Chronicles Continued

You see yourself.  An entire birthday celebration- a plethora of colored ribbons.  Tied to the bus stop bench.  Did he/she get a telephone call while waiting for the bus that ‘it’ was over?  Did someone sweeter/cuter/more whatever walk by?  Did they board the bus and forget them?  One of those mysteries to which I will never know the answer…..

It was such a bargain!  Nearly 10″ tall for $3.99, a basil plant. It smells so good.  On the bus, bringing it home, other riders commented on the sweet smell.  The perfect plant for the bedroom.  I love plants in the bedroom for all the right reasons.  This one has been there for a couple of days now.  When I want a few leaves, it does require crawling over the bed and reaching beyond the pillows to the window sill to pluck them.  But that is not the question.  When a basil plant is at rest.  It smells.  It smells rather like stinky socks.

These are from a small cart in Chinatown; a very small Cart.  Inside the narrow window, the two men had two cast iron forms into which they poured batter in the bottom of the form and closed the lid over top.  The batter cooked for a minute, the lid was opened and these little round puffy shaped pastry pieces were dumped onto the small counter, cut apart and 15 bagged for a $1.  The resemblance to the Dutch poffertjes or the Swedish aebleskivers is astounding.  Did the Europeans bring it back from the Far East in their years of ‘discovery’?

The first picture is the one from TIMEout magazine, extolling the beauty of this canopy in the park by a local artist.  The second picture is what it looks like when passing by on the bus. 

 

 

 

On a day that is difficult, I try to approach and help someone who looks to be having a rough time of their own.   He was sitting on the sidewalk outside the bank at Union Square.  He was perhaps early 20’s, and beside him was a carefully-lettered sign asking for donations.  He ran his hands over his head and down his face as I passed by. I saw he was having the kind of day I understood.  I stopped, turned around and approached him.  I dropped some paper money in his cup.  Then I stooped to ask him how he got to be here, asking for help.  His story was so heartfelt:  he knew that work was light in the winter, he is a spackler* and painter, but now spring was here;  someone stole his phone and his clothes at the shelter and all his contacts were gone. He has a good work ethic and if he could just find work he could get above this.  He was deeply discouraged.  In asking about his family, he said his mother was in Florida, but she wasn’t able to help him.  That he had no one around here, and yes, he was born here in Brooklyn.  When asked, he told me his name.  I listened, he wound down his story.  I offered that his sign was so well lettered, it was clear to see he had ability and was there a way to re-letter his sign so as to attract work?  [I have no idea what another should be doing to get to where they need to be, but I do know that one can feel so depleted that insights that might have been there, vanish from the brain.  Someone to talk to, to hear oneself think can often help.]  Before I left him, he thanked me for talking.  So often he said, everyone is up there, and I’m down here.  How literal and figuratively that often is.

 

*spell check keeps saying it is misspelled.  so I put it in google.  More information than I wanted.  What I mean here is someone who primes a wall for painting.. he used the word thusly.

Yesterday was standing on the platform two depths below the sidewalk- at the 4th Street Subway station.  The days past had made an extremely long and difficult week.  The plan today was to travel to the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, with a friend.  As I stood there waiting, I watched a youngish man go from selected person to the next selected person – panhandling.  I figured I was on his list and sure enough, he shows up in my personal space.  He gives me a softly delivered story about something.  I caught not one word.  When he had finished his two paragraphs, he stopped.  As I said nothing, he started again.  I looked him right in the eye and with the accompanying dismissing hand gesture said, “I don’t speak English”.

In what I think of as the ‘backside’ of Chinatown, away from the tourists, are these original buildings that look like they were transported from A’dam.

This yearly event tries to position itself on the Saturday prior to Mother’s Day.  My first week in the City stumbled upon it. At the time, knowing nothing about street markets I thought it was a weekly event.  The first vender was selling a Makkum plate for $35.  [Real value $400].  As I had an apartment full of unopened boxes, could not imagine purchasing one more thing, despite it’s remarkable value.  The next year, bought a fig tree that had blight and died.  The idea of the event is that the long time residents of this Greenwich Village Street, dig into their attics and basements and bring out all these treasures so that the rest of the world can buy them.  This year they were in full swing.  I watched as a young man purchase 25 pieces of gold rimmed – Czech crystal – it had belonged to the seller’s mother and the seller was in her 60’s for $65.  The mask pictured was vintage, from Venice. [Took all my restraint- he asked $60. I offered $40. He still owns it]. A friend that went with me, we had a riotous time buying up bracelets for $5.  She got cold and bought a moth-bitten sweater for $4, just to keep warm.  She also bought the pillared stand. The range of articles this year, was the best.  If wanting to furnish an apartment in retro, this is the place to be.

The writing here is to not be political, neither is this to be about home decorating.  But yesterday, while on a phone call, sat looking at the mortar of these bricks.  The repairing of the fireplace meant that for sometime I have had to deal with gray mortar where it should be brown.

Now:

got out the liquid brown shoe polish as soon as I hung up!  Thank you C!

This morning, walking along the sidewalk, at the corner, I came upon a large gathering of folk outside a public gym in the West Village.  The group was formed but was also milling, as seen by the straglers who were filling up the edges.  Due to the space between the late-comers and those already there, it was possible to get a look at the groups’ make-up.  It was a gaggle of dedicated works with mobile, but clearly physically and mentally handicapped adults.  It made me stop to consider the dedication of others for others.  So often we are only self focused.  These helpers were entirely focused on the needs of the person with whom they were walking or waiting.  Deep admiration for them.