a prior entry. Still, a lovely place.) Or shall I say Stella goes to the pre-school affiliated with the temple. I did the same as a child, and went to Temple Beth-El nursery school in Closter, NJ, where I grew up. My family were members of the temple as well.
During Rosh Hashonah you are supposed to be somewhat uncomfortable. So in addition to fasting, as if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, you also don't shower, don't shave, don't drink water, don't brush your teeth (a yuck in my book, but this year I stuck to it), and you don't wear leather. So you have the sight of a fairly well dressed guy, me, in a nice enough suit (from Target) walking around in my imitation leather sandals, with no belt, and my watch in my pocket rather than my wrist. Very strange, I guess. Felt kind of odd, although the sandals were comfortable.
At temple I had the same debate I always have, to talis or not to talis. The talis is that long fringed scarf, for lack of a better word, you see Jewish men (or mostly men anyway) wearing around. I generally feel like a poseur when I wear one, since I am not all that observant (despite my past few blog entries here), barely can read Hebrew and generally do not live a life that I would consider all that "Jewish" as far as actual, formal religious activity. In fact I believe I have worn my talis all of three times since my Bar Mitzvah in 1985.
Nonetheless, I still own one, and it has a nice blue velvet bag.
This year, after we had put Stella in the temple's day care, we went upstairs and sat down in our assigned seats. (We are not members of AJ, but they were nice enough to give us newcomers in town a pair of seats all the same.) After about ten minutes of services I felt the urge to put on a talis, so, not feeling all that strange about it after all, I took it out of my bag and put it on. I was far from alone, in fact most of the guys in the temple already had one on. I would have been conspicuous by not wearing one, I suppose, but that's not why I did it.
Why did I do it? My old Rabbi and friend, the late Josh Simon, used to say regarding religious stuff, "fake it till you make it." Meaning you may not feel authentic doing these various rituals and practices, but do them anyway, and eventually they will start to feel like they have become a part of you. In this way he encouraged me to wear a talis, for example, and Randi to try her hand at reading Hebrew.
So there was certainly an element of that in there. (Josh was a fascinating and amazing guy. He was probably about 45 and had been a journalist at Life Magazine. He played reggae-tinged rock music in the services, with him rocking out on a black Gibson SG electric guitar. He was a bit of a rabble rouser, a bit of an iconoclast. He once concluded a midrash--or exegesis--with this unforgettable thought. "What doe this all mean? I don't know, but I just think it's great!" Unfortunately Rabbi Josh passed away in early August 2005, right before he was to officiate our wedding. I could get more into it, but it would take a long, long time to write down how I felt about Josh. I loved the guy, you know?)
Another part of all this was that I wanted to put the talis on. I just did, it felt, for the first time, right. I can't explain it.
Maybe I am looking for things. I don't know, but I want to start living life less about me, me, me all the time and start reaching out to the world, in order to help it and help others more. I am a creative person and love to do creative stuff. I have spent large portions of my life around other creative types, and by nature we tend to be lovely, fun, fascinating people, but we also tend to be kind of self-centered. All those years I spent doing improv, which were wonderful, definitely gave me an insight into the minds of actors and comedians. They are great, they make wonderful friends, but there can be a certain focus on the self. I am sure this is not a surprise to most of you reading this, and many other folks have a similar issue.
But the self-centered life has not really made me happy. I never felt like I did enough for the world, never gave back enough. I would like to change that this year, and I am starting to think of various ways to do that. Becoming more involved with the local synagogue can potentially be one way. They have many programs to meet others and do various volunteer work. I am keenly interested now in learning more about these options.
We stayed in services until about 12:20 p.m. or so and then picked up Stella. She was in the playground with all the other little kids. The people watching the kids were sad to see her go. This little girl is quite loved by all who know her, I am convinced.
She ran over to us, with a little plastic cup in her hand that belonged to the temple. We tried to pry it from her hand, but then she started to scream and cry. She's almost 2 1/2 now and many, many things make her scream and cry. So we decided we would bring back the cup next time, if it was okay with the temple. Then Stella took our hands, and together we walked back to the car.
Oh, that's right, we have a new car, or at least one that is new to us. It's a Kia Rondo, a name that sounds like one of those late night commercials that sell you the pocket fisherman, or stuff like that. It's a crossover, which means it looks like an SUV, but really is a car at heart. This is for the good, as it drives and corners like a car, and gets pretty fair gas mileage--which was of critical importance to us--but is more roomy inside than a typical car with a similar wheelbase. I like it, and enjoy driving it around, but definitely was sad that we needed a second pair of wheels. More goods, more payments, more responsibility, more resources burned. All those things are true, but the fact is, you just can't have any sort of real life in Louisville without a car. It's fairly suburban in that light, and the public transportation system here has been rated as among the worst in the U.S.
So we pulled into the car. Stella's new thing is to say "It's hot!" whenever we get into the car, whether it's hot or not. But now we have an even newer thing, where I sagely shake my head and say "it's not hot." Then she nods too and repeats it. "It's not hot." Then I might put my hand on her face, and this will sound weird I know, and scream "brain eater!" She actually has grown to like this, believe it or not. In fact the other day she kept on repeating "bwain eata!" over and over, until I put my hand back on her face and did it again. In this way I am preparing Stella ... for what exactly? The upcoming zombie invasion? For life as the kid with a weird dad? I cannot know, but I am sure it will one day help Stella be a light unto all nations.
She ate lunch when we got home, we did not, and then she took a nap. But only after ensuring that about 25 stuffed animals--literally of all stripes--were on her bed. Right before naptime she panicked and screamed "mermaid!" She has a stuffed mermaid, you see. Then she jumped out of her bed like it was on fire and ran into the living room looking for it. In fact the mermaid was actually in her bed already, buried under other stuffed toys. Randi found it, and showed it to her. Stella, relieved, then climbed into her bed, and was ready for her nap. We turned on her white noise machine--a holdover from the days when she was the lightest sleeper in the world--turned out the light and closed the door.
She slept for about two hours, a good nap. During this time Randi napped and I read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which is a definite page turner, and one about a financial journalist to boot! (I knew we were a sexy profession full of intrigue!)
Once Stella awoke we got her some snacks and got out of the apartment. Among other things we went to the Crescent Hill library and bought some supplies for breaking the fast. Fasting really does take over the day, you know? Next year maybe we will go back to temple and put Stella back in the child care, I don't know.
Stella had dinner at 6:00 p.m. and we broke the fast at 6:30 p.m. It wasn't officially sunset at our apartment, but it had been 24 hours since we last ate, and, we reasoned, it was dark somewhere, you know? The food tasted delicious, as expected. We had bagels (bought at Panera because all the bagel stores here closed by 3:00 p.m.! In my hunger-induced state this pissed me off to no end, and made me angry that there wasn't one real New York bagel place in this town. I think I was being a bit overly critical, in retrospect), lox, some various salad type dishes bought at the super market, and challah. The challah was how I actually broke the fast, with some honey. It was great. Oh, and I also drank about a liter of ginger ale. Good times!
It's good to be a little hungry. One of the reasons we fast, I believe, is to be reminded that for some people the fast never ends. That hunger pain I feel once a year never ends for millions of people, including children, around the globe. In this way it makes me, I hope, more sensitive to the plight of those around the world who do not have the luxuries I truly do take for granted. In fact I think we should all fast at least once a year regardless of our religion, for 24 hours in a row. It might make the world a tinier bit more of a sympathetic place.
After the fast we gave Stella her bath and got her ready for bed. Her new thing is to scream "help!" whenever she is the slightest bit uncomfortable, like when we are putting on her pajamas. I promise, we are not torturing our daughter! So if you see us all out together and Stella is screaming for help, please realize that she might just be miffed at us for not buying her a third ice cream, not that we have punished her or anything like that. Just a reminder.
After Stella was put to bed we cleaned up a bit and watched Oliver Stone's movie "W." Stone has been accused of making up stuff in his films, and I wish he made this entire movie up, but, no George W. Bush really was our president and really did not understand what was going on in Iraq and really did rush us into a war when a little bit more time would probably have proven that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. But now it's too late and history is what it is.
One prayer we say during services is for our leaders, to grant them wisdom. I always say it.
I know I promised to write about the high school reunion. Next time, I guess.
Have a lot to catch up on. Fasted yesterday, which is always interesting and strange. Honestly, it is not that hard, for the most part. I remember the first time I fasted. It was August, I was 11 years old and in Camp Ceder Lake, a New Jersey Young Men's Hebrew Association camp. They told us there was some fairly obscure Jewish holiday on the horizon and if we wished to fast we could. I had never done it before, so I thought it would be a novel challenge. Also, and to my shame, more importantly, it would get me out of activities that day, and I could just kind of laze around. This really attracted me. Camp was so busy, I felt that at 11 years old I needed a break!
So I fasted, and don't really remember anything about it, other than, yes, I did make the entire 24 hours and breaking the fast was really cool. Me and the other campers and staffers who fasted went down to the dining hall at Camp Nah-Je-Wah (which I am sure I just misspelled) and after some prayers were set we dug into a kosher dairy style meal. Tuna salad, bagels and the like. It was celebratory and festive and I felt proud that I accomplished my goal.
Yesterday, though, was a little different. I didn't fast to get out of anything, I did it because I felt like it would be, by now, very strange not to. I have been fasting on Yom Kippur since I was 12 or 13. (Although one year I caved and bought a Whopper Junior. That was the last time I did that, though. I think I was 14.)
First, in the morning we fed Stella -- she doesn't fast, of course -- and then went to temple. We went to a temple near us called Adath Jeshurun, which is also where Stella goes to pre-school. (It's a Jewish pre-school, but even so it's student population is only 25% Jewish. I believe I already talked about this in a prior entry. Still, a lovely place.) Or shall I say Stella goes to the pre-school affiliated with the temple. I did the same as a child, and went to Temple Beth-El nursery school in Closter, NJ, where I grew up. My family were members of the temple as well.
During Rosh Hashonah you are supposed to be somewhat uncomfortable. So in addition to fasting, as if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, you also don't shower, don't shave, don't drink water, don't brush your teeth (a yuck in my book, but this year I stuck to it), and you don't wear leather. So you have the sight of a fairly well dressed guy, me, in a nice enough suit (from Target) walking around in my imitation leather sandals, with no belt, and my watch in my pocket rather than my wrist. Very strange, I guess. Felt kind of odd, although the sandals were comfortable.
At temple I had the same debate I always have, to talis or not to talis. The talis is that long fringed scarf, for lack of a better word, you see Jewish men (or mostly men anyway) wearing around. I generally feel like a poseur when I wear one, since I am not all that observant (despite my past few blog entries here), barely can read Hebrew and generally do not live a life that I would consider all that "Jewish" as far as actual, formal religious activity. In fact I believe I have worn my talis all of three times since my Bar Mitzvah in 1985.
Nonetheless, I still own one, and it has a nice blue velvet bag.
This year, after we had put Stella in the temple's day care, we went upstairs and sat down in our assigned seats. (We are not members of AJ, but they were nice enough to give us newcomers in town a pair of seats all the same.) After about ten minutes of services I felt the urge to put on a talis, so, not feeling all that strange about it after all, I took it out of my bag and put it on. I was far from alone, in fact most of the guys in the temple already had one on. I would have been conspicuous by not wearing one, I suppose, but that's not why I did it.
Why did I do it? My old Rabbi and friend, the late Josh Simon, used to say regarding religious stuff, "fake it till you make it." Meaning you may not feel authentic doing these various rituals and practices, but do them anyway, and eventually they will start to feel like they have become a part of you. In this way he encouraged me to wear a talis, for example, and Randi to try her hand at reading Hebrew.
So there was certainly an element of that in there. (Josh was a fascinating and amazing guy. He was probably about 45 and had been a journalist at Life Magazine. He played reggae-tinged rock music in the services, with him rocking out on a black Gibson SG electric guitar. He was a bit of a rabble rouser, a bit of an iconoclast. He once concluded a midrash--or exegesis--with this unforgettable thought. "What doe this all mean? I don't know, but I just think it's great!" Unfortunately Rabbi Josh passed away in early August 2005, right before he was to officiate our wedding. I could get more into it, but it would take a long, long time to write down how I felt about Josh. I loved the guy, you know?)
Another part of all this was that I wanted to put the talis on. I just did, it felt, for the first time, right. I can't explain it.
Maybe I am looking for things. I don't know, but I want to start living life less about me, me, me all the time and start reaching out to the world, in order to help it and help others more. I am a creative person and love to do creative stuff. I have spent large portions of my life around other creative types, and by nature we tend to be lovely, fun, fascinating people, but we also tend to be kind of self-centered. All those years I spent doing improv, which were wonderful, definitely gave me an insight into the minds of actors and comedians. They are great, they make wonderful friends, but there can be a certain focus on the self. I am sure this is not a surprise to most of you reading this, and many other folks have a similar issue.
But the self-centered life has not really made me happy. I never felt like I did enough for the world, never gave back enough. I would like to change that this year, and I am starting to think of various ways to do that. Becoming more involved with the local synagogue can potentially be one way. They have many programs to meet others and do various volunteer work. I am keenly interested now in learning more about these options.
We stayed in services until about 12:20 p.m. or so and then picked up Stella. She was in the playground with all the other little kids. The people watching the kids were sad to see her go. This little girl is quite loved by all who know her, I am convinced.
She ran over to us, with a little plastic cup in her hand that belonged to the temple. We tried to pry it from her hand, but then she started to scream and cry. She's almost 2 1/2 now and many, many things make her scream and cry. So we decided we would bring back the cup next time, if it was okay with the temple. Then Stella took our hands, and together we walked back to the car.
Oh, that's right, we have a new car, or at least one that is new to us. It's a Kia Rondo, a name that sounds like one of those late night commercials that sell you the pocket fisherman, or stuff like that. It's a crossover, which means it looks like an SUV, but really is a car at heart. This is for the good, as it drives and corners like a car, and gets pretty fair gas mileage--which was of critical importance to us--but is more roomy inside than a typical car with a similar wheelbase. I like it, and enjoy driving it around, but definitely was sad that we needed a second pair of wheels. More goods, more payments, more responsibility, more resources burned. All those things are true, but the fact is, you just can't have any sort of real life in Louisville without a car. It's fairly suburban in that light, and the public transportation system here has been rated as among the worst in the U.S.
