Tag: New York City

  • Learning the Subway

    The kid is off from school today. A teacher in-service or something. She’s getting old enough now that I don’t have to keep an eye on her all the time, nor do I need to keep her entertained endlessly. But I don’t want her sitting around the apartment all day either.

    So, I made her run errands with me. Errands that took us out of the neighborhood. Errands that meant we were going to ride the subway together.

    New York City is not the best place for kids, I admit it. Kids see and hear things maybe they shouldn’t, and it can cause them to grow up a little too soon. But, when that happens, me and the kid have a conversation about what she saw and heard. I mean, that’s the job of being a parent sometimes; talking about uncomfortable stuff. And yes, the subway has lead to a great many conversations.

    And the subway is how the kid will primarily get around in this town. I feel it is my duty as a parent and a transplanted New Yorker, the teacher my child who is a natural born New Yorker, how to use this world famous example of mass transit.

    We started with learning the difference between local and express, followed by what uptown and downtown means. Then we talked about the difference between letter and number local and express trains. Now, we are trying to memorize the stops; 125, 116, 110, 103, 96, 86, 81, 72 and 59. Sure, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the MTA, but from the kid’s perspective, that’s her world when running around New York.

    I know for her, the City is vast, and these stops really don’t register as distances in relation to being away from home. It’s a little like magic for her. You go underground, get in a train, and come up in a different world, with different places and people. in that sense, NYC can be a pretty wonderful experience for a kid as well.

    (Say! If you like what you have read, please like, share, and leave a comment. It would help justify my existence.)

  • I Slept on the Couch

    Now, let me explain.

    As I said yesterday, the kid had a stomach bug, and she threw up a handful of times. So, as we got to bedtime, she understandably was nervous that she would get sick in the middle of the night. We gave her a bowl, just in case, and I promised her that I would stay in the living room, where she could easily call for me.

    Which meant that I slept on the couch.

    I guess I could have slept in my bed with my wife, but I was afraid that the kid would be up and down all night, and if she got me each time, then no one would get a good night’s sleep. You know, I was going to take one for the team.

    Turns out the kid slept soundly through the night.

    I, on the other hand, not so much. Not that I was upset about it. Not sleeping is part of the job.

    The couch isn’t the best to begin with, and the pads and pillows are getting worn down. When you lay on it, you feel the springs and the wood joints. I was waking up every hour or so, as when I would roll over, something would poke me.

    But the advantage the couch has over my bed is that the couch is next to a window. With it still being appropriately seasonable, the window was open with a slight cool early summer breeze coming in. As was the sounds of Harlem, that equally drifted in.

    Sure, there are sounds of sirens and car’s honking. Occasionally someone will start yelling, or a crashing sound explodes in the distance. All of that happened last night, as does that sound of the City humming. What makes that sound? Is it like white light, with all the colors combining to make it? Do all the City’s sounds mix together to make that hum?

    I bet some one could answer that question for me, but I don’t want to know the answer.

    The City just hums at night.

    (If you enjoyed this post, please like, comment or share it. Still trying to pay some bills here.)

  • A Night of Theatre and Being Out

    Last night, I went to see my friends in a puppet show. It was titled SORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER and was performed at HERE, as part of their PUPPETOPIA puppet fest. I loved the show, but my view might be a little biased. Sure, it was a puppet show, I love puppet shows, and it was created and performed by my friends. The subject of the piece is about a woman with dementia, and is an “interpretation of what is in her weather mind.” It’s also about losing a loved one to a disease, which struck a deep chord with me. I found myself reliving the feelings I had during that week in hospice, slowly watching my mother slip away in a haze of painkillers, only to become a husk of a vital person that she was. It made me admit again that there are issues of her passing that I still need to uncover and unpack.

    After the show, I got to see my friends and talk to them briefly. The last time I saw them was back in September 2018 when we did a puppet show together, and I missed being in their presence. It was a nice chance to have a hug, and say it was nice to see you, and to have contact again with people. For such a bittersweet melancholy show, it was a nice that I got to visit with them, and have an honest fulfilling smile as I made my way out of the theatre.

