Life as it unfolds with all its surprises….
After having such good experiences at the NCNM in the city, and when I could not get a response from a new practitioner here looked up where he teaches and realized it is the same school my City Chinese Dr attended. So assuming it would be a clinic situation like NCNM, telephoned, described what I was seeking in an appointment for acupuncture and showed up. The Dr now in charge of my health is a grad of the U of O. I do not want to think about how that coincidence occurred.
On the 1&2 Line during rush hour on the streets, went from 86 Street to Fulton St. [down by the world trade center space] in 20 minutes. Transfer at 42nd street: one car stops, the other train is pulling into the station, and one steps aboard.
Two 50-something men, sitting on a bench in the upper concourse. A third man, younger in hoodie and jeans standing ‘by’. It was the way they were ‘casually’ sitting on the bench. Their arms didn’t look right for all their casualness. In the next second I realized they were both cuffed, and the ‘dude’ was an undercover policeman. It makes me feel ill and sad when I see cuffed men. Does it happen often enough to them that it’s all in a day’s work? NO idea, but the image stays with me a long time.
Auditions. The first one, a short film, was offered, but had to relinquish once I learned when the filming was to be; time conflict. #2 also a short film. Offered that one and looking forward to it very much. #3. A play reading. Don’t have any idea how that one went down, but it was pleasant during the audition process. #4. Yet today. This is in addition to being a player on two webisodes. This is the best sort of week’s beginning.
It was a perfect Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining on one and all, there were bikes and skateboards and joggers and sitters-on-benches. And in the near distance, the Statue of Liberty. It catches me by surprise each time I come to the tip of Manhattan, Battery Park and there it is, right there, on a little island right there in the water. It’s like the pyramids which butt up against Cairo, this butts right up to the Staten Island Ferry dock. Was in the neighborhood for an audition. After the audition, walked a few blocks to catch a subway, but the subway entrance was closed, so walked a few more, to the bus stop. I have raved about this app “Bustime”. It matters not which bus, you can chart its progress with precise accuracy. It makes ‘waiting for the bus’ a thing of the past. Standing there, checking the progress of the approaching bus, with two or three others around, I hear a voice, ignore it by not looking up. Hear it again. She is off to my left by a few feet. “Speaking to me?” I query. “Are you?” she says. “What?” I say. “Are you Lorraine?” I just stare at her. She stares back. “I guess you’re not she says” and walks away.
When was it that someone awoke one morning and said, ‘Let’s hook the buckets together. They won’t shred like the plastic covered hoops, they fold up on each other for transport…’ Necessity is the mother of invention
When the movie trucks have been parked outside, under my window, along the street for the past two days. And it has nothing to do with me; not in it, not shooting, nada.
Would have used the term Farmer’s Market, but there are 15 of these markets operating throughout the year on the streets of the City. Not every day, some are once or twice a week but I think that speak well for the farmers who are putting them on. And they are located where commuters and lots of foot-traffic traffic. Staten Island Ferry Terminal, Union Square, NY/NJ Port Authority, Columbia University, and others.
The Sister Who Laughed the Hardest.
Older, single women have always to be on guard and savvy so as not to be taken in by scams. People who should know better have fallen prey and into the scammers clutches.
Younger Sister [YS] was upstairs in the house, when she heard the land line telephone ring. It rang until it automatically disconnected. Then the cell phone of Older Sister [OS] rang. It too rang until it ran out of rings. Alternately this continued for three times until YS heard OS enter the house and pick up the telephone.
‘Hello. Yes. No. That’s my home address. Yes.”
At this point YS who had been standing at the top of the stairs to come down, but didn’t want to break into the privacy of a personal call, yelled over the banister,
“Don’t give them any more information!” “Hang up!” Still shouting from the stairs,
“You never verify some caller’s information.”
YS sprints down the stairs, sermon on the tip of her tongue, while OS is hanging up the phone. YS begins:
“There are lots of scams out there and one way people get taken, is verifying back to a caller, the information proffered. You never give anything out to anyone who has telephoned you.” OS stands there.
“What did the caller ask you?, YS queries.
‘ She asked if this was my address and I said yes it was my home address, and she said she would come with a document for me to sign at 1:00 in the afternoon on this coming Wednesday.’
“OH NO” YS exclaims. “Who did she say she was?”
‘She said’, replies OS “Irina from Chase bank’.
Because of the breach at Target Stores there had indeed been a rash of scam callers posing to be from Chase. YS is glad she has nipped this one in the bud. While YS is about to continue, cell phone rings. YS advises OS not to answer. OS looks at the caller ID and says that it is the same call number. She doesn’t answer. Good. She understands.
