Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

 So yeah, let's start here:  With some frequency, my mother would ask, did you see my email?  And I would say, nope, I did not.  And my mother would look down her nose and roll her eyes. Oh you young people with all your texting who don't know how the email works. She was so impatient.  For my part, idk, being not actually a young person but a Gen X'er extremely familiar with how the email works, I have managed to collect probably five email addresses over the years. So I just assumed the missing email went to one of my defunct yahoo accounts or something. Besides, Tom always was cc:ed so if it was anything important, he had the deets. If you're quick like this, you might be able to see where this is heading, but let me give you a couple other clues.  My father sent out in quick succession, the following two emails: This email came through without any explanation from my father. Just a big photo. That's my parents heads btw. Pop's into the photographic arts...

No one wanted it.         Two half used bottles of hair gloss. Went in a hot minute. Very old but maybe never used make up brushes. Added some half used hair chalk from Etsy and bam. Picked up within hours. Ten people wanted these authentic vintage 1980s sunglasses No one wanted this cute moose. Are you kidding me? It's adorable!   Super hot item alert. 6 giant very old candles. Gone in ten minutes.       No one wanted these brown paint samples. Look, originally I wouldn't have been surprised, but then someone else gave away paint samples so now I'm annoyed that no one wanted mine!   Oooh, these 1950s high heels were a quick hit! Also a hit! Gone in a matter of hours. Someone said they only wanted to Kermit and none of the other knock off beanie babies, or the weird stuffed hotdog. All of a sudden I decided I want to keep the Kermit. So. Stalemate.

We were up in the small town of Hudson for the weekend with Matt and Helen and there was a suggestion to go to a parade. I am always up for a parade.  This parade was, I'm going to say, sparsely spectated. It was like the four of us and ten locals standing on a corner just ahead of the appointed hour. We could hear a little music, but the parade still appeared to be a long ways off. Then someone sees this: it's a bear casually using the crosswalk   We all thought this was really funny. Just some rando bear strolling down main street mid-afternoon. "What?" An old guy we didn't know chuckles, "A BEAR on the street? Whoever heard of such a thing!" Me and my crew all kinda looked at each other because. Yeah. We'd all seen many many bear s on the street. In the other world known as downtown New York City, a bear is a furry, usually not slender gent of a certain orientation. You can always tell it's Bear Week when there's lots of them in leather to...

  NYC sidewalks : Not like suburban side walks. I was on a work Zoom the other day with a woman from somewhere in the woods in Washington state and this other woman from suburban Virginia.  One of them started talking, I can't remember why, about some study she had seen about how women usually make way for men and step aside when encountering them on the sidewalk. Then the other one said something about another study showing that if one group is headed toward another group, the smaller group will always make way for the larger. I was thinking, oh, I am very qualified to weigh in here. Like, excessively qualified. This is most every day of my life, playing the sidewalk game.  Not to brag or anything, but I'm extremely skilled at this game. Some days I play harder than others, but yeah. Like, if I'm in a mood and a finance bro in a puffy vest is headed directly down the middle of the sidewalk staring at his phone and mowing down old ladies... you bet your ass he's gonna g...

 We were at a restaurant the other day. When we sat down at the table, our silverware was wrapped in a nice cloth napkin, so I put the napkin on my lap.  Silverware wrapped up in a napkin. After the salad, they cleared away all the dishes and also the silverware. Because our waiter was good like this, he brought over some more silverware, also wrapped in a napkin. I tossed the second napkin on my lap, forgetting I already had a napkin on my lap. Fast forward and when we get up to leave, I put my napkin on the table, stand up, and a napkin falls on the floor.  !!!!!!!! WHAT just happened? I check the table, yup. There's my napkin. I look on the floor, there's my napkin. It would have been hella confusing even without the martini.

 I was texting with Cora and told her Tom had been working on some stuff all morning. She asked what he was doing, because you know. Everyone is curious how a retired guy spends his days. Tom trying to take a photo of a mirror without being in the mirror. Tom had seen a sub-reddit of #Fails to this end, and thought he'd give it a go himself.  I'm not sure if he's going to continue to plug away at this, or if he's thrown in the towel.

