Tag Archives: accidental audience

Another typical day on the road to Utopia

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I went out to lunch again with a colleague — one who indulges my need to document life around me.

These photos don’t really need a narrative.  A tender moment (?) on not-so-tender 6th Avenue and 50th Street.  Is this where you want to tell your children that daddy proposed and mommy said yes?  I guess that I’ll leave up to you to decide who is crazier.  I think it is the girl for saying yes. And the outfit requires a 911 make-over.

As if that weren’t enough, I read the Radio City Musical Hall promos and juxtaposed were:

Ok, Chelsea Handler shares billing with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  And we wonder why our civilization is rounding the drain.

Hey, I just show what I see.

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I love the camera on my blackberry

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Today, I was walking with a colleague to catch a bite at lunch when I saw two ladies, somewhere between the ages of older and ancient, crossing against the light with their backs to a truck that fast approaching.  I wanted to take a picture of this insane scene (after I made sure the truck stopped).  I took out my blackberry although the ladies were going slow enough that (after I made sure the truck stopped) I could have gone to a camera shop, bought a camera and come back in time to catch a live “action” shot, as it were. 

My colleague looked at me as if I had three heads (I only have two).  Then I started showing him the pictures I have on my blackberry — a colleague standing in front of a life-sized Catholic icon for sale, urbanites eating outdoors next to the garbage and the vagrants, a sign about septic danger, a scary food store somewhere on Cross Bronx Boulevard in Scarytown, NY where another colleague and I looked for Advil on the way home from a business trip. 

Lunch was quick and awkward.  I think he was scared I would take a picture of him with food falling out of his mouth.  So, in an effort to try to calm what I thought were his concerns, I talked with food coming out of my mouth.  I think I just grossed him out.  And made him more afraid.

I’ll let you know if he asks me to lunch again.

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Synagogue Retreat at the Norman Bates Motel

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Ok, this is a long, random recounting, so bear with me.

My sister thinks that her trip on a Greyhound bus to a casino — where, no joke, a medical conference and training were being held — brought her very close to the common denominator of humanity. She emailed me that when she got to the bus gate at Port Authority, the woman in front of her on line just started talking to her.  The woman was traveling back from Florida to Providence. She had to go to Florida to get her mother’s ashes, which were in the shopping bag that she showed to my sister in case she wanted to see. (I wish my sister knew how to use the camera feature on her cell phone. A picture would have really made the moment.)  The woman had spent 3 days on a bus and needed to smoke a cigarette, had trouble in her childhood but has now straightened out, etc.

Dear SOB (sister of blogger), welcome to my world.  It is good that you experience your birthright — i.e., Mom’s magnetism for the strange, creepy and absurd.

Well, I am at a synagogue retreat. It was a rustic experience. Lots of rules — you need to observe the Sabbath and subscribe to the Jewish dietary restrictions — not on the quantity but on the depth to which the culinary arts must sink in order to conform to Kosher laws. Alcohol is Kosher, for which many people gave thanks to G-d. Also, no coffee Saturday morning because it is the Sabbath and one cannot use electricity or fire. Really? Really? Does anyone want really want to deal with me de-caffeinated? Also tonight someone by accident started making coffee before the end of the Sabbath.  Before we could descend on the heavenly libation, the moshkiach (the Kosher police) told the kitchen workers that they had to dump out the coffee. Wastefulness CAN’T be kosher.

There are many blessings that are new to me. The place has helpful plaques to assist in mastering them. I took a picture of the blessing after one eliminates in the bathroom, thanking G-d for the creation of certain cavities in the body. Really? My orthodox grandmother said this prayer? Even when she had indigestion? This must be an invention of those “too cool for shul” types. I am not kidding. Look at the picture.

Ever trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I have decided that we would learn this prayer and recite it every time our father discusses his irregularity.  Maybe we could teach it to him.  Clearly, I am going on the slow boat the Hell.

The place was kind of like that.  As you enter, there is a sign saying, “We are blessed by your presence”.  Ok, someone should be holding judgment until we leave.  There should even be a sign flashed for a specific few (like me), “We are blessed by your leaving.”

“Blessed by your presence”?  Trying to create holy, kumbaya, religious space and energy at crash-landing impact, after braving hellish Friday night traffic.  I thought to sing, “someone’s kumbaya-ing my Lord,” but I didn’t want to say kumbaya to that.  This is getting to crazy, with the aggressive, reverse Kumbaya on the Sabbath.  Slow boat.  Nah, I am taking the express train to Hell.

As you may have surmised, we couldn’t do much documentation on the Sabbath because that required use of electricity or batteries, so I had to take pictures in secret and I couldn’t blog.  Now that was harsh.  As my own little rage against the machine, I turned on my iPod just BEFORE I left the premises to go on my run.  Ah, the little subversities. But, as usual I digress.

