A couple weeks ago I lost my mother’s necklace. The week before, two pairs of earrings and a necklace of my own. Back in June, I lost two pairs of pants while cleaning out the closet in preparation for our “house viewing” by prospective buyers.
Today I couldn’t open the gym locker after my workout, even though I always use the same combination. I had to get the Facilities guy to unlock it for me. Luckily, it is one of those “modern” locks and can be opened with a master key. So I sat in the locker room waiting, my office attire held hostage.
I didn’t feel like going back to my desk in brown yoga pants and a blue T-shirt, so I had time for contemplation.
Contemplating my manic state, and how I could get locked out of something as benign as a gym locker.
Contemplating the absurd, the trivial, and what got me to this place. Yes, to this locker room, separated from my work uniform, my daily armor.
Isn’t that what we do every day when we leave the sanctity and security of our homes? Suit up for battle? Hope for the best and anticipate the worst. Weather the elements and brave the municipal transportation system. And at the end of the day, hope to make it home in one piece.
Late night bus rides are never dull. After 10:01 p.m., the buses arrive at different gates, in more distant, less-trafficked chambers of Port Authority Bus Terminal (“PABT”). More tourists, more drunk people, a generic strain of weirdos and lost souls (aren’t we all?).
I arrived at PABT at 10:40 p.m. last night after seeing an opera with my friend. The next bus was scheduled for 11:05 p.m. A jocular becspectacled woman with a thick mane of dirty blonde hair bounced toward the front of the gate. Some of us were leaning against the wall and a few others, lined up.
“Where do we line up?” she said, smiling widely. “Do we stand ‘in line’ or ‘on line’? Do we have any grammar Nazis here?”
I said, “I think it’s ‘on line.’ ”
“In school it was a really big deal. We stood on line, that’s what we did. Always a line.”
“Yes, we did,” I said.
She fished into her canvas tote bag, pulled out five soft black and white balls and started juggling.
A guy leaning against the wall next to me said, “Wow, I could never do that.”
The lady said, “Oh, we can teach you. Come to Bryant Park any Wednesday between 5 and 7. We’re always there. I find it makes people smile. It’s all about getting people to smile.”
If her smile was any wider, I thought it would tear the sides of her mouth until they bled.
She dropped a ball and returned all five balls to their tote bag.
“Oh, alcohol makes everything better!” she said.
The leaning guy and I smiled at her.
Definitely a New York moment.
It was one of those times where you enjoyed the moment, but felt a bit on edge, like you had to participate in this person’s exuberance no matter how tired you were. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there was a tinge of danger and volatility to her. I thought if we looked at her the wrong way or didn’t smile, she might fly off the handle.
We were a captive audience.
I was happy when the bus arrived and I could burrow into a seat towards the back of the bus and close my eyes. I had had enough excitement for one day.
1. Family stencils / decals on the back of cars, or what my husband Lorin calls “the serial killer’s menu.”
(google)
2. People who ride Citi Bikes (New York thing) on the sidewalk. It’s both rude and dangerous. Oh, and don’t get me started on the ones who go through red lights and ride on the wrong side of the road.
3. People who race through Shoprite as if their carts are on fire. It’s kind of weird and also dangerous: you could hit a little kid or old lady that way!
(photo by me)
4. Why cashiers at Duane Reade say, “the following guest” or simply “the following”? I never feel like I’m a guest at Duane Reade. Are we at a party or a pharmacy?
5. Why we can’t pump our own gas in New Jersey. NJ folks text, apply makeup, give themselves bikini waxes, eat entire meals, read newspapers and talk on the phone in their cars, but we’re not allowed to pump our own gas. Some of us don’t mind a bit: bumper stickers and T-shirts abound proclaiming:
6. Why Governor Christie is still in office. The New York Times aired the latest dirty laundry: giving his pal Donald Trump a major break on taxes for the Taj Mahal Casino. No wonder the Garden State can’t afford decent lighting on the roadways and pothole repair.
7. Why people don’t like Sphynx cats. Come on, look at this puss.
8. Short people on the NJ Transit bus who lean their seats all the way back so the person behind them gets their legs crushed. Is it a Napoleon complex? By the way, it’s generally smaller women who do this. Same goes for people on airplanes. It’s rude!
9. People with “glass head syndrome.” Those are the co-workers who are friendly to you one day and the next look through you as if your head was made of glass and you don’t exist.
10. Cookie dough ice cream. Both cookie dough and the ice cream of the same name make me sick to my stomach, and I love baking.
