Category Archives: Personal Moments in an Anonymous City

Principality of Sealand

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Principality of Sealand is a nutty kind of place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand.

Commenter Chuck mentioned it in a comment.  This is not how I envision No-where-istan.  Also, fighting and power grabs are not allowed.  I will use my powers for good.  And no in-breeding in No-where-istan because it is gross and we have no health care plan so anomalies cannot be treated without bankrupting the in-breeders. 

We are “carnivoratarians,” a word my son made up which means “eaters of chicken fingers, french fries, hamburgers and ketchup”; however, we are not exclusively, carnivoratarians. Vegans and vegetarians are welcome as long as I don’t have to eat that Tempeh stuff.

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No-where-istan is a country, too (just in my head)

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Our President gave an excellent speech today at the UN.  If only words could make wishes come true.

Libya’s leader’s, Qaddafi’s, speech was, well, nuts.  I know maniacs have been leaders of countries, but his speech made me think that anyone could be a head of state whether or not there is electricity firing in your brain. 

So, I could run a country.  I have always wanted to.  That’s it!!

I hereby establish a sovereign nation run by me. 

I think I would be quite good at it until I deposed myself. Hey, sometimes a person changes her mind and MY country is a free country where change is always possible.

Of course, given the logistical constraints of owning a box in the sky in New York City, this newly-formed nation must exist for now in my brain, until I can buy a townhouse on the East Side for my embassy and then renounce the debt under the theory of sovereign immunity. 

Since the nation (until I buy the townhouse) is not easily depicted on a world map, it will be called:

No-where-istan. 

We will have a constitution.  I will be all three branches of government.  We will have debates over issues, but only when I don’t take my meds.

We will have three-day weekends, naptime everyday and one hour daily of singing and dancing to music from the 1960s to the 1980s.  Cell phones must be turned off in restaurants and other places of assembly.  We live in luxury homes, with really nice bathrooms, because life is short — see below for my health care mandate.  (How about that tent for Qaddafi? Nice tent, but I would have gone for living in the house already on the grounds of the estate in Bedford.  So much easier than schlepping your summer home to another country.)

So I need a new name as leader of a new sovereign nation.  How about, “Her Eccentricity, the Blogger Formerly Known as 40andover”. 

Transfats will be permitted because no health care system can afford people living to their tenth decade.  So, for the good of the nation and the economic futures of our children, we will live less than 100 years.  But if, try as he or she might, a person still lives to 100 and beyond, we will still love him or her because we No-where-istanis are tolerant and loving people. 

I haven’t figured out the prickly issues of immigration in, and emigration out, of my head.  There are so many logistical problems. 

But, Glenn Beck, you are hereby denied a visa to my country. 

Anderson Cooper, you can come for short times but no “digging deeper,” or else you’ll give me an unintended root canal.

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Buying Challah can be a Contact Sport

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Tonight is the start of Rosh HaShanah and the ten days of introspection, reflection, repentance and atonement, culminating in Yom Kippur.

But today, today, is the day when frantic Jews push and shove to get the ingredients of the holiday meals.

The rule is:  tonight, we start atoning for what we did at the store today.

I went out to get a challah (special bread for Sabbaths and holidays) from the neighborhood bakery on the upper, Upper West Side.  I stand in a long line winding its way outside this adorable store front.  All is seemingly calm until I move into the store as my turn comes up.  I hear in a booming voice:

“I put my order in DAYS ago!! Last name FERNberg. F-E-AWR-N-B-E-AWR-G.  FernBERG.  5 plain, 2 raisin challahs!!!  Do I have to call my husband?”

One woman is so upset that she isn’t being paid attention that she refuses all bakery workers’ efforts to assist her.  She needs to feel oppressed.  This is the kind of stuff that should happen in the privacy of a psychiatrist’s office.

Then a rumor rages rampant that only raisin and whole wheat (oy) challahs were left.  Now, comes the pushing and the shoving.  People step out of line, disgusted.  Then we find out there are plain challahs.  Now people want to step back into line.