Friday night, after blessing the group with our presence (or so the sign said), we proceeded to our promised charming two bedroom cabin.  The advertising was so wrong it should be a felony.  So one civil crime justifies a religious crime — desecration of the Sabbath — to take these pictures:

Is this a charming two-bedroom cabin? Type that into wikipedia and I bet that you won’t see a picture of this.  Really??  This is a three-bed cabin.  Ooops, there must have been a mistake.  No?  No mistake, this is the very finest that the camp has to offer?  In the county in Connecticut with the highest per capita income?  Really?  Really?  I am in a mood most foul and approach the rabbis about the relative merits of, say, a Ritz Carlton.  Not so my friends can get business, but it is a base level that to which we should become accustomed.

But at least the turn-down service left conflict-free chocolate on the beds:

But the real kicker is that in the light of day on Saturday, I realized that I had parked my rented super-huge, gas-guzzling monstrosity here:

Ok, I am a convert:  There, but for the Grace of G-d, go I.

~ the Blogger

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Wall Street Cab Driver

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It was too beautiful this morning to get into the subway (and, surprise, I was running late), so I hopped a cab and asked the driver to drive through Central Park, so that I could enjoy the beauty that the car exhaust was destroying.  But I digress.

The cab driver mentioned how New York has changed since the 1970s even though he believes that there is more crime than the official statistics would suggest.  I asked him if he had always driven a cab, knowing in the back of my mind that anyone who didn’t know that you could get the Park Drive going south at 100th Street and Central Park West hasn’t been a cab driver for too long.

No, he was a bond trader and was laid off in 2000 when the bond markets were rocked by one thing or another.  He was a golf caddy for a while and he turned down a job back on Wall Street in 2001 because the pay package was too low.  Yup, you guessed it — at a firm in the World Trade Center.  Ok, Gordon Gekko, in this case, greed saved his life.  Actually, he isn’t really Gekko-esque.  After all, he is driving a cab.  He said the pay package was too low because bond traders were a dime a dozen and people were scrambling to get work.  But he had paid off his mortgage and cashed out of equities as soon as he was laid off, so he was ok.  Not rich, but ok.  Clearly, because he is driving a cab.

A serene cab driver who would rather compete for fares in New York City than go back to Wall Street.  Now that is saying something.

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One thing leads to another

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I started the weekend early by slipping out to go to the ear doctor.  Most people wouldn’t call that the start of a weekend.  But my ears have been clogged and itchy on and off for some time and more and more people have told me that they’ve been to the ear doctor and the problem was wax.  Deriving from a deep-seating egotism or martyrdom — I am not sure — I assumed that the ear doctor would look into my ears, faint at the sight of the wax and then, once regaining consciousness, would suit up (a HazMat, of course) and begin excavation.

He looked into my ears, my ears and my throat.  He said, “No wax.  Your ears are clean.”  He looked at my expression and asked, “You were hoping for serious wax, weren’t you?”  I nodded.  He felt bad.  He said, “I am really sorry, but your ears naturally dispose of excess wax, just the way they are supposed to.  And it just may be allergies causing the itching and clogged feelings.”  I was so dejected.  He started to feel really bad.  He continued, “Look, I kept you waiting for 30 minutes and there was no wax, so I am waiving the co-pay for the visit.”  I protested, after all, it wasn’t his fault about the wax and he apologized for being late the moment he walked in the room, so my anger at that was assuaged.  “No,” he insisted, “give it to charity.”

I walked onto the street and tried to hail a cab during that ridiculous time of day when ALL cabs are “off-duty” — why every cab company must have the shift changing times is beyond me.  I inadvertently cut in front of a guy and ran to an off-duty cab because sometimes the driver will take you if the destination is on his way to the designated shift-changing location.  I felt bad — I don’t usually cut a line and this was right after the doctor waived a co-pay.  The guy looked odd but harmless enough.  So, I offered him a lift to his destination — Port Authority. This is a very non-New York thing to do.  A cab is one’s (rented) private domain from the beginning to the end of the ride.  Don’t get between a New Yorker and his or her cab.  It would get ugly fast.

It turns out the stranger in my cab was a doctor and a sheep farmer near Binghampton, NY and was in the city for a medical conference.  He hates the city and the thought of living on a farm gives me hives.  So, total opposites and that does not bode well for the 20 minutes remaining in our time together.  That is an eternity in a small space with a stranger who somehow feels beholden to make conversation.  And he was clearly not a natural conversationalist.  For example, he mentioned that not only does he get wool, milk but he also gets hides.  Picture a dead Bambi starring in the movie, “The Silence of the Lambs.”  He had noooooo sense of humor and seemed somewhat sad.  When we got to Port Authority, I declined his offer of payment and told him that my doctor waived the co-pay, and telling me to give it to charity and so I am doing the same here.

As the cab driver and I continued on to my destination, I said congenially, “Was I crazy to give a stranger a lift?”  The cab driver looked at me in his rear-view mirror and said, “You seem like a very nice spirit and a professional, educated person.”  I knew that that was a compliment and a way to say he thought I wasn’t crazy doing a good turn for a stranger, but it is fascinating how different cultures and the “immigrant experience” shape our language.  He then asked rhetorically, “You are Jew?”   Turns out Moustafa is a Muslim from Egypt and a civil engineer.  (A weird factoid: he is the third cab driver — all were Egyptian — to ask if I were a Jew.)  We had a wonderful chat about life, happiness and universality of humanity.