So we pulled into the car. Stella's new thing is to say "It's hot!" whenever we get into the car, whether it's hot or not. But now we have an even newer thing, where I sagely shake my head and say "it's not hot." Then she nods too and repeats it. "It's not hot." Then I might put my hand on her face, and this will sound weird I know, and scream "brain eater!" She actually has grown to like this, believe it or not. In fact the other day she kept on repeating "bwain eata!" over and over, until I put my hand back on her face and did it again. In this way I am preparing Stella ... for what exactly? The upcoming zombie invasion? For life as the kid with a weird dad? I cannot know, but I am sure it will one day help Stella be a light unto all nations.
She ate lunch when we got home, we did not, and then she took a nap. But only after ensuring that about 25 stuffed animals--literally of all stripes--were on her bed. Right before naptime she panicked and screamed "mermaid!" She has a stuffed mermaid, you see. Then she jumped out of her bed like it was on fire and ran into the living room looking for it. In fact the mermaid was actually in her bed already, buried under other stuffed toys. Randi found it, and showed it to her. Stella, relieved, then climbed into her bed, and was ready for her nap. We turned on her white noise machine--a holdover from the days when she was the lightest sleeper in the world--turned out the light and closed the door.
She slept for about two hours, a good nap. During this time Randi napped and I read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which is a definite page turner, and one about a financial journalist to boot! (I knew we were a sexy profession full of intrigue!)
Once Stella awoke we got her some snacks and got out of the apartment. Among other things we went to the Crescent Hill library and bought some supplies for breaking the fast. Fasting really does take over the day, you know? Next year maybe we will go back to temple and put Stella back in the child care, I don't know.
Stella had dinner at 6:00 p.m. and we broke the fast at 6:30 p.m. It wasn't officially sunset at our apartment, but it had been 24 hours since we last ate, and, we reasoned, it was dark somewhere, you know? The food tasted delicious, as expected. We had bagels (bought at Panera because all the bagel stores here closed by 3:00 p.m.! In my hunger-induced state this pissed me off to no end, and made me angry that there wasn't one real New York bagel place in this town. I think I was being a bit overly critical, in retrospect), lox, some various salad type dishes bought at the super market, and challah. The challah was how I actually broke the fast, with some honey. It was great. Oh, and I also drank about a liter of ginger ale. Good times!
It's good to be a little hungry. One of the reasons we fast, I believe, is to be reminded that for some people the fast never ends. That hunger pain I feel once a year never ends for millions of people, including children, around the globe. In this way it makes me, I hope, more sensitive to the plight of those around the world who do not have the luxuries I truly do take for granted. In fact I think we should all fast at least once a year regardless of our religion, for 24 hours in a row. It might make the world a tinier bit more of a sympathetic place.
After the fast we gave Stella her bath and got her ready for bed. Her new thing is to scream "help!" whenever she is the slightest bit uncomfortable, like when we are putting on her pajamas. I promise, we are not torturing our daughter! So if you see us all out together and Stella is screaming for help, please realize that she might just be miffed at us for not buying her a third ice cream, not that we have punished her or anything like that. Just a reminder.
After Stella was put to bed we cleaned up a bit and watched Oliver Stone's movie "W." Stone has been accused of making up stuff in his films, and I wish he made this entire movie up, but, no George W. Bush really was our president and really did not understand what was going on in Iraq and really did rush us into a war when a little bit more time would probably have proven that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. But now it's too late and history is what it is.
One prayer we say during services is for our leaders, to grant them wisdom. I always say it.
I know I promised to write about the high school reunion. Next time, I guess.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Erev Yom Kippur
The headline here means that tonight is Yom Kippur Eve. It's strange, being a Jew. Nobody goes to synagogue for the fun holidays but they pack 'em in for the most downbeat day off the entire year. This is the one you cannot miss if you want to consider yourself a real Jew, and it includes a fast no less. I know a lot of people who don't do anything religious all year and they still fast.
Anyway, sorry about the lack of blog posts recently. I really don't have a great excuse. I've been Mr. Momming it a lot recently, which is exhausting and time consuming. During the time I have off I am trying to get jobs, which seems to take a long time, and yield no real concrete results, at least not yet.
I have to be honest, during this time of year I miss the East Coast. The weather is as nice as it gets there and this time of the year is always special to me. Not just the leaves, but those too. It's everything, it feels like a time of renewal in the tri-state area.
I am still getting used to Louisville, but feel homesick to be honest. I still feel like I have to meet more people and do more things, become more social. It's been a real period of feeling like whatever I do or however busy I feel I feel I'm not doing enough, and am letting myself down. A negative train of though, I know, but I always feel I can do better and more.
Some good stuff too. I have tried to start a band, and it seems like the winds might be finally blowing in my direction. We had a great practice last Tuesday with a new drummer, an excellent guy named Steve. Great drummer too. We also have another singer guitarist, Scott, who is great, and a wonderful bassist, Tim. It's a jinx to talk about this stuff in public too much before we've even done one gig, but it has been a really, really fun project. I am so excited to play songs with these guys. Before this I had only played the songs for myself or maybe for Randi. The good news is they sound good with an actual band. Of course they need polishing, but that's to be expected. Still, what a thrill.
My big project I've been putting off is a book proposal. The problem is, I have to narrow whatever proposal I do to something easy to grasp and quick. This should not bee too hard, as I am an editor, but I haven't let myself have the time yet. Why? I'm being lame, I don't know. I have been told by many folks that I should do it. I would like to, too!
I am going to University of Louisville next week for orientation. I am interested in changing my path, and look forward to seeing the school. From there it is not at all inconceivable that I could begin an education major in the Spring semester. I need and want to try something new.
Stella is watching "The Wonder Pets" right now as I type. I feel guilty about making a cartoon her babysitter, but I have to have some time to do some of my projects.
Got a big dinner tonight, as we don't eat tomorrow. I was going to try my hand at a brisket, but it takes longer than I thought and we don't have all the ingredients anyway. So the brisket will have to wait.
Went home for Rosh Hashonah last weekend, and had a great, great time. I will write more about my high school reunion in the next entry. I almost didn't go, because I was embarrassed about being without a job, but my sister convinced me I should go anyway. Because a lot of these folks may not be around for the next reunion, know what I mean?
It was great to be home, see loved family and old friends. A good time was had by all and I left feeling very good about myself, despite my trepidation. But, like I said, more on that next time.
Ciao! (And easy fast for those who are fasting!)
Anyway, sorry about the lack of blog posts recently. I really don't have a great excuse. I've been Mr. Momming it a lot recently, which is exhausting and time consuming. During the time I have off I am trying to get jobs, which seems to take a long time, and yield no real concrete results, at least not yet.
I have to be honest, during this time of year I miss the East Coast. The weather is as nice as it gets there and this time of the year is always special to me. Not just the leaves, but those too. It's everything, it feels like a time of renewal in the tri-state area.
I am still getting used to Louisville, but feel homesick to be honest. I still feel like I have to meet more people and do more things, become more social. It's been a real period of feeling like whatever I do or however busy I feel I feel I'm not doing enough, and am letting myself down. A negative train of though, I know, but I always feel I can do better and more.
Some good stuff too. I have tried to start a band, and it seems like the winds might be finally blowing in my direction. We had a great practice last Tuesday with a new drummer, an excellent guy named Steve. Great drummer too. We also have another singer guitarist, Scott, who is great, and a wonderful bassist, Tim. It's a jinx to talk about this stuff in public too much before we've even done one gig, but it has been a really, really fun project. I am so excited to play songs with these guys. Before this I had only played the songs for myself or maybe for Randi. The good news is they sound good with an actual band. Of course they need polishing, but that's to be expected. Still, what a thrill.
My big project I've been putting off is a book proposal. The problem is, I have to narrow whatever proposal I do to something easy to grasp and quick. This should not bee too hard, as I am an editor, but I haven't let myself have the time yet. Why? I'm being lame, I don't know. I have been told by many folks that I should do it. I would like to, too!
I am going to University of Louisville next week for orientation. I am interested in changing my path, and look forward to seeing the school. From there it is not at all inconceivable that I could begin an education major in the Spring semester. I need and want to try something new.
Stella is watching "The Wonder Pets" right now as I type. I feel guilty about making a cartoon her babysitter, but I have to have some time to do some of my projects.
Got a big dinner tonight, as we don't eat tomorrow. I was going to try my hand at a brisket, but it takes longer than I thought and we don't have all the ingredients anyway. So the brisket will have to wait.
Went home for Rosh Hashonah last weekend, and had a great, great time. I will write more about my high school reunion in the next entry. I almost didn't go, because I was embarrassed about being without a job, but my sister convinced me I should go anyway. Because a lot of these folks may not be around for the next reunion, know what I mean?
It was great to be home, see loved family and old friends. A good time was had by all and I left feeling very good about myself, despite my trepidation. But, like I said, more on that next time.
Ciao! (And easy fast for those who are fasting!)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
A New Jew In Lou
Okay, so one of the biggest concerns I had before The Move was how it would feel to be such a total, and complete minority here. And, no, this is not about voting Democrat.
It was, as has been described elsewhere, the Jewish problem. The problem being, mainly, that I am Jewish and the vast, vast majority of people in the greater Louisville area are not.
I've been in this situation before mind you. I lived in Boulder, Colo. for five years, where you'd go out on an average night and half the guys you'd see looked kind of like Thor, only bigger, and in more polar fleece. As for the girls, they all had names like Butterfly, had ankle tattoos and most could complete a full Triathlon before breakfast. It was kind of like living amongst really, really stoned Marines.
So it was with some relief that I moved back to the New York area in 2000. I wanted to be amongst my peoples again. This despite the fact that I couldn't score a date with the female members of my peoples to save my life back in high school and college.
Still, it was nice to have good bagels, and live amongst people who understood that "Seinfeld" was not a sitcom, it was more like a documentary.
Needless to say when Randi recommended we move a couple of years ago I feared the loss of this extended mishbucha. (Means family in Yiddish.) Would people understand me? Would everyone try to get us to join the 700 Club? Would there be a community for us to even join?
So far the answers to the above have been no, no and yes.
First, some back story. When I got here I didn't even know how many Jews there even were in Louisville. I knew the mayor was Jewish, but I didn't know if he would be immediately available for a nice Friday night dinner.
Randi and I were determined to stake out our place in the Jewish life of Louisville, no matter what. The community might be smaller here, we reasoned, but that probably means it's tight knit, and proud. We, as a people, have certainly endured worse!
After the initial hubbub of the move settled down we decided to check out synagogues, to see which one we felt comfortable in. We've gone to services at Reform and Conservative temples and have yet to find one that truly resonates with us, though we've enjoyed the people we've met so far.
I first went to a local conservative synagogue and what was really cool about it was that they had daycare for Stella. Because services really aren't her thing just yet, you know? So I got to experience the service without having to watch a toddling toddler.
I was told Louisville had an older community as many of the younger Jews are leaving for places like, yup, Brooklyn. But the community was quite old, to be frank about it. As the service progressed more and more younger people started to show up, but the service was still somewhat sparsely attended, and mostly old.
Then we went to a reform synagogue, which was a lot of fun, but this one had no daycare, so we had to watch Stella. She was completely unable to sit still, so we had to find ways to distract her. Luckily we discovered that she loves yarmulkes.
So while Randi was in the service I took Stella and walked around the temple and found a large box of yarmulkes. She basically dove into it, and put first one, then the other, on her head. She settled, more or less, on a purple satiny one that she really liked, and insisted on wearing for the next several hours.
After the service there was a little gathering over coffee and cake, where we met the rabbi and spoke to him. He had come to Louisville from Israel. (And I thought I had a trip to get here!) He was very friendly and warm.
We talked about the Jewish community in Louisville, or rather what there is of one. He told me the community was about 10,000 people strong. This didn't seem like much to me, as the metropolitan area has 1.5 million people. But 10,000 people could still fill most of Madison Square Garden, I guess.
After services we went to a bluegrass show at the Iroquois Amphitheater. During the show there was a lot of talk about Jesus, not to mention various songs about Jesus, not to mention that most of the people at the show almost certainly worshiped Jesus.
Now imagine the scene, Stella still has her yarmulke on. She loves the music! And she is totally grooving and bouncing around at this show, with a little yarmulke on. We wondered if anyone would even know what it meant? Would they think it's some kind of beret? I figured, though, that if anyone could get away with it, it would be our adorable two year old daughter. I personally wouldn't try it.
After the show an older woman walked right up to us. "Now isn't she just adorable with her little yarmulke on?" she cooed. So, at least someone knew!
From there we journeyed on. We explored different Jewish preschools, and learned that they are, on average, on 25% Jewish. The one with the most Jewish kids is all of 30% Jewish. I imagine they used to have more, but the younger Jews who reproduce are elsewhere.
As we toured one preschool we learned that contrary to that Rabbi told us Louisville actually only has 8,000 Jews, not 10,000. So there are more people who are, I believe, albino in Louisville than Jewish.
Having said that it's not that big a deal to me. We still get good challah on Friday, and I made sure to put a mezuzah on our door. (In a funny note this is our second mezuzah. The first one was made of stone and fell off our door and shattered, back in Brooklyn. I think we made God mad?)
So there I am, a new Jew in Lou. As the holidays are coming up I feel just as optimistic and upbeat about this time of year as I ever did. I do realize that I'm a bit of a minority here, but that's not what really bothers me. Mainly I just miss my Jewish family and friends back home. If they all showed up it could easily kick up the amount of Jews in this town to, say, 8,010.
It was, as has been described elsewhere, the Jewish problem. The problem being, mainly, that I am Jewish and the vast, vast majority of people in the greater Louisville area are not.
I've been in this situation before mind you. I lived in Boulder, Colo. for five years, where you'd go out on an average night and half the guys you'd see looked kind of like Thor, only bigger, and in more polar fleece. As for the girls, they all had names like Butterfly, had ankle tattoos and most could complete a full Triathlon before breakfast. It was kind of like living amongst really, really stoned Marines.
So it was with some relief that I moved back to the New York area in 2000. I wanted to be amongst my peoples again. This despite the fact that I couldn't score a date with the female members of my peoples to save my life back in high school and college.
Still, it was nice to have good bagels, and live amongst people who understood that "Seinfeld" was not a sitcom, it was more like a documentary.
Needless to say when Randi recommended we move a couple of years ago I feared the loss of this extended mishbucha. (Means family in Yiddish.) Would people understand me? Would everyone try to get us to join the 700 Club? Would there be a community for us to even join?
So far the answers to the above have been no, no and yes.
First, some back story. When I got here I didn't even know how many Jews there even were in Louisville. I knew the mayor was Jewish, but I didn't know if he would be immediately available for a nice Friday night dinner.
Randi and I were determined to stake out our place in the Jewish life of Louisville, no matter what. The community might be smaller here, we reasoned, but that probably means it's tight knit, and proud. We, as a people, have certainly endured worse!