Now comes a Talmudic question:  when a person voluntarily steps out of line but under false pretenses, does the person get his or her place back?

Great for Talmud, not for the hand-to-hand combat of pre-holiday upper, Upper West Side.

As everyone climbs over each other (vowing internally to start repentance tonight), I get my challah and leave quickly and, thank G-d, intact.

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It is a beautiful morning in a house of mirth

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Mornings are always hectic in our house. But not for me (note to self: be grateful; gloating could get you in trouble).

My partner (POB) is an early riser. My son has to be, too, since he needs to get to school on time. I hear the noise, confusion and (mostly) gentle prodding of our son to get ready. I am still lying in bed with a pillow over my head. Then in barrels our son, ready for some rough-housing in the morning (which he quaintly calls cuddling — even when we play two crashing trains). I rise to the occasion and then fall back in my bed when he scampers off to school.   Off they go to school via bus or subway — more than I could ever manage.

For the first week of school, POB was away on business and our son was anxious about his new school. The cajoling and prodding took a long time. Plus, POB told me that we had to be there a whole 15 minutes earlier than necessary — a lifetime in the morning. Hmmmmm. She now feigns innocence as if I conjured this up out of the air. Obviously, since I was barely compos mentis at these early hours, we took cabs to school.

The minute POB returned from her trip, our son gave me up but said helpfully, “We were running late.” Thanks for the cover, bud.  I appreciate your sticking by me as you rat me out. Note to self: have his aunt, “the vault”, teach him some pointers about secrets.

So, POB is strong, fearless and awake enough to take public transportation.  Our family fisc thanks her.

The good news is that she is adaptive to any situation.

This morning I get an email from POB that recognizes and affirms me in all my frailties and is also practical:

“[Our son] had to use the bathroom on the way to school [NOTE: he never wants to go before he leaves so we get into this problem] so we ducked into McDonalds which took FOREVER so I channeled my inner [me, the blogger] and we took a cab. We made it just in time – and [our son] was truly apologetic so we vowed to launch the Morning Team to better figure this out.”   [Note to self:  keep your head down and don’t make eye contact, lest you are picked for the team.]

An episode in the morning of a house of mirth.

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Fairy godmother angel of love

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So, I am in a mood most foul after a typical day on my own personal road to Utopia when I descend into the malodorous 42nd Street subway station.

There, to my surprise is . . .IMG00052 the Angel of Love.

And, she is handing out . . .

IMG00053

messages of love.

And, I am charmed. She seems so guileless and weird.  She is probably an out-of-work actress rather than an out-of-her-mind NYer.

And then I think, does she make a living this way?  Can I do this AND support my family?

One moment’s flight of fantasy is followed by the cold-hearted calculations, all in the City where there is a broken heart for every light on Broadway.

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Good things on the subway

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This morning on the subway, a man was laughing out loud as he read an article in the newspaper.  It was a happy laugh as if someone were enjoying a good story. 

This being New York, I immediately looked over to make sure he was not chuckling over the daily carnage reported in the national and international sections of newpapers. 

To my relief, he was reading an article in the Arts Section of the New York Times.  I relaxed and enjoyed listening to his delight while reading the article.

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Odd things against the backdrop of a sad day for our nation

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In New York City, it is overcast and raining.  Not just a sprinkle but the bone-chilling, clothes-drenching kind of day that can make a person melancholy.  That is fitting for the anniversary of September 11, 2001.

I got my son off to school this morning.  6am-9am are not my “prime time” hours.  Let’s just say that for the first two mornings, I returned to the house after drop-off, to sleep a little, shower and get to the office.  Given the cost of the various taxis, this is not a sustainable practice even for the “AM challenged” like me.  Luckily, his other mom comes home tonight from a business trip.  She likes mornings, G-d bless her. 

But today I was meeting a friend at a coffee shop at 8:30am, so I had to be showered and dressed BEFORE drop-off.  This required success-oriented self-coaching last night.  Today I could not hit the snooze button.  I had to be fully groomed and ready with breakfast, packed lunch and washed, dressed and fed child.  After a successful drop-off (phew) off I went in the whipping wind and drastically cooler temperatures to meet my friend.