    And this was an evening for me. The wife and the kid were having a mother/daughter night, so dad could go out, and have a break. So, I walked up Hudson Street with this crazy idea that I would go to The White Horse Tavern, as it was a writer’s hang out, and good ol’ Jack Kerouac got kicked out of the joint so often that it was a joke to tell him to go home. But what I thought would be a low-key Wednesday night turned out to be a very happening night in the West Village. All the restaurants were full, as were the bars, and there was no room at the tavern for me.

    But, it didn’t bother me, as I was happy to be out in the City again. Sure, I was in a rich, swanky part of the City, and not exactly my crowd, yet there were people out and walking and talking and it was good to see, or I guess, remind myself of what I liked about the City. It was a pleasant not too warm Spring evening, with conversations floating around and bumping into each other, not unlike the people standing and waiting to get a table or seat at the joint they were in front of.

    What I did was make my way back to the subway, and headed for Harlem. I knew that the chance of me getting seat at one of my local bars was better. And I was right. I was able to camp at a corner seat, so I could watch the Mav’s get crushed by Golden State, and I could also hear a guy complain about his job to the bartender. I had my beer and a bourbon neat, and the windows were open in the place, so the sounds of the City could come in. A nice reminder why I like living in this place.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Moving, Weather, Tottenham, and Crappy Time Lords

    (Half days are killers)

    Last night, we brought up the idea of moving apartments to the kid. She did not like the idea, and I understand why. Her objection was that she didn’t want to leave her friends, and I knew that was coming. Having gone through the pandemic and not being able to see anyone, she now is living a rather normal childhood; school, parks, friends. (She’s just missing playdates, but I know that is coming.) For a seven-year-old, she’s living the dream. We mentioned to her that moving to a different neighborhood in the City would mean that we would have a bigger apartment to live in, and though she would be in a different school, we were still in the City and can come back and visit her friends. That didn’t sell her. To her, our little corner of Harlem is the best place in the world.

    I don’t like getting older sometimes. Lately, I keep thinking and talking about the weather, which clearly is a sign that I am getting older. Such as, it was 40 degrees this morning, and it’s the end of April. As we are about to hit May, it should be warmer. I say this because the month of May is one of the reasons I still live in New York City. It’s supposed to be not too hot and not too cold. It’s a Baby Bear month! I want to put on a lite coat and sunglasses and take a walk. It’s the little things in life that make it worth living, and I need my little things, damn it!

    Tottenham better beat Leicester, and West Ham needs to beat Arsenal. That’s my weekend.

    What if we are living in the “fixed” timeline? What if things got so bad that people in the future went back in time and “fixed” whatever made things so bad, and this is the “better” version of things?

  • Summer Vacation

    I have started planning for Summer. Vacations, and interactions, and all that other stuff.

    When I was a kid, Summer just meant sleeping in and watching tv all day. I grew up in Texas, and the Summers last from May to October. I’m not kidding when I say that. It can be very normal for the average high in October to be in the 80’s. My memory is that when Halloween rolled around, that was about the point when it started to feel Fall-like, which means that it got up to the 70’s in the day.

    With it being so hot, we stayed inside often, but that’s not to say that we didn’t go outside and sweat our asses off. The kid who had the pool in the neighborhood became everyone’s best friend June through August. But, being inside, I remember hearing the hum of the central air clicking on, and that low rumbling sound, like white noise, creating an audio-scape that would lull me off into a nap, as there was nothing better to do.

    The other thing I remember about Summers growing up, was that the season created odd friendships in the neighborhood. My close friends always had some place to be; a vacation, or visiting family out of state, or for the kids of divorce, spending the whole summer with their other parent. Those of us left in the subdivision became friends out of necessity. I remember hanging out the jock kids, or bullies, or even girls, the people who I would normally not mix with became rapt conspirators in Summer. But inevitably, when the school year started up again, we’d all go back to our groups, and resume the cliques we existed in.

    With my kid, and planning trips and whatnot, I wonder how she will come to view the Summer of her youth? Here in NYC, it is rather short, of only two months, making a total of ten weeks. If what I have planned happens, we will be out of the City for four weeks, leaving six weeks, which I feel the need to fill with some sort of activity. It’s like, I cannot let the kid be bored. Though when I think back on it, boredom was what Summer vacation from school was.