After the initial hubbub of the move settled down we decided to check out synagogues, to see which one we felt comfortable in. We've gone to services at Reform and Conservative temples and have yet to find one that truly resonates with us, though we've enjoyed the people we've met so far.
I first went to a local conservative synagogue and what was really cool about it was that they had daycare for Stella. Because services really aren't her thing just yet, you know? So I got to experience the service without having to watch a toddling toddler.
I was told Louisville had an older community as many of the younger Jews are leaving for places like, yup, Brooklyn. But the community was quite old, to be frank about it. As the service progressed more and more younger people started to show up, but the service was still somewhat sparsely attended, and mostly old.
Then we went to a reform synagogue, which was a lot of fun, but this one had no daycare, so we had to watch Stella. She was completely unable to sit still, so we had to find ways to distract her. Luckily we discovered that she loves yarmulkes.
So while Randi was in the service I took Stella and walked around the temple and found a large box of yarmulkes. She basically dove into it, and put first one, then the other, on her head. She settled, more or less, on a purple satiny one that she really liked, and insisted on wearing for the next several hours.
After the service there was a little gathering over coffee and cake, where we met the rabbi and spoke to him. He had come to Louisville from Israel. (And I thought I had a trip to get here!) He was very friendly and warm.
We talked about the Jewish community in Louisville, or rather what there is of one. He told me the community was about 10,000 people strong. This didn't seem like much to me, as the metropolitan area has 1.5 million people. But 10,000 people could still fill most of Madison Square Garden, I guess.
After services we went to a bluegrass show at the Iroquois Amphitheater. During the show there was a lot of talk about Jesus, not to mention various songs about Jesus, not to mention that most of the people at the show almost certainly worshiped Jesus.
Now imagine the scene, Stella still has her yarmulke on. She loves the music! And she is totally grooving and bouncing around at this show, with a little yarmulke on. We wondered if anyone would even know what it meant? Would they think it's some kind of beret? I figured, though, that if anyone could get away with it, it would be our adorable two year old daughter. I personally wouldn't try it.
After the show an older woman walked right up to us. "Now isn't she just adorable with her little yarmulke on?" she cooed. So, at least someone knew!
From there we journeyed on. We explored different Jewish preschools, and learned that they are, on average, on 25% Jewish. The one with the most Jewish kids is all of 30% Jewish. I imagine they used to have more, but the younger Jews who reproduce are elsewhere.
As we toured one preschool we learned that contrary to that Rabbi told us Louisville actually only has 8,000 Jews, not 10,000. So there are more people who are, I believe, albino in Louisville than Jewish.
Having said that it's not that big a deal to me. We still get good challah on Friday, and I made sure to put a mezuzah on our door. (In a funny note this is our second mezuzah. The first one was made of stone and fell off our door and shattered, back in Brooklyn. I think we made God mad?)
So there I am, a new Jew in Lou. As the holidays are coming up I feel just as optimistic and upbeat about this time of year as I ever did. I do realize that I'm a bit of a minority here, but that's not what really bothers me. Mainly I just miss my Jewish family and friends back home. If they all showed up it could easily kick up the amount of Jews in this town to, say, 8,010.
Monday, September 6, 2010
New HuffPo Piece: Obama Vs. Hitler!
Hi All,
So this is why I was researching "Mein Kampf." I needed to do some research on Hitler for my new HuffPo piece comparing him to Barack Obama. Give it a read, you might even think it's funny!
Sincerely,
Dave
So this is why I was researching "Mein Kampf." I needed to do some research on Hitler for my new HuffPo piece comparing him to Barack Obama. Give it a read, you might even think it's funny!
Sincerely,
Dave
Friday, September 3, 2010
This Is Very Strange
I was on Amazon's page for "Mein Kampf"--doing research for another article--and below, no lie, are the Tags Customers Associate with This Product:
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
glenn beck(1)
michelle malkin(1)
rand paul(1)
recommended by glenn beck(1)
ron paul(1)
ron paul reading list(1)
rush limbaugh(1)
sarah palin(1)
sarah palin reading list(1)
tea party movement(1)
tea party revival(1)
tea party(0)
As I said in the headline, very strange. Not one book in German!
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
glenn beck(1)
michelle malkin(1)
rand paul(1)
recommended by glenn beck(1)
ron paul(1)
ron paul reading list(1)
rush limbaugh(1)
sarah palin(1)
sarah palin reading list(1)
tea party movement(1)
tea party revival(1)
tea party(0)
As I said in the headline, very strange. Not one book in German!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
A New Jew In Lou
Okay, so one of the biggest concerns I had before The Move was how it would feel to be such a total, and complete minority here. And, no, this is not about voting Democrat.
It was, as has been described elsewhere, the Jewish problem. The problem being, mainly, that I am Jewish and the vast, vast majority of people in the greater Louisville area are not.
I've been in this situation before mind you. I lived in Boulder, Colo. for five years, where you'd go out on an average night and half the guys you'd see looked kind of like Thor, only bigger, and in more polar fleece. As for the girls, they all had names like Butterfly, had ankle tattoos and most could complete a full Triathlon before breakfast. It was kind of like living amongst really, really stoned Marines.
So it was with some relief that I moved back to the New York area in 2000. I wanted to be amongst my peoples again. This despite the fact that I couldn't score a date with the female members of my peoples to save my life back in high school and college.
Still, it was nice to have good bagels, and live amongst people who understood that "Seinfeld" was not a sitcom, it was more like a documentary.
Needless to say when Randi recommended we move a couple of years ago I feared the loss of this extended mishbucha. (Means family in Yiddish.) Would people understand me? Would everyone try to get us to join the 700 Club? Would there be a community for us to even join?
So far the answers to the above have been no, no and yes.
First, some back story. When I got here I didn't even know how many Jews there even were in Louisville. I knew the mayor was Jewish, but I didn't know if he would be immediately available for a nice Friday night dinner.
Randi and I were determined to stake out our place in the Jewish life of Louisville, no matter what. The community might be smaller here, we reasoned, but that probably means it's tight knit, and proud. We, as a people, have certainly endured worse!
After the initial hubbub of the move settled down we decided to check out synagogues, to see which one we felt comfortable in. We've gone to services at Reform and Conservative temples and have yet to find one that truly resonates with us, though we've enjoyed the people we've met so far.
I first went to a local conservative synagogue and what was really cool about it was that they had daycare for Stella. Because services really aren't her thing just yet, you know? So I got to experience the service without having to watch a toddling toddler.
I was told Louisville had an older community as many of the younger Jews are leaving for places like, yup, Brooklyn. But the community was quite old, to be frank about it. As the service progressed more and more younger people started to show up, but the service was still somewhat sparsely attended, and mostly old.
Then we went to a reform synagogue, which was a lot of fun, but this one had no daycare, so we had to watch Stella. She was completely unable to sit still, so we had to find ways to distract her. Luckily we discovered that she loves yarmulkes.
So while Randi was in the service I took Stella and walked around the temple and found a large box of yarmulkes. She basically dove into it, and put first one, then the other, on her head. She settled, more or less, on a purple satiny one that she really liked, and insisted on wearing for the next several hours.
After the service there was a little gathering over coffee and cake, where we met the rabbi and spoke to him. He had come to Louisville from Israel. (And I thought I had a trip to get here!) He was very friendly and warm.
We talked about the Jewish community in Louisville, or rather what there is of one. He told me the community was about 10,000 people strong. This didn't seem like much to me, as the metropolitan area has 1.5 million people. But 10,000 people could still fill most of Madison Square Garden, I guess.
After services we went to a bluegrass show at the Iroquois Amphitheater. During the show there was a lot of talk about Jesus, not to mention various songs about Jesus, not to mention that most of the people at the show almost certainly worshiped Jesus.
Now imagine the scene, Stella still has her yarmulke on. She loves the music! And she is totally grooving and bouncing around at this show, with a little yarmulke on. We wondered if anyone would even know what it meant? Would they think it's some kind of beret? I figured, though, that if anyone could get away with it, it would be our adorable two year old daughter. I personally wouldn't try it.
After the show an older woman walked right up to us. "Now isn't she just adorable with her little yarmulke on?" she cooed. So, at least someone knew!
From there we journeyed on. We explored different Jewish preschools, and learned that they are, on average, on 25% Jewish. The one with the most Jewish kids is all of 30% Jewish. I imagine they used to have more, but the younger Jews who reproduce are elsewhere.
As we toured one preschool we learned that contrary to that Rabbi told us Louisville actually only has 8,000 Jews, not 10,000. So there are more people who are, I believe, albino in Louisville than Jewish.
Having said that it's not that big a deal to me. We still get good challah on Friday, and I made sure to put a mezuzah on our door. (In a funny note this is our second mezuzah. The first one was made of stone and fell off our door and shattered, back in Brooklyn. I think we made God mad?)
So there I am, a new Jew in Lou. As the holidays are coming up I feel just as optimistic and upbeat about this time of year as I ever did. I do realize that I'm a bit of a minority here, but that's not what really bothers me. Mainly I just miss my Jewish family and friends back home. If they all showed up it could easily kick up the amount of Jews in this town to, say, 8,010.
It was, as has been described elsewhere, the Jewish problem. The problem being, mainly, that I am Jewish and the vast, vast majority of people in the greater Louisville area are not.
I've been in this situation before mind you. I lived in Boulder, Colo. for five years, where you'd go out on an average night and half the guys you'd see looked kind of like Thor, only bigger, and in more polar fleece. As for the girls, they all had names like Butterfly, had ankle tattoos and most could complete a full Triathlon before breakfast. It was kind of like living amongst really, really stoned Marines.
So it was with some relief that I moved back to the New York area in 2000. I wanted to be amongst my peoples again. This despite the fact that I couldn't score a date with the female members of my peoples to save my life back in high school and college.
Still, it was nice to have good bagels, and live amongst people who understood that "Seinfeld" was not a sitcom, it was more like a documentary.
Needless to say when Randi recommended we move a couple of years ago I feared the loss of this extended mishbucha. (Means family in Yiddish.) Would people understand me? Would everyone try to get us to join the 700 Club? Would there be a community for us to even join?
So far the answers to the above have been no, no and yes.
First, some back story. When I got here I didn't even know how many Jews there even were in Louisville. I knew the mayor was Jewish, but I didn't know if he would be immediately available for a nice Friday night dinner.
Randi and I were determined to stake out our place in the Jewish life of Louisville, no matter what. The community might be smaller here, we reasoned, but that probably means it's tight knit, and proud. We, as a people, have certainly endured worse!
After the initial hubbub of the move settled down we decided to check out synagogues, to see which one we felt comfortable in. We've gone to services at Reform and Conservative temples and have yet to find one that truly resonates with us, though we've enjoyed the people we've met so far.
I first went to a local conservative synagogue and what was really cool about it was that they had daycare for Stella. Because services really aren't her thing just yet, you know? So I got to experience the service without having to watch a toddling toddler.
I was told Louisville had an older community as many of the younger Jews are leaving for places like, yup, Brooklyn. But the community was quite old, to be frank about it. As the service progressed more and more younger people started to show up, but the service was still somewhat sparsely attended, and mostly old.
Then we went to a reform synagogue, which was a lot of fun, but this one had no daycare, so we had to watch Stella. She was completely unable to sit still, so we had to find ways to distract her. Luckily we discovered that she loves yarmulkes.
So while Randi was in the service I took Stella and walked around the temple and found a large box of yarmulkes. She basically dove into it, and put first one, then the other, on her head. She settled, more or less, on a purple satiny one that she really liked, and insisted on wearing for the next several hours.
After the service there was a little gathering over coffee and cake, where we met the rabbi and spoke to him. He had come to Louisville from Israel. (And I thought I had a trip to get here!) He was very friendly and warm.
We talked about the Jewish community in Louisville, or rather what there is of one. He told me the community was about 10,000 people strong. This didn't seem like much to me, as the metropolitan area has 1.5 million people. But 10,000 people could still fill most of Madison Square Garden, I guess.
After services we went to a bluegrass show at the Iroquois Amphitheater. During the show there was a lot of talk about Jesus, not to mention various songs about Jesus, not to mention that most of the people at the show almost certainly worshiped Jesus.
Now imagine the scene, Stella still has her yarmulke on. She loves the music! And she is totally grooving and bouncing around at this show, with a little yarmulke on. We wondered if anyone would even know what it meant? Would they think it's some kind of beret? I figured, though, that if anyone could get away with it, it would be our adorable two year old daughter. I personally wouldn't try it.
After the show an older woman walked right up to us. "Now isn't she just adorable with her little yarmulke on?" she cooed. So, at least someone knew!
From there we journeyed on. We explored different Jewish preschools, and learned that they are, on average, on 25% Jewish. The one with the most Jewish kids is all of 30% Jewish. I imagine they used to have more, but the younger Jews who reproduce are elsewhere.
As we toured one preschool we learned that contrary to that Rabbi told us Louisville actually only has 8,000 Jews, not 10,000. So there are more people who are, I believe, albino in Louisville than Jewish.
Having said that it's not that big a deal to me. We still get good challah on Friday, and I made sure to put a mezuzah on our door. (In a funny note this is our second mezuzah. The first one was made of stone and fell off our door and shattered, back in Brooklyn. I think we made God mad?)
So there I am, a new Jew in Lou. As the holidays are coming up I feel just as optimistic and upbeat about this time of year as I ever did. I do realize that I'm a bit of a minority here, but that's not what really bothers me. Mainly I just miss my Jewish family and friends back home. If they all showed up it could easily kick up the amount of Jews in this town to, say, 8,010.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Well, THAT Was Fun!
So,
There was a kind of tempest in the (sweet?) teapot yesterday. As noted in my prior blog post I was officially welcomed to the city, along with Randi and Stella, via the blog "Consuming Louisville." I thanked them back, and thought it was all surprising and neat. (Backnote: "CL" had first read my HuffPo piece, so that's how they knew.)
But it got better.
Then another person saw the HuffPo piece and totally ripped me for being a hipster New York financial writer who deigned to grace The River City with my presence.
This kind of shocked me. For one ... me a hipster? Having lived in Brooklyn, the Mecca of all things Hipster I was astonished to learn that I was that fashionable. As I joked to someone else in the wake of this post, I had come to think of myself as about as trendy as unskinny jeans. I lack ironic facial hair, never wear Mideastern scarves and basically don't look or act like I'm on my way to a rave.
I mean, just look at that picture on the right side of this blog. Is it the blue Target-brand polo shirt? The sea green LL Bean backpack that I've had since the reign of George Bush Sr.? The khaki shorts that could have been stolen from my mom? If that is hip you'd better watch out Williamsburg!