 So this whole thing started when Maria sent an urgent text from Stockholm. She said I simply must go see Tango in the Dark, featuring tango dancers from Buenos Aires. They were coming to the Joyce Theater up the block from us. She had seen them in London and the audience was standing on their seats at the end.  Maria fires a flare into the air. Tango in the house! tbh, I had no intention of going to see this show. First of all, I got confused and thought it was already over. Second of all. There is no second of all, I thought I'd missed the show. Then I randomly walked by the Joyce, read the marquee, and realized I was mistaken. I had not missed Tango After Dark. It was currently playing.  I went online and all the shows were sold out. So back to square one, I had missed the show.  But then I noticed a Saturday matinee. With 1 (one!) ticket remaining.  I know! This blog post is pure adrenaline-fueled ups and downs! I wasn't going, I am going, I can't go after a...

 OK so I did march right into the men's bathroom and mentioned this to Bruce while we were texting about important other things and thus I was distracted:

We drove up to Garnet Hill Lodge Friday night and woke up to this view:  View from our room at Garnet Hill Lodge Of course I immediately connected the dots to Casper David Friedrich . I know, I'm quick like this: Right?! Striking similarities except i was not wearing a green velvet traveling suit. Or standing upon a rock. We used to go skiing *a lot.* Like every weekend. For years. So lately, at the beginning of every trip when it's been maybe a year since the last time I had skis on my feet... I have this moment where my head is, LETS DO IT! And my body is thinking, hmmm, it's been awhile.... maybe be sensible about this, old lady. Thus, there's decisions that are surprisingly difficult: hmmm, which way to go? I remember being up at Garnet Hill with my brother and Tom years ago and going up and down Skull Buster. Up and down, over and over. Hooting and giggling and let me tell you why: Until this trip, I woulda swore Skull Buster was called "Skull Crusher." I...

So this whole conversation started maybe years ago, during the pandemic early days when Tom and I took an art appreciation class from Great Courses . We loved this class. I learned all about the Romantics and that might be when Casper David Friedrich first came up in one of my conversations with Bruce. He loves this one painting: the main favorite painting Bruce loves by Casper David Friedrich - a Romantic. It is pretty great, yeah. I have been texted this painting a minimum of eight times by Bruce because it is surprisingly relevant in a wide variety of text strings. So natch, as soon as the Met catalog came in the mail, I was on it like white on rice. I texted Bruce immediately. WHAT?! CASPER DAVID FRIEDRICH is at the MET! I said, OMG we have to make a plan right now! Maybe opening day? Bruce was like OMG absolutely not. Because: opening day was on a Saturday and last time Bruce and I went to the Met on a Saturday, there was a line snaking down 5th Avenue past the entrance to the par...

 In the morning, at the crack of 11:15, I got my life together and hustled downtown to meet up with 3/4 of the book club. Danielle's oldest friend Jess had planned a city-wide scavenger hunt as a birthday surprise. At first I thought it was a normal scavenger hunt where everybody hunted around the city for clues laid by some professional party planner.  No, this was not that. We were not to be the hunters... but the hunted. Yeah, so Jess told the lot of us that we needed to come up with a location for Danielle to find us at, and then a clue to get her there. She said the clue didn't have to rhyme.  I immediately hooked up with the rest of the bookclub and suggested we work as a team because this felt like a series of tasks requiring skills I do not possess. We broke down the labor as follows: Audrey put our clue on this adorable card: Can you even imagine a cuter clue? Casey set up the location. She had cupcakes and candles and a trail of cute poofy flowers leading Daniel...

Tom went out running the other day and he forgot his ear buds. So he put his phone in the little pocket in his running belt and cranked up the volume. During the Green Day portion of his mix, he had a little spring in his step.  He ran past two teenage girls sitting on a bench... who turned and gave each other the big eyeballs like, oh isn't this old guy cute running listening to his ancient punk rock.

I discovered that in the entire universe, it's apparently me and 32 other weirdos who continue to honor November as National Blog Post Month by writing 30 posts in 30 days. Well hurrah for all of us who made it in 2024. This year I was pretty tight with my sandbagging approach. Pluses and minuses there because I think it's pretty clear I wasn't you know brunching on a random Tuesday like some geriatric scarlet. Anyway, in the spirit of celebration, let me leave you with this dance video I've been forcing friends and family to enjoy repeatedly for several months now:  Thanks much to all twelve of you who read this blog. 

I don't get why they park these utility trains right on the tracks in the middle of a subway station sometimes:  These flatbed subway cars with all manner of junk piled up on them Another view. And look, this was after midnight when all you want to do is get home and hop in the beezie. It's frustrating because if you see one of these bad boys, you know that whole track is closed. Whatever time you thought you'd get home, add ten minutes. On the plus side, every time I see these repair carts or whatever the hell they are, I'm reminded of this Cat Power video where one of them rattles by and it's super loud: OK. Now I know exactly how long ten minutes is because I just wasted that exact amount of time re-watching Cat Power videos. Now that we've covered the cons, let me present to you an actual plus. Here's a silver lining that can come from cooling it for ten solid minutes on a subway platform.  You see these two ladies? 2 ladies sitting across from us in the...

