Tag: New York City

  • Odd Start to Summer for the Kid

    New York City is just weird compared to the rest of the country, so let’s just start right there. I say this because around here, kids are off from school for July and August. The month of July is when all the camps happen, both sleep-away and day camps. August is the vacation month, or at least that’s when most people take their vacations, because August is honestly the worst month to be in NYC; it’s hot, humid, and there is this tar/urine/wet-garbage smell that is everywhere. Last Summer, in the month of July, the kid was in a day camp for the first two weeks in July, then we spent a couple of days with friends in Vermont. Following that, the kid took the last week in July to visit a friend in Virginia. It was only when we got to August that we started running around the parks and playgrounds again, and the kid made some friends that she ended up seeing most days, so she had someone to play with. We left on vacation right after school ended, and now that we are back in the City, the kid is running into the problem that there aren’t any kids her age to play with at the playground. There are little kids under six years old, but very few kids over that age. And today, it finally clicked in why that is; all the older kids are at camps. And it is really hot out, too. It’s an odd start to Summer in the City for the kid. Added on top of that is the inevitable let down of coming home from after a vacation. Home just seems very dull after a week of staying up late, eating ice cream, and going to amusement parks. She’s a little bored, and I am okay with her learning how to deal with boredom. Yet, I also had hoped that there would be a few kids she could run around with.

  • Walking Around New York

    I don’t get to walk around New York City like I used to. The advantage of having a job in the City, at least for me, was that it would take me to a different neighborhood than where I lived. On lunch breaks, I would go for a walk.

    When I used to work off of 54th Street, near The Ed Sullivan Theatre, it was fun to walk among the Broadway houses and Times Square. There were a bunch of tourists, but it was fun to watch people from all around the world be amazed at the buildings and signs. I liked walking around on matinee days, and seeing chorus members out running errands. You knew they were in a chorus because they had normal clothes on, but their faces were made up in stage makeup. Another cool thing about being around the Ed Sullivan was that, depending on who was a guest on Letterman, you might see that celebrity walking around the area before the show.

    When I was down on 18th Street, that wasn’t too far from Union Square, and if I felt really adventurous, I could walk down to the north end of the Village and experience the tree lined streets filled with Federal styles row houses. Unions Square was great for people watching, as it wasn’t filled with tourists, and more just local people. Especially on Farmer’s Market days, when there was a great mix of local upstate farms selling all kids of produce. But walking on the Village streets was always a calming experience for me. I would look at the brick homes, and the converted brownstones and wonder what it would be like to be able to walk out your door, and have everything you need only being three blocks or less away.

    My other favorite memory of walking around the City was a long time ago in the Fall, when I was in a puppet show in the Lower East Side. It was a three-week run, and we did a double show on Sundays. The show wasn’t very long, about an hour, so we would have a long break on Sundays, and when we did get out at night, it wasn’t too late. I loved zigzagging through the named streets, and the converted tenement buildings. There was miles of sidewalk scaffolding for inaccessible condo towners that shot up like weeds. It was a cold Fall that season, and everyone was bundled up, and walking hunched over. Some nights, the cast would get a drink together, and then I would wander around, a little drunk, hearing the laughter and shouts falling and spreading out of the bars onto the narrow sidewalks. It was like hearing a million possibilities and adventures calling out.

    I tried this morning to walk a bit. I dropped the car off for an oil change, and I took the long way home. Hell’s Kitchen on a weekday morning isn’t exactly the hive of excitement it was ten hours earlier, but it was a nice change from West Harlem. The Supers were out spraying down the sidewalks, and piling up garbage bags. There was a buzz about the people moving along to where they were going, as there is always something to do, or needs to be done, around here.

    It’s not a perfect place, but I do love living around here. I have begun to think I might not live in this town much longer. So on days like today, I try to enjoy the simple act of walking the city.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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