Which if truth be told, is my favorite moment. This moment of truth is when I see the Sweet Young Thing {SWT} sitting anywhere within notice of me on any form of transport, switch out her sexy high heels for her flatter than pancakes Tom’s shoes!! I know in my heart and intellect those sexy shoes are not comfortable for walking or standing. Only when engaged in conversation can one forget the pain. So, it is with delight, watching them alone on transport, decide that the moment is now that they can give up the look and stop the ache!! They open the tote, pull out the Tom’s and begin a graceful switch. I smile inwardly with accent and recognition!
The Shoes
Visiting the Madison Avenue, Park Avenue [The Upper East Side or UES] rarified air on a Saturday is a study in what makes the man or woman. Observing what separates the ones that live there, from the ones just spending their money there, it comes down to the shoes. The complete absence of any type of shoe but finished – should I say bespoke – leather for the men. And for the women, nothing clunky, nothing too hip, graciously elegant and glove leather. Of course along with the shoes are the perfect shirt and slacks with belt for the men and the finest of fabric in suits and skirts and blouses for the women. Everyone else from ‘outside’ is in sloppy-by-comparison-clothes and sneakers.
Super Moon
May 7th. There it is hanging over TriBeCa. It is also known as Perigee. Did you all notice?
Mothers’ Day
The ‘mini-drygoods/dimestore’ across the street that daily opens at 10:30, has opened at 7 am today. It’s all about the flowers. The storefront and 5 feet of sidewalk resembles a picture post card of an Amsterdam flowerstall. Available are lovely bouquets for all reluctants that feel guilt at the last moment… They’re doing a land office business.
Saturday at the local post office, a late 40’s female new yorker – an assessment made on accent and dress- was trying to mail a package to Florida. [Trying because she was changing out boxes trying to fit the dress hanger in as well.] She volunteered to the postal clerk that it was for mother’s day. He offered her a variety of expedited services. She refused them all with the comment, ‘she’ll get it when it arrives’. ‘That will be next Thursday’, he replied. ‘Fine’ she said. My take? Not much love loss there.
Exhausting
He was on my heels boarding the bus. He made some comment about my putting in my fare card and it sounded to me like he was being sarcastic, because the card took an extra second to register. ‘Take your time, take your time, we are in no hurry now are are. We have all the time in the world.’ I turned to my right to see who was having all this verbiage We were about eye level, and all I noticed was that he was clean shaven, wearing a shirt and tie and his head was topped off with a hat. Later it proved to be fortunate that I sat a few seats away. He was slight of build but could he talk. His schtick was to sit near the front, claiming he was looking for his bus ticket. He rode the bus for 25 blocks, then said he was getting off because otherwise it felt like stealing a ride. Between the first statement to me, and the last one quoted, he covered the following: interracial marriage, his desire to hook up with a white woman, [he being African American] his opinion of the nice looking racially mixed couple sitting a few seats away, his trying to chat up the woman to his left who sat down unexpectedly picking up the gospel tract he had thrown on the seat, as it was vacated, just prior to her boarding. He, although wearing a watch, asked a woman across the aisle for the time. She said she didn’t know, so he began a long conversation about didn’t she have a cell phone? She made a benign remark in return when getting up to exit and he offered her a small savings can [a baby piggy bank with hearts and a bible verse on it] and she politely refused, which then pissed him off and he went on about the not accepting of free things offered by others. After she got off, the bus drove past a stop, and a nice nerdy man in the back of the bus was saying loudly, ‘excuse me, excuse’ which he then picked up on and said, ‘why are you saying that, you step on someone’s foot, if you want off, yell, stop, I want off…’ … exhausting and this transcript is only the half of it. A sigh of relief was shared by all when he exited. It was then I saw, looking out the window that he had on one black boot-shoe, one new white running shoe – about which he had been having a conversation, and a matching black shoe in his hand, along with his backpack and a bag. And I think life is complicated!
Heart – Ya Gotta Have….
They had been apart. He was so excited that she was returning, he met her with his heart in his hand, well, on a ribbon in his hand. While walking around SoHo together, they impulsively decided to give it away. And so they hung it on a tough piece of concrete. At first it was alone, and then quickly surrounded by walkers. Wouldn’t it have been great if the balloon and the rose-on-the-bench could have gotten together?
The Right Answer
As you stand in Union Square, 14th Street and Park Avenue, and look up, you see a huge piece of art on a building across the street to the south. Sometimes there is steam coming out of the center of this piece of art. To the left of this art display there is a row of many numbers continually changing. Most people think it is telling the national debt. But in fact it is a digital clock display. It tells the time digitally relative to midnight.
Read it left and right for the time it is, and read it right to left for the hours remaining until midnight. Pretty complicated looking for such a task. it causes no small amount of discussion and guessing. The title is Metronome and the artist is Kristen Jones with Andrew Ginzel. Next time there, stand and gawk.
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BAM
and then it hits you! What a great advert. BAM is the acronym for Brooklyn Academy of Music which is much more than that: theatre, movies, events, quite a roaster of choices. Saw Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker written by Harold Pinter. But it is their ad that always draws me in first. BAM, and then it hits you!
The Rose
There is lay. Alone. At 12:30 on a weekday, on a bench in the 4th Street Subway station. Red, wrapped in cellophane and abandoned. For whom was it intended? Did that person not mean enough so that one could just walk off without it? When did he/she remember that they had forgotten something? Could they see it out the closing door, with no recourse? I thought of picking it up and presenting it to the rather pudgy lady making her way, trudging actually, ahead of me. But second thought was, let it lie and speculate on how long it will be there, or what will happen to it next.
Cinco de Mayo
There was no posting for 5 May, as all of the City was celebrating. The Spanish speaking population is large enough that everyone now joins in, including yours truly. And you know how fluent my Espanol is!