Another thing that surprised me. I, with tongue in cheek, didn't say NYC was better than L-Ville, but that they came out to a draw. New York gets plenty of ribbing too.
Third, it was in the humor section of the HuffPo.
So that was that.
But it got even better. Next L-Ville's NPR station talked about my arrival, and the reaction to it, on their blog.
In short, I had gone viral. Which is a word that a married man pretty much would never want to hear in any other context.
Then about 30 more people started to follow me on Twitter, despite the fact that I have a token, at best, presence there. I appreciate this attention, for sure, and now I will make it my business to ensure that I make it worth their while.
Oh, and the local hip alternative weekly also picked up on my story. And even though they had mixed feelings about it, what can I say, I was flattered. (Although the blogger did call most of my list "lazy." Not fair, I woke up bright and early to write my listicle!)
So, this just goes to show, you really can't tell. I slaved over my "CEO Cover Stories For Dummies" article for the HuffPo, made sure every word landed with maximum impact, edited it probably at least a half dozen times. I had dreams about ways to make it better, tighter, funnier, more incisive. The general public's reaction, of course, was almost no reaction. Although I am grateful to say my sister really liked it.
This one, though it still took work and effort, was just way less intense. And, I thought, way more harmless. Imagine, I had thought editors and other journalists would rip me for the way I ripped CEO cover stories, but, really, no one cared all that much.
And the Louisville piece, by contrast, stirred up something akin to a hornet's nest. Although, to be fair, many, many of the comments were of the good-natured, sense of humor bearing, variety. My peoples! (BTW, I even had a PR company contact me via Twitter to tell me how to get ahead of this story. For real.)
So, you never know what people will react to.
It should also be noted that the thing that really ticked people off was my insinuation that Louisville doesn't have world class food. I listed hot browns (a delicious turkey and ham based dish with gravy, mmm), barbecue (double mmm) and Chik-Fil-A (triple mmm) as the things to eat here. And the irony is, I wasn't being ironic. I love all that stuff, really, really love it. In fact even though I am now well educated about how many great restaurants are here I am most excited to eat at a place called the Frankfort Avenue Beer Depot (or FABD), which has two giant meat smokers in the parking lot (I almost just wrote smokers without the meat part, but realized that would have conjured images of just two giant dudes smoking cigarettes), and looks like a place where Hell's Angels go when they want some brisket.
I wrote that about Louisville, fwiw, because good barbecue, hot browns and Chik-Fil-A are all things that we have here that New York doesn't have. Yes, and as I've learned, Louisville also has a burgeoning and great restaurant scene, but so does New York. I guess I could have made this point with a little more finesse?
I guess the food thing touched a nerve here. My guess would be that Louisville is a city that has made a lot of steps in the past decade or so to become more and more outward looking, cool and sophisticated. (I base this observation on what Randi, who grew up around here, has witnessed. The city today is nothing like the Louisville of her youth when it was, no pun intended, basically a one horse town. Now it is hip, alternative and striving to keep itself unique. I appreciate this.)
So, for me, some Eastern hipster financial writer, to come in and ignore all that hard work may have felt like a slap in the face to some folks around here. The New Yorkers, in classic fashion, just didn't care.
I guess I'm just not a foodie. But it's not like I was in NYC either. In fact my favorite restaurant in the entire city was a Thai place in Park Slope called Song. It was good, cheap and fast. I loved it, even though, if memory serves, it had seen at least a few health code violations in its day.
Anyway, so that's what happened yesterday. Lots of fun. Now, of course, I wonder what I will do next. Ah well, no matter what it's guaranteed to get a different reaction from the public than I expected. That's how it seems to work.
There was a kind of tempest in the (sweet?) teapot yesterday. As noted in my prior blog post I was officially welcomed to the city, along with Randi and Stella, via the blog "Consuming Louisville." I thanked them back, and thought it was all surprising and neat. (Backnote: "CL" had first read my HuffPo piece, so that's how they knew.)
But it got better.
Then another person saw the HuffPo piece and totally ripped me for being a hipster New York financial writer who deigned to grace The River City with my presence.
This kind of shocked me. For one ... me a hipster? Having lived in Brooklyn, the Mecca of all things Hipster I was astonished to learn that I was that fashionable. As I joked to someone else in the wake of this post, I had come to think of myself as about as trendy as unskinny jeans. I lack ironic facial hair, never wear Mideastern scarves and basically don't look or act like I'm on my way to a rave.
I mean, just look at that picture on the right side of this blog. Is it the blue Target-brand polo shirt? The sea green LL Bean backpack that I've had since the reign of George Bush Sr.? The khaki shorts that could have been stolen from my mom? If that is hip you'd better watch out Williamsburg!
Another thing that surprised me. I, with tongue in cheek, didn't say NYC was better than L-Ville, but that they came out to a draw. New York gets plenty of ribbing too.
Third, it was in the humor section of the HuffPo.
So that was that.
But it got even better. Next L-Ville's NPR station talked about my arrival, and the reaction to it, on their blog.
In short, I had gone viral. Which is a word that a married man pretty much would never want to hear in any other context.
Then about 30 more people started to follow me on Twitter, despite the fact that I have a token, at best, presence there. I appreciate this attention, for sure, and now I will make it my business to ensure that I make it worth their while.
Oh, and the local hip alternative weekly also picked up on my story. And even though they had mixed feelings about it, what can I say, I was flattered. (Although the blogger did call most of my list "lazy." Not fair, I woke up bright and early to write my listicle!)
So, this just goes to show, you really can't tell. I slaved over my "CEO Cover Stories For Dummies" article for the HuffPo, made sure every word landed with maximum impact, edited it probably at least a half dozen times. I had dreams about ways to make it better, tighter, funnier, more incisive. The general public's reaction, of course, was almost no reaction. Although I am grateful to say my sister really liked it.
This one, though it still took work and effort, was just way less intense. And, I thought, way more harmless. Imagine, I had thought editors and other journalists would rip me for the way I ripped CEO cover stories, but, really, no one cared all that much.
And the Louisville piece, by contrast, stirred up something akin to a hornet's nest. Although, to be fair, many, many of the comments were of the good-natured, sense of humor bearing, variety. My peoples! (BTW, I even had a PR company contact me via Twitter to tell me how to get ahead of this story. For real.)
So, you never know what people will react to.
It should also be noted that the thing that really ticked people off was my insinuation that Louisville doesn't have world class food. I listed hot browns (a delicious turkey and ham based dish with gravy, mmm), barbecue (double mmm) and Chik-Fil-A (triple mmm) as the things to eat here. And the irony is, I wasn't being ironic. I love all that stuff, really, really love it. In fact even though I am now well educated about how many great restaurants are here I am most excited to eat at a place called the Frankfort Avenue Beer Depot (or FABD), which has two giant meat smokers in the parking lot (I almost just wrote smokers without the meat part, but realized that would have conjured images of just two giant dudes smoking cigarettes), and looks like a place where Hell's Angels go when they want some brisket.
I wrote that about Louisville, fwiw, because good barbecue, hot browns and Chik-Fil-A are all things that we have here that New York doesn't have. Yes, and as I've learned, Louisville also has a burgeoning and great restaurant scene, but so does New York. I guess I could have made this point with a little more finesse?
I guess the food thing touched a nerve here. My guess would be that Louisville is a city that has made a lot of steps in the past decade or so to become more and more outward looking, cool and sophisticated. (I base this observation on what Randi, who grew up around here, has witnessed. The city today is nothing like the Louisville of her youth when it was, no pun intended, basically a one horse town. Now it is hip, alternative and striving to keep itself unique. I appreciate this.)
So, for me, some Eastern hipster financial writer, to come in and ignore all that hard work may have felt like a slap in the face to some folks around here. The New Yorkers, in classic fashion, just didn't care.
I guess I'm just not a foodie. But it's not like I was in NYC either. In fact my favorite restaurant in the entire city was a Thai place in Park Slope called Song. It was good, cheap and fast. I loved it, even though, if memory serves, it had seen at least a few health code violations in its day.
Anyway, so that's what happened yesterday. Lots of fun. Now, of course, I wonder what I will do next. Ah well, no matter what it's guaranteed to get a different reaction from the public than I expected. That's how it seems to work.
Monday, August 30, 2010
I Have Been Officially Welcomed To Louisville!
I will keep this one short.
Today I posted on The Huffington Post about how Louisville stacks up versus New York. (Longtime blog readers will have read this piece here first. Okay, I am re-purposing my own writing, but if I can't who can?)
I had one small quip in there about how the food in NYC is better than in Louisville. And I don't think that is a hard argument to make. Still, one fairly prominent Louisville blog made a point of officially welcoming me to Louisville, and then explaining to me that there are many, many fine dining establishments in this fair city that I should know about and consider. It's not all Chik-Fil-A! (Which I almost certainly just misspelled.)
Now I know. But, my gosh, for reals? Who gets welcomed to a city this way?
And it's funny, because in the original HuffPo piece I wrote about how here people are almost too friendly. I guess I was onto something. But I will take it any day!
Oh, and here is the welcoming blog entry.
Today I posted on The Huffington Post about how Louisville stacks up versus New York. (Longtime blog readers will have read this piece here first. Okay, I am re-purposing my own writing, but if I can't who can?)
I had one small quip in there about how the food in NYC is better than in Louisville. And I don't think that is a hard argument to make. Still, one fairly prominent Louisville blog made a point of officially welcoming me to Louisville, and then explaining to me that there are many, many fine dining establishments in this fair city that I should know about and consider. It's not all Chik-Fil-A! (Which I almost certainly just misspelled.)
Now I know. But, my gosh, for reals? Who gets welcomed to a city this way?
And it's funny, because in the original HuffPo piece I wrote about how here people are almost too friendly. I guess I was onto something. But I will take it any day!
Oh, and here is the welcoming blog entry.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Trip: Post-Script, or Chapter 12.
I'll keep this one short. (Although for Chapter 1 you should click on here. For all you latecomers!)
Mike and I hit the road the next day at 8:30 a.m. and, believe it or not, it went pretty much as planned. Yes, there were some hairy moments, so to speak, when I feared my cats would bake to death in the back seat of the Honda. (The solution was to put up the window shade and blast the AC. Honestly, once that was done it was nicer in there than in the truck. And it used very little gas, fwiw.)
At the end of the first day of driving we even each felt confident behind the wheel of the beast. The highway is so much easier than the tri-state area, especially once you venture into the heartland. There isn't much traffic and it's easy to get to where you need to go. The rest areas also got progressively less and less crowded as the trip progressed.
Yes, there were some interesting moments all the same. Mike and I had many fantastic and fun coversations, including one where we vowed to remember all the teams that played in the World Series going back to 1990. I think we got them all too.
Another wonderful moment happened as we drove down the freeway shortly after dusk, in Ohio. All of a sudden I looked onto the shoulder of the road and saw what must have been hundreds of lightening bugs flickering on all at once, as if to say welcome to the real America. It was as fantastically beautiful as the world's tiniest meteor shower.
That night we stayed in an Ohio hotel relatively near the Kentucky border. We snuck the cats in, too, and let them run around. Talisker was a wet, matted mess, Cromwell looked none the worse for wear. It brought some real joy to my heart to see them stretch their legs and roam around our room. They seemed intent on exploring every nook and crevice of that room too.
Later that night I heard a rhythmic banging against the wall of the room. I immediately assumed it was Cromwell, as he does that sort of thing. But as I listened more I realized, no, that's no cat. Nope, it was, in fact, a couple next door having happy fun times. And lots of them too, to judge by the frequency with which their fun times persisted. It had actually woken me up, a first. Later that morning they woke me up once more. Mike, for his part, slept through most of it.
The next morning we walked across the street to a Waffle House. The coffee was superb, the actual waffles could make you vomit. I was shocked, up to this point I had thought waffles were one thing that were impossible to get wrong. How naive I was.
As we left a middle-American waitress gave me the once over and asked, "what would you say if I told you you weren't allowed to leave?"
It took a moment for this attempt at seduction to process in my brain. Wait, I had just been hit at, at a Waffle House? I had just found the one thing that made the actual food there seem appetizing by comparison.
"Thank you," I answered. "I am very flattered." Lame, I know. Then we hightailed it out there, before they closed the doors on us, locked us in, and had their waffle-serving way with us both.
The rest of the morning was pleasant and easy. We arrived at my new home in Kentucky by 11:00 a.m. The movers weren't there yet, which I understood. I had been in contact with their dispatcher since the first day of the drive, because I had been so late. The actual move in, in other words, was scheduled to happen a day after we had originally planned. In true Southern fashion the dispatcher, a young woman, was kind and nice about the whole thing.
Soon Randi and her family showed up, the whole coxie army as they say. They brought fried chicken with them too, which was really nice. We opened up the apartment and had some lunch on paper plates on the floor. Then the movers called on the phone, they were here.
I went down our new stairs to see three guys in a fire red Mustang pull up, and all of them were smoking. Yup, we're in Kentucky, I thought. Nonetheless they were professional, friendly and did the entire move in job in two hours, as originally discussed. The job came in at $180.00 as per our original estimate, and when I tipped them $60 they seemed to genuinely appreciate it.
As the move in took place Randi took Stella and our niece Bethany and nephew Daniel to the pool. Oh yeah, we have a pool too. They splashed and played all day until everything was in place, or at least in place for now.
Soon Mike retired to a private room we had rented for a short nap and I headed down to the pool too. I saw my brother in law Kerry and started to describe the entire crazy tip to him, or at least as much as I could in five minutes.
He laughed and laughed. "Dave," he said, "you've got to write about this."
Mike and I hit the road the next day at 8:30 a.m. and, believe it or not, it went pretty much as planned. Yes, there were some hairy moments, so to speak, when I feared my cats would bake to death in the back seat of the Honda. (The solution was to put up the window shade and blast the AC. Honestly, once that was done it was nicer in there than in the truck. And it used very little gas, fwiw.)
At the end of the first day of driving we even each felt confident behind the wheel of the beast. The highway is so much easier than the tri-state area, especially once you venture into the heartland. There isn't much traffic and it's easy to get to where you need to go. The rest areas also got progressively less and less crowded as the trip progressed.
Yes, there were some interesting moments all the same. Mike and I had many fantastic and fun coversations, including one where we vowed to remember all the teams that played in the World Series going back to 1990. I think we got them all too.
Another wonderful moment happened as we drove down the freeway shortly after dusk, in Ohio. All of a sudden I looked onto the shoulder of the road and saw what must have been hundreds of lightening bugs flickering on all at once, as if to say welcome to the real America. It was as fantastically beautiful as the world's tiniest meteor shower.