 I bought a 3-pack of scissors. They were on sale and I need scissors. I like a 3-pack near the holidays because you can keep two and give away the size you least want. I know, I'm both efficient and generous.  I got me some new scissors One of the reasons why I got the new scissors is because I felt like I needed a new pair to open packages and good news! I hae chosen correctly. These scissors are ready-made for package opening. Except: Conundrum. I needed scissors to open up the scissors package. You see, the scissors were ensconced in that stiff, obnoxious plastic. I had to dig up an old pair of scissors to open up the new pairs of scissors and the whole endeavor felt extremely taxing and ironic. Oh and also, I cut my finger. On the plastic. That shit is dangerous. Good news, it is but a flesh wound. I was lucky. I say this because of that one time, when I broke my wrist skiing and had to go to group hand physical therapy... yeah.  All of us in Group would sit around a...

This morning at 11:30, so still the morning don't give me grief, I went down to Cafe Cluny to meet Anna. I knew I had to get there literally at 11:30 because Swedes are never, ever late. Pro tip - if you're having a party and you tell all the New Yorkers to be there at 6 because you know they'll all show up at 6:30... Tell the Swedes the party starts at 6:30 so you're not still in your underpants when they ring the bell. Cafe Cluny is kind of lovely if you can manage to get a table. The European tourists especially love it there. I made it down to the restaurant literally at eleven three zero, on the nose. My timing was impeccable although I might have jogged a little bit so as to not miss lights. Waiting on corners would have cost me a tragic minute which would not have gone unnoticed. We had a delightful brunch and Anna gave me a bag full of Swedish candy. I will admit I broke open the bag of candy on the walk home because who can walk around with Swedish candy and no...

 Graham crackers are delicious. Call this a PSA, because I forgot all about graham crackers. Only recently, some skilled advertising executive crunched all of my internet data and decided I'm the graham crackers type. And so I was reminded, multiple times, how essential the graham cracker is to a life worth living. Excellent flavor, lightly sweet, geometrically perforated.  Downside is they are not a crumb-free snack.  Graham crackers really are toothsome. This past Saturday, I attempted to cobble together the energy to walk up to the Transit Museum gift shop in Grand Central. This location of the gift shop, according to the website at least, is in fact open on weekends. Unlike the other location in FiDi, see the post from a few days ago about how we found this out the hard way. One reason I had such a nice time sitting around instead of getting my shit together and pursuing gift shopping was because, graham crackers. I'm wondering whether graham crackers have those addic...

  Five soccer balls, one wayward basketball and lots of electrolyte beverage plastic floating in the Hudson River. There's an entire pier covered in astroturf. Kids, crowds of them in soccer uniforms, are always headed in that direction. So I can kinda see how all these soccer balls got in the water: Little kids are not much for ball control, and they're playing on fields literally in the middle of a river.  Or an estuary.    I think it is the Hudson Estuary.  I need to get this right, otherwise I will upset my father. One must not be inaccurate about geographical features such as this. An estuary is a river that flows both ways. Such as the Hudson.  Look at me, knowing things. Now let's discus the basketball. There's two basketball courts nearby, but not on a pier. They are on the other side of a little bit of grass, the walking path and the bike path, ie, kinda far from the water and yeah. What kind of wild ass shot gets your basketball into the drink for...

  That is all.

  It's a 22 min walk from the 33rd Street PATH stop to the Consulate General of Brazil Mark and my nephew are going to the Brazilian Consulate tomorrow to take care of some business and I helped them figure out how to get there on the train.   This reminded me of the time I too, went to the Brazilian Consulate to take care of some business. It all started when my cousin, who was really young at the time, maybe she was a freshman in college, pulled an extremely "freshman in college" move. She mailed her passport to the Brazilian Consulate in New York City. She was trying to get a Visa to be an exchange student over the summer or something, I can't remember. This was a big mistake on about three levels. First of all, my cousin lives in Virginia, therefore outside the NY Metro area which is served by the Consulate General of NY. Also, you have to get a Visa at an embassy, not a consulate, turns out. Lastly, if you mail your passport to the Brazilian Consulate, they won...