It is crazy how a doctor’s waiving a co-pay led ultimately to a conversation with Moustafa.  A conversation that lifted my spirits and reminded me of our common humanity.

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A Night at the Museum

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Last Thursday, I had the honor and pleasure of attending a celebration of the Iranian/Persian New Year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  As we walked into dinner in the magnificently lit Temple of Dendur, I was overwhelmed by the beauty, power and the antiquity of the objects in the room.

Of course, most of the night I was thinking that I looked and felt like sausage stuffed in taffeta. I have this great dress; it looks so beautiful on someone else. Unfortunately, I was wearing it. I wore the dress a year ago and, well, I learned that strapless doesn’t work on me. Let’s just say I have too much to expect a poor little dress to hold up.  Since last year’s event was my sister’s wedding, there are plenty of photos about which I will be embarrassed for decades to come.

I had straps sewn into the dress for this dinner to avoid flashing anyone and possibly forcing them to recoil in horror and into the shallow moat surrounding the Temple.  Still, a little too much cleavage. Next time, I will wear a nun’s habit.

I also couldn’t see because my black purse is small and I had to choose between my blackberry and my glasses.  My blackberry won.  Now, I can’t wait to go back to the Museum and read about the history and customs of the Persian New Year, without the kaleidoscope effect that happens when your vision is blurred and mascara is creeping into your eyes.

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Privacy, please

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It is funny how people give away private information about their kids without even knowing it.

I was at a meeting and we were talking about kids and dating and a colleague from the midwest said that her early-teens son was very friendly with girls but hadn’t decided on a girlfriend.  Fine so far.  Then she added, “but he is always out with them.  If there are seven girls going to the movies, he’s the only guy.”  Ok, ok, ok.

The difference between a New Yorker and a midwesterner is that we New Yorkers would know the implications of that fact pattern and would leave it to the son — and to time — to unravel the mysteries therein.

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Another gym story

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Yesterday, after a long day being charming at a conference on how to survive a bad economy (I think “pray” was the most viable strategy), I went to a nearby branch of my gym to work away the blues. This branch is located in a very expensive and fancy hotel and shopping complex. It is definitely a “flagship” branch with all of the bells and whistles and expensive amenities.

One notable amenity is the modesty areas, where one can dress and undress in private.  A premium in a city where every square foot costs a fortune.  Yet, it did seem unnecessary in a place where only the beautiful, the buff and the European work out and parade around.  What is naked hair drying about?  Naked nose-blowing?  Naked blackberrying?  Ok, the truth is that if I receive a message on my blackberry, I want the sender to be fully clothed.  I don’t need any other image clouding my brain and destroying cells.  If someone were to email me that he or she was in the gym locker room (because, like bloggers, people will write just about anything in an email), I would stop reading and wait for about a half hour until I thought the person was dressed and then continue reading.

The worst?  Naked blackberrying while standing in front of the mirror.  

Me? I like just being regular weird and not doing any of that eccentric stuff.

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We live in a crowded city

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I went to the gym again tonight as part of my new mind-body balance regimen.  Who am I kidding?  Myself, of course.  But let me dream for another day and then crash-land into Hershey milk chocolate nuggets, take-out food and acne.  For two days, I have breathed calmly and deeply, in with nourishing oxygen, out with bad energy.  It started out great, until I realized I was breathing car exhaust and then started hyperventilating, but I digress.

In my karmatically balanced state, I walked into the locker room, certain I would rise above the bloggable moment.  Then I rationalized even a vegan sneaks a bacon rasher every now again.  I had to entertain this juicy rationalization because I have to report the bloggable moment.  I walked over to the toilet stalls to the left of the sinks.  At the sinks were two women — strangers it appears — one, brushing her teeth (bravo on the oral hygiene), the other shaving her underarms (obviously ANYthing can be done in public nowadays).

Let’s reflect on that.  Oh, and someone was eating a power bar of some sort not 5 feet away.  I guess I should have mentioned that you shouldn’t read this while eating.  My bad.  All that carbon monoxide I was deep-breathing to cleanse my body.  Hmmmm.

I happen to know where the chocolate nuggets are stashed. . . .

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Keeping CNN Honest

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Haiti is in the midst of an unspeakable humanitarian crisis.   Groups with food, water and medicine were having hard times getting into the country because the Port-au-Prince airport was badly damaged. 

Still, CNN managed to put 6 correspondents on the ground to report on the misery and the sadness, in order to “get us the news we need to know”.  Thanks, Wolf Blitzer, but did your correspondents fly in ahead of the humanitarian relief?  Did your planes carry medicine and other necessities, too?  What are the reporters and camera crew eating and did they bring enough to share?

And how much do we really need to see after the initial footage of devastation?  How about just giving us phone numbers to call to donate for the relief effort, with hourly AP updates on relief efforts without new footage? 

This a tragedy of epic proportions.  Not an opportunity for a media circus.

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