That night we stayed in an Ohio hotel relatively near the Kentucky border. We snuck the cats in, too, and let them run around. Talisker was a wet, matted mess, Cromwell looked none the worse for wear. It brought some real joy to my heart to see them stretch their legs and roam around our room. They seemed intent on exploring every nook and crevice of that room too.
Later that night I heard a rhythmic banging against the wall of the room. I immediately assumed it was Cromwell, as he does that sort of thing. But as I listened more I realized, no, that's no cat. Nope, it was, in fact, a couple next door having happy fun times. And lots of them too, to judge by the frequency with which their fun times persisted. It had actually woken me up, a first. Later that morning they woke me up once more. Mike, for his part, slept through most of it.
The next morning we walked across the street to a Waffle House. The coffee was superb, the actual waffles could make you vomit. I was shocked, up to this point I had thought waffles were one thing that were impossible to get wrong. How naive I was.
As we left a middle-American waitress gave me the once over and asked, "what would you say if I told you you weren't allowed to leave?"
It took a moment for this attempt at seduction to process in my brain. Wait, I had just been hit at, at a Waffle House? I had just found the one thing that made the actual food there seem appetizing by comparison.
"Thank you," I answered. "I am very flattered." Lame, I know. Then we hightailed it out there, before they closed the doors on us, locked us in, and had their waffle-serving way with us both.
The rest of the morning was pleasant and easy. We arrived at my new home in Kentucky by 11:00 a.m. The movers weren't there yet, which I understood. I had been in contact with their dispatcher since the first day of the drive, because I had been so late. The actual move in, in other words, was scheduled to happen a day after we had originally planned. In true Southern fashion the dispatcher, a young woman, was kind and nice about the whole thing.
Soon Randi and her family showed up, the whole coxie army as they say. They brought fried chicken with them too, which was really nice. We opened up the apartment and had some lunch on paper plates on the floor. Then the movers called on the phone, they were here.
I went down our new stairs to see three guys in a fire red Mustang pull up, and all of them were smoking. Yup, we're in Kentucky, I thought. Nonetheless they were professional, friendly and did the entire move in job in two hours, as originally discussed. The job came in at $180.00 as per our original estimate, and when I tipped them $60 they seemed to genuinely appreciate it.
As the move in took place Randi took Stella and our niece Bethany and nephew Daniel to the pool. Oh yeah, we have a pool too. They splashed and played all day until everything was in place, or at least in place for now.
Soon Mike retired to a private room we had rented for a short nap and I headed down to the pool too. I saw my brother in law Kerry and started to describe the entire crazy tip to him, or at least as much as I could in five minutes.
He laughed and laughed. "Dave," he said, "you've got to write about this."
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Updates From The Heartland: The Move, Pt. 11
Oh man, I was going in the wrong direction, it kept getting later, you can guess how this made my nerves feel. I was already exhausted and not sure how much longer I could keep going. On the other hand I wasn't all that far from Mike's if I could just get this ridiculous rig turned around.
I was on the lookout for U-turns, as noted, but there weren't any that I could see. I let one exit pass and then another pass. Soon I was miles and miles in the wrong direction from the Edison Memorial Rest Area and I just wanted to get this thing on the right track.
I picked an exit roughly ten miles away from the Edison Rest Area and got off. At this point I had to pay my toll for being on the Turnpike, which seemed ridiculous because I wasn't even where I needed to be. Nonetheless I paid it, and looked for a convenient place to turnaround.
Somehow I made a wrong turn, and then another wrong turn. I had to get off, I had no choice. The exit that looked most promising was New Brunswick because, if for no other reason, Rutgers University is there. College town, how bad can it be?
The streets of New Brunswick were deserted, and if there was a college there I sure didn't see it. Instead I drove down and down the road, past endless strip malls. Nothing was opened, not one restaurant, not even a gas stations. It was lights out in Mallville, USA.
This was supposed to be a relatively brief little jaunt off the Turnpike but after ten minutes I realized I had seen absolutely nothing that alerted me as to how to get back on the highway. Was I going the wrong way, again? I didn't know, but it was a safe guess by this point that I was.
I drove past yet another empty fast food restaurant, yet another empty carpet place, yet another empty big box retailer. It was like a ghost town, if all the ghosts were K-Mart shoppers. I decided to turn around, and take my chances going the other way.
I made a right, off the four lane road I was on, onto a two lane road, into what was the last opened gas station in the entire area. I needed something to eat, my terrible Nathan's hotdog had been hours ago by this point, and I was thirsty as well. I also thought I would ask directions, since, you know, I was totally crap at actually getting to where I needed to be.
As I got closer to the gas station I saw it was not exactly a friendly place. Indeed it was one of those ones that have the clerks behind bullet-proof plexi glass. Okay, okay. I decided to play it safe and slowly walked back to the truck. Once in I put it in drive, inched a turnaround, and got back on the road, going, I hoped, the right way.
They say the course of true love never did run smooth, and as you can guess by now, neither did the course of one overwhelmed schmo in a rented truck with two cats. I somehow took the wrong direction at a fork in the road, and then got off at the wrong place in a traffic circle, it was, in short, kind of like "European Vacation" except it was neither a vacation nor in Europe. Soon I was driving through the inner city of New Brunswick, or at least a town near New Brunswick. This area, of course, was not empty at this time of night. I nodded grimly as I tried to keep from getting ever more lost.
After about five minutes of this I saw a sign for the Turnpike. Relieved I got back on the right path, I hoped, and was hopefully on my way once more. Of course I still missed more turns, and the like, but I think you can get the picture by now. Altogether this little extra side trip tacked on another half hour to my voyage.
I got back on the Turnpike, and took yet another ticket. It was now 11:30 p.m.
I spoke to Mike and went over the directions for what to do when I got off at his exit. I would make a right, get onto a fairly busy local road, drive past various intersections and then make a right when I saw a Staples mega-store. Got it.
Soon I passed the Edison Rest Area once more, happy to see it get small in my rear view. Then I finally saw Mike's exit. I pulled off, and followed his instructions to the letter.
Except for one part, of course. I missed the turn at the Staples, because it was dark and came up suddenly. Quick turns in this rig were not going to happen. Instead I made the next right past the Staples and decided that I would then turn around and take another shot at it. Yet there was no outlet that lead directly back to the road I had just gotten off.
Somehow I now ended up in an empty stretch of residential suburbia, where the roads curled around with no reason at all, and the road I needed could not be seen. I ended up in a cul-de-sac, naturally, and was now trapped. Uh-oh, I would have to back up, and risk snapping the trailer hitch. You better believe the words of the bitter U-Haul service mechanic (see the last chapter) echoed through my exhausted brain as I incrementally backed up the entire rig. The trailer hitch groaned a little, and the entire procedure was hugely awkward and time-consuming, but eventually I was able to turn around and nose my way out of the one way suburban street. I dearly hoped I would never have to risk it like that again.
After that I drove around the 'burbs in desperate search for the main road that I needed. Somehow I made a wrong turn and ended up going the right way back onto it. Whew!
Can I tell you there was not a soul to be seen anywhere? It was ominously quiet, there was barely any traffic. Just some strip malls, roads without sidewalks, traffic lights, that was it.
I made a left back onto the main road, and tried to then pull a left into the Staples parking lot, as told by Mike. No go, there was no outlet into the parking lot. Of course. I would have to go all the way around, one more time, in order to make it happen.
So I did. I drove another half mile down the deserted road, and turned right at an intersection, and turned around in an empty, and quite large, parking lot. Then I got back on my main road, and once more drove up the the lot at Staples. This time I approached it with an almost crab-like slowness, and made the turn!
Yay!
From there I called Mike to let him know I was actually close by this time, and I meant it. It was now 12;30 a.m. My god, what a day. This had been, easily, the worst day of travel in my entire life.
I drove out through the back of the parking lot onto a small residential road, then I made a few relatively quick turns, and within five minutes was in front of Mike's house. And there was Mike, waiting for me.
I parked the truck on the street, and got out. The vastness of Freehold, N.J. seemed to swallow all sound. It was quiet, dark and virtually dead, or so it seemed. But it was good to see Mike. He smiled at my exhausted face and welcomed me inside.
Mike helped me unload the cats, offered me something to drink and set me up for the night on an extremely comfortable couch on his living room. Together we chatted for a while while we watched the last 20 minutes of "Johnny Dangerously" on HBO. (That Mary Lou Henner, va-va-voom!)The room was intensely air conditioned, so much so that it was almost cold. What a contrast to my apartment in Brooklyn, with its window mounted AC units that were either pointed directly at the floor or at the nearest wall.
The cats were placed in a small bathroom, which wasn't wonderful, but was sure better than being in a kennel all night. They meowed, as you can expect.
I finally turned in at 1:00 a.m. It had been way too long a day. It was virtually impossible to believe that it had only been that morning that I dropped off my beloved wife and child at the airport.
I couldn't think of it all now. I couldn't think at all, period. As the movie came to its predictable end I charged up my phone, and got under the covers on the couch. Then Mike went upstairs and I slept the sleep of the dead.
Now, at last, the trip could really begin.
I was on the lookout for U-turns, as noted, but there weren't any that I could see. I let one exit pass and then another pass. Soon I was miles and miles in the wrong direction from the Edison Memorial Rest Area and I just wanted to get this thing on the right track.
I picked an exit roughly ten miles away from the Edison Rest Area and got off. At this point I had to pay my toll for being on the Turnpike, which seemed ridiculous because I wasn't even where I needed to be. Nonetheless I paid it, and looked for a convenient place to turnaround.
Somehow I made a wrong turn, and then another wrong turn. I had to get off, I had no choice. The exit that looked most promising was New Brunswick because, if for no other reason, Rutgers University is there. College town, how bad can it be?
The streets of New Brunswick were deserted, and if there was a college there I sure didn't see it. Instead I drove down and down the road, past endless strip malls. Nothing was opened, not one restaurant, not even a gas stations. It was lights out in Mallville, USA.
This was supposed to be a relatively brief little jaunt off the Turnpike but after ten minutes I realized I had seen absolutely nothing that alerted me as to how to get back on the highway. Was I going the wrong way, again? I didn't know, but it was a safe guess by this point that I was.
I drove past yet another empty fast food restaurant, yet another empty carpet place, yet another empty big box retailer. It was like a ghost town, if all the ghosts were K-Mart shoppers. I decided to turn around, and take my chances going the other way.
I made a right, off the four lane road I was on, onto a two lane road, into what was the last opened gas station in the entire area. I needed something to eat, my terrible Nathan's hotdog had been hours ago by this point, and I was thirsty as well. I also thought I would ask directions, since, you know, I was totally crap at actually getting to where I needed to be.
As I got closer to the gas station I saw it was not exactly a friendly place. Indeed it was one of those ones that have the clerks behind bullet-proof plexi glass. Okay, okay. I decided to play it safe and slowly walked back to the truck. Once in I put it in drive, inched a turnaround, and got back on the road, going, I hoped, the right way.
They say the course of true love never did run smooth, and as you can guess by now, neither did the course of one overwhelmed schmo in a rented truck with two cats. I somehow took the wrong direction at a fork in the road, and then got off at the wrong place in a traffic circle, it was, in short, kind of like "European Vacation" except it was neither a vacation nor in Europe. Soon I was driving through the inner city of New Brunswick, or at least a town near New Brunswick. This area, of course, was not empty at this time of night. I nodded grimly as I tried to keep from getting ever more lost.
After about five minutes of this I saw a sign for the Turnpike. Relieved I got back on the right path, I hoped, and was hopefully on my way once more. Of course I still missed more turns, and the like, but I think you can get the picture by now. Altogether this little extra side trip tacked on another half hour to my voyage.
I got back on the Turnpike, and took yet another ticket. It was now 11:30 p.m.
I spoke to Mike and went over the directions for what to do when I got off at his exit. I would make a right, get onto a fairly busy local road, drive past various intersections and then make a right when I saw a Staples mega-store. Got it.
Soon I passed the Edison Rest Area once more, happy to see it get small in my rear view. Then I finally saw Mike's exit. I pulled off, and followed his instructions to the letter.
Except for one part, of course. I missed the turn at the Staples, because it was dark and came up suddenly. Quick turns in this rig were not going to happen. Instead I made the next right past the Staples and decided that I would then turn around and take another shot at it. Yet there was no outlet that lead directly back to the road I had just gotten off.
Somehow I now ended up in an empty stretch of residential suburbia, where the roads curled around with no reason at all, and the road I needed could not be seen. I ended up in a cul-de-sac, naturally, and was now trapped. Uh-oh, I would have to back up, and risk snapping the trailer hitch. You better believe the words of the bitter U-Haul service mechanic (see the last chapter) echoed through my exhausted brain as I incrementally backed up the entire rig. The trailer hitch groaned a little, and the entire procedure was hugely awkward and time-consuming, but eventually I was able to turn around and nose my way out of the one way suburban street. I dearly hoped I would never have to risk it like that again.
After that I drove around the 'burbs in desperate search for the main road that I needed. Somehow I made a wrong turn and ended up going the right way back onto it. Whew!
Can I tell you there was not a soul to be seen anywhere? It was ominously quiet, there was barely any traffic. Just some strip malls, roads without sidewalks, traffic lights, that was it.
I made a left back onto the main road, and tried to then pull a left into the Staples parking lot, as told by Mike. No go, there was no outlet into the parking lot. Of course. I would have to go all the way around, one more time, in order to make it happen.
So I did. I drove another half mile down the deserted road, and turned right at an intersection, and turned around in an empty, and quite large, parking lot. Then I got back on my main road, and once more drove up the the lot at Staples. This time I approached it with an almost crab-like slowness, and made the turn!
Yay!
From there I called Mike to let him know I was actually close by this time, and I meant it. It was now 12;30 a.m. My god, what a day. This had been, easily, the worst day of travel in my entire life.
I drove out through the back of the parking lot onto a small residential road, then I made a few relatively quick turns, and within five minutes was in front of Mike's house. And there was Mike, waiting for me.
I parked the truck on the street, and got out. The vastness of Freehold, N.J. seemed to swallow all sound. It was quiet, dark and virtually dead, or so it seemed. But it was good to see Mike. He smiled at my exhausted face and welcomed me inside.
Mike helped me unload the cats, offered me something to drink and set me up for the night on an extremely comfortable couch on his living room. Together we chatted for a while while we watched the last 20 minutes of "Johnny Dangerously" on HBO. (That Mary Lou Henner, va-va-voom!)The room was intensely air conditioned, so much so that it was almost cold. What a contrast to my apartment in Brooklyn, with its window mounted AC units that were either pointed directly at the floor or at the nearest wall.
The cats were placed in a small bathroom, which wasn't wonderful, but was sure better than being in a kennel all night. They meowed, as you can expect.