Neither of us had been to this coffee shop, which turned out to be a 1950s style, singing coffee shop.  The servers (the genderless version of waitress or waiter because “waitron” sounds like a machine) sing. At 8:30AM.  Think about that.  Most people don’t want to hear another’s voice until the crack of 10:15AM, but these servers are belting out songs at 8:30AM.  

Some servers/singers are good, some not so much.  The guy who sang Paul Simon’s “Call me, Al” should have had the microphone ripped out of his hands.  At the risk of being redundant, it is 8:30am, and he is crooning in full voice WITH microphone in a cavernous space where there are few customers.  My friend and I, as 40-and-overs, asked another server to turn down the volume of anything, the senseless movie playing in the background, the background music or the singer.  The response was, “well, we are singing servers.”  How nice for you, really; how unlucky for us.  This is when I wished I had a hearing aid to turn off.

My friend and I called on our powers of concentration and focused.  We giggled about things, talk business some, and talk family (the latter is always bittersweet).  At one point, all the noise — oops, I mean music and singing — stopped and I realized was yelling over the din.  So, I guess I did get the experience of what it must be like to have a hearing aid.

Apparently, one goes to the place for the entertainment and not for the food.  Which makes a person wonder how this place survives the recession.

But it was a great place to have coffee because it created a bloggable moment.  And the guy who sang, “Call me, Al” really should look for another line of work.

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Redemption Song

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IMG00044IMG00045Last night I entered the 42nd Street subway station and I heard someone doing a pitch-perfect rendition of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.  People were singing along.

I was in a “woe-is-I” mood.  [“Won’t you help to sign these songs of freedom?”]

I was feeling like this economic and political quagmire would just continue and there would be no new start for our country.   [“how long will they kill our prophets as we stand aside and look? Some say it’s just a part of it, we have to fulfill the book”.] 

How am I going to get out of this funk and enjoy life again and be grateful for all that I have [“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.”]

So, I started singing along, “Redemption song; Redemption song,” with strangers and it was stirring.  I am still humming it today.

Inspiration comes in the strangest of places.  In the bowels of NYC in the overcrowded, smelly Times Square Station.  Redemption song.  Redemption song.

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Another accidental audience

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I am in a real estate closing, waiting for documents to be finalized and payments mades.

A small, but irritating fact, the lawyer for the purchaser can’t stop telling me how important and busy is his client, the husband (busier than the rest of us, who are present, obviously) so we have to have him sign and get out fast.  He clearly does not realize that there are many busy people in this room, two of whom are there out of love and obligation to sellers (one deceased; the other living in an alternate reality).    Whatever.

This lawyer also thinks he is the first person in the world to have a newborn.  Of course, he is speaking to his client, the wife, a woman who has a small child and is pregnant.  He says things like, my wife pumps breast milk all the time.  In fact, he says his refrigerator used to have ice cream and waffles, now it is filled with pumped milk.  I am sure I needed to know that the bassinet is next to his wife’s side of the bed so she can bring him into bed to nurse.  We are now learning about his mother-in-law who is staying with them. She works for a chiropractor. Fabulous.

Wow, to think I lived without his virtual baby manual during the first 7 years of my son’s life.

I just want to get out of here.

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The Fat Pictures

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I was a skinny, athletic kid, until 16.  From 16 to 22, I was hefty (a term I find preferable to chunky, heavy or the big “O” word).  Since 22, I have slimmed down and, while not so athletic anymore at 45, I am fit.  Every now and again, when I recount my years of being “two tons of fun”, people are often disbelieving and want to see the fat pictures. 

Well they surfaced on Facebook, courtesy of a college friend to whom I haven’t spoken in years and years and, after this, may not for many years to come.  Ok, I am exaggerating.  I’ll talk to him at our 60th college reunion because we will both be senile.

I can honestly say I have been the trifecta of fat, dumb and happy — all at once and at different times.

Ah, the joys and perils of connectivity.

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