House telephone rings again. Same number as before, a 503 number but nothing further. The rings alternate between home and cell and then stop. In the silence, YS explains to OS how scammers read the obits and wait six months before preying on the widow. How because she, the OS, is sympathetic to the Russian immigrant community that clearly some scoundrel relative of one or another of her acquaintances, has been milked for information about OS. YS continues to elucidate and generalize how these Eastern European girls are often held in captivity in call rooms and have to work for a pimp; an awful racket it is. Frequently it is a sexual captivity. As this monologue is being delivered, once again the house telephone rings.
“Here”, says OS “you answer it!” and with that hands YS the cordless phone.
“Hello”, says YS who of course has a similar voice pattern to OS, “Joe’s Bar and Grill, may I take a reservation?”
“Oh”, says caller with surprise, “I didn’t want Joe’s, I am calling this number.
“Well”, said YS, “This is Joe’s and we’d be only too happy to make a reservation for you”.
“No”, continues female Russian accented caller, “I am calling to______”. She repeats the home address.
“Oh”, replies YS, “We are in the village and would love to have you drop by.”
“That is not why I call, I must have the wrong number, but I call this number before and it was right number”, she replies in the most obvious confusion.
“That can happen”, says YS smiling and hangs up the phone. “There” confirms YS, “That should take care of that.” YS shares how the idea of answering with Joe’s was what eldest brother often did [may he rest in peace]. She expresses delight at how well it worked here and how clever the sisters were to have shorted this scam. YS gives OS another example of an actress friend who was duped just this week and how one has to have their wits about them. As YS leaves to go upstairs she hears OS call neighbor friend to tell her to watch out for Chase telephone scam. A good thing to do to warn another Senior. Sometime later, YS passes through kitchen and hears OS on telephone to daughter telling her about the scam. OS gets off phone and says that daughter has advised her to telephone the local police and ask for someone to come on Wednesday when the woman is coming to ‘sign the documents’.
Both sisters agree this is sound advice.
OS puts in call to local police station. Local police says, they won’t show up, but they and OS can phone the scammer and tell them that the police will be waiting for them. More good ideas sisters agree. Sisters speak briefly about the perils of singledom and OS interrupts to call son who lives in another state to tell him. He isn’t home, but OS speaks with daughter-in-law. As YS realizes that OS is initiating these calls to her children, YS proffers the thought that maybe telling our children about our foibles isn’t always such a good idea. Maybe we should not keep them abreast of all the stupid things we do. And perhaps there are better, more positive stories from which to get mileage. YS leaves the room.
Not much time passes before YS is interrupted by presence of OS who never comes upstairs but now is standing in upstairs bedroom of YS. Immediately YS sees that OS can barely speak. YS looks at her in concern. OS is trying to tell her something, but she can’t get it out, as she doubles over. In pain? With cramps? YS is increasingly concerned. OS straightens up and YS sees tears in her eyes and OS is still unable to speak and bending over forward again.
It takes a Malcolm Gladwell ‘blink’ to realize that OS is laughing. She is laughing so hard, she can neither speak, nor stop bending double from laughter. When she finally gets her breath, she begins with,
“You are not going to believe this!”
and again doubles over. When she rights herself, she continues.
“I just had an irate call, [more laughter] from son-in-other-state. He wants to know whatever am I doing?! He says he has a desk full of pink slips, generated by calls from his bank. The bank says when they try to call his mother, either the phone isn’t answered, or someone says it’s Joes. What is going on, why this mountain of confusion? What are you doing? He sternly asks.”
And she bends over again, laughing so hard, she can not continue. When she does come up for air, she relates that said son, with whom she is doing a business transaction, had planned for his bank Chase, to come to her house to have the documents signed, to save her the inconvenience of going to the bank office downtown; this is a service and what was she thinking in making it so confusing. She finally straightens up at the end of the tale still laughing with tears on her cheeks.
“He might have forewarned you no?” asks YS. “And what bank customer service representative fails to introduce and explain herself when calling?”
And now both sisters are doubled over with tears streaming down their cheeks imagining the other side of the tale.
It was apparent that each social economic group was unaware of the other. On the left a picker fishing recyclables out of the street corner trash bin. On the right a photo shoot in action for fashion. And so they co-exist.
I
In the life long process of washing clothes I have turned a number of items into something from human size to cabbage patch doll size, no effort at all to accomplish. Now I have a pair of knitted fingerless gloves, that have upon wearing, proved to be sizes too big. Figured I would turn them into boiled wool, or at least a tighter knit. Have given them three baths of boiling water, two dryer sessions and one drying on the radiator. They are the still the same size. How does that happen?