I finally turned in at 1:00 a.m. It had been way too long a day. It was virtually impossible to believe that it had only been that morning that I dropped off my beloved wife and child at the airport.
I couldn't think of it all now. I couldn't think at all, period. As the movie came to its predictable end I charged up my phone, and got under the covers on the couch. Then Mike went upstairs and I slept the sleep of the dead.
Now, at last, the trip could really begin.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Updates From The Heartland: The Move, Pt. 10
So we made it through the tunnel without incident and finally were on our way, rolling down the Turnpike, driving, not having to navigate terrible traffic. There was traffic of course because this is New Jersey, but compared to Canal Street it seemed like Kansas by comparison. I exhaled a little, even as I tried to not inhale as the cabin reeked ever more of used cat litter.
Still, it was almost scenic. Northern Jersey, especially near the Turnpike, still shows some signs of its long-past former wildness. In other words I was in The Meadowlands. Really the Meadowlands is one large swamp and watershed, with innumerable streams that criss-cross through the tall grass and cat tails. When you look at it the right way, in the right light, it is easy to imagine what the first travelers here could have seen.
As I drove down the road, over the Meadowlands, I looked up to the sky and saw something that made me catch my breath. It was a fish, flying in mid-air. Then I looked closer: no, that fish was not flying. It was caught in the talons of a great raptor bird, either a hawk or an eagle. I couldn't tell which because I could only see its silhouette as it flew toward me. I watched it for as long as felt safe, maybe five seconds, but tiny sensations of awe rippled through me as I continued to ride through perhaps the most suburban of all states.
I fiddled with the radio and adjusted the AC. Ah, movement at last. As long as this kept up I would be at Mike's before not too much longer, maybe another hour or so.
After about forty minutes on the road I realized that relatively soon I would have to get some gas. Despite the fact that I had barely gone anywhere, as the crow flies, I was still down past half a tankful. I wanted to be super cautious about this, as I really didn't know how far this fully loaded truck could go.
I passed one rest area, then another. I realized, though, that I would have to go into the next one that comes up because otherwise I might not be able to get gas for far too long. The Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area would be my ticket.
It had started to get dark. On either side of the road I rode past streams and less and less urban density. It was beautiful in its own New Jersey way. In fact, despite its terrible reputation, only part of New Jersey is choked with refineries and wall to wall homes or ghettos. Most of it is far more bucolic.
As darkness began to ascend I pulled into the rest area. I had two competing impulses. I needed gas and I needed to go to the men's room. I decided to do the men's room first, as the thought of pouring copious amounts of liquid into a vehicle while I needed to expunge copious amounts of liquid didn't seem all that appealing.
I wasn't sure where to park the truck. It seemed too big for the car parking lot, but too small for the tractor trailer lot. I decided to go with the latter anyway, just to be safe. It was entirely full. Man, the tri-state area, always so many damn people.
Though I couldn't get a spot I could park alongside the curb at the rest area. I felt a little ridiculous with my little U-Haul amongst all these giants, but oh well.
I wasn't close enough to the curb, really, but I could readjust it after I got back from the bathroom. I put the truck into park and turned it off. Then I rolled down the windows a bit, and told the cats I would be back soon. Cromwell meowed in annoyance.
The bathroom was crowded and not too messy. Then I got a bite to eat at Nathan's. The hot dog was sub par and they didn't even have french fries, only potato chips, which was ridiculous. I then took my drink and walked back to the truck.
Once inside I buckled up and turned the key in the ignition.
Once again ... nothing! It was deader than disco.
Oh damn.
The farkin' battery had died once again! Dammit, dammit, dammit! What to do? What to do?
I remembered the U-Haul emergency number, yes! This would have to work. I called it, was put on hold once again -- due to "unusually high caller volume," as before -- and was finally put through to a young woman spoke with a heavy urban accent who sounded completely uninterested in my dilemma. Nonetheless I still got her name and wrote it down. She in turn gave me still another number to call. I called it, and was put through to a very friendly woman named Patty. Patty asked me where I was. I told her I was at the Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area on the Jersey Turnpike.
"No, where are you? What town is it in?"
How would I know? No one ever knows this stuff.
"Call me back when you find out," she said. And I got her number as well.
How to find out? Did they have a mail box? A post office? I would have to figure it out. I walked into a convenience store attached to the larger rest area and asked them which town we were in. The Mid-Eastern woman behind the counter was very helpful, and told me that we were in Old Bridge (it was either that or Woodbridge, please forgive me for not being exact with my "bridge" memory right now). She then gave me a receipt which had the address on it, and I thanked her.
Once back at the truck I called Patty once more and told her my exact location. She then explained they would send out a local mechanic to replace my battery. At this point I also gave her the claim number for my prior dead battery, which she took and noted. She also gave me the mechanic's name and number.
How long would it take? Anywhere from an hour to two hours she said. It was a busy night.
Oh man. Two hours? At this point I called Mike and told him that I guess I would be late, or at least later, and that I would let him know when I would be back on the road. He said okay, and that I should keep him updated. I also called my mom, who was sympathetic, and Randi who was doubly sympathetic.
Since I was stuck here I decided to try and take in the scenery. Believe it or not The Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area was kind of pretty. I looked over a stream that ran along the rest area, saw birds fly by as the sunset became increasingly more and more impressive.
There still might be a chance we could hit the road tonight, I realized. So I might as well use this time to move the cats back into the car.
I walked back to the trailer and tried to open the back door to the Honda. Nope, it only opened a few inches because the movable fender had been put in the "up" position and was now stuck. I had no idea how to get it down. Crap! Not this too!
How to fix this? I had no idea. Antoine hadn't told me back in Brooklyn. Now I was stuck in a rest area, waiting for some mechanic, in the boiling summer heat, and couldn't even move the cats back into the car. How would Mike even be able to take the trip with me now if I couldn't find a place to put the cats? This was just not my day.
I called Patty back at U-Haul and told her my problem. She told me to look on the trailer and see the instructions written there. I saw a lot of things that told me to not mess with the trailer in any way, but nothing that told me how to lower the bumper. Maybe it could and should only be done by a certified U-Haul employee? Maybe if I did it wrong I would screw up the trailer and the whole thing would fall apart as we cruised on down the road? I didn't know!
Patty said she would have to look it up and call me back. Much to my amazement she did. Then she walked me through how to do it. I needed to go the movable fender and find two rubber plugs. I saw them. Now, she said, unplug them from their mounts. I did so and soon the fender revolved downward, so I could open and close the car doors. Oh phew! At least one minor disaster had been averted.
I decided to move the cats later, for now I needed their company. It was dark, and together we sat in the cab of the truck. All around me 18-wheelers were in their slots, all of them with the motors running despite there being no one that I could see inside. I guess that's how truckers do it. I talked to the cats and told them, again, I was sorry it had worked out like this. Cromwell didn't understand, of course, but he rubbed himself up to the kennel's bars so I could pet him. I did, and we both felt a little better.
In this manner an hour past, then an hour and a half, then almost two hours. Where was the mechanic? I called him, and got a voice mail. Then I called U-Haul and told them this guy was late. They told me he was in the area and would be there within half an hour.
Finally at 10:30 p.m. a huge, beautiful red truck pulled up. This was my guy. I got out to say hi, and he didn't even acknowledge me. I popped the hood and asked if there was anything else I could do, and the mechanic, a middle aged white guy with a mustache, said "I should be home by now!"
Okay, sorry about your job.
Without any additional chit-chat he changed the battery and turned the truck on. It started and I said thanks. Then I started to pull out. It was awkward, though, because I was so close to the truck ahead of me, I would need to back up a little for some clearance. The mechanic stopped me.
"You can't back up in these things. You'll snap the metal of the trailer and then you're done!"
Okay, I said, chastened. After he pulled out and left me I slowly inched forward, free at last. I would still need gas though.
I pulled up to the truck gas area, and the attendant waved at me and said many things in a language that I simply could not understand.
I got out. "What?"
"No, other one. This is for diesel!"
He pointed to where all the cars were getting gassed up about twenty yards away. Great, I would have to find a way to drive all the way around in order to get gas, since I couldn't back up. Everything with this trailer was more than twice as hard as with a typical car.
It took some time, but I eventually got there, and filled the tank, $60. Ouch! I had barely even gone anywhere. This could end up a very pricey trip.
Now I would have to get back onto the Turnpike. Somehow I missed the first ramp onto the 'Pike, and had to drive around yet again. Soon I ended up in a desolate part of the rest area, and made a right turn here, a left turn there, in order to get back to the road. Soon I saw a ramp back to the road, my ticket out of there. I slowly got on and started to ride up.
It was too late by the time I realized I was on the wrong ramp, the one that lead to the northbound side of the Turnpike, not the south. I was headed in the goddamn wrong direction.
How to explain such an obvious and bush league mistake? There are a few culprits, it was late, I was in a vehicle that was virtually impossible to drive, I couldn't go in reverse to correct mistakes. But I think the most likely one is simply fatigue. I had been going nonstop, in highly stressful situations, since 6:30 a.m. It was now some 16 hours later, and I hadn't yet had a real break. Worse still, I still had more to do, though I couldn't know how much more. I was a wreck. There was traffic all around, the cats were constantly on my case, and if I made one false move as I drove down the street it would be a big, big disaster. These were not optimum conditions. Well, at least it hadn't rained.
I would have to find a U-turn for my U-Haul. Yet there were no U-turn signs. I could risk simply getting off at an exit and hoping I could turn around but this could be quite the gamble. New Jersey is an almost infinitely complicated set of roads, jug-handles, arteries, side streets, one way roads. In short it has more pathways than the average brain. If I made a wrong step I could end up very much where I did not want to be. And for a long, long time.
I had no choice, I would have to play it safe and drive back to an exit that I knew would let me turn around without too much fuss. That would be at least ten miles north. This trip just kept getting longer.
Next Time: I finally get to Mike's
Still, it was almost scenic. Northern Jersey, especially near the Turnpike, still shows some signs of its long-past former wildness. In other words I was in The Meadowlands. Really the Meadowlands is one large swamp and watershed, with innumerable streams that criss-cross through the tall grass and cat tails. When you look at it the right way, in the right light, it is easy to imagine what the first travelers here could have seen.
As I drove down the road, over the Meadowlands, I looked up to the sky and saw something that made me catch my breath. It was a fish, flying in mid-air. Then I looked closer: no, that fish was not flying. It was caught in the talons of a great raptor bird, either a hawk or an eagle. I couldn't tell which because I could only see its silhouette as it flew toward me. I watched it for as long as felt safe, maybe five seconds, but tiny sensations of awe rippled through me as I continued to ride through perhaps the most suburban of all states.
I fiddled with the radio and adjusted the AC. Ah, movement at last. As long as this kept up I would be at Mike's before not too much longer, maybe another hour or so.
After about forty minutes on the road I realized that relatively soon I would have to get some gas. Despite the fact that I had barely gone anywhere, as the crow flies, I was still down past half a tankful. I wanted to be super cautious about this, as I really didn't know how far this fully loaded truck could go.
I passed one rest area, then another. I realized, though, that I would have to go into the next one that comes up because otherwise I might not be able to get gas for far too long. The Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area would be my ticket.
It had started to get dark. On either side of the road I rode past streams and less and less urban density. It was beautiful in its own New Jersey way. In fact, despite its terrible reputation, only part of New Jersey is choked with refineries and wall to wall homes or ghettos. Most of it is far more bucolic.
As darkness began to ascend I pulled into the rest area. I had two competing impulses. I needed gas and I needed to go to the men's room. I decided to do the men's room first, as the thought of pouring copious amounts of liquid into a vehicle while I needed to expunge copious amounts of liquid didn't seem all that appealing.
I wasn't sure where to park the truck. It seemed too big for the car parking lot, but too small for the tractor trailer lot. I decided to go with the latter anyway, just to be safe. It was entirely full. Man, the tri-state area, always so many damn people.
Though I couldn't get a spot I could park alongside the curb at the rest area. I felt a little ridiculous with my little U-Haul amongst all these giants, but oh well.
I wasn't close enough to the curb, really, but I could readjust it after I got back from the bathroom. I put the truck into park and turned it off. Then I rolled down the windows a bit, and told the cats I would be back soon. Cromwell meowed in annoyance.
The bathroom was crowded and not too messy. Then I got a bite to eat at Nathan's. The hot dog was sub par and they didn't even have french fries, only potato chips, which was ridiculous. I then took my drink and walked back to the truck.
Once inside I buckled up and turned the key in the ignition.
Once again ... nothing! It was deader than disco.
Oh damn.
The farkin' battery had died once again! Dammit, dammit, dammit! What to do? What to do?
I remembered the U-Haul emergency number, yes! This would have to work. I called it, was put on hold once again -- due to "unusually high caller volume," as before -- and was finally put through to a young woman spoke with a heavy urban accent who sounded completely uninterested in my dilemma. Nonetheless I still got her name and wrote it down. She in turn gave me still another number to call. I called it, and was put through to a very friendly woman named Patty. Patty asked me where I was. I told her I was at the Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area on the Jersey Turnpike.
"No, where are you? What town is it in?"
How would I know? No one ever knows this stuff.
"Call me back when you find out," she said. And I got her number as well.
How to find out? Did they have a mail box? A post office? I would have to figure it out. I walked into a convenience store attached to the larger rest area and asked them which town we were in. The Mid-Eastern woman behind the counter was very helpful, and told me that we were in Old Bridge (it was either that or Woodbridge, please forgive me for not being exact with my "bridge" memory right now). She then gave me a receipt which had the address on it, and I thanked her.
Once back at the truck I called Patty once more and told her my exact location. She then explained they would send out a local mechanic to replace my battery. At this point I also gave her the claim number for my prior dead battery, which she took and noted. She also gave me the mechanic's name and number.
How long would it take? Anywhere from an hour to two hours she said. It was a busy night.
Oh man. Two hours? At this point I called Mike and told him that I guess I would be late, or at least later, and that I would let him know when I would be back on the road. He said okay, and that I should keep him updated. I also called my mom, who was sympathetic, and Randi who was doubly sympathetic.
Since I was stuck here I decided to try and take in the scenery. Believe it or not The Thomas Edison Memorial Rest Area was kind of pretty. I looked over a stream that ran along the rest area, saw birds fly by as the sunset became increasingly more and more impressive.
There still might be a chance we could hit the road tonight, I realized. So I might as well use this time to move the cats back into the car.
I walked back to the trailer and tried to open the back door to the Honda. Nope, it only opened a few inches because the movable fender had been put in the "up" position and was now stuck. I had no idea how to get it down. Crap! Not this too!