The beauty, the pageantry, the test of human endurance and achieving athletic triumphs heretofore unknown: the Olympic Games. The glory of the human body and spirit. What could be wrong with that?
Location, location, location.
Why Rio? One in seven Rio denizens lives in cinderblock shacks or “favelas” stacked on top of one another. Violence and street gangs run rampant.
Rio’s governor declared a “state of calamity” last month because the administration had run out of funds for public security and healthcare. Part of this was due to spending on the Olympic Games. Contracts for stadiums, transportation and port renovations have added to the already enormous wealth of Brazil’s elite families and their companies.
One of the most expensive Olympic projects is the $3 billion subway extension linking the wealthy suburb of Barra de Tijuca to the tony beach neighborhoods Leblon and Ipanema. 92-year-old billionaire Carlos Caravalho is one of the men who owns most of Barra’s land. Once the games come to a close, all 31 of the Olympic Village’s 17-story towers will be converted into luxury condos.
In an interview with The Guardian last year, he [Carvalho] spoke of his dream to turn Barra into “a city of the elite, of good taste.” This is why he dubbed the Athletes’ Village development Ilha Pura, or pure island. “It needed to be noble housing,” Carvalho said, “not housing for the poor.” (The Atlantic, “The Broken Promise of the Rio Olympics,” Alex Cuadros, Aug. 1, 2016)
So pure does not equal poor.
Mayor Eduardo Paes, an Olympics enthusiast, belongs to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, representing the old establishment. He is the son of a highly respected attorney and a member of Rio’s elite.
Beyond the economic concerns surrounding the projects of the Summer Games, there is the substantial human cost. Under Paes, more than 20,000 families have been evicted from their homes. It’s the most extensive favela removal drive in Rio’s history—and a far cry from the mayor’s declared goal of social integration. (The Atlantic, “The Broken Promise of the Rio Olympics,” Alex Cuadros, Aug. 1, 2016)
Paes admitted in an interview that the Olympics were used as an excuse to complete unrelated projects and that his goal is to make Barra the new hub of international business.
Nothing wrong with growing business, but it seems that average citizens were once again deceived. They were told the Olympics would benefit all of Rio, but this is indeed not the case. One could say the same thing if the homeless of New York City were told that Olympic Games held in the Big Apple would improve their quality of life. They might also be “relocated” or have their makeshift cardboard homes destroyed.
My intention is not to rain on anyone’s Olympic parade, but simply to shed some light on a perhaps not-so-well kept secret. The elites strike again!
Source: The Atlantic, “The Broken Promise of the Rio Olympics,” Alex Cuadros, Aug. 1, 2016.
Another article of interest: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/world/americas/brazil-rio-olympics-crime-poverty-favelas.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger, along comes Pinot Meow–a non-alcoholic, catnip-based wine for cats. The other variety is MoscCATo. Both were created by cat lover Brandon Zavala of Apollo Peak in Denver, Colorado. I heard about this while watching an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher yesterday.
Zavala says, “I originally thought of the idea as a joke with some friends and I just slapped a label of this ‘Pinot Meow’ onto a wine bottle and from that got the idea to actually start something for cats.”
The feline elixir which hit the markets in November 2015 has become an international sensation, and Zavala promises a canine variety will be available in the near future.
On July 30, The Denver Post reported that Donald Trump and members of his Secret Service were stuck in a stalled elevator between the first and second floors at The Mining Exchange, a luxury hotel and resort, in Colorado Springs. Luckily, the Fire Department came to the rescue. Thank goodness!
Trump was none too happy with the fire marshal for restricting the number of people attending his rally in Colorado. Never the shrinking violet, he let his feelings be known:
“This is why our country doesn’t work,” Trump said as he slammed the Colorado Springs fire marshal during the rally, moments after the department’s firefighters rescued him. The paper reported that Trump said the fire marshal “didn’t know what he was doing and ‘was probably a Democrat.’ “
Yes, that makes perfect sense. Our country doesn’t work because of incompetent fire marshals who rescue people from elevators, and of course, being a Democrat also lessens the probability that he had the requisite skills to perform his duties.
I’m surprised Trump didn’t blame President Obama or Hillary Clinton for the elevator debacle, Perhaps it will go down in history as “Elevatorgate.”
The idea of a would-be president being trapped in an elevator in the so-called “Mining Exchange” brings to mind the “mineshaft gap” in Dr. Strangelove. I think Mr. Trump might enjoy living in a mine shaft since he’s so enamored with the idea of using nuclear weapons. In his own words, “If we have them, we can’t we use them?”
Suburban Hobo 