How to fix this? I had no idea. Antoine hadn't told me back in Brooklyn. Now I was stuck in a rest area, waiting for some mechanic, in the boiling summer heat, and couldn't even move the cats back into the car. How would Mike even be able to take the trip with me now if I couldn't find a place to put the cats? This was just not my day.
I called Patty back at U-Haul and told her my problem. She told me to look on the trailer and see the instructions written there. I saw a lot of things that told me to not mess with the trailer in any way, but nothing that told me how to lower the bumper. Maybe it could and should only be done by a certified U-Haul employee? Maybe if I did it wrong I would screw up the trailer and the whole thing would fall apart as we cruised on down the road? I didn't know!
Patty said she would have to look it up and call me back. Much to my amazement she did. Then she walked me through how to do it. I needed to go the movable fender and find two rubber plugs. I saw them. Now, she said, unplug them from their mounts. I did so and soon the fender revolved downward, so I could open and close the car doors. Oh phew! At least one minor disaster had been averted.
I decided to move the cats later, for now I needed their company. It was dark, and together we sat in the cab of the truck. All around me 18-wheelers were in their slots, all of them with the motors running despite there being no one that I could see inside. I guess that's how truckers do it. I talked to the cats and told them, again, I was sorry it had worked out like this. Cromwell didn't understand, of course, but he rubbed himself up to the kennel's bars so I could pet him. I did, and we both felt a little better.
In this manner an hour past, then an hour and a half, then almost two hours. Where was the mechanic? I called him, and got a voice mail. Then I called U-Haul and told them this guy was late. They told me he was in the area and would be there within half an hour.
Finally at 10:30 p.m. a huge, beautiful red truck pulled up. This was my guy. I got out to say hi, and he didn't even acknowledge me. I popped the hood and asked if there was anything else I could do, and the mechanic, a middle aged white guy with a mustache, said "I should be home by now!"
Okay, sorry about your job.
Without any additional chit-chat he changed the battery and turned the truck on. It started and I said thanks. Then I started to pull out. It was awkward, though, because I was so close to the truck ahead of me, I would need to back up a little for some clearance. The mechanic stopped me.
"You can't back up in these things. You'll snap the metal of the trailer and then you're done!"
Okay, I said, chastened. After he pulled out and left me I slowly inched forward, free at last. I would still need gas though.
I pulled up to the truck gas area, and the attendant waved at me and said many things in a language that I simply could not understand.
I got out. "What?"
"No, other one. This is for diesel!"
He pointed to where all the cars were getting gassed up about twenty yards away. Great, I would have to find a way to drive all the way around in order to get gas, since I couldn't back up. Everything with this trailer was more than twice as hard as with a typical car.
It took some time, but I eventually got there, and filled the tank, $60. Ouch! I had barely even gone anywhere. This could end up a very pricey trip.
Now I would have to get back onto the Turnpike. Somehow I missed the first ramp onto the 'Pike, and had to drive around yet again. Soon I ended up in a desolate part of the rest area, and made a right turn here, a left turn there, in order to get back to the road. Soon I saw a ramp back to the road, my ticket out of there. I slowly got on and started to ride up.
It was too late by the time I realized I was on the wrong ramp, the one that lead to the northbound side of the Turnpike, not the south. I was headed in the goddamn wrong direction.
How to explain such an obvious and bush league mistake? There are a few culprits, it was late, I was in a vehicle that was virtually impossible to drive, I couldn't go in reverse to correct mistakes. But I think the most likely one is simply fatigue. I had been going nonstop, in highly stressful situations, since 6:30 a.m. It was now some 16 hours later, and I hadn't yet had a real break. Worse still, I still had more to do, though I couldn't know how much more. I was a wreck. There was traffic all around, the cats were constantly on my case, and if I made one false move as I drove down the street it would be a big, big disaster. These were not optimum conditions. Well, at least it hadn't rained.
I would have to find a U-turn for my U-Haul. Yet there were no U-turn signs. I could risk simply getting off at an exit and hoping I could turn around but this could be quite the gamble. New Jersey is an almost infinitely complicated set of roads, jug-handles, arteries, side streets, one way roads. In short it has more pathways than the average brain. If I made a wrong step I could end up very much where I did not want to be. And for a long, long time.
I had no choice, I would have to play it safe and drive back to an exit that I knew would let me turn around without too much fuss. That would be at least ten miles north. This trip just kept getting longer.
Next Time: I finally get to Mike's
Friday, August 20, 2010
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Updates From The Heartland: The Move, Pt. 9
(Chipping away at the stone ...)
My blood pressure began to rise, as a cat defecated again, and the sun beat down on the cabin. I had no choice I would have to go back to the office and get Antoine.
I rolled down the windows enough but not too much, and climbed out. It was boiling hot, and Cromwell panted. I know this because I had faced the opening of the kennel toward me. The kennel was enormous, by the way, and took up most of our shared bench. This gave me excellent access to their non-stop complaints, and frequent bathroom breaks.
Still, I felt terrible. Our other cat, Talisker, just laid in the back, in a small puddle of water that used to be in his dish. They didn't look sick, but they didn't look too happy either. In fact Tali mostly looked resigned and depressed. Given that he is such a chipper cat normally this in turn depressed me.
Resolved: I had to get this truck to start as soon as possible.
Back on the hot sidewalk I walked, once more, up the block to U-Haul's office. At the gate I was greeted, yet again, by the loitering day laborers who now knew to not ask me if I needed help. I sure did, but not of the variety they could provide.
I didn't see Antoine, of course. I asked for help at the desk, and was told that I would need to talk to Antoine. I told them that I didn't see him. I was then told that he was "around."
With a few moments to kill I bought two bottles of cold water. One for me, one for the cats.
After a few minutes I saw Antoine outside and flagged him down. He looked stunned. "Really, are you sure the lights aren't on?" I said I didn't think so. He then asked me if I turned the key hard enough. I said probably. We went through a few other obvious options until I convinced him that yes, indeed, the truck was probably as dead as I claimed.
Antoine looked dubious, but started to walk down the block to see what was what. I followed again, and said what I hoped was my final goodbye both to the U-Haul office and the loitering day laborers.
Once at the truck Antoine climbed back into the cabin, moved the seat back, and tried to turn it on. It made a wracking sound and died. He waited a few moments and tried again. This time it made a smaller wracking sound before it died. Come to think of it the truck kind of sounded like Harvey.
Hmm, Antoine said. Hmm. "Your battery's dead." I figured. As far as problems go, this was not too bad of one. They have about a million trucks here, and probably at least one extra battery, right?
He got out of the truck and asked me if I had called the U-Haul emergency number written on my receipt. I had not, because I was actually at a U-Haul station. He told me I should anyway. I then climbed back into the truck, adjusted the seat and dialed the number. Of course I was put on hold for some time -- because they were experiencing "unusually high call volumes" -- before I finally got to speak to a friendly Southern guy named Harold. Harold told me he would register my complaint and send someone out. They might be there in 45 minutes to an hour. Yes, an hour.
I asked Antoine if there was anything he could do, after all the truck had worked not long before. He said he could try to jump it. I said that would be fine and he took off.
Once he was gone I rolled up the windows, and opened the kennel. (The windows were rolled up so the cats couldn't make a break for it.) I poured some cold water into the cats' dish, and told them I was sorry. I know this sounds sappy, but if you've ever owned a pet maybe you understand. I really was sorry, none of this was their fault, and yet they had to suffer.
Cromwell immediately drank up the new water, and Talisker continued to lie in the back, his fur wet, listless.
I closed the kennel door, and rolled the windows back down, consumed with guilt.
Five minutes later Antoine rolled up with another truck, popped the hood, had me pop my hood and hooked up some jumper cables. After two minutes we tried to turn the engine. It gagged and did nothing. Five minutes later it gagged with a little more vigor and then died once more. Finally over 10 minutes later it turned. I knew it was not a good sign that it took this long to start, but put that thought to the back of my mind. I had to go!
Antoine told me to let it run for another 10 minutes before starting the trip, so that the battery fully charged. Tick-tock. I thanked him, and he drove off.
It was now almost 4:00 p.m. According to my original plans I was supposed to nearly be at Mike's by now. I was supposed to get there by 4:30 and start the drive, then we would keep at it well into the night. Well, that wouldn't happen.
As the truck idled I first called U-Haul to cancel the help that was on the way. They gave me a confirmation number for the help I never received, which I wrote down anyway. Then I called Randi to see how she was and how their trip was. She told me everything went great and the trip had no delays, which is almost, in its way, as unusual a story as mine. I told her about what had transpired so far. She expressed sympathy for me and concern for the cats. She then told me I should take it as easy as I could, and to not push myself too hard. I was grateful to have such a loving and supportive woman in my life. She also told me Stella was fine, and having lots of fun as she played with her cousins. I was glad to hear it.
After our call ended I went over my travel direction. I had planned to take the Brooklyn Bridge to the Lincoln Tunnel and then from there take the Jersey Turnpike to Mike's. Under typical circumstances this drive should take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. I decided to call my Dad to see if he had any suggestions for cutting down time, as he drives in the area frequently and, well, he is my Dad. He knows this stuff.
He strongly suggested I take the Holland Tunnel, downtown, instead of the Lincoln as it bleeds right into the Turnpike. Okay, done.
Finally ten minutes passed. I nervously put the truck in drive, and inched my way into the narrow street. Whoa! This wouldn't be easy. Though the truck drove well enough before now, with the trailer, it was astonishingly cumbersome and took wiiiiiiiiiiiide turns. I wasn't used to this, not at all. And I would have to learn how to drive it through some of the toughest conditions that could ever be: New York City rush hour!
I cut the wheel as much as possible as I turned right. I missed hitting a car parked right at the mouth of the parking lot entry by inches. Then I slowly, slowly continued on down the street, ready to make yet another right turn.
My god, this thing was a nightmare to drive. It was astonishingly slow, needed a turning radius as wide as two tennis courts, and also needed extra, extra room between it and any other cars for braking. Frickety frak!
I was nothing but nerves, Cromwell cried nonstop a foot from my right ear, every pothole jostled our valuables, and I had to watch for hyper-aggressive New York drivers at all times.
I drove down Third Avenue. Typically what I did was turn left from Third onto Flatbush Avenue, and take that to Tillary Street to the Brooklyn Bridge. This might mean nothing to you, but that's what I usually did. Now I slowly ambled down Third to Flatbush. When I got to the intersection I had a rude awakening. There was no left turn on Flatbush from Third! I am ashamed to admit it, but with the car it usually didn't matter, because I could make the turn anyway. But with this beast? No way. I had to play it safe. I drove across Flatbush, as cars honked and tried to get around me. Then I ended up near the Atlantic Center shopping plaza. I had to go right and then right again to get back on Flatbush, but there were only one way streets ... all going the wrong way! Crap. I still didn't really know how to drive this rig, and the traffic was starting to get to me.
Finally I found a two way street and started to turn. Then I realized I probably wouldn't have enough room to clear it. I got out, and checked how far into the intersection I would have to go to not hit the pole on the corner. Pretty damn far. I got back in, made a wide circular turn, slowly, as a car facing me backed up. I now realized the one advantage of driving a big rig: no one screws with you.
At the next intersection I turned right again, and was on Flatbush, at long last. I moved along at a snail-like pace, and signaled any turns for at least a few minutes before taking them. Then when I did turn into another lane I did it slowly, by degrees, so EVERYONE would know not to cut in.
I made the left at Tillary (which runs parallel to the East River) and then a right to get onto the bridge. Right before I got on the bridge a cop waved me down. No, no trucks on this bridge. What, how would I get to Manhattan? The Manhattan Bridge, he said. Oh, good grief.
I managed to pull into a side rode without hitting anything or anyone (seriously people are everywhere, and they jaywalk!), then I made a right in order get back to Flatbush Avenue, which fed directly into the Manhattan Bridge.
Okay, now you are probably asking, didn't this schmo take into account that he would need to factor in the truck before making his driving plans? The answer is, I did and I didn't. I knew the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels both allowed trucks, but I hadn't done the extra work to find out about the Brooklyn Bridge. Blame me, or blame my frantic, harried, stressed-out life. I had done so much right, but not this.
I soon learned I wasn't on a road that fed directly into Flatbush so I would have to take the long way around. Before not too long I was in the projects, hoo-ray. I must admit, I locked my doors. Fortunately I was at least somewhat familiar with these projects as they were fairly close to the Brooklyn Navy Yards, where they had brought my car, when they towed it, twice.
I knew that the roads around the projects lead, in fact, to other roads. As do most roads, I guess. I wasn't sure which ones would lead back to Flatbush, but I needed to go right, so at the first road that looked at least somewhat pothole free I made a right turn and hoped for the best. Soon the projects got small in my rear view mirror and Flatbush came into view. Yes, victory!
It was somewhat nerve-wracking to drive over the bridge. For some reason I realized that, whoa, that sure is a lot of water down there, better be careful. It's likely I thought this because I still had relatively little control over my truck and trailer. But I couldn't let myself think about this too much.
Though I drove extra slow I still made it across, and then made my way onto probably the single most traffic-clogged street in New York, and by extension the nation, Canal Street. I had no choice, as this street lead directly to the Holland Tunnel. I typically avoided Canal under the best of circumstances, which these were not, but I had to grit my teeth and deal with it.
There were cars everywhere, and drivers cut in and out at an alarming rate, though none of us went more than eight miles an hour. My strategy was to inch along and trust that no one wanted to mess with a big truck. This mostly worked.
Inside the cab the blasting AC had finally cooled it down, and Cromwell had at least stopped panting, though the meows kept up at a steady clip. I could deal with this, I said, I can deal with it.
As I got closer to the tunnel I saw a sign that said TRUCKS and had an arrow that pointed left, away from the tunnel. What? Did I qualify, or did they mean 18 wheelers? I didn't know, but I didn't feel I could risk it. I bailed out as I was about to enter the tunnel, and looked for the alternate route. Of course as soon as it was too late I saw another truck as big as mine ready to enter the tunnel right where I had bailed. As for the alternate route, there was none.
Sweet, now I would have to go around the long way, during rush hour, to get back to the most crowded street in America, in the most illogical, poorly designed, part of New York, Tribeca. Here the quaint cobble stoned streets veer off at weird angles, sometimes abruptly, and often don't lead anywhere you think they should. But they are quite picturesque.
I had no choice, I would have to bite the bullet. I started to do the drive around, Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians, making enormous, awkward turns, as the late afternoon sun beat down right into my eyes. I got on streets that lead away from where I needed to go, I got lost, but finally I saw a long street that lead into the mouth of the tunnel. It was choked with traffic, but at least it went where I needed to go. Screw it, I would wait in line.
I nosed in, and realized it would be a long, long wait. Possibly at least a half hour to go 100 yards. I turned on the radio--thanks for the instructions U-Haul!--and settled in. We crept along, which was fine by me. After the harrowing experiences of before this would do.
After we had closed half the gap I saw a bus on my right side, the kind that ferries tourists around not kids. The drive waved at me, one big vehicle to another, and he smiled. Then he proceeded to cut me off, and not only that he clipped my right side view mirror as he did so. It didn't snap, but it did get whacked totally out of alignment, making me blind on that side. I had no passengers so they couldn't readjust it, unless I put the cats to work.
I cursed him out three ways from Tuesday but mostly stewed, impotent, in my rage.
The traffic crept on, tick-tock. It was now 5:30 p.m. Where had the day gone? If I was lucky maybe I could get to Mike's by 6:45, and then we could go; a late start, yes, but not too late. God, did I really drop Randi and Stella off this morning?
Finally it was my turn to enter the tunnel. Suddenly a lady cop materialized out of thin air, and waved me to the side. Good god, what now?
She told me that while trucks were allowed they did not allow trucks with trailers. I would have to go uptown forty blocks to the Lincoln Tunnel. Of course I would!
Okay, okay, I can deal with this, I thought. I pulled over onto a little side road near the tunnel and got out. At least I could adjust my mirror back into place. I tried and tried, but no matter what I did it wasn't quite right. This was another time where having a passenger would have been an immense help. Instead of having them do it now I had to run, change it, and then go back to the seat to see if it was right. If it wasn't, and it never was, then I would try again. Eventually I got it kind of right, but only kind of.
Then I slowly crept back onto another small street, and then onto another small street, that finally lead onto the West Side Highway, which would take me past the Meatpacking District and Chelsea and to the Lincoln Tunnel.
This part was relatively event free. I was completely exhausted from nervous tension, but the drive into the Lincoln Tunnel was thankfully without event. Before not too long I was in blessed New Jersey, and finally on my way!
Of course several hours had been burned, on a day that was already tortuously long. I tried to follow Randi's advice and take it as easy as I could, while still remaining vigilant and ready for disaster. Fortunately no disaster came, for a little while.
Next Up: The Thomas Edison Memorial Service Area!
My blood pressure began to rise, as a cat defecated again, and the sun beat down on the cabin. I had no choice I would have to go back to the office and get Antoine.
I rolled down the windows enough but not too much, and climbed out. It was boiling hot, and Cromwell panted. I know this because I had faced the opening of the kennel toward me. The kennel was enormous, by the way, and took up most of our shared bench. This gave me excellent access to their non-stop complaints, and frequent bathroom breaks.
Still, I felt terrible. Our other cat, Talisker, just laid in the back, in a small puddle of water that used to be in his dish. They didn't look sick, but they didn't look too happy either. In fact Tali mostly looked resigned and depressed. Given that he is such a chipper cat normally this in turn depressed me.
Resolved: I had to get this truck to start as soon as possible.
Back on the hot sidewalk I walked, once more, up the block to U-Haul's office. At the gate I was greeted, yet again, by the loitering day laborers who now knew to not ask me if I needed help. I sure did, but not of the variety they could provide.
I didn't see Antoine, of course. I asked for help at the desk, and was told that I would need to talk to Antoine. I told them that I didn't see him. I was then told that he was "around."
With a few moments to kill I bought two bottles of cold water. One for me, one for the cats.
After a few minutes I saw Antoine outside and flagged him down. He looked stunned. "Really, are you sure the lights aren't on?" I said I didn't think so. He then asked me if I turned the key hard enough. I said probably. We went through a few other obvious options until I convinced him that yes, indeed, the truck was probably as dead as I claimed.
Antoine looked dubious, but started to walk down the block to see what was what. I followed again, and said what I hoped was my final goodbye both to the U-Haul office and the loitering day laborers.
Once at the truck Antoine climbed back into the cabin, moved the seat back, and tried to turn it on. It made a wracking sound and died. He waited a few moments and tried again. This time it made a smaller wracking sound before it died. Come to think of it the truck kind of sounded like Harvey.
Hmm, Antoine said. Hmm. "Your battery's dead." I figured. As far as problems go, this was not too bad of one. They have about a million trucks here, and probably at least one extra battery, right?
He got out of the truck and asked me if I had called the U-Haul emergency number written on my receipt. I had not, because I was actually at a U-Haul station. He told me I should anyway. I then climbed back into the truck, adjusted the seat and dialed the number. Of course I was put on hold for some time -- because they were experiencing "unusually high call volumes" -- before I finally got to speak to a friendly Southern guy named Harold. Harold told me he would register my complaint and send someone out. They might be there in 45 minutes to an hour. Yes, an hour.
I asked Antoine if there was anything he could do, after all the truck had worked not long before. He said he could try to jump it. I said that would be fine and he took off.
Once he was gone I rolled up the windows, and opened the kennel. (The windows were rolled up so the cats couldn't make a break for it.) I poured some cold water into the cats' dish, and told them I was sorry. I know this sounds sappy, but if you've ever owned a pet maybe you understand. I really was sorry, none of this was their fault, and yet they had to suffer.
Cromwell immediately drank up the new water, and Talisker continued to lie in the back, his fur wet, listless.
I closed the kennel door, and rolled the windows back down, consumed with guilt.
Five minutes later Antoine rolled up with another truck, popped the hood, had me pop my hood and hooked up some jumper cables. After two minutes we tried to turn the engine. It gagged and did nothing. Five minutes later it gagged with a little more vigor and then died once more. Finally over 10 minutes later it turned. I knew it was not a good sign that it took this long to start, but put that thought to the back of my mind. I had to go!
Antoine told me to let it run for another 10 minutes before starting the trip, so that the battery fully charged. Tick-tock. I thanked him, and he drove off.
It was now almost 4:00 p.m. According to my original plans I was supposed to nearly be at Mike's by now. I was supposed to get there by 4:30 and start the drive, then we would keep at it well into the night. Well, that wouldn't happen.
As the truck idled I first called U-Haul to cancel the help that was on the way. They gave me a confirmation number for the help I never received, which I wrote down anyway. Then I called Randi to see how she was and how their trip was. She told me everything went great and the trip had no delays, which is almost, in its way, as unusual a story as mine. I told her about what had transpired so far. She expressed sympathy for me and concern for the cats. She then told me I should take it as easy as I could, and to not push myself too hard. I was grateful to have such a loving and supportive woman in my life. She also told me Stella was fine, and having lots of fun as she played with her cousins. I was glad to hear it.
After our call ended I went over my travel direction. I had planned to take the Brooklyn Bridge to the Lincoln Tunnel and then from there take the Jersey Turnpike to Mike's. Under typical circumstances this drive should take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. I decided to call my Dad to see if he had any suggestions for cutting down time, as he drives in the area frequently and, well, he is my Dad. He knows this stuff.
He strongly suggested I take the Holland Tunnel, downtown, instead of the Lincoln as it bleeds right into the Turnpike. Okay, done.
Finally ten minutes passed. I nervously put the truck in drive, and inched my way into the narrow street. Whoa! This wouldn't be easy. Though the truck drove well enough before now, with the trailer, it was astonishingly cumbersome and took wiiiiiiiiiiiide turns. I wasn't used to this, not at all. And I would have to learn how to drive it through some of the toughest conditions that could ever be: New York City rush hour!
I cut the wheel as much as possible as I turned right. I missed hitting a car parked right at the mouth of the parking lot entry by inches. Then I slowly, slowly continued on down the street, ready to make yet another right turn.
My god, this thing was a nightmare to drive. It was astonishingly slow, needed a turning radius as wide as two tennis courts, and also needed extra, extra room between it and any other cars for braking. Frickety frak!
I was nothing but nerves, Cromwell cried nonstop a foot from my right ear, every pothole jostled our valuables, and I had to watch for hyper-aggressive New York drivers at all times.
I drove down Third Avenue. Typically what I did was turn left from Third onto Flatbush Avenue, and take that to Tillary Street to the Brooklyn Bridge. This might mean nothing to you, but that's what I usually did. Now I slowly ambled down Third to Flatbush. When I got to the intersection I had a rude awakening. There was no left turn on Flatbush from Third! I am ashamed to admit it, but with the car it usually didn't matter, because I could make the turn anyway. But with this beast? No way. I had to play it safe. I drove across Flatbush, as cars honked and tried to get around me. Then I ended up near the Atlantic Center shopping plaza. I had to go right and then right again to get back on Flatbush, but there were only one way streets ... all going the wrong way! Crap. I still didn't really know how to drive this rig, and the traffic was starting to get to me.
Finally I found a two way street and started to turn. Then I realized I probably wouldn't have enough room to clear it. I got out, and checked how far into the intersection I would have to go to not hit the pole on the corner. Pretty damn far. I got back in, made a wide circular turn, slowly, as a car facing me backed up. I now realized the one advantage of driving a big rig: no one screws with you.
At the next intersection I turned right again, and was on Flatbush, at long last. I moved along at a snail-like pace, and signaled any turns for at least a few minutes before taking them. Then when I did turn into another lane I did it slowly, by degrees, so EVERYONE would know not to cut in.
I made the left at Tillary (which runs parallel to the East River) and then a right to get onto the bridge. Right before I got on the bridge a cop waved me down. No, no trucks on this bridge. What, how would I get to Manhattan? The Manhattan Bridge, he said. Oh, good grief.
I managed to pull into a side rode without hitting anything or anyone (seriously people are everywhere, and they jaywalk!), then I made a right in order get back to Flatbush Avenue, which fed directly into the Manhattan Bridge.
Okay, now you are probably asking, didn't this schmo take into account that he would need to factor in the truck before making his driving plans? The answer is, I did and I didn't. I knew the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels both allowed trucks, but I hadn't done the extra work to find out about the Brooklyn Bridge. Blame me, or blame my frantic, harried, stressed-out life. I had done so much right, but not this.
I soon learned I wasn't on a road that fed directly into Flatbush so I would have to take the long way around. Before not too long I was in the projects, hoo-ray. I must admit, I locked my doors. Fortunately I was at least somewhat familiar with these projects as they were fairly close to the Brooklyn Navy Yards, where they had brought my car, when they towed it, twice.
I knew that the roads around the projects lead, in fact, to other roads. As do most roads, I guess. I wasn't sure which ones would lead back to Flatbush, but I needed to go right, so at the first road that looked at least somewhat pothole free I made a right turn and hoped for the best. Soon the projects got small in my rear view mirror and Flatbush came into view. Yes, victory!
It was somewhat nerve-wracking to drive over the bridge. For some reason I realized that, whoa, that sure is a lot of water down there, better be careful. It's likely I thought this because I still had relatively little control over my truck and trailer. But I couldn't let myself think about this too much.
Though I drove extra slow I still made it across, and then made my way onto probably the single most traffic-clogged street in New York, and by extension the nation, Canal Street. I had no choice, as this street lead directly to the Holland Tunnel. I typically avoided Canal under the best of circumstances, which these were not, but I had to grit my teeth and deal with it.
There were cars everywhere, and drivers cut in and out at an alarming rate, though none of us went more than eight miles an hour. My strategy was to inch along and trust that no one wanted to mess with a big truck. This mostly worked.
Inside the cab the blasting AC had finally cooled it down, and Cromwell had at least stopped panting, though the meows kept up at a steady clip. I could deal with this, I said, I can deal with it.
As I got closer to the tunnel I saw a sign that said TRUCKS and had an arrow that pointed left, away from the tunnel. What? Did I qualify, or did they mean 18 wheelers? I didn't know, but I didn't feel I could risk it. I bailed out as I was about to enter the tunnel, and looked for the alternate route. Of course as soon as it was too late I saw another truck as big as mine ready to enter the tunnel right where I had bailed. As for the alternate route, there was none.
Sweet, now I would have to go around the long way, during rush hour, to get back to the most crowded street in America, in the most illogical, poorly designed, part of New York, Tribeca. Here the quaint cobble stoned streets veer off at weird angles, sometimes abruptly, and often don't lead anywhere you think they should. But they are quite picturesque.
I had no choice, I would have to bite the bullet. I started to do the drive around, Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians, making enormous, awkward turns, as the late afternoon sun beat down right into my eyes. I got on streets that lead away from where I needed to go, I got lost, but finally I saw a long street that lead into the mouth of the tunnel. It was choked with traffic, but at least it went where I needed to go. Screw it, I would wait in line.
I nosed in, and realized it would be a long, long wait. Possibly at least a half hour to go 100 yards. I turned on the radio--thanks for the instructions U-Haul!--and settled in. We crept along, which was fine by me. After the harrowing experiences of before this would do.
After we had closed half the gap I saw a bus on my right side, the kind that ferries tourists around not kids. The drive waved at me, one big vehicle to another, and he smiled. Then he proceeded to cut me off, and not only that he clipped my right side view mirror as he did so. It didn't snap, but it did get whacked totally out of alignment, making me blind on that side. I had no passengers so they couldn't readjust it, unless I put the cats to work.
I cursed him out three ways from Tuesday but mostly stewed, impotent, in my rage.
The traffic crept on, tick-tock. It was now 5:30 p.m. Where had the day gone? If I was lucky maybe I could get to Mike's by 6:45, and then we could go; a late start, yes, but not too late. God, did I really drop Randi and Stella off this morning?
Finally it was my turn to enter the tunnel. Suddenly a lady cop materialized out of thin air, and waved me to the side. Good god, what now?
She told me that while trucks were allowed they did not allow trucks with trailers. I would have to go uptown forty blocks to the Lincoln Tunnel. Of course I would!
Okay, okay, I can deal with this, I thought. I pulled over onto a little side road near the tunnel and got out. At least I could adjust my mirror back into place. I tried and tried, but no matter what I did it wasn't quite right. This was another time where having a passenger would have been an immense help. Instead of having them do it now I had to run, change it, and then go back to the seat to see if it was right. If it wasn't, and it never was, then I would try again. Eventually I got it kind of right, but only kind of.
Then I slowly crept back onto another small street, and then onto another small street, that finally lead onto the West Side Highway, which would take me past the Meatpacking District and Chelsea and to the Lincoln Tunnel.
This part was relatively event free. I was completely exhausted from nervous tension, but the drive into the Lincoln Tunnel was thankfully without event. Before not too long I was in blessed New Jersey, and finally on my way!
Of course several hours had been burned, on a day that was already tortuously long. I tried to follow Randi's advice and take it as easy as I could, while still remaining vigilant and ready for disaster. Fortunately no disaster came, for a little while.
Next Up: The Thomas Edison Memorial